Frank Herbert Read online

  Lying neatly on top of the wood was the dead dog’s missing head.

  The flashlight began to slip from her fingers. She used both hands to steady it for a moment. With an effort of sheer will, she snatched a quick armload of wood from the edge of the pile, then raced for sun and sanity.

  She pushed through the door into the kitchen, locked the door behind her, and dumped her wood into the woodbox.

  Panic gave way to anger. She pounded one fist into the palm of the other. “Enough is enough,” she said.

  She strode into the living room, determined to throw out the strange cat, no matter how much it yowled.

  But the black cat was gone, and her own golden Puss slept serenely in the patch of sunlight.

  “Sure looks pretty in the sun,” said a voice by the door.

  She screamed and whirled. “Willy! What are you doing here?”

  Willy grinned, stepped farther into the room. “Brought back your pretty cat.”

  She swallowed. “Thank you, Willy.”

  He took a step closer. “Had to put my cat outside,” he said. “Your cat got pretty mad when he saw Blackie.”

  “Is the black cat yours?” she asked.

  Willy nodded proudly, his tiny blue eyes sparkling. “Yes. Do you like my pretty kitty?”

  Mary managed a nod. “He made himself at home.”

  Willy grinned. “He used to live here. He belonged to the nice lady who died.”

  Who died? Mary wondered. Nobody told me. She swallowed in a dry throat. “Did you know the lady who died?”

  Willy shuffled into the patch of sunlight that spread gold across Puss’s fur. He stroked the cat, and it responded with a deep purr. “Sure is a nice cat,” he said. “I took him to see my house.”

  Mary tried frantically to think of a way to make Willy leave without antagonizing him. “Did—did your cat go home?” she asked, thinking she might suggest his black cat was hungry and he should attend to it.

  Willy shook his head. “No. He likes it better here. I have to keep him closed in my cabin.” His jaw went slack. “Poor lady. She was sure nice to that cat.” He jerked his head toward Mary. “She liked her cat just like you do.”

  Mary nodded, took a careful step toward the kitchen door and the phone.

  “She got all choked,” said Willy.

  Mary’s eyebrows rose. “The cat?”

  “Naw. The lady. Her eyes sort of bugged out, and she was real dead, so—”

  Mary took two more steps toward the kitchen. Willy was not only half-witted, he sounded psychotic. In a wildly irrelevant way, she recalled reading that simpletons seldom went crazy. Not enough mechanisms to go wrong.

  A sudden idea came into her mind. “Willy, would you do me a favor?”

  “I’d like that,” Willy said. “I did lots of nice things for the lady who got choked.”

  “Yes,” Mary said. What in God’s name was he talking about? “I found the head to the dog, Willy.”

  He seemed interested. “Where is the poor little dog’s head?”

  Mary almost said, “Where you put it,” but she restrained the thought. “Down in the cellar,” she said. “You have to go outside to go down there.”

  Willy grinned in delight, shambled toward the door. “I’ll get it and put it with the rest of the poor little dog,” he said.

  Mary took a deep breath of relief as Willy shuffled out the door. She hurried to close it when it opened again and Willy leaned in at her.

  “Lady,” he said gently.

  She paused in the center of the room. “Yes?”

  Willy smiled, and his little blue eyes almost closed. “If you get choked, I’ll take care of that pretty gold cat of yours, too.”

  Mary forced the corners of her mouth in a caricature of a smile. “Thank you,” she managed.

  The door closed, and she heard Willy’s progress around the house. Three steps took her to the door. She slammed and locked it. She hurried through the house to the back door, checked its double locks.

  Through the thin flooring beneath her feet, she could hear Willy in the cellar. She forced the picture out of her mind of the halfwit removing the gory head from the woodpile.

  But his voice came through the floor to underline the unseen movement. “Poor little doggie. Poor, poor little doggie. Willy’s going to put you back together. Poor little doggie.”

  Still crooning, Willy crossed the cellar, mounted the stairs to the patio behind the kitchen.

  Mary returned to the living room and sank into the maple rocker.

  On the window seat, Puss opened one eye, mewed lightly.

  Mary set the rocker into gentle motion, tried to organize her thoughts. When Willy spoke of “the woman who had been choked,” she had not believed him, but now doubts hit her.

  Perhaps Willy had made it all up.

  But the cat had acted so much at home.

  Skepticism reasserted itself. What I need is sane and logical conversation, she thought, realizing as she did that it was the first time since coming to the cottage that she had thought seriously of returning to the city.

  She pulled herself from the armchair, went through to the wall phone in the kitchen.

  With one hand on the receiver, she paused, wondering if she was using these incidents as an excuse to call Ron. She shrugged. What if I am? she thought. I was never meant to be a hermit.

  The lawyer’s voice came on the phone at the second ring, and she felt suddenly shy.

  “Mary!” he said. “How are you? Is Santa Maria taking the—are you feeling better?”

  She pushed the receiver hard against her left ear. “It’s—it’s beautiful here, Ron. I wish you could see it.”

  His voice sounded light and happy. In her imagination, she could see his big desk with its afternoon clutter of papers. “I wish I could, too. Maybe …” His voice trailed off, then became stronger. “Why don’t I drive up one of these days?”

  “Why not tomorrow?” she asked. The receiver felt damp in her hand.

  He laughed. “It’s Saturday. Why not?”

  Mary took a deep breath. “Well—well, fine, then.” She wanted to tell him how frightened she was; she didn’t know how to begin.

  “Mary.” His voice changed, deepened. “Is something wrong?”

  She closed her eyes, forced her voice to sound easy. “No. No. Not really. It’s just that something rather awful happened this morning, and I haven’t quite gotten over it.

  “What happened?”

  “Some kids threw a dead dog onto my patio,” she said. “I found it when I came out this morning.” She took a deep breath.

  There was a moment of silence on the phone, filled only by a faint line hum. Then he said, “Couldn’t the dog have been ill—or perhaps poisoned? And just happened to die where you found him?”

  Her hand was perspiring so freely it slipped a bit on the receiver. She gave up her pretense of calm. “Ron! The dog had no head! Somebody had cut off its head!”

  “Good God!” He hesitated. “That has a nasty sound to it.” Again silence, then: “Have you called the police?”

  “No—I—what could I actually tell them?”

  His voice hardened. “Look, I’ll be up tomorrow. In the meantime, promise you’ll stay inside and keep the doors locked. This doesn’t sound like kids. It sounds like a nut.”

  She promised, although the doors had been locked ever since she’d gotten rid of Willy. Still, the first thing she did after hanging up was recheck the doors—and the windows.

  As Mary went into the living room, Puss woke up, stretched in the sunshine, and curled up the other direction.

  Mary glanced at the clock. Almost 8:00. Night came late in the summer. She wished for a moment she had insisted Ron come right up, but that would have sounded hysterical. She wondered if she should have told him what Willy had said about the woman who had been choked—but was glad she hadn’t. The ravings of that poor simpleton would have convinced Ron she was a nervous wreck.

  The pho
ne rang, and fear clutched at her chest. She forced herself to cross the living room and kitchen slowly, answering it on the third ring. “Hello?”

  “Mrs. Cloister?”

  Mary smiled her relief. It was the warm voice of Brett at the store. She could picture him, with his shock of brown hair standing almost on end—the gentle expression of his eyes—the work-calloused hands. “Hello, Mr. Brett,” she said, more enthusiastically than she had intended.

  “Say, I’m sorry to bother you, but I got to worrying about Willy. Has he been up there pestering you, Mrs. Cloister?”

  Mary frowned at the phone. “Why do you ask?”

  Brett chuckled, and again his voice warmed her. She pictured him in her mind—thinking suddenly how strange was the similarity between Brett and his brother, yet the bright blue eyes so alarming in Willy were friendly when lit by Brett’s intelligence. And the stocky build, so simian in the brother, looked strong and protective in Brett.

  “Well,” said Brett, “Willy was late this morning, and he said he’d been up at your place. I got to thinking, and I was afraid he’d been pestering you. He acts sort of queer sometimes—but he don’t mean no harm.”

  Mary took a firmer grip on the phone. This was her chance to clear up the biggest question in her mind. “Mr. Brett, who used to live in this cottage?”

  “Last party was a fishing fellow from the city. Before that, a young couple lived there all one summer. Why?”

  Something felt wrong in the answer. Mary shook her head, glanced around the kitchen. “Who—who fixed this place up?”

  “Must have been the young couple,” Brett said. “The wife was an artist with some magazine. She had pretty fancy ideas.”

  Mary’s eye swept the provincial wallpaper, the ruffled priscillas, the almost overdone cuteness. “Oh? Maybe I know her,” she said. “Which magazine?”

  Brett named one of the most sophisticated fashion publications in the country. Mary gasped in disbelief. No artist who worked for that magazine could have overdecorated this kitchen. “Are you sure?”

  He cleared his throat. “Yes, Mrs. Cloister. She was always talking about it. Seemed pretty proud of her job.”

  Mary readjusted her grip on the phone, thinking of the woman Willy had said was choked. “Are you sure someone else—some other woman didn’t live here just recently? Maybe an older woman—?”

  Brett’s voice became less friendly. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh—just something Willy said.”

  The warmth returned to Brett’s voice as he chuckled. “Pay no mind to Willy, Mrs. Cloister. He just ain’t right.” He cleared his throat. “You want I should bring you up some groceries?”

  She thought, I’ll need to fix lunch for Ron tomorrow, but I’d better think through a list first. She said: “No, thank you. I’ll need some steaks and things in the morning, though—I may walk down.”

  “Glad to bring them up,” he said.

  “No, thank you,” Mary said. “I’m not sure of everything I need yet.”

  “Give me a call when you need me,” he said. “I’ll come myself instead of sending Willy.”

  “Thank you,” she said. She considered telling him about the dog but hesitated to add to his worries about his brother. “You’re very kind.”

  “That’s what neighbors are for,” he said. “It’s hard on a woman all alone. A body gets to thinking too much.” He paused, then added, “If you ever feel jumpy or anything, you just call me.”

  “I will,” she said. “Thank you, Mr. Brett.”

  After she had hung up, she felt jumpier than ever. Perhaps she should have had him bring up some groceries and check the place.

  Soon it would be dark. With a shudder, she remembered the sounds that had disturbed her the previous night.

  After a late supper that was more a snack than a meal, Mary again went around the cottage, checking the door locks.

  The cottage was so far from its neighbors that it had no window shades—just red checked curtains that barely pulled across the night-darkened panes.

  She started her fire, sat down before it with Puss in her lap—tried to read. Soon she realized she was just turning pages. Her awareness remained focused on the poorly covered windows.

  Was someone out there? And if so—why?

  She scratched Puss under the chin, glad of his company. “Well, Puss, I’m scared.” She tried to smile. “If that’s the idea of all this—it’s succeeding.”

  The door shook suddenly, and her eyes widened in fear. She stroked the cat as if Puss had been frightened too. Her stomach felt like one big knot.

  “Just the wind,” she said.

  Again she tried to read—and again failed. She snapped the book shut in anger at her own nervousness.

  At the slap of the book’s closing, Puss leaped to the floor, mewed at the door.

  What if someone forces his way in as I let Puss out? Mary wondered. She stood up, made herself walk to the door, held it open while Puss marched out.

  It was pitch black outside. The wind from the bay blew harsh and cold. She closed the door quickly.

  That’s one cat that stays out tonight, she told herself. I’m not opening that door again for anything.

  She consoled herself with the thought that Puss often stayed out all night—it wouldn’t hurt him.

  The only thing to do was to go to bed, she decided. She refused to check the locks again, turned off the lights. With the lights out, each window didn’t seem to be watching her.

  After she got into bed, Mary found herself wishing she had told Ron to drive up this evening. He might have taken her back to the city and the safety of her apartment.

  This is nonsense! She told herself. Muscle by muscle, she forced each part of her body to relax—starting with her toes. She stretched, willed a drowsy mood to fill her mind.

  Without warning, the bed shook as something heavy hit it. Mary gasped, jerked erect in bed. “What—?”

  A deep purring came out of the dark.

  “Oh, Puss! You scared me.” She sank back onto her pillow, felt the bed quiver as the cat sought a comfortable spot near her feet.

  Mary’s eyes began to close; the drowsiness returned—and then she remembered: Puss had been locked outside!

  She eased to a sitting position, reached out in the darkness, brushed against soft fur.

  The cat snarled angrily, and she drew back with a gasp.

  It was Willy’s black-and-white tom, the cat that had belonged to the woman who “was choked.”

  Mary stared into the blackness, hardly breathing in her effort to hear any strange sound. A pulse drummed in her neck.

  Was the front door opened? How could this cat have entered?

  The sensible part of her mind told her to get up, check the door, and see if it had blown open.

  Slowly, she swung her legs from under the covers, felt the braided rug under her bare feet.

  Again the strange cat snarled, disturbed by her movement.

  Her hand moved to the light over her bed, pulled back.

  The only sound had been from the cat. If there was another—her mind hunted the word—another intruder, it would be better not to advertise that she was awake.

  She felt a terrible exposure moving through darkness—wearing only a flannel nightgown. It was as if she walked toward danger instead of running from it.

  A tiny orange light, flickering from an almost burned-out log in the fireplace, greeted her as she entered the living room.

  Mary took a deep breath, crossed to the hearth, picked up a piece of firewood. With the makeshift weapon in her hand, she felt somewhat safer.

  She could see the front door by the firelight. Tightly closed.

  How had that black tom entered? Not down the chimney—the fire. Mary frowned. Could a window be open from the top? The wind—she’d have felt a cold draft.

  She moved toward the lamp, reassuring herself with the round splintering feeling of the firewood in her hand. The lamp chain felt cold. She
pulled it—click!—and sighed with relief as yellow light drove back the darkness.

  A rattling and rolling sounded from the roof. She looked up, stifling a half scream.

  “What was that?” she asked, forcing her voice into the silence.

  It came again—a rumbling crash—followed by repeated knockings and rolling.

  She’d tried to blame the squirrels the night before, but tonight it was much louder.

  The thought of giant squirrels dropping oversized walnuts onto the roof brought a hysterical giggle into her throat.

  Again the noise rattled and tumbled down the roof.

  It could only be one thing. Someone must be throwing rocks onto the roof—a cruel joke.

  Mary crossed to the front door, the firewood clenched in her hand. She held her face close to the tiny window in the door, flashed on the porch light, peered out.

  Something moved out there. For just a moment, she saw a man, a shadow against shadows. Then he was gone, swallowed by night beyond the wisteria.

  The half-second glimpse was enough. Willy!

  Mary tried the doorknob, making sure it was locked.

  With a swirl of her gown, she raced for the kitchen, double-checked the lock and bolt on the back door.

  She turned on the light over the stove, crossed to the table, and sank into a chair. Willy! What could she do against that poor, confused mind?

  She put the firewood on the table, stood up, and crossed to the telephone. The kitchen linoleum was cold against her feet. Her first thought was to call Ron, but he was three hours away in the city. Perhaps Brett? She nodded. He would know how to handle Willy.

  She found the number, lifted the phone off the hook, put it to her ear.

  Silence.

  Not even a line hum.

  The kitchen felt so cold, the night so dark and windy. She clicked the phone hook, knowing before she did it that it was useless. Someone had cut the wires.

  For some terrible reason, Willy wanted her to be alone and frightened.

  She swallowed hard—once, twice. At least he can’t get in.

  Then she remembered the black–and-white tomcat. How had it entered?

  Her glance strayed toward the kitchen window. The curtains barely stretched across the dark glass, with gaps at each side where anyone could look in.