The Bone House - Brian Freeman [122]
'Let's go, Tresa,' he said.
'Wait! Did you hear that?'
Mark listened. The rain beat on the roof. That was all he heard. 'There's no one outside,' he said, but he had the same feeling he'd had earlier. Something was wrong. He looked around the bedroom, trying to pinpoint his anxiety, and realized that the clock on the nightstand was dark. Moments earlier, it had glowed with white numbers.
'Stay right there,' he told her.
He pushed himself off the floor, but despite his warning, Tresa got up with him and clung to his side. Her arm wrapped around his waist. He felt the speed of her breathing as her chest rose and fell like a scared animal. She wasn't acting. This was real.
Mark groped for the light switch on the wall, and when he found it, he flicked it upward and downward several times. Nothing happened.
'The power's out.'
'Oh, shit,' Tresa murmured. 'He's here.'
* * *
Chapter Forty-Four
Cab found an old steel gate at the dead end of Juice Mill Lane, where it butted up against the western land of the state park. He examined the gate in the darkness with the beam of a Mag-Lite. Two dented signs hung over the top rail, tied with rusted wire. One said No Trespassing. The other was a number stamped like a license plate in faded white letters: 11105.
This was Peter Hoffman's land.
He studied the rutted road beyond the gate that disappeared into the thick of the forest. The ground was a muddy mess of dirt and grass. He didn't see footprints, which told him that no one had been here in the rainy hours since Peter Hoffman's death. That was good. If Hoffman had a secret that had got him killed, and if this land was part of that secret, then Cab didn't want to wait until morning and give someone else a chance to visit overnight.
The rain kept on like Chinese music, making a plink-plink rhythm on the roof of the forest. He walked around the gate. The ground had a damp, wormy smell. He saw one fat worm in the light, stretched out like pink candy among the old leaves. He picked his way along the path, noting Private Property signs with reflective letters shining among the wet, glistening trees. Far from the old gate, he spotted vines draped over a narrow trail, where an ash had fallen, blocking the way with a mossy trunk. He stepped over the tree and followed the trail away from the road, sweeping the dirt with a back-and-forth arc of his flashlight. Fifty yards inside the forest, he spotted a glint of glass reflecting from the ground. Standing over it, he saw an open, empty bottle of Jameson's whiskey. The glass was clean; it hadn't been lying here for long. It was the same brand he'd found on the kitchen table at Peter Hoffman's house.
Hoffman had been here recently.
Cab lifted the flashlight and saw the remains of a cabin in front of him.
The dilapidated structure was quickly disappearing back into the arms of nature. Snow and rain had punched the roof downward, leaving gaping holes. The walls bowed inward, specked with remnants of red paint. Popped, rusty nails lined the beams like broken teeth. The door hung open, rotting away from its top hinge, and the chambered windows were broken into jagged fragments. Shredded yellow curtains billowed into the rain. Weeds grew as high as the gutters.
Cab walked up to the door and exposed the interior of the ruins to his light, scattering red-eyed mice. He saw an old stove, its door hanging open, with a rusted grate still inside. Two wooden chairs lay in broken slats on the floor, and bricks from the chimney had crumbled forward into scattered rubble. Rain splattered into puddles through the open roof, and he saw black pellets of feces. Old spiderwebs hung like lace across the windows. Other than the animal presence, the cabin had been unoccupied for many seasons, left to fend for itself in a losing battle against the elements.
Peter