The Unloved Read online

  “There are some things best left alone.”

  What could Ruby have meant? What could there be in a nursery that required that it be kept locked up?

  Anne reached for the ring of keys that hung inside the door. The soft clink as it came free from the hook seemed to echo loudly through the kitchen, and she quickly silenced the sound with her hand, then hurried back toward the stairs.

  She could sense something different as soon as she reached the second floor landing. She paused once more, listening, but the house was quiet, and outside the insects had begun softly chirping once again. And yet, as she started along the corridor toward the door to the nursery, a sense of unease—stronger than the vague guilt she had felt earlier—pervaded her mind.

  Perhaps she should give it up, and simply put the nursery out of her mind. But she knew she couldn’t.

  Steeling herself for whatever she might find, she walked quickly to the locked nursery door. The eighth key fit. She twisted it in the lock, then turned the knob and pushed the door open a crack.

  Inside, the room was pitch black, and Anne felt along the wall for a light switch. A moment later the room filled with a brilliant white light, and Anne pushed the door wide.

  And screamed.

  By John Saul:

  SUFFER THE CHILDREN***

  PUNISH THE SINNERS***

  CRY FOR THE STRANGERS***

  COMES THE BLIND FURY***

  WHEN THE WIND BLOWS***

  THE GOD PROJECT*

  NATHANIEL*

  BRAINCHILD*

  HELLFIRE*

  THE UNWANTED*

  THE UNLOVED*

  CREATURE*

  SECOND CHILD*

  SLEEPWALK*

  DARKNESS*

  SHADOWS*

  GUARDIAN**

  THE HOMING**

  BLACK LIGHTNING**

  THE BLACKSTONE CHRONICLES:

  Part 1–AN EYE FOR AN EYE: THE DOLL**

  Part 2–TWIST OF FATE: THE LOCKET**

  Part 3–ASHES TO ASHES:

  THE DRAGON’S FLAME**

  Part 4–IN THE SHADOW OF EVIL:

  THE HANDKERCHIEF**

  Part 5–DAY OF RECKONING:

  THE STEREOSCOPE**

  Part 6–ASYLUM**

  THE PRESENCE**

  And now available

  John Saul’s latest tale of terror

  THE RIGHT HAND OF EVIL

  * Published by Bantam Books

  ** Published by Fawcett Books

  *** Published by Dell Books

  THE UNLOVED

  A Bantam Book / July 1988

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © 1988 by John Saul.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  For information address: Bantam Books

  eISBN: 978-0-307-76797-4

  Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

  v3.1

  For Michael, Jane,

  and Linda

  May the second decade

  be as wonderful

  as the first

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  CHAPTER 1

  She was in the darkness somewhere, moving slowly toward him. Though he couldn’t see her—he never saw her, never until the last minute—he could feel her coming. It was almost as if he could smell her, but that wasn’t it either, for the smell—the strange musky odor that filled his nostrils—was his own fear, not the scent of her.

  He wanted to hide from her, but knew that he couldn’t. He’d tried that before and it had never worked. And yet now, as he felt her presence creeping ever closer, he tried to remember why he’d never been able to hide.

  Nothing came into his mind. No memories; no images. Just the certain knowledge that he’d tried to hide before, and failed.

  But maybe this time …

  He tried to think, tried to remember where he was. But again there was no memory, no feeling of place. Only the blackness curling around him, making him want to shrink into himself and disappear.

  Suddenly a streak of light cut through the darkness, and he shaded his eyes with a hand, trying to shield himself from the stabbing glare. Then, through the blinding light, he saw the angry visage, the woman’s hate-twisted face as she stared down at him.

  The door was pulled wider, and the light surrounded him, washing away the shadows that had failed to hide him. The woman stood before him, and though she didn’t speak, his hands dropped away from his face and he looked directly up at her.

  “Why are you here?” he heard her demand. “You know I don’t want you here!”

  He tried to think, tried to remember where he was. He looked around furtively, hoping the woman wouldn’t see his eyes flickering about as if he might be searching for a means to escape.

  The room around him looked strange—unfinished—the rough wood of its framing exposed under the tattered remains of crumbling tarpaper. He’d been in this place before—he knew that now. Still, he didn’t know where the room was, or what it might be.

  But he knew the woman was angry with him again, and in the deepest recesses of his mind, he knew what was going to happen next.

  The woman was going to kill him.

  He wanted to cry out for help, but when he opened his mouth, no scream emerged. His throat constricted, cutting off his breath, and he knew if he couldn’t fight the panic growing within him, he would strangle on his own fear.

  The woman took a step toward him, and he cowered, huddling back against the wall. A slick sheen of icy sweat chilled his back, then he felt cold droplets creeping down his arms. A shiver passed over him, and a small whimper escaped his lips.

  His sister.

  Maybe his sister would come and rescue him. But she was gone—something had happened to her, and he was alone now. Alone with his mother. He looked fearfully up.

  She seemed to tower above him, her skirt held back as if she were afraid it might brush against him and be soiled. Her hands were hidden in the folds of the skirt, but he knew what they held.

  The axe. The axe she would kill him with.

  He could see it then—its curved blades glinting in the light from the doorway, its long wooden handle clutched in his mother’s hands. She wasn’t speaking to him now, only staring at him. But she didn’t need to speak, for he knew what she wanted, knew what she’d always wanted.

  “Love me,” he whispered, his voice so tremulous that he could hear t
he words wither away as quickly as they left his lips. “Please love me.…”

  His mother didn’t hear. She never heard, no matter how many times he begged her, no matter how often he tried to tell her he was sorry for what he’d done. He would apologize for anything—he knew that. If only she would hear him, he’d tell her whatever she wanted to hear. But even as he tried once more, he knew she wasn’t hearing, didn’t want to hear.

  She only wanted to be rid of him.

  The axe began to move now, rising above him, quivering slightly, as if the blade itself could anticipate the splitting of his skull, the crushing of his bones as they gave way beneath the weapon’s weight. He could see the steel begin its slow descent, and time seemed to stand still.

  He had to do something—had to move away, had to ward off the blow. He tried to raise his arms, but even the air around him seemed thick and unyielding now, and the blade was moving much faster than he was.

  Then the axe crashed into his skull, and suddenly nothing made sense anymore. Everything had turned upside down.

  It was his mother who cowered on the floor, gazing fearfully up at him as he brought the blade slashing down upon her.

  It was he who felt the small jar of resistance as the axe struck her skull, then moved on, splitting her head like a melon. A haze of red rose up before him, and he felt fragments of her brains splatter against his face.

  He opened his mouth and, finally, screamed—

  He was sitting straight up in bed, the sheets tangled around him, his body clammy with the same icy sweat he’d felt in the dream. Before him the image of his mother’s shattered skull still hung in the darkness, then was washed away as the room filled with light.

  “Kevin?” he heard his wife ask, then felt her hand on his arm. “Kevin, what is it? Are you all right?”

  Kevin Devereaux shook off the last vestiges of the dream and got out of bed. Though the mid-July night was hot, he was shivering. He wrapped himself in a robe before he answered Anne, his voice hoarse. “It was a dream. I thought my mother was trying to kill me, but in the end, I killed her.” He turned to face her. “I killed her,” he repeated, his voice echoing oddly. “I killed my mother.”

  “But it was only a dream,” Anne replied. She reached over and fluffed up his crumpled pillow, then tugged the sheets straight. “Come back to bed and forget it. We all have strange dreams, but they don’t mean anything. Besides,” she added, “the way you feel about your mother, I’m amazed you don’t have that dream every night.”

  Kevin tried to force a smile he didn’t feel. “I did, for a while,” he said. “When I was a kid I used to wake up with it all the time. They finally had to give me a private room at school, because my roommate said I screamed so loud he couldn’t sleep. But I haven’t had it since I was sixteen or seventeen. I thought it was over with.”

  Anne patted the spot next to her on the bed. “Now, come on. Whatever brought it on, it’s all over with now, and you’ve got to get some sleep.”

  But Kevin only shook his head and knotted the belt of the robe around his waist. “It was different this time,” he said. “When I was little I always dreamed Mother was trying to kill me, and I always woke up just before it happened. But this time it all changed. This time, right at the end, I was killing her, and I didn’t wake up until she was dead.”

  Anne’s eyes met his, and the smile that had been playing tentatively at the corners of her mouth disappeared. “You’re serious, aren’t you?” she asked. “You really think it means something.”

  Kevin spread his hands helplessly. “I wish I knew,” he said. “I just have this feeling that maybe something’s happened to her.” He glanced at the clock, wondering if he ought to call his sister, then dismissed the idea. At three-thirty in the morning all he would do was give her a good scare.

  But he knew he couldn’t go back to sleep. Not yet.

  Not until he had thought about the dream, thought about what it might mean, figured out why, after all these years, it had come back to him. He leaned down and brushed Anne’s lips with his. “Go back to sleep, honey. I’m going to go down and raid the refrigerator.”

  Anne gazed at him for a moment, her eyes reflecting her concern. “If you’re going to sit down there and brood, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?”

  Kevin chuckled in spite of himself, and kissed her again. “All right, so maybe I’m going to brood a little bit. I’m forty years old, and I have a right to brood, don’t I? Now go back to sleep, and don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

  He switched off the lamp on Anne’s bed table, slipped out the door and moved silently down the hall past his children’s rooms, then down the stairs. But instead of going to the kitchen, he went into the living room and settled himself into his favorite chair—a big leather wing chair just like the one in the library, when he was growing up.

  Just like the one his mother had never let him sit in.

  But he was forty years old now, and his mother was nearly eighty, and he should have forgotten about that chair—and everything else—a long time ago.

  And he thought he had, until tonight.

  Now he realized that he hadn’t forgotten anything, and that the dream had, indeed, meant something.

  It meant that he still hated his mother as much as he ever had. He still wished she were dead.

  Lucinda Willoughby jerked awake and instinctively glanced at the large man’s watch on her wrist. Three-thirty, which meant she’d been asleep for more than two hours. Not that it mattered, really, for the old woman in the bed across the room usually slept straight through the night, and Lucinda didn’t see what difference it could make if she herself dozed off for a few minutes. And she certainly had a right to, considering the way Helena Devereaux treated her. After all, she was a nurse, not a servant.

  Her nap properly rationalized, Lucinda was just reopening the book that had fallen closed in her lap when the sound that had roused her from her catnap was repeated.

  “Don’t you hear me, missy?” Helena’s querulous voice demanded. “I don’t pay you to sleep all night, you know!”

  The book snapped shut, and Lucinda heaved herself to her feet. “I wasn’t sleeping, ma’am,” she began, but then fell silent at the wrath she saw in Mrs. Devereaux’s eyes.

  “Don’t tell me what you were doing,” the old woman snapped. “I’m not dead yet, and I’m not blind!” Helena Devereaux was sitting bolt upright now, and Lucinda could see her reaching for the glass of water on the table next to the bed. Moving more quickly than her bulk should have allowed, the nurse snatched up the glass just before the old woman’s fingers could close around it.

  “How dare you?” Helena hissed. “You give me that this instant, do you hear?”

  Taking a deep breath and counting silently to ten, Lucinda reluctantly handed the water glass to her patient.

  Instantly, Helena hurled the contents of the glass into the nurse’s face, then flung the glass across the room, where it shattered against the wall. “Now where is he?” Helena demanded. “Where is Kevin?”

  Lucinda gasped, staring in shock at the old woman. She knew who Kevin was—there wasn’t anyone in Devereaux, South Carolina, who didn’t. But he hadn’t been there in years, and how could Lucinda Willoughby be expected to know where he was?

  “I want him,” Helena rasped, her voice trembling. “I’m dying, and I want to see my son before it’s too late. I want to see him!”

  Suddenly Lucinda thought she understood, and reached out to take the old woman’s shriveled hand in her own. “Now, Miss Helena, you just calm down,” she said in her best professional voice. “You’re not going to die, not while I’m taking care of you. I’ve never lost a patient yet, and I sure don’t intend to start with you.” As she talked, she took the old woman’s pulse. It was slightly erratic, but Lucinda knew that was only a symptom of the old woman’s anger, not an imminent heart attack.

  “I won’t calm down,” Helena snapped, jerking her hand away. “I’m dying, an
d you know it! I want to see Kevin before I die!” Her voice rose to a high-pitched screech, and her eyes searched the table for something else to throw. “You get him for me, do you hear? It’s your job, you lazy, good-for-nothing—”

  “Mother! Mother, what’s wrong?”

  Helena’s eyes snapped away from the nurse and fixed on her daughter, who stood at the open door to the room, clutching a robe to her bosom. “Kevin!” she said once more. “I want Kevin. I want to see him, and I want to talk to him!”

  Marguerite Devereaux frowned, and glanced inquiringly at Lucinda, who could only shrug helplessly. Helena Devereaux did not miss the silent exchange, and her eyes blazed with renewed fury. “Don’t either of you understand plain English?” she demanded. “I’m dying, and I want to see my son!” She fell back against the pillows, her angry outburst having drained her energies. Her frail bosom heaved erratically and her breathing took on the labored raling of approaching death. Instantly Lucinda Willoughby grasped her wrist, her strong fingers feeling once more for the old woman’s pulse. A second later she found it, fluttering wildly as the pumping of her heart raged out of control.

  “A glass of water, Miss Marguerite,” she ordered. “Quickly.” Her anger forgotten, she gently lifted the old lady into a slightly raised position, plumping up the pillows behind her. By the time Marguerite returned from the bathroom, Lucinda had Helena’s medicine ready. She deftly slid the pills between her patient’s thin lips, then held the glass as the old woman sucked in enough water to wash the pills down. A moment later Helena Devereaux’s breathing returned to normal and her pulse evened out. Only when Lucinda was certain the immediate danger had passed did she signal Marguerite into the hall with her eyes.

  “What happened?” Marguerite asked anxiously when Lucinda had pulled the door shut.

  “I don’t know. I’d fallen asleep, and when I woke up, she was screaming at me.”

  “But why?” Marguerite pressed. Then, remembering her mother’s words, she reached out to grasp the nurse by the arm. “Is it true?” she asked, her voice trembling. “Is she dying?”