Gerald never thought about the woman’s man. It surprised him that he hadn’t considered the husband and father. After he watched him drive off, he thought about the first woman and child. That woman had been divorced. He had learned that much about her before it was over.
Of course, he had expected that someone would come looking for these two; he just didn’t foresee that it would be the actual husband and father. He was sorry now that their conversation had been so short and he had taken so little note of the man. He was curious about him in almost a scientific way, as though the man was of another species similar to himself, but still very different.
After all, he came from the other world, the world in which families gathered happily around dinner tables or sat contentedly before television sets and shared the warm cocoon of each other’s company. They weren’t haunted by the kind of memories that tormented him. In their world a smile wasn’t as rare as an eagle.
And what about the music of laughter? If the new girl wasn’t here, there wouldn’t be very much. No, he thought as he stood on his driveway and looked down Willow Road in the direction the man had taken, we are not the same. He couldn’t feel any compassion for the man or empathize with him. It was easy to forget the look in his eyes and the tone of desperation in his voice.
Let him go back to that world where they marry and divorce and share children like easy currency, he thought. They find replacements; they always do. In the meantime…
He looked back at the house. Irene had decided to punish the girl for not being obedient. She was locked in the Bad Box. Her crying had died down. He could hear her swallowing her sobs before he came outside. Soon she’d fall asleep, just the way Shirley always did.
Shirley was already asking Irene to release the girl. Irene couldn’t keep her in there much longer anyway, he thought. He was sure she’d been there long enough to make her obedient. That’s all Irene had ever wanted. Obedience. Respect. Companions. She never intended to hurt. The woman was going to be a more serious problem. He didn’t think Irene would be satisfied with her. Her presence would come to no good. It was probably better for all if he ended it as soon as he could.
He looked down the road again. Satisfied that there was no longer any danger to them, he returned to his chores. He had been up early and had removed a good part of the woman’s car’s body. Now he had to see to the water and feed for the chickens.
He was always depressed when he worked with the livestock; he didn’t own a quarter of what his father had owned. Of course, his father had helped them. Joe and Martha, the German couple, lived in the apartment in the attic of the house, and Martha was just as good a farmhand as Joe. She pitched hay, milked cows, drove a tractor, and plowed land. They were both in their forties when they came here, and they stayed for nearly twelve years, four years after his mother died. Martha took over the kitchen duties then, but she didn’t reduce her farm work much until he took on more responsibility and worked beside Joe and his father. It was shortly after Joe and Martha left that things began to disintegrate.
There were few family-owned-and-operated dairy farms left, and the big chicken farms in the county had dwindled to a little over a dozen. It wasn’t his fault that a way of life had gone sour, even though his father in his dotage blamed him for the tragedy. His father always considered him inadequate in one way or another, and his marriage to Irene seemed to confirm that for him.
She was never really strong, never really a farmer’s wife. She was a good cook and a good homemaker, but she wasn’t one to put on an old shirt and a pair of dungarees and come out to help with the chores. She was slim and feminine, to be handled like his mother’s fine china, a thing of beauty in which the essence of the beauty lay in its fragility.
He liked the contrasts. He was thrilled by the juxtaposition of his huge, clumsy hands cupping her small but firm and shapely breasts. He enjoyed imposing restraint on his muscles and arms when he embraced her. He was soothed by the softness in her voice, a voice that often forced him to bring down the volume and force of his own. In short, he believed she was a good and valuable influence on him. She brought out his humanity, and he hated his father for not seeing the significance in this relationship.
Sophie, his mother, was more like John’s wife Martha. They were both hardened by the land and the labor, their hands no longer soft, their bodies heavy, their eyes dull from looking into endless tunnels of dreary, monotonous work. They rarely complained; they behaved like stoics accepting the rain, the sleet, the snow, the cold, and the burning sun as part of their inevitable fate. How could he ever complain if the women never did?
Irene was his oasis. He rushed toward her with a thirst for gentle and sensitive things. When he brought her home, he felt as if he were wearing her; she was a precious jewel, something to show off. He loved her for her weaknesses and for the way she clung to him in lightning and thunder.
But the first time his father saw her, he said, “It’s like pitchin’ hay with a fork made a paper. A man don’t need any more to carry than his own weight. That’s enough as it is.”
Maybe for you. I need more, he thought.
And so he had married her.
And then he thought he had proved his father wrong when their firstborn was a boy, even though he was premature and grew like a flower without enough sunlight. There was always hope.
But that was long ago, in another life, in the other world, the world from which this woman and child had come and to which, hopefully, the man, the husband and father, had returned. He believed that now they’d be left alone to harvest some happiness. If only for a while.
He turned when he heard the clap of the back screen door and saw Irene, the new girl, and Shirley walking toward him and the chicken coops. He looked furtively toward the road and then hurried toward them. Shirley and Irene had the new girl between them, holding her by the hands. The hem of the other girl’s dress, which Irene had insisted she wear, dragged over the ground. She looked as though she were shrinking within it. Her clipped hair left her face even more diminished. She was doll-like and the terror that had been in her face when she was released from the Bad Box was now partly diluted by her look of confusion.
“We’re going to pick some eggs,” Irene said before he reached them. “Donna’s never done that before, right, Donna?” Tami looked up at the woman, fear glinting in her eyes, and then nodded quickly. It was better to answer everything the way she sensed the woman wanted her to answer. The alternatives were horrible. It had been dark in that heavy box in the basement and there was no room for her to shift her weight. She could think only of the long box in which Grandpa Oberman had been placed after he died. She couldn’t remember any details, but the image was still vivid and nurtured by occasional nightmares.
“You can’t do this. You can’t do this,” he repeated, gesturing toward the road. “She shouldn’t be walking across the lawn, for anyone to see. It’s too soon.”
“Too soon?” Irene paused as though she had just been shaken out of a dream.
“Of course. Someone was just here, in fact,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. Irene looked toward the road and let her free hand flutter to her face.
“Oh, my…my goodness, I thought they had stopped looking.”
“That was different; that was a while back. She just arrived yesterday,” he added, nodding at Tami. Irene looked down at her, the realization settling in.
“I forgot. I was thinking that they had never left.”
Gerald’s eyes flashed dangerously, and the lines in his forehead creased. Tami shrank from him, whimpering at his mannerisms and volatile nature. Even to his wife he occasionally thrashed his muscular arms about; now he loomed over them all as if to strike out. Irene didn’t seem to notice.
“Get back inside. Quickly,” Gerald said. “She’s not to come out until I say it’s all right. You understand?”
“Yes. I’m sorry dear,” she told Tami. “We can’t see the chickens today. Maybe another day. Gerald will bring us some freshly laid eggs, won’t you, Gerald?”
“Yes, yes,” he said gruffly. “Get inside.”
“Come along, Shirley.”
“I want to see the chickens,” Shirley said. Gerald looked at his daughter. There was something familiar about her expression of stubbornness and anger. He thought his father’s face was emerging from within her. Sometimes, when she spoke, he thought she sounded just like his father. The old man is here; the old man comes at us in different ways, he thought.
“Not now,” he said, but he said it softly. “After dark,” he added as a quick compromise. “It’s better after dark.”
“That’s a good idea,” Irene said, mollified. “Isn’t that a good idea, Donna?” Tami nodded slightly. She was so terrified, she didn’t understand what these odd, volatile people meant, though she had to indicate she did. “See, Shirley, Donna wants to go after dark, too.”
“I wanted to go now,” Shirley said and then released Tami’s hand by throwing it back against Tami’s body angrily. She pushed her aside, then whirled to run back to the house. Tami, already numb, hardly felt the blow and watched as Shirley stumbled across the yard tearfully. When she reached the steps of the small landing to the back door, she turned. “I hate you,” she said and threw down Tami’s doll before disappearing within.
“Oh, she doesn’t mean that, Donna. You’ll see.”
“Just go inside,” Gerald said.
“Come on. We’ll have cookies and milk and Shirley will be nice again.”
Gerald watched them walk back to the house. He looked back at the road and then went off to the chicken coops, driven by that one moment when his father’s image appeared in Shirley’s face. He opened the door of the first coop and looked in. He had under a thousand layers total. He could almost hear his father’s laughter of ridicule.
The old man had moved in and out of a world of senility for nearly half a dozen years before his death. He would spend hours sitting by the window in his upstairs room babbling at Gerald, sometimes cursing him, sometimes threatening him, sometimes giving orders. It was haunting—that old man’s voice echoing, bellowing over the farm, all of it threaded into a monologue of madness.
Years after his father’s death, Gerald was still not free of it. It drove him into his own monologue of madness, babbling excuses, chastising himself for failures, pushing himself to do more, to work harder. To protect his family if need be. And at any cost.
He’s in me, too, he thought, and kicked at some hens. The old man…he’s everywhere. He looked around as though he expected to see him standing in a corner of the coop. The idea gave him a chill and he attacked his work with a vigor designed to both warm him and take him away from his own terrifying thoughts.
The chickens, as though sensing his anguish, moved away from him in a wave.
Inside the house, Shirley led Tami to the kitchen table and told her to sit down.
Irene had gone upstairs to lie down. She had one of those headaches and needed to rest her eyes. “You girls either go down or up, but stay out of mischief. Gerald is just out of earshot,” she said before she climbed the lengthy stairwell.
But Shirley had hauled her “slave” into the kitchen.
“I’m going to get out some milk and cookies for you,” she said. Tami looked about furtively. She sensed something strange was about to happen. The air around her seemed charged. Then she saw the pantry door open slightly and Shirley pull out two glasses, then go to the refrigerator and awkwardly drag out a bottle of milk.
With a smirk on her face, she put the two glasses on the table, sloppily poured the milk, and brought over a plate full of chocolate-chip cookies, left there by Irene, from the counter. She then looked up, smiling, an evil glint in her eyes. From her stained smock she pulled out a cleaver that she must have gotten from the pantry. Tami whimpered.
Shirley set the cleaver down awkwardly; it clanked on the table and skidded toward Tami, who shrank away and looked around desperately. She didn’t know where Gerald—who terrified her anyway—was, and the older woman was somewhere upstairs, out of earshot. She seemed to condone anything her daughter did, and probably wouldn’t pay heed anyway. When Shirley had pricked her with needles in a slave game, the woman had appeared in the basement doorway to scold Shirley, but she hadn’t paid attention exactly to what her daughter had done. In fact, she never explored the details of her daughter’s games of torment.
Shirley grabbed up the end of a leash she had collared Tami with and knotted it to a table leg. “Okay, Sooey-face,” she laughed, climbing into the chair next to Tami. “Now you reach for a cookie and the milk while I chop.”
Tami began to cry, and Shirley only laughed and yanked on her leash; Tami choked. “Go, Sooey-face, go,” she said, and struggled with the cleaver in both hands until she established a steady tattoo on the table. “Go now—or I’ll call my father. Do it, Sooey-face.” She jerked the leash again.
Tami coughed and sobbed, but inched a hand toward the cleaver that was clattering unevenly on the table already knicked and worn by Irene who apparently used a corner for her slicing. In a quick movement, Tami, whose reactions were more agile than Shirley’s, grabbed a cookie from the plate and drew it toward her as Shirley fought to bring down the sharp blade on Tami’s wrist. All she did was nick Tami, who howled more from fright than from pain. “Shut-up, Sooey-face, shut up,” cried the other, whose face was an angry mask. “I played this with my little brother, and he never cried, you big baby.”
But Tami howled even louder. Some shuffling noises from overhead increased in tempo, stopping Shirley from her tirade as she tilted her head to listen. She dropped the cleaver and scrambled from the chair. Irene was descending the stairs quickly. She sauntered in, adjusting her hair, just as her daughter disappeared into the pantry. Tami, gladdened at the sight of the woman, calmed considerably.
“I heard some crying,” she said. “Where’s Shirley?”
Tami didn’t know what to do. She was afraid to respond, but was afraid not to as well.
“Shirley, get out here now, honey,” Irene called. She waited a moment and then repeated the order. When Shirley still didn’t appear, she shook her head. “Must’ve gone upstairs to her room. She can be so spoiled sometimes. Don’t you ever get like Shirley, Donna. Hear me?” Tami nodded. “I’ll be right down with her. Meanwhile, you start on the milk and cookies. Go on,” she commanded. Tami reached for her glass. She brought it to her lips as Irene started out of the kitchen.
Almost immediately Shirley emerged from the pantry. Without saying anything, she walked over to the table and took the glass of milk from Tami’s hand. She looked at her for a moment and then spit into the glass.
“Drink it,” she said, handing it back.
Tami shook her head.
“You better drink it,” she said, pointing to the pocket from which she had pulled the cleaver.
“No, it’s dirty now.” She pushed herself away from the table and started to get out of the chair, forgetting the leash. Shirley grabbed it and yanked. The other girl gasped.
“Drink your milk or you won’t get big and strong,” she sang, obviously imitating something Irene had often said. Tami screamed when she seized her neck to tighten the collar. A moment later Irene appeared, and the girl stepped away.
“What’s going on? Where were you?”
“I was in the bathroom,” Shirley said quickly. She glared at Tami. “She doesn’t want to drink her milk.”
“Nonsense. Go on, sit down, Shirley. If you drink yours, Donna will drink hers. Right, Donna?”
Tami started to shake her head, but stopped when Shirley’s smile widened. Shirley took up her glass of milk and brought it to her lips quickly, swallowing half the glass in one gulp. Tami looked up at Irene helplessly.
“You don’t want to go back into the Bad Box, do you, Donna?” Irene said.
Tami reached out slowly and took up the glass. Closing her eyes, she brought the liquid to her mouth, but before she could swallow, she began to retch and the glass dropped, spilling its contents over the table. It had the effect of a small explosion.
Tami started to cry in anticipation. Shirley laughed, but Irene seemed immobilized by rage. Then she stepped forward and slapped Shirley across the face. Instantly, Shirley’s laugh turned into a shriek as her strangely calm mother pulled Tami away from the table roughly, unhooking the leash, and went for a dish towel.
“I hate you,” Shirley hissed at Tami. “I’ll get you for this,” she added, nodding toward her pocket. Then she ran out of the room, leaving Tami to shiver in terror as Irene began to wipe up the mess.
Stacey opened her eyes and sat up. Despite the boarded-over windows and the locked door, she felt a chill; she felt as though a constant stream of cool air was flowing through the room. She embraced herself and looked around. Then she used the chamber pot to relieve herself and went back to sitting on the bed, getting her bearings. She was exhausted from not eating that crazy woman’s meals, and from worrying about Tami. She also suspected that Gerald was lacing her juice—the only food she consumed—with some sedative to slow her down and keep her quiet. Now she prayed it wasn’t poison, though common sense indicated if it was, she’d have been gone long ago. Gasping for breath, she inched her unsteady body to the edge of the bed and peered around the weakly lit room. It was as bare as before—only furnished with the bed, two side tables, the dresser, and that previous woman’s clothes bursting from the closet. Where could she find a wedge or something to pry open the window boards or door lock with? Her glance roamed the room from corner to corner, settling eventually on the door hinges. She nearly stopped breathing as a thought crept into her mind. What if she loosened the pins from their cylinders with the spoon left on the tray, and opened the door from its other edge.
Shaking her head to clear it, she tested her footing, and coaxed herself toward the door. When she reached it, she leaned against its consoling hardness, catching her breath. Then she studied and tested the hinges with her fingers; the middle pin creaked as it turned in the cylinder. She nearly laughed aloud in joy. For the next forty-five minutes she worked the hinges, pausing every few minutes to catch her breath and fight her dizziness. Sweat poured from her brow, tears streamed down her cheeks as she whispered, “Tami. Tami. Tami.”
Before long she succeeded in loosening the upper and lower hinges until she was sure she could wriggle the pins up and and drop the door away from the jamb. It was simply a matter of doing it at the right moment. The excitement of a possible escape gave her a chill. She felt as though a constant stream of cool air was flowing through the room. Her skin was clammy and she embraced herself as she looked around.
How would she know the right moment to do this? Should she wait for evening and do it when these people were asleep? She put her ear to the door and listened. The house seemed empty. Not a sound erupted from the rooms below and she heard nothing on her own floor. If they were away from the house…
What she could do was get out, peer out a window to see where they were, and then make her escape. She felt sure if she could just get out on that road while it was still daytime, she could get help quickly. She would try to spot Tami and release her but if she couldn’t find her daughter, she’d flee and try to flag down the next motorist on the road.
She went to the hinges and, after some straggle, wriggled free the pins, setting them on the floor gingerly. Then, using the spoon, she began to pry the door away from its hinges. Just at that moment, however, Gerald turned the lock and pushed the door to open it. The door fell away from the jamb and struck Stacey on the forehead, sending her reeling backward to the floor, the door nearly coming down over her. All that stopped it was Gerald’s firm grip on the handle. He looked down at her and then at the hinges.
He didn’t smile. When he moved forward, glowering over her, she slid back on the floor until she was against the leg of the bed. She whimpered as he reached down, took up the pins, and set the door back in place. He slammed the pins into their cylinders with balled fists, not wincing as bone struck metal.
“You can’t keep me here,” she said. “You’ve got to let me and my daughter go. Please, stop this.”
He didn’t turn around until he was finished repairing the door. He looked at her a moment and then walked out of the room. She got up slowly and sat on the bed. She hadn’t heard him lock the door behind him, but she didn’t have the courage to attempt an escape right now.
She closed her eyes and thought about her father. She thought about the day he died because even though he was seventy, she had always thought of him as her greatest ally, her protector. After his funeral she had felt so helpless, so vulnerable. She remembered that David sensed her anxiety. That night in bed he held her against him for hours stroking her hair and comforting her, trying at the same time to give her the sense of security she had had as a little girl.
Gerald returned. He stood staring at her for a moment, his coallike eyes burning with fever, his muscled arms quivering with sweat and menace as he closed the door softly behind him. She heard something clanking over the sound of his breathing and saw that he carried a chain.
“Oh, God,” she murmured as he approached, “no, please.” She folded her legs against her body protectively, but he seized her right ankle and yanked her leg toward him, sending a shooting pain through her. He wrapped the chain around her ankle tightly and inserted a lock into two links to fasten the chain firmly on her leg. He snapped it shut while she watched wide-eyed; then he let out the chain as he circled to the right head bed post. Lifting the bed up easily, he wrapped the other end around the foot of the post and inserted another, similar lock.
“Can’t leave you on the loose,” he said. He reached down to touch her cheek, but she turned away. He caught her face in his hand and squeezed her cheeks as he turned her back to him. “You’d better start being more cooperative,” he said. “Marlene was stubborn, too, and…” He stopped and slowly released her face, red marks rising where his fingers had been. She brought her hand to her cheek and stared up at him fearfully.
“What happened to her? Who was she?”
For a moment his eyes glowed, as if he wanted to tell her. They flashed—with gruesome memories? But just as quickly the glow died, and he glared at her again. “It doesn’t matter. What matters,” he said in a deadened monotone, “is what’s going to happen to you.” He didn’t smile. There wasn’t even a threatening note interweaved into his statement. What made it more terrifying was the cold, factual way he spoke, as if he didn’t know himself what the outcome of all this would be. Was Irene in control? That mad woman in control? What or who else was there that would determine how this would end?
“Don’t do this,” she pleaded. He didn’t seem to hear her even as he looked straight at her.
A moment later he turned and left the room, leaving the door open and a chill in his wake. He obviously no longer saw a need to lock the door since he had placed the chains on her legs.
Stacey sat up and looked at her shackled ankle. The chain hung just loose enough not to cut off her circulation. She rubbed the sore leg where he had grabbed her and waited, watching the door. A short while later, Irene appeared with a lunch tray, a placid otherworldly smile painted on her face. There was a glass of what looked to be skim milk and a plate with a piece of apparently stale white bread.
“Oh, you look so nice in that dress,” she said. “I just can’t get over how nice you look.” She placed the tray on the small night table and smiled. “I thought you might like a snack to perk you up, Marlene.”
“Why do you insist on calling me by someone else’s name?” Stacey asked, her words framed so slowly in so deep a voice she had trouble believing it was her own. Maybe it wasn’t. She still had trouble believing any of this was really happening. The exhaustion, and weakness from eating so little food, was obviously having its effect.
“You’re teasing me. Gerald said your teasing is going to get worse and worse. He thinks you’re going to make things very unpleasant. He wanted to put you in the basement, but I told him absolutely not. I don’t want to go down to that basement to talk to you. What kind of a place would that be for us to have nice conversations?” She paused and looked at the chain. “I couldn’t talk him out of the chain, though. You understand, don’t you, dear?”
“No,” Stacey said, her voice small and thin again. She was fighting back the tears. “I want to be free to go.”
“To go where? This is your home; this is Donna’s home now, too.”
“We have our own home.”
“It can’t be as nice as this.”
“I’m not chained up in it.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry about that.” She sat on the bed thinking while Stacey studied her for a moment. Irene’s complexion was so fair that the little veins in her temples and even some in her cheeks were visible. Her skin was nearly transparent in spots. There were patches of small freckles under both her eyes. Her eyes were blue, bright and fresh right now, like the eyes of an innocent child. Indeed, all her facial features were childlike because of their diminutiveness.
But it was exactly because of her sweet and pure look that her madness was so terrifying. Stacey had already seen how her delicate surface was so easily shattered. She imagined that what lay beneath was something that could be both ruthless and cruel in its ability to deny reality—keep it from seeping in.
“You can’t keep us here just because you want Shirley to have a playmate,” she said in as reasonable, soft a tone as she could muster. She watched the other woman closely, to see if she could make her face the truth. Make her an ally, one to help them escape Gerald and his volatile behavior. She didn’t want to end up like Marlene and Donna, whatever happened to them. She could only guess.
“It’s not right and it’s not good for Shirley to see such things. You don’t want her to grow up thinking people have to be cruel to one another, do you?”
“But people are cruel to one another, aren’t they? That’s what Gerald says.”
“Gerald’s wrong.”
“Oh, no,” Irene said. She laughed. “Oh, no. Gerald’s not wrong.” She stood up quickly. “But you don’t have to worry, dear. As long as you’re here with us, no one will hurt you.”
“But you’re hurting me. Look what Gerald did to me,” she said, pointing to the chain.
“It’s only for a little while. Gerald promised. Now don’t be contrary, dear. If you cooperate, it’ll only be for a little while,” she said, a clear note of annoyance coming into her voice.
Stacey was losing patience. She had to know—before Gerald returned. “What happened to Marlene and Donna?”
“Why, you’re teasing again…” the other began, thrown by Stacey’s sudden insistence.
“What happened to the other woman and child, Irene…did Gerald harm them?”
The other’s eyes grew smaller, and her jaw quivered. Fear flickered in her eyes. “Why…Gerald?”
“Yes, Irene…he’s brutal. You know he can be brutal, don’t you…Did he kill them?” She rushed the words to catch the other off guard.
“Kill? Why, no…”
“Don’t you see he’s dangerous, Irene?”
“Gerald? No, he just took her away…” She gasped, the green cast that had been on her face receding.
Stacey could see that whenever any changes took place in Irene’s face, they took place rapidly and obviously. There was nothing subtle about her. She was like a child—undeceiving, open about her happiness and her sadness, and her anger. The movement from one to the other was quick and without transition. Hers was a world of good and bad; there was nothing in between. “Don’t you know, or wonder where he took her, Irene?” she said.
Suddenly there was a rustle in the hallway.
They both looked to the door as Gerald entered with the chamber pot. He busied himself with it under the bed and then stood behind his wife, waiting. Irene had recovered considerably, and had obviously repressed their conversation of moments before.
“Where’s my daughter now?” Stacey asked.
“They’re in the attic,” he said gruffly. Irene looked up and smiled as though she could see through the ceiling.
“They’re dressing up in old clothes, my mother-in-law’s old clothes. We’ve saved so much. Some of it is very valuable and some of it…well, some of it just has sentimental value for Gerald. Maybe we’ll look over the old things together some time. For now, the children are enjoying themselves. Later, we’re going to make candy apples. Do you want me to bring you one?”
“I’ve got to see my daughter again. Please.”
“Of course, dear. I’ll tell you what. Donna will bring you a candy apple. How’s that?”
“As long as I get to see her.”
“Eat your sandwich,” Irene said and started away.
“Wait. Please. Have him take off the chain. I won’t do anything bad. Please.”
“Gerald said for a little while it’s got to be this way.” Gerald shifted, uncomfortable to hear her speak as if he weren’t present. He stalked out of the room, embarrassed. “There’s nothing I can do when Gerald makes up his mind about something. He can be so stubborn, and if I disagree with him…oh, you don’t know how he can get. Remind me to tell you some stories later.”
Stacey knew the moment to press Irene was gone. But she’d gained enough to realize her worst suspicions confirmed. Wearily she glanced around the bare room. “What time is it? Why did you take my watch?”
“You ask so many questions.” She took a few steps toward the bed again. The smile that had returned with Gerald left her face. “You know what…you’re starting to give me a headache, and I haven’t had one of my bad headaches since you and Donna came back. You better not ask any more questions because if Gerald hears you, he’ll put you in the basement and then I won’t be able to see you as much.”
“Like Shirley did to Donna?”
The other woman seemed to stop breathing; her chin tilted and her lips twisted slightly. As if she hadn’t heard a word, she turned and left, the door open behind her.
Stacey stared at the bread. Despite it all, she had a need for some nourishment, if she was to do what she must do to get out of this madhouse. It tasted good, too. She practically gobbled it down and drank all of the milk as well. Then she sat back on the bed and watched the open doorway. Her eyelids grew heavy, which renewed her suspicion that Gerald was indeed sedating her—but it could have been the milk that made her feel sleepy.
About an hour or so later, she heard footsteps coming from the attic stairway. She shook herself, leaned forward, and listened keenly. It sounded like just Shirley and Tami.
“Tami,” she called softly, slurring her words, “Tami.” Shirley stopped talking. Both children had come to a halt somewhere in the hallway. “Tami, come to the door. Tami.”
There was a long moment of silence, but she sensed that they were drawing closer. She held her breath. In a few moments, they would appear. Apparently Irene and Gerald were not around. She could talk to Tami without them hearing what she would say. She made up her mind she would tell her daughter to run away. If she got down the road, maybe someone would find her and all this would end.
Shirley appeared first. She looked in with some curiosity. She was dressed in a pink sweater at least three sizes too big and a long dark brown skirt that she had pulled up over her waist so that it just touched her feet. The wide-brimmed straw hat on her head made her look comical. Stacey smiled, hoping to appear friendly and without threat so the girl wouldn’t run away and take Tami with her. She held some kind of thin strap in her hand, the end of which wasn’t visible.
“Hi,” Stacey said. “You and Ta—Donna are playing?” Shirley nodded. “Is Donna there with you?” Shirley nodded once more. “Can you tell her to come in?” This time the girl didn’t respond. “Just for a few moments. I’d like to look at her. Please.” Shirley bit her lower lip and then nodded emphatically. “Thank you,” Stacey said with relief.
Shirley lifted the thin strap and tugged it toward her until Tami appeared. Stacey saw with horror that the strap was a leash connected to a collar around Tami’s neck. Tami was dressed only in her panties. Her naked upper body had been smeared with lipstick and rouge and her face was streaked with lipstick in an attempt to make her look like a savage. Black paint had been used to trace circles around the tiny buds of Tami’s breasts, and the upper part of her arms looked as if they’d been pricked with needles, the blood now dried and intermingled with the rouge.
The moment Stacey saw what had been done to her daughter, she felt as though someone had struck her in the stomach and knocked the breath out of her. For a moment she couldn’t utter a sound, her throat closed so quickly. Then she brought her hands to her face and screamed and screamed and screamed.
Shirley disappeared instantly, pulling Tami roughly behind her, leaving Stacey uttering her cries to an empty doorway.
David spun away from the garage quickly, but when he made the turn onto Willow again, he slowed down until he came to a complete stop. What could he do differently this time? Should he walk the road? The young mechanic had said she might have circled back to the main highway unseen. That was certainly possible. His fresh effort could all be a waste of time.
The indecision was maddening. What’s more, the longer he sat there thinking, the wilder became his imagination. Maybe she had picked up a hitchhiker. It wasn’t like her to do so, but maybe she thought she needed another adult in the car if she was going to take a so-called back road. Maybe the hitchhiker looked harmless, like a college kid returning home. So she stopped after she had made the turn onto Willow. That’s why the mechanic hadn’t mentioned a hitchhiker. He didn’t see her stop for him.
So the man would have gotten into the car and then, when they had motored farther down this road, forced her at gun- or knife-point to take one of those cowpaths the mechanic had mentioned. After that…what after that? Just visualizing such a scenario in his mind caused the sweat to bead on his forehead.
He had to admit to himself, though, that it was a logical explanation for her disappearance. That was why she never had called. That was why no one on the road remembered seeing her. That was why the police were unable to locate her or the car, even though a fleet of patrol cars had been out looking. Oh God, he thought. It’s true; it’s got to be true.
He brought his hands to his face and sat there as though he had just confronted the horrible scene. Maybe he shouldn’t continue alone? What would he do if he did find them after some psychotic had finished them off? He lowered his hands to his lap and just stared ahead. He couldn’t go back and he couldn’t expect that detective, Chicky Ross, to come drive out here to join him in a pursuit based on a flimsy theory.
And then another scenario occurred to him. Since it had become painfully obvious that Ross took the traditional police line and considered him a potential suspect, what if he came upon his wife and child brutally murdered by some psychotic hitchhiker? Would the police suspect him because he had tracked them down so quickly and so well while they were off searching in different directions? On top of everything else, he couldn’t face that possibility. He couldn’t face any of it
This was a mistake; this was a mistake, he repeated to himself. He should have just waited. Despite their failure at this moment, the police were trained to handle cases like this. That was why we had them; why we paid them. Why couldn’t he be his old, logical—if distant—self?
“Stop the procrastination, Oberman,” he said aloud. “Move your ass and do what has to be done.” He nodded as if someone else, someone sitting beside him, had voiced this command. Then he took his foot off the brake and accelerated. He moved down the road less than half the speed he had traveled it before.
He came to the old farm again and experienced the same, eerie feeling. Although it was a partly sunny day and rather warm, the Victorian farmhouse looked gloomy. It was as if the rambling, multifaceted structure were forever trapped in its own shadows. The shades were drawn on the front windows, upstairs and down. There was no movement around it, no signs of life within. He paused, scrutinized the grounds, and then drove on.
A little more than a mile away, he spotted the first dirt road. It veered to the right and turned down a small knoll toward the woods. He hesitated and then thought he would take it a little ways so he could see where the road ended. He put the car in low gear and edged off the road. He had his window rolled down so he heard the crunch of gravel and rocks as the car lurched forward. Because the road looked pretty solid, he sped up. The car bounced a little, but everything was all right.
When he reached the top of the knoll, he brought the car to a halt and looked down the dirt road. As far as he could tell, there were no signs of anyone having traveled on it for some time. If Stacey had been there, she would have left some fresh car tracks, he thought.
Then something in the woods, something that clearly looked like a vehicle, caught his eye. His heart began to beat madly. The forest began a good half mile down the dirt road, so he couldn’t make out the object exactly, but it did look blue. There was nothing to do but continue forward. His foot shook on the accelerator. The ruts in the road got deeper and the car dipped and bounced, but he was aware of nothing but the goal ahead of him. All he could do was stare ahead and let the vehicle bring him closer to the forest. He felt as if he was being carried along magnetically to what might prove to be the most horrible thing he would live to see. Without realizing it, he was holding his breath and his hands were gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles had turned white. He was as still as a manikin, frozen in terror.
Suddenly the front end of the car dipped radically to the left. There was the sound of a grinding struggle between the bumper, the front axle, and some large boulders. The noise struck him as resembling a scream coming up from the earth. He hit the brakes fast and hard, but it was too late. The left front wheel sank into a large hole and the floor of the car scraped against the earth as the car jolted to a stop.
Hypnotized by what he saw in the forest, he had stared ahead blindly and ignored the fact that the dirt road had degenerated dangerously. Rain and the weather had damaged what had once been a path for farm vehicles. At this point it was really no longer passable, but the knowledge came too late.
He couldn’t get out on his side. The car had tipped so far to the left that the door wouldn’t open. The edge hit the earth every time he tried to jam it open. He had to slide over on the front seat and exit on the passenger’s side. After he did so, he went around to the front to survey the damage. He saw there was probably no way he would be able to get out of the ditch without a tow truck.
“Damn.” He raised his fist to drive it down on the car hood, but thought better of that. Instead, he turned around and looked toward the forest. Why did he take the road? Why did he do this? It was as if he was being drawn into a trap, but he had to satisfy himself about what he had glimpsed in the woods. He continued down the road, breaking out into a trot until he reached the edge of the forest and could look through the trees clearly.
It was a blue vehicle all right, fairly intact except that it looked as though it had been there for years. Why in the hell did someone just abandon a fairly new car in the forest to rot? He directed his anger at the polluter and cursed his own eyesight for not being keener. Then he looked back at his car, foundering to the left like a wounded beast.
The frustration, the sense of defeat, the fatigue, and the sorrow flooded over him. He lowered his head. All he had succeeded in doing was making matters worse. Slowly he sauntered back to the car. He leaned against it to catch his breath and looked up at the sky. The billowing clouds appeared peaceful, majestic. How could there be such misery in a world that was so beautiful?
He climbed back into the car and made one last attempt to back out, but the vehicle barely moved. He was sure he would inflict serious damage if he continued to attempt anything. There was no choice but to walk back to the garage.
He started up the dirt road, hoping that a car would approach when he reached Willow. None did for quite a while, and then a woman came along in a station wagon. He flagged her down and she looked right at him, but she did not slow down. In fact, she sped up. He shouted, pleading, but she either didn’t hear him or didn’t want to. He was about to curse her when he realized how ironic it was to ridicule her. He had come out this way on a hunch that Stacey might have picked up a bad hitchhiker. Maybe this woman’s husband had warned her dozens of times never to pick up a stranger. Really, how could he blame her?
The blame should be placed on a society that clamored with so many threatening elements. It was now a world in which you were safer if you distrusted everyone and lived a self-centered existence. It was dangerous to be good, to be compassionate, to be charitable.
This realization fueled his anger. He was determined to throw himself in front of the next vehicle that came along and force the driver to help him. But none did, in either direction. It was as if the whole world were conspiring against him.
Finally he reached the boundaries of the old farm. He saw the ancient stone walls of the barns and some evidence of wire fencing. Even though it looked as though the owner had retreated within smaller perimeters, David realized that the farmer had to have a working tractor that could tow his car out of the ditch. In any case the farmhouse was close enough that the man would be familiar enough with the dirt road he had taken to be helpful.
He decided to stop to ask for his help. Of course, he would offer him some money. From the way things looked around this place, the guy would probably welcome some unexpected income. He felt sure the man would be cooperative. Encouraged by the possibility, he hurried along until he arrived at the driveway and then slowly began to walk up to the house which he now recognized.
It was Gerald Thompson’s place.
He would have gone much faster, but he couldn’t help experiencing that sense of foreboding again. It was just before he knocked on the door that he had the definite feeling Stacey and Tami were not too far away.
Without knowing why, just after he brought his fist to the door, he regretted announcing his arrival. But it was too late to do anything now.