From Darkness Comes: The Horror Box Set (34 page)

A pair of emaciated arms reached out from the darkness inside the SUV and Finch rolled his window down
, just a little. The breeze snatched the smoke from the car, dragging it out into the rain.

Claire stepped out into the dim daylight and raised her face to the clouds
, as if challenging God to throw his next unpleasant trial at her. She looked frail. Had Finch not known who she was, he might have thought her an elderly woman, some long-lost grandmother come to visit her relatives.

They raped her
.

Slowly
, one hand clamped on her mother's arm, Kara's hand on her back for support lest she should fall, they guided her toward the house and the shelter of the eave.

They cut out her eye
.

Claire took the steps on her own
, but paused at the top, as if the three stone steps had been enough to exhaust her.

They cut off her fingers
.

Finch tossed his cigarette out the window. In the rearview
, he was startled to see an old man in a check shirt and dungarees emerge from the house that belonged to the driveway and squint at the Buick as he started toward it. "Hey!"

Finch started the engine. He wasn
't going to think of this as a missed opportunity. After all, he'd had no intention of approaching the Lamberts. He'd only wanted to see Claire, to get as accurate a picture as he could of what they had done to her, so he could add it to the bloodstained collage he was developing in his own private darkroom.

They killed Danny
.

He pulled out of the driveway and the old man slowed
, then stopped as Finch turned out onto the road. He sped up, driving in the direction of the Lambert house but not stopping, the windshield wipers laboring to clear the glass of the strengthening rain. As he passed by, he looked and saw that Claire and her mother had already gone inside. Kara followed, but turned as she shut the door, and hesitated.

She saw him. There was no way she couldn
't have. But her expression remained the same.

Again
, his stomach jumped.

Then she was gone.

Finch hit the gas.

Not today
, he thought.
Not now.

He would return
, and when he did it would not be to offer his sympathy, or to torture himself by looking into the eyes of the only woman he'd ever loved.

It would be to see Claire.

Louise prayed he wasn
't home, but of course, considering the way the day had gone thus far, she wasn't at all surprised when that prayer went unanswered. Upon entering the apartment, she found Wayne asleep on the sofa in front of the television, his bare feet propped up on the battered pine coffee table. A cigarette he'd set in the ashtray had burned itself out, a long worm of ash dipping down into a sea of its crumpled comrades. The apartment reeked of stale sweat and spoiled milk. Louise sighed and tossed her purse on the floor, inches from where Wayne dozed, his head to the side, a thin string of drool dangling from his jaw. He awoke at the sound, and yawned, then frowned and made as if to go back to sleep.

"
Wayne."

Sluggishly
, he opened his eyes and straightened, squinting, struggling to make out who was standing before him.

"
Hey," he mumbled. A smile turned into another yawn and he stretched, sat up and reached for pack of cigarettes, but froze, his hand still in the air as he registered another presence in the room. "Who's here?" He rose unsteadily, shaking himself alert. Louise thought she detected fear lurking in his eyes.
What are you afraid of?
she wondered, casting her mind back to all those nights when he'd jumped at sounds outside the apartment or on the street below, sounds she hadn't even heard. His nocturnal walks did little to reassure her that he was not up to something. Lately, the caution she had initially interpreted from him as protectiveness had become something dangerously close to paranoia, and it worried her. She liked to assume he did nothing while she was at work. He had all day to himself but was always right there in his spot in front of the TV when she left and when she returned, so it was easy to pretend he hadn't done much else. Now, she wondered.

But such concerns would have to wait.

She stepped aside, allowing Wayne to see the teenager who'd been standing between her and the door.

Wayne frowned.
"Who the hell are you?"

Pete smiled and snatched off his wool cap
, as if it might make recognition easier. The boy's eyes were wide, desperate.

"
Pete," he answered. "Lowell."

Still confused
, Wayne looked to Louise.

"
Jack Lowell's boy," she told him.

Recognition did not come.
"Jack Lowell?"

"
The man I was with before you. Back in Elkwood. The farmer. This is his boy."

Wayne
's features softened. "Ah shit,
right
. I remember. Christ, you got
tall
."

Pete
's smile held, but he looked uncomfortable.

"
Well, come on in. Sit down. You look chilled to the bone, son."

"
Cold out there," Pete told him, but waited for Louise to extend the invitation.

"
Go on, sit," she urged. "How about I make us some coffee? You drink coffee Pete?"

"
You got any hot chocolate?"

"
Sure." She headed into the small kitchen, which was little bigger than a walk-in closet, the room further constricted by the cupboards and small table on one side, the sink on the other. As she set about making the drinks, she noticed how hard her hands were shaking. She clenched them and closed her eyes. It was going to be all right. It was. Pete's arrival was an omen that there was still some hope for the future. Maybe he was just visiting; maybe he was here for money—in which case he would leave disappointed—or maybe he was here to stay, his father finally having given up on him. As Louise retrieved the container of hot chocolate from the cupboard, and rinsed out a chipped mug and a spoon from the sink, she realized that Pete might very well be part of a life she wanted after all, a life she hadn't realized she'd yearned for until she'd walked out and left it to be erased by the dust from Wayne's tires. Perhaps the boy was part of a grander picture she could not yet see, a picture that did not have Detroit as its background.

Listening to the shy monotone muttering of the boy as he answered Wayne
's cheerful queries, she tried not to think about what she had to tell Wayne later. Aside from everything else, Pete's presence had bought her some time. Time to work out in her mind what she was going to tell him, if anything. Time to try to grasp those elusive threads and weave a better story in which she was the victim, not the villain.

But isn
't that the truth?
she asked herself, and realized that she was no longer thinking about the diner and what had happened there.

With a deep breath
, she hurriedly brushed her hair away from her face and took the hot chocolate and coffee into the living room. It was a mess, but Pete didn't seem to notice. She supposed he wouldn't. The farm had hardly been well maintained, inside or out.

"
So," she said, handing him the mug. "How on earth did you find me?"

Wayne took the coffee from her without looking away from the boy.
"And what made you think of lookin' for her now?"

This was going to be Louise
's next question, and she wished Wayne had let her ask it. She would have put it to the boy with less suspicion in her tone.

Pete looked from Wayne to Louise
, then down into his hot chocolate. An expression of deep sadness came over his face and Louise felt her chest grow tight.
Somethin's happened
. The boy confirmed this a moment later when, eyes still lowered, one gloved finger running circles around the top of the cup, he said, "My Pa's dead."

Louise gasped
, a hand to her mouth, though in truth the shock was less potent than she pretended. Something about the boy's posture once she'd recognized him outside the apartment had suggested loneliness, and his face when he removed the scarf seemed thinner than she remembered it, the light in his eyes dimmer than before.

"
What happened?"

Knowing how close Pete had been to his father
, despite the man's utter inability to express any kind of love for the boy, she fully expected to watch him crumble, to see the tears flow as his face constricted into a mask of pain.

What she saw instead surprised her.

There was grief, and pain, but presiding over them all, was anger.

"
They kilt him. The Doctor too."

Wayne
's eyes widened. "
Shiiit
. I think I seen that on the news."

Louise turned to look at him.
"And you didn't tell me?"

He shrugged.
"It was half over and I was drunk when I switched it on. Didn't get no names. All I remember thinkin' is: 'Damn, Louise used to live somewhere around there.'"

"
We've talked about the farm, Wayne, don't give me that shit. I must have mentioned Pete and his daddy a hundred times. Why didn't you tell me?"

Wayne
's face darkened. "I said I didn't hear the goddamn names, all right?"

Not now
, she cautioned herself.
The kid doesn't need this, and I don't either
. She returned her attention to Pete who seemed to be preparing to withdraw into himself. She scooted close and put her hand on his wrist.

"
Who killed them, Pete?"

"
We found a girl, in the road. She was messed up pretty bad."

"
Messed up how?" Wayne asked.

"
Beaten. Cut up. She were naked, all covered in blood. Me and Pa...we stopped to pick her up, brung her to the doctor's house to get her fixed up." There was no emotion in his voice now, as if this was a story he had grown weary of telling. "Pa told the doc it'd be better if he didn't ask any kinda questions about it all. I didn't understand that. Not then. I was worried about the girl. We went home, left her with the doc. But then my Pa...he got his rifle out and sat there like he were waitin' for the devil to kick down the door, and he...he told me I needed to get in the truck and go to the doc's house again, even though we'd just come from there. He said the doc would tell me what to do. So I went, and when I got there the doc said to me I needed to bring the girl to the hospital 'cuz she was in real trouble."

"
Who was the girl?" Louise asked. "Did you know her?"

Pete raised his head
, shook it once. "Her name was Claire. She were pretty like you wouldn't believe. Least I guessed she was. It was hard to tell because of all the blood and they had cut out one of her eyes."

Wayne frowned.
"Jesus."

"
You took her to the hospital?" Louise asked. "Why didn't your Pa go with you?"

"
He stayed home," Pete said. "And he shot himself. Don't know why, but I guess he were too afraid of what was comin' to want to be there when it did."

Louise buried her face in her hands.
"Oh God."

"
I didn't know, or I'd never have left him. Maybe if I was smarter I'd have known, but I ain't, so I didn't. I just drove the girl outta town to the hospital." Something like a smile turned up the corners of his mouth. "She were real nice, though. The girl. We talked some on the way. Just a little because she was tired. But I liked her. Wished I could have stayed with her a while." He dipped his head, sipped at his drink, and his smile grew. "This is real good. I always liked your hot chocolate."

Louise
's vision blurred with tears, her throat tightening as she struggled to keep her composure.
It's not fair
, she told herself.
Not fair that I left them. Not fair that he died.
And when a grimmer thought followed,
What if I had stayed with them? Wouldn't I have died there too?
The answer was:
Maybe you should have. Maybe that was where your true path ended and now you're wanderin' blindly ten miles farther along the same road 'cept now you know for sure it ain't goin' nowhere.

"
You tell the cops what happened?" Wayne asked, his interest apparently sincere.

Pete frowned.
"When?"

"
When you got the girl to the hospital?"

The boy shook his head.
"I didn't want to answer no questions. I was afraid, so...so I just got the girl inside and let the hospital men take her away. One of them asked me my name and I told him, but then he told me to wait and I ran. Maybe I shouldn't've."