MOON FALL (22 page)

John Lawson's new desk chair was an ergonomic work of
art. Hidden in the black upholstered cushions were adjustable
back supports and inflatable air bladders called ''posterior regulators."
There were levers and knobs to adjust everything from
the armrest and seat height to the amount of bounce when one
sat down and stood up. Best of all, John thought, as he plunked
himself down after a long, long morning, this chair didn't
threaten to tip over when he tilted it back to put his feet up.

He did just that. He'd come on duty at five in the morning
and now it was going on eleven,
and he was tired and hungry.
He'd spent the first hour patrolling the town, which was something
he liked to do at least once a day: he tried to see every
detail from changing sale signs in the store windows to newspapers
piling up in driveways. It gave him a sense of control and,
more important, made him feel like he was earning his keep.

He'd cruised down Gus's street while it was still dark, only
mildly concerned that his grandfather hadn't shown up for pizza
the day before. That was nothing new, though; Gus was nothing
if not mercurial.

Since the lights weren't on yet, John had decided to phone
him later in the day, after church hours, since Gus, like as not,
would attend. He kept his religion to himself, just as he had
even when he ministered to others, but he was popular with
the widows and they were popular with him.

Still, John had hesitated, idling the cruiser briefly in front
of his grandfather's home before moving on, telling himself
that Gus wouldn't take kindly to being disturbed at this hour
of the morning, and that he'd exact his revenge by unmercifully
accusing him of being a mother hen. The last time John had
checked up on him, about three years ago, when he hadn't
heard from him for over a week, he'd had to endure the old
man's teasing for the next six months. Gus had never been one
to necessarily show up where he said he would-
except to
deliver sermons before he retired
-
and he never apologized.
He always said life was too short to stick to plans, and as
annoying as his impetuousness was, John grudgingly admired
it, the same way he admired Gus's gift for turning emotions
on and off.

Though he'd never admit it, his granddad had probably stayed
in, nursing a hangover, on Saturday, and he wasn't likely to
show his face today, either, since the widows would be vying
for his attention with roast chickens and beef stew. Come to
think of it, John admired his way with women, too.

He stretched,
enjoying the way the new chair moved with
him. For a hundred dollars more, he could have had one with
a built-in vibrator. He'd sat in it at the clerk's behest, but the
vibrations against his back and buttocks were disconcerting
and gave him nothing but an urge to urinate. Vibrating chairs,
he had discovered, fell into the same category as computers,
faxes and E-mail-
he didn't trust
any
of them.

After returning to the office from his rounds, he had spent
some time with Bobby at the dispatch desk, watching him input
files and learning how to access them. He knew his phobic
reactions were silly: it was easy, logical work, but it still made
him anxious. What if the machine lost the information? W
in
ter
storms knocked out electricity all the time, and no matter how
many times Bobby had told him about the battery backups, he
absolutely insisted that none of the old police reports would
be deep-sixed, and that every new one would be printed out
immediately, so that nothing would be lost.

Like the file on Jennifer Blaine?
He sat up, troubled by the
thought. He'd already searched through the files again. He'd
found nothing on Blaine, but he'd ended up reading over Doug
Buckman's suicide report, reliving that awful moment when
his father had come to him with the news of his friend's death.

Until this morning, he'd rarely allowed himself to think about
Doug, but now he had to accept that Doug had never lost the
conviction that they had gone to St. Gruesome's the night Greg
had drowned. In truth, Buckman's insistence grew as the other
boys' disbelief increased.

Although he was a big, outgoing jock on the surface, Doug
had had another side, a darker one that, in retrospect, might
have been something born of a mystical, or at least philosophical,
streak hidden under the bluff friendliness and broad shoulders.

Or are you just finding reasons to
turn
Doug's suicide into
another unsolved murder? Like Gus wants you to?
His grandfather's
love of drama was one thing he'd inherited, but only in
a passive way. John loved conspiracy theories and emotion
-
charged
movies and secretly enjoyed gossip as much as anyone
else who clandestinely read the
Weekly World News
headlines
at the checkout counter. Because he was aware of this attraction,
he tried to be especially skeptical, particularly of his own
impressions, and let Gus do all the reveling in possibilities for
the both of them.

He wondered now if Gus's inebriated confessions, especially
about John's father's death, had combined with his own visits
to the abbey and the appearance of Sara Hawthorne, both at
his office and on Dashwood's arm in the infirmary, to stir up
all those carefully imprisoned
paranoias
he harbored about St.
Gertrude's and Greg's death.

With a sigh, he sat up and reached for the phone, deciding
to call Gus and get the old man off his mind before going out
to forage for lunch. He wanted something he could bring back
to the office because, to be perfectly honest, he wanted to be
around when
-
if
-
Sara Hawthorne returned. As his fingers
closed around the handset, the intercom buzzed.

He punched the button, glad that Bobby Hasse was on duty,
not Dorothy, who'd be in his face by now. "Yeah, Bobby?"

"There's a Miss Hawthorne here to see you, Sheriff. She
says
you're expecting her?"

"Yes," he said, unconsciously running his hand over his
hair. "Send her in."

"I didn't know it was so big," Pete Parker said in an awestruck
voice.

"Me, either." Corey Addams pressed his face against the
bars of St. Gruesome's front gate. "What
’
cha think, Lawson?"
he asked, without turning around.

Mark stood a few feet back from the gate, staring past his
friends, past the gargoyles leering from the gateposts and the
vast swath of lawn, at the Gothic gray fortresses beyond. He
could even make out the gargoyles crouched on the buildings,
much larger than the ones on the gateposts. There were more
of them than were needed to serve as waterspouts; many were
obviously only decorative. Off to the right, he could even see
one on top of the chapel.

"Wow!" he said finally.

"The gate's not locked," Pete said, his hand working the
latch up and down.

"And there's nobody around," Corey added thoughtfully.

"So?" Mark asked. "You think they're not going to see us
if we go in? There are windows everywhere." As if to underscore
his words, from somewhere behind the buildings a lawn
mower roared to life. "Just because we can't see them doesn't
mean they can't see us."

Mark knew he should have seen this coming; Pete's sole
purpose in life was to go where he wasn't supposed to, to do
that which was forbidden. Mark got the creeps just looking at
the abbey, and from the little his dad had said about his recent
visits to the place, it wasn't worth risking getting grounded
over.

The boys had gotten together at seven A.M. at the Parker
Ranch and had worked on the Haunted Bam until Caspar, along
with Pete's parents, had gone off to church at ten. They'd be
gone until about two in the afternoon, since they always went
out to eat after services. Usually, Pete had to go, too, but the
boys had been careful to look very busy when Pete's mom had
come out to the barn to take him away, and she'd relented to
his pleading that they had to keep working if they were to have
their portion of the barn ready for Halloween.

Yesterday, after the sleepover at Pete's, they'd talked more
about how Caspar had seen the lady in white around the orchard,
back near the edges of Witch Forest. One thing had led to
another and today, as soon as the adults left, they'd set off on
foot across the orchard, but had found nothing interesting, so
they'd ventured into Witch Forest, pausing to take a quick peek
at Minerva's house from behind the trees. Fortunately, neither
Pete or Corey had the guts to pull any tricks on Minerva;
instead, Pete announced that they should go to Witch Falls to
see if there were any bloodstains on the rocks.

It was a beautiful day, with a cold nip of winter lurking
behind the warmth of the few rays of sunlight that found their
way between the tree limbs. They'd crossed the stream by
Minerva's and kept walking, then hiked farther west than they
s
hould have to hit the Falls. Instead, they found themselves
at the other fork, the one separating Witch Forest from St.
Gruesome's land.

From somewhere to the southeast came the roar of the Falls,
but the ominous dark forest across the stream captivated them.
They had looked at each other, then back at the forbidding
woods, and at each other again
.

They could see that the trees were thicker on the other side
and there were only a few dapples of light on the forest floor.
Moss grew more thickly on the tree trunks than in Witch Forest,
and ferns had sprouted everywhere. Mark could see some odd
gray ones whose fronds resembled cobwebs more than leaves,
and he wanted to examine them, maybe even take a sample to
Minerva, so when Pete suggested they ford the stream, Mark
had readily agreed.

The abbey's woods not only looked different from Witch
Forest, they felt different, too. In silent agreement, the boys
moved quickly
,
Mark pausing only to snag a piece of fern and
stuff it in his pocket. In the brief seconds that took, Corey and
Pete got ahead of him and he had to run to catch up.

Although they didn't talk about it, Mark knew that the ot
her
two were hurrying for the same reason he was: he felt as
unseen eyes were watching him, as if the trees were
leaner
down to leer at him. This forest seemed alive in a very differe
nt
way from the pleasant wood on the ot
her side of the stream
this one felt like a living, breathing entity, a dark thing un
i
t
itself, with its own awarene
ss. It seemed as if at any moment
they would run into the lady in white
-
and she wouldn't b
e
nice. Several times, they heard raucous screeches from airborn
e
birds, but none of them had made any jokes about gargoyle
s.
It didn't seem so funny on the dark side of the creek.

When they had finally seen daylight up ahead, Mark ha
d
been relieved, but when they'd stepped between some ove
r
grown hedges onto a narrow gravel road and into the sunshine
he'd realized that St. Gruesome's buildings were the reason fo
r
the clearing. His stomach knotted. To his left, he'd caught hi
s
first glimpse of the chapel, feminine voices singing
eerily
within, and when Pete pointed
right, indicating that he wanted
them to follow the hedges and the wall that replaced it
twenty
yards south, he'd nodded yes.

And now
here they were, at the gates. But why? To go in
as Pete suddenly wanted to do? Mark hadn't expected that
even from Pete. Corey, who pretty much did whatever
the
majority wanted, was looking pretty distressed as Pete kept
wheedling and Mark finally just kept shaking his head no.

Finally, he looked at the sky, saw the
autumn
sun was no
longer directly south of them now. "Look, Pete" he said, pointing
.
"It's gotta be at least one o'clock. Won't your parents have
a cow if we aren't there when they get home?''

Pete studied the angle of the sun
.
"Yeah, I
guess we'd better
go
.
" He cast a look at the forest, then peered down the lane
that led to Apple Hill Road.

"We'd better go back the same way we came," Mark said.
He nodded toward the lane
.
''It'd take forever to get home that
way."

"You really think so?" Corey asked.

"Yeah, we came as the crow flies, so we'd better go back
that way."

"More like as the gargoyles fly," Pete said wryly. "Okay,
let's do it."

They walked back toward the chapel, then sprinted across
the road just as the doors to the church opened amid a cacophony
of bells. Pete dived into the brush, Corey on his heels. Mark
hesitated only an instant, but it was long enough for a black
-
robed
nun to step out of the chapel and see him.

"You, boy, come here," she called sternly.

"Move it, Lawson!" Pete yelled. "Get
’
cher ass in here!"

Mark loo
ked at the nun as she yelled at him again, then he
jumped through the hedge, hearing cloth rip as his windbreaker
caught on a branch. "Shit," he whispered, trying to get free,
but the wa
y it clung, the damn bush must’
ve had claws.

"Young man!" The nun's voice was close now.

"Leave it, or we'll all be in deep shit!" Pete yelled over his
shoulder as he sprinted into the woods. Corey looked like a
deer caught in headlights, statue-still, his eyes darting between
Mark and Pete.

Mark started pulling out of the blue jacket just as the nun
arrived. As he yanked his arms from the sleeves, her face
appeared, pinched and angry.
''Boy," she said, in a voice cra
ckling
with cold, ''stop right there."

All Mark thought in the brief instant before he was free was
that the nun had too many teeth. Even though she was small,
she looked like she could chew him up and spit him out, then
whittle his bones down to use as toothpicks.

"Let's go!" he cried, yanking Pete along with him. He could
feel the nun'
s
eyes boring into his back as they ran into the
forest.

"Stop a minute," Corey breathed, after they were deep in
the woods.

They'd gone farther than any habit-wearing nun could go,
so Mark pulled up short. He turned to face Corey, who was
bent over, breathing heavily. "You okay?" He was winded
himself and his voice hitched over the words.

Corey st
rai
ghtened slowly. "Yeah. Jesus, did you see that
nun? She looked like the Wicked Witch of the West."

''Yeah, Corey. I looked at her, and she looked at me. And
she's got my jacket.
Cripes."
He dug in his pants pockets
frantically. "My wallet was in the jacket. She'll call my dad.
I'm sunk."

Corey was staring at him, his mouth not quite shut.

"Don't worry,"
Mark told him. "I'm not gonna rat
on you."

"She heard Pete yell, so she knows there's more than one
of us." Corey sat down on a rock.

Mark nodded, resigned to his fate. In the distance, the Falls
roared. He looked around at the trees, feeling them close in on
him, feeling those hidden eyes again. He turned his gaze to the
for
est floor in time to see a dim ra
y of sunlight angling across
his Nikes suddenly wink out. Abruptly, wingbeats broke the
silence; then a horrible screeching nearly burst his eardrums.
The hawk or owl, or whatever it was, was gone in a heartbeat,
its next cry sounding somewhere to the south.

''What the hell was that?" Corey asked, trying to joke,
despite the tremble in his voice.

Mark forced a grin. "It's probably that old nun flying around
looking for us."

"On her broomstick," Corey said nervously. ''I'll bet Pete'll
be sorry he's by himself when he hears that thing."

''Yeah." The thought was satisfying. From somewhere in
the distance another cry sounded, but this time it seemed almost
human, dissolving his satisfaction.

He was about to tell Corey their rest period was over when
he heard a twig c
ra
ck. Goosebumps pimpled his arms and neck
as he looked at his friend and saw that he'd heard it, too.

He rose slowly as another bit of underbrush crunched. Footsteps.
Mark could hear them clearly now. Quickly he stepped
behind a large pine, then motioned Corey to get down behind
the rock. Either Pete was getting ready to scare them, or the
nun had followed them, after .all.

The footsteps came closer, light and swift, the sound of
someone walking very quickly. Cautiously he peered around
the tree.

"Kelly!" he cried, recognizing the red-haired girl.

She about jumped out of her skin as Mark stepped out from
behind the tree and Corey stood up. "Mark! What are you
doing here?"

"What are
you
doing here?'' he countered.

"I was at Minerva's."

"We went to St. Gruesome's and this wicked-looking nun
saw me," he told her. As he described the woman, Kelly's eyes
widened.

"That wasn't just
any
nun," she told him. "That was Mother
Lucy. She's awful. Does she know who you are?"