Part 3 (1/2)

Neville shook his head. ”Not a one. Not even any Indian legends as far as my researchers could tell. Indians, settlers-everyone just seemed to stay away from the place.”

”That's surprising,” said McNeely, ”considering the terrain and the water table. The stream at the bottom would flow into the river a few miles away, wouldn't it?”

”I'm afraid I don't know my Pennsylvania rivers, Mr. McNeely. Perhaps if you decide to stay, you can investigate that in the library.”

That's two, McNeely thought.

”My grandfather died in the forties,” Neville went on. ”Since my surviving uncle was killed in the war, my father, John Neville, took over the company and family holdings. He knew the stories about The Pines, even though he barely remembered the house, as he was only six when they stayed here in 1919. Not having any real firsthand knowledge of it, he decided to open it once more, and brought two of his friends here, intending to stay overnight and see how the place had held up.

”It had done so admirably. In fact, he swore there was not the slightest sign of decay. The stone was barely weathered, the windows were all clean, there was little dust to be seen anywhere. Not even spider webs were found.”

c.u.mmings chuckled bravely. ”Not a very popular place-even for bugs.”

Neville did not return a smile. ”You're right, Mr. c.u.mmings. Not popular for anything. Do you recall what you heard when you drove up the mountain this morning?”

c.u.mmings shrugged. ”Nothing, I guess.”

”That's right,” said McNeely, remembering. ”Those woods should have been filled with bird cries at six A.M. I didn't hear a one. Nor insects.”

”Very observant, Mr. McNeely,” said Neville, and for once there was sincerity in his tone. ”Birds and animals shun this place. My grandfather and his hunting cronies never took a deer within five miles of here. It's as if they know something is not quite right.” Neville's head went up slowly, as if listening for something overhead. He seemed to have forgotten the others for a moment.

”You were speaking,” McNeely interrupted softly, ”of your father.”

Neville turned abruptly toward the group once more. ”Yes, I'm sorry. He and his friends didn't last the night. One of them claimed to see a terrifying apparition-a man strangling a young woman at the foot of his bed. He ran screaming down the hall into my father's room, and within a few seconds all three were there together. All of them had felt highly uncomfortable and unable to sleep, which might have had its origin in the stories Father told them on the drive up. They packed their few things and drove away, and they never laughed about it later.

”Father had the house locked and guarded again, and forgot about it. But in the fifties when the Bridey Murphy thing hit the papers and interest in the occult was revitalized, he hired a psychic medium to investigate the house. The man stayed for three days, but despite some slight 'psychic discomfort,' as he put it, he found nothing.” Neville laughed scornfully. ”His crystal ball and ouija board were empty. Nevertheless, Father would neither reopen it nor sell it-if indeed he could have. He actually believed that there was something ... I hesitate to use the word evil-it's so melodramatic ... something unpleasant here, and that it would be best to simply guard it, like a house in quarantine, I suppose. So guard it he did, and forgot about it.”

Neville's eyes softened, and he gazed down at the Turkoman carpet at his feet. ”He died last spring. I knew nothing about the house until then. When I was going over the holdings I'd inherited, I came upon a file concerning The Pines. Along with the deeds and legal papers was an informal history of the place written by my father after the fifties investigation. It contained much of what I've just told you. Simon, who was a close friend of my father's, filled in the rest for me.” He sighed heavily, and looked at each of the three men in turn. ”I knew that I would have to come here, to find out whatever the truth was about this place, and perhaps to find out what things can survive after death. You may not fully understand my motives, gentlemen, but you won't be asked to do that. You will be asked only to stay here with me while I play with”-he gestured at the house around them-”with my giant toy for a while.”

Renault stood up. ”Well, gentlemen, how does the prospect of spending a month here strike you?”

Wickstrom, McNeely, and c.u.mmings looked from Renault to one another. There was no fear on any of their faces, but there was hesitation nonetheless. McNeely was the first to speak. ”A month, you said.”

”That's correct,” Neville answered.

McNeely sat back in his chair and interlaced his fingers. ”The ten thousand dollars we've each received was only to get us this far. Might I ask with what you're tempting us to stay the full time?”

”Simon,” Neville said, the order implicit. From his inner jacket pocket Renault withdrew three slips of paper and handed them to Neville. ”These are cas.h.i.+er's checks,” said Neville, ”made out to each of you for the sum of one million dollars.”

”A million dollars?” Wickstrom was halfway to his feet in an instant. c.u.mmings's jaw dropped. Only McNeely showed no outward reaction.

”That's correct, Mr. Wickstrom. As soon as you agree to the conditions, these checks are yours. You may keep them on your person or have Simon hold them for safekeeping. Or even have him deposit them in your accounts, for that matter.

Wickstrom laughed unsteadily. ”The Chemical Bank would s.h.i.+t!” Gabrielle laughed, too, and Wickstrom blushed.

”I'm sure,” said Neville dryly.

”What's to insure,” said McNeely, ”that we won't take the checks and leave before the thirty days are up?”

”Thirty-one days,” Neville corrected him. ”And you won't leave, Mr. McNeely. None of us will, because we won't be able to.”

”What do you mean?” said c.u.mmings.

”We'll be prisoners here,” Neville answered. ”We will be shut in. The windows and doors will be not only locked, but sealed and covered, so that we won't even know whether it's day or night.”

McNeely's stomach tightened. He'd hated to feel that he was confined ever since he'd spent two weeks in the sweatbox in 'Nam. The Pines was a lot bigger than that four by four bamboo cage, and if what Neville said was true, there wouldn't be a leech or a rat within miles, but still, the idea of being sealed up, no matter where, was anathema to him. ”What's the purpose of that?” he asked, hoping that his voice showed no sign of the unease he felt.

”Would you accept 'my whim,' Mr. McNeely? No, I didn't think so. Then let me say that I want to abolish time. I want our minds only on our surroundings, not thinking about how long it's going to be before we're out. It's simple-no day, no night, no time, no countdown to worry about.” Neville walked to the window and pointed to the top of the frame. ”You'll see a slot here. When we are ready, a half-inch steel plate will descend over this window and every other window and door in the house, sliding four inches deep into the bottom slots. No daylight will be able to come in. We will in essence be trapped, so that whatever things reside here in The Pines will be able to show themselves to us at their leisure. And we won't be able to deny them by running away . . . not to suggest that the supernatural holds any fears for you three men.”

”Which reminds me,” said c.u.mmings. ”You said you'd tell us later why us three? Why us specifically?” Wickstrom nodded in tacit agreement and leaned forward for Neville's answer. But it was Renault who responded.

”This undertaking was not begun lightly. We wished to utilize men who were tough, hardheaded realists-even ruthless, if the truth be known. But to have them all from the same line of work-all bodyguards, for instance-might pose problems. The men might know each other, for one thing. Too, there is a streak of romanticism in many private investigators. The white knight syndrome, one might call it. But here we have a policeman, a soldier, and a businessman. Men too busy with the realities of survival to permit their imaginations free rein.”

”As for how we learned about you three as individuals,” Neville added, ”we simply used our contacts. You, Mr. Wickstrom, were on a list of names supplied by the a.s.sistant district attorney of New York County; we heard of you, Mr. c.u.mmings, through business a.s.sociates, and Mr. McNeely ... we heard of you through a friend.”

McNeely returned the smile. ”Friend?”

”Yes. With the initials C.I.A.”

”One more thing,” Wickstrom said. ”Why so much?”

Neville looked puzzled. ”So much ...?”

”So much money? I mean, you could get me for a month's work for a h.e.l.luva lot less than a million dollars.”

”First of all,” said Neville, ”three million dollars means very little to me, though I don't want to seem boastful. Secondly, we really have no idea of what we'll confront here. There may be risks of which we know nothing-perhaps our lives may be in danger. So I felt the reward should be commensurate with ...”

While Neville smoothly spoke on, Whitey Monckton, nearly forgotten by the others, sat at the back of the room and shuddered inside. Risks, he thought. Risking your life was one thing, but risking your sanity was something else. He didn't envy the three men their million one bit. He knew there was something here in the house that over the period of a month might be enough to shrivel them until that million would be so much worthless paper. All of Neville's fortune wouldn't be enough to keep Monckton in the house for a week, let alone a month. Not after what he'd seen.

It had been three days ago, when the work was almost finished. He'd ignored his own orders to stay with a buddy, and had gone up to the third floor to examine the observatory dome. He'd felt a little funny about going off alone, especially after Cole's death a few weeks earlier, but it was noon on a sunny day, and the gla.s.s doors to the sun room brightly lit the third floor hall. Keller, his a.s.sistant, was in the bas.e.m.e.nt for a final look at the fire chamber, and Monckton hadn't felt like trotting down three flights to fetch him. So he went into the observatory alone.

He turned on the light and walked over to the seventy-year-old eight-inch reflector that looked as though it had been installed yesterday. Next to the mounting was an iron crank that he grasped and tried to turn. It moved a fraction of an inch and stopped. Good. The pie-shaped wedge of steel overhead through which the telescope had once peered remained firmly in place. He moved directly underneath it to determine if there was any way to circ.u.mvent the locks. Then the light went out.

Heart pounding, he swung around toward the open door, cursing himself for being such a fool. But instead of the upright rectangle of light he'd expected to see, there was only darkness. The door was shut.

Easy! he told himself. Relax-a draft, nothing more. And then the light began to form.

At first it was no bigger than a pinpoint, but its hot glow was so intense that he noticed it immediately. It was white. Not the dull whiteness of paper or even the pure whiteness of new snow, but a hot burning whiteness that nearly blinded him. It widened slowly, like an eye's pupil dilating in the dark, until it seemed to be yards across.

The intensity of it was so stunning that he didn't notice the faces at first. There were hundreds of them, swimming on the white surface like gray petals in a pool that mirrors sunlight, and he felt his bowels twist in terror as he slowly discerned the lineaments of their expressions. Madness, anger, evil shone from each pair of eyes, white on white. Though colors had surrendered to the light, he was able to make out the features of Orientals and blacks as well as Caucasians, and others so b.e.s.t.i.a.l in appearance as to fit none of the races of man. They whirled in the brightness, a storm of leering faces that seemed to drift ever closer to his own. And then among the faces were some he recognized, and he knew he had to be going mad.

Eyes of searing fire stared with silent lunacy into his own, and with a shock of horror he recalled the blurry news photograph of Dean Corll, the h.o.m.os.e.xual killer of teenage runaways. The wizened face of Albert Fish, the child murderer, was the next he recognized. The papers had been full of his pictures when Monckton was a boy, and now the old man's face writhed before him, bony jaw clattering up and down like a castanet, the pale tongue sending dark unfelt spittle flying toward him.