Wiping the Slate Clean, a short story originally published in Masques II: All-new Stories of Horror and the Supernatural, a 1987 anthology that included "Popsy," written by Stephen King.

The Devil at Bay

A story for Halloween: The Devil at Bay

A short story by staff writer G. Wayne Miller first published Oct. 26, 1986, in The Providence Journal

G. Wayne Miller

Oct. 28, 2014, 10:52 a.m. ET

IS THERE SUCH A THING as love at first sight . . . for a house?

After the events of the past month, Kate believed there was. Her husband, Matt, had to agree. So did their daughter, Jenny, 4.

For the three years they'd had an apartment in Providence, the Kirbys had wanted to be nearer the ocean. Of course, real estate and Matt's modest salesman's salary being what they were, it had been impossible to find anything affordable. So they had dreamed, the wildly optimistic dreams of young families with financial futures that always seem a step or two beyond reach.

Then, out of the blue, Kate had run across this rental in the Sunday classifieds.

On paper, it hadn't sounded like much: three bedrooms, porch, garage, wooded yard. The rent was what had grabbed her: $450, utilities not included. Not bad for Bay, a coastal village that somehow had escaped the development boom of the past two decades. Having nothing else to do that August afternoon, Kate had packed Jenny into the Escort and taken a drive . . .

. . . and come back with a missionary's conviction that this was it.

"It's an out-of-state landlord," she told her husband. "Agent says he hasn't been here in years."

"Ignorance of the market," Matt said when they drove by it that evening. "It would explain why the rent's so low."

"Not to mention the fact that it looks like it's ready to fall down."

"The price you pay for privacy," said Matt.

Certainly, there was privacy - more than the Kirbys would ever need. The house was on a gravel road, and there were no other houses for a quarter-mile. But there were woods. Except for the yard and drive, everything was woods.

After the exhaust and sirens and B&Es that are the urban dweller's lot, the smell of pitch was a welcome relief. So what if the house needed a good paint job and the plumbing leaked?

That weekend, they signed a three-year lease.

NOW HERE THEY WERE - Aug. 31, the third evening in their new home - when there was a knock at the door.

Down-cellar, where she was cleaning, Kate heard it.

"That you, Matt?" she yelled.

"No, ma'am. 'Tain't Matt." Kate bounded upstairs. The man at the door was short, bald, with wire-frame glasses and a wrinkled, tanned face that looked a good 80 years old. He carried a cane, and his stooped-over posture suggested immediate attention from a chiropractor was in order. And his clothes - the kindest word for them was "eclectic." The tweed jacket he was wearing was threadbare in several places, yet his shirt and tie appeared freshly ironed; his pants seemed a better match for the jacket: faded gabardine, patched at one knee.V "I'll only be a moment," he said, and then, offering his hand: "Name's Frank Nickerson. Live in the white Victorian, corner of Elm and Washington. Sits back from the road a bit. You probably've driven by it and not even noticed."

"Katherine Kirby," she said, shaking his hand. "But call me Kate. Please, make yourself at home." Nickerson followed her into the living room, where he took a seat on the couch.

"You'll have to excuse the boxes," Kate apologized. "We still haven't moved all the way in."

"Moving," the man said thoughtfully. "Never moved, myself. Seventy-eight years - which is all of 'em - I've lived where I live."

Something about his accent was familiar. She'd heard it before in Rhode Island - at county fairs, seafood festivals, anywhere the crustier old natives gathered.

Swamp Yankee, isn't that what they call it? Charming expression. Even if no one seems to know quite where it comes from or exactly what it means.

"I'll get right to the point," Nickerson said. "I'm here in hopes of selling you a policy."

"A policy?

"Yes, ma'am."

"An insurance policy?"

"No, ma'am. A devil policy. To keep him away."

"Keep who away?" Am I being thick? Kate wondered. Did I miss something?

"Why, the devil, that's who."

"You're kidding." Kate laughed.

"No, I'm dead serious."

"But that's ridiculous, Mr. Nickerson. Who's ever seen the devil?"

"My grandfather, for one," he replied matter-of-factly. "Bunch of his friends, too, when they were just kids."

"I guess I just don't understand," Kate said.

"I'm afraid I don't, either," came a third, gruffer voice. Matt walked into the living room, a pair of garden shears in hand. "I couldn't help but overhear what was going on."

"Hon, this is Mr. Nickerson, a gentleman from up the street," Kate said. "Mr. Nickerson, this is my husband, Matt."

"Pleased to meet you."

"Same here."

"You were saying something about a devil policy?" Matt said skeptically.

"That I was," the old man continued, cheerfully enough. "I was about to tell your lady here that I am prepared, at a very low annual fee, to sell you a genuine and original Nickerson's Devil Policy, [hand]Guaranteed or Your Money Back. For 300 years and change, the Nickerson family's been selling them. 'Course, I can't tell you how they work, that's a family secret, but I can tell you this: All this time, we ain't had a complaint yet. Not a one. Ain't refunded no money, not that I'm aware, leastaways. Just ask any one of your neighbors here. Dollars to doughnuts, they'll tell you they're satisfied."

"You are serious," Matt said.

"Ayuh. Believe me, I can understand your skepticism. Most folks is like that at first. Wondering what the dickens the old bird's saying. 'Course, most folks don't come here having lived in a town that had the devil. No, sir."

"Let me get this straight," Matt said. "You're talking about Satan. The one with horns and a pitchfork."

"No, he don't look nothing like that, I'm afraid," the old man chuckled. "That's something folks have cooked up to scare their kids. Fact is, lately, he don't look like nothing. Last sightings were, oh, a century ago - and then it was mostly by kids like my gramps, though why that should be is something I don't pretend to understand. Gramps said he took on the form of a shaggy, clawed thing, closer to a bear than anything else. Since then, though, he's chosen not to be visible. 'Course, my family'd like to take some credit for that."

"EXCUSE ME for laughing," Matt said, laughing, "but this is preposterous."

"I wish it were," the old man sighed.

"What you're saying is if we don't buy one of your policies something bad will happen. Is that correct?" Matt said.

"No, I ain't necessarily saying that. What I'm saying is that you'll be taking your chances. Some mighty big chances, I might add."

"Chances on what?" Kate blurted out.

"On whatever. One thing we've learned over the years is that all you can predict about him is that he'll be unpredictable."

"I appreciate your concern, Mr. Nickerson," Matt said condescendingly, "but I don't think we're interested."

"Don't forget you have a wife and child, Mr. Kirby."

"What does that mean?" Matt's voice was suddenly hot.

"It means what it means."

"Is that some kind of threat?" Matt asked angrily.

"Matt - "

"Tell you what," Nickerson said, unperturbed. "Even despite your misgivings, Mr. Kirby, I'll do for you what I do for all my new customers. I'll give you a free two-month trial period. You don't have to say boo. What's today? Aug. 31? Until 12:01 a.m., Nov. 1, I'll cover you, your family, your house. Got any pets?"

"Yes," Kate said. "A cat."

"I'll cover it, too. The whole Kirby clan, for two months. 'Long about Halloween - gosh, can you believe it, almost fall already? - I'll be back. By then I hope you'll be ready to buy one of our policies. At that time, we can discuss price, but I'm sure you'll find our premiums reasonable. I hate to have to charge, you know, but it's all our family has ever done to make a living. Well, good day to you."

And with that, Frank Nickerson left.

"What do you make of him?" Kate said when he had gone.

"I think he's off his rocker," Matt said. "Probably has Alzheimer's."

"You don't think he's dangerous, do you?" The fact of the matter was, hearing Frank Nickerson had bothered Kate. More than it should have - which she was not about to admit to Mr. Rock of Gibraltar himself, Matthew P. Kirby.

"Nah. Disoriented, maybe - but not dangerous. I mean, how many 80-year-old ax murderers have you read about lately?"

"Not the type to sneak around the backyard some night when you're working late?"

"Don't be silly."

Kate looked out the living-room window at their back lawn, which sloped down to a small pond . . . a pond that promised nightmares on the child-obedience front. On the far side of the pond were the woods - some of the thickest in all of Rhode Island. Thick enough to lose a Boy Scout for a day or two every summer, thick enough to have deer and fox and wild turkey . . . and even an occasional report of a bear.

A bear, can you believe it? And now this old creep. It's enough to give you shivers.

"You're not concerned," Kate repeated.

"About my monthly sales quota, yes, I'm concerned. About crazy old loons, no."

Kate was silent. "Can I ask you a question?" she said a moment later.

"Sure."

"What would you do if I told you I were concerned? I mean, I'm not, but just supposing I became concerned. What would you think?"

"That you were as crazy as him."

THE FOLLOWING Monday, after Matt had gone to work, Kate called the Bay Police.

"Frank Nickerson?" the sergeant echoed. "Sure, I know him. More years than I'd like to remember, the old coot. He's a character, all right, but so's most of the old-timers in this town."

"I heard he was arrested one time," Kate lied. "Has a record."

"Arrested? Are we talking the same Frank Nickerson? What would anyone want to arrest him for, except maybe for overcharging on his premiums? Who is this, anyway?"

Kate hung up, more disturbed than when she'd dialed.

JENNY'S FIRST bogeyman nightmare shattered her sleep 15 minutes after midnight on Sept. 4.

Matt, who liked to joke that he was the lightest sleeper in the continental U.S.A., was in her room immediately. Jenny was beyond basic tears - she was sobbing, so hysterically that for a few scary minutes Kate and Matt were sure she was having a seizure. Together, Mommy and Daddy hugged her.

Eventually, Jenny was calm enough to form complete words. "It was there . . . outside the w-w-window," she stammered.

"What, honey?" her mother said.

"The b-b-bogeyman."

"It was only a bad dream, sweetheart," her father said.

"But it wasn't] It wasn't a dream] It was like . . . like a werewolf, w-with teeth and fur."

"Shhhh," Kate urged. "Your daddy's right, honey. Sometimes dreams seem very real. You think you're awake when you're really not."

"But I was awake. I was."

[handright]

"There's no such thing as the bogeymen," Matt said, curbing the impulse to be angry. This was the age, Jenny's pediatrician had cautioned, when a child's imagination expands at breakneck speed. The age when all sorts of new possibilities open up to the 4-year-old mind - including a number of fears the 4-year-old herself in another year or two will scoff at. Be patient, the doctor had advised, cool, lest a lifelong phobia be created.

"But I saw it. It came out of the dark and when I started crying, it went back. I saw it, Mommy. I saw it, Daddy."

"Even if there were such things as bogeymen and werewolves," Matt explained, "they couldn't get up here. Everybody knows bogeymen and werewolves can't climb the side of a house. Right, Mommy?"

"That's right, honey," Kate said unconvincingly.

Jenny ignored her parents' logic. "Can I sleep in your bed, Mommy? Daddy?" she begged. "Please?"

"Sure, pumpkin," Kate said. In 10 minutes, Matt and Jenny were asleep.

It was more than two hours before Kate was.

A FEW DAYS later, as he mowed the lawn, Matt spotted a set of paw prints in the soft soil beneath Jenny's bedroom window. A dog hadn't left them, any idiot could see that. They were too big - about the size of an adult hand.

He knew immediately.

Bear. Growing up in Maine, we'd see the tracks - every fall, when food got scarce in the woods.

And that's all Kate and Jenny need. Especially with me working late nights the way I've been, them alone, their female imaginations free to go berserk.

Matt got a rake and carefully erased the prints.

And made a mental note to clean and oil his rifle.

ON THREE successive nights, Jenny's nightmare recurred.

On each of those nights, Kate was on the verge of panic.

And on each of the following mornings, she was on the phone to their pediatrician. His familiar dissertation on the nature of a child's imagination was not reassuring.

It could not erase old Mr. Nickerson's comments, still echoing in her mind... Last sightings were, oh, a century ago . . . mostly by kids . . . though why that should be is something I don't pretend to understand. Gramps said he took on the form of a shaggy, clawed thing, closer to a bear than anything else.

And it could not explain what Kate had seen on the side of the house: scratch marks.

Or what she'd found on the ground: flecks of dark, bristly fur. Definitely not the cat's fur.

Or the fact that Jenny gave the same account, the same description, every single time, as if she were observing . . .

. . . not dreaming.

"I'M WORRIED," Kate finally admitted.

"About what?" Matt said.

"Jenny's nightmares."

It was evening, Sept. 14, and their daughter had been asleep an hour. They were downstairs, watching TV.

"What about them?"

"I don't think they're nightmares, Matt. I think she's really been seeing something."

"And what do you think she's been seeing?" His voice had a sarcastic edge to it. "The bogeyman?"

"It's not funny, Matt. I found something that looks like fur this morning on the ground beneath her window."

Oh, Jesus, Matt thought. Here we go.

"Probably a dog's," he said.

"Would a dog scratch the side of the house 10 feet up? There's something else, too, Matt. I ran into a lady the other day at Bay Market. Ethel Kiernan, her name was. Lives up Elm a few houses. Know what she said?"

"No."

"She said the mail is slow around here and Frank Nickerson's devil policies are overpriced. That's all: 'His devil policies are overpriced.' She could have been talking about the price of hamburger, for God's sake, she was so matter-of-fact."

Matt laughed, but it was a weaker laugh than he'd intended. "So Bay has two loons on the loose. Big deal. Providence is full of them."

"She didn't sound crazy, Matt. She talked about it like the devil is a fact of life around here."

"WELL, I don't know about you, Kate," Matt said, "but I don't believe in devils. I believe in good and evil, heaven and hell, yes - but I don't believe in horned creatures from hell. That's Bible imagery, symbolism. Didn't they teach you that in parochial school?"

"Yes, they did," Kate said, "and I don't believe in devils, either. At least, I never have. But what if - "

"What are you driving at? That we ought to play along with Nickerson? I told you, he's nothing but a harmless coot who's operating on half a tank. Gets his jollies trying to spook people."

Kate was becoming angry. Here she was concerned for Jenny's safety, and what was Matt doing? Pulling one of his holier-than-thou routines.

"What if you're wrong?" she snarled. "What if for the very first time in your life you're wrong?"

"I'm not."

"How can you be so sure?" she thundered.

"Because I think I've got a pretty good idea of what's been going on here," Matt said indignantly, "and if you'll get off your high horse, I'd be pleased to tell you."

Actually, he was not going to be pleased, but he could see now there was no way around it.

"Go ahead," she said reluctantly.

"THE FIRST THING is I don't think it's all been nightmares with Jenny." Kate swallowed the impulse to say the three most provocative words in the English language: Told you so.

"You think she's seen something," she stated flatly.

"Yes. An animal. Probably a dog," he lied. "A large dog."

"A dog?" Kate said.

Matt held his breath. "Or maybe a bear," he said carefully.

"Jesus."

"I doubt it's a bear, but they have been seen from time to time in Bay. The good news is if it really is a bear, it's a black bear, not a grizzly or something. Black bears're more afraid of people than people are of them."

Kate turned it over in her mind for a moment. "Only one thing doesn't make sense," she said.

"What?"

"Where Jenny's been seeing this . . . whatever: on the second floor, Matt."

"I've thought about that, too," Matt said triumphantly. "I think this dog, or bear, has been scratching around outside - making enough noise to wake Jenny. Half asleep, she goes to the window and looks outside. Which is where she sees it - on the ground. She only thinks it's at her window sill."

Kate hadn't been prepared to accept an explanation, but this - this, she had to admit, made good sense.

"So what do we do now?"

"We keep the windows and doors locked, and I keep the rifle handy, that's what we do," Matt said. "I'll bet you a million bucks we'll never have to use it."

JENNY had only one more nightmare, on Sept. 19.

Then there was nothing - no disturbance, no scratch marks, no fresh paw prints. Rather quickly, and with an unspoken but heavy sense of relief, the earlier incidents began to slip from the family's consciousness. Summer faded to fall, and Matt kept the leaves off his lawn, and Kate got the dining room wallpapered, and Jenny learned to ride a bicycle with training wheels, and life was sweet that autumn for the Kirbys of Bay, R.I.

Until Oct. 31, a Saturday.

Halloween.

At 3:35 p.m. that day, Frank Nickerson returned to the Kirbys'.

"Come in, come in," Kate said when he knocked. "We were just putting the finishing touches on Jenny's costume."

"I'm going to be a ghost]" Jenny giggled from inside her sheet.

"And a scary one, too," Nickerson said.

"Wanna hear me be scary?"

"Sure."

"Rahhhhhh]"

"OK, honey," Kate said. "Mr. Nickerson wants to talk with me."

Kate took Jenny's costume off and gave ker a kiss. "You go play upstairs now," she said.

"OK," Jenny said cheerfully.

Kate wasn't sure how she felt at seeing Nickerson - relieved that he had kept his promise to return, or afraid of the scene she knew would unfold with Matt. Because though she hadn't been dwelling on it, and though the seeming urgency of the situation had waned with time, she had decided that they should buy a policy.

Must buy.

And not because I believe in devils, but because . . . because there are some things in this world we just don't understand, that's all.

Things all the scientists can't explain, regardless of how much research they conduct. Like how salmon can travel 10,000 miles and return to the place of their birth to spawn. How a single cell can multiply into cancer. How the human mind, which produces Renoir paintings and Mahler symphonies, can trick a David Berkowitz into believing a neighbor's dog is ordering him to stalk and murder a dozen innocent people in complete and utter cold blood.

Matt denies the existence of the devil, and probably he's right. Probably it was a dog, or just maybe it was a bear. But what if . . . just what if it weren't?

"CAN ONLY stay a minute," Nickerson said. In his hand was a manilla envelope.

"Hello, Mr. Nickerson," Matt said, coming into the room.

"Hello, Mr. Kirby. I drew up your policy. I'd like you to look it over, make sure everything's in order. Then you can sign my copy, which I will keep on record."

Matt opened the envelope, withdrew a single-page document, scrutinized it a moment, and then threw it onto the kitchen counter.

Enough of this, he thought. Enough is enough.

"I'm afraid I'm not interested, Mr. Nickerson," he said sternly. Kate opened her mouth to speak, but Matt cut her off. "That goes for my wife, too."

"And why's that, Mr. Kirby?" the old man asked politely.

"Because we don't need your policy, Mr. Nickerson," he declared.

Nickerson looked at Matt - an emotionless look that revealed nothing of what was going on inside his head. He scratched his chin, covered with a four-day stubble.

"Don't need it? Why, you already did need it, my friend, and thank the good Lord you had it. Thank the good Lord Frank Nickerson's the kind of neighbor he is, and has seen fit to give those newcomers who are . . .How shall we put it? . . . unbelievin' a trial period.

"Otherwise - well, otherwise we might not be having this conversation, Mr. Kirby. Otherwise old Jack Smith down at the mortuary might've had some new business this summer. And it might've been worse. It can get much worse, you know - much worse than an undertaker. Oh, yes. Something about eternity and souls."

Matt was steaming again. What was it about this old duff, anyway? Was it his persistence that bothered Matt most? Or the sheer lunacy of his babbling?

"I don't know what you're talking about," Matt said.

"I think you do, Mr. Kirby. I think if I were to say that nothing's happened to you the past two months, everything and everybody's been hunky-dory, and the credit for that happy fact rightly belongs to me and my generosity - why, if I were to say that, I'd bet your wife here would agree."

Kate thought of the nightmares, how . . . whatever it was looked through the window, but never came in.

For all the fright, for all the crying and sobbing, it's never come in.

Never actually harmed any of us.

Kate began, "That's - "

"Nonsense," Matt said.

"Is it, Mr. Kirby? Is paw prints under your little girl's window nonsense? Paw prints you and I both know ain't been left by no dog or bear? Is claw marks up the side of a wall - a wall you know no animal big enough to leave those same prints could ever climb - nonsense? Is it? He's been around. Oh, yes. I know he's been around. Sniffing. Checking things out. Scouting new territory, if you will."

"THIS is ridiculous."

"Please be quiet, Mr. Kirby, if just for a moment. I know what I'm sayin', 'cause he's been by my place this summer, too.

"Been away for a few years, but this summer he's been back. Oh, I ain't seen him, but I've heard him. Rattlin' my windows at night. Howlin'. Prints, too. Has my wife scared half to death, and who's to blame her? Ain't only kids who are scared of the devil.

"These are old tricks, Mr. Kirby. Very old. Go back to Gramps's time, and earlier. He always does this when there's a newcomer in the neighborhood. Thinks he can scare me out of selling 'em a policy is what it is. But I been around too long to let him scare me. Got my own policy, somethin' he knows full well. He can make noise fit to raise the dead, but he knows he can't do me no harm."

"What you've heard has been a dog," Matt said. "Or a bear."

"Trust me, Mr. Kirby. That wasn't no animal. Oh, there's bears in the woods here, all right - every now and then some hiker catches a glimpse of one - but you won't find 'em comin' out this far."

Kate spoke up: "Matt - "

"You keep out of this, Kate," he snapped. He turned back to their visitor, who had kept his post by the kitchen door. "I think it's time for you to leave now, Mr. Nickerson."

"Suit yourself." Nickerson reached for the knob. "Ain't my little girl."

"Mr. Nickerson." Kate's voice was firm. If the wool was going to fly, then so be it.

"Yes, Mrs. Kirby?"

"How much is the premium?"

Matt exploded. His stomach had been churning, and now he exploded. "We're not paying, and that's it, " he shouted.

"Thirty dollars a year, Mrs. Kirby," Nickerson said, his voice all ice.

Kate turned toward her husband. She was furious - no, she was past furious. She wanted to curse him, slap him until the mantle of self-righteousness he'd wrapped himself in slipped away.

"For 30 lousy bucks," she screamed, "you'd sell your family? I can't believe it]"

"You're as crazy as he is."

"You're the one who's crazy. And pig-headed, and stupid. . . ."

In the middle of their argument, Frank Nickerson quietly let himself out.

TRICK-OR-TREATING took less than half an hour - there were so few houses on the Kirbys' road. Matt made sure they didn't stop at Nickerson's.

That night, after threats and counterthreats of divorce, after 2 1/2 hours of stone silence in front of the TV, after the whole family had turned in, the nightmare - nightmare? - resumed.

[hand] This time, it wasn't only Jenny.

It was Kate, too.

"There was something there," she insisted, after she had screamed and then run madly to turn on every light on the second floor.

"What?" Matt said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Matt hadn't seen anything, hadn't heard anything. He'd slept lightly , as lightly as ever, undisturbed. That fact in itself was all the proof he needed.

"You know what]" Kate hollered. "You know and you're too stubborn to admit it. You've taken a stand, and anytime you take a - "

Jenny cut her off.

Wide-eyed, crying Jenny, standing at the entrance to their bedroom, her Cabbage Patch doll in her trembling hand.

"Mommy, Daddy, I saw -

"I know, honey," Kate said, smothering her in her arms.

"It w-w-w-was - "

"Shhhh. It's all right, now. Everything's OK."

MATT THREW the covers off and stood up. Kate was one thing, a more-or-less self-sufficient thing, but his daughter . . . his daughter was something else entirely. He reached for her.

Kate pushed him away - violently, as if he were a stranger who had materialized in their room.

"Get out of here," Kate said. Now the tears were closer than ever, but she would not give in, no, she wouldn't. "Just leave us alone."

"Kate - "

"Leave us alone]"

Kate inched toward the night table. She reached for the bedside phone.

"Who are you calling?"

"Frank Nickerson."

"No, you're not," Matt snarled.

"Oh, yes, I am. Our trial policy runs out tonight, and I'm calling him]"

"Oh, no, you're not]" Matt grabbed for the phone. He was not a physically abusive man, but for an instant he was tempted. Tempted to whale the holy bejesus out of Kate, not stopping until the nonsense was gone.

Instead, he walked calmly to their closet, took his recently oiled AR-15 rifle down from its rack, loaded a live clip into it, placed the gun on his chest of drawers, pulled on jeans and a shirt, laced up his boots, tucked his three-battery heavy-duty flashlight into his pocket, and then picked up the loaded weapon.

"WHERE are you going with that?" Kate asked, incredulously.

"Outside."

"What for?" She was beginning to worry.

Because she knew - deep inside where a person's darkest feelings dwell - that he shouldn't mess with it. Whatever it was (I know what it is, dear God), it was bigger than Matthew P. Kirby, mightier than his machismo or stubbornness or whatever was motivating him so ridiculously.

"What for?" Kate repeated frantically.

"To put an end to this once and for all," he said, thinking: And when I bag the damn thing, whether it's a bear or a dog or a raccoon, I'm going to dump it on that old fool's doorstep. I don't care if it's three in the morning, I'm going to watch him eat crow.

"Matt, don't do it," she pleaded. And wanted to add: Because if you do, you crazy man who I still love with my whole heart and soul - if you do, Matt . . .

I just don't know.

I just don't know.

The thunder boomers that had been approaching were finally overhead, bringing with them splatters of rain against the windows. The wind whipped, clattering the shutters, causing the branches of the old locust to drag across the roof with a sound like that of something trying to get in.

Jenny wailed.

"For God's sake, Matt, don't go," Kate pleaded.

Matt went back to the closet for his slicker. He reemerged hooded and wrapped in Day-Glo orange.

"Don't do it, Matt," Kate begged again, with new urgency. "Don't do it to prove a point. It's not a point worth proving."

"I expect to be right back," Matt said, pushing past her.

"Don't]"

He was gone.

THEY LISTENED, Kate and Jenny did, listened to his steps on the wooden staircase, to his tread across the living-room floor, to the angry slam of the kitchen door. Then they watched through the bedroom window - watched a dark figure on the end of a flashlight beam move down the lawn toward the pond: a wet orange slicker illuminated every 10 seconds or so by a flash of lightning.

Kate called to him through the screen, but her words were drowned by the thunder that came echoing in from over the woods.

It can get much worse, you know, Nickerson had said. Much worse than an undertaker. Oh, yes. Something about eternity and souls.

Frantic, she picked up the phone, but there was no dial tone. The lines were down.

MATT Kirby was never seen again.

There was a search, of course, and it went on for seven days, and it involved bloodhounds and helicopters and the National Guard and state police. It involved dragging a pond, and newspapers ads, and public-service broadcasts, and the personal involvement of the governor.

In the end, there was only a memorial service.

TEN DAYS after the service, the letter arrived. It was dated Oct. 31.

The mail service is awful, Ethel Kiernan had warned. What do I mean by "awful"? I mean it's slow, letters get delivered to the wrong address . . .

"Hello Mrs. Kirby," the letter began.

"Not meanin to stick my nose in other folks business, but it does seem a might obvious that you and the husband aint in agreement on certain things. "With that in mind, I want you to know that I'm extendin your policy another year at no cost. I do this cause in only two times meetin you I come to believe you are a decent and honorable person and deservin of respect, etc. I'd appreciate you keepin it to yourself, seein as how if word got out, like as not there'd be some grumblin. "The extension will cover you and your daughter, I forget her name. Seein as how he was so against the idea, however, I don't feel I can rightfully put your husband's name on it. I do hope he will come around. It would be easy enough to add his name.

"Sincerely,

"F. Nickerson."

Horror is his hobby. Journal staff writer G. Wayne Miller  has written  three horror novels (a trilogy) and three short story collections. Learn more at his website, www.gwaynemiller.com

 

Thank you, Rhode Island Monthly, for including Burnt Cove as one of the five featured Read Like a Local books this August!

G. Wayne Miller has created a crackerjack of a character in his twenty-second book, Burnt Cove. Rose O’Reilly White, when she died at ninety-seven, left many secrets: a first love who happened to be her teacher; her long involvement with an African-American woman; and the poisoning of a Catholic priest and serial pedophile. When her filmmaker son, Jack, sets out to document her life he’s reunited with his first love and a daughter he didn’t know existed. Miller, a longtime reporter at The Providence Journal, is co-founder and director of Salve Regina University’s Story in the Public Square.