Dead Man's Song (Pine Deep 2)

“Look at the nail heads. Shiny bright. They’re brand-new. ”

“Oh…shit. ”

“I’ll bet this hasn’t been up for more than a couple of weeks. All of the windows are the same. I checked. All the lumber is new, all the nails are new. ”

“Oh,” Newton said, “shit. ”

“Uh huh,” Crow said and his eyes were bright and even a little wild, “but there’s more, kid, and this is the kicker. This is the cat’s ass. ” He pointed to the double front doors. They were heavy and ornate, and once had long glass panels, but the panes were covered over with neatly sawn strips of plywood as green as what covered the windows. But what Crow was indicating was the chain that held the doors closed. One hole had been drilled through each door and a heavy length of brand-new steel welded chain was laced through, effectively chaining the doors shut. Crow lifted the slack and gave it a shake to show how solidly the doors were held fast. The links were as thick as Crow’s thumb.

“Damn,” Newton observed, bending close to examine the chain. “We’ll never break that. ”

“No shit. It’s the same on the backdoor. ”

“What do you think? Caretaker?”

Crow felt like punching the man. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Newton, are you friggin’ blind?”

“What? I can see the chain. I can see that it’s as new as the plywood. ”

“Newt,” Crow said with as much patience as he could muster. “Where’s the lock?”

“The, er, lock?” Newton looked blank, then he got it. The loop of chain emerged from one drilled hole and reentered the house through the hole on the other door. What Crow held in his hand was an uninterrupted length of slack. “Oh, shit,” Newton said again, with greater emphasis.

“Yeah. ”

The chain was padlocked on the inside of Griswold’s house.

“Back door?”

“The same?”

“Cellar door?”

“Uh huh. ”

“Crow…whoever slung those chains—”

“—is inside that house,” Crow said and then gave Newton a ghastly smile. “Inside with all the windows all boarded up. ”

“So no sunlight can get in,” Newton said softly. Even more softly he said, “Uh oh. ”

“Yeah. ”

“Crow, trite as may be to say it, I have a very bad feeling about this. ”

“Yeah. I’ve had a bad feeling since we came out of the woods. The place is in too good a shape, and that bothers the hell out of me. ” Licking his lips nervously, Crow stepped closer to the door and reached out with one tentative hand to touch the wood. The plywood was cool and felt slightly damp. “That’s weird. ”

“Put your hand on the wood. ”

“I really don’t want to. ”

Crow said nothing, but continued to touch the door. There was a faint tremble and he couldn’t tell if it was coming through the wood or was the shaking of his own hand. He closed his eyes to try to focus his sense of touch and instantly the trembling became more pronounced, and it wasn’t just in the wood. He could feel it rippling in waves up his arm as if the whole house was vibrating. Then, in the deepest part of his brain, the place where his fears lived, where those last words of Ruger echoed without end, he heard a voice whisper to him.

She is going to die and there is nothing you can do to save her. Nothing!

It was so deep, so tangled up with his own fears that he almost didn’t hear it, but then the vibration in the wood spiked and he cried out and staggered back as if the wood had sent a shock through his skin.

Newton looked at him. “What’s wrong with you?”