Ortiz’s instincts were in high gear; he could almost hear the final pieces of the puzzle clicking into place. “Please, let’s sit for a moment, perhaps this will save you a trip to the station, Mrs. Chandler.” He motioned toward the porch swing with all the hopefulness of a boy trying to get his date to sit there for a little making out before the porch light flipped on.
“Please, call me Betty. I don’t really know where to begin Officer Ortiz…”
“Calm down, Betty, we’ll get through this just fine. And call me Robert. When did this Mr. Rodman or Blaakman show up?”
“Chris McCauley brought him a few weeks ago after the bus dropped him off. The three of us had dinner that first night. He paid for a month in cash, up front, and I’ve hardly seen him since. He comes and goes a lot, sometimes at strange hours. But then Chris showed up and I… heard them talking, here, on the porch. That’s when he told Chris his real name. He told this awful story. It was crazy.” She paused, looking as scared and confused as Ortiz had ever seen anyone look. “But he got Chris to agree to let him talk to his brother. I didn’t know what to do… but today I went into his room and found this.” She held out the notebook. “Officer… Robert… it’s horrible, it can’t be true. I think the man is crazy. I’m afraid he is the one killing kids and he made up this awful fairy tale and somehow Chris believed it…” She broke down, her body heaving with sobs and shaking with fear at the same time. “My Lord, he went out somewhere with Dennis O’Brien and Billy Cummings! Robert, he was in my h-house!”
Ortiz nodded slowly, more pieces falling into place. He placed a gentle arm around her shoulders. “I’m sure those boys are fine. I know it’s difficult Betty, but I need to know everything. Lives could depend on it.”
She handed him the notebook. “It’s all in here.” she said flatly.
“Betty, I think I am running out of time, please, just tell me what you heard?”
She wiped her eyes with a lace handkerchief that seemed to appear from nowhere, quickly regaining composure, and began talking. “He was in the military, on the old base back in the forties. He claims the base wasn’t an ammunition storage plant. He says they did experiments there and they… they created some kind of monster. He thought it was dead when the base blew up, but now he thinks it’s still alive. He thinks it killed all those kids in 1961, that Greymore was innocent, and that it’s back again. There are some tunnels or caves out where the old base was, he thinks it lives there.”
Ortiz got up to leave, taking the notebook with him. He would try to find Chris then head into the woods to find the tunnels. “Thank you, Betty, you may have just saved a lot of lives.”
Betty also stood and grabbed his arm. “There’s one more thing… Moses Blaakman is Janice O’Brien’s father.”
And with an almost-audible click, the last piece of the puzzle was in place. He nodded, “Thank you again, Betty. Please don’t tell anyone else about this until you hear from me. And if Mr. Blaakman shows up, call the station if you want, but I don’t think you have anything to fear from him.”
“Does that mean… you think… this is all true?” She sounded more scared than when she thought a mass murderer was renting a room from her.
“I’m afraid so. I don’t know how there are such gaps in the killings, but I believe there is something in that lake responsible. I think Greymore is as innocent now as he was back in 1961.”
Betty’s face paled even more, the gravity of what that meant hitting her full on. She sat down heavily on the swing, looking shocked. “Make it right, Robert… for Haven…”
“I’ll try.” He jumped into his car and headed off to find Chris McCauley.
Part III
(93)
The three figures crouched in the deepening shadows of the lantern light. The trees looked black against a deep blue sky. A lazy breeze was trying to gather strength, inspiring a slow dance from the lantern’s flame. Crickets offered the soundtrack to the night, until a thrashing in the bushes silenced them, causing three heads to snap in the direction of the sound. “Just a fox, boys,” Mossy rasped.
Denny looked around, saw Billy looking at him. “Let’s get going before I chicken out.”
Mossy shook his head. “I wish you would chicken out and let me do this alone, but I know I can’t stop you if you follow.”
Denny and Billy had done what the old man wanted—helped him find the entrance. It was then Denny revealed his real plan to go into the caves with him. It came as no surprise to Billy and he quickly agreed. “Like Denny said, let’s do it. We’ve talked enough.” Billy’s voice had a hardened edge: an adult-like tone that sounded a lot like Joe.
The three silently shouldered their packs and with Mossy in the lead and Billy going last, they descended. Once below ground, away from the sounds of the woods, everything sounded louder. Mossy was out of breath climbing down the ladder. Billy’s backpack buckle clanged against the rungs. The globe of Denny’s lantern was loose, rattling in its seating. To Denny, it all sounded like a lunch bell calling the beast.
They took a moment at the landing to catch their breath.
“Boys, I know my way from here. Please, go back up the ladder and forget you ever saw this place.” His voice trembled. He knew it was unlikely he would get out alive and he felt the weight of two more deaths on his conscience if the boys went with him.
Both boys shook their heads in unison.
Mossy sighed. “Okay, let’s get this done and get home, I have a daughter to introduce myself to.”
Denny and Billy took the lead, carrying the lantern and watching for the red markings they had left last time. They trudged along in silence. The darkness around them felt like it was getting darker, stronger, weighing down on them. Slowing them from getting to their destination… but that would mean it was on their side. The thought felt irrational, almost nonsensical, until a stray song lyric found its way into his head. He would make the darkness his friend. Somehow, it made sense to think of it that way. Now Denny’s mind turned completely inward, a chaotic assault of random thoughts and memories. Had Mossy or Billy been speaking, he would not have heard.
In his mind’s eye he saw his dad, casually throwing a baseball to him. When it bounced off his glove and dropped to the ground, his dad smiled and shouted some words of encouragement. Off to the side, Jimmy shook his head, and then joined in with his dad. “Next one, Denny, next one for sure!” His father’s tan, smiling face was suddenly white, almost gray, looking up at him from a hospital bed. Bruises surrounded his closed eyes, and tubes were in his nose and mouth. Next he was at Revere Beach building a sandcastle. Sweat and saltwater and sand and sunblock covered him from head to toe. He glanced up at his mom to see why she had stopped helping and found her staring down at him. She looked like an angel, the halo of the August sun glowing around her head. She watched Denny with a look so filled with love…
Suddenly he was roasting in a different sun, uncomfortably warm. He was wearing a suit: it was his father’s burial. His mother stood beside him, stoic. She was not crying, just staring.
Denny snapped back to the present with a pair of hands gripping his shoulders and tears streaming down his face. “Denny, what is it?” He was so disoriented it took him a minute of blinking into the lantern light looking wildly around before he realized where he was. He had no idea how much time had passed while he took his roller-coaster ride down memory lane. He felt like the time he had a molar pulled at the dentist. One minute he was counting backwards from one hundred with a mask over his face, the next he was bawling like a girl with no idea where he was, a gaping hole in his mouth where his tooth had been. “Denny? Are you okay?”