Garret was now convinced she was down there. He approached the window slowly, a cold, confident smile on his face.
"Doctor," he called through it, "you're not behaving like an intelligent, educated person. Come on out and we'll talk and figure out a way to make everyone happy. I'm not interested in seeing anyone else hurt. You know that," he said. She held her breath and pressed her back against the fieldstone wall. The jagged edges of some of those stones were painful, but she ignored that and remained as still and as poised with the pipe as she could be.
"Okay, Doctor, I'm coming in and when I see you, I'm not going to be very pleasant," he warned, waited another few seconds, and leaned into the window.
"You're a damn fool," he shouted, his rage rising. He couldn't see her, and he was unhappy about having to go in, but that was what he had to do. He turned and lowered his legs slowly into the old basement. When he was almost completely in, he held onto the windowsill to gradually find his footing below. He turned his head to look down and that was when Terri swung the pipe and caught him squarely in the forehead. The blow snapped his head back sharply. He lost his grip on the sill and fell to the basement floor. His cellular phone dropped out of his pocket and bounced once, but he held the gun in his hand.
He groaned and she struck the gun hand, sending the weapon into the darkness where it bounced against the side wall. Garret moaned, fighting for consciousness. Terri threw the pipe down, scooped up his cellular phone, and leaped for the window, pulling herself up with all the strength she could muster. Below, Garret groaned again. Pure terror lifted Terri out the window. She fell to the ground under the porch, caught her breath, and scampered around and up the back steps.
Once inside the old tourist house, she ran through the kitchen, down the corridor to the lobby, where Darlene was sitting up, dazed.
"Quick!" Terri screamed at her. She reached down for her arm and helped Darlene to her feet.
"Whaaa..."
"Just run with me. Run!" she shouted and pulled her along, through the front door, down the stairs, and toward the car. She lunged for the door on the driver's side and then stopped dead with disappointment when she saw the keys were not in the ignition.
Behind them, she could hear Garret bellow, his voice echoing in the old house.
"C'mon," she urged Darlene and pulled her toward the now dimly lit woods. Some early starlight and a quarter moon was enough to light up the way. They ran past the first set of birch and maple. Without leaves, the forest wasn't all that protective, but with darkness thickening, Terri was hopeful. She tugged and urged Darlene along until they were deeper and deeper into the woods, finding even more protection provided by a group of pine trees.
"I can't run anymore!" Darlene cried.
"You've got to keep moving. If we stop, he'll catch up. Move," she ordered. Darlene gasped and followed. They went through the area of pine trees and then down an embankment where there was a stream of water bubbling over rocks. She saw a heavy overgrown area across the way and directed Darlene to it. Once there, she paused and indicated they should crouch so she could listen. Their heavy breathing almost made it impossible to hear anything. Then, there was the sound of branches cracking. After a long moment, that sound stopped and then they heard the most primeval, horrendous scream of frustration.
Darlene gasped and whimpered.
"Oh Jesus," she said.
Terri didn't move a muscle.
"Quiet," she told her.
They waited. The sounds grew more distant until finally, they heard the distinct roar of a car engine.
Terri released a hot breath of relief.
"He's going," she told Darlene.
"Who is he?" she asked.
"A modern-day Frankenstein," Terri replied. "Let's get some help," she added and held up the cellular phone she had been grasping tightly during the whole flight. Before she could flip it open to punch out a 911 call, it rang. For a moment it was as if she was holding a hand grenade that had just been triggered. It was truly like a small explosion. She nearly dropped the phone. Then, she flipped it open and brought it to her ear slowly. She didn't say hello. She held it there.
"Garret?" she heard. "Doctor Stanley? Are you there?" That voice.
She couldn't mistake it.
It was Will Dennis.
"I now know how he knew you had spoken to Paula Gilbert," she muttered as she closed the phone.
"I don't understand," Darlene said.
Terri shook her head and looked at the cell phone. She truly felt as if the legs had been cut out from under her and sat back stunned.
She looked at the phone.
It had been a hand grenade after all.
NINETEEN
Anxious and impatient, he decided to wait for the Samuelses in their room. Surprise was always his best friend in situations like this, he thought. There would be no need to manufacture some reason to be there. No reason to tax his brain. He found the master key for all the rooms and just sauntered down as if he was carrying out some mediocre, simple responsibility. When he entered the room, he saw they had left a lamp on next to the bed and a light on in the bathroom.
"Sure, what do you care about my electric expenses," he muttered. He liked playing a role, enjoyed slipping into identities, assuming someone else's life, even that ugly man decomposing in his living room. At least, he had a life of some sort.
When you're desperate for an identity, you take what you find, he told whatever part of him even suggested criticism. Survival takes precedent over everything and anything else. And what great difference did it make anyway? Very soon he would drop this identity and leave it behind like an old suit of clothes. In a sense he resembled a snake, shedding its skin. He didn't mind the analogy really. How clever it was to be able to take off your skin and replace it with a brand-new covering?
Curious about these people now, he passed the time by going through their bags. He held up Mrs. Samuels's undergarments, deciding she was quite conservative and obviously very wide in the hips. Charles Samuels had very uninteresting clothing, too. His suit and two sports jackets were bland, simple, and not very expensive.
He found some personal papers, business cards that told him Charles Samuels was a loan officer in a bank. There was a letter from some cousin in Kingston describing her new home and inviting the Samuelses to visit. The directions to the house were in the letter. He thought about it a moment and wondered if this was a sign. Should he be heading there? Nothing dramatic happened, no ringing in his head, but still, he thought he should give it consideration, so he folded it up and put it into his pants pocket.
It was time to plan. What would he do exactly when the Samuelses arrived? He had thought of something, he realized. Before he had ambled down here, he had made something of a plan. What was it? Damn this memory thing. He had to restore whatever it was in him that was bringing about these lapses. That was for sure.
He looked at the bed and saw the long, serrated bread knife he had brought along.
"Oh yeah," he said aloud. "The best way to say hello." Remembering restored his confidence in himself. He sat comfortably now and waited. They couldn't be much longer. People who didn't know an area wouldn't spend much time out there at night. They would find the restaurant they wanted, eat, and come right back. He checked his watch. It occurred to him that he wasn't sure exactly when they had left. Time was becoming very obscure again, liquefying and freezing into a piece of ice. He couldn't hold on to it at all. Had ten minutes passed or an hour? When did he walk in here? All these little confusions were mounting.