Tami had been holding back her sobbing with choked willpower, but she couldn’t help but let some of it burst from time to time. Now that she stood looking at the door that opened to the scary, dark stairway, her shoulders rose and fell emphatically. She knew it was important for her to escape, but the memory of the terror she had felt when she and Shirley had gone through the door returned. Perhaps Arthur was waiting just on the other side of the door or, worse yet, on the blackened stairway.
She pictured her mother again, chained to the bed upstairs, and she heard again the urgent command for her to leave. She was so deeply involved in her thoughts and memories that she didn’t hear the coffin lid open behind her. She closed her eyes and then took a step toward the basement door. Maybe, if she didn’t open her eyes too much until she was outside, she could do it.
“Tami.”
She heard her whispered name and for a moment thought she had imagined it. The voice sounded so familiar.
“Tami, baby,” David said. He leaned over the coffin.
Tami turned slowly. David’s senses were vividly aware of the danger. Tami might scream for him and the house would erupt into fatal wakefulness. He started to bring his finger to his lips to indicate she should be silent when the look on her face froze him.
For the moment he had forgotten where he was, what he had been through, and what he looked like. To Tami, the sight of her father emerging magically from the Bad Box, his face streaked with grime, his body twisted and his eyes wide from his own fear and pain, was enough to propel her into total shock. She turned into a pillar of salt, a lifelike statue of herself, her arms locked at her sides, her little fingers extended. She didn’t even blink.
“Don’t scream, honey. Don’t be afraid. It’s Daddy. I’ve come to help you and Mommy.”
David shifted his glance from the stairway to Tami. She hadn’t moved a muscle. He started to climb out of the coffin. The pain prompted by the effort brought subdued groans. His face twisted with agony. He let himself slide over the side and fall softly to the basement floor. Tami still didn’t move; she didn’t make a sound. David smiled at her.
“It’s going to be all right, Tami. All right. Daddy was hiding in this…hiding in here. Come,” he said, extending his arms.
Tami continued to look at him, but now she was blinking her eyes. She was still unable to accept what her eyes reported. The battered and twisted man looked and sounded like her father, but she half-believed the evil people had made some kind of look-alike monster doll. If her father had been down here all the time, why didn’t he help her and her mother before?
She shook her head gently at first, then more dramatically. David lowered his arms, but he continued to smile.
“All right, baby, all right. Daddy knows you’re afraid. Daddy knows you’ve been having a tough time. Daddy’s been having a hard time, too. Come closer, though. Tell me where Mommy is. Come on.”
Tami hesitated. She looked back at the basement doorway. Her mother had told her to go out through it. She had been summoning her courage, and now this horrifying rendition of her father wanted her to come closer. Her little mind struggled with conflict. He sounded like her daddy and looked like him, but she had difficulty accepting him in her confusion, and never did her father look so dirty and anguished. He was always cool—too cool, according to her mother—particularly in a crisis.
David sensed he was losing her. He had no idea how much she had been through, but he understood that it had affected her view of reality. Once more he was afraid she would start to scream. He leaned against the coffin.
“I look a mess, huh? I had a bad time out there. I came to help you and Mommy and that bad man attacked me. But it’s going to be all right now; it’s going to be all right. Where’s Sooey? I saw Sooey before. That’s how I knew you were here.”
“Sooey,” she said.
“Is Sooey with Mommy?” Tami shook her head. “Where’s Mommy?” Tami looked toward the stairway. “She’s upstairs? Is she all right? Where is she, Tami?” He tried to keep his voice controlled, but the frustration was growing beyond bounds.
“She’s upstairs,” Tami said. “She’s in the bed.”
“In the bed?” Tami nodded. “She can’t get out of the bed?”
“No.”
“Is she hurt?”
“No.”
“Why can’t she get out of the bed, Tami? Tell me.”
“The chains are on her legs,” she said. “And she’s tired.” David grimaced.
“Oh Christ.” He brought his hands to his face and kept them there for a moment.
Tami’s hesitation dwindled. Even so short a conversation with her father was enough to topple the wall of fear that encircled her. She stepped closer and closer until she stood beside him. David lowered his hands and looked at her.
“Baby,” he said, reaching to embrace her. When she came to him, he pressed her firmly against his chest, unable to check his own tears. He held her there for a long moment until her body softened and he realized she might start to cry aloud herself. “Okay,” he said, releasing his grip on her, “okay, we’ve got to help Mommy.” He pulled himself up to a standing position, keeping all pressure off his bad leg.
“Where were you going, sweetheart?”
“Mommy told me to go out and run away until I found someone.”
“That was good. You were going out the basement door. No one knows you’re down here, then?” She shook her head. “Where are they?”
“Sleeping?”
“I see. And you sneaked out. Good.” He put his hand on her head. “You’re a brave little girl. Now where exactly is Mommy? Tell me as best you can, Tami. It’s important.”
“She’s upstairs.”
“You mean up these stairs and then up another set of stairs?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Then when you go up the other stairs, where is she? On the right or on the left?”
“On the right.”
“Is it the first doorway on the right?” Tami nodded. “Okay, that’s good, honey. That’s good.” He thought for a few moments. Stacey’s plan to get Tami out of the house while it was still possible struck him as right. What if he failed? At least she might get away. It was best to take care of that first. “Now listen, Tami. I want you to do what Mommy told you to do. You’re going to go out that door and run down to the road. When you get there, turn left and keep running until you find someone in a car or someone on foot. Can you do that?”
“I don’t wanna.”
“You’ve got to, Tami. You’ve got to because you might flag down the help we need, understand?”
“You come, too.”
“I can’t. I can’t run with you because my leg is broken.”
“Does it hurt?”
“A lot. That’s why you’ve got to be the one to go out, okay?”
She looked at his leg. He was telling the truth and the truth made things even more frightening, but she remembered that there were other things that made her afraid.
“I’m afraid of Arthur,” she said.
“Arthur? Who’s Arthur? Is Arthur another bad man?” Tami shook her head. She turned toward the basement door.
“Arthur’s outside.”
“I thought you said everyone’s sleeping.”
“Arthur’s always outside.”
David thought for a moment and decided it was a story the Thompsons had concocted to keep her from running away.
“No. There’s no one out there. I was out there and there’s no one there,” he said. “You’ve got to do this. It’s very important,” he added. “Okay?” Tami was still hesitant, but the serious tone lacing her mother’s and now her father’s voice was impressive. She nodded. David looked back at the stairway again and listened. As far as he could tell, there were no sounds drifting down yet. He guided Tami toward the other room and limped along with her as quietly as he could, resting some of his weight on her shoulder. He realized that he would have to escort her up the cement stair
way so he could pry open the metal door as quietly as possible. She probably wouldn’t be able to do it herself.
When they got into the playroom, Tami caught sight of her doll thrown carelessly onto the pile of others. David saw what she was looking at and went for it. When he handed it to her, she clutched it to her body.
“That’s good. Sooey will keep you company and help you find someone.”
“I want Mommy.”
“We’ll be coming. But first you’ve got to do this. Come on, Tami. As quietly as possible.” He looked back. She didn’t need the warning. The thought of either Gerald or Shirley appearing was stimulant enough to make her move as silently as she could. David sensed it. “You’ve been through hell,” he said, more for himself than for her. The blood rushed to his face as the rage built in him, but he knew he would have to maintain control if he was to succeed.
He opened the basement door, turning the knob very, very slowly to stifle any sound. He opened it just enough for the two of them to wedge their bodies through the crack and for enough light to pour in so they could see their way up the stairs. When they got to the top, he paused, listening hard to be sure no one had stirred. All was silent; all was still. He knew the hardest part was going to be lifting the metal door soundlessly.
He reached over his head, bracing his good leg against the stone step, and put his hand against the metal door. He knew the latch was open, since he had been able to get in himself. Before he pushed he brought Tami up beside him and then whispered in her ear.
“As soon as I get the door up enough for you to slip out, you move, okay? Then I’m going to close it quietly. Don’t stay around. Run as fast as you can to the road and do what I said. When you run, hold your nightgown up so you don’t trip on it, understand?” She nodded. He kissed her cheek and then turned back to the door.
He pushed upward; the hinges squeaked and the door began to lift, but suddenly the weight of it vanished as though the door was on a spring and would swing open by itself. It did.
And Tami screamed.
Gerald Thompson stared down at them.
Gerald had heard the stairway creak. He had awakened alert but chose to stay in bed and ruminate a moment. He lay there locked in a childhood memory. John, his father’s foreman, had sent him up to the attic apartment to tell Martha to bring his new gloves with her when she came out to work. As usual, Gerald moved obediently when an adult gave him an order. Even as an adolescent he rarely procrastinated. Work was holy; work was serious.
He ran to the house and up the stairs, pausing at the open attic doorway to catch his breath.
John must have left the door open, and Martha thought nothing of it. Gerald started to enter, but stopped when Martha emerged from the bathroom. She was wearing only her jeans. He stared at her large, bare bosom, but she made no attempt to cover her milk-white breasts. Her nipples looked like slices of carrot.
“So?” she asked. She put her hands on her hips. Even as a young boy, he sensed something incongruous about the femininity of her bosom and the heftiness of her shoulders and arms. She had facial hair, too. She looked androgynous. He was both terrified and stimulated at the same time. She seemed oblivious to the effect her partial nudity had on him.
“John…” he began.
“Yes, come on, what? I have to get dressed.”
“Wants his gloves, his new gloves.”
“So. He forgets them already. All right, all right.”
He forgot to add that her husband wanted her to bring them when she came out, so she whirled to fetch them for Gerald. It prolonged his stay and he watched the way her bosom hung and bobbed as she moved about. Finally, she retrieved them. He backed up as she approached with the gloves.
This close, he was able to see the ridges in the carrot-colored skin of her nipples. He was fascinated with the thin blue veins that ran along the underside of her breasts. They looked strained by the enormous growth of those mounds.
He took the gloves quickly and ran down the stairs as though chased by a demon. He would never look at Martha the same way. Her breasts haunted him, often invading his daydreams and preluding an evening’s sleep.
He was chased by the same demon, right up until now. The image of Martha’s naked bosom had been printed indelibly on the screen of his memory. It was impossible for him to look past it. It seemed to change the very face of things, even though he was far from a womanizer. Yet here he was waking up with the memory as clear and vivid as if it had happened yesterday.
Then he heard the stairway creak again. No one else could have been so attuned to his house’s stirrings. The rambling old structure was truly his friend. He sat up and listened harder. There was another creak and another, each one slight, but to him definite. The speed at which they came one after the other made him picture a child rushing down the stairs.
Of course, the first thing he thought of was that Shirley was up to something stupid. She didn’t sneak out of bed by herself unless one of her ridiculous ideas galvanized her. He cursed Irene for not being aware of her departure and got out of bed. He slipped on his pants, although he remained barefoot, and started out of the bedroom, intending to roar in indignation.
But when he looked in on Irene, he saw that both she and Shirley were locked in sleep. Curious now, he peered in at the woman. She was a lump on the bed, quiet and still. It was only the little playmate who was missing. As quietly as he could, he strode to the top of the stairs. There was no sign of her. He started down the stairs and then stopped when he saw the basement door widely ajar.
“Went down to play,” he muttered to himself. Anger did not well in him at first, but as he started to go up the stairs, he paused. Since the little girl had come, he remembered, fear gripped her. Her smiles were forced. Her eyes were wide with terror. Her body trembled. Despite Irene’s loving attention, the little girl acted like a trapped animal. He sensed that she would, as did the first playmate, remain that way until the end. To him, as long as she was cooperative and Shirley and Irene were happy, her behavior was fine.
But the little girl suddenly going off to play on her own struck a false chord. An alarm was triggered in him. He turned back and continued down the stairs, moving remarkably quickly for someone his size. After all, he knew his house; he knew where it creaked and moaned. He wore it like a set of familiar clothes.
He was heading for the basement to see what she was up to when he heard the sound of another, older voice. He stopped to listen. At first the realization that it was the man shocked him. Was this indeed a place from which the dead could raise themselves from the grave? Was there a ghost downstairs? He had thrown the unconscious man to the bottom of the well; he had seen the crumpled body himself.
It wasn’t possible, he thought; it just wasn’t possible, and yet…he was hesitant about going down those basement stairs. How had the little girl known her father was there? The man had called to her in some mystical, spiritual way, he thought; otherwise he would have heard it, too. Wasn’t that right? Wasn’t this what had drawn him to the basement last night? He had sensed the presence of something there, something evil.
He didn’t like this feeling which was accompanied by the same cold chills he felt whenever he sensed his dead father’s presence. Did Pa have something to do with this?
It occurred to him that he could confirm the presence of a spirit. He had the means to do it. As quietly as he had descended the stairs, he made his way to the rear of the house, unlocked the door, and slipped outside. Because the day was to be very hot, the morning dew had nearly evaporated. Even this early, he felt like he had opened the door of a stove.
He went down the back porch steps quickly, but when he approached the old well, he moved slowly, hesitantly. The first indication that something was wrong came when he saw the missing ledge stone. He took hold of the top of the well and leaned over. It was dark, of course, but it was not hard to see that the man had vanished. He hadn’t been dead after all; he had climbed out of the well and broken into th
e house. How?
The basement door, he decided. The man had been inside all night. Angry now at himself for thinking such fantastic thoughts, as well as for having been too lazy to complete the job last night, he clenched his hands and started for the basement door. Trespasser. Grounds for murder.
When he got there, he heard rodentlike sounds come from behind the door. He was about to reach down and pull it open when the door started to come up itself. Then he took hold of the handle and yanked violently, confronting the man and the little girl.
The little girl screamed. Gerald froze, crouching to peer in at them, because the man resembled some underground creature. Gerald hadn’t really looked at him this close before. Now the other man’s fear, hate, and anger engulfed him for a moment. Enough time lapsed for the man to reach up and pull the door out of Gerald’s hands and back down. Before he could react, he heard the man turn the latch.
Gerald pounded the metal door with his fist and pulled up on the handle with such force he tore it from its bolts. Losing his footing, he fell back and landed hard on his backside. He cursed and got to his feet quickly, but there was no way now to open that metal door from the outside without getting a crowbar from the barn.
For a long moment he just stood there stupidly, blinking. He thought if he ran back into the house, the man might open the door and escape with the little girl. He had to prevent such a maneuver.
He ran to the backhoe and started it up. Then he drove it to the basement door and lowered the shovel until it rested on the door, making it impossible for anyone to lift the door. Satisfied that he had blocked that avenue of escape, he went back into the house to do what he should have done the first time: finish off the man; and maybe now the woman and the little girl, too. He carried the shovel he had used before, retrieved from the barn when he got the backhoe.
The Maddening Page 22