Children of the Storm (10 page)

    Sonya thought that she detected an eagerness to see an end to the affair, even at the cost of the madman's original intent, but she did not think it was her place to say so.

    “You're right, I suppose,” she said.

    He smiled, nodded. “I wanted you to have our schedule in the event of some accident. I didn't mean to upset you, Sonya.”

    “I'm okay now,” she said.

    “Good. We'll see you again in a couple of weeks, then.”

    “Have a good trip,” she said.

    “We will, thank you.”

    The steps down from the third floor seemed endless, shifting and treacherous, for Sonya was the slightest bit dizzy. She went to her own room and lay down on the bed, the Doughertys' vacation schedule still clutched in her hand.

    It would be all right.

    She thought of Kenneth Blenwell, of the darkened rooms of Hawk House, thought of the old couple vegetating before the television set, thought of the strength in Kenneth's hands when he had gripped her arm…

    The two alligators, framing the looking-glass, seemed almost alive, snapping at each other.

    Sonya calmly forced herself to think about Bill Peterson who, if Blenwell represented danger, represented safety and security: he was light where Kenneth Blenwell was dark; he was gay where Blenwell was sullen; he was open where Blenwell was closed and foreboding; he was simple and direct, where Blenwell was unnecessarily complex and duplicitous. He was easily as strong as Blenwell, as tall, as vigorous, and surely more dependable. As long as Bill was around, she thought, nothing too terrible could happen to anyone.

    And, of course, Rudolph Saine would be near at
all
times, hovering just at the edge of her sight, his pistol holstered under his arm, his eyes watchful. That should make her feel even safer. Between Peterson and Rudolph Saine, nothing bad could happen, absolutely nothing.

    

    

    Shortly past nine o'clock on Sunday evening, having eaten a simple meal with the rest of the staff and unable to become interested in the novel she was reading, Sonya went for a walk, alone, in the gardens to the north of Seawatch. Here, small cactus of many varieties, miniature palm trees, orange trees, tropical roses, arbors full of bougainvillea, and wild orchids of countless strains were kept in neat and yet colorful order by Leroy Mills. She was assailed by one heady scent close after the other: second crop orange blossoms, the warm sweetness of bougainvillea, the mustiness of the cactus, the indescribable fragrance of hundreds of blooming orchids. In this wonderful olfactory fantasyland, where even the semi-darkness gave view of colors that were bright and striking, she was able to forget the last traces of her lingering fear, at least temporarily, and give herself over to the pleasures of communing with Nature's loveliest creations.

    Stone walkways meandered through the garden, carrying her from one type of flower to another, from palms to orange trees, to orchids and to roses, through the sheltering arbors and out again, Seawatch, heavily lighted, threw a pale yellow glow even this far and, though leaving her shrouded in purple shadows, made her feel sale and relaxed.

    She could, if she paused in her stroll a moment, hear the soft sussuration of the roiling sea as it slid into the beach quite close at hand. It was a calming sound, rhythmic, as soothing as a mother's kiss.

    She sat upon a stone bench which was situated twenty feet from the garden path, between two dense arms of shoulder-high tropical rose bushes, listening to the sea and enjoying the exotic fragrances that hung like heavy clothing on the moist night air. The bench was swathed in shadows, which must have been the reason why the man who suddenly appeared on the walkway, moving toward Seawatch with a swift and purposeful stride, didn't see her immediately…

    Over the hypnotic boom of the surf and the after-echoes of each rushing wave, she thought that she heard someone cough: once, sharply, as if to clear the throat.

    A moment later, leaning forward on the bench in order to hear better, she fancied that she detected the sound of approaching footsteps on the garden path. Abruptly, as the man walked out of the arbor of bougainvillea on his way toward the house, her fancy was proven real.

    She rose, to go meet him, whoever he was.

    For an instant, in the back of her mind, there rose the notion that he might not be someone she knew-and even if he were, he might not be a friend at all. But she brushed away the pessimistic thought and went toward the path.

    She could not see who he was, for the darkness was a mask across his face, and it played deceptive tricks with his size and build.

    As yet, he was oblivious of her.

    She saw that his loping stride would carry him past her before she could reach the path, and she said, “Who's there?”

    He stopped cold.

    “Bill?”

    He said nothing.

    “Bill?” she repeated, because that was who she hoped he was, not because she recognized him.

    He seemed frozen to the spot.

    Hypnotized…

    She stopped, too, half a dozen quick steps away from him, alerted by some subliminal danger signal, still unable to see just who he was. He was only a silhouette. A mass of shadows shaped somewhat like a man, nothing more.

    “Rudolph?”

    She could hear him breathing.

    He said nothing.

    Then, as if the words had been spoken by someone else who had magically possessed her body, her back cold with sudden perspiration, she said, “Ken?”

    He turned and ran.

    “Wait!” she shouted.

    He disappeared into the arbor from which he had originally come, his darkness blending in perfectly with the deeper darkness of that leafy tunnel, gone like a genie vanishing back into the lamp.

    She went after him.

    Sonya knew, now, knew more surely than she could ever have put into words, that she had accidentally encountered the same man who had made the threats against Alex and Tina… the man who had driven the Dougherty family from its home in New Jersey to Seawatch and
Distingue
… the man with all the tales about knives and mutilation… torture and death. She could not have produced any real or circumstantial evidence to prove her conclusion. Instead, her certainty was based upon some sixth or seventh sense, on some unexplained but undeniable flash of clairvoyance: this is the man!

    And if she were correct; if this
were
the madman who had caused so much anguish, she could not let him get away scott free without first catching a glimpse of his face or of some other distinguishing feature that would later serve to identify him: his exact size, his build, his manner of dress.

    She ran after him.

    The sea was forgotten, though it still thumped the beach and echoed on the flat sands.

    The flowers were forgotten too. All she could think about was catching up to the stranger.

    She ran into the open mouth of the waiting arbor.

    She brushed the leaves aside, at the opening, felt them slither over her bare arms like the delicate wings of insects, and she stepped into unrelieved blackness.

    She had thought that he would run the entire length of the arbor, into the open air again, from there across the remainder of the gardens and into the thick, sheltering pine forests of the central part of the island, much too quick for her to catch. But she had been wrong about that, very wrong.

    He remained in the arbor.

    He stood quite still against the lefthand wall, holding his breath, listening for pursuit.

    He was waiting for her.

    She did not disappoint him.

    She cried out when she brushed against him, recoiled like a kitten from a snake.

    She turned.

    He grabbed her, whirled her around to face him once more, though in that pitch, she could only suppose they were face-to-face.

    His hands let go of her arms and, in an instant, had a tight hold on her neck.

    She screamed.

    It was a terribly weak scream, too shallow to have carried clear over to Seawatch, much too shallow to be heard and draw any help. A useless, whispered scream…

    He pressed her back against the wall of the arbor.

    Hard ropy vines gouged at her back, like horns or like talons, hurting her.

    Even now, even as she gagged and twisted under the pressure of his large, dry, determined hands, Sonya tried to see something of him. His face could be no more than inches away from her own, for she could feel the wash of his rapidly exhaled breaths against her forehead… But the darkness, in the final analysis, was too deep, too intense for her to discover anything at all about him. Except, of course, that he was frightened of being discovered and that his hands, his squeezing hands, were awfully large and strong.

    Strangely, though his grip on her throat was decidedly uncomfortable, it was not deadly. He held her against the wall of the arbor, and he cut off most of her breath, but he delayed making that last little bit of effort that would finish her off-almost as if he had to have time to build up his courage for the kill…

    She squirmed, tried to pull free of him, found that she was only making the pain at her throat worse, like a hot file scraping away at half her esophagus.

    She tried to scream again.

    No sound: just pain.

    Okay, no screaming. She would talk to him, reason with him, ask him to please let her go so they could talk this over like reasonable human beings. But when she tried to speak softly and persuasively, she found that she had no more luck than she had had with her scream: the words remained unspoken, choked down.

    Without warning, without apparent reason, he tightened his hands, moving closer, having gotten the necessary courage…

    An even deeper darkness, a thousand times blacker than the pitch beneath the arbor, whirled and danced tantalizingly at the back of her mind, growing ever larger, closer, beginning to envelope her like soft raven wings-or like a shroud.

    For the first time in this nightmarish encounter, Sonya was genuinely, unreservedly terrified and not merely afraid. Her terror swelled, bloomed, blossomed into the ultimate horror: the expectation of certain death…

    Somehow, until this very minute, she had not been able to envision herself as a corpse, lifeless and cold and finished forever. Perhaps it was an absurd application of her overly-optimistic approach to everything in life, but she honestly had not seriously considered the possibility that she might die here, in the gardens, between the madman's hard, dry and deadly hands.

    Now, of necessity, she understood.

    She grabbed his wrists.

    They were thick, corded with muscle.

    She could not budge them.

    Quickly, she slid her hands along his arms, to his biceps, trying to force him away.

    Blackness: closer, closer…

    She raked her nails at his face. And again. She missed both times, striking only air.

    She twisted and fought, growled deep in her throat as she felt herself weakening and knew that she must not give in to that sweet, beckoning unconsciousness that, right now, seemed so welcome, so very desirable.

    He was gasping for air, too, as if he were the one who was being methodically strangled to death, and he whimpered eerily, like some wounded animal, with each indrawn breath. Sonya could sense, rather than feel, the great, nervous tremors which shook the man's entire body like reverberations passing through a gong.

    She knew that she had only moments left. Almost unconsciously, with the mindless desperation of a cornered animal, she raised her right foot and brought the hard, plastic heel of her loafer down solidly on the toes of his left foot, ground hard. He was wearing only canvas-topped sneakers, which afforded him no protection at all.

    He cried out, let go of her with one hand as he reached for his injured foot.

    She twisted, pushed hard against him, tore free.

    “Hey!”

    She ran, sobbing hysterically, collided with the far wall of the arbor, re-oriented herself, and made for the open end of the arbor, the way she had come.

    He grabbed her shoulder and sent her stumbling into the wall again. Somehow, even hurt as he was, he was right behind her.

    She pushed off the wall, out of his grip, and ran again.

    Curiously, although he was no longer throttling her, Sonya felt still on the edge of unconsciousness; that formless, black cloud grew nearer, nearer still, soft and warm. She only managed to keep going because the thought of collapsing so close to escape utterly infuriated her-and from her fury, she found a few last dregs of energy.

    The end of the arbor was only thirty feet away, though she would not have questioned anyone who told her that it was really a mile instead; it
felt
like a mile, each step a major journey. Then the air was cooler, the darkness less dark… At the end of the arbor, he caught her again, one hand on her shoulder, spun her around with a suddenness that jerked her off balance.

    She gasped, staggered, almost fell.

    He would have gone for her throat in another second, and then she would have been finished for sure. But she did not give him that second; she stamped out, twice, caught his injured foot on the second try. She did not strike it hard, but just hard enough.

    He yelped, hopped to one foot, fell with a crash.

    She turned and ran again.

    The night air was cooler than she remembered it, really cool, almost chilly.