Found You (23 page)

At the close of his first day back to work, Steve found himself in a fairly empty police station with Bennie Mendez. The other detective had ribbed him some about looking all beat up, but not as much as Steve expected. Something in Mendez’s eyes, sublimating even the warm easiness of his smile, suggested that he knew Steve’s injuries were not a matter of jest.

As Steve picked up his car keys, he spied the folder labeled “Feinstein, Maxwell—Suicide” and picked it up. He crossed the room to Mendez’s desk. The detective didn’t look up, so Steve just slid the folder neatly on top of a pile of folders.

“Spun, signed, and done with.”

“Really?” Mendez kept his eyes on his paperwork.

“You can tell her we killed it. It isn’t coming back.”

Mendez didn’t answer. Steve moved away with a small smile, and it wasn’t until he reached the door that the other detective called his name.

Steve turned around. Mendez regarded him with an almost apologetic look. “I’ll tell her. Thanks, Steve.”

Detective Steven Corimar nodded. “My pleasure.” And he headed out into the night.

It had always been Erik’s habit to order a Diet Coke at the Olde Mill Tavern. He didn’t drink, as it came too close to using a drug for the likes of either him or his sponsor, but he liked the atmosphere, the noisy crowd of pretty, tight-clothed women and muscle-heads trying to pick them up, the jukebox music, the bleeps of that near-to-ancient Outrun arcade video game. He liked watching people with their different personalities, their different levels of control, their celebrations and good, hearty laughs, quiet smiles, and jealous observances. He liked watching how many times a guy would approach a girl’s back and turn away, and he’d bet to himself on whether the guy would have the guts, and if he did, whether he’d strike out.

It was a social society he would never quite be a part of, but that was okay. It soothed him, being outside and yet able to observe their lives. It was like watching an old familiar sitcom whose set design, characters, and canned laughter gave the comforting appearance of simple resolutions, of happy endings, of nothing ever being too much to handle or too hard to fix. It was escapist, coming to that bar, drinking those Diet Cokes, and Erik needed that.

After the first Hollower, he and Dave had made it quite a habit, going to the bar to escape things. Diet Cokes for Erik, and a shot of tequila—Jose Cuervo—and a Killians for Dave.

After Dave’s death, Erik thought of asking Jake but thought better of it. He might understand about the Diet Cokes, and his sponsor, Gary, might understand,
but there was no way that he, as a sponsor himself, could, in good conscience, invite his own recovering addict charge to a bar, virgin drinks or not. Besides, nowadays Jake and Dorrie spent a lot of time together. They’d even talked of moving in together, as that house on Cerver Street gave Dorrie the creeps and Jake was tired of sharing his own house with ghosts.

Erik’s going to the Olde Mill was a man thing, he always thought—man versus the elements, man versus himself, man conquering temptation and ruin, that sort of thing. So asking Casey was out.

Since Dave’s death—really, since the night of his funeral—Erik had developed a new habit. It seemed to skirt close to the edge of good recovering-addict behavior, but the bartender never cared because he still got the money and Gary had been swayed to Erik’s way of thinking when it had been explained.

Several weeks after they’d climbed sweating and bleeding and bruised all to hell out of the catacombs, Erik went to the bar alone. And as was his new habit, he ordered a Diet Coke, a shot of Jose Cuervo, and a Killians. The latter two he didn’t touch at all, nor did he let the bartender sweep them up with the empties and forgotten drinks of the night. He didn’t let any of the jostling, half-crocked jocks that often frequented the place scoop them up either. They sat untouched, slightly to the right of his Diet Coke as if waiting for the one to drink them to return from the men’s room, say, or from the Outrun game. In Erik’s mind, they were for Dave, and they stayed that way until closing time, until Erik walked out that door. He never turned around. He
never watched the bartender swipe the glasses and dump the booze, untouched. He didn’t have the heart to.

But that night several weeks after the catacombs was different. Erik sat there, sipping his nonalcoholic drink and watching an old man put the moves on a very drunk, somewhat chunky blonde in her early forties, whose eyes were half-closed and whose V-neck sweater was crooked enough that when she leaned over to hear what the old man was saying he got full view straight down. Behind Erik, the door opened and closed, and the unoccupied stool next to him was fitted with a familiar form.

“Steve.” Erik nodded at him. “How are ya?”

Steve nodded back. “Off duty to night. First night off since…” He waved it off, letting the obvious dangle between them. “Looking to get good and drunk.”

Erik considered this for a moment and then slid the shot and the Killians in front of the police officer.

“First of the night. On me. Drink up.”

Steve looked at the drinks skeptically. Erik supposed he was trying to figure out why he even had those drinks to dispense with in the first place.

“Seriously?”

Erik felt a lump in his throat, but nodded. “I…yeah, I think so.”

“Thanks.” Steve downed the shot and then kicked back the Killians. “God, I needed that.” He grinned brightly at Erik.

With a small smile, Erik turned back to his Diet Coke. “Do you like movies, father?”

“Huh?”

“Nothing. Line from an old movie.”

From the corner of his eye, Erik saw Steve nod, confused. “Ah. Well, for the record, I do like movies.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“We could catch one some time.” Steve held his hand up when Erik looked at him and seemed to tense a little. “Not as a date.”

Erik grinned. “So you’re not going to pay?”

Steve visibly relaxed. “Well, I was figuring that after the drinks, you were the paying type.”

“Hey, you asked me out. Although, I do consider myself a gentleman, of course…”

After that, the conversation was easy, even comfortable. They talked about the Mets and the Giants, they talked about places they’d traveled, about movies that sucked and movies they loved and their jobs and their high school days and psycho exes and what it might be like to spend a weekend partying with Derek Jeter. Steve introduced his attraction to men casually, off-handedly, and Erik acknowledged it by simply taking it in stride. They talked about books and Erik’s wedding plans and whether the old man was going to bag the chunky blonde. They even talked about Dave. The Hollower, though, never came up once—not because of an empty superstition of bringing them back through a new rip between worlds, but because, maybe for the first time, the subject finally seemed done and closed.

Steve got up to leave, and Erik said, “Still wanna catch a movie?”

The police officer nodded. “I know where to find you.”

“Long arm of the law.”

Steve grinned, considered something for a moment, then said in a conspiratorial lean, “Not just my arm.”

Erik laughed, and Steve looked relieved when he opened the door and tipped out into the night.

An hour later, as the Olde Mill Tavern was winding down, Erik got up to leave, too. The night had grown cooler, but not uncomfortably so. He walked toward his car, and a glint of something white and round and smooth caught his eye. He looked up and to the woods, in the direction of the thing, and saw an old hubcap, which had caught moonlight.

The breath Erik hadn’t realized he’d been holding seeped out in relief.

They weren’t coming back. It was done. They were gone.

Erik breathed in the night air, and when the rest of him believed that, he smiled to himself, got into his car, and drove home to his girl.

Behind him, in the woods, in the night air, in the quiet over the lake, on the empty streets of the suburban neighborhoods of Lakehaven, New Jersey, there hung the air of regrets, of lies, of fears and insecurities, but they were not Erik’s nor Jake’s, not Dorrie’s nor Steve’s, and nothing, sensing those things, came to find them.

Thanks to my first readers: Heidi Ruby Miller, Jason Jack Miller, Christopher Paul Carey, and Meghan Knierim.

Thanks to Don D’Auria and all the fine hard-working staff at Leisure, and also Frank Weimann and Jaimee Garabacik and The Literary Group International.

Thanks also Jim Moore, Dallas Mayr, Gary Braunbeck, and Gary Frank, for keeping me sane.

Thanks to Laura Mazzarone and Pete Markson for letting me bounce ideas off them, and for providing me with research information.

Thanks especially to Adam SanGiovanni, Michael and Suzanne SanGiovanni, Michele and Christy San-Giovanni, and to Jason D’Accardi for patience, love, and understanding during the completion of this book.

“Mary SanGiovanni is one of my favorite authors. Her work is cause for celebration, and always a fun read! I’m a big fan!”

—Brian Keene, Author of
Dead Sea

“With
The Hollower
, Mary SanGiovanni makes the kind of debut most horror writers dream about; this superbly-written novel is filled to the brim with mounting terror, shocking set pieces, some of the richest characterization you’ll encounter anywhere this year, and a central figure of undeniable dread. It’s got it all: scares, poignancy, people you know as well as your own family, and an unrelenting tension that will have your hands shaking by the time you reach its nerve-wracking finale.”

—Bram Stoker Award Winner Gary A. Braunbeck,
Author of
Coffin
County

“Mary SanGiovanni writes with all the skill of a neurosurgeon and all the passion of a Shakespearian actor on a roll.
The
Hollower
is a fast building, high tension ride, with a solid mystery peopled with realistic characters thrown into a nightmare situation that grows darker by the minute. One hell of a novel by a writer everyone should keep their eyes on. I think we have a rising star on our hands.”

—James A. Moore, Author of
Under the Overtree and Serenity Falls

“For a debut novel,
The Hollower
is definitely impressive; SanGiovanni shows off some serious skills for an author right out of the box.”

—
Dread Central

“SanGiovanni hits a multi-sensory home run with her evocative language…the imagery is…nightmarish and vivid.… This is the type of book that’s worthy of repeat readings.”

—FearZone

“Once SanGiovanni drops you into her reality, she never relinquishes her iron grip on your attention.”

—
Dead Reckoning
, Fall 2007

“Although the cover of Mary SanGiovanni’s debut novel
The
Hollower
may look like another entry into the invisibility genre, it’s actually one in the psychological horror, with nothing disappearing except the sanity of its various characters.”

—Bookgasm

Other
Leisure
books by Mary SanGiovanni:

 
THE HOLLOWER