999_ Twenty-Nine Original Tales of Horror and Suspense - Al Sarrantonio [40]
But when he held his breath, to listen intently, the voice was gone as if it had never been.
At last slipping away from the ruin of Cross Hill. In secret!
To ride, defiantly, his spare, lithe bicycle that now hurtled itself along the moonlit road with the hungry energy of a mongrel dog.
The first night, Stephen rode perhaps two miles before, stricken with conscience and worry that Father would have discovered his absence, he turned back. He was fearful, too, of venturing farther in the dark, as clouds like shrapnel obscured the moon. For what of that thing his brother had seen, or had claimed to see—the thing-without-a-face? Stephen didn’t believe that such a creature existed but he well believed that a crazed black bear must be preying upon human beings, its appetite whetted by the taste of human blood.
The second night, Stephen bicycled perhaps four miles before turning back. He was breathless, exhilarated. A weapon, a knife—I should have protection. How strange that, each time he ventured out on his nighttime journey, Stephen forgot to bring a knife, even a paring knife; only when he was actually on the road, in the stark loneliness of night, hurtling between somber, darkened, fragrant fields and meadows and wooded hills that quivered with unknown, invisible life, only then did he remember—I might be in danger; I should have protection.
How he yearned never to come back to the ruin of Cross Hill! His heart beat in an ecstasy of flight. Yet he always returned, of course; he was a responsible boy; never would he have abandoned his sister, Rosalind, and the twins, Neale and Ellen; and he was reluctant, too, to abandon Father and Mother, despite everything. For he yearned to believe all that Father had vowed—Bear with me, children. I will be redeemed. I will redeem us all. It was true, wasn’t it? It had to be true!
So each night in succession, Stephen returned home well before dawn; his head aching with exhaustion, and yet exhilaration; his shoulder, arm, and leg muscles pleasurably tingling. It was quite an experience now to ride his bicycle: no longer the sleek, elite Italian road bike that had been a costly birthday present to Stephen from his parents but this scarred, battered mongrel that fit so comfortably between his legs. Almost, it seemed to him alive. Eager to fly along the bumpy road into layers of shadow that parted to admit him as if welcoming him. Ste-phen! Oh, Stephen!
And so returning, to hide his bicycle beneath a waterproof tarpaulin in dense cover beside the road. Congratulating himself on his cleverness. Congratulating himself, though he was sweaty and shivering with nerves, on his fearlessness. He kept his bicycle beside the road so that he could more readily slip from the house and run stooped over through the grassy park to push through an opening in the wrought iron fence, undetected; as he might have been detected had he pushed or ridden his bike along Acacia Drive.
Stealth had come second nature to Stephen.
He wondered—Was this Graeme’s way, too?
He wondered—Am I following my brother’s path; will I be reunited with him?
Stephen was never detected leaving Cross Hill at night. How strange then, how unexpected and bold, that he should find himself daring to slip away during the day.
For by late summer, poor Mother was never vigilant about any of her children. Rosalind tended the twins, who clung to her like children of three or four, not nearly eleven. “Poor Neale!—poor Ellen!” Rosalind hugged them, and kissed them, and tried gently to extricate herself from their desperate, sticky embraces: “You have got to find games to play by yourself. Please!” Stephen, though he loved his baby brother and sister, had even less patience with them than Rosalind. If they