Heather? Perhaps it was time to tell her, to ask for her help and suggestions. He could not hide his separation from Roy forever. But what could she do? She was a slender, rather timid girl, very pretty and nice and smart, but not much good in a fight like this.
He sighed.
“Jeez.”
He took his hand off the telephone.
There was no one on earth from whom he could hope to get help. No one.
He was as alone as if he had been standing at the North Pole. Utterly, perfectly, unrelievedly alone. But he was accustomed to that.
When had it ever been different?
He went upstairs.
In the past, whenever the world seemed too harsh and difficult to handle, he simply retreated from it. He had squirreled away with his monster models, his comic-book collection, and his shelves of science-fiction and horror novels. His room had been a sanctuary, the eye of the hurricane, where the storm could not touch him, where it could even be forgotten for a while. His room had always done for him what a hospital did for a sick man and what a monastery did for a monk: It healed him and it made him feel that in some mystical way he was part of something far, far more important and better than everyday life. His room had been filled with magic. It had been his refuge and his stage, where he could either hide from the world and from himself, too-or act out his fantasies for an audience of one. His room had been his place to weep and his playground, his church and his laboratory, the repository of his dreams.
Now it was just a room like any other. A ceiling. Four walls. A floor. A window. A door. Nothing more than that. Just one more place to be.
When Roy had come in here alone, uninvited, unwanted, he had broken the delicate spell that made this place unique. He had surely snooped through all the drawers and books and monster model kits, and in doing that he had also pawed through Colin’s soul without ever realizing it. With his crude touch he had drained the magic out of everything in the room, just as a lightning rod draws magnificent bolts of energy from the sky and disperses them so widely in the earth that they cease to exist at all. Nothing here was special any longer, and none of it would ever be special again. Colin felt violated, raped; he felt used and discarded. But Roy Borden had stolen a great deal more than privacy and pride; he had also made off with what remained of Colin’s shaky sense of security. And even more than that, much worse than that, he was a thief of illusions; he had taken all of those false but wonderfully comforting beliefs that Colin had long cherished.
Colin was depressed, yet he was also aware of a strange new power that was beginning to shine within him. Although he nearly had been killed just minutes ago, he was less afraid at this moment than at any time in memory. For the first time in his life, he did not feel weak or inferior. He was still the same second-rate physical specimen that he had always been-skinny, myopic, poorly coordinated-but inside he felt all new, fresh, and capable of anything.
He did not cry, and he was proud of that.
At the moment there was no room in him for tears; he was filled with a need for revenge.
PART THREE
35
Colin spent the rest of Friday in his room. He read parts of the three psychology books that he’d brought home from the library, and he reread some pages as often as half a dozen times. When he wasn’t studying, he stared at the wall, sometimes for as long as an hour, just thinking. And planning.
When he left the house early the next morning, the sky was high and bright and cloudless. He intended to meet Heather at twelve o‘clock, spend the afternoon at the beach, and be home by nightfall; nevertheless, he took a flashlight with him.
He rode his bicycle down to the beach, then to the harbor, even though he didn’t have any immediate business in either of those places. He was taking a roundabout route to his real destination in order to make certain that he wasn’t followed. He could see that Roy wasn’t close behind him, but perhaps the boy was watching from a distance through the same pair of high-power binoculars they had used when they were spying on Sarah Callahan. From the harbor, Colin cycled to the tourist information center at the north end of town. Satisfied that he had no tail, he finally struck out directly for Hawk Drive and the Kingman place.
Even in bright daylight, the abandoned house loomed threateningly at the top of the hill. Colin approached it with uneasiness that changed to quiet fear by the time he entered the gate and started up the broken flagstone walk. If he had been the state official in charge of the property, or the mayor of Santa Leona, he would have called for the complete and immediate destruction of the place for the good of the community. He still thought the house exuded a tangible evil, a menace that could be felt and seen as clearly as the California sunshine that now dazzled his eyes and warmed his face. Three large, black birds circled over the roof and finally perched on a chimney. The house seemed to be aware, watchful, infused with a malignant life force. The weathered gray walls looked scabrous, diseased, cancerous. Rusting nails resembled old wounds: stigmata. Sunlight seemed unable to penetrate the mysterious spaces beyond the missing windowpanes, and from outside, at least, the inside of the mansion appeared to be as dark now as it would be at midnight.
Colin put his bicycle down in the grass, climbed the sagging porch steps, and looked through the shattered window where he and Roy had stood one night not long ago. On closer inspection, Colin saw that some light did reach into the house. The drawing room was visible in every detail. At one time it must have served as a clubhouse for a group of boys-for candy wrappers, empty soda cans, and cigarette butts were strewn across the bare, scarred floor. A faded and tattered Playboy centerfold was fixed above the fireplace, over the same mantel on which Mr. Kingman had lined up the blood-splashed heads of his slaughtered family. The kids who had been using the house as a hangout had not been around for many months-a thick, undisturbed layer of dust covered everything.
The front entrance was unlocked, but the corroded hinges squealed as Colin pushed on the warped door. The wind rushed in around him and stirred up a small cloud of dust in the foyer. Inside, the air was heavily tinted with the odors of mildew and dry rot.
As Colin prowled from room to room, he saw that vandals had been at work in every comer of the huge house. Boys’ names, obscene words, dirty limericks, and crude drawings of male and female genitalia were scrawled wherever there was bare plaster or fairly plain wallpaper. Ragged holes-some only as large as a hand, others nearly as big as a door-had been knocked in the walls. Piles of plaster and splintered laths littered the place.
When Colin stood perfectly still, the old house was ethereally quiet. But when he moved, the arthritic structure responded to each step he took; its joints groaned on all sides of him.
Several times he thought he heard something creeping up behind him, but when he looked he was always alone. For the most part, he moved through the ruins without a thought for ghosts and monsters. He was surprised and pleased by his newly acquired bravery-and just a bit uncomfortable with it. Only a few weeks ago, he would have refused to cross the Kingman threshold by himself, even if there had been a million-dollar prize at stake.
He was in the mansion more than two hours. He did not overlook a room or even a closet. In those chambers where all the windows were boarded shut, he used the flashlight that he had brought along. He spent most of the time on the second floor, exploring every nook-and planning a surprise or two for Roy Borden.
36
There was, after all, something that Heather could do to help him. In fact, she was perhaps the most essential part of the revenge plot that he concocted. Without her co-operation, he would have to find another way to get Roy. Colin didn’t intend that she fight at his side. He wasn’t relying on her strength or agility. He wanted to use her as bait.