There was no one else in the room.
But the window stood open, framing moonlit darkness.
Then that utterly bizarre voice seemed to gush around his head in a mad circle:
“Your useless brother is now a fat whore for the devil’s minions, as you too will be, very soon. . . .”
Ricky stared in the dark. This time the voice had seemed to have no source. It came from everywhere, or nowhere.
He thrust his head out the window and saw the figure standing between some trees at the very end of the yard.
That is one fast motherfucker! How’d he get all the way out there so fast?
A cloud moved off; then a bar of moonlight fell ever so briefly across the figure’s face, and Ricky’s teeth ground, because he knew who it was. . . .
And then the figure’s voice returned one last time, not from the figure itself but again a mushlike gurgle churning around Ricky’s head as it bade its final promise before the figure disappeared.
The voice said this: “Curse thee.”
Running after him would be pointless. Ricky pulled back into the room, confused, sick, and enraged. But something tempered that rage—even sociopaths felt fear.
He took deep breaths in the dark bedroom. Now instead of the evil voice it was the sound of cicadas that flowed into the room, and it was then that Ricky realized he was still holding the piece of paper he’d found in the living room.
He turned on the light and looked at it.
A single word was scrawled on a sheet of white paper, in something like brown chalk: wenden.
(II)
“I want you out of there right now! More murders? That place is dangerous.”
Patricia sat comfortably on the bed. Sunlight streamed into the room, warming her face. It was Byron she was talking to on her cell, and the previous, very loud exclamation had been his response when she’d told him about the burning last night, and the gruesome deaths of David Eald and his daughter. “Honey, you’re overreacting again. It’s just some people way out on the Point who got involved with drugs—”
“And those two people who got murdered the other night—what was their name? The Hilds? The Halds? Whatever! They were involved in drugs, too! Which is why I want your butt in your car right now, heading north!”
Patricia rolled her eyes. “There’s plenty of drug-related crime in D.C., but we don’t move because of it.”
“That’s four murders in a week,” Byron countered. “No, five. Don’t forget about Dwayne, the whole reason you went back to that nutty place.”
“The Ealds weren’t murdered. Their place burned down, probably an accident. It’s actually kind of common in makeshift meth labs. Making the stuff involves several flammable solvents.”
“That’s supposed to put me at ease? It’s okay because it’s common for drug labs to burn down?”
“No, but I’m just saying—”
“And it could just as easily be that someone else torched the place, couldn’t it? Another turf murder. Didn’t you say the Hilds were murdered by a rival drug gang for operating on their turf?”
“Well, it’s possible. That’s what the police think. But . . .” She paused over the phone. How can I argue with him? He’s actually right. The place very easily could have been burned down by a rival drug gang. “Honey, still, you’re overreacting. Everything’s fine here, and we’re perfectly safe. Judy’s still shaken up over the funeral and all, so that’s why I’m here. I told you, I won’t be gone longer than a week.”
“Promise.”
She laughed. “I promise!”
“So what are you going to do today? Chew tobacco? Sit on the porch in a rocking chair?”
“Agan’s Point isn’t quite that backward. I’m just going to go for a drive into town this morning—”
“You shouldn’t be driving into town; you should be driving out of town.”
She just shook her head and continued. “And then I’ll probably just hang around the house and help Judy with some things.” She began to tell him about the big clan cookout tomorrow—if the Squatters still had it now—but as she talked, her focus dissolved. Was that a splattering she heard? Yes, and a hiss. She noticed then that her bedroom door was open a crack, and as she peered down the hall, she saw that the bathroom door, too, stood open a few inches.
Ernie’s in there taking a shower, she realized. He’s so used to having this wing of the house to himself that he forgot to close the door. . . . This wouldn’t have meant anything to her, but . . .
She could see flesh.
A convenient angle allowed the shower to reflect in the bathroom mirror, which she could see a significant slice of through the crack in the door.
She kept talking to her husband without even thinking, and suddenly had gotten up and walked to her own door for a better view. She could see him in there, all right—he hadn’t closed the shower curtain.
My God, what am I doing? What if he saw me? He’d think I was a total perv . . . which I guess I am. A female voyeur? Looking at other people in secret had never been a desire of hers, but then a lot of things about herself had changed since she’d gotten back. What would Dr. Sallee say about this? she wondered. It was just the midlife sexual peak of all women, so . . .
Was it that bad?
Her sense of guilt struggled to cut into her thoughts—as she continued to talk to her loving husband, no less—but she easily blocked them out.
And watched.
And then imagined.
Suddenly she saw herself in the shower with Ernie, and the more deeply she thought about it, the more clearly the vision focused. . . .
He wasn’t even surprised as she stepped in; it was as though he were expecting her, as though his flesh were a summons to her desire, and he knew it. When the cool spray hit Patricia’s breasts, her nipples shot right up. Something else shot right up, too, when she put her hand to his sudsy groin. She could feel it beating in her hand.
Then, in gestures that nearly seemed rough, his calloused hands spun her around by the hips, and then he was feeling her up into a suit of suds. He stood behind her, his manhood hot against her buttocks. He was manipulating her flesh the way a sculptor manipulated clay. Patricia grew short of breath at once, rising on her tiptoes, her mouth and eyes wide open. The rough fingers skipped back and forth between corkscrewing her nipples and massaging her sex. She just stood there and let herself be felt. . . .
She talked on to Byron, locked in some split stream of consciousness, communicating to him and regarding his replies with no real awareness . . . while the rest of her mind delved deeper into the sexual musing. Ernie still stood behind her, the shower hissing over them. One strong forearm locked around her waist, and then he was lifting her up. Her feet came off the shower floor. She could feel her buttocks sliding over his penis as she continued to rise, as if he would penetrate her from behind with her feet off the ground. Her sex burned; she was squirming—
Oh, God, no . . .
“Patricia?”
It was about to nudge into her all at once.
“Patricia? Damn, I think your cell phone cut out. Can you hear me?”
Her legs were tensing, her back arching as her inflamed breasts and nipples thrust outward, and she was already beginning to cli—
“Patricia!”
Reality slapped her in the face. No, she wasn’t in the shower with Ernie; she was talking to her husband! “I’m here,” she assured him, waiting for her heart to slow down.