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Kris was sitting on a kitchen chair, alive. An audible sigh of relief escaped my lips. No one acknowledged it. Like an obedient soldier, Doris was standing in front of the refrigerator. Her arms hung straight at her sides. The boxes I had yet to unpack were gone. The kitchen was immaculate. She’d hung curtains on the window over the sink and a white, embroidered dish towel over the handle of the black stove. Sinners shall not be welcomed into the house of the Lord was hand-stitched into the cloth. Three magnets stuck to the front of the white refrigerator door. I was baffled by the sight of them. They were frivolous, and Joe didn’t do frivolous.
The refrigerator stood five or six feet from me. I squinted to read the messages on all three: “God reigns over all things.” “A mighty fist at the hand of man will redeem your sins.” And, the last one, the largest of the three: “Fear Him and those that speak in His name, for they are your salvation, the ones who will guide you through the gates of Heaven.”
The idea that others held similar beliefs to him was alarming. Exacerbating that truth was the fact that one of those magnets, hung proudly on display, reiterated what he’d told me, that without his help, guidance, I’d be denied access from heaven.
My eyes moved past the fridge, past the blue, gingham curtains no one under seventy-years-old liked, past Doris standing stock-still, to the kitchen table no more than a foot from me that Joe now stood in front of. On the table were tape, zip ties, thin, yellow rope, and a needle and thread. It was a scene from every slasher movie I’d ever watched.
For the first time since I’d met Kris or Newbie, I was ready to run. I didn’t care who I left behind or what happened to them. I wanted out.
The front door wasn’t far behind me. Joe wouldn’t be expecting me to run. I hadn’t tried before. Fifteen—I leaned back on my heels to see into the great room—maybe twenty steps, I counted in my head. It would catch him off guard, which would give me a head start. It was doable, especially with fear propelling me. I could make it.
Joe’s fingers pressed into my bruised, possibly broken ribs. He caught me before I collapsed. In my delirium, I’d forgotten I couldn’t stand on my own, let alone run. I was trapped. I cursed Joe. If he weren’t holding me, I’d have fled. Instead, my consciousness returned along with a nauseating feeling of still wanting to flee.
Newbie’s eyes captured my gaze. A sense of calmness radiated off him and into me. I was a coward. I knew I had to stay, had to find a way out for all three of us, not just myself.
Newbie’s hand reached for mine. Joe’s arm trapped me in place, but that didn’t stop me from raising my hand toward Newbie’s. Seeing what we were attempting, Joe brought me to an empty chair opposite Kris.
“Sit,” he ordered.
Once I’d complied, Joe’s large hand gripped the back of Newbie’s neck, turned him around, and hurled him forward, away from me. Joe kicked Newbie in the back of his right knee, causing him to drop to the floor. Newbie tried to crawl away. Joe stopped him with a loud stomp of a heavy work boot I’d never seen him wear, to Newbie’s lower back.
Doris finally moved. I wished she hadn’t. She knelt at Newbie’s side and pulled him across the floor by the collar of his shirt. He winced but never cried out in pain, never gave Joe the satisfaction of watching him writhe in agony.
Joe told Newbie to get up and sit on the kitchen chair beside Kris, who hadn’t moved and had barely blinked her mesmerizing blue eyes since we’d entered the kitchen. It would be a shame if no one ever saw into the crystal-clear depths of her eyes again.
Stop that! Someone will see them again. Everyone will see them again.
While Newbie was being tied to one of the kitchen chairs, I inspected Kris for injuries. Her blank expression and ashen skin were the evidence I needed to confirm something terrible had happened to her. With Joe, it could have been anything. Worry wrapped its cold, dead hands around my throat—her hands were gone. After reading newspaper clippings of gruesome murders, images of decapitated hands and feet were the ocean waves threatening to drown me. There was no blood on the floor or on her clothes, which were the same one’s I’d last seen her wear—a pair of light-colored jeans and a fitted, deep blue T-shirt.
Joe stepped away from Newbie. The side of Kris’s chair was in sight. She still had both of her hands. They were bound together behind her chair. Among so many disappointments, that was a welcome relief. I hadn’t been rescued, Newbie was being strapped to a chair using zip ties, my body was pulsing in pain, but at least Kris still had her hands.
Once Newbie was secured to a chair, Joe took a small step back. “So, I thought maybe it would be best if we could all be together for once,” Joe said, his eyes moving from Kris to Newbie to me, stopping briefly on each of us. “It seems like we haven’t gotten a chance to get to know one another.
“Erin, I know you have met Kristen since we had such a nice conversation earlier in the living room.” Conversation? Is that what that was? “But I’m not sure if you have been formally introduced to Mark, here?” He waved his hand in Newbie’s direction.
I’d forgotten his name was Mark. He’d always be Newbie to me. I shook my head no in response to Joe’s question. I hadn’t been formally introduced, at least not by Joe, and that was all that mattered to him.
“Well, Erin, you see Mark here was an unexpected addition to our happy threesome. I can’t say it has been in a bad way. The more, the merrier, right?” As Joe’s eyes studied mine, I hoped my face didn’t betray the anxiety building inside. “I was talking to Doris this morning about how rude it has been on my part that I have not been taking the time to teach each of you personally. I must confess, this opportunity will make my work easier. I can teach you all the same lessons in a setting like this rather than having to restart when I’ve finished with one. I think for the moment, you have learned quite enough, Erin. You can relax while I educate Kristen and Mark.”
Being dismissed offered no relief. Whatever Joe intended to do to Kris and Newbie would be harder for me to watch than if it were happening to myself. He was playing with my mind, skewing my sanity, like he’d done since bringing Kris into my home.
He lowered himself onto the last remaining empty chair. Doris stayed standing in the corner by the sink. “I must apologize for not formally introducing myself to all of you before now. It is very unlike me to forget my manners. Anyway, my name is Joe Atherton, and this is my wife, Doris.” He angled his chin toward the meek woman standing obediently in the corner. “We have lived in this area for all of our married years and I, since I was born. We have a nice house just on the outskirts of town.”
Of course, they’d lied to me on my front porch. They didn’t live nearby. Did that mean I’d been targeted for their sick, perverted desires?
“Its seclusion suits us just fine, doesn’t it, dear?” Doris nodded. Her taciturn face remained stoic. “We don’t get out quite as much as we used to. I suppose that’s what happens when you get older.” He shrugged his shoulders as if this truth didn’t bother him, perhaps because his age wasn’t hindering his ability to scare and assault three strangers with minimal effort.
“You three are younger and take that for granted. You think that you can just come and go as you please. Do as you want with no consequences. I hate to have to be the one to tell you otherwise, but I will. That is not the way it works. One day you might find yourselves trying to teach those younger than you the way things really are, then you will appreciate how hard it is idly waiting for the ignorant to learn on their own what you can teach them yourselves.” A contemplative sigh deflated his chest.
“When I was younger, my dad used to sit with me for hours. We would discuss God and how He expected me to live my life. My father told me on more than one occasion that I may not always know what God had planned for me, but when I did, I would know how to accept and handle it. So, you see, it was God’s will that brought me here and His will that brought each of you to me.
“Doris and I had happened to be driving down the street when we saw Erin moving into this house. We had known the woman who had lived here. When Doris and I heard of her passing, we wondered who would move into the home. May God forgive me, it was curiosity that led us to your porch that night, Erin.”
A lie that might have been believable had he not forced his way into my life with violence and degradation. It was more than curiosity that led to his decisions.
His eyes captured mine with an almost apologetic emotion behind their deep, dark depths. He turned away, taking his lying eyes with him. He suffered no remorse for what he’d done. If given the opportunity, he’d do it all again.
“As I was saying, we ended up on Erin’s porch,” he kept his eyes turned away from me, “and probably would have walked away, but a fire ignited in me when I witnessed Erin’s manners or lack thereof. I couldn’t understand why she hadn’t invited us in or why she was so cold to us. She was even hesitant to help a sick man in his time of need. Then, to top it all off, she closed the door in our faces. Can you believe that?” He sucked in a long breath then released it slowly. His anger level was rising, as was mine. I had the right to do whatever I pleased in my house. After a few more calming breaths by us both, he resumed his monologue.
“That was how our relationship with Erin developed. She has not been an easy person to teach, but I won’t give up, not when it’s her soul I’m helping her to fight for.”
I wanted to roll my eyes, to declare there was nothing he was fighting for except his own enjoyment, but I refrained. “As for the two of you,” he glanced first at Kris, then Newbie, “you were just pleasant surprises. Please accept my apologies for my behavior toward you both when you first arrived. You see, I was a bit frazzled from my exertions with Erin. She was quite feisty in the beginning.” I swallowed down the foul taste rising from my stomach. “Still is, I suppose, somewhere deep inside anyway. I’m afraid she might be losing faith. I will correct that soon enough. But first, Kristen and Mark, the time has come for me to check the depth of your faith and belief in God almighty.”
A gasp came from the previously expressionless Kris, followed by a tremor that traveled across her body. Newbie sat and stared at me. I was offering him comfort, or he’d gone into a state of shock. I sat on my fidgety hands.
Joe stood and ambled over to Doris. I watched as he leaned down to whisper into her ear. When he drew back, her eyes were bright with emotion, like an excited child. Her eager expression contrasted against her unassuming face.
With a small pocketknife that Joe pulled out of his back pocket, he stepped toward Newbie and cut the restraints he’d only minutes before used to bind his wrists. Newbie didn’t try to run or fight back. He didn’t even stand. He stayed glued to his seat, his eyes never losing focus on me. Even as he was forced to rise, my eyes remained his focus.
Doris led him toward the master bedroom. With his foot on the bedroom threshold, he turned to me. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back for you,” he said in a boyish way as if there wasn’t a sick, twisted woman tugging at his arms, as if he weren’t being held against his will by a man proclaiming himself to be a servant to God.
My jaw slackened, and my eyes widened at his brazenness in the face of danger.
Before the bedroom door closed and locked behind him, he winked at me. In spite of our dire circumstance, the corner of my lips rose. For a split second, I wasn’t bracing myself for death while praying for freedom. I was being amused by a goofy guy who wasn’t taking our dangerous situation seriously.
His willful ignorance was confounding.
I wished I could have had an ounce of it for myself.