Blood Trance

by R. D. Zimmerman

  “I didn't even hear it,” I said.

  “At night it just rings in our room. And so I answered it, and it was Maddy. She was whispering, and she said to come quick. There was someone out there. She's just past the point. She… she…”

  “What?” I pressed when we reached the main floor. “What happened? What did she say?”

  “She said she flipped her chair.”

  “Oh, dear God.”

  “And then she hung up.”

  This went beyond my worst fear, with my sister not simply off on her own, quite possibly hurt, but also lying prey for some vandal or thief. Perhaps a group of them. I should never have said all that to Maddy, should never have gotten her so riled up by comparing her to Loretta. And in any case, I should have stopped her. I should never have let her go flying off so angrily.

  Solange handed the knife to her husband, said, “I have to stay here in case she calls again.”

  “Right. Just lock the doors.”

  That was no easy feat in a house this size; I knew there were some twenty-five rooms, nearly a hundred windows, and God knew how many ground-floor doors. Solange was going to have to be quick about it, lock up the whole place and hope that whoever was out there besides Maddy wasn't going to try to breach the house.

  “If you're not back in twenty minutes,” continued Solange, “I'll call the police.”

  By then it would be too late, I thought. Twenty minutes would be an eternity, and then it would be another eternity before the police could travel the ten miles from the mainland. Either this was going to be no problem, or we were in deep, deep shit. In any case, if Maddy had been hurt when her chair overturned, we might need a helicopter to whisk her to a hospital in Petoskey. I thought of calling the mainland right now but resisted, not wanting to beckon help unnecessarily.

  “What about flashlights?” I said.

  “Here.”

  Solange hurried over to the front-hall closet, pulled out a small and a large one, handed them to Alfred and me. She then presented the long knife to Alfred, and then the two of us were off. We threw open the front door and bounded across the gray planks of the veranda, down the tall carriage steps, and along the dirt drive carriages had once used. Alfred paused briefly, checked to make sure Solange was bolting the door, and I raced off, the beam of the flashlight pointing the way, and me wondering how much time we had, what shape my sister was in, how dangerous a situation this really was. I was nervous as hell, hoped to God I was jumping to all sorts of needless conclusions, but this scared the hell out of me, this odd incident that just happened to fall on the eve of Loretta's arrival.

  The house was on the southernmost tip of the island, and the spot where we'd hoped to find my sister was on the northern quarter of this thirty-one-acre drop of land. I circled the rear of the house, left the huge white structure behind me, and headed for the paved path that led along the eastern shore, past the dock and boathouse, then up and past the tall point and down to the glen. How long would it take to get there? Five minutes at a run? A little more? Maddy might have headed off this way. Perhaps not. Maybe she'd headed around in the other direction, had circled around.

  Heavy steps and breathing were gaining on me, and Alfred wisely advised, “Cut your light.”

  Yes, we didn't want to be so obvious, so blatant, and I switched off my flashlight. Immediately the night pounced upon us, and for a moment I was as sightless as my sister. Then, however, my eyes swelled, sucked in all there was to see. Bushes, all black. Tree trunks, steely gray. A sky, blackish blue. I sensed, then saw, the oil-black ribbon of the path leading on and on, and my feet trod effortlessly and smoothly.

  His body strong and thick, Alfred ran by my side. Our pace was nearly the same. That was why I heard it. That noise. Off to Alfred's left. At first I wasn't sure. It sounded like a branch snapping, a large step. I glanced over as I charged on. I saw something. A whoosh of a body. Oh, Jesus. Then something broke from the other side, from the right, bursting out of the bushes and grabbing me by the arm. I hollered out, tried to shake off the large creature that had taken my elbow and forearm in its mouth.

  “No!” I shouted at Ollie, the Irish wolfhound whose huge head nearly rose to my chest.

  Just as quickly there was not one, but two of them. Fran bounded into the path ahead, playfully half turned, half ran. So this was what it was like, I thought, to be a deer and be run down by these two. Nothing more than a playful kill.

  Alfred's booming voice commanded: “Maddy! Find Maddy!”

  For the first time I could see that the dogs had in fact been trained. And for the first time I could see their worth. With the mention of my sister's name, Ollie paid me no further attention. The two of them were off, loping onward. Alfred and I pushed our pace, tried to keep up with the dogs, for it was obvious not simply that they understood the command but that they already knew where to find my sister.

  We soon passed the pier, its white planks stretching far out into the black waters, and my huffing lungs ached. Struggling to keep up with the dogs, Alfred and I ran on, passing the white clapboard boathouse that looked like a garage suspended over water. Leaving the small harbor behind us, we rounded a bend, then climbed the hill that led to the tall point, a spit of land that not only jutted out into the lake but was the tallest spot on the island. A gust of wind from the north hit us when we reached the top, and I looked off to my right. A handful of bushes swirled in the wind, a pine swayed gently, and then there was a drop-off, a sandy cliff that collapsed onto a shore of rock. I was relieved that the dogs were leaping onward down the hill.

  But she had crashed at the very bottom. As I came over the crest of the point, I faintly saw her wheelchair way down there, some seventy-five below, at the base of a corner and upside down. My heart squeezed into a tight knot when I saw the wheels of the overturned chair spinning like pinwheels in the dim light. And I understood. Maddy had come over the top of the tall point, then raced downward, but had somehow forgotten or missed the turn, somehow not sensed its presence until it was too late.

  The dogs started howling, and I shouted, “Maddy!”

  I flew down the path, streaking way ahead of Alfred, fearing, remembering the time I'd been called to Chicago. The bus. Maddy in intensive care. How long it had taken me to get down to the city. The wheelchair I now saw at the bottom of the hill floated like some horrible mirage, a nightmarish vision. There was no sign of my sister.

  I switched on my flashlight, and again yelled, “Maddy!”

  Just shy of the wheelchair I saw Fran and Ollie bound into the bushes. Seconds behind the two dogs, I was running so fast that I couldn't stop myself. I tried to come to a halt, skidded off the path, my feet sliding out from underneath. I scrambled up, pushed into the bushes, saw the huge dogs standing over a body, pawing at it, almost mauling it. Oh, God. I recognized Maddy's clothing—the black pants, the deep red top.

  “Maddy!”

  Her words rose sharply and wonderfully as she ordered, “Get these goddamned things off me!”

  I dove into the bushes. “Are you all right?”

  “Get the dogs!”

  I started yelling, then, as I neared, started shoving and kicking at them, anything to get them off my sister, who was lying in a small opening. And then came Alfred, pushing right behind me. He shouted something, his voice like a cannon, and Fran and Ollie scurried aside.

  “What happened?” I demanded as I dropped to my knees.

  I scanned her body with my flashlight, searched for blood. Her face was smudged with dirt.

  Maddy said, “I'm fine.”

  “But what happened?”

  “I dropped a wheel off the path and it sank in the sand. I flipped right over. Really, I'm okay.” She pointed down the hill. “But there's someone here. One person. A man, I think. I was trying to get my chair up when I heard him. That's when I called.”

  “Did he come after you?” I asked.

  “He saw my chair and then he heard me. He must have. It was as
if he was stalking me or something. I think he knew it was me, Alex. I think he called my name. He said something—I couldn't recognize his voice—so I crawled over here to hide.”

  My sister, ever the survivor, I thought, and said, “What about your legs?”

  “They're okay. I checked them.”

  I ran my flashlight down and did a quick scan to see that neither of her paralyzed and unfeeling legs was twisted or bloodied. At a glance, all seemed satisfactory, though I surmised it would be best to get a doctor over here in the morning.

  Suddenly the buzz of a motor cut through the night, and Maddy exclaimed, “That's him!”

  Alfred shouted, “Come on!”

  “Yes, go!” said Maddy.

  We were off, the two of us, cutting back through the bushes, onto the path. The dogs at first jumped around as if this were some sort of great game, but then Alfred shouted another command. In a flash, they were tearing toward the noise, which most definitely was a powerboat being revved up. Alfred and I once again ran down the path and through the dark woods. We came to a small bend where the pavement curved alongside the rocky shore, and up ahead we could hear the dogs barking furiously. The engine noise burst into full power, sharply cutting the night, and just as we rushed around the corner I could see the cool white lines of a boat blasting off from the island. The dogs were up to their chests in the water, barking with great fury, and

  Alfred and I slowed, for it was clearly hopeless. I studied the boat, squinted, and knew that Maddy had been right, for there was just one figure out there in the speeding craft and it was indeed that of a man.

  So he was gone, I thought, my eyes staring at the foaming wake that melted into the gray waters. He'd been chased off the island, but I couldn't help but feel a horrible question begin to build in my gut, couldn't help but wonder, would he be back and if so, when?

  Chapter 30

  Maddy's chair wasn't really damaged, just a bit dinged up, and by the time the three of us returned to the house it was after midnight. My sister kept insisting she was unhurt; I insisted more strongly that she let herself be checked. Which, in the end, she did. Maddy allowed Solange to help her bathe and examine her legs for bruises or anything more serious, and fortunately it proved Maddy escaped from it all pretty much unscathed. Meanwhile, Alfred made another check of the island, didn't return for an hour, and when he finally did, reported that whoever had visited us must have been your typical prowler, the kind that was easily scared away. Nevertheless, it all kept spinning around in my head and it must have been three or four before I finally dropped into a fitful sleep.

  The following day I slept until late morning. The house was oddly quiet, and lunch wasn't served by Solange; rather, Maddy sent me back to the kitchen where I found a tray of sandwiches under a film of plastic wrap. Iced tea, too, of course, which I located in the refrigerator along with the proverbial pile of lemons that my sister required for tang. Maddy said only that Solange was out for a walk, and so I gathered the food, headed from the kitchen and through the back hall and past the elevator. Next came the pantry, a long room with double sinks, an entire wall of dishes, then the dining room with that huge table that seated sixteen. Stepping through a set of double doors, I passed through the screen porch with wicker up the wazoo, and finally outside.

  We had a late lunch on the veranda, a long affair with all those columns, and we barely talked, my sister and I. As for myself, I was tired, and I just sat there staring at the cloudy sky and the choppy lake. It wasn't simply the incident last night or my lack of sleep. All the channeling in that regression yesterday, retelling it all in concentrated form, reliving all the highs and lows, had sucked up tons of energy. It was hard bringing that much past information up to the surface of the present, and my mind felt used and exploited.

  Maddy, wearing a brown top and plain khaki pants, was equally withdrawn, pensively so. I glanced at her as she slowly ate a tomato sandwich, her head turned toward the lake as if she were looking off in deep thought. I wondered if she was thinking about the prowler or if she'd already dismissed the affair. I wanted to know, too, what she thought of my trance back to Loretta and those Chicago days, what she had gleaned and then mulled over in her sleep and during the long morning. It would only come out, I knew, in due time. Her time. And I suspected that wouldn't be until Loretta arrived.

  Loretta's plane to the airport on the mainland was late, and it was almost six when we headed out, passing the attached icehouse, a two-story chamber at the rear of the house that had once been packed with lake ice and sawdust and was now full of lawn tools and long bamboo fishing rods. Meeting someone at the dock was a ritual on the island, one of the few things you could really do on this isolated bit of land, even though I was dreading meeting the two, Loretta and Carol Marie. I followed my sister, half trotted as she rolled herself along the rolling asphalt path, which continued up a small dune of a hill, past a bunch of birches, then down again. Off to the left I saw a small old barn, weathered and tumbling, where a handful of horses had once been kept. And then a chicken coop, white with green trim, that reeked of poultry, the aroma still fresh, even though there hadn't been any birds there for at least forty years.

  “You're slow,” called Maddy from up ahead, her thin arms grabbing at the wheels and propelling her along and down the slope.

  “I don't have wheels for legs.”

  “Oh, you poor kid.”

  I didn't say it, but she was slower than usual today, too. I'm sure it was the accident she'd had last night; she didn't say so specifically, but it had to have scared the hell out of her, flipping like that. And now I saw her veer off the path, one wheel sinking into the sandy soil. It was an error she corrected immediately and with great force, steering the wheelchair back onto the path with a quick, almost panicky jerk.

  “How long are they going to be here?” I asked as I caught up with her at the bottom of the slope.

  “Maybe just overnight. Maybe for a couple of days. I don't know. Don't worry. It shouldn't be too long.”

  “You've neglected to tell me and I've neglected to ask: Do you have a plan?”

  “Somewhat.”

  She was off in a burst, quite purposely running from me and my inquiries. Whatever her idea was in all this, however she wanted to proceed, I thought as I trotted after her, I hoped to hell it worked. I hoped to hell no one would get hurt. A fearful knot in my gut told me that was wishful thinking, however, for this was not only deep trouble, but a still-festering wound that we were poking around in. There was still plenty of blood to be spilled.

  Maddy reached the top of another ridge, where she paused, turning the side of her face to the lake as if she were listening to the waves. I couldn't help but note the concern on her face.

  She asked, “Alex, there's a boat out there, right?”

  “What?”

  “I hear something. A boat, not too big, with a whiny engine.”

  I quickly scanned the lake, which stretched out like a freshwater ocean stirred to whitecaps, and searched for the boat I'd seen last night. There was nothing, however, only an endless vista of water that today reflected the steely-gray clouds.

  “I don't see anything,” I said.

  “Over there,” she said, pointing to the southeast.”I hear something. Wait—maybe that's just our boat. Yes, that's right.”

  I followed Maddy's arm, searched the lake, and finally saw it, a long white fiberglass craft speeding toward the island. Now that I could see it, I could barely hear the hum of its engines as it bounced over the waves.

  “There it is,” I said. “It'll be here in another five minutes or so.”

  Maddy rolled on, and I hurried after her, down the path, through the woods, past a glade, finally reaching the small harbor with its long white pier. Here in this protected cove, shielded to the north by the tall point, everything was calmer, the arching strip of sand rarely disturbed by crashing waves. Not long ago Maddy had purchased a sailboat, a fairly sizable one, white with green st
ripes, but she had yet to use it, and I wondered if it was just for decoration, anchored out some thirty feet. Or perhaps it was just for guests, who admittedly were exceedingly rare, for I doubted that Maddy herself would use it; she'd grown shy of water since the accident. As we neared the pier, Maddy slowed, then stopped. She could run a wheel of her chair off the path with no repercussions, but the dock, I knew, scared the hell out of her.

  “Would you push me?” she asked.

  I took hold of the back of her chair, and said, “Sure, but you know, you swim really well. I don't think you have anything to worry about. Your arms are so strong.”

  “Perhaps. But when I turned over last night, it took me a while to get my legs unstrapped. I don't know how much time I'd have if I went off the dock. I'm just afraid of going right to the bottom with my chair.”

  I hadn't thought of that, but the mere suggestion made my stomach roll with dread. She might be right but I wasn't going to let on.

  “I doubt it, Maddy. You're a real Houdini, and you know it.”

  “Well, let's hope I never have to test that theory.”

  The boat came in, this huge white speedthing with Alfred at the helm, and I wondered if Maddy knew how macho the vessel looked. A cigarette boat that looked phallic from its thick stern to its thrusting bow. I watched as Alfred steered it through the waters, cutting the engines as he entered the harbor.

  “Do you see Loretta?” Maddy anxiously asked. “She's there, isn't she?”

  At first I couldn't tell. At first there was only a black face at the wheel. But then the boat turned and spewed its wake in a different direction, and I saw two pale figures huddled on a seat at the very back. One was dressed in a blue blouse and slacks, the other in a drab, baggy dress that was flapping in the wind.

  “She's there,” I replied. “Carol Marie is, too.”

  “Good.” Maddy lightly touched her head. “How's my hair?”

  I peered over her shoulder as I pushed her along the slatted boards of the pier. That long neck. Beautiful face shaded with the large sunglasses. And the short brown hair that had the appropriate wave. A movie star. Maddy could have been that, too.