A sound.
A soft, scratching sound, as if someone had crept onto his front porch.
He froze, the icy chill of panic creeping up his back.
It was Jonas.
Judd had been waiting for him for days now, ever since the boy had fixed him with those evil eyes and sworn to tear his life out of his body.
And tonight it was going to happen.
He could sense the boy’s presence on the porch, and then heard a scratching at the door.
His gun.
He had to get his gun.
He thought furiously.
The table, next to the bed. That’s where it was — he remembered putting it there when he’d come home from work this afternoon.
He crept soundlessly through the darkness, feeling his way. Finally, his hands closed on the revolver. Feeling for the safety, he flipped it off, then ran his fingers over the chambers in the drum.
Each of them held a cartridge.
He turned back to the front door.
Once again he heard the faint scratching sounds, as if whoever was out there was searching for a way to get in.
Judd moved to the door, pressing his ear against it. For a moment he heard nothing, then felt a slight bump as if whoever was outside had tested the latch and bolt.
The gun held tightly in his right hand, its hammer cocked, Judd felt for the bolt and carefully, silently, drew it back.
He stepped back, tensing.
Finally he reached out, turned the latch, and jerked the door open.
A form rose up in front of him, and Judd raised the gun and fired. There was a screech of agony as the slug ripped through skin and muscle, and then the dark form dropped to the porch, where it lay still.
Judd reached out and flipped on the light switch.
A raccoon, its fur soaked with blood from the gaping wound in its chest, lay on the pine boards of the porch.
Judd stared at it in disbelief for a moment, then swore under his breath. Still holding the gun, he kicked the dead animal off the porch into the water. It floated lazily for a moment, but then the water swirled, and an alligator appeared to snatch the dead animal up, disappearing back into the darkness with a flick of its huge tail.
“A ’coon,” Judd muttered to himself as he went back into his cabin. “Nothin’ but a damn ’coon!”
He put the gun back on the table by the bed, then glanced up in the mirror.
And froze once more.
His face looked gray and pasty, even in the bright light, and his eyes seemed to have sunk deep within their sockets.
Around his neck wattles of loose flesh were forming, and when he looked down at his hands, his knuckles had swollen and his skin was blotched with liver spots.
It couldn’t be happening — he’d been to see Phillips just three days ago. He was in perfect shape.
Unless …
A thought formed in his mind.
What if Phillips knew about Jonas, about how he’d laid a trap for the boy so Kitteridge could talk to him.
But Phillips had said nothing.
He’d only given him his biweekly shot and sent him away.
He went to the phone, his fingers trembling as he pressed the buttons of Phillips’s number.
On the fourth ring, as fear peaked inside the deputy, Phillips’s voice came onto the line.
“It’s Judd,” Duval said, his voice rasping.
There was a momentary silence.
“Judd? How are you feeling?” Phillips’s voice carried a faintly mocking tone that chilled Judd’s blood.
“I–I ain’t so good,” Judd replied, doing his best to conceal the terror that suddenly gripped him.
“What seems to be the problem?”
“It’s my skin, Doc. It’s showing spots, and my knuckles are all swole up. I got wrinkles on my face, an’—”
“It sounds like you’re getting old, Judd,” Phillips said softly, and instantly Judd knew the truth.
“The shot,” he breathed. “You didn’t give it to me. You gave me something else.”
“What did you expect, Judd?” Phillips replied. He was silent for a moment, then went on. “I don’t like it when you let outsiders talk to the children, Judd.”
He did know.
“I didn’t do no harm, Doc,” Judd whined, his terror now clear in his voice. “Kitteridge don’t know nothin’! He thinks Jonas is nuts!”
Warren Phillips’s voice turned icy. “What he thinks is immaterial, Judd. You know the rules. The children are protected from outsiders.”
“But I need my shot, Doc.” Judd was begging now, but he didn’t care. “You can’t just let me die. You—”
“Without me, you would have died years ago, Judd. And there’s another problem, too.”
Judd’s chest tightened with fear. “What problem?” he demanded. “I’ve paid,” Judd breathed. “I’ve always paid—”
“It’s not that, Judd,” Phillips replied. “It’s the children. There just aren’t enough of them anymore.”
“I don’t get it,” Judd growled. “You said everything was gonna be fine. There’s all kinds’a kids out there. Quint and Tammy-Jo had one last month, and Amelie—”
Phillips’s cold voice cut him off. “It’s not enough, Judd. There’s just not enough to go around. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
Judd’s mind reeled. “What?” he breathed. “What do you want? I’ll do anything.”
There was a silence, and then Phillips spoke once more. “I just told you what I want, Judd. The nursery is almost empty. Supplies, Judd. I need supplies. Bring me supplies, and I’ll give you your shot. A full-strength one.”
The phone in Judd’s hand went dead.
Shaking, he put the receiver back on the hook, but stood where he was for a moment, his mind reeling.
He knew what Phillips wanted, what the price of his error the other day was going to be.
But how?
How could he produce what the doctor was demanding?
He looked down at the watch on his wrist, and found his eyes could barely focus on it.
He squinted, then made out the numbers.
Eight-thirty.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow he’d figure out a way.
He moved back toward the mirror, and felt a strange burning pain in his hips and knees.
Breathing hard, feeling exhaustion simply from the effort of crossing the room, he peered once more into the mirror.
Old.
He looked old, and he felt old.
But he’d live through the night.
He’d rest, and in the morning he’d find a new source for Warren Phillips.
And Phillips would restore Judd Duval’s youth.
Life in Villejeune would go on — eternally.
15
“It’s time for you to go to bed, young lady,” Barbara Sheffield told Jenny, who was curled up on the end of the sofa in the family room, all but asleep already.
Instantly the girl’s eyes opened wide. She sat up. “I don’t want to go to bed. I want to stay up until Michael and Kelly come back.”
“Well, you’re not going to,” Barbara replied, glancing meaningfully at the clock. It was almost ten, and already Jenny had been up an hour and a half past her regular bedtime.
“But they said they’d be back by now,” Jenny argued.
“I know what they said,” Barbara agreed, her own annoyance etching her voice. When the two teenagers had left on Michael’s motorcycle, it had been only a little after eight, and they’d promised to be back by nine-thirty.
“We’re just going down to Arlette’s for Cokes,” Michael had told them.
Craig had eyed his son sternly. “See that that’s the only place you go. Stay away from the park.”
Michael had rolled his eyes scornfully. “Why would we go out there? I don’t even like those kids.” He was well aware of what went on out at the county park at the other end of town, where a lot of the teenagers of Villejeune gathered in the evening, drinking beer and playing their boom boxes at top volume. Most of the time they didn’t do much but hang out, but every now and then the phone rang late at night and his father had to go down to the police department to help bail out someone else’s son. And always, the next morning, Michael had to listen to a lecture about staying out of trouble. On this evening, he had seen his father’s eyes shift meaningfully toward Kelly Anderson, and suddenly he’d understood. “Aw, come on, Dad,” he groaned, his voice dropping so no one else would hear him. “Lighten up, okay? Kelly doesn’t even know those kids.”