02 Ancient Evil by Christopher Pike

Author:Christopher Pike [Pike, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Eric called Alison early Sunday morning. He had good news and bad news. The new owner of James Whiting’s record store was not going to be in till Tuesday, and the help refused to give out his home number. That was the bad news. The good news was that James Whiting’s brother was the guy who had bought the store. If anyone knew where James had been during those missing two weeks, it should be him, Eric thought. Eric told Alison to keep her head low and call him if anything happened between then and Tuesday. All day Sunday Alison tried to reach Tony, with no luck. His parents didn’t know where he was. That made her worry all the more.

Come Monday there was still no sign of Tony.

He didn’t even show up for Fran’s funeral.

They buried Fran in the same cemetery where Neil had been laid to rest. Of course, Neil had been alive at the time of his funeral, and they had unknowingly spent the afternoon mourning the remains of James Whiting. Such could not be said for Fran. As the doctor at the hospital had said, she was as dead as they came. Alison stood dressed in black beside Brenda and couldn’t be free of the idea that Fran lay only a couple feet away without her head properly attached. The attending minister spoke about the valley of the shadow of death and lying down in green pastures to rest beside clear waters. It all sounded like a badly written fairy tale to Alison. If there was a God, he was keeping his address secret. Maybe he didn’t want to get a chain letter. Alison was beginning to believe the Caretaker was working for the devil. She had had a hellish dream the night before, filled with weird colored lights, sick smells, and tortured souls.

The funeral finally came to an end, and Alison hugged and kissed Fran’s parents and told them if there was anything she could do . . . What a futile offer. What could she do for them? Be their daughter? Fran had been their only child. It was all so sad.

Alison said goodbye to Brenda and her own parents and drove home by herself. But as she had on Saturday, she passed by her usual off-ramp and headed for the mountains. An hour and a half later she found herself walking beside the lake where she had met the intriguing stranger. She went to the door of his cabin and knocked repeatedly. There was no answer. She tried the knob, and the door swung in easily. But the inside was not as she had remembered it, not exactly. There was the same wood stove, the same black kettle sitting on top of it. But the place was filled with dust and cobwebs, as if it had been months since anyone had lived there. It made her wonder whether her encounter with the stranger had been a dream—or worse, a hallucination. Yet she knew in her heart that it had been neither.

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