this evening. They had all called it the ghost, although it had apparently been a more academically respectable and well-documented phenomenon: a poltergeist.
Whatever it was, it had driven Ken right up the wall. Here was this showpiece he had built, this testimonial to his skill as an architect—and it had a ghost in it. He had denied its existence. He had accused Melody—bitterly, at times—of faking its manifestations. He had tried to suppress publicity with paranoid zeal.
The ghost had stayed with them for six months, approximately two years ago. Windows had shattered spontaneously. Objects had been hurled across rooms with explosive force—in one instance, a desk that Melody couldn’t possibly have lifted, much less thrown across a room. Monstrous footfalls had been heard. Everyone had taken it rather well except Lucifer, who had been totally demoralized; and of course Ken, who had seen it as an obscure practical joke reflecting on his professional ability.
The story had leaked out. A team of researchers from a prestigious university had worn down Ken’s opposition and turned the house into an electronics laboratory for a week or so. The ghost had disappointed them, not stirring a finger while they were here. Once they were gone, it indulged in a final orgy of china-smashing and table-toppling. Then it had disappeared, apparently for good.
Melody had been absolved early of any direct responsibility; but one of the researchers had told Marcia that adolescent girls were often to be found in the neighborhood of such phenomena. He had theorized—with many qualifications—that an unconscious, uncontrolled outburst of psychic energy from such an adolescent was at the root of the trouble.
While standing at the kitchen door, Marcia had been aware of a strange noise for some time, and now it began to register on her consciousness. It was a kind of whistle, so high-pitched as to be almost inaudible, coming and going with a predictable regularity. She took an involuntary step back from the glass door as a shadow fell on it. The noise became ever so slightly louder and deeper: It was unmistakably a whimper: the anguished sound of a creature that desperately wanted to call for help without drawing too much attention to itself.
“Lucy?” she cried, struggling with the catch of the door. “Lucy!”
The door and the screen slid open, and almost simultaneously, a hard wet body bolted in, nearly knocking her off her feet. She heard a frenzied scrabble of claws as Lucifer dove under the kitchen table, a thud as his head hit the wall.
“For God’s sake, Lucy!” she cried, snapping on the kitchen light. “You scared us all half to death. Where on earth have you been?”
Under the table, Lucifer’s huge black-and-tan body shuddered in uncontrollable spasms. He was soaked and muddy. His dark, liquid eyes seemed to plead for mercy.
“What happened, Lucy? You’re a good boy. There’s a good doggie. You’re safe.…”
She reached under the table.
A deep growl rumbled in Lucifer’s massive chest.
CHAPTER SIX
Having covered the Planning Board the previous night, Marcia didn’t have to be at the Banner office until noon. After seeing Ken and the kids off, she was thinking about going back to bed for an hour or so when the phone rang.
“Damn it!” She had almost tripped over Lucy, who always raced her for the phone when it rang.
“What?” asked the voice on the phone.
“I’m sorry. Hello.”
“Marcie?” It was Jack Higgins, the managing editor. “What’ve you got cooking today?”
“Well…” Marcia wasn’t good at coming up with fast answers to questions like that, and Higgins knew it. He had trapped her into more than one dismal assignment by taking advantage of this failing.
“Good… There’s this old screwball out at Blackwood’s Corners who’s been seeing things. Called me up yesterday afternoon as I was leaving the office. His name is…dum dum dum…Peachtree, believe it or not, and they know where to find him at the general store. Do it now, before he has second thoughts about spilling his guts. You can sell it to the wires if you want to, but save something for us.”
“Wait a minute,” she said hastily, before the editor could indulge his fondness for hanging up on a mystifying note. “What’s he been seeing? What’s this all about?”
“He didn’t want to say much over the phone. He’s crazy, probably. But we haven’t had a good Jersey Devil story in five years or so, and I figure it’s about time. If you really think this guy is off in outer space, if he doesn’t know what day it is, then forget it. Otherwise, keep it light.”
“Don’t hang up, Jack! What’s the Jersey Devil?”
“Jeez, kid, where’ve you been? That’s what keeps the presses rolling when nothing else is going on. We got clips up the kazoo. Look them over. According to one version, a halfwit got herself raped by the Devil back in colonial times, and the offspring has been running around loose in the pines ever since. It’s supposed to be like a giant kangaroo with bat’s wings, no kidding, plus other embellishments that slip my mind at the moment.”
Marcia groaned. “This sounds like a job for Ron Green.”
“Rongreen—” even to his face, Higgins often spoke the name as if it were one word, perhaps the name of a condition related to gangrene “—the very name that came first to my mind, but he’s out chasing hippies. Our fair township is being overrun by them, Rongreen says.”
“Oh, no. I wanted to do that story. I was going to talk to you about it.”
“Well, you got to speak up, sweetie, not just sit around looking cute. Rongreen got there first.”
“But he isn’t…right for it. Those people won’t talk to him,” she said without thinking; and then she began to regret her words.
“Well… Well, I’m inclined to agree with you. But he thought of it, so I let him do it. But wait. He won’t take his own pictures, claims that’s not how they do things on the Daily News. You know Ron. A story like this, the pictures are the whole thing, and I can’t spare him a photographer. So you hook up with him sometime this week and get headshots of the crazoids he’s talking to. Also the dumps they’re living in, or whatever. And try to talk to them yourself. If you get stuff that he doesn’t, you file it, and we’ll pull it together here. It will piss him off, but I’m at the point with him where I don’t care whether he’s pissed off or not. Take your camera today, too, and get a shot of Peachtree. If you get a picture of the Jersey Devil, I’ll personally see to it that you get a five dollar raise.”
“Goodbye, yourself,” she said into the dead phone, then scratched Lucy’s ear reassuringly when he seemed upset by her tone of voice. “Not you, lamb.”
She realized that she’d made a bad mistake in disparaging Ron Green to Jack Higgins, a smiling assassin. Now he was using her to manipulate Ron into an untenable position. When her material was combined with Ron’s—or, worse yet, used in preference to his—he would object loudly. He might even issue an ultimatum, which Higgins would gladly accept. Ron would be out of a job again, and he would be lucky to find one on a shopping throwaway.
She went upstairs, with Lucifer following, and changed her nightgown for jeans, a t-shirt, and sneakers. Mr. Peachtree probably wouldn’t approve of her
