IN THE DARK, page 1
Table of Contents
DEDICATION
IN THE DARK:
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
IN THE DARK
Richard Laymon
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO
BRIDGET ANN
THE KANGAROO ISLAND GIRL
Thanks for the letter and photo.
My regards to Roy and Long John Silver.
Your address went missing.
Please write again.
IN THE DARK:
An Introduction by Dean Koontz
In the Dark. I like the title. Most of us spend a significant part of our lives in the dark, both literally and figuratively. In fact, if I were honest, I’d have to admit to spending the better part of my first twenty-five years in the dark, clueless about where to find the light switch. After bumbling through two and a half dim decades, I consider myself fortunate never to have stuck my fingers in an electrical outlet, metaphorically speaking. I never literally stuck my fingers in an outlet, either, though I know many people who are certain that I did and that the resultant shock to my brain goes a long way toward explaining why I am the way I am.
Richard Laymon became a friend of mine well after I stumbled out of the dark, and he assumed from the start of our relationship that I’d always had my act together. I never disabused him of this serious misapprehension. We all need our illusions, and I was happy to serve as one of Dick’s. When he called me for advice about the mechanics and the byzantine diplomacies of the publishing and film businesses both here and abroad, I shared with him all the wretched experiences of my early career and made clear to him the lessons I had learned from this school of hard knocks—though in my case, if truth be told, my mistakes were so spectacular and the consequences so dire that it should more accurately be called the School of Ferocious Bludgeoning. Because my survival skills are widely recognized in the writing community, I receive calls every week from writers seeking advice about knotty problems with publishers, editors, copy editors, film producers, movie-studio executives, accountants, lawyers, barbers, greengrocers appliance repairmen, argumentative video-store clerks, persistent mimes, evangelical aluminum-siding salesmen, the cat-eating extraterrestrials who have moved in next door, the occasional homicidally angry reader who feels the author has used the word hat too often in recent books and must SUFFER HIDEOUSLY for this grievous transgression—and, of course, literary agents, who seem to give writers more problems than all the aforementioned people combined. I always strive to mine my own experience for the best possible counsel; but in Dick’s case, I mulled over my advice more carefully than usual, because his unfailing good humor, commitment to hard work, and sense of proportion about himself made me want to steer him exactly right. Among writers, critical-mass egos are so common that if they could melt down like runaway nuclear reactors, then exploding novelists would long ago have been responsible for the destruction of the earth; consequently, Dick’s humility is inspiration for his friends to do their best for him.
Some people reading a Richard Laymon novel, who never had the chance to know the author personally, will be shocked, horrified, appalled, and some—a smaller number—actually will not like the experience. On hearing of their shock and their horror, Dick would smile that choirboy smile of his, nod his head, and be pleased. Even hearing that some had been appalled, he would smile and say, “Well, yes, they ought to be when the scene insists on them being appalled. What am I writing for if not to affect readers?” And even on hearing that some didn’t enjoy the experience, Dick would smile, shrug, and say, “Gee, if I could please all the people all the time, I’d have to stop writing, ‘cause I’d know I was doing something wrong.”
Dear reader, you can’t know what a rare attitude that is among writers. Most novelists—struggling to make a living in a difficult business, aware that success, once achieved, frequently doesn’t last long—desperately want to please everyone. They spend ungodly amounts of time scoping the market, trying to determine what readers want, going to lots of genre conventions to show the flag and maintain connections with the most ardent fandom for their form of fiction, always striving to please because they have seen how many good writers never find audiences and how many others, achieving an audience, pass out of favor in a few years. But here’s the secret that, even when they discover it, so few want to believe: Novels written with too intense a concern about pleasing the marketplace may bring temporary success but will never result in a long career, because they will be full of calculation and devoid of originality, crammed full of stuff that the writer thinks other people want, but lacking in any qualities that inspire his or her creative passion. The best way to succeed is to stop scoping the market, write what you most passionately want to write, and not worry when people tell you that you’re writing the wrong thing.
I, too, receive an occasional letter from a reader who tells me I’ve got it all wrong, that I just don’t please him, that I ought to write more like [plug in the name of any writer you wish] or just give up altogether. As long as the letter isn’t rude, I respond to this well-meaning soul with, “Sorry the book didn’t please you. But if I wrote just like the novelist you mention, then I wouldn’t write like me, in which case, there would be no point in writing at all. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but it rots a writer’s soul if he engages in it.” When they’re rude, of course, I have them flayed, dragged behind a runaway horse, mercilessly tickled with duck feathers, subjected to twenty-four hours of Meet the Press videotapes, and finally squeezed in a giant garlic press. I always feel sad about this, but then they were rude.
Anyway, here is In the Dark, a novel by a writer who always writes out of personal conviction, who will delight some and offend others, but who will always be himself, word by word, line by line, scene by scene, chapter by chapter. Here is a novel by a nice guy whose perpetual optimism, in real life, never inhibits his unblinking exploration of the nastier side of human nature in his novels, which is a tonic to those who like their fiction brisk and astringent.
CHAPTER ONE
Jane Kerry noticed the envelope when she stepped behind the circulation desk. Her first thought was that it didn’t belong on the seat of her chair. She hadn’t put it there. Had it fallen from the top of the desk? She wondered if someone might’ve lost it, and whether it contained anything of importance.
She ignored the envelope as she checked out half a dozen mysteries to old Agnes Dixon. Agnes was one of her regulars, a retired school teacher, and the first person to make Jane feel really welcome in her new job as head of the Donnerville Public Library.
While they chatted in quiet voices, a few more people drifted over to the circulation desk. Others wandered out the door. As usual, the library was beginning to empty with the approach of its nine o’clock closing time.
The envelope.
Jane slipped a dated card into the pocket of Agnes’s last book—a Dick Francis—flipped the cover shut, and set it atop the woman’s stack. Even as she said, “That’s one of his best,” she took a small step backward. Feeling the push of the seat’s edge against her right buttock, she reached down without looking. She fingered the envelope and picked it up.
“Hi,” said a teenaged boy who looked vaguely familiar. “I’d like to get this, please.”
“Sure thing.”
He pushed a book toward Jane, cover open, and held out his library card for her. She took it with her left hand.
She brought her right hand up and glanced at the envelope.
Handwritten in the center, in black ink, was one word:
JANE
What?
Me?
She felt mildly surprised and perplexed, and a little bit anxious.
What could it be?
At least the envelope apparently hadn’t been lost by anyone, so she wouldn’t need to worry about trying to catch its owner.
She tossed it back onto the seat, and returned to business. She tried to focus entirely on the patrons, getting to know them better, hoping to show them that she was friendly and always ready to help in any way possible.
The mysterious envelope didn’t preoccupy her thoughts.
Instead, it lingered just off to the side where her mind seemed to glance at it from time to time, and wonder.
An invitation? A greeting card of some kind? A love letter or poem from a secret admirer?
A complaint?
Maybe a bit of hate mail from someone I shushed.
Could be anything, she told herself. Don’t worry about it. You’ll find out as soon as everybody’s cleared out.
“If you like that one,” she told a pony-tailed girl, “we’ve got a lot more by the same author.”
As the girl thanked her and headed for the door, Jane swept her eyes over the remaining people. Quite a bunch. Maybe six still lined up, a few on their way out, a dozen others scattered about the main reading room. No telling how many might be upstairs in the stacks. Nobody in sight seemed to be paying any special attention to her.
Whoever left it will probably stay behind to see if I open it.
Hope he’s cute.
Don’t hope for cute, she told herself. Just hope he’s not a weirdo.
By the time Jane was done checking out books, only a handful of people still lingered in the reading room. She recognized most of them as regulars. They all seemed busy with their own projects. Don, her assistant, was making his way among the tables, gathering up books and periodicals that needed to be put away.
She checked her wristwatch.
Ten till nine.
She picked up the envelope again. Holding it at waist level so that the desk would hide it from the view of anyone who might be watching, she flipped it over.
As she’d thought, nothing on either side except the handwritten JANE.
The envelope looked clean and unrumpled.
Its flap was sealed.
From the envelope’s thinness, she supposed that it contained nothing more than a sheet or two of folded paper.
She picked at a corner of the flap, tore it upward, thrust her forefinger into the small hole, and worked her finger along the seam, ripping upward.
As she tore at the flap, she lifted her gaze. Nobody appeared to be watching.
Looking down, she removed a folded sheet of paper from the envelope. Lined, three-hole paper of the sort that students use for filling their loose-leaf binders. It was folded into thirds. She could see the raised, dark scribbles of the handwriting on the other side. And a darkness within. A darkness caused by an extra layer of paper. Paper the size of a bank check or a dollar bill.
Somebody sent me money?
Suddenly, she felt like an idiot.
This was not a message from a secret admirer. Nor was it a threat. This was nothing more than payment for a lost book or an overdue fine.
Jane felt silly. A little relieved. And a little disappointed.
She unfolded the paper.
Inside was not a bank check, but a stiff, unwrinkled fifty-dollar bill.
Must’ve been a mighty expensive book, Jane thought.
She moved the bill aside and read the handwritten note:
Dear Jane
Come and play with me. For further instructions, look homeward, angel. You’ll be glad you did.
Warmest Regards,
MOG
(Master of Games)
Jane read it again. And again. Then she looked around. The few people who remained in the reading room were paying no attention to her.
“We’ll be closing in about five minutes,” she announced.
She refolded the note around the fifty-dollar bill and tucked it back inside the envelope.
“Don, would you come here for a minute?”
The lanky graduate student hurried toward her. He looked worried. Or guilty? “Is there a problem, Miss Kerry?”
Jane shook her head. “I don’t think so.” She raised the envelope. “Did you happen to see anyone put this on my chair?”
He rolled his eyes upward as if an answer might be written on the ceiling. Then he shook his head. “No. I don’t believe so.”
“Anyone hanging around the circulation desk when I was away from it?”
Again, he shook his head. “Not that I noticed.”
She shook the envelope. “This isn’t from you, is it?”
“Me? No. What is it?”
Jane hesitated. How much should she tell him? She’d known Don for a couple of months, and she didn’t really know much about him. Only that he’d been a part-time helper at the library for a year before her own arrival, he was going for a PhD in English literature at the university across town, that he was single and lived in an apartment a few blocks from the library. She also knew that he was agonizingly shy and apparently had no social life.
Maybe he’s trying to start one up with me, she thought, by way of a mysterious message and a chunk of money.
“It’s an anonymous letter,” she said, and decided not to mention the fifty dollars.
His eyes widened. “From a secret admirer?”
“Not exactly.”
His jaw dropped. “Not a threat, I hope!”
“No. Just a… strange sort of message. But you haven’t seen anyone wandering around with an envelope like this, or acting in any way furtive near the circulation desk?”
“I certainly haven’t.” He eyed the envelope. “May I?”
“Thanks, but… I don’t think so.” Seeing the dejected look on his face, she added, “It’s rather personal.”
“Personal?” He suddenly blushed. “Oh. Well. Never mind. If I’d known it was personal…” He grimaced and shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it, Don. Really.”
“I… may I have your permission to leave? I haven’t quite finished picking up, yet, but… I’m not feeling especially well. My stomach.” He pressed a hand against it.
“Sure. Go on ahead.”
“Oh, thank you.” He scurried around the end of the circulation desk, entered the office, reappeared moments later with his briefcase, gave Jane a cramped smile and a wave, and hurried for the library doors.
“Hope you feel better,” she said.
Then he was gone.
Jane wondered if she’d had a hand in causing his sudden illness.
Not unlikely. After all, she was his boss and a woman, on top of which she had almost (but not quite) accused him of perpetrating the anonymous letter. Plenty to give a person of Don’s temperament a nasty case of upset nerves.
Describing the letter as “personal” had apparently been the final straw.
Shouldn’t have told him that, she decided. The thing isn’t what you’d normally call personal. Didn’t ask my income, didn’t get sexy.
It’s not personal, it’s just plain screwy.
She glanced at her watch. Five after nine. “We’re closing up, now,” she announced. “Time to hit the streets, folks.”
When the last was gone, she locked the front doors and returned to the circulation desk. She knew that she ought to go upstairs, make sure nobody was lingering in the stacks, and turn off the lights. She wasn’t eager to do it, though. Neither she nor Don enjoyed that particular task. Just too creepy up there when you went alone.
Too quiet. Too many shadows. Too many hiding places.
Just plain spooky.
But made a great deal worse because you knew about old Miss Favor, the librarian, Jane’s predecessor. She’d died up there. Dropped dead from a bad heart. Dropped dead while she was alone, closing for the night. And there she’d remained until morning when a part-timer had opened the library and discovered her body. According to Don, a rat or two had “been at her.” He knew the unlucky worker who’d stumbled onto Miss Favor. “Oh, she was totally freaked out. Totally. She hasn’t set foot in this library ever since.”
The upstairs stacks weren’t so bad in the daytime. They weren’t so bad at night, either, as long as a few people were up there searching the shelves or working at the study carrels. But they were usually deserted when you went up at closing time.
Through some sort of unspoken acknowledgement of their mutual fears, Jane and Don had fallen into the habit of accompanying each other on that special job. It helped. A lot.
But tonight, Jane would need to do it alone.
