Mystery Dance: Three Novels (65 page)

Julia rolled down the passenger window as Mrs. Covington hobbled over to the car.

“What is it?” Julia asked, looking down the drive to see if Snead was after her.

“He’s here,” Mrs. Covington said, her face nearly as white as her thin hair.

“Who’s here?”

“He come back.” The woman leaned against the door, wheezing as she put her head inside the car.

“The Peeping Tom?”

“Hartley. The one that used to live in your house.”

The old woman had gone as mad as the rest of the world. “I’m sorry,” Julia said. “I’m in a hurry.”

“You don’t understand. He was
here
. He was messing around your house. I called the cops, figuring he come back to get something he left.”

“Why would he come back here?”

The woman’s eyes narrowed, as cold and clouded as marbles. “Didn’t nobody ever tell you, child?”

“Tell me what?”

“Oh, Lordy.” The old woman backed a few steps away. “You don’t know, do you?”

“Tell me what happened,” Julia said, suddenly remembering the murder of the little girl that Rick had mentioned. That name, Hartley, struck a dismal note of recognition.

“You must have found out something. I was hoping and praying they’d leave you alone.”

“Maybe we’d better go inside.”

The old woman shook her head, the weathered flesh of her neck quivering under her chin. “They told me to stay out of it. I done said too much.”

Mrs. Covington turned and struggled across the yard and levered her way onto her porch, planting the walking stick before her with each step. The wooden knocking was swallowed by the silence of the shrouded forest. Then the woman disappeared into her house. Julia rolled up the window and parked in front of her own house.

Hartley was here. What did that mean? Was he really the one that had killed that girl two years before? A crime like that must have sent seismic shock waves through this little community, and Rick O’Dell probably would have woven it into his pet conspiracy theory. Why hadn’t Walter told her about it? Walter, the man she thought she could trust?

Julia tiptoed around the side of the house, wishing she had the Louisville Slugger with her. One hand was tucked in her purse, ready to draw the mace, but the spray would have little effect if someone really intended to harm her.

No one was behind the house. She thought of checking around her bedroom window for footprints, to confirm that someone had actually stood there last night and called to her. But more leaves had fallen, covering the ground in a damp carpet of dying color.

The trees somehow seem closer today, surrounding the house.

She almost laughed at the absurdity of the thought. But she was afraid that if she started laughing, she might never stop.

Nothing stirred in the woods, and through the thick autumn mist came the soft gurgling of the creek. She glanced toward the shrouded hill beyond. For a moment, Julia pictured a child sprawled in a clearing, people in hoods gathering around. Then she blinked away the image and hurried to the front of the house.

No Snead yet. He must have decided not to pursue her, for whatever reason. Even the Chief of Police needed some kind of justification to come after her. Maybe Julia
was
a threat, both to herself and others, and should be locked away for her own good.

Maybe she had imagined the pentagram drawing, the man at her window, the message on her computer at work. But she hadn’t imagined the skull ring. The skull ring was real, solid, a link between the past and present. As she searched for her house keys, she dug into the bottom of her purse to reassure herself with the substance of the engraved box.

A weird fetish object to make yourself feel better with–

The box was gone.

She held the purse close and raked through the contents. Wallet, keys, mace, tampons, hair brush, note papers. No ring.

But the purse hadn’t been out of her sight.

Julia checked again, but the box and the ring inside it were gone. She unlocked the door, her hand trembling so much that she could barely fit the key in the lock. Despite the muted daylight, the house was dark and forbidding.

Once the door was locked safely behind her, she put her purse on the couch and went to get the Louisville Slugger. She was bending down to reach under the bed when he grabbed her from behind, one hand clamped over her mouth to keep her from screaming. She struggled and kicked, nightmare visions of Mitchell’s assault forcing their way to the surface. But Mitchell was in Memphis.

And this Creep was stronger than Mitchell. She tried to drive an elbow against his ribs, but he pulled her back into the dark open closet.

“Shh,” he hissed, his voice like the moist flickering of a snake’s tongue near her ear.

She bit his hand, and he grunted in pain. “Damn it, Julia.”

Walter!

So he was a Creep after all.

He had her in the closet now, and clothes fell from their hangers as they struggled. Walter pulled his hand away from her mouth and whispered, “Hush, they’re probably listening.”

Listening?

Julia pushed herself from his grasp, falling against a thick row of coats and sweaters. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Walter put his index finger to his lips. A purple half-moon marked the flesh where she had bit him. He looked as scared as she felt, his eyes showing white all around the irises.

“Shut up for a second,” he said. “I’m not trying to hurt you.”

She almost believed him. But in this new world of secrets and lies, no one deserved her trust. If she was going to go crazy, she was determined to do it the old-fashioned way, without any help from anyone. She was going to walk straight up the stairs, stand in the middle of that dark attic of her mind, and scream at the warped walls until they collapsed in upon her.

She didn’t need a nudge from Walter. She didn’t need a carpenter to fix her house. All she wanted was strong locks and tightly nailed shutters, all light barred from her rooms. All she wanted was to disappear, into the shadowed corners of her attic or the musty depths of her cellar. Alone in the ruins.

Walter pressed against her in the cramped closet. He shook her and whispered, more urgently this time. “Listen to me. Don’t break down right now. I need you.”

Need? He needed
her
? Again she almost laughed, but even that took too much effort. As always, surrendering was the most painless option.

“They’re outside,” he continued. “Deke Hartley, Snead, and the others.”

“Snead?” She wondered how the cop could have gotten to the house so fast. And how had Walter gotten inside? Was he the one with the key, the one who had left the pentagram drawing, who stole the skull ring, who tricked her with the digital clock?

That made sense. Foolish Julia, she had asked him to check the clock. She had turned to him for comfort, had made the insane mistake of putting faith in this man who now seemed the most desperate of Creeps. This stranger hovering over her, sweat on his pale face, eyes flicking, lips pressed white.

You don’t have to let the Creep into your house. HE’S ALWAYS INSIDE.

Before she could scream, Walter crouched in the corner of the closet. He pulled at a plywood panel set in the wall. The wood came loose, revealing water pipes and insulation. Walter ripped the insulation away in clumps.

The musty smell of the crawl space rose up and filled the closet. The gap between the shower stall and the wall was about two feet wide, with the subfloor cut out. “What are you doing?” Julia asked.

“Access,” Walter said. “For working on the plumbing. Or sneaking out.”

Walter wriggled down into the narrow opening between the floor joists. His feet touched the dirt beneath the house and he turned, looking almost comical, like a Jack-in-the-Box that was too large for its container. “Come on. Or do you want to stay here and wait for them?”

Julia thought she heard a scrabbling sound at the front door, but she couldn’t be sure. “Did you take the ring?”

“What ring?” His eyes met hers, blazing brown not with anger, but with a strange determination.

“And the clock. What does ‘4:06’ mean?”

“Don’t talk crazy,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.” He ducked into the opening, contorting his tall frame. His shoulders disappeared, and then his head, and lastly his arms. He called her name from the crawl space, his voice muffled.

Julia got on her hands and knees, pulling her purse behind her. She looked longingly across the room at the Louisville Slugger beneath her bed. Even if she had the bat, she wouldn’t be able to wield it in the cramped crawl space. Snead and the rumored Deke Hartley might be outside, and might be after her for whatever reason, or they might not. Despite Walter’s strangeness, she would rather go with him than face Snead and Hartley.

She peered down into the darkness of the crawl space. This was worse than the cellar of her dreams, bones or no bones. This was surrender without oblivion, this was a willing, conscious decision. This was a leap into an unknown future.

But then, the future had never been known, and even the past was uncertain.

Julia dangled her legs into the crawl space, the fabric of her slacks scraping on the rough plywood edge. She lowered herself into the dank air, feeling Walter’s hands on her. His touch was cool and moist, but was gone as soon as her feet were planted on the ground three feet beneath the floor. She bent the rest of her body into the crawl space just as a loud knocking came from the front door.

Walter reached up and tugged the panel back into place, throwing the crawl space into almost complete darkness. The only light leaked from several vent grills set into the walls of the block foundation. Julia’s heart thudded in her chest. Voices came from outside the house, a man’s which sounded like Snead’s giving orders, followed by a woman’s.

Julia couldn’t see Walter, but she could sense his body several feet away. “What the hell is this?” she whispered.

“I should have told you,” he said, barely loud enough for Julia to hear.

Julia grabbed out blindly and caught his shirt. She tugged herself closer to him, scooting along in the moist dirt. “Why the hell is everybody keeping secrets? What do they want?”

“Everything. But they ain’t going to get it.” He started toward one of the air circulation vents, his elbows and knees scraping softly on the ground. “Follow me,” he whispered.

The weak daylight from one of the vent grills was momentarily blocked as someone passed by. How many were out there? Were they members of Snead’s department? Were they
all
Creeps?

As she scrabbled along after Walter, she felt disembodied, outside herself, wondering whether she should scream for help. She bumped her head on a water pipe and the pain drove the nonsense away. The pipe vibrated along the bottom of the floor from the blow, and Walter stopped and shushed in warning. Julia rubbed her head, grateful for the pain. Now she had something to focus on, something that was real. She wrapped her purse strap around her wrist and wriggled onward, her eyes adjusting to the dimness.

Her hands raked across hard things which she thought were rocks. One of the objects was tilled from its resting place by her fingers. It gleamed pale in the muted light, showing its curved length.

A BONE. Sweet merciful God, a bone!

It looked like a small rib, dry and smooth. Julia knocked it away and it clattered against a concrete support pier. She rolled away from the burial ground and pressed her hand against her mouth to muffle a scream. Walter heard the choking sound and turned, crawling to her side.

She grabbed his hand, thrust it toward the soft dirt where the bones were scattered. They both touched the tiny skull at the same moment.

Walter’s eyes widened. “Hartley,” he whispered. “That goddamned scum.”

His body trembled, either from fear or anger. Julia thought of Rick O’Dell’s theory, about a widespread network that offered human sacrifices to a supposed dark master. Those bones were so tiny. The devil liked them young. Or perhaps only the devil’s worshippers did.

Julia stretched so that her mouth was near Walter’s ear. “It’s a child,” she said, her voice breaking.

“I know,” Walter said, tears glistening on his cheeks.

The pounding at the front door grew louder, and someone shouted into the house. If the Creeps entered the house, they would soon find out she was gone. And presumably they wouldn’t think some angelic hand had lifted her up to the clouds. Not while Satan was spinning his dark spells below.

“What are we going to do?” she asked, squeezing Walter’s arm.

A crashing sound reverberated along the floor. Someone was kicking in the door.

“My Jeep,” Walter said. “It’s on the other side of the woods.”

“Do they know you’re here?”

“I don’t think so.”

“What do we do now?”

“Crawl.” He wiped at his eyes and moved underneath the floor, Julia close behind, her elbows and knees sore. A splintering sound erupted above them.

Walter reached the service access, a small wooden door set into the foundation at the rear of the house. Feet pounded across the floor, and shouts rang out overhead. At least three people, maybe more, were in the house.

“Now!” Walter said, knocking the access door open. “Run for it,” he said, pushing Julia through the opening.

Julia tumbled into the back yard, grateful for the trees, hoping all the Creeps were inside and that no one had been left to guard the rear of the house. If they were going to get her, they’d have to take her down running.

God, give me flight.

As she dodged between the branches, leaves falling around her, she felt almost giddy with a new freedom, September on her face, the smell of creek mud in her nose, nothing to lose but a past that she had been trying to lose for years. Leaving behind bones, Creeps, almost everything except fear.

Yet even the fear was welcome now, because it gave her energy. Life had simplified, reduced now to its basic purpose. Live in order to have more life. Flee so you can make it to the next breath, to the next fleeing, part of the biological cycle that was as old as bacteria. This was God’s solo spectator sport, the survival of the fittest or the luckiest. If God cared to grant her strength, she would gratefully accept. All else in the world had failed her, even her father.