For Fear of the Night by Charles L. Grant

Author:Charles L. Grant [Grant, Charles L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: occult, horror
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2017-02-18T00:00:00+00:00

ELEVEN

In time there was Marty Kilmer, flushed from running, panting heavily as he slipped a gentle arm around Devin’s shoulder and eased him away from Mary’s body, glancing at but saying nothing about the shirt over the dead woman’s face. A few questions Devin heard as if through sporadic radio static, a few monosyllabic responses while he backed away and held his camera close to his bare chest.

The breeze was cooler.

He couldn’t look away.

The lights somehow brighter.

He couldn’t look away from Mary and the dirt-black of her soles.

The curious began drifting to the boardwalk’s north end as the sirens returned, and a rescue-squad van sped up on a ramp and stopped with lights spinning. A heavyset attendant set his equipment down beside the dead woman, lifted the shirt, and turned away with a harsh inhalation; his partner looked as well, and the two of them stared at Devin before opening the van’s back and taking out a stretcher.

There was no attempt at resuscitation.

Devin’s teeth were chattering.

Voices low and questioning, and he wrenched his head toward the dunes when he felt people watching him as much as they watched the attendants do their job.

He didn’t think. He couldn’t think. And his fingers bound themselves with the strap of the camera, a reaction he didn’t notice until his fingers began to tingle. When he freed them, he flexed them to start circulation again, ignoring the jabs of pain when a gust of wind fluttered the hem of the muumuu and made it seem as if Mary were trying to rise.

No one else noticed.

Devin closed his eyes.

Soon after, three more patrolmen arrived in a squad car, and within seconds, forestalling questions with a grunt and a look, Kilmer had them in a line to keep the onlookers away. Then he walked over to Devin and with him watched the ambulance swallow the stretcher.

“Do I have to go?” Devin asked as the van backed away toward the ramp and the street. “With them, I mean.”

Kilmer shook his head. “Not unless you’re a relative.”

“No.”

Kilmer nodded, and nodded for him to stay where he was while he walked over to the dark pier and looked at the gap in the plywood barrier. He stepped closer and peered in, and jerked back with a grimace and a wave of a hand in front of his face. He spat and shook his head, and glanced up at the twin arches that barely caught the boardwalk’s light.

Don’t think, Devin told himself; don’t think.

When the policeman returned, expression professionally blank, Devin pressed his arms tight to his sides and forced himself to shudder, to shake off the cold inside and out, to stop his teeth from clacking together. A slow breath. He puffed his cheeks and blew softly.

Then Kilmer asked, “What happened?” and Devin didn’t know.

Stump disdained a last-minute, desperate prayer and raised both hands over his head. He trembled so violently he feared he would topple. But the trembling soon calmed. The night air dried his palms. He clapped his hands once, knowing he was grinning like a madman, or a dead man, and not giving a damn.

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