“She’s hurt bad,” Lester said as they moved toward the cabin. “Must have tried to climb a tree to see where she was and she fell. Her leg’s broke in a couple of places.”
Sam went over to her. She was breathing slowly, her eyes closed.
“I sneak over and leave food,” Lester said. “I do it when she’s asleep, ‘cause I don’t want her to look at me.”
“What happens when people look at you?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know exactly,” Lester answered. “When my brother and I were kids, we used to just scare folks mostly… but then it got worse. It’s nothing I can stop from happening… I think… people look at us… they see too much.”
“All their memories and all their fears,” Sam said, almost to himself.
Lester nodded. “I guess you could say that.”
Sam glanced about the room, his eyes lighting on another body laid out on a blanket, the unwrapped corpse of Lester’s brother, Larry.
“Why’d you wrap your brother up like that?” Sam asked.
“My brother and I, sometimes we would draw in this weird language. We never knew what it meant, but I thought maybe if I wrapped him up like that, put him somewhere special with all that writing all around him then…”
“Maybe he’d come back to life.”
“Kind of foolish, huh?”
“No, Lester,” Sam said. “I don’t think that’s foolish at all.”
Lester shook his head. “I never meant to hurt any of those people that dug up the grave. I was just trying to get help for the little girl.” He seemed almost to shudder at the way people reacted to him. “And the lady, the one that was coming out of the grave… I only looked at her for a second.”
“She’s going to be fine,” Sam assured him.
Lester looked at Sam with childlike helplessness. “My… whatever it is I do to people… I guess it got stronger after Larry left… I never really wanted anyone to get hurt.”
Sam’s gaze drifted toward the floor, where he suddenly noticed spots of blood. “You’re hurt too,” he said to Lester. “We’ve got to get you to a doctor.”
Lester shook his head determinedly. “No, just worry about the little girl.”
Sam glanced back at her.
She stirred briefly, then opened her eyes.
“Hi,” Sam said softly.
“Hi,” the little girl said. “Are you the one who’s been bringing me food?”
“No, sweetheart. What’s your name?”
“Wendy.”
“Well, you’re going to be just fine, Wendy.”
Wendy looked at Lester. “Is that him? I want to say thanks.”
Lester moved quickly into the shadows.
“Not now,” Sam said, blocking her view of Lester. “Listen, I’m gonna pick you up. It might hurt a little. Can you be brave?”
Wendy nodded.
Sam reached to lift Wendy into his arms, and as he did so, a rock shattered one of the cabin windows.
“Bring him out, Lester,” someone cried from beyond the window.
Sam crouched at the window, lifted his head slightly and peered out. In the clearing, a group of local people held torches while others emptied cans of gasoline all around the cabin.
“The little girl is in here,” Sam shouted. He saw Wendy’s mother step out of the crowd.
“Stop pouring the gas,” she cried. “Wendy’s in there.”
“I’m coming out with the girl,” Sam shouted. He looked at Wendy. “You ready, honey?”
Wendy nodded.
Sam drew her into his arms and headed for the door.
Lester stepped away, but not before Wendy caught him in her eye.
“Mister?” she said sweetly. “Thank you.”
Lester touched her face with his strange hand. “You’re welcome,” he said.
Wendy’s mother rushed forward as Sam came out of the cabin.
“Thank God,” she cried, her eyes suddenly fixed on Wendy’s injured leg.
“Did he do this to you?” she asked her.
“No, Mommy,” Wendy replied. “I fell out of a tree.”
A man stepped up to Louise. “Get Wendy back to the car,” he told her. “We’re going to finish this once and for all.”
Sam felt a level of fear he’d never experienced before. He’d never been surrounded like this, lost and helpless and utterly misunderstood… as Lester was.
“Why don’t you let me take it from here.”
The familiar voice came from out of the darkness, and Sam suddenly realized it was his brother, Eric.
Eric stepped forward, Kerby and the deputy and Dr. Shilling just behind him, keeping their pace with his, all three of them moving at Eric’s command.
“What are you doing here, Eric?” Sam asked.
Eric lifted the copy of the Anchorage newspaper Sam had left in Las Vegas. “You weren’t very hard to follow, Sam,” he said. “And from everything the sheriff and Dr. Shilling have been telling me, you’ve got something here that’s important to the project.” He looked at Sam pointedly. “I’m here to keep you from doing anything… unfortunate.”
Sam’s face grew taut. “There’s nothing here for you, Eric.”
Eric smiled. “I think I’d like to see for myself.” He stepped toward the cabin, but Sam blocked his way.
“You can’t go in there,” Sam told him firmly.
“You’re going to stop me?” Eric said mockingly.
“You could be killed, Eric.”
Eric released a mirthless chuckle. “You care about me? Sam, I’m touched.”
Sam grabbed his arm. “I’m not going to let you take him.”
“Get your hand off me,” Eric snapped, pulling his arm away.
Suddenly Leo pushed his way out of the crowd and ran toward the house.
A man stopped him, a Zippo lighter in his hand. “Step back, Leo. We’re going to put Lester out of his misery.” He lit the lighter. “Stand back,” he said, then tossed the lighter to the ground.
The porch ignited, flames rising greedily up the walls and supporting posts. Sam wheeled around and charged through the flames and into the cabin where Lester stood in the far corner, Larry in his arms.
A wall of flame separated him from Lester, but through that wall, Sam could see it playing like a home movie in the bottomless pools of Lester’s two almond eyes: Eric as a little boy, running through the house, then his mother, spilling drinks over his brother’s homework. Suddenly he was in his father’s study, watching helplessly as his mother ransacked it, then again years later, his father standing at the safe, drawing something out of it, a small piece of metal.
He screamed, as all his memories flooded over him in a sea of anguish, and suddenly he felt himself hurled back from the past, returned to the cabin in time to watch helplessly as Lester stepped into the flames, his own death now burning in him, reducing him to ash.
Chapter Three
Owen had imagined happiness as such a simple thing, just the feel of his granddaughter in his arms, the way her large eyes seemed to study him, as if already yearning for his secret.
“Come on, Mary, say ‘Grandpa,’ ” he said quietly.
“She’s only a week old,” Julie told him.
Owen laughed. “Of course.” He looked at the baby tenderly. “I wish Sam…”
“Right,” Eric blurted stiffly. He reached out and pulled Mary from his father’s caress and handed her to his wife. “Julie, could you give Dad and me a minute?”
Julie rose, holding Mary to her chest, and left the room like an obedient soldier summarily dismissed.
“I bring my baby over to you, and you think about Sam,” Eric said sourly.
“I’m worried about him,” Owen explained. “I haven’t heard a word from him since he left.”
“You won’t be hearing from him anymore, Dad.”
Owen stared at Eric darkly. “What are you talking about?”
“Sam is dead,” Eric told him brutally.
Owen felt his soul empty.
Eric’s voice was as cruel as his eyes. “He went trying to find proof that would destroy you. He died trying to bring you down. He hated you that much.”