Latham's Landing (7 page)

For a split second, the girl held her gaze.
Then the sun broke the horizon, flooding the sky with light. The
girl faded, her outline disappearing.

Marie went to where the girl had stood. On
the shoreline was blood, the granite red with it. A recorder lay
nearby, lightly spattered. As she watched, that too faded, the
light from the sky illuminating clean stones and clear water.

Something gleamed amidst the wet rocks. Marie
walked to it, and picked it up. “This looks like Daryl’s
knife.”

Fear filled her. She darted inside.

Sam, Daryl, and Nikki were still sleeping.
The inner door leading to the staircase was standing open, the rope
severed.

She woke the others immediately, telling them
of what she’d seen. “I thought it was tied a few minutes ago, but I
didn’t check it.” She handed the knife to Daryl. “Is this yours? I
found it near the shore, in the water.”

Daryl searched his pocket, unnerved. “I was
outside, but only in my dream. It must have fallen out last night,
when we were gathering wood for the fire.”

“
I found the outside door open,” Marie
replied. “The rock was moved.”

“
It was only a dream,” Daryl said,
trying to make light of it. “Stupid, really. Sam shot me by
mistake. But I’m clearly not a ghost—”

“
We shared that dream,” Sam said
seriously. “You stabbed me with that knife. She found the door
open, and the knife outside. Yeah, we’re alive. But how’d it get
there?”

“
Like I said, I must have dropped it,”
Daryl said patiently. “It’s amazing you had the same dream, but
that’s all it was. We both woke up right here. You woke up first,
even. Besides, you don’t have a gun, Sam.”

“
Yes, I do.” Sam produced it, then told
of his nightmare. “I saw the girl, too, Marie. She said we should
leave.” He turned to Nikki. “Did you dream of anything?”

“
No,” she said quickly, casting eyes to
the fireplace.

“
Daryl’s right. What happened was all
in your minds,” Marie said, going to the light switch on the wall.
She flipped it several times. Nothing happened. “Not only is the
power off out here, the bulbs aren’t even in the few fixtures I’ve
seen.”

“
You’re right about that. Still, this
didn’t fray,” Sam said, studying the rope. “This was cut. Daryl,
did you cut this in your dream?”

“
No. A thin knife or something else
sharp through the door jamb did,” Daryl said, eyes narrowing. “My
knife’s too big anyway to fit in the gap—”

“
None of us did it,” Nikki interrupted.
“That proves someone has to be here, and they’re trying to scare
us. Maybe they took Daryl’s knife and moved the rock, so we’d
freak.”

“
Why?” Daryl said, studying the cut end
of the rope as if it might hold the answer. “There’s no purpose in
scaring us.”

“
Your boyfriend doesn’t know you’re
here, does he?” Marie said to Nikki pointedly.

“
We have an open relationship,” Nikki
said boldly. “Besides, he’s off on a hunting trip.”

“
Hunting what?” Sam asked, shifting his
eyes to her.

“
Elk,” Nikki answered. “I’d have gone
with him, but this outing seemed more fun. Besides, I’ve spent
enough vacations cutting up his kills.”

Marie rolled her eyes. “Nice. You don’t carry
a knife, do you?”

“
Look, we’re here, and we’re all fine,”
Daryl said loudly. “Whoever did this, we don’t have time for their
games. Let’s get to work, then let’s get out of here.”

“
You’re right,” Sam said, stretching.
“So what’s the plan?”

“
Nikki’s going to take pictures. I’ll
go with her. You go with Sam and try to come up with some good
ideas for some drawings.”

Marie faced him. “Again, what exactly do you
want drawings of?”

Daryl let out another sigh. “I want you to
take some of the settings here, and put some scary people in
drawings of them. I don’t care what you depict. Whatever you
include is fine, so long as you genuinely find it scary. I’ll
include them in my paper, using them to illustrate the human
imagination and its role in how fear originates.”

“
You’d just have to draw a picture of
this cut rope for me,” Sam said darkly, tossing it down. “C’mon
Marie, let’s get going. You can illustrate a boat of college
students being dashed to their deaths on those pretty red granite
rocks.” He strode outside.

Marie grabbed a pencil set, a sketchpad, and
an eraser, and went after him.

Daryl turned to Nikki, who was rooting in her
bag. “Ready?”

Nikki turned to him, digital camera in one
hand, and a small 35mm in the other. “Ready. Lead on.”

By noon, they’d shot most of the house, Nikki
having long used all of her 35mm and switching to plain digital.
“You’ve got almost two hundred pictures,” she exclaimed. “I don’t
usually take that many at my relatives’ weddings. Developing that
many and blowing them up is going to be expensive. You’d better
view them first to pick the ones you want.”

“
I want them all,” Daryl replied with a
grin. “Really, this is wonderful. I never dreamed that there would
be so many good locations all over the house. Instead of the one or
two I expected, we’ve got at least ten that look menacing with only
their natural shadows. We also got great shots of the balcony. More
than a few people hanged themselves there.”

“
Yeah, this place is creepy,” Nikki
said, going to the next room. She twisted the key that lay in the
lock, then opened the door. “Hey, Daryl, look in here.”

Daryl went to her side, then gaped,
blinking.

All the other rooms had been vacant, a broken
frame and some moldering books the only trappings. This room was
not.

“
It was a nursery,” Nikki whispered.
“Or a child’s room.”

An ornately carved small bed, almost a crib,
was at the far side of the L-shaped room against the wall. There
was a large, intricate stained glass window with a seat built into
it. Below it, just distinguishable in shadow, were two shelves
holding a few old toys and one book, thick dust covering them.

“
Do you know whose this was?” Nikki
whispered.

“
I only know of the deaths on the
balcony and a few drownings in the lake,” Daryl admitted. “There
are other deaths, but the website didn’t say where in the house
they happened, or if they were inside at all.”

“
There’s no mattress,” Nikki whispered.
“Why take that and not the toys?”

Suddenly, the wan multicolored light from the
large picture window lessened, leaving them in semi darkness. Rain
lightly pattered on the window.

“
Damn it,” Daryl swore, fumbling for
his flashlight. “That rain was supposed to hold off until
tomorrow—”

A soft creaking sound pierced the silence.
Nikki clutched Daryl’s arm.

He turned on the flashlight, aiming it at the
noise like a gun.

A new toy was on the floor in front of them,
a tiger with wheels. Long ago, its frayed string had pulled it
along, the tiger’s wooden joints moving with the wheels, giving him
the appearance of running.

“
He came off the bottom shelf below the
window seat,” Nikki said, relieved. “There are tracks in the
dust—”

Rain spattered the window lightly, then hit
with shocking power. The darkness intensified, then lightning
flashed, illuminating the window in all its multicolored splendor,
the light playing over the derelict crib and toy

“
Get a picture, quick,” Daryl hissed
urgently. “Hurry.”

Nikki tentatively pointed the camera, then
clicked. As she did, a boom of thunder shook the house, startling
Daryl. He dropped his flashlight.

“
Damn it—”

“
Look,” Nikki squeaked. “It’s eyes.
They’re glowing.”

Daryl gazed down in the blackness. The
tiger’s left round glass eye glowed back at him blankly.

“
That’s phosphorous material,” he said,
grabbing his flashlight. “I didn’t know they had that back in the
twenties—“

The tiger’s single shining eye became two
suddenly, its head turning to face them.

“
Jesus,” Nikki breathed.

“
Shoot it,” Daryl urged. “Take a pic,
hurry!”

A frantic creaking sounded, as the tiger’s
eyes began to bob up and down, coming closer in the blackness.

“
Go!” Daryl yelled.

They got outside, slamming the door behind
them. A faint creaking sounded from the other side of the door,
then a soft knock, as if someone had kicked the bottom of the door
from the other side.

Nikki quickly locked the door with the key,
then took the key out of the lock. “I think that’s enough of ghost
hunting for me,” she said, “Let’s get the others and get out of
here.”

“
I’m all for it,” Daryl said,
unsettled. “We’ve got what we came for. Let’s get downstairs and
pack the boat. As soon as the storm clears, we’ll
leave.”

They quickly walked away, leaving the faint
creaking and knocking still issuing from beyond the locked
door.

“
You were right to insist we walk out
here,” Sam said happily. “This place is great, like a giant
prism.”

Mirrors on the domed ceiling reflected the
waves crashing below, even the faint light through the cut glass
walls refracting and bending. When they’d arrived, light and water
had blended in harmony, the meeting a fantastic and awesome sight
to behold. Now the waves were rough, the light steadily fading into
darkness.

“
We should head back,” Marie urged, her
eyes on the approaching dark roiling clouds. “We’ve got a long walk
back and it looks like a storm’s coming.”

“
You’re the one who said we should go
see where the stonework bridge led,” Sam said irritably. “There’s
no point in leaving if a storm’s about to hit. It took us two hours
to walk here.” He sat down on the floor. “I’m not going until the
weather clears. Why don’t you draw or something?”

Marie didn’t reply, apprehensive. Sam had
been like this all day. He’d been averse to coming out here, saying
he hadn’t signed on for hiking. Why the hell had Daryl asked him to
come, anyway? All he’d accomplished to date was sleep with
Nikki.

“
The water’s so beautiful,” Sam
murmured.

High was what the water was, Marie thought.
When they’d walked here in the sun, the lake had been calm and
beautiful. Now not only was a storm coming, but the water looked as
if it had risen at least a few feet. They’d be lucky if the long
bridge wasn’t underwater. “We’ve got to go, Sam. Stay here if you
want, but I’m going.”

“
You aren’t going,” Sam said
confidently, his eyes on the crashing waves. “There’s no way
out.”

Marie blinked at him. “What?”

“
The waves are crashing over the
bridge,” Sam said, getting to his feet. “We’re stuck here for the
evening.” He grinned at her. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep you
warm.”

Rain pattered lightly against the windows, as
the sky darkened.

“
What you’ll do is back off,” Marie
said harshly. “Unless you want my knee in your balls.” She turned
and left, stalking down the stairs.

It was Sam’s turn to blink. “Christ, Marie, I
was only teasing—”

“
Stop being a jock jerk, and come on,”
she yelled back. “I’m not waiting for you.”

When Marie emerged from the structure a few
moments later, the wind was in full force, heavy rain pelting her
face painfully. The long bridge stretched before her, still well
above the churning water.

God, what a relief…

Marie looked down over the bridge’s railing.
As she watched in growing terror, the water rose slowly around the
bridge’s supports, steadily reaching higher.

Sam appeared behind her. “I’m sorry—”

“
Just hurry,” Marie yelled to him,
beginning to jog. “The water’s rising fast.”

They made their way quickly down the bridge,
the paving stones becoming wet and slippery. They struggled on,
even as the rain intensified, the wind beginning to howl. Several
times, they were knocked off their feet, the hard stone jarring and
bruising them as they fell. Then, as if by magic, the wind suddenly
died down, and the waves calmed, even as a mist began to rise from
the lake’s surface.

Sam stopped, panting. “Please wait, Marie,
please. I need to breathe. We’re more than halfway. The storm’s
passed.”

“
I’m sorry I got so angry,” Marie said,
slumping against the railing. “I just panicked. I was worried the
storm would somehow flood the house or the bridge, trapping
us.”

Sam gave her an odd look. “No one would build
a house like this where it would be in danger of flooding.”

“
Part of the main house is flooded,”
Marie said darkly. “Daryl told me about it last night, when you
were, um…occupied.”

“
Did he tell you about the place we
just visited?”

“
The Sea Room,” Marie supplied,
kneeling to tie her shoe. “Latham built it for his
wife.”

Sam didn’t reply.

“
It was very beautiful,” Marie added.
“Nikki should’ve come with us. She missed seeing it—”

“
She can see it from the house,” Sam
croaked, pointing with a shaking finger. “Look.”

Marie glanced up at his wide frightened eyes,
then back at the Sea Room. The glass house was alive with blinding
light in the mist, shining like a sun in the midst of clouds. The
sky darkened slightly, even as mist rose up from both sides of the
bridge, enveloping them in soggy cool air.