Part 21 (1/2)

But even as they left, Barbara had the distinct feeling that the few of them who knew the swamp well, who had spent much of their lives exploring it and working in it, were feeling far less than optimistic about the search.

They knew the dangers of the marshy wilderness all too well.

Judd Duval glanced at his image in the mirror, seeing the deep wrinkles in his face and the collapsing of the tissue around his mouth. Thank G.o.d his mind had still been working when Kitteridge had called him a few minutes ago. If Kitteridge saw him like this- But he'd thought fast, and the answer had come to him. ”I'm startin' now,” he'd said. ”She can't be far from where she went in, and I know every one of them bayous. If'n I'm lucky, I'll have her home before you're even ready to start.”

He had no intention of going into the swamp tonight-no intention of letting anyone see him until he'd found a way to get another shot from Dr. Phillips. So he left the house, but instead of taking his boat out to search for Kelly Anderson, he moved it only a hundred yards from his cabin, carefully hiding it deep within a tangle of reeds and mangrove. In the daylight it might be seen by someone pa.s.sing this way, but in the darkness it was completely invisible.

Satisfied, he began making his way back to the house, slogging through the shallow water and mud.

Once again he felt eyes watching him as he made his way through the marsh.

The first tendrils of panic reached out to him, but he fought them off. He stopped, searching in the darkness for the evil presence that he sensed close by.

There was nothing.

And yet his fear only increased.

He tried to run, but the muck on the bottom clung to his feet, and his already weakening muscles began to tire.

No! he told himself. Ain't nothin' out here! Nothin'!

But he didn't believe his own words, and by the time he finally got back to the cabin, he was exhausted from fear as well as exertion. He dropped into his chair, his chest heaving and his breath coming in ragged gasps, terrified that his heart was about to fail him.

Slowly, though, he began to regain strength. He forced himself back to his feet, moving around the room, putting out all the lights and turning off the television.

If Kitteridge and the others came this way, the house had to look empty.

In darkness, he stripped off his filthy clothes and put on clean ones.

The waiting began.

Sitting alone in the dark was almost worse than being out in the swamp, for he dared not even turn on the radio to keep him company.

He began to lose his sense of time. As the minutes stretched into eternities, he imagined that dawn must already be at hand.

He began to see faces at the windows-children's faces, all of them looking like Jonas c.o.x, staring at him with dead, empty eyes.

When at last he heard the low puttering of an outboard motor, his first instinct was to throw open the door and call out to whoever Was approaching. But the frightening image of his own aging face rose out of the darkness, and he resisted the impulse, cowering silently in the darkness, waiting for the flotilla of small boats to pa.s.s.

At last the murmuring of the engines faded away and the lights of the boats were swallowed up into the night.

Judd stirred, wondering what to do next.

And then it came to him-they'd been there, all of them, and seen his dark cabin, seen that his boat was not there. They thought he was in the swamp, searching, and they wouldn't be back this way.

Not for hours; perhaps not until morning.

He changed clothes again, pulling the mud-encrusted pants back on, and, taking his gun with him this time, crept back onto the porch.

He could still feel the children out there, watching him, waiting for him.

He told himself it was crazy, that if they were there, the search party would have seen them.

Maybe.

Or maybe not.

He knew the children of the swamp, knew them well. They moved through the wetlands anywhere they Wanted to go, invisible unless they wanted to be seen.

He paused on the porch, his eyes darting around, searching.

Nothing.

At last he lowered himself onto the porch floor, then slipped into the water. It came up to his hips, and his feet, bare now, sank into the mud. Slime oozed up between his toes, and thick gra.s.ses swirled around his ankles. Clutching his gun, its safety already released, he moved slowly away from the house, feeling his way back toward the mangrove thicket.

Now he imagined he saw eyes everywhere. They seemed to be in the trees, looking down at him from the branches that stretched out toward him like skeletal arms.

They were in the water, staring up at him from the depths. He saw George Coulton, lying on his back, gazing blankly upward, a gaping wound torn in his breast.

The memory made him shudder, and he tried to move faster, but the waters themselves seemed to be grasping at him now, and he felt as though in the grip of a nightmare.

He came at last to the mangrove thicket and hauled himself into the boat, his chest pounding, his breathing ragged. He fell back, resting against the gunwale, and waited for the exhaustion to pa.s.s. At last he pulled himself up onto the bench, untied the line from the mangrove root to which it was secured, and slipped the oars into the locks. Dipping the oars into the water, he slipped the boat out of the thicket.

And froze.

No more than ten feet away a silent figure sat in another rowboat, staring at him.

Pale eyes seemed to glow in the darkness.

Jonas.

He released the oars and reached for his gun, which lay on the bench beside him. But as his fingers closed on its grip, a low, hollow laugh drifted across the water from the other boat.

”Cain't kill me, Judd,” Jonas said softly, but with a terrible clarity that rang in Judd Duval's ears. ”Remember? I already be dead.” There was a silence, then Jonas spoke again: ”But I be comin' for you, Judd. Soon. Real soon.”

The boy's dismal laugh sounded again, and then the boat slid away into the darkness. A moment later it was as if it hadn't been there at all.

Terror clutching at him once more, Judd's shaking hand dropped the gun and clasped the oars of his own boat.

The hundred yards back to the cabin seemed to take an eternity. Once he was inside again, Judd turned on every light in the place.

For him there could be no more darkness tonight.

Kelly stopped in her tracks, listening.

She wasn't sure how long she'd been in the swamp. For the first few minutes, after she'd fled from her father's stinging words, she'd paid no attention at all to where she was going. She'd dashed across the field and come to the ca.n.a.l, then seen the bridge off to the right. She'd heard her father calling after her, but ignored him, and run toward the bridge. She'd hesitated there, uncertain whether to cross into the wilderness beyond, but when her father had started toward her, still shouting, she'd stopped thinking and run across.

Across the bridge lay the swamp, where she could disappear in an instant. So she'd crossed the bridge, and plunged into the wilderness, her feet finding a narrow pathway that twisted through the undergrowth.

She'd stopped no more than thirty feet from the end of the bridge and waited, controlling her gasping breath by sheer force of will. She'd been able to hear her father's feet echoing on the wooden bridge as he crossed, and clearly heard his voice as he called out to her.