Part 18 (1/2)

”I suppose.” McNeely glanced at the spines. ”The first is 1919. That's the summer his son died. Then 1920, 1921, and 1922. By '22 there are only a few days worth of notes. Suppose he lost interest?”

”He had new toys to amuse himself, probably,” said Gabrielle.

”Oh, you idle rich.”

”Terrible, aren't we?”

”What do the final volumes say about these . . . these lights?” Wickstrom asked.

”Let me look.” McNeely started thumbing, stopping three quarters of the way through a volume. ”In 1920 D'Neuville had up this Wilkes he mentioned. Looks like Wilkes didn't know what the h.e.l.l the lights were either. Listen to this. 'Wilkes feels the phenomenon may be terrestrial in origin rather than from outside our atmosphere, possibly of the nature of St. Elmo's fire.' Nice try, Wilkes, but no cigar. What's he say in '21? 'The lights are here again this year, as frequent and as bright as ever. Neither Wilkes nor the colleagues he's, told of the phenomenon have any solid idea as to what causes it. I fear it may remain unfathomable. A party from Princeton has requested a visit to observe, but I am not sure I shall grant their wish. I am beginning to think that there is more to this than science can fathom.'

”What the h.e.l.l did he mean by that?” Wickstrom mused.

”Maybe he was getting the first tinglings himself of what this place was really like. The more we learn about The Pines, the weirder it gets.”

”Does it say,” Gabrielle asked, ”if he ever found out what the things were?”

McNeely scanned through the rest of the 1921 volume and then turned to 1922. After a short time he spoke. ”No. He says he was still seeing them, and that's all. Nothing about the boys from Princeton either.” He let the last volume fall shut and piled it on top of the other three. ”Quite a waste of journals. He could have put all that he wrote in a thirty-page looseleaf.”

”Don't worry. He could afford it,” said Gabrielle. ”I wonder what those things were.”

”Or maybe are,” McNeely said.

She looked up from the canvas. ”You don't mean they still might be there?”

McNeely shrugged. ”Possible. Did you notice anything strange in the sky the night before we were locked in?”

”No. Nothing unusual.” She thought for a moment. ”But the trees are much higher now. Far higher than they were in the twenties, most certainly.”

”Then even if they'd been here,” said McNeely, ”you wouldn't have seen them. According to D'Neuville, they never got that high.”

”We'll look when we get out,” Gabrielle said thoughtfully.

”You can look,” said Wickstrom, ”but I'll be long gone. I don't intend to wait for night.” He smiled bitterly. ”I'm tired of night. Besides,” he added, ”I already know what those lights were.”

Gabrielle and McNeely stared at him. ”What?” McNeely said. ”And how would you know?”

”You can make theories, l can make theories.” He settled back in his chair and laughed softly. ”They're ghosts.”

”Ghosts?”

”Sure, what else? Ghosts from north, east, west, probably from the south too. Eskimo ghosts, white ghosts, n.i.g.g.e.r ghosts, gook ghosts, ghosts from all over the world. Sure, that's it! I finally figured it out! The Pines is a big convention hotel for ghosts!” He laughed.

Gabrielle and McNeely laughed too, if a trifle uncomfortably.

”I think I'm kidding,” Wickstrom said with a twisted smile. ”I think I'm kidding, but I don't know. Maybe I'm serious. Think about it,” he said, his eyes suddenly far away. ”People dying, dying all the time all over the world-how many hundreds, thousands a day. And when they die, maybe something leaves their body-spirit, soul, whatever. Where does it go? Heaven? h.e.l.l?” His words had grown so soft, the others had to strain to hear, even in the tomblike silence. ”Pine Mountain?”

Gabrielle took a step toward him. ”Kelly, I ...”

He went on, not hearing her. ”What if-what if Pine Mountain was like the North Pole? What if it was a big magnet, but instead of drawing compa.s.s needles, it drew ghosts?”

The three of them sat there in the room, and in their minds they were the three loneliest people on earth. But they were not the most alone. Wickstrom's words had turned a playroom on the third floor of a large, lonely house into the focal point of attention of an endless line of watchers, watchers who stretched back through the centuries, back to when man first walked the hills and deserts of earth. They thought of the faces then, the faces that had loomed over them as they woke, faces they had believed were no more or less than nightmares-black faces, Oriental faces, white faces, faces that could have lived today and faces so primitive they were nearly b.e.s.t.i.a.l. Faces that could have spanned the cavalcade of man's life.

”It's impossible,” whispered McNeely.

Wickstrom barked a dry laugh. ”Yeah,” he said. ”Just like what happened to c.u.mmings was impossible.”

”The mountain drew them,” said Gabrielle, ”like a giant lodestone. Is that what you mean, Kelly?”

Wickstrom shook his head back and forth, back and forth, not in answer to Gabrielle's question, but to clear his mind, to drive out all the ideas and theories and questions that were pus.h.i.+ng down on his brain with unrelieved pressure. ”I don't. No,” he said finally. ”I don't know what I mean. That's a . . . a crazy suggestion. Real Looney Tunes.”

”I just can't see it,” said McNeely. ”I mean, all these things that have been happening here-there's got to be some kind of explanation, some kind of logic behind them, even if it is a supernatural logic. But why here? If anywhere, why here?”

”Why the North Pole?” asked Wickstrom.

”The North Pole is in line with the earth's axis,” McNeely answered.

”My a.s.s! Not magnetic north!”

”Birds don't come here,” said Gabrielle, ”nor animals. The Indians stayed away. It's as if they all knew.”

”Something that folks more civilized forgot,” Wickstrom finished.

”No,” said McNeely firmly, ”it's too much.” Wickstrom flushed a deep red. ”G.o.dd.a.m.nit, just because it's not your idea!”

”Bulls.h.i.+t! It's not that!”

”All right!” yelled Gabrielle, the shrillness of her voice cowing the men. ”You both know the only way we're going to get out of here is to stay together-and that means our minds as well as physically. It wants us to fight. Whatever it is, I'm sure it wants that.”

”I'm sorry,” Wickstrom said, and his face looked like he meant it. ”I lost my temper.”

McNeely pushed his fingers through his thick hair. ”Yeah. Me too.”

”Um . . . you're probably right, George. There's nothing to it, just a wacky idea. I'm grabbing at straws.”

McNeely smiled. ”I thought you were the one who said before that it didn't matter.

”Did I say that?” Wickstrom answered, returning the smile. ”What I say and what I think are different. I just hate to talk about it because it makes me think about it. Look,” he said, rising, ”let's forget about this s.h.i.+t for a while. I think the best way to combat spookhouse fever-which is The Pines' form of cabin fever-is to play a hot game of Monopoly. Have I got any suckers?”

The others forced smiles, but didn't speak.

”Come on, folks,” said Wickstrom with a weak chuckle, ”don't make me play with myself. Boardwalk's pretty lonely without friends.”

Gabrielle set down her palette and untied her ap.r.o.n. ”My painting will keep.” She ruffled McNeely's hair. ”And you can find out who killed Colonel Appleyard later.”

”His name's not Appleyard, and I already know,” said McNeely.