The Mask Page 7

  "Someone ran from the oak to the lilac bush. He was hunched over and moving pretty fast."

  "What's he look like?"

  "I can't say. I'm not even sure it was a man. Might have been a woman."

  "Maybe it was just a dog."

  "Too big."

  "Could've been Jasper."

  Jasper was the Great Dane that belonged to the

  Hanrahan family, three doors down the street. He was a large, piercing-eyed, friendly animal with an amazing tolerance for small children and a liking for Oreo cookies.

  "They wouldn't let Jasper out in weather like this," Paul said. "They pamper that mutt."

  Lightning pulsed softly again, and a violent gust of wind whipped the trees back and forth, and rain began to fall harder than before-and in the middle of that maelstrom, something rushed out from the lilac bush.

  "There!" Paul said.

  The intruder crouched low, obscured by the rain and the mist, a shadow among shadows. It was illuminated so briefly and strangely by the lightning that its true appearance remained tantalizingly at the edge of perception. It loped toward the brick wall that marked the perimeter of the property, vanished for a moment in an especially dense patch of fog, reappeared as an amorphous black shape, then changed direction, paralleling the wall now, heading toward the gate at the northwest corner of the rear lawn. As the darkening sky throbbed with lightning once more, the intruder fled through electric-blue flashes, through the open gate, into the street, and away.

  "Just the dog," Carol said.

  Paul frowned. "I thought I saw... .

  "What?'

  "A face. A woman looking back. . . just for a second, just as she went through the gate."

  "No," Carol said. "It was Jasper."

  "You saw him?"

  "Clearly?"

  "Well, no, not clearly. But I could see enough to tell that it was a dog the size of a small pony, and Jasper's the only pooch around who fits that description."

  "I guess Jasper's a lot smarter than he used to be."

  Carol blinked. "What do you mean?"

  "Well, he had to unlatch the gate to get into the yard. He never used to be able to do that trick."

  "Oh, of course he didn't. We must have left the gate open."

  Paul shook his head. "I'm sure it was closed when we drove up a while ago."

  "Closed, maybe-but not latched. The wind pushed it open, and Jasper wandered in."

  Paul stared out at the rain-slashed fog, which glowed dully with the last somber rays of the fading twilight. "I guess you're right," he said, though he was not entirely convinced. "I better go latch the gate."

  "No, no," Carol said quickly. "Not while the storm's on."

  "Now look here, sugarface, I'm not going to jump into bed and pull the blankets over my head every time there's a little thunder-just because of what happened this afternoon."

  "I don't expect you to," she said. "But before you start dancing in the rain like Gene Kelly, you've got to let me get over what happened today. It's still too fresh in my mind for me to stand here watching you while you cavort across the lawn in the lightning."

  "it'll only take a moment and-"

  "Say, are you trying to get out of making that fettuccine?" she asked, cocking her head and looking at him suspiciously.

  "Certainly not. I'll finish making it as soon as I've gone and closed the gate."

  "I know what you're up to, mister," she said smugly. "You're hoping you will be struck by lightning because you know your sauce is going to turn out lumpy, and you simply can't take the humiliation."

  "That's a base canard," he said, falling easily into their game again. "I make the silkiest fettuccine Alfredo this side of Rome. Silkier than Sophia Loren's thighs."

  "All I know is, the last time you made it, the stuff was as lumpy as a bowl of oatmeal."

  "I thought you said it was as lumpy as a mattress in a ten-dollar-a-night motel."

  She lifted her head proudly. "I'm not just a one-simile woman, you know."

  "How well I know."

  "So are you going to make fettuccine-or will you take the coward's way out and get killed by lightning?"

  "I'll make you eat your words," he said.

  Grinning, she said, "That's easier than eating your lumpy fettuccine."

  He laughed. "All right, all right. You win. I can latch the gate in the morning."

  He returned to the stove, and she went back to the cutting board where she was mincing parsley and scallions for the salad dressing.

  He knew she was probably right about the intruder. Most likely, it had been Jasper, chasing a cat or looking for an Oreo handout. The thing he'd thought he had seen-the slightly twisted, moon-white face of a woman, lightning reflected in her eyes, her mouth curled into a snarl of hatred or rage-had surely been a trick of light and shadow. Still, the incident left him uneasy. He could not entirely regain the warm, cozy feeling he'd had just before he'd looked out the window.

  Grace Mitowski filled the yellow plastic bowl with Meow Mix and put it in the corner by the kitchen door.

  "Kitty-kitty-kitty."

  Aristophanes didn't respond.

  The kitchen wasn't Ari's favorite place in the house, for it was the only room in which he was not permitted to climb wherever he wished. He wasn't actually much of a climber anyway. He lacked the spirit of adventure that many cats had, and he usually stayed on the floor. However, even though he had no burning desire to scamper up on the kitchen counters, he didn't want anyone telling him he couldn't do it.

  Like most cats, he resisted discipline and despised all rules. Nevertheless, as little as he liked the kitchen, he never failed to put in an appearance at mealtime. In fact, he was often waiting impatiently by his bowl when Grace came to fill it.

  She raised her voice. "Kitty-kitty-kitty."

  There was no answering meow. Aristophanes did not, as expected, come running, his tail curled up slightly, eager for his dinner.

  "Ari-Ari-Ari! Soup's on, you silly cat."

  She put away the box of cat food and washed her hands at the sink.

  Thunk, thunk-thunk!

  The hammering sound-one hard blow followed by two equally hard blows struck close together-was

  so sudden and loud that Grace jerked in surprise and almost dropped the small towel on which she was drying her hands. The noise had come from the front of the house. She waited a moment, and there was only the sound of the wind and falling rain, and then- Thunk! Thunk!

  She hung the towel on the rack and stepped into the downstairs hallway.

  Thunk-thunk-thunk!

  She walked hesitantly down the hail to the front door and snapped on the porch light. The door had a peephole, and the fish-eye lens provided a wide view. She couldn't see anyone; the porch appeared to be deserted.

  THUNK!

  That blow was delivered with such force that Grace thought the door had been torn from its hinges. There was a splintering sound as she jumped back, and she expected to see chunks of wood exploding into the hall. But the door still hung firmly in place, though it vibrated noisily in its frame; the deadbolt rattled against the lock plate.

  THUNK! THUNK! THUNK!

  "Stop that!" she shouted. "Who are you? Who's there?"

  The pounding stopped, and she thought she heard

  adolescent laughter.

  She had been on the verge of either calling the police or going for the pistol she kept in her nightstand, but when she heard the laughter, she changed her mind. She could certainly handle a few kids without help. She wasn't so old and weak and fragile that she needed to call the cops to deal with a bunch of ornery little pranksters.

  Cautiously, she drew aside the curtain on the long, narrow window beside the door. Tense, ready to step away quickly if someone made a threatening move toward the glass, she looked out. There was no one on the porch.

  She heard the laughter again. It was high-pitched, musical, girlish.

  Letting the curtain fall back into place, sh
e turned to the door, unlocked it, and stepped onto the threshold.

  The night wind was raw and wet. Rain drizzled off the scalloped eaves of the porch.

  The immediate area in front of the house offered at least a hundred hiding places for the hoaxers. Bristling shrubbery rustled in the wind, just the other side of the railing, and the yellowish glow from the insect-repelling bulb in the porch ceiling illuminated little more than the center of the porch. The walkway that led from the bottom of the porch steps to the street was flanked by hedges that looked blue black in the darkness. Among the many shades of night, none of the pranksters were visible.

  Grace waited, listened.

  Thunder rumbled in the distance, but there was no laughter, no giggling in the darkness.

  -Maybe it wasn't kids.

  -Who else?

  -You see them on TV news all the time. The iron eyed ones who shoot and stab and strangle people for the fun of it. They seem to be everywhere these days, the misfits, the psychopaths.

  -That was not adult laughter. This is kids' work.

  -Still, maybe! better get inside and lock the door.

  -Stop thinking like a frightened old lady, dammit!

  It was odd that any of the neighborhood children would harass her, for she was on excellent terms with all of them. Of course, maybe these weren't kids from the immediate neighborhood. Just a couple of streets away, everyone was a stranger to her.

  She turned and examined the outer face of the front door. She could find no indication that it had been struck repeatedly and violently only moments ago. The wood was not chipped or cracked; it wasn't even slightly marred.

  She was amazed because she was certain she had heard the wood splintering. What would kids use that would make a lot of noise while leaving absolutely no marks on the door? Beanbags or something of that nature? No. A bean bag wouldn't have made such a horrendous racket; the impact of the bag against the door might have been loud, yes, very loud indeed, if it had been swung with sufficient force, but the sound wouldn't have been so hard, so sharp.

  Again, she slowly scanned the yard. Nothing moved out there except the wind-stirred foliage.

  For nearly a minute she watched and listened. She would have waited longer, if only to prove to any mischievous young observers that she was not a frightened old lady who could be easily intimidated; but the air was damp and chilly, and she began to worry about catching a cold.

  She went inside and closed the door.

  She waited with her hand on the knob, expecting the kids to return shortly. The first time they hit the door, she would jerk it open and catch them red-handed, before they could dart off the porch and hide.

  Two minutes passed. Three minutes. Five.

  No one hammered on the door, which was distinctly strange. To pranksters, the fun wasn't in the first assault so much as in the second and third and fourth;