The Girl Next Door

by Jack Ketchum

  He shrugged. “I dunno,” he said. “My mom’s all worried now. That somebody’s going to tell.”

  “Me? Jeez, I won’t tell,” I said. Picturing myself in the dark, standing over my sleeping mother. “You know I won’t tell.”

  “I know. Ruth’s just weird these days.”

  I couldn’t push it further. Donny wasn’t as stupid as his brother. He knew me. He’d know if I was pushing and wonder.

  So I waited. We splashed with our feet.

  “Look” he said, “I’ll talk to her, all right? It’s bullshit. You been comin’ over our house for how many years now?”

  “A lot.”

  “So screw it. I’ll talk to her. Let’s get wet.”

  We slipped into the pool.

  The part that was easy was convincing Meg to go.

  There was a reason for that.

  For one last time, I told myself, I was going to have to stand and watch, waiting for the moment I could speak. And then I’d convince her. I even had a plan in mind.

  And then it would be over.

  I’d have to pretend I was with them no matter what—that it didn’t matter. One last time.

  Yet it almost didn’t happen.

  Because that one last time was nearly enough to push us both over the edge. That last time was horrible.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  “It’s okay,” Donny told me the following day. “My mom says it’s okay to come.”

  “Come where?” said my mother.

  She was standing behind me at the kitchen counter, chopping onions. Donny stood on the porch behind the screen. With me in the way he hadn’t noticed her.

  The kitchen reeked of onions.

  “Where are you going?” she said.

  I looked at him. He thought fast.

  “We’re gonna try to get up to Sparta next Saturday, Mrs. Moran. Soft of a family picnic. We thought maybe David could come too. Would that be all right?”

  “I don’t see why not,” said my mother, smiling. Donny was unfailingly polite to her without being obnoxious about it and she liked him for that though she had no use at all, really, for the rest of the family.

  “Great! Thanks, Mrs. Moran. See you later, David,” he said.

  So in a little while I went over.

  Ruth was back into The Game.

  She looked terrible. There were sores on her face and you knew she’d been scratching them because two were already scabbed over. Her hair was oily, limp, flecked with dandruff. The thin cotton shift looked as though she’d been sleeping in it for days. And now I was sure she’d lost weight. You could see it in her face—the hollows under the eyes, the skin pulled tight across the cheekbones.

  She was smoking as usual, sitting in a folding chair facing Meg. There was a half-eaten tuna sandwich on a paper plate beside her and she was using it as an ashtray. Two Tareyton butts poked up out of the sagging wet white bread.

  She was watching attentively, leaning forward in the chair, eyes narrowed. And I thought of the way she looked when she was watching her game shows on TV, shows like Twenty-One. Charles Van Doren, the English teacher from Columbia, had just been called a cheat for winning $129,000 on the show the week before. Ruth had been inconsolable. As though she was cheated too.

  But she watched Meg now with the same thoughtful intensity as when Van Doren was in his soundproof booth.

  Playing along.

  While Woofer poked Meg with his pocketknife.

  They had hung her from the ceiling again, and she was up on her toes, straining, volumes of the World Book scattered at her feet. She was naked. She was dirty, she was bruised. Her skin had a pallor now beneath the sheen of sweat. But none of that mattered. It should have, but it didn’t. The magic—the small cruel magic of seeing her that way—hovering over me for a moment like a spell.

  She was all I knew of sex. And all I knew of cruelty. For a moment I felt it flood me like a heady wine. I was with them again.

  And then I looked at Woofer.

  A pint-sized version of me, or what I could be, with a knife in his hand.

  No wonder Ruth was concentrating.

  They all were, Willie and Donny too, nobody saying a word, because a knife wasn’t a strap or a belt or a stream of hot water, knives could hurt you seriously, permanently, and Woofer was small enough to only just barely understand that, to know that death and injury could happen but not to sense the consequences. They were skating thin ice and they knew it. Yet they let it go. They wanted it to happen. They were educating.

  I didn’t need the lessons.

  So far there wasn’t any blood but I knew there was every chance that there would be, it was just a matter of time. Even behind the gag and blindfold you could see that Meg was terrified. Her chest and stomach heaved with fitful breathing. The scar on her arm stood out like jagged lightning.

  He poked her in the belly. On her toes the way she was, there was no way she could back away from him. She just jerked against the ropes convulsively. Woofer giggled and poked her below the navel.

  Ruth looked at me and nodded a greeting and lit another Tareyton. I recognized Meg’s mother’s wedding band fitting loose on her ring finger.

  Woofer slid the blade over Meg’s ribcage and poked her armpit. He did it so fast and so recklessly I kept looking for a line of blood along her ribs. But that time she was lucky. I saw something else though.

  “What’s that?”

  “What’s what?” said Ruth distractedly.

  “On her leg there.”

  “There was a red two-inch wedge-shaped mark on her thigh, just above the knee.

  She puffed the Tareyton. She didn’t answer.

  Willie did. “Mom was ironing,” he said. “She gave us some shit so Mom heaved the iron at her. Skinned her. No big deal, except now the iron’s busted.”

  “No big deal my ass,” said Ruth.

  She meant the iron.

  Meanwhile Woofer slid the knife back down to Meg’s belly. This time he nicked her just at the bottom of the ribcage.

  “Whoops,” he said.

  He turned to look at Ruth. Ruth stood up.

  She took a drag on the cigarette and flicked off the ash.

  Then she walked over.

  Woofer backed away.

  “Dammit, Ralphie,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. He let go of the knife. It clattered to the floor.

  You could see he was scared. But her tone was as blank as her face.

  “Shit,” she said. “Now we got to cauterize.” She lifted the cigarette.

  I looked away.

  I heard Meg scream behind the gag, a shrill thin muffled shriek that turned abruptly into a wail.

  “Shut up,” said Ruth. “Shut up or I’ll do it again.”

  Meg couldn’t stop.

  I felt myself trembling. I stared at the bare concrete wall.

  Hold on, I thought, I heard the hiss. I heard her scream.

  I could smell the burning.

  I looked and saw Ruth with the cigarette in one hand while the other cupped her breast through the gray cotton dress. The hand was kneading. I saw the burn marks close together under Meg’s ribs, her body bathed in sudden sweat. I saw Ruth’s hand move roughly over her wrinkled dress to press between her legs as she grunted and swayed and the cigarette drifted forward once again.

  I was going to blow it. I knew it. I could feel it building. I was going to have to do something, say something. Anything to stop the burning. I closed my eyes and still I saw Ruth’s hand clutch at the place between her legs. The scent of burning flesh was all around me. My stomach lurched. I turned and heard Meg scream and scream again and then suddenly Donny was saying Mom! Mom! Mom! in a voice that was hushed and suddenly filled with fear.

  I couldn’t understand.

  And then I heard it. The knocking.

  There was someone at the door.

  The front door.

  I looked at Ruth.

  She was staring at Meg
and her face was peaceful and relaxed, unconcerned and distant. Slowly she raised the cigarette to her lips and took a long deep drag. Tasting her.

  I felt my stomach lurch again.

  I heard the knocking.

  “Get it,” she said. “Go slow. Go easy.”

  She stood quietly while Willie and Donny glanced at one another and then went upstairs.

  Woofer looked at Ruth and then at Meg. He seemed confused, suddenly just a little boy again who wanted to be told what to do. Should I go or should I stay? But there wasn’t any help for him, not with Ruth that way. So finally he made up his own mind. He followed his brothers.

  I waited until he was gone.

  “Ruth?” I said.

  She didn’t seem to hear me.

  “Ruth?”

  She just kept staring.

  “Don’t you think…? I mean, if it’s somebody… Should you be leaving it to them? To Willie and Donny?”

  “Hmmm?

  She looked at me but I’m not sure she saw me. I’ve never seen anyone feel so empty.

  But this was my chance. Maybe my only chance. I knew I had to push her.

  “Don’t you think you ought to handle it, Ruth? Suppose it’s Mr. Jennings again?”

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Jennings. Officer Jennings. The cops, Ruth.”

  “Oh.”

  “I can … watch her for you.”

  “Watch her?”

  “To make sure she doesn’t…”

  “Yes. Good. Watch her. Good idea. Thank you, Davy.” She started toward the doorway, her movements slow and dreamlike. Then she turned. And now her voice was tight sharp, her back straight. Her eyes seemed shattered with reflected light.

  “You’d better not fuck up,” she said.

  “What?”

  She pressed her finger to her lips and smiled.

  “One sound down here and I promise I’ll kill the both you. Not punish you. Kill you. Dead. You got that, Davy? Are we straight about that?”

  “Yes.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Good. Very good.”

  She turned and then I heard her slippers shuffling up the stairs. I heard voices from above but couldn’t make them out.

  I turned to Meg.

  I saw where she’d burned her the third time. Her right breast.

  “Oh Jesus, Meg,” I said. I went to her. “It’s David. I slipped off the blindfold so she could see me. Her eyes were wild.

  “Meg,” I said. “Meg, listen. Listen please. Please don’t make any noise. You heard what she said? She’ll do it, Meg. Please don’t scream or anything, okay? I want to help you. There’s not much time. Listen to me. I’ll take off the gag, all right? You won’t scream? It won’t help. It could be anybody up there. The Avon lady. Ruth can talk her way out of it. She can talk her way out of anything. But I’m going to get you out of here, you understand me? I’m going to get you out!”

  I was talking a mile a minute but I couldn’t stop. I slipped off the gag so she could answer.

  She licked her lips.

  “How?” she said. Her voice a tiny painful rasp of sound.

  “Tonight. Late. When they’re asleep. It’s got to look like you did it on your own. By yourself. Okay?”

  She nodded.

  “I’ve got some money,” I said. “You’ll be okay. And I can hang around here and make sure nothing happens to Susan. Then maybe we can figure out some way to get her away too. Go back to the cops, maybe. Show them … this. “All right?”

  “All right.”

  “All right. Tonight. I promise.”

  I heard the screened front door slam shut and footsteps cross the living room, heard them coming down the stairs. I gagged her again. I slipped on the blindfold.

  It was Donny and Willie.

  They glared at me.

  “How’d you know?” asked Donny.

  “Know what?”

  “Did you tell him?”

  “Tell who? Tell him what? What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t hack around with me, David. Ruth said you told her it might be Jennings at the door.”

  “So who the hell do you think it was, assface?”

  Oh Jesus, I thought. Oh shit. And I’d begged her not to scream.

  We could have stopped it then and there.

  I had to play it through for them though.

  “You’re kidding,” I said.

  “I’m not kidding.”

  “Mr. Jennings? My God, it was just a guess.”

  “Pretty good guess,” said Willie.

  “It was just a thing to say to get her…”

  “Get her what?”

  Up there I thought.

  “To get her moving again. Christ, you saw her. She was like a fucking zombie down here!”

  They looked at each other.

  “She did get pretty weird,” said Donny.

  Willie shrugged. “Yeah. I guess so.”

  I wanted to keep them going. So they wouldn’t think about my being here alone with her.

  “What’d you say?” I asked. “Was he after Meg?”

  “Sort of,” said Donny. “Said he just dropped by to see how the nice young girls were doing. So we showed him Susan in her room. Said Meg was out shopping. Susan didn’t say a word of course—didn’t dare to. So I guess he bought it. Seemed kinda uncomfortable. Kinda shy for a cop.”

  “Where’s your mom?”

  “She said she wanted to lie down awhile.”

  “What’ll you do for dinner?”

  It was an inane thing to say but the first thing I thought of.

  “I dunno. Cook some dogs out on the grill I guess. Why? Want to come over?”

  “I’ll ask my mother,” I said. I looked at Meg. “What about her?” I asked him.

  “What about her?”

  “You gonna just leave her there or what? You ought to put something on those burns at least. They’ll get infected.”

  “Fuck her,” said Willie. “I ain’t sure I’m done with her yet.”

  He bent over and picked up Woofer’s knife.

  He tossed it in his hand, blade to handle, and slouched and grinned and looked at her.

  “Then again maybe I am,” he said. “I dunno. I dunno.” He walked toward her. And then so that she could hear him very clearly and distinctly he said, “I just don’t know.” Taunting her.

  I decided to ignore him.

  “I’ll go and ask my mother,” I told Donny.

  I didn’t want to stay to see what his choice would be. There was nothing I could do anyway one way or another. Some things you had to let go of. You had to keep your mind on what you could do. I turned and climbed the stairs.

  At the top I took a moment to check the door.

  I was counting on their laziness, their lack of organization.

  I checked the lock.

  And yes, it was still broken.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  It was a time when even the guilty displayed a rare innocence.

  In our town burglary was unheard of. Burglaries happened in cities but not out here—that was one of the reasons our parents had left the cities in the first place.

  Doors were closed against the cold and wind and rain, but not against people. So that when the lock on a door or window snapped or rusted through over years of bad weather more often than not it got left that way. Nobody needed a lock to keep out the snow.

  The Chandlers’ house was no exception.

  There was a screen door in back with a lock that I don’t think had ever worked—not in living memory. Then a wooden door that had warped slightly and in such a way that the tongue of the lock didn’t match with the lip on the doorjamb anymore.

  Even with Meg held prisoner there they’d never bothered to repair it.

  That left the metal icehouse door to the shelter itself, which bolted. It was a clumsy, noisy affair but all you had to do was throw the bolt.

  I thought it
could be done.

  At three twenty-five in the morning I set out to see.

  I had a penlight flashlight, a pocketknife and thirty-seven dollars in snow-shoveling money in my pocket. I wore sneakers and jeans and the T-shirt my mother’d dyed black for me after Elvis wore one in Loving You. By the time I crossed the driveway to their yard the T-shirt was plastered to my back like a second skin.

  The house was dark.

  I stepped up onto the porch and waited, listening. The night was still and clear beneath a three-quarter moon.

  The Chandler house seemed to breathe at me, creaking like the bones of a sleeping old woman.

  It was scary.

  For a moment I wanted to forget about this, go home and get into bed and pull up the covers. I wanted to be in another town entirely. All that evening I’d fantasized my mother or my father saying, well David, I don’t know how to break this to you but we’re moving.

  No such luck.

  I kept seeing myself getting caught on the stairs. Suddenly the light would go on and there would be Ruth above me pointing a shotgun. I doubt they even owned a gun. But I saw it anyway. Over and over like a record stuck in the final groove.

  You’re nuts, I kept thinking.

  But I’d promised.

  And as frightening as this was, today had scared me more. Looking at Ruth I’d finally seen all the way through to the end of it. Clearly and unmistakably I’d finally seen Meg dying.

  I don’t know how long I stood there waiting on the porch.

  Long enough to hear the tall Rose of Sharon scrape the house in a gentle breeze, to become aware of the frogs croaking from the brook and the crickets in the woods. Long enough for my eyes to adjust to the darkness and for the normalcy of frogs and crickets speaking to each other in the night to calm me. So that after a while what I finally felt was not so much the sheer terror I’d started with as excitement—excitement at finally doing something, something for Meg and for myself, and something no one I knew had ever done. It helped me to think about that. About the moment-by-moment present tense reality of what I was doing. If I did that I could make it into a sort of game. I was breaking into a house at night and people were sleeping. That was all. Not dangerous people. Not Ruth. Not the Chandlers. Just people. I was a cat burglar. Cool and careful and stealthy. No one was going to catch me. Not tonight and not ever.