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The kitchen light was back on, cutting into my darkness with its warm glow. I smoothed out the wrinkles from the paper no bigger than my hand. I tilted it toward the light on the floor. There was no date or article headline. It was an obituary of Arthur Daly, husband to Betty Daly and father to William and Susan Daly. It read that he died from heart failure surrounded by those he loved and that he was at peace now.
I gently laid the clipping down on a distant pile of papers as if it were Arthur’s body I was laying to rest. My heart grieved for Betty. She’d never talked much about her husband or how he died except that his heart failed. His obituary reiterated that fact.
The next paper I held was from The Daily Herald, dated October 30, 1978.
“Halloween is now only one day away. Many of you are adding the finishing touches to the costumes for your kids, buying extra candy for the trick-or-treaters, or planning parties. Halloween is a time for the young to be young and the older folks to be young at heart.
Unfortunately, evil has crept into our small town, and it’s not in the form of a scary costume or prankster but instead, evil in its most basic form. Unnamed and lying in wait in the shadows of our house-lined streets.
Early this morning, a body was discovered near the waterline by Halona creek—an Indian name that means happy fortune—twisting the fate of our quaint town into an unlucky target. Due to the removal of the head, feet, and hands, identification has not been possible at this time. Local police will only respond by saying that the cuts were done with precision, possibly someone with medical knowledge. No further details have been released.
Local police have issued a statement asking all county citizens to refrain from any Halloween activities, including trick-or-treating, for everyone’s safety, especially our children. Further details will be released as they become available.
For myself, and those at the Herald, please heed the warning from our police force. This monster has already taken one life, that we know of. Don’t let him or her take another.”
I lowered the paper onto a box to my right. I wished Betty were with me so that I could ask why she’d kept an article with a gruesome topic. What did it mean to her? And, more troubling, why had I never heard of a killer running rampant on the streets of the town I called home? It was before my time, but shouldn’t a story of that magnitude be passed down through the generations? Unless the police captured the killer and found justice for the victim. If life began to resume a sense of normalcy, perhaps the town decided to bury the story.
The answers laid in the papers surrounding me.
November 20, 1978
“Late last night, in the clearing by Halona creek, another body was discovered. This creek has now become known not for its pristine waters or serene setting but as the infamous dumping ground for the mysterious entity. The victim has yet to be identified.
As with the last three victims, there seems to be no connection. The first three victims were male, the most recent female. Precise cuts were identified, as with the others, but nothing new has come from this discovery.
Agitation amongst our residents is increasing. Demands for answers are constantly flooding local law enforcement offices. Many residents interviewed have moved or are in the process of moving.
Danger, fear, and absolute terror have replaced the carefree nature of our small town, once safe of the crimes seen in large cities. A little piece of everyone in this town dies with every new victim discovered.”
How horrible it must have been to live in constant fear. I laughed to myself. I was becoming adept at living in a suspended state of fear myself.
Loud voices from below distracted me. I peeked through the hole in the floor by the light. The kitchen was empty, which meant the arguing was coming from the great room or the master bedroom. Either way, I didn’t care. I wanted one more paper.
December 29, 1978
“There has been another victim discovered in Halona creek.
There hasn’t been a murder since late November. This holiday season, people’s hopes were beginning to rise with a silent whisper reverberating through town that maybe the killer(s) had been captured in another city or had met their ugly demise—that perhaps the horror was over. Unfortunately, the short-lived relief is gone.
The most recent victim, identified as local resident George Adams, 58, husband to Cheryl Adams, has been severed of all but one hand, a change of MO from previous crimes. The couple has no children. When asked for a statement, Mrs. Adams declined.”
The article went on to say how furious the town residents were. The local police reported that the New York state police were involved and investigating other possible connections to similar crimes in different cities. The FBI was invited in as well, extending the search to cover the entire country.
Preoccupied with the papers, I almost didn’t hear the sounds coming from the kitchen. With the article still in hand, I laid on the floor, straining to listen to the muffled conversation.
It couldn’t be.
I struggled to calm my racing heart. There was a third, unfamiliar, anxious voice of a female. The girl’s scream reverberated through the floorboards. Somehow, they’d lured another victim into my hell.
I was silent for a while. The screaming quieted almost as soon as it started. Panic regarding whatever method was used to silence the stranger caught my breath in my throat. Minutes later, the sounds of footsteps padded on the carpeting of the stairs. They were now upstairs. Possibly right outside my door, I couldn’t tell. I waited. And waited. And waited. What were they doing out there? There were no voices, no movements, nothing. Breathing became increasingly difficult. Finally, I heard the latch, saw the hand, and instinctually reached for it.
I was gently tugged from my unusual and unconventional haven and sat gingerly on the bare, full-size mattress that protruded into the middle of the room. The night sky outside the window made it easy for my eyes to adjust to the moonlit bedroom. What I saw confirmed and solidified my fear—there was another victim. She moved too quickly for me to get a good description of her or her mental state. Anxiety, nervousness, anger, and hopelessness were probably etched on her face as much as they were on mine. Whether intentional or not, they had brought her into the chaos and terror that came from being under Joe’s control.
It was Joe who removed me from my freedom. In exchange, the stranger took my place. I wasn’t angry or sad that she was now tucked away in the crawl space. Maybe time in there would give her what it gave me: hope, or at least the possibility of it. If we couldn’t get away permanently, time in there was the next best thing. It offered a nonsensical but lovely idea of freedom, for a little while at least.
“So, how are you feeling now? I have missed you,” Joe said, with a strange note in his voice. “As you can see, we had a visitor while you were away. Please don’t think that I care about you any less. You have become an important part of my life now. I need you.”
How long had I been in that hole to first create, then stir those feelings within him? I’d been locked inside the crawl space longer than he’d seen me outside of it, and yet it was enough time for him to grow attached—a disturbing thought on top of a growing list of disturbing thoughts.
He loomed over me while I sat on the bed, my neck craning to see his face. Reaching his hand out for me to take, I, once more, did so without question. His hand closed around mine, gently, almost as if we were friends—or more than friends. A shiver ran through my blood, sharp and cold, as that image took shape. What exactly did he see me as? The fact that he was married to Doris was probably not even a consideration in his mind.
Before we walked out of the bedroom, my eyes quickly darted to the small door, shut and locked. I envied the new girl’s chance to hide away in that small space, which was bigger and more open than being in the house with Joe at my side. We walked down the stairs, hand-in-hand, turning into the master bedroom this time instead of the kitchen. Nervous energy consumed me.
He sat me on the bed, told me to cross my legs at my ankles, and sit up straight. He sat down beside me. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Doris step out of the master bath. She came to stand directly in front of me, staring through me as if I barely existed, with the same blank expression I’d seen before she locked me in the crawl space. Her eyes roamed over me, then Joe, before settling on our two hands still linked together. A fleeting, almost imperceptible flash of something akin to jealousy ignited in her cold, dead eyes. Not what I’d expected to elicit, but maybe any emotion would work to crack that catatonic shell she was in—or she’d lash out at me for taking her man and kill me on the spot. I couldn’t say if I cared. Staying alive to read some old papers wasn’t the life I wished to live, though I would if death wasn’t an option.
“Now, Erin, I am sorry you were left alone for so long. We missed you, though, didn’t we, Doris?” A slight nod was her response. “If you will help me out with something, I promise to have a fantastic dinner and whatever you want to drink waiting for you. Doris is going to help you freshen up. I think a fellow woman would be a more appropriate companion, no?”
“Yes,” I said, watching Doris’s expression go blank, her dead, uncaring eyes confirming she’d retreated into her isolated world once more. She turned away from us, walking the short distance to the small master bathroom.
I rose to follow her but was jolted backward where I landed, hard, on Joe’s lap. I let out a shriek, barely holding back vomit when he swiftly kissed me on my lips. He didn’t linger long, just enough to squeeze my hips and smile as he gazed into my eyes. I blinked a few times and willed myself to get up, for him to release me and let me stand. I did, and I stumbled into the bathroom, to a stoic Doris. The door closed behind me. It was just her and me now.
She didn’t let me have any privacy while I peed or when I unclothed to get into the hot, steaming shower she started, but by that point, I didn’t care. Any modesty I had left was lying on the upstairs bathroom floor along with my dignity after being slapped down with my pants around my ankles.
I scrubbed every part of me, even my lips, with the white washcloth folded over the handrail in the standing shower stall. I rubbed so hard the taste of blood teased my tongue and stained the white cloth. A metallic cocktail of blood and hot shower water mixed in my mouth, burning as I swallowed. I forced myself to stop. Raw, chapped, bloody lips and skin would be considered unladylike.
Doris never pressured me to hurry. She never instructed me how to wash; in fact, she never said or did anything, unlike I expected. I questioned whether any of her existed anymore. If she was in there, she was too far gone ever to come back. A lost cause, a hopeless creature, and perhaps the most amusing truth was that she was one of the lost souls Joe sought to save. Neither of them would find a vacant seat waiting for them beyond the pearly gates. Depending on what I must do to survive, heaven might be sold out for me as well.
I turned the shower off and wrung the water from my hair with my hands. The frosted glass door opened with a gentle nudge. The towel hook was empty, unlike it had been when my shower began. Shielding my nakedness with the hard, glass door, I peeked out to face Doris’s arm extended toward me with the towel in her hand. The sheet-sized towel dragged on the floor despite her effort to hold it high in the air.
I snatched it from her hand, afraid she’d decide I wasn’t worthy of it. Holding it close to me, like a child holds its favorite blanket, water dripped off my skin pebbled with frosty goosebumps. I dried myself in the shower, though still supervised. Securing the towel around my upper body, I stepped out on unsteady feet. Neither of us spoke.
On top of the vanity, a stack of clothes, of my clothes that I hadn’t yet unpacked, were neatly piled. Included were jeans, panties, a bra, socks, and a loose-fitting pale pink blouse. A complete outfit wasn’t what I’d expected. Perhaps I was being taken somewhere. I dared to hope with childlike innocence. When he’d kissed me, I feared the worst.
Maybe I was wrong.
With hurried movements, I dressed in clothes I’d assumed I’d never see again. A part of me suspected I’d be forced to wear drab, colorless clothing—anything to make me unappealing, unnoticeable. Instead, Joe was allowing me to keep my identity, to look feminine. Unlike Doris, whose figure vanished underneath her shabby, simple dress.
After dressing, I combed my hair with my brush that, like my clothes, hadn’t yet been unpacked before I was stored away in the wall upstairs. With every stroke, I watched the girl in the mirror, the one who had sepia-tinted, hazel eyes like her mother. The hazel was fading into a dreary brown, like the inside of a dead, hollowed-out oak tree—the bluish circles underneath further carving away at the once lively, vibrant color.
I lowered my brush and my eyes to the vanity, taking a slow breath to calm me. Instead, it reminded me of my reality, that my eyes might remain lifeless long after I survived Joe and Doris’s cruelty.
If I survived.
Doris grabbed my forearm, not maliciously, not endearingly either, when I turned my back on the mirror and the new girl I was living inside. Her infamous cold, emotionless expression never wavered. I found it reassuring. Even evil could be comforting if it’s consistent.
She leaned against the bathroom door, still holding my arm, and said, “It’s best just to take it. Don’t enjoy it. Don’t act as if you enjoy it, and at the end, make sure you ask if he enjoyed it. It won’t interest him if you did, but if he should ask, tell him it was nice being that spiritually close to him. Understand?”
My heart stopped, then began again, beating faster than my body could contain. My chest rose and fell with every hard, ragged breath. My legs caved beneath me as a ringing in my ears built into a rapid crescendo, knocking me off my feet. The bleach odor, more pungent now than when I’d first entered the bathroom, pulled my gut through my throat, ridding my stomach of its contents, and not until I was dry heaving did I force myself to stop.
He’d kissed me. How could I not have recognized that he had further intentions—more than a simple kiss? I’d scrubbed the remnants of his taste and touch in the shower, naively believing it was over. If what Doris said was correct, I was nowhere near done. He’d lulled me into a safe zone by offering me my own clothes to wear, to feel like my old self, to lower my guard ever so slightly. Now that I had, I’d be easy for him to pluck when he was ready. That time was imminent. Doris’s advice warned me so.
I wiped my mouth with a wad of toilet paper, tossed it into the bowl, and flushed, watching as my fear and disgust washed away, leaving nothing but a clean, white toilet bowl, as if none of it ever happened.
Using the edge of the sink, I climbed off the floor and washed my mouth out with the spearmint mouthwash sitting on the vanity counter. My eyes rose to meet my reflection. They were no longer the only change to my appearance. My skin, once a warm shade of ivory, was as dead as Betty’s at her wake.
“How long have you been here?” I asked, praying for a delay of the inevitable—Joe’s unwanted touch on my skin.
Without any hesitation or remorse, she stated, “Five days.” And with that, she left the bathroom.
Five days?
How?
Where was my family, friends, anybody?
The door was now ajar, with Joe standing in the doorway—a big grin and eager eyes plastered on his face. My prayer wasn’t answered. Talking to Doris hadn’t delayed anything. It only added to the weight of the situation.
No one is coming for me.
Somehow, they’d found a way to keep others at bay. My cell phone had been charging on the kitchen counter before they arrived. It would have been easy to answer texts with a response stating I was taking some time to myself after the move or that I was okay but needed some space. Something like that could work on friends, but what about Mom? No matter what I said in a text, she’d never stay away.
“Hey there, gorgeous,” Joe said, distracting me from the sudden fear that the loud voices I’d heard from the crawl space could have been Mom begging for her life.
If she’d stopped by to check on me, and one of them answered the door, she’d have demanded to see me, maybe even threatened to call the cops. Joe would never allow that, but would he kill to prevent it? I didn’t want to know. I couldn’t think about what they might have done to her or anything else for that matter, not when his eyes were alight with excitement at the sight of me.
He held out his hand for me to hold. Lacing mine in his, he led me onto the bed. It was hard beneath me, like a table or a butcher’s block. Any semblance of who I was would soon be chopped into tiny, unrecognizable pieces. I closed my eyes, imagining myself blowing out candles on a birthday cake, wishing that I was alone, safe, and secure. When my eyes reopened, the look that stared back at me silently screamed that his intentions were far worse than killing me.
Dying would be nice, peaceful, no matter how he did it. Surviving what was to come, living with the memories forever tattooed on my soul, however, would make me wish for death every day that I continued to breathe.