Page 73 of Forever Dead

Art was still doing it.

A woman's nervous voice came through the speakers.

"It was taller than the fence posts, Art. Way taller. I swear to you, it had to be nine feet."

"And you were how far away when you saw it?" Art asked.

"Maybe seventy yards. It was at the edge of the pasture."

"Could it have been a bear standing upright?"

"No. We don't get bears that big around here. And it walked on two legs the whole time."

Art paused. "You mentioned something unusual about the head."

The caller drew a breath. "There were two lights where its eyes should've been. Orange, maybe red. It turned toward the house and I could see them."

Selena gazed through the windshield at the trees pressing close to the road. They leaned on her nerves just as much.

"Excellent choice, Raven."

Art continued questioning the woman in the same calm tone Selena remembered from childhood, never mocking, never quite agreeing either.

The turn for Eleanor Marsh's property appeared ahead.

Selena slowed.

The entrance was little more than a break between the trees. Beyond it, the driveway curved out of sight through maple and oak before opening near the old barn. Nearly a quarter mile of gravel separated the county road from the farmhouse.

Her headlights reached into the first bend.

On the radio, the caller said, "It just stood there watching the house."

Selena turned onto the drive. Dead leaves skittered through her headlights. The old fence appeared beside the pasture, disappeared behind trees, then returned as she followed the first curve. Gravel crackled under the tires.

The second bend opened ahead. Eleanor's white farmhouse emerged beyond the trees. No lights burned inside. The barn stood off to one side, its large door shifting slightly in the wind.

Selena reached for the radio knob.

"I picked the wrong station to listen to tonight."

Art Corbell vanished into silence.

The farmhouse did not become less unsettling.

Selena parked near the edge of the yard and switched off the engine. For a moment she stayed where she was.

Without the radio and heater, the isolation became immediate. Wind moved through the upper branches. Something rustled in the pasture. No traffic could be heard from the county road.

Eleanor had lived out here alone for years.

She had never married. The farmhouse had belonged to her father before her, and to his father before that. Three generations tied to the same patch of land, the same porch, and the same fields.

Now Eleanor was gone.

Sooner or later, the estate would be settled. The house would be sold. Someone would repaint rooms, replace furniture, perhaps tear down the old barn. A family without any connection to the Marshes might live here and never know which bedroom had been Eleanor's as a child.

The thought saddened Selena more than she expected.