Stoneskin's Revenge (17 page)

An instant later, two men followed. One was tall and slim and red-headed, maybe in his middle thirties; the other shorter, blockier, and younger, yet somehow the more elegant of the two. Both wore jeans, flannel shirts, and purposeful-looking boots, and both had impressive battery packs slung around their waists, which connected to equally heavy-duty flashlights.

If he'd had any doubts before, the men's appearance dispelled them. They were 'coon hunters without a doubt—probably out for a practice run to keep their hounds in tune.

“Jesus Christ!” the shorter man cried abruptly, as his beam raked across the little girl's corpse. Then, “Fuck, Rob! That's a goddamn
body!
”

“Jesus
H.
Christ!” the taller man echoed, pushing past his companion to stare down at the form on the stone. Then, “Oh, shit, Larry! Why, this is…this is my woman's girl: this is poor little Allison Scott!”

The shorter man frowned and waded through hounds so he could peer over his companion's shoulder. “You're shittin' me!”

The taller man stood, towering above the other, his face almost blank with shock. “But…but that just can't
be,
Larry!” he whispered, sounding suddenly much younger than he had a moment ago. “I…well, I was over at th' station right 'fore we came out here, and Liza-Bet called in and reported her missin'—took the call myself. But then Allison turned up right in the middle of everything, so they closed the case before it was even really opened. Liza-Bet figgered she'd just got lost in the woods.”

“Yeah,” Larry breathed. “I 'member you tellin' me 'bout that. You
sure
that's her?” he added.

The red-head nodded. “I saw her today at lunch over at Liza-Bet's. Told her how good she was. I…”

Larry laid an arm around his shoulders and drew him back. “That's okay, Rob. You don't have to talk 'bout it now. I reckon you know what we've gotta do.”

“Yeah,” Rob replied heavily. “Guess I'd better give the sheriff a call.”

“I'll do 'er if you want me to,” Larry told him. “I'll stay here and wait, if you want. You can stick the dogs in the pickup and then I suspect you'll be wantin' to hightail it to Liza-Bet's. Figger she'd rather hear it from you as anybody.”

“I 'spect so,” Rob acknowledged heavily, in somewhat better control of himself than heretofore. He reached for the walkie-talkie that hung at his waist, unhooded it, and stared at it stupidly but did not turn it on.

Meanwhile Larry was sweeping the sand with the beam of his flashlight, moving it back and forth with great precision and following the large, bright circle with equal intensity. Most of what it showed was dogs milling around and getting fidgety (though they hadn't approached the body, which he thought curious), but then…

“Aha!”
he cried, and knelt down right by Allison's corpse. “Tracks,” he continued, looking up at Rob. “Middle-sized male in tennis shoes, unless I miss my guess. You know anybody like that?”

“Yeah,” Rob sighed, rising once more and switching on the walkie-talkie, “'Cordin' to what I heard Wilson goin' on about back in town, I've got
one
idea already; so I guess I'd better get the wheels to turnin'.”

“Guess you had,” Larry agreed. And with that Robert Richards sent the bad news out of the forest and into Whidden.

Chapter XII: “Uwelanatsiku. Su sa sai!”

(northeast of Whidden, Georgia—Thursday, June 19—near 1 A.M.)

There was one thing he could always count on when he went camping, Don Scott reflected with a yawn: sooner or later he was going to have to get up at least once in the night to pee. It happened
every
time, and usually at the most
inconvenient
times, like when he was crammed between two buddies, or was the one closest to the wall, or when he was in the top bunk, or when it was raining, or—sometimes—just when he was in a particularly enticing dream. That had been what he'd been aroused from this time, and aroused was a pretty good word, too; 'cause he'd been dreaming about Janie Morris, who was a year ahead of him in school, but who'd winked at him in town yesterday morning. Lord, it gave him a hard-on just thinking about it, and that wasn't what he needed to be thinking about at all when his bladder was crying out for relief.

Oh well, he decided philosophically, glancing down at Michael snoring away beside him; ole Mike's log-sawing would have woken him up sooner or later anyway. Or the skeeters, he added to himself, as he paused in the process of sliding his legs out of the bag to slap a couple he could feel sampling his arms and neck.

Or, he realized suddenly, very possibly the humming in the ground. It was a wonder Mike couldn't feel it, 'cause
he
sure as heck could. Curious, too: it was like an endless train running at a great distance, like far-off thunder in the earth. Or like drumming. It crept up through his body, thrummed into his bones.

And inevitably reached his over-stressed bladder.

“Shit,” he muttered under his breath and slid the rest of the way out of the bag, not caring now if he woke Mike up or not, and thinking rather strongly that if the—whatever it was—was still going on when he got back from his pit stop, he'd wake the SOB up and see what
he
thought about it.

The bag fabric hiss-buzzed against itself as he rose beneath the scanty shelter of the lean-to he and Mike had lashed together the previous summer. Another yawn, another glance at Mike, and Don padded skivvies-clad into the warm night.

He hesitated at the foot of his bag to check out the river: a glittering ribbon of black below the bank to the right. A pair of laurel oaks backed the lean-to, and to the left and ahead were miles of woods: hardwood here, but a little farther out—beyond the single strand of barbed wire he'd aloofly ignored—they gave over to one of Union Camp's endless loblolly pine plantations.

But it was night, and it was the woods, and him and Mike were out in it, and it was great. He could feel the warm wind against his bare chest and shoulders as he trotted along searching for a place where the bank sort of overhung the creek and he could whiz into the water unimpeded. The sand was soft underfoot, too—soft as flour. But for some reason that troubled him—maybe because he could still feel that weird-ass thrumming, and he didn't think you should be able to feel that kinda thing through something as soft and unstable as sand.

It took him a little longer than he expected to find the place he wanted—maybe fifty yards up from the camp. A tree crooked over the river there, its trunk curving out and then up again. He balanced there precariously, one foot on land and one on the knobby bark, flopped Rambo Jr. out, and let fly, hearing the distant tinkling splash—and the startled croak of a suddenly baptized bullfrog.

Finally relieved, Don returned to more stable footing and headed back to camp. He was almost within sight of it when he heard something—some
one
singing. Simultaneously he caught a glimpse of something white winking ghostlike through the already disquieting streamers of Spanish moss. He froze in place, as every haint tale he'd ever heard (and he'd heard plenty, 'cause they were a sort of specialty of his) came sneaking back to him, so that all in a single sharp breath the night woods were transformed into something sinister.

The singing was getting steadily louder, too; and pretty soon Don could hear words, though they didn't make any sense:

Uwelanatsiku. Su sa sai!

Just that same nonsense phrase over and over. But the voice gave him the willies worse than ever 'cause it sounded a whole lot like Allison's voice, and
she'd
given him the willies once that day already. Her eyes had been the worst, 'cause they hadn't looked like Allison's eyes at all. Or rather, they'd looked like Allison's eyes rendered into cold, dead stone. And the way she'd stared at him…jeeze! Like she'd wanted to eat him or something.

If Mike hadn't been there, if they hadn't already done a million things to prepare for their trip, if Mike had been even halfway likely to have listened to him when he said something was wrong with Allison and maybe he ought to stick around home for a while, he
would
have stayed home, just to keep an eye out. But this trip meant a lot to Mike, and they hadn't been out all night in a while, and…well, it really had seemed silly when he thought about it. “Something's wrong with my sister? Yeah, sure!”

It did not sound at all silly now.

Don could not have said what kept him rooted to that spot. Maybe it was fear, maybe it was curiosity. Maybe it was some other hand guiding him (he felt that way sometimes—like somebody was watchin' out for him, making him lucky and all.) Whatever its source, he stayed where he was, while the singing got louder and closer. Don noted absently that the thrumming had stopped, but that didn't make much difference now, not when his sister was out roaming through the night like a crazy woman.

Uwelanatsiku. Su sa sai!

For when the half-seen figure finally pushed through a particularly thick beard of moss and came full into the clearing, Don had no doubt whatever that it was Allison.

He also had no doubt that there was something wrong with her. Common sense—and a good chunk of emotion—said what he ought to do was run out to her and hug her and ask her what in the world she was doing out there a mile from home in just her nightie. But when your sister stared at you like she had earlier, and then showed up singing strange songs, it might be wise to watch her for a minute first.

Thus torn, Don swallowed and squatted down in place, hoping against hope that the tree he was crouched behind would be sufficient cover.

He could hear the song clearly now, and this time there was no doubt: it was Allison singing, and it was not English. But even as he strained his ears, the song slowly shifted, and then it
was
English, and the words sure enough kept Don frozen in his tracks:

Liver I eat! Su sa sai!

Liver I eat! Su sa sai!

Liver I eat! Su sa sai!

And with that last strange word echoing around the clearing, the small blond figure removed its left hand from where it had been hidden in a fold of nightgown and flourished it on high.

And Don saw that which came within an ace of making him scream his lungs out. For his sister—no, it couldn't be; better say that
thing—
had an index finger that was at least twelve inches long, on which glittered a nail that looked far too much like the chipped and flaked head of a stone spear.

And she was walking right toward Mike, who slept all unaware.

“No!” Don tried to scream, but only then discovered that he could not move. No, he
could
move, but so slowly it was like pulling his way through hardening concrete. He could breathe, could feel his heart pumping extra as it tried to supply the blood desperate muscles needed. But something was interrupting.

It was, Don realized dully, that damned song. For as he watched Allison calmly walking toward his buddy, she kept singing, and every time she came to that set of non-words,
Su sa sai!
the air gave a little buzz, and the ground gave a little thrum, and together they just sort of slipped up into his nerves and held him cold.

He could only watch, then; watch in horror as Allison skipped to within a foot of Michael Chadwick's head, knelt beside him, dragged the flap of the sleeping bag aside—and with obvious relish, plunged that awful finger into his naked right side.

And Don could do nothing but watch: could not flinch, could not gag, could not scream. He could not even cry much, though he felt his eyes burning. That was
Michael
over there, lying on his back with his left arm resting on his flat, tan belly, and the other curled languorously above his head, as if he were
offering
his side to that monster. His face, though, was the worst, for it did not change, kept that smile of peace that Don loved—and would have died to keep Mike from knowing he loved; that smile Mike wore only when he was sleeping, that Don saw only when he awoke beside Mike in the night and watched him and wished he really was his brother.

Why didn't Mike move?

Why didn't he do something? But Don knew, with a pang of resignation: because he could
not
move. If Don, who was awake, had fallen under that spell, Mike stood no chance at all.

But Allison
was
moving, and Don wished he didn't have to watch that, wished he could close his eyes tight (for he could no longer move even that much), because he
certainly
did not want to see the smile of relish that crossed his sister's face as she wiggled that finger around inside his friend's body for a while, and then, very slowly, dragged out a hunk of something dark and shiny, something that she let dangle from her fingers before lowering it into her mouth, whereupon she sucked it down with a sickening slurpy noise and swallowed.

Three times Don had to watch that grisly rite repeated, and all the while he fought the paralysis, and all the while it held, though he could feel it slip a little from time to time, but not enough to help.