The townsfolk had decided his guilt right then and there and passed judgment on their neighbor.
The sentence: death.
Beckett had watched the trial and the punishment that followed, and, as always, had recorded his observations in his journal.
He had been the one to coin the odd term, “Blake’s Bane.”
Now, reading the words of a man who had long since turned to dust, Katelynn discovered some of the answers she’d been searching for.
And something else, as well.
She discovered that she was more frightened than she’d ever been in her entire life.
28
FOREST GREEN REVISITED
Having left Sam asleep on the couch, Jake stood beside his Jeep, staring across the street at the entrance to the cemetery, driven by his own logic to see if his theory was true.
Two spotlights lit the concrete arch in a brilliant glare, making the darkness just beyond seem that much darker. It looked to him to be a solid wall of black, and as he strained unsuccessfully to see into it, Jake had the uneasy feeling that something was hidden within its swirling depths, hiding just beyond the range of his vision, crouched there in hungry anticipation of his arrival.
You don’t want to go in there,an inner voice warned.There’s nothing on the other side of that arch; no grass, no graves, no cemetery. Just one great, sprawling nothing, and it’s waiting for you.
Waiting to swallow you whole.
“Bullshit!” he said aloud. The echo of his voice in the otherwise empty silence of the night made him jump in surprise.It’s just dark, that’s all. That’s why you brought the flashlight, remember? he told himself. Though he knew he was being ridiculous, knew it was just an illusion created by the contrast of the lights and the night’s darkness, he still couldn’t help but cringe when he passed beneath the arch, expecting in that instant to be sucked away into the void, never to return.
Of course, nothing like that happened, and he emerged on the other side unscathed.
“Nothing to it,” he muttered beneath his breath as he wiped the thin sheen of sweat from his brow.
Turning on the flashlight, its beam lighting the way before him for a good twenty feet, Jake set off, knowing if he hesitated, he might lose his nerve and turn back.
The darkness pressed in from all sides.
It was a hungry beast waiting to pounce, and more than once he stopped in his tracks and swung the flashlight in a slow arc around him, assuring himself that he was, indeed, alone. On the last such pass, a sudden realization came to him, and it was one that did nothing to improve the state of his already frayed nerves. Seeing the glistening marble of the headstones that stood in silent rows on either side of the path on which he stood, Jake remembered he wasn’t alone.
Not really.
Not by a long shot.
He had the dead for company.
He imagined them in their holes beneath the ground, lying languidly in their coffins, their flesh rotting from their bones, their lips pulled back to reveal grinning teeth, their eyes open and staring. Eyes that were alive with unnatural life. Eyes that could see him despite the wood and earth that separated them. He pictured their grins growing wider at the sight, their arms slowly rising off their chests to reach upward toward him…
Jake shook himself violently, trying to dispel the images. He wasn’t entirely successful. The hair rose on his arms and the back of his neck. He had to force himself to keep moving. It couldn’t be much farther, he figured.
If you go on, you might not be able to turn back,that disturbing little voice whispered in the back of his mind, but he ignored it and continued on.
Five minutes later he turned off the path, his feet seeming to know the way of their own accord. Despite his unease, Jake really couldn’t believe he was doing this. Back home, with the night’s excitement still rampaging through his system and Gabriel’s voice echoing in his ears, the idea that some supernatural being was hunting in Harrington Falls had seemed possible. The strange coincidences that had been occurring around him had added fuel to the fire, seeming to add up to that conclusion as naturally as two and two make four. But here, in the depths of the cemetery in the heart of the night, Jake was no longer so certain.
Jake wrestled with his thoughts for several more minutes, until he realized he had reached his destination.
There, not ten feet away, was the tomb.
Maybe it was the sense of evil that pervaded the place, or the nerve-jabbing feeling that all was not as it should be there, or the perception of wrongness that penetrated to the bone like an ice-cold February rain, but whatever it was, Jake suddenly knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that his conclusions had been right. He could feel it in his heart, in his head, and in his soul. Where five minutes before he had come close to convincing himself that it was all nonsense, now, staring at the crypt, all his suspicions were swept away by a mental tide of profound certainty.
The beast was real.
As if in confirmation of that fact, the open door of the crypt creaked loudly.
Jake felt his breath vanish in a sudden rush. “Oh, God,” he said softly.
Shining the light out on the ground before him, his feet suddenly unsteady, Jake cautiously made his way closer to the crypt until he stood only a foot or so in front of the door.
He was sick with dread.
Praying that his mind was right and his instincts wrong, Jake lifted the flashlight until its beam shone directly into the tomb.
He felt his mind tilt crazily at the sight before him, and his knees grew dangerously weak. He knew that if he fell there, that close to the tomb, he might not have the strength to get back up. That was the last thing he wanted just then. If he didn’t get away from there, he knew he’d go crazy. As it was, he couldn’t bear to look any longer.
Try as he might as he slowly backed away, Jake found he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the sight before him.
The beam of light shone directly on the rear wall of the tomb.
The emptiness of the chamber seemed to mock him in return.
As impossible as it was, it was true.
The tomb was empty.
29
DECISION TIME
“Can I come in?”
Jake nodded and stepped back slightly, allowing Katelynn just enough room to get through the door before he quickly closed and locked it thoroughly. He then checked the locks twice before peering out the peephole into the night.
Katelynn watched all this without a word.
Jake didn’t look so good. His hair was uncombed and wildly tangled. A five o’clock shadow lay heavy on his face.
Jake turned to face her. He put one finger to his lips and motioned for her to follow with his other hand.
They went through the living room, where Katelynn saw Sam asleep on the sofa, looking even worse than Jake. The large circles under his eyes were exaggerated by the pale, pasty color of his skin. One hand lay atop the blanket that covered his body, and Katelynn could see that it trembled while he slept.
Jake took a seat at the table and, with an unsteady wave of one hand, indicated she should do likewise.
“What happened to Sam?”
Jake shook his head. “He showed up here a few hours ago but passed out before he could tell me anything. I haven’t bothered to try to wake him.”
“What’s going on, Jake?” she asked in a quiet voice.
For several long moments she thought he wasn’t going to answer. He sat there without moving, silently staring at the table, a distant glazed look in his eyes. When at last he did answer, his voice was a low monotone. “Earlier, when I told you that you must have been dreaming, I was wrong. It’s real, Katelynn. It’s real, and it’s out there somewhere. Waiting to kill again.” He told her everything that had happened from the time she left him in the Hemingway until he called her to come over.