Festival of Fear by Graham Masterton Page B

that he was ‘more distant than he used to be, quieter, like he has his mind on something, but he’s pretty much OK.’
    Then – in the first week of October – I saw Jack for myself. I was driving home late in the evening down Coldwater Canyon Drive, after attending a bar mitzvah at my friend Jacob Perlman’s house in Sherman Oaks. As I came around that wide right-hand bend just before Hidden Valley Road, I saw a jogger running along the road in front of me. My headlights caught the reflectors on his shoes, first of all, and it was just as well that he was wearing them, because his track suit was totally black.
    I give him a double- bip on my horn to warn him that I was behind him, and I gave him a very wide berth as I drove around him. I wasn’t drunk, but I was drunk-ish, and I didn’t want to end up with a jogger as a hood ornament.
    As I passed him, however, I saw that he wasn’t running alone. Six or seven yards ahead of him was a Great Dane, loping at an easy, relaxed pace. I suddenly realized that the Great Dane had to be Sheba, and that the jogger had to be Jack. He lived only about a half-mile away, after all, on Gloaming Drive.
    I pulled into the side of the road, and slid to a stop. Maybe I would have kept on going, if I had been sober. But Jack and I had been the Two Musketeers, once upon a time, both for one and one for both, and don’t think I hadn’t been eaten up by guilt for what I had done to Kylie.
    I climbed down from the Jeep and lifted both arms in the air.
    â€˜Jack!’ I shouted. ‘Is that you, Jack? It’s me, Bob!’
    The jogger immediately ran forward a little way and seized the Great Dane’s collar. I still wasn’t entirely sure that it was Jack, because he and the dog were illuminated only by my nearside tail-light, the offside tail-light having been busted earlier that evening by some overenthusiastic backing-up maneuvers.
    â€˜Jack – all I want to do is talk to you, man! I need to tell you how sorry I am! Jack !’
    But Jack (if it was Jack) didn’t say a word. Instead, he scrambled down the side of the road, his shoes sliding in the dust, and the Great Dane scrambled after him. They pushed their way through some bushes, and then they were gone.
    I could hear them crashing through the undergrowth for a while, but then there was nothing but me and the soft evening wind fluffing in my ears.
    â€˜That had to be Jack,’ I told myself, as I walked back to my Jeep. ‘That had to be Jack and I have to make amends.’
    I didn’t really care about making amends, to tell you the truth, but I did care about absolution. Like Oscar Wilde said, each man kills the thing he loves, and I may not have done it with a bitter look or a kiss or a flattering word, but I had done it out of jealousy, and maybe that was worse. I needed somebody to forgive me. I needed Jack to forgive me. Most of all, I needed me to forgive me.
    I took the next left into Gloaming Drive, and drove slowly down it until I came to Jack’s house. It was a single-story building, but it was built on several different levels, with glass walls and a wide veranda at the back, with a view over the city. At the front, it was partially shielded from the road by a large yew hedge, and I parked on the opposite side of the street at such an angle that – when he returned from his jog – Jack wouldn’t easily be able to see me.
    I waited over twenty minutes. Two or three times, I nearly dozed off, and I was beginning to sober up and think that this was a very bad idea, when Jack suddenly appeared in his black track suit, jogging down the road toward me. Sheba was close behind him, running very close to heel.
    Jack ran up the front steps of his house, and still jogging on the spot, took out his keys and opened the front door. He and Sheba disappeared inside.
    There was a short pause, and then the lights went on.
    OK, I thought. What do I do now?