Greely's Cove (44 page)

Sweet Jesus, rats didn’t do that!

He could not have heard the sounds behind him, the scuffing and slithering, the pops and snaps of the old wooden floor under moving feet, so thunderous were the heartbeats in his head. He swept the beam forward again, toward the bed that stood beneath the moonlit window. A body lay on that bed. A woman’s body, naked and entangled in a crusty sheet.

It was oozing filth onto the mattress, which in turn was oozing filth onto the floor. The flesh was greenish and blistered, spotted with bacterial decay, the limbs splayed over the bed. Mercifully, its face was turned toward the wall.

He moved toward it—one step, then another, not liking the thoughts his mind was weaving, not liking the familiar blond tone of the hair that hung in webby festoons from the body’s head. Another step, and he was
loathing
now the insane suggestion taking shape in his brain. He stooped over the thing, directed the light into its face—

Her
face.

Lorna!s
face—still recognizable, despite the discoloration’ and swelling, despite the work of bugs and fungus and maggots. But just barely.

Revulsion shook him, and rage that someone had thus defiled the remains of the one woman he ever really loved. Stu pressed his hand to his mouth, struggled to keep breathing, promised himself that he would not lose his wits and go crashing down the stairs into the night, fleeing.

Revulsion, rage, and certainly
fear,
yes.
What kind of idiot,
screamed a voice in his soul,
would deny that there was something to fear here?
Something that did unspeakable things to harmless little animals? That stole the body of a young mother? That stank the very stink of Hell? Who could deny—

“
Those are intelligent questions, Chief Bromton
,” said a deep voice from behind him. Stu would have gone for his Smith and Wesson had he been able to move a muscle. But as it was he could only stand like a figure carved in petrified bone, bloodless and white. The world was ending, of that he was sure, for it could not go on in the face of madness like this.

“You may turn around now, if you please.”

Somehow he did. And the world did not end.

A pair of figures stood in the darkness near the door, one tall and old, the other shorter and young. Stu found the strength from somewhere to raise the flashlight and direct the beam onto their faces.

“I’m glad you’re here,” said Dr. Hadrian Craslowe in his House of Lords voice, with his steel-framed spectacles throwing back the light and his dentures flashing with every grinning word. “It’s always nice to have someone with whom to share a secret, especially if that someone can be trusted to keep it.” Stu lowered the light a little, beamed it onto Jeremy Trosper, then back to Craslowe. He searched for his voice. His body felt leaden, as though at any moment it might crash through the floor to the living room below. At last: “I guess you have me at a disadvantage, Doctor.” Not bad at all; his voice was a little thin, a little squeaky, but it didn’t quiver or crack. It hadn’t shamed him. “Maybe you can you tell me what’s going on here.”

“I hardly think that’s necessary or even advisable,” said Jeremy, sounding like an Oxford prodigy. “You wouldn’t like it.”

Understatement of the fucking century, thought Stu. This was the body of Lorna Trosper, the boy’s own mother, lying here in bacterial filth. Any possible explanation of
that
would certainly be outside the bounds of
liking.

“What are you doing here?” Stu demanded of Jeremy, feeling a little stronger now, more aware of his status and authority. “Why aren’t you home with your dad?”

“Ah, those questions aren’t nearly as intelligent as the earlier ones,” intoned Craslowe reproachfully, “the ones about
fear.
You were right, Chief Bromton, to suspect that there was something to be afraid of here.”

Stu felt an unholy tickling in his guts. He had merely
thought
those things, not spoken them aloud. “Suppose you tell me what it is,” he managed.

“It is what humans have always feared,” answered Craslowe, “from the time before they were even humans. It is the same fear, I suspect, that a small herbivorous animal feels when it gets the scent of a predator, the instinctual dread of tearing claws and teeth, the terror of being eaten. Man was also once a prey animal, you know, the staple of cave bears and saber-toothed tigers, other carnivores. Today, in every human mind, lurks a remnant of the old fear of claws and fangs, of being caught and eaten, a racial fear that dates back to the era when man himself was prey.”

“You haven’t told me anything,” said Stu, wondering if he had the strength to unholster his pistol, if need be. “Something is very wrong here, and you know what it is.”

“
Wrongness
is a matter of definition,” said Jeremy, smiling hideously.

“The boy is quite right,” said Craslowe. “But on to other things, for the moment. I said that I was glad you dropped by, Chief Bromton, and I am. You see, now that each of us knows a little something of the other’s secrets, we can be useful to one another.”

“I don’t follow you. All I know is what I’ve seen here.”

“And that should be quite enough, I daresay. I must have your assurance that you will say nothing to anyone of what you’ve seen, and further, that you’ll endeavor to keep Hannabeth Hazelford, together with her crippled Texan friend, away from this house and my estate at Whiteleather Place. The rewards for your cooperation in this regard will be substantial, I assure you.”

“What in the hell are you saying?” asked Stu, becoming increasingly angry. “Are you trying to bribe me?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, that’s precisely what I’m trying to do,” answered Craslowe, his aged eyes glinting. “But more than that, I’m also threatening you. Chief Bromton, make no mistake about that. You see, should you fail to do as I ask, I shall ensure that the entire world learns of your—ahh—
arrangement
with Mr. Corley Strecker and his esteemed associate, Mr. Luis Sandoval. I doubt that this knowledge would set well with the county sheriff’s office and the Drug Enforcement Administration. I understand that they take a dim view of fellow law-enforcement officers who throw in with the purveyors of illegal drugs. And prison, I’m told, is especially unpleasant for a former policeman.”

Stu felt the room whirling. He wanted to shout something like
You could never prove it! You don’t have any evidence!
But that seemed so feeble, so pitifully theatrical, and for all he knew, maybe Craslowe
did
have evidence. The mere suggestion that he was an evil cop could be disastrous, particularly if it had the ring of truth. Discovery of Strecker’s crack lab, right under Stu Bromton’s nose, would supply that ring. He wanted to struggle, to avoid going down without a fight, but all that came out was, “H-how in the hell did you know?”

“Oh, I make it my business to know everything,” said Craslowe merrily. “You don’t live as long as I have without picking up a variety of useful skills.” In his watery, insanely lit eyes was a power that Stu could not doubt was capable of seeing into the deepest reaches of a man’s mind and soul. No one could keep secrets from Hadrian Craslowe.

“You’re a lucky man, you know,” continued the doctor. “Had you blundered into this house merely one day later—say tomorrow night instead of tonight—we most assuredly would not be having this conversation.”

From somewhere behind him came the sound of slithering, scuffing movement, the moist sounds of ripping flesh, chewing, swallowing. Stu’s skin began to crawl, and his jaw began to quiver.

“It would be best for you to leave now, Chief Bromton. But before you go, let us shake hands on our agreement.” Craslowe glided, not walked, the short distance to where Stu stood. “You will protect me, Chief Bromton, and I will protect you. We will advise each other of any move against the other, isn’t that right? And just as important, we will keep silent about each other’s secrets. Is it a deal?”

Craslowe withdrew his right hand from the pocket of his tweed suit jacket and extended it into the glaring cone of Stu’s flashlight. Without glancing downward, Stu gripped that hand with his own, shook on the deal, and plunged briefly into insanity.

Mitch Nistler accomplished his rendezvous with Luis Sandoval’s courier in the dark belly of downtown Seattle and returned on a ferry across the Puget Sound to Cannibal Strecker’s crack house, bearing a fresh load of unprocessed cocaine. The night was very starry and cold, the full moon still high in the western sky.

“Good job,” said Cannibal, after examining the contents of the gym bag. “Me and Stella’ll get right on this shit and have it turned into crack by tomorrow night. Be here by eight o’clock to pick it up, okay?”

“You mean I’m making another run tomorrow night?” asked Mitch weakly.

“Like I told you before, we’re stepping up production. We’re gonna be making two, three, maybe four deliveries a week. What’s the matter, don’t you understand the King’s fucking English?”

Mitch forced a smile in order to head off another explosion of Cannibal violence. His hand went to his bruised and aching ribs and rubbed them. “It’s just that—well, it’s—”

“It’s just fucking
what?
”

“I’m just a little worried, that’s all. Making so many trips—well, it could be dangerous, man. I don’t want to get ripped off, or busted.”

“What the hell are you complaining about? You’re getting paid, aren’t you? Besides, Stella and me are the ones who gotta stay up all night, workin’ our butts off to get this stuff converted. Do you hear
us
bitching and whining? Shit, I’m gonna have to drop a hundred bucks worth of meth just to stay awake tonight.”

The big difference, thought Mitch, is that you’re the one who’s becoming a millionaire, not me.
I’m
the one who gets to put my balls on the block, take all the risks, for a paltry two hundred and fifty dollars a load.
I’m
the one who’ll end up with a knife in my guts, bleeding to death in some dark alley, or sitting in a steel-walled closet in Walla Walla, nursing my bloody asshole after the wolves have had their fill of me.

“Sorry,” he said. “I guess I was worrying over nothing. I’ll be here at eight o’clock.”

“Goddamn right you will. Now get out of my face; I got work to do.”

Mitch’s stink-filled house seemed deserted when he arrived home, black and silent like a grave, but he knew that it was not deserted. Grateful as he was for the silence, he worried that it might not last long. Before leaving for Seattle earlier in the evening, he had served up the last remaining dog to the newborn, in answer to the mewling scream that had come from upstairs, a savage and infantine demand for food. Thus far, it had consumed one kitten on Saturday night, the second kitten and one of the three dogs on Sunday. The final two dogs had met their end today.

Each time the screaming started, Mitch had lugged one of the stuporous animals to the mouth of the stairway, opened the door, and heaved it inside, then quickly slammed the door in order to spare himself the gruesome spectacle. Until Mitch had carried them to their hideous fate, none of the animals had moved an inch from where Jeremy had left them, or had begged to go out or to be fed, or had even touched the water pan that Mitch had set before them. The job of feeding the newborn disgusted him, and he felt for the poor, entranced beasts who were its meals. But more troublesome was the question of what food he would provide when the screaming started again.

“That is indeed a problem you must deal with,” said Jeremy Trosper, giving Mitch a horrible fright. The boy had appeared silently at the door of the bedroom and had spoken just as Mitch was about to turn off the light and collapse in exhaustion.

Mitch stared openmouthed a moment and sat down on the bed to collect himself, not having guessed that Jeremy was on the premises. He considered saying something, then thought, what the hell? The kid can hear my thoughts; why bother talking?

“True,” said Jeremy, moving into the room and alighting on the bed next to Mitch. “I know everything you’re thinking, so you needn’t ever try to hide anything from me. As to the matter at hand, I am obliged to tell you that my brother, the newborn, no longer requires small animals for food.”

Mitch felt a tide of relief. Thank God for small favors. “What it requires now,” said Jeremy, his hazel eyes sparkling, “is something a little richer, something with a little more meat on the bone. Are you following me, Mitchell?”

Oh, indeed Mitch was following him, and his throat was aching, and his chest was paining, and he was desperately trying not to cough up the fire in his lungs, and his tender soul was demanding to know when this fucking nightmare would end.
Something a little richer, with a little more meat on the bene.
Not canned stew, then, and tuna salad was out.

The newborn needed people. Human flesh. And Mitch was expected to procure the entrees.

“It won’t be long,” assured Jeremy, “before the question of food will take care of itself. A victim, you see, is not totally consumed in one sitting but is allowed to go on living for quite some time, allowed to absorb some of the Giver’s powers and abilities, to dream the most exquisite dreams. And, of course, to recruit others like himself. The victims—oh, I detest that word, Mitchell; let’s call them
dreamers
—the
dreamers
will provide all the food that the Giver needs. But until our newborn is mature—which won’t be very long, considering the rate at which it’s progressing—it needs your help. You must procure its first several
real
meals.”

Mitch wheezed and sobbed, and he wondered if anything in his world would ever get better, or whether he was doomed to commit deeds ever more vile. The most loathsome aspect of his existence was that he had no choice but to do everything demanded of him, from stealing a corpse to carrying crack to—
God, this has to be the end of it!

Slow murder.

“My advice to you,” said Jeremy, “is that you install a strong padlock on the stairway door, one that you can lock from the outside. You and I will each have a key. Best to do this early tomorrow, don’t you think?”