hard-packed gravel road, its dirt shoulders laced with the tangled
sprawl of dandelion, curly dock and chickweed. The ramshackle
structure rested on an acre of cleared flat land, but was surrounded on
three sides by woods where each tree struggled to find sunlight at the
expense of its neighbor. Because of wetlands and other development
problems, the eighty-year-old home had never had any neighbors. The
nearest community was about three miles away by car, but less than half
that distance if one had the backbone to challenge the dense woods.
For much of the last twenty years the rustic cottage had been used for
impromptu teen parties, and on occasion by the wandering homeless
looking for the comfort and relative safety of four walls and a roof,
however porous. The cottage’s discouraged current owner, who had
recently inherited the beast, had finally opted to rent it out. He had
found a willing tenant who had paid the full year’s rent in advance, in
cash.
Tonight the calf-high grass in the front yard was pushed low and then
straightened in the face of a strengthening wind. Behind the house a
line of thick oaks seemed to mimic the movements of the grass as they
swayed back and forth. It hardly seemed possible, yet except for the
wind, there were no other sounds.
Save one.
In the woods, several hundred yards directly behind the house, a pair
of feet splashed through a shallow creek bed. The man’s dirty trousers
and soaked boots attested to the difficulty with which he had navigated
the congested terrain in the dark, even with the aid of a
three-quarters-full moon. He paused to scrape his muddy boots against
the trunk of a fallen tree.
Lee Adams was both sweaty and chilled after the punishing trek. At
forty-one years of age, his six-foot-two body was exceptionally strong.
He worked out regularly, and his biceps and delts showed it. Keeping
in reasonably good shape was a necessity in his line of work. While he
was often required to sit in a car for days on end, or in a library or
courthouse reviewing microfiche records, he also, on occasion, had to
climb trees, subdue men even larger than he was or, like now, slog
through gully-filled woods in the dead of night. A little extra muscle
never hurt. However, he wasn’t twenty anymore either, and his body was
letting him know it.
Lee had thick, wavy brown hair that seemed perpetually in his face, a
quick, infectious smile, pronounced cheekbones and an engaging set of
blue eyes that had caused female hearts spontaneously to flutter from
fifth grade onward. He had suffered enough broken bones during his
career, though, and other assorted injuries, that his body felt far
older than it looked. And that’s what hit him every morning when he
rose. The creaks, the little pains. Cancerous tumor or merely
arthritis? he sometimes wondered. What the hell did it really matter?
When God punched your ticket, He did so with authority. A good diet
and messing around with weights or pitter-pattering on the treadmill
wasn’t going to change the Man’s decision to pull your string.
Lee looked up ahead. He couldn’t see the cottage just yet; the forest
clutter was too thick. He fussed with the controls of the camera he
had pulled from his knapsack while he took a series of replenishing
breaths. Lee had made this same trek several times before but had
never gone inside the cottage. He had seen things, though-peculiar
things. That’s why he was back. It was time to learn the secret of
this place.
His wind having returned, Lee trudged on, his only companions the
scurrying wildlife. Deer, rabbit, squirrel and even beaver were
plentiful in this still-rural part of northern Virginia. As he walked
along, Lee listened to the flit of flying creatures. All he could
envision were rabid, foaming bats blindly cleaving the air around his
head. And it seemed that every few steps he would run straight into a
twister of mosquitoes. Though he had been paid a large amount of cash
up front, he was seriously considering increasing his daily fee on this
one.
When he approached the edge of the woods, Lee stopped. He had a great