Tread Softly Read online

  "And I cried, 'It was surely October/on this very night of last year/That I journeyed — I journeyed down here/That I brought a dread burden down here/On this night of all nights in the year,/Ah, what demon has tempted me here?' " His glasses reflected the firelight, hiding his eyes behind leaping flames. " 'Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber — /This misty mid region of Weir — /Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber/This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.' " He leaned back, took a deep breath, and smiled.

  Heather, who'd been gazing spellbound, started to clap. The others joined in. "Terrific," Karen said. Flash clamped his hot mug between his knees, and applauded.

  "Did you learn that for school?" Karen asked.

  "No, just for myself."

  She shook her head as if amazed, and Benny swelled up with pride.

  "Sure was a creepy poem," Nick said.

  Julie turned to Nick, hunched her shoulders, and contorted her face. In a low, moany voice, she said, " 'The ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.' "

  Nick made himself look frightened. "Yeeeeahh!" he cried, and covered his face.

  "Why is it," Alice said, "that we insist on trying to frighten ourselves? Why doesn't somebody say a nice poem?"

  Flash grinned. "Nymphomaniacal Jill used dynamite to get her thrill — "

  "Don't you dare!"

  "Gross," Rose said.

  Flash peered at his daughter, surprised.

  "Why don't I start a story," Alice suggested, "and we'll go around the campfire and everybody add onto it?"

  "Bleah," Rose said.

  Nick nodded. "That's a drag, Mom."

  "Why don't we give it a try?" Karen said. "Might be fun."

  Scott nodded. "Sure. Go ahead, Alice."

  Alice looked grateful for their approval. "All right," she said. "Once upon a time, there was a fair maiden who lived in the woods, all alone except for ..." Pausing, she turned her head toward Rose.

  "Mick Jagger," Rose said.

  She got plenty of laughs except from Alice. "Be serious."

  Rose sighed. "Okay. Except for her mean mother."

  Alice rolled her eyes up, and Flash took a drink of coffee to hide his grin.

  "One day, the maiden got so tired of her mother always spoiling her fun that she ran off into the woods and met ..." She turned to Heather.

  Heather looked across the fire at Benny as if asking for help. With a shrug, she said, "And met a . . . gee, I don't know."

  "The gee-I-don't-know," Nick continued, "was an ugly, hairy thing with one eye where its nose should've been ..."

  "And two noses," Julie added, "where its eyes should've been. The noses were upside down, so it wore a big cowboy hat to keep itself from drowning during rainstorms. Whenever it sneezed, it blew its hat off." She turned to Benny, who stared at her as if she were crazy.

  "When the maiden found the gee-whatever-it-is," he said, "it was crawling around looking for its contact lens. She helped it, and finally they found the lens." Shrugging, he looked at Karen.

  "With the contact lens back in its eye, the gee-I-don't-know stared at the maiden. She was the most beautiful creature it had ever seen. 'Gee, you're purty,' it said." She grinned at Scott.

  "The maiden blushed," he went on. " 'You're not too shabby yourself,' she said. 'And with those two noses, I bet you smell a lot better than me.' " He raised his eyebrows at Flash.

  "So the gee-I-don't-know picked up the fair maiden and carried her deep into the woods. They came to his hut, and went at it hot and heavy."

  "Dad," Rose muttered.

  "Before you know it," he continued, "the little hut was crowded with little gee-I-don't-knows, so they packed up and moved to a condo in Palm Springs and lived happily ever after."

  "What a dumb story," Rose muttered.

  "I thought it was kind of cute," Karen said.

  "Why don't you tell a story?" Benny asked her. "Do you know another scary one like 'Doreen and Audrey'?"

  "Afraid not. That was my entire repertoire."

  "How about you, Dad?" Julie asked.

  "My last one didn't go over too well."

  Julie wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, that's right. Forget I asked."

  "I've got one," Flash said.

  Alice raised an eyebrow. "Is it clean?"

  "Sure."

  "Go on," Nick said. "Let's hear it."

  Flash finished his coffee, and set the aluminum cup on the ground between his boots. "Maybe I'd better not," he said. "Your mother has this thing about creepy stories."

  "Don't make me the villain," she protested. "If you think the story's appropriate, go ahead and tell it."

  He grinned. "Well, if you insist." Reaching inside his jacket, he took a cigar from his shirt pocket. He tore off the cellophane wrapper, crinkled it into a ball, and tossed it into the fire. "This happened to me a long time ago, back when I was in high school."

  "The Dark Ages," Nick said.

  "Right." Clamping the cigar in his teeth, he lifted a twig from the fire. With one hand shielding the small flame from the wind, he lit up. "My dad, my brother, Cliff, and I were on a fishing trip up around Land O'Lakes, Wisconsin. We'd heard about a string of ax murders in the area. Seems some lunatic was running around giving the whack to folks he found in the woods. They called him the Chopper. Maybe a frustrated tree surgeon." Flash grinned at his joke, and stared at the glowing tip of his cigar. "There were four or five bodies they found in the woods. All of 'em were dismembered. Some had arms cut off. Some were missing a leg. Two of 'em were beheaded."

  "Arnold," Alice said in a warning voice.

  "You said I could tell it."

  "I imagined you'd use some discretion."

  "Want me to stop?"

  "Keep going," Nick said. "It's neat."

  Alice sighed. "Just tone it down, all right? There are children present."

  "Tone it down, okay. Now, where was I?" He sucked in some smoke, let it drift out of his nostrils. The wind whipped it away. "Oh, yeah. So the Chopper was on the loose, and they'd found some of his handiwork in the woods, but there were a few other folks who'd just disappeared, so they figured the body count would get even higher. We were a little jumpy, camping out in the neighborhood. Dad was packing a .22 revolver, though, so we figured we'd waste the sucker if he showed himself.

  "I tell you, though, we didn't get much sleep that first night. We were the only campers on the lake. It was mighty dark and silent. Every now and then, we'd hear a rustle in the bushes. Me and Cliff were sure it was the Chopper sneaking in close. I tell you, that was one of the longest nights I ever spent. Before the war anyway," he added, and felt his chest tighten as he saw himself cowering in the jungle.

  "Did he get you?" Scott asked.

  "Huh? No. No, we made it through the night okay."

  Flash took a deep breath. "We spent the next day on the lake. Rowing around and fishing. It was sunny and hot. Real nice. Dragonflies, loons cackling. Real pleasant. And we had a lot of luck, fishing. Brought in a whole string of bluegill and sunfish, a couple of bullheads. We fried them up for dinner, and had a real feast. Then we went out in the rowboat again for some night fishing.

  "I guess we were all glad to be on the lake after dark. Out there, we didn't have to worry about the Chopper. My God, it was nice out there. Warm, just a little breeze. The moonlight looked like silver on the water. There were lightning bugs. We were all greased up and stinky with 6-12, to keep the mosquitoes off." He sighed. "Anyway, we were drifting near the north end of the lake, maybe fifty yards from shore, when I felt a sudden tug on my line. Man, I was excited! I started reeling in, thinking I'd hooked a real whopper. Felt heavy, you know? My rod was bent almost double. But I started to wonder, because I wasn't getting any play. You know how you can usually feel the fish flipping around down there? Well, this one didn't seem to be moving at all. Just a dead weight.

  "Cliff shined his flashlight on the lake where my line was in. The beam only went in a little way. I remember how dirty the water looked. Like it
was full of dust, or something. Then, as I cranked the reel, this pale hand came up like there was somebody reaching for the light. I tell you, I damn near croaked. But I kept reeling in, and Cliff held the flashlight steady, and a second later I had a severed arm swinging from the end of my rod. It was cut off at the elbow. My hook was in its wrist. We all just stared at the thing. It hung there, dripping and swaying."

  "My God," Julie muttered.

  Alice said, "I thought you promised to tone it down."

  "I'm just telling what happened," Flash said.

  "This didn't happen," she said.

  "Didn't it? Ask Cliff next time he's over."

  "How come you never mentioned it?"

  "You know how you are about these things."

  "Why'd you have to bring it up, then?"

  "The kids wanted a story."

  "Mother of God."

  "May I continue?"

  "You mean there's more?"

  "I haven't got to the good part yet."

  "Oh, for crying out loud."

  "Go on," Nick said. He was leaning forward, elbows on knees. "What'd you do with the thing?"

  "I wanted to cut my line and get rid of it, but Dad said we had to keep it for the authorities. He told me to swing it over to him. He was sitting in the stern. I swung it over, and he grabbed the line and lowered the arm into the boat and cut the line. Then Cliff rowed us back to camp.

  "By the time we got there, most of the shock had worn off. We were all pretty excited, acting as if we'd landed a record-breaking muskie or something. We figured, you know, that it must be the arm of a Chopper victim. Dad put it in a grocery bag. He wanted to take it to the police right away. The nearest town was about an hour drive, though, and we had lots of good camping gear we didn't want to leave behind while we went in. Cliff volunteered to stay and guard the stuff, but Dad wouldn't let him. We finally decided to break camp and take everything with us. We figured, you know, we wouldn't be too eager to stick around another day anyhow.

  "We didn't bother making a campfire. I lit the Coleman lantern, and we kept it by the tent while we gathered up our things. We worked real fast, but it seemed to take forever. The car was parked about a hundred yards away. Dad left me and Cliff a couple of times while he carried stuff over. We didn't much like it when he was gone. We kept looking over our shoulders at the bag with the arm.

  "Anyway, he was carrying the cooler and tackle box to the car and Cliff and I were busy folding the tent, our backs to the lake, when we heard this splashing sound behind us. Like somebody wading slowly out of the water. We leaped to our feet and spun around. And Jesus, there was a man coming at us!"

  Heather covered her eyes.

  "He was kind of stumbling along like he was drunk. He was just a dim shape in the darkness at first. When he got closer to the lantern, though, we could see him real well — too well. He was a skinny guy, about forty. He was wearing jeans and a plaid shirt. His sneakers squished with each step. He was dripping from head to foot. The top of his head was split open like a broken watermelon, and his left arm was gone.

  "Right beside the lantern, he stopped and stared at us with these blank eyes. Then his mouth opened. He tried to say something, and about a gallon of water gushed out of his mouth like he was throwing up. When the water stopped pouring out, he said in this kind of choked, gurgling voice, 'My arm. I want my arm.'

  "Cliff and I ran like hell, too scared even to scream. When we got back to the camp with Dad, the guy was gone." Rash sighed. He tapped a length of ash off his cigar. "We followed his footprints to the edge of the lake. For a long time, we stared out over the water. We couldn't see the guy, but we knew he was out there. Somewhere down below. In the dark, murky water. With his arm."

  Chapter Twenty__________

  The struggle had left Ettie's wrists and ankles raw, but the ropes binding her were as tight as they'd been when she started. Her blood made them slippery, but still she couldn't pull free.

  Her only chance was to cut herself loose. Either that, or wait for Merle to release her. But he might not come back. If the signs had been right . . . Maybe it was already too late to save him. Or herself. Maybe this is how it would end, with Merle meeting his fate at the hands of the campers and Ettie starving to death, helpless in the cave. "No," she said into the darkness. She would get loose. She had to! She knew, from rolling onto her side, that her sheath knife was gone. Merle must've taken it. But what about the Swiss Army knife they'd found among the gear of the dead campers? If he'd forgotten about it, the knife would be somewhere in the heap of equipment at the far end of the cave.

  Slowly, moaning as she strained with stiff muscles, she began to squirm forward. The journey seemed to take forever, but finally she was lying in the jumble of boots, plastic bags, backpacks, cook kits. She felt cloth against her cheek, nudged it aside, felt cool metal. The butane cylinder? She wondered if she might try to burn the ropes off, then quickly abandoned that idea; with her limited mobility, it would be far too risky. Maybe as a last resort. The packs, she knew, were empty. Merle had dumped out their contents the day he'd brought them in. So the knife had to be lying loose here, someplace.

  She continued to search, using her face to push away invisible objects, exploring some with her tongue. She bit and dragged aside soft fabric, a button between her teeth. She lowered her face where it had been, and felt a metallic tube against her lips. She ran her tongue up the ribbed surface. The tube bulged at one end. A flashlight? She rolled it, and felt the switch against her cheek. A flashlight.

  They'd used it only once, testing it when it came tumbling from the pack two days before. Its beam had been dusky yellow, the batteries weak, and she'd told Merle they should save it for an emergency. After that, she'd forgotten all about it.

  Ettie pushed the switch with her chin. The dim beam spilled out, revealing a rumpled pair of jeans. Gripping the flashlight in her teeth, she struggled to her knees. She turned her head slowly, shining the beam over the packs, a sweatshirt, tennis shoes, a collapsible plastic water bucket, foil and cellophane packets of food, a Primus stove, a wallet, a first-aid kit. Her mouth, stretched wide to hold the flashlight, ached badly. She could breathe only through her nose. She felt as if she were suffocating. She gagged, and her eyes teared, but she kept her bite on the metal.

  The red plastic handle of the knife was nowhere to be seen.

  Inching forward, she crept into the heap. Her left knee nudged a hard object hidden under a flannel shirt. She pushed the shirt aside, and tucked her chin down to shine the light at her knees. The murky yellow beam fell on a hatchet.

  Relief swept through Ettie. She forced her mouth open wide, and let the flashlight drop. It hit the granite floor with a dull thud. The cave went dark.

  Ettie writhed and twisted until her fingers found the hatchet. Gripping the blunt end of its head, she pressed the cutting edge between her wrists and began to saw the rope.

  Chapter Twenty-one__________

  Nick shoved aside a sawed-off stump and a rock that had been used as seats at the campfire. Then he spread out his ground cloth. He opened the straps, keeping his rubber mat in a tight roll.

  "Are we sleeping out?" Julie asked.

  He looked over his shoulder. She was approaching from between two of the tents, a toothbrush and tube of toothpaste in her hand, her water bottle clamped under one arm. "Don't you want to?" he asked.

  "What about the rain?"

  He held out his open hands. "What rain?"

  Julie smiled. Her sun-burnished face glowed copper in the firelight. "I'm game if you are," she said. Grinning, she turned away. Nick watched her stride toward the far tent and crouch over her pack. When she vanished inside the tent, he finished arranging his sleeping bag.

  His parents were down by the shore with the twins, washing and brushing teeth. He went to his pack, took out his shorts and T-shirt, and crawled into their tent. His shorts felt cool when he put them on, as if they were still damp from swimming. He knew the sun had drie
d them, though, and his T-shirt had the same moist feel against his skin. Shivering, he hurried outside, stuffed his clothing into his pack, and rushed to his sleeping bag. His teeth chattered as he tugged off his untied boots and his socks. He put them at the head of his bag, and scurried into it. The slippery fabric was cold at first. Slowly, it filled with warmth. By the time Julie came out of her tent, he'd stopped shaking.

  "You look cozy," she said.

  "I am. Sort of."

  She spread her poncho on the ground beside him, rolled out her foam rubber mat, and tugged open the drawstrings of her stuff bag. The sleeping bag bloomed as if inflating when she pulled it free. On her knees, facing Nick, she bent over to spread it out. He watched the way her hair, hanging from under the edges of her hood, brushed against her cheeks like wisps of gold in the firelight.

  "You sleeping out?" Scott called. He appeared from behind one of the tents, Karen and Benny at his sides.

  "Sure," Julie said. "It's not gonna rain."

  "I hope you're right."

  When they were gone, Julie unzipped her sleeping bag, crawled in, and pulled the zipper up to her shoulder. She rolled onto her side. She pillowed her head on her bent arm, and smiled at Nick.

  "We'll wait till they're all in their tents," he whispered. "Then we'll run around yelling, 'My arm! Where's my arm?' "

  She laughed softly. "Forget it. I'm not moving a muscle till the sun comes up."

  "Unless it rains?" Nick asked.

  "If it rains, I think I'll murder you."

  "Hope you two've got your Mae Wests on," Dad said, coming back from the shore.

  "You're gonna drown," Rose informed them.

  "You people have no confidence," Nick said.

  "I'll move in with the girls," Mom said. "If the rain starts, young man, you hightail it into your father's tent."

  "Fine," he said.

  At last, everyone vanished into tents. Nick lay on his side, staring at Julie's face a yard away. She was looking at him, too. He wished there was more light.

  "You ought to wear a hat when you sleep," Julie said.

  "I burrow down."