The two men sat in the Twilight Tavern, Darkness Falls’ only bar. The lighting was muted and the tables were scarred and so were most of the patrons. It was early evening and Happy Hour was in full swing, which in the Twilight meant a large plate of semi-soggy Ritz crackers and dubious-looking cheese slapped down on the bar, with prices on the old-fashioned jukebox slashed fifty percent until seven o’clock. At the moment Springsteen was wailing about the glory days.

  Looking around the bar as he nursed a beer, not wanting to drink more than one because he was hoping to get at least ten pages written tonight, Tyler was amazed to discover he recognized virtually every single person in the place. That wasn’t saying much, because there couldn’t have been more than a half-dozen defeated-looking townies besides Ty and Brett populating the Twilight Tavern at the moment, but still. He had blown town in the early 1990s and not returned until this week and it felt almost like he had never left. Everyone looked older, of course, but everyone looked the same. It was strange and incredibly depressing.

  Brett gulped down his beer, half a mug disappearing before he came up for air. “Jesus Christ, Ty, it’s great to see you again after all these years, but what the hell were you thinking moving into that frigging psycho’s house?” Unlike Tyler, Brett apparently didn’t have any work to do tonight, because he was already deep into his fourth beer and didn’t seem to notice that Tyler was still on his first.

  “Gotta live somewhere,” he answered cryptically.

  “And why’d ya even return to this backwater piece of shit town in the first place? Couldn’t wait to get back to all the happy memories?” Brett continued as if he hadn’t even heard Tyler answer the first question. Probably he hadn’t. “I’ll tell you something: If it had been me who found my entire family hacked to pieces I would have taken off just like you did but I would never have returned; not ever. Not in a million fucking years.”

  Tyler sat for a long time, gazing into the dirty mug of watered-down room-temperature beer on the chipped Formica tabletop in front of him. “You know how they say you can never go home?”

  “Yeah, I guess. So?”

  “Well, I’ve given that expression a lot of thought, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s total bullshit. Sometimes you have no choice but to go home. Sometimes the only way to save yourself is to go home, you know what I mean?”

  Brett shook his head. “Not even a little bit, but then you always were kind of . . .”

  “Philosophical?”

  “I was going to say fucked in the head.”

  “Yeah, well, you say tomato, I say tomahto.”

  Brett grinned and chugged the rest of his beer, slamming the empty mug down on the table. A thin line of foam ran down the inside and pooled on the bottom. “You know, Debra Gilbert still lives in the area.”

  Ty grabbed his beer and took a long swallow despite his resolve not to drink. “Really,” he said. “She married, with two-point-one kids and a white picket fence, maybe a vegetable garden in the back yard?”

  Brett flashed him a look he could not decipher while raising his empty mug like a trophy and displaying it to the waitress until she nodded. “She ain’t married.”

  “Ah. Divorced, then?”

  “Dude, she never got married. No kids, either. As far as I know, she don’t even date. She never liked me much, so it’s not like she confides in me or nothing, but I saw her in here one time a couple of years ago and you know what she told me?”

  Tyler looked at the table and said nothing.

  “She said she still could not believe you left without so much as a fucking phone call. She said she woke up the morning you took off and found out you were gone just like everyone else. She never got over that, pal. She never got over you.”

  “I wasn’t thinking straight,” Ty mumbled. He felt his face reddening but was powerless to stop it.

  “I guess not. And you haven’t thought straight even one time in the last eighteen years?”

  Tyler stood, pushing his chair back with his calves. It squealed on the dirty tiles like it was being tortured. “I gotta go.”

  “No, man, come on. I’m sorry I brought up Debra, I just thought you might like to know.”

  “You thought wrong.”

  “Okay, okay.” Brett held his hands up in surrender as the waitress plunked another mug down on the table in front of him and then glanced expectantly at Tyler. She was young, the only person in the entire bar Ty didn’t recognize, and she didn’t seem to know who he was. It made sense. She had probably only been three or four when Tyler beat feet out of town and only fifteen or so when his last book was published. Why would she know him? Why would she care?

  “No more for me, thanks,” he told her, “I’m all set,” and dropped a pair of folded twenties down on the table. It was at least one bill too many, even at the inflated Twilight Tavern prices, but he didn’t care. The waitress chick looked frazzled and old beyond her years and Ty figured she probably needed the money more than he did, even if he had barely any left.

  “Come on, man,” Brett pleaded. “Just stick around for one more.”

  “Can’t. I’ve really got to scoot. I have work to do.”

  5

  This time Tyler was one hundred percent certain that the boxes scattered around his office like square corrugated-cardboard sentries had been moved. He didn’t know who could possibly have done it or why but there was no question some of them—maybe all of them—were in different places now than they had been when he finally stumbled to his bedroom at five AM to attempt a few hours of fitful sleep.

  A chill ran down his spine as he considered the implications of this discovery. Had someone been inside his house? If so, for what purpose? What point could there possibly be in messing with his stuff, especially the worthless crap packed away inside those boxes? Nothing seemed to be missing, so why would anyone bother to go to the trouble and risk of breaking in and then just moving everything around?

  And more to the point, was someone inside the house with him right now?

  Unbidden, the memories of another incident in another house almost twenty years ago came rushing back; awful remembrances of things Tyler Beckman wished he could leave behind forever. It had been unseasonably hot on that late-spring day in 1993 when he came home from putting the school newspaper to bed. He was a senior at Darkness Falls High and would be graduating in just a few weeks. The time was nearly seven PM, but it was easily still ninety degrees outside, an abnormally high temperature for the town located deep in the valley between two good-sized New England mountains; the town which seemed to be shrouded in shadows even on the brightest of days. Legend had it the perpetual gloom had been the inspiration for the town’s depressing but appropriate name.

  Tyler remembered walking into the kitchen of their small ranch home that evening; he could still hear the screen door slamming shut behind him like it had happened just yesterday. God, his mother had hated that door, always crashing like a set of cymbals whenever he or his sister entered or exited the house. She said the racket would eventually drive her stark, raving mad. It never had the chance.

  On that evening, the TV’s volume had been cranked, almost maxed out. It was blasting so loud Tyler recalled being surprised the speaker in the cheap little piece of shit hadn’t blown already. He went to ask why the damned thing had to be turned up so loud and instead of walking into the living area he descended into Hell. Human body parts littered the room, scattered about like toys after a toddler’s tantrum.

  He found pieces of his mother and father and, even worse, his little sister Sam everywhere. In one corner, his father’s arm had landed atop his mother’s headless torso, dead fingers resting on dead belly in a hideous parody of a loving caress. And on the couch, oh God, on the couch, Sam’s decapitated head lay in a pool of semi-coagulated blood, most of which had soaked into the cheap fabric. Thankfully the head faced the back cushions, so he didn’t have to look into his sister’s deathly gaze, but he knew immediately it was Sam—the glossy auburn hair of which she was so proud eliminated any doubt.

  And the blood. There had been so much blood. It was as if some sick bastard had taken a fifty-five gallon drum filled with it and splashed it around the room. There was no surface which hadn’t been touched by human blood; it was on every wall, on the floor, behind the couch, even on the ceiling for chrissakes! How the hell had all that blood gotten on the ceiling?

  Tyler had frozen in his tracks, sinking to his knees and gagging. He choked out an agonized half-scream and then puked onto the living room floor, adding the contents of his stomach to the awful carnage surrounding him. He clearly remembered—even now, nearly two decades later—having the absurd thought that the police would be pissed at him for contaminating their crime scene.

  After those awful first few moments, every second of which were burned so distinctly into his brain he knew he would relive them forever, things were mostly a blur. He remembered staggering to the phone in a daze and calling the police. He remembered answering questions—lots of them, over and over—from the responding officers and then later, homicide detectives. He remembered relatives he barely knew coming to town and hugging him and murmuring in his ear well-intentioned bullshit designed to make them feel better because they had absolutely no idea what to say to him. What do you say to the one who survives?

  He remembered sitting through memorial services and funerals, and attending his high school commencement alone three weeks later because by then all his relatives had gone home and there was no one left alive to watch him graduate. He remembered it all not like it had happened nearly twenty years ago but like it had happened last week. The horrors were ancient history but the memories lived on, lurking, hiding in the dark corners of his brain, always close by and only too happy to come out and play.

  A few weeks after graduation he packed up his things and left the tiny town behind for good; or so he thought at the time. There was nothing holding him in the Falls any longer, so why the hell would he stay? Tyler took the money from his parents’ estate and the meager college fund they had established for him and hit the road. He moved to New York and started writing, which was all he had ever really wanted to do, anyway. To his utter amazement, he found an agent to represent his work almost immediately, and within two years his first novel, “Black Blood,” had been released to critical and popular acclaim, launching his career.

  Tyler heard a soft moan and realized it was coming from him. He wondered how long he had been standing in the door of his home office, lost in his thoughts. It had to have been a while, because what little daylight had been slanting through the dirty windows when he entered the room was now long gone. He stood in near-complete darkness, lost in the memories of events he had tried unsuccessfully to lock away; of things he tried to pretend didn’t exist but haunted him as surely as Jacob Marley haunted Ebenezer Scrooge.

  He strode to the center of the room and pulled the cord hanging from the bare bulb, wiping sweat off his forehead as he did so. His legs were trembling. His whole body was trembling. Maybe renting the house of the lunatic who had massacred his entire family really was a stupid idea, even if it had happened so long ago. Tyler wondered what a psychologist would say about it. Hell, he was probably just as insane in his own way as Rufus Stowe had been the day that crazy fuck took a scythe to his parents and his sister, but somehow he knew this was the only way he would ever have a chance at exorcising his demons and reviving his now-nonexistent career.

  And goddamned if it wasn’t working! Tyler Beckman was writing again! Not only that, the material was good. He had written six bestselling books, so he knew quality work when he saw it. Sure, his last successful novel had been released during the last days of the Clinton Administration, but this work in progress would put him on the map again, right at the top of the Times Bestseller List. It would all be worth it. Yes it would.

  Tyler sat down at his makeshift desk, glancing uneasily at the goddamned boxes which, impossibly, seemed to have shifted again, and started pounding away at his laptop. Within minutes he was lost in his story, the long-ago massacre of his family forgotten, the dim light from his single forty watt bulb forgotten, his concern about those fucking cardboard boxes forgotten as well.

  6

  “Hi, Tyler, um, you probably don’t remember me, but—”

  “—Debra? Debra Gilbert?”

  “You do remember me!”

  “Of course I remember you; how could I not remember my old girlfriend? We dated for two years; we must have had a thousand conversations over the phone back in high school. I’d recognize your voice in my sleep.” As he had when he heard from Brett Parkinson, Tyler wondered how in the hell his old girlfriend had gotten his number, then the obvious occurred to him—she had spoken to Brett. His old best friend, the guy who was so fucking indignant about the way Tyler had treated his girlfriend all those years ago had made sure she knew how to get in touch with him now.

  “I heard you were back in town and I thought…you know, maybe I’d give you a call, see how you were doing after all these years.” Her voice was light and pleasant, and Tyler knew she had to be working hard to keep it that way because he could sense the tension behind it.

  “I’m doing great,” he said quickly, wondering if the lie sounded as obvious to her as it did to him.

  “That’s good,” she answered. “I’m sorry to call so late—” Tyler glanced at his watch, saw it was nearly two AM and realized he had been writing in some weird trance-like state for the last six hours—“but I was wondering if maybe you’d like to get together, you know, for a drink or something. Maybe talk….”

  Her last word hung in the air between them, filled with regret and sadness and a hurt undiminished by time as his old girlfriend waited for Tyler to speak. Debra Martin had never been particularly aggressive or outgoing, she had been the perfect girlfriend for a bookish, rather shy eighteen-year-old student newspaper editor back in high school, and it occurred to Tyler that either her entire personality had undergone a radical change over the last eighteen years or it had been intensely difficult for her to call, especially given the circumstances.

  “…Actually, never mind,” she said when he didn’t answer. “This was a mistake. I’m sorry to have bothered you—”

  “—The Twilight,” Tyler interrupted.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The Twilight Tavern. You said something about meeting for a drink, right? We could meet there if you want. Tomorrow night, say. You know, if you’re not too busy.”

  She laughed. The sound was brittle, like she might be trying to stifle a sob. “No, I’m not too busy. Tomorrow night would be wonderful. I’ll meet you there around nine o’clock?”

  “Nine o’clock it is. Sounds great.”

  “Okay, well, I’ll see you then. Goodbye, Tyler.”

  “Bye, Debra.” Tyler pulled the cell phone away from his ear to disconnect the call and immediately put it back to his head. “And Deb? Are you still there?” Dead air greeted his question.

  “I’m sorry, Debra” he said into the silence.

  * * *

  Weak gray light fought its way into Tyler’s office, signaling daybreak and what passed for a beautiful morning in Darkness Falls, New Hampshire. Outside, ragged dark gray clouds hung low over the treetops, obscuring the top of Sunrise Mountain and blocking most of the daylight, with the decades of grime coating the windows effectively keeping out the rest. Tyler woke with a start. He assumed he had fallen asleep working on his book but couldn’t quite figure how he managed that feat without tumbling out of his chair onto the hardwood floor.

  He stood and stretched, feeling hungover although he hadn’t had a drop to drink since the one beer at the Twilight the night before last. Weird. How much sleep had he gotten? He remembered answering his cell phone, the ring interrupting his marathon writing session. He remembered talking with Debra—had that been the mother of all awkward conversations, or what?—and making a date for drinks tonight with the woman he used to be closer to than anyone in the world but who he hadn’t seen since he was a teenager. He remembered disconnecting the call and wondering just how the hell he was supposed to feel about that.

  Then…what?

  The last thing he could recall with any clarity about last night was feeling driven to get some more work done on the new novel. He had begun typing, worried about the possibility he might have lost all momentum, feeling a brief flash of anger at Deb for her shitty timing, and then in what felt like a matter of seconds, become completely absorbed in his work.

  Tyler glanced at his watch. 5:35 AM The sun would just be peeking over the horizon everywhere else in the state of New Hampshire, but with Darkness Falls located in the valley between two goddamn mountains like it was sitting at the bottom of a fucking well, it would be at least an hour, maybe two, before direct sunlight would be anything more than a provocative tease here. Not that it made much difference, with those windows as dirty as they were.

  So it had been around three and a half hours since Debra’s call, and he had resumed writing like a maniac after hanging up. How long had he continued to write before falling asleep? And how much sleep had he even gotten? It couldn’t have been more than an hour or two, and based on how crappy he felt, Tyler figured one was probably a reasonable estimate.

  He stumbled down the stairs to the kitchen and started coffee percolating in the old-fashioned coffeepot he had found tucked away in a kitchen cabinet after moving in. He wondered briefly how many times Rufus Stowe had brewed his morning cup of joe in this very pot. Should he be so disgusted by the fact that the pot belonged to the man who had massacred his family that he refused to use it?

  No, he decided, he should not. Rufus Stowe hadn’t used this coffee pot in at least eighteen years, that fact was indisputable, and it wasn’t a tin cooking utensil that had wreaked havoc inside the Beckman home so long ago, it was the owner of the tin cooking utensil.

 

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