Windex and paper towels from the store of cleaning supplies at the
house, so they could scrub the grime off the windows, letting in a lot
more light.
Holly chased down and killed not only the spider above the door but
seven others, checking darker corners with one of the flashlights until
she was sure she had found them all.
Of course the mill below them was surely crawling with countless other
spiders. She decided not to think about that.
By six o’clock, the day was waning but the room was bright enough
without the Coleman lantern. They were sitting Indian fashion on their
inflatable-mattress sleeping bags, with the big cooler between them.
Using the closed lid as a table, they made thick sandwiches, opened the
potato chips and cheese twists, and popped the tops off cans of root
beer. Though she had missed lunch, Holly had not thought about food
until they’d begun to prepare it. Now she was hungrier than she would
have expected under the circumstances. Everything was delicious, better
than gourmet fare. Olive loaf and cheese on white bread, with mustard,
recalled for her the appetites of childhood, the intense flavors and
forgotten innocent sensuality of youth.
They did not talk much as they ate. Silences did not make either of
them feel awkward, and they were taking such primal pleasure from the me
that no conversation, regardless of how witty, could have improved the
moment. But that was only part of the reason for their mutual
reticence.
Holly, at least, was also unable to think what to say under these
bizarre circumstances, sitting in the high room of a crumbling old mill,
waiting for an encounter with something supernatural. No small talk of
any kind was adequate to the moment, and a serious discussion of just
about anything would seem ludicrous.
“I feel sort of foolish,” she said eventually.
“Me, too,” he admitted. “Just a little.”
At seven o’clock, when she was opening the box of chocolate-covered
doughnuts, she suddenly realized the mill had no lavatory. “What about
a bathroom?”
He picked up his ring of keys from the floor and handed them to her.
“Go on over to the house. The plumbing works. There’s a half bath
right off the kitchen.”
She realized the room was filling with shadows, and when she glanced at
the window, she saw that twilight had arrived. Putting the doughnuts
aside, she said, “I want to zip over there and get back before dark.”
“Go ahead.” Jim raised one hand as if pledging allegiance to the flag.
“I swear on all that I hold sacred, I’ll leave you at least one
doughnut.”
“Half the box better be there when I get back,” she said, “or I’ll kick
your butt all the way into Svenborg to buy more.”
“You take your doughnuts seriously.”
“Damn right.”
He smiled. “I like that in a woman.”
Taking a flashlight to negotiate the mill below, she rose and went to
the door. “Better start up the Coleman.”
“Sure thing. When you get back, it’ll be a right cozy little campsite.”
Descending the narrow stairs, Holly began to worry about being separated
from Jim, and step by step her anxiety increased. She was not afraid of
being alone. What bothered her was leaving him by himself Which was
ridiculous. He was a grown man and far more capable of effective self
defense than was the average person.
The lower floor of the mill was much darker than when she had first seen
it. Curtained with cobwebs, the dirty windows admitted almost none of
the weak light of dusk.
As she crossed toward the arched opening to the antechamber, she was
overcome by a creepy sense of being watched. She knew they were alone
in the mill, and she chided herself for being such a ninny. But by the
time she reached the archway, her apprehension had swelled until she
could not resist the urge to turn and shine the flashlight into the
chamber behind her.
Shadows were draped across the old machinery as copiously as black crepe
in an amusement-park haunted house; they slid aside when the flashlight
beam touched them, fell softly back into place as the beam moved on.