Darkness Falls (18 page)

But he’d never imagined anything like that—that—that
—thing
that had killed his father and the others.

He was still having trouble wrapping his mind around the fact that he’d never see Pop again. Never listen to him grouse about the coffee or tell a perp to sit down and shut up or bring a room to attention just by walking into it.

And the guys—Steve Drew, Vance Hawkins, Kris Lipinski, Andy Batten. They’d been his comrades, his drinking and poker buddies, his
friends
for years. It boggled his mind that he wouldn’t be able to share a bottle of single-malt with Lipinski or go fishing with Batten or clean Drew out at seven-card stud or watch Celtics games with Hawkins.

They’d never organize another road trip to Pawtucket to see the Red Sox farm team play.

They’d never stand over the mangled corpse of another kid without a trace of evidence leading to the killer.

Except now, of course, Matt knew who—or, rather, what—had killed those kids. And killed his father and his friends, and quite probably Ray Winchester and Larry Fleishman, too.

Even if he didn’t entirely believe it.

Still, he could hardly disbelieve the evidence of his own eyes.

Walsh insisted that this thing didn’t like light. It only came out in the dark, and bright light scared it off. So maybe—maybe—they could kill it with the brightest light imaginable.

In Darkness Falls, that could be only one thing.

Matt had gone to fetch what they’d need to implement their plan, while Walsh went to the hospital to get the Greene kid and his older sister. For some reason, the thing had fixated on the kid, and Walsh thought he’d need to be protected.

He parked his SUV near the rear entrance.

As he got out, he caught sight of three people. One of them was Caitlin Greene, and she was screaming.

Her arm was also bleeding.

Without bothering to think about what he was doing, Matt got back into the driver’s seat, started the engine, put his brights on, and floored it to the rear entrance.

The glass shattered under the onslaught of the SUV’s strong grille, and the brights shone brightly into the stairwell.

Matt caught a glimpse of something screeching and running up the stairs. He had a feeling he knew what it was.

Walsh, Caitlin, her brother, and one of the doctors—Murphy, was it?—were all sprawled on the floor.

“Get in!” Matt yelled.

The Greenes got into the backseat. Walsh and Murphy got into the set of seats behind that.

The front passenger seat was occupied by two gasoline cans—the fruits of Matt’s search.

Slamming the SUV into reverse, he pulled out, turned around, and got back onto Main Street, heading toward the turnoff that would take them up the hill to Lighthouse Point.

“Did you get it?” Walsh asked from the trunk.

Matt looked into the rearview mirror to see Murphy tending to a wound on Walsh’s chest.

“Yeah.”

“What are you talking about?” Caitlin asked. “And I thought you were dead.”

Before Matt could say anything, Walsh said, “I said ‘pretty much.’ Matt was the lucky one.”

This, Matt thought, was a definition of
lucky
that he hadn’t been aware of before. Aloud, he said, “We’re headed for the lighthouse. It’s got a gasoline-fueled backup system. We light that, we’re in business. It’s not far.”

Caitlin looked out the window, shaking her head. “Power’s out all over town.”

“Why don’t we just keep driving?” Murphy asked. “We’re safe in the ca—”

The doctor was interrupted by the window behind him shattering.

Whatever shattered the window also knocked the SUV out of whack. Matt fought with the steering wheel to keep the cruiser on the road and not to veer off into someone’s house or place of business.

He glanced back at the rearview mirror just in time to see Murphy yanked out of the hole where the window used to be.

Matt Henry already knew that in his dreams, he would be hearing the hideous crunching sound that the creature made when it killed someone for the rest of his life.

He didn’t need to hear it again now.

But he did.

“Jesus,” he muttered.

The SUV continued to buck and weave, resisting Matt’s control. So much, he thought bitterly, for power steering.

Another crashing sound, and the side window next to Walsh blew in as well.

Matt’s first thought was that Pop was going to kill him when he saw what shape he brought the SUV back in.

Then he remembered that Pop would never do anything ever again.

And the creature responsible for it was now banging around the roof of his car.

Next to him, Caitlin was leaning into the front seat, looking for something on the dash—probably the siren.

Smart girl, he thought. It was a light source on the roof, so it would probably drive her off it. Matt himself needed both hands to keep the SUV under control, so he was glad she had thought of it.

As soon as she flipped the switch labeled Siren, Matt found himself startled by a banging sound above him. He spared a glance up to see that the roof was now dented inward—right where the siren was.

“It took out the sirens,” he said.

The Greene kid—what was his name, Mickey? Michael, that was it—was holding a glow stick. He probably got it from the first-aid kit in the backseat.

“We’re going to need a bigger light,” Caitlin said.

Walsh, Matt noticed, was feeling around in the trunk. He then came up with the flashlight he had given to Matt back in the squad room.

Hoping that would help, Matt struggled to keep the car under control. They were now headed up the road to Lighthouse Point.

He remembered sitting in Miss Pisapia’s class as a kid, doing a report on Matilda Dixon, the legendary Tooth Fairy of Darkness Falls, and how she lived up by the lighthouse. Ironically, after she’d been unjustly lynched, they had burned her corpse with the lights from the now-defunct lighthouse.

It worked once, it could work again.

Unfortunately, the very defunct nature of the lighthouse—and the equally defunct nature of the old Dixon house, which had not been occupied ever since the famous lynching and finally fell to pieces years ago—meant that the road to it wasn’t very well traveled. The SUV could handle the pothole-laden street, but it was by no means a smooth ride.

Case in point, Matt hit a sharp bump that sent everyone flying—and most everything, including the flashlight that Walsh was using to stave off the monster.

Glancing in the rearview, Matt saw the creature flying straight toward the back of the SUV.

Shiiiiiiiiit!

Then Matt saw the light again. Caitlin had retrieved the light and picked it up.

They needed only a few more minutes.

Caitlin shone the light right in the creature’s face. She screeched and ran off.

Then the light went out.

“Did you get it?” Michael asked.

Not answering directly, Caitlin turned to Matt as he pulled up to the entrance to the lighthouse. “You got any flashlights?”

“Just two kerosene lanterns in the trunk,” Matt said, as he put the SUV into park, leaving the brights on.

From the way back, Walsh said, “That’ll have to do. Everybody stay close to me, and if she shows up, run.”

“Not a problem,” Caitlin said with feeling.

Matt looked at Walsh, who seemed pretty goddamned calm for someone who’d watched more than half a dozen murders tonight.

“That thing killed my father, Walsh.”

“Yeah, well, that thing killed my mother, so get in line. Everybody ready?”

Michael said, “Yeah.”

Caitlin nodded.

Matt just shook his head.

“Let’s go,” Walsh said.

They each leaped out of the SUV and ran as one toward the back for the trunk where the lanterns were. Matt could hear the beeping of the SUV, indicating that he’d removed the keys without turning off the lights, but battery conservation wasn’t at the top of his list of things to be concerned about just at the moment.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t get his fingers to work right, all of a sudden. The key wouldn’t go into the lock properly.

Matt realized that his hands were shaking.

He was a
cop,
for Christ’s sake, and he couldn’t even open a trunk?

“Jesus!”

Caitlin yanked the keys out of his hand and smoothly slid the key in and turned the lock, releasing the trunk.

“Sorry,” Matt said sheepishly.

Walsh grabbed the lanterns and twisted the levers.

With a satisfying
woosh
of flame, the lanterns lighted, providing a steady flame within the glass housing.

Matt reached into the trunk and retrieved his father’s twelve-gauge, then grabbed the gas cans out of the front seat.

Then the four of them ran for the lighthouse door.

Caitlin got there first, and she turned the knob, but nothing happened.

“Locked!”

At this, Matt actually smiled, which pleasantly surprised him. He hadn’t ever expected to smile again.

“Now,
this
I can open,” he said, dropping the gas cans and pumping the twelve-gauge.

It would have been more satisfying if it was the creature who had killed his father that he was blowing to pieces with Pop’s shotgun rather than an old wooden door.

Nonetheless, the visceral thrill of it proved fleetingly satisfying to Matt.

Right now, he would take all the small victories he could get.

He looked at the others.

“Always wanted to do that.”

Michael—still, after all, a little kid—grinned and said, “Cool.”

Walsh, though, seemed less than impressed.

“Inside.”

Matt brought up the rear, letting Walsh and the Greenes go in first while he retrived the cans.

Inside was a simple one-room apartment that had seen better decades. No one had lived here in more than thirty years, but they had left the furniture: a mothball-covered couch that was probably ugly even before it started to decay, a chair that looked even worse, a vintage 1960s TV set that probably didn’t even have color, and a single lightbulb hanging from a thirty-foot cord that stretched up into the ceiling.

A spiral staircase corkscrewed up to the higher levels. Next to it was a wall panel, which Walsh made a beeline for.

Within a few minutes, the cans had been appropriately attached to the system and the right switches thrown.

“Mind telling me how you know so much about the operation of this thing?” Matt asked Walsh, who was flipping switches as if he were the lighthouse keeper himself. “I didn’t think they had too many of these things in Vegas.”

“Did a report on the lighthouse when I was in third grade.”

“And you still remember it.”

“Yup. I also remember how to hook bait, and I haven’t been fishing since I was six.”

Matt shook his head. “You’re a man of many talents.”

“One or two.”

A second later, he was done.

Now they just had to go upstairs to the lantern chamber.

Slowly, cautiously, they did so, Walsh again taking the lead, Matt, the only armed one, again taking up the rear.

The huge xenon arc sat motionless in the center of the chamber, its rotating mirror encased in optic glass. In the dim, flickering light of the lanterns, it looked to Matt like a Frankenstein monster about to wake up.

Matt went to the control panel with a smile.

“If that bitch hates bright light, she’s not coming in here.”

He pushed the button.

Nothing happened.

He pushed it again.

Still nothing.

“Well, that’s encouraging,” Caitlin muttered.

“What happened?” Walsh asked.

Matt shook his head.

“Must be a leak downstairs. The gas isn’t getting through to the ignition flint.”

Walsh looked at Caitlin.

“You’re the only one who’s still safe from her.”

“Not anymore. I saw her.”

Matt wondered what they were talking about.

“Are you sure?” Walsh asked.

Holding up her bloody arm, Caitlin said, “Pretty sure.”

Speaking with the optimism of the very young, Michael said, “It’s almost sunrise. We can wait it out, can’t we?”

Matt looked at the kerosene lanterns, which were already starting to die down.

Walsh did the same.

“We’re not going to last that long,” he said. “We have to go down there and reset it.”

He was looking at Matt as he said it.

“Who’s ‘we’? You got a mouse in your pocket?”

“You and me.”

“Hey, you’re the one with the third-grade lighthouse paper.”

“And you’re the one who took an oath to serve and protect.”

“Shit.”

Michael now sounded nervous. “No! She’ll get us!”

“There’s no other way, Michael,” Walsh said, kneeling down to speak to the kid at eye level. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key chain. It had a glow stick attached to it. “But if it gets dark up here, use this. It’s always kept me safe. Because I know that if it ever gets too dark, I can crack it and shake it up, and it’ll light my way. You hold this over your head, and she won’t come near you. We’ll be right back.”

Matt was impressed with Walsh’s capacity for bullshit. He’d somehow managed to cast the same type of glow stick that was useless in the SUV as a lifesaver now.

More to the point, Michael bought it. He took the glow stick from Walsh’s hands with the eagerness of a hungry person being handed an apple.

Then he looked up at Walsh with the heartbreaking pleading look that all little kids perfect by the time they are two.

“You promise?”

Tears were streaking down the boy’s cheeks.

“I promise,” Walsh said.

“You better mean it.”

Matt looked over at Caitlin at those words of hers. He wasn’t sure if her words were angry or affectionate.

To his shock, he realized that it was both.

Or maybe more of the latter, since they then kissed each other.

Not the reaction Matt had been expecting, especially given her attitude in the squad room earlier.

Then again, he hadn’t expected Marie Winchester to be so broken up about Ray’s death. Love was weird that way.

“Shouldn’t taste like blood,” Walsh deadpanned.