Part 5 (1/2)

She had closed that window yesterday, making the house tight. Jame must have opened it, being a fresh-air fiend, and she had not realized. There had been access to his room from outside.

The monster had come in and taken Jame.

At night she had been terrified and tried to flee it, to deny it. Now it was day, and she was rational. The shock of it numbed her. She had to make a decision in a hurry, lest she do something foolish and make it worse.

When the racc.o.o.n had been taken, she had called the sheriffs department. When the dog had been taken, she had sought to hide it, but somehow the deputy had known anyway. Now her son had been taken.

She should report it, she knew. But would they really believe it was the monster? Or would they think that she had somehow done it herself, practicing on the the dog and then going after her son? It might not be rational to kill her son, but by the time Paris got through talking with them, she would seem like a complete mental case and be committed to an asylum, and Paris would be off with Helen.

No way would she get Jame back, regardless.

She fetched the spade, went to the back, and dug out an azalea bush. She was careful to set the dirt on a plastic tablecloth so it did not mark the surrounding soil, and then to put the bush on it when she had it out. She might have damaged a few roots, but she had balled it so that not much harm was done. It would survive nicely, just as if transplanted. She deepened the hole, taking similar care with the extra dirt.

Then she went inside, hauled in the corners of Jame's sheet, and lifted so that the body was tumbled into the center. He wasn't very heavy without his flesh; she had no real trouble carrying him. She hauled the impromptu bag out and set it into the hole where the bush had been. She pushed it down, folding over the excess sheet so that none was out of the hole. Then she filled in some dirt, covering it. Then she put the bush back in where it had been, and filled in dirt around it until things were level. This time she made sure that there was no sign of disturbance; she sprinkled a few dry leaves around and pressed some into the soil. It should take a better eye than the sheriffs to tell that anything had changed here. After all, the azalea remained right where it had been before.

She took the excess dirt, wrapped in the tablecloth, to an old large laurel oak and bundled it into a ground-level hole in the trunk. She might need some of that dirt again. No one should think to look here, and if they did, what would they find? Just innocent dirt. The job was done.

No, it wasn't. Now she had to devise a way to explain her son's disappearance. The school authorities would think he was playing truant, and Paris would inquire. She would have to tell them that something had come up suddenly, and that he had to visit relatives in another state for a while. No need to transfer records; he would be back in a couple of weeks, and yes, she would see that he made up the lost work.

This was crazy! She was covering for the monster. Why was she doing it? Wasn't she much more likely to be locked up the moment they found the body, as they surely would in time, than if she had reported it at the outset? She was making herself look guilty.

But if she reported it now, everything would happen now, and she'd be in trouble immediately. This way it delayed the reckoning, and gave her a chance to figure a way out. She might have to flee the state, to a.s.sume a different ident.i.ty, so that they would never catch her. Could she do that?

She had to believe she could, if she had to. It would be better than rotting in an inst.i.tution. At least she would have a chance.

What relatives was her son visiting? It would have to be her brother and his wife. She did not get along well with him, for a reason they never discussed, but by the same token it gave her a certain power over him. She would have to invoke that now.

She looked up his number and dialed it. His wife answered. The wife was innocent, and none was not about to burden her with any part of the truth.

”Jade Brown here,” she said briskly. ”Tell George that Jame is visiting you for a couple of weeks.”

”But we can't-” the woman protested.

”He isn't really,” none clarified. ”But you must say he is with you, if anyone asks. Tell George; he will understand. With luck, no one will ask.”

”But-”

”Just tell him,” none said firmly, and hung up. George would not understand what his crazy little sister was up to this time, but he would know he had to play along. He had learned long ago about playing along. She had not bothered him in years; he was getting off lightly.

So it was done. Now she could relax.

none sat down at the kitchen table and dissolved into tears. Jame was dead! She had held off the full impact of the stunning reality, doing what she had to do, but she had been running on desperation. Now the grief overwhelmed her. Jame had not been the best of boys, but he was far from the other extreme. He had been somewhat of a comfort to her, just by his presence, as her relations.h.i.+p with Paris had fallen apart. She had not tried to hold the family together for the sake of the child; the child had tended to make bearable what otherwise was not. Now that small bastion of support was gone, and she did not know how she was going to survive.

Yes, she did. She was going to seal it over, into a disused personality, one she could remember but would not truly feel, as she had done before. It would be as if some other woman's son had died, eliciting sympathy but not true involvement from her. This would enable her to function appropriately, without being overcome by emotion. Drab little mother would fade away, leaving a new slate. This would take time to perfect, but she would do it; she did know how.

In the afternoon a car pulled in. none recognized it: that journalist woman who had come asking about the racc.o.o.n. Had she somehow gotten wind of what had happened since? That seemed unlikely, unless the deputy had told her.

none had been crying; a glance at the mirror showed her eyes discolored and swollen. She had been working on her new aspect, but loss and grief could not be muscled down in an hour, let alone the physical evidence of it. How was she to hide that?

She dived for the refrigerator and hauled out an onion. She found a small knife-her big one was still in Jame's room, where she had set it down when tending to him-which would really look d.a.m.ning!-and sliced the onion in half.

She picked up a half and carried it along as she went out on the porch to meet the woman, hoping to get rid of her quickly. ”Is this important? I'm rather busy at the moment-”

The woman eyed her, and the onion. ”Mrs. Brown, I think it is well that I came here. You have obviously lost more than a dog.”

”I'm making salad!” none said, waving the onion.

But the woman would not be blunted. ”The monster has been here again. Whom did it take this time?”

d.a.m.n her intuition! ”I don't have to talk to you!”

”Mrs. Brown, I think you had better. May I come in?” The woman pushed on by her, entering the house, ignoring the onion. none realized belatedly that it was a sweet onion, with very little tearing; in her hurry she hadn't noticed.

”What right do you have to barge in here?” none demanded, fl.u.s.tered.

”I am a journalist,” Flowers said evenly. ”I'm good at it. I do my homework. Why didn't you testify against your brother?”

none stared at her. She knew!

The woman smiled coldly. ”That was, shall we say, just a warning shot. I will tell you this much about me: I was an abused wife. I have an excellent notion what you went through, and why you don't care to talk about it. I have no interest in embarra.s.sing you. I just must have the truth about what's going on here. Tell me everything, and I will not only keep your secret, I will help you.”

At the moment this woman reminded her very much of her husband! She dealt strictly on her own terms, making a bargain that might seem fair to her but hardly impressed the other party that way. She was dealing from power, and that tended to be hard on the powerless.

But none seemed to have no choice. ”The monster took my son,” she said brokenly.

”And you did not report it?”

”They might think I did it.”

”I know you did not. I was afraid of this. Once the monster attuned to human flesh, it found human beings easy prey. We have to find it and destroy it.”

”Can't-can't the police do that?”

”The police don't know about it. This thing is not public knowledge, and we intend to see that it does not become so. The one body that was found by the river was too far gone to indicate much, and the news was not given to the paper.”

”A body?”

”Apparently a hunter. A sheriffs deputy discovered it yesterday, near where the hunter's truck was found last week. For all they know, it could have been picked clean by ants. But just in case it was homicide, they are keeping it under wraps. They don't know what we know: that a monster is stalking people. Now, where was your son, and what did you do with his body?”

Numbed anew, none showed her. Apparently if she had reported it, it still wouldn't have become public. Because, it seemed, monsters were bad for tourism. Unless they were harmless to people, which this one wasn't.

”You did well,” Flowers said. ”But I think you had better get away from here. The monster has now struck three times here. We shall try to intercept it before it strikes again, but meanwhile you are surely in danger. This house is too isolated; the monster evidently strikes where there is little danger of discovery. I realize it is hard to plan effective action when your son has just been so horribly killed, but it is necessary.”

”I have nowhere to go,” none said. With that she gave the lie to her wild notion to flee and change her ident.i.ty. What would she eat, where would she stay?

”And too old to make it as a lady of the night,” Flowers said. ”I understand rather better than I care to. But perhaps I can come up with something.”

”Anyway, I can't just go and leave my husband here,” none said.