Perfect Little Angels

by Andrew Neiderman

  The funny thing was, it didn’t hurt; none of it hurt. He was beyond pain. Pain had been cut off, disconnected, like a severed wire. Instead of pain, he felt a dull, continuous nudge, as if a finger were probing, pressing.

  He felt his father’s footsteps on his brain and closed his eyes. When he closed them, however, he saw his father standing there clearer than if he had turned and looked at him with open eyes. There was no escape from his father, because his father was inside him.

  “Sit down,” he commanded.

  Aren’t I already sitting down? he wondered. He looked down at his legs and saw that he was standing, so he went to the chair and sat. His father was beside him. Suddenly his father had nine heads. He was the Hydra from Greek mythology. If one head was cut off, two would grow in its place.

  More than a dozen eyes were staring down at him. There were hands all over him. Every part of his body was being prodded and examined at the same time. He began to panic, pushing the hands off his head, off his neck, off his legs; but as fast as he brushed them away, they returned.

  “Relax,” his father said. He had to say it only once. “How many fingers am I holding up?” he asked.

  “Forty,” he replied.

  “Put your right forefinger on the tip of your nose.”

  He started to lift his leg, but found that impossible; so he thought about it and remembered what was attached to his shoulder. He brought that appendage up and peered at his hand. He must have just had it pressed against the wall of his room, for it was blood red. He didn’t want to touch his nose with it.

  “I’ll get it all over me,” he said.

  “What are you talking about? Get what all over you?”

  “The blood.”

  “There’s no blood,” his father said. “She bandaged your fingers this morning. You can’t touch your nose?” he asked.

  “Sure I can.” He brought his fingers to his face until he found his forehead. Then, remembering the route, he traced down until he came to the space between his eyes and worked his way to the tip of his nose.

  His father stood back and folded all six of his arms across his torso. He felt the nurse standing in his eye, so he turned to the doorway. She was there, waiting.

  “Cut the dosage,” he told her. “No radio stimulation this week, either. I want to test his recall, and I want him to become more useful,” he added.

  Recall? What did he mean by “useful”? These were like foreign words. His father continued to look at him through thick lenses.

  What happened? Had he shrunken until he was tiny enough to be put on a slide and shoved under a microscope?

  “What do you want?” his father asked him.

  “I want you to get out of my head,” he said. “It itches inside, and I can’t scratch.”

  “Does it?” his father asked without emotion. “What about your mother’s itch?” he asked.

  Mother? he thought.

  His father left the room quickly. Then, they closed the door, and he was blind to the rest of the house.

  Mother?

  He stood up and went back to the window.

  She was coming up that hill a hundred years ago, and he had been waiting for the sight of her car, standing right by this window, waiting. He was still waiting, but now that his father reminded him, his waiting paid off.

  She was coming back. He wanted to run out to greet her. He snuck out the door quickly and ran to the front entrance. They didn’t hear him; they were in the kitchen, talking. He opened the front door.

  Her car was pulling into the driveway. He rushed out to greet her. She turned off the engine and opened her car door and stepped out.

  Only…

  She had no head.

  He screamed and ran back into the house.

  They were there to meet him.

  “My fault,” his father said. “I left his door unlocked. Help him back,” he said.

  And the nurse led him gently back to his room, where he curled up in the corner to be comforted and warmed by the walls of his own flesh.

  Late the next morning, Justine stepped out of the house and looked down Long Street, past the Dukes’ house. Then she turned and looked in the opposite direction. Everything was so quiet, it reminded her of a film she had seen that took place after a nuclear war. Even the birds seemed lethargic. They looked reluctant to move from one tree to another. It was almost as though they had to break their claws free of the sticky branches. And when they landed, they didn’t strut about nervously as birds did on the branches of trees in Central Park. Instead, they were more like stuffed birds, staring out at the world through glass eyes.

  She turned and looked up at the house on the hill, Dr. Lawrence’s home, and thought about the man. Why had she told her parents she didn’t like him? What had made her jump to that conclusion so quickly? There was something fascinating about him, and he was kind to her, actually seemed interested in her. Perhaps she just couldn’t believe that an adult could be that understanding when it came to teenagers. Especially not a psychologist. Mindy had told her that all psychologists were phonies.

  But the other teenagers in Elysian Fields liked Dr. Lawrence so much. Everyone couldn’t be wrong, she thought. Maybe he was really an exceptional man. Her father didn’t stop raving about him all night, and from what he said and what Michael Duke and some of the other adults in the development said, Dr. Lawrence was an important man. He was the first real celebrity she had ever met.

  Suddenly she felt guilty about being so negative and causing her father to get so angry. The only excuse she could think of was she didn’t like being uprooted like this. It wasn’t her fault; they had to expect her to be a little testy.

  She was walking toward Blueberry Street, which she had learned would lead her down to the tennis courts and the game room. According to rumor, wild blueberry bushes grew along that street. She’d heard Mrs. Bernie and Mrs. Wilson, who had come to visit, tell her mother that after their daughters, Janet and Lois, picked the berries, they would make pies.

  Justine was intrigued with the idea of picking blueberries for a homemade pie. Of course, it wasn’t the kind of thing a friend like Mindy would appreciate, but she was still curious about it.

  Reluctantly, she decided she had to give this place a chance. She studied the map of Elysian Fields, trying to memorize where everything was located in relation to her house. Of course, she still hadn’t gotten over the destruction of her tapes. One or all of those kids was responsible. And she would find the culprit, if it was the last thing she did. They weren’t going to make a fool out of her.

  She wished Mindy were here already, so she could get her opinion on some of these nerds. Mindy was usually pretty perceptive when it came to other kids.

  If all went well, Mindy would be here later this week. Before Justine had left New York City, they had made tentative plans. They would have lunch together and listen to music. Mindy would fill her in on all that had happened since Justine had left the city. She wondered if Marty Stewart was sorry she had left. Their relationship had just sparked to life before she left town. And though he wasn’t the kind of boy her father would approve of, he was so sexy looking in a disarming way, like Andrew McCarthy in St. Elmo’s Fire. She smiled, remembering the way she and Mindy had pursued him.

  Only the memory didn’t last as long as she would have liked. It seemed to slip out of her mind, the images, the words, and the vents all sliding into darkness, pushed out by the events of the present. She lifted her right hand as if to reach out and pull the memories back, and then stopped, conscious of how she might appear to anyone observing her.

  She brushed some strands of her hair off her forehead. A stiff, but warm breeze cut across the development as Justine moved down the hill toward the pool and the courts. She had to admit that from her new home, the view was beautiful. But all the homes in the development, except for Dr. Lawrence’s, were laid out like doll houses. Everything was green and plush. The lawns were like carpets, and flowers, still in
full bloom, painted streaks of red and yellow, purple, and orange across the entire vista. Her mother was going to love to paint this.

  She could see that all six tennis courts were in use. The players made her think of toy figures moved by magnets hidden under the hard clay. Women and children were clustered around the pool. Despite the distance, sounds of laughter carried up to her. Some maintenance men were working around the administrative building, pruning hedges and weeding around flowers. It looked like the center of a beehive, bustling with activity.

  As she walked on, she found herself growing more and more relaxed, despite the inner turmoil and frustration she felt. Her nervous system was used to being bombarded by traffic noises, loud conversations, laughter, and the grinding of machinery on city streets. She was having trouble adjusting to the slow pace and stillness around her. She felt like someone going into withdrawal. It was hard to fall asleep only to the sound of crickets.

  When she’d told her mother about it during their conversation this morning, her mother had admitted to having the same problem.

  “Maybe we should have recorded some street noises,” Elaine had said, “and played them all night long.”

  They’d both laughed, but now Justine thought that maybe it wasn’t such a funny idea. At least she wouldn’t toss and turn in expectation of something more. If things continued at this rate, she could have a nervous breakdown.

  But almost as suddenly as it had begun this morning, the uneasiness had ended. She’d heard a soft ringing in her ears, and then she’d felt herself relax. When she went up to her room after breakfast, she’d gazed out of her bedroom window and noticed the recreational complex. The pool had looked inviting.

  Now, somewhat closer to it, she regretted not having put on her bathing suit. She considered returning to her home to do so. When she turned around, she saw a car approaching.

  It was Brad Duke.

  “Hi,” he said, pulling up beside her. He was wearing a T-shirt and jeans and, for the first time, she realized that he was a very well-built boy. The musculature in his chest and shoulders was outlined clearly under the thin cotton material of his shirt.

  “Hi,” she said petulantly.

  “Finally came out of your house, huh?” Brad asked. Justine just shrugged. “I heard about what happened to your tapes,” he said. “Your mother told my mother.”

  “Yeah? Well, one of your wonderful friends did it.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “The willful destruction of someone else’s property is a criminal act.”

  “You sound like a lawyer’s son, all right.”

  He laughed.

  “People act out for different reasons,” he added. “When I was with Dr. Lawrence once, he told me he used to punch holes in the eggs in his mother’s refrigerator just to get her to pay more attention to him.”

  “You saw Dr. Lawrence, too? What’s everybody have a problem here?” she asked.

  He smiled wryly. She understood he hadn’t always been the angel he seemed to be now, and that suddenly made him more interesting.

  “I was headed for the pool. Want to come along?”

  She hesitated. That feeling was coming over her again. There was even a return of that faint, but enticing ringing in her ears. Almost against her will, she was softening. Something made her turn toward the pool and gaze at the sparkling blue water. She couldn’t remember a pool ever looking so inviting. She longed to glide through the soft, cool liquid, moving in pursuit of endless pleasure. Her skin tingled in anticipation.

  “I don’t have my suit on,” she said, surprised at how disappointed she sounded.

  “No problem. I’ll drive you back to your house and wait.”

  For some reason, all of Justine’s senses were heightened. She turned when she heard the flutter of bird’s wings and saw a robin cruise, almost in slow-motion, to a nearby branch.

  “Get in,” Brad said.

  Justine climbed into the car. As soon as she closed the door, Brad backed the vehicle into a driveway and turned around to take her home.

  Her mother was sitting in the living room, talking on the phone when Justine reentered. She put her hand over the receiver and looked up, an expression of disappointment on her face.

  “What’s wrong, honey? I thought you were going for a walk.”

  “Just getting my bathing suit,” she said. “I’m going to the pool.”

  “Oh, good.” Elaine smiled.

  Justine ran up the stairs and opened her bottom dresser drawer. For a long moment, she stared down at her three suits. She had a one piece, a turquoise two piece, and a black bikini so abbreviated, her father had told her to throw it out. She’d pulled a tantrum, and he’d relented after they had one of their father-daughter discussions.

  She quickly stripped down and put on the bikini. Then she looked at herself in the mirror. She was a lot paler than someone like Christy Duke, but she was happy with her figure. She should have spent more time at the beach this summer, she thought. Even so, she was anxious to see the reaction on Brad’s face when she came out of the house.

  Her mother was off the phone by the time Justine came down the stairs. She was at the front door looking through the four-panel window.

  “Is that Brad out there waiting for you?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “That’s very nice. He’s a wonderful boy.”

  “It’s just a ride to the pool, Mom. Hold off on the wedding arrangements,” she sang and left the house, her mother’s laughter chiming behind her. She wrapped her towel over her shoulders and started down the walkway to the driveway, anticipating Brad’s smile of pleasure at the sight of her.

  Instead, he grimaced as if in pain. She slowed down, sensing a radical change in him.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “I…just remembered something terribly important that I have to do,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  She didn’t respond for a moment.

  “You don’t want to go to the pool?”

  “I can’t,” he said. “I gotta go. Sorry.” He started the car and backed out of the driveway so quickly, she felt as though she had just had a terrible fight with him. She stood there, watching him drive down to his house, pull into his driveway, get out of his car, and rush into his house.

  “I don’t believe this,” she muttered, turning back to her house. When she slammed the door behind her, her mother came out from her studio in the rear of the house.

  “What happened? Why are you back so soon?” she asked, wiping her fingers with a rag.

  “Don’t ask me. Brad suddenly remembered something important that he had to do.”

  “Oh. Do you want me to go to the pool with you?”

  “No. I don’t care now.”

  “I wonder what could be so important,” her mother mused aloud. She was wearing one of her father’s old gray sweat shirts and a pair of worn jeans, her “artist’s outfit.”

  “He’s weird. They’re all weird here. I hate it here. I hate it,” Justine repeated and ran upstairs quickly. She slammed the door of her room, then flopped over her bed in disgust.

  After a few moments, she got up and went to her window again. The pool still looked so inviting, which only made matters worse. What was Brad’s problem?

  He didn’t have something important to do, she thought. Something changed when he looked at me. What?

  She got up and studied herself in the mirror again. So she was a little pale; she was still attractive, and the bikini was quite revealing.

  Maybe that was it, she thought.

  But why would a boy that age be upset about this?

  She wondered if it had anything to do with the reason his parents had sent him to see Dr. Lawrence. Maybe he had committed some sort of sex crime. All sorts of possibilities passed through her mind.

  What kind of a place was this? she thought. Maybe the people here weren’t as wonderful as her parents first thought. Maybe they all had terrible pasts and came here because they neede
d the doctor’s psychological guidance. But then, why did her parents move here? They didn’t have a terrible past. It was all so confusing and so…annoying, like an itch you couldn’t get to, an itch under your scalp.

  She decided to go out onto the back patio and get some sun, after all. Why waste the day? she thought. So she went out and set up a lounge chair. She rubbed in some suntan oil and sat back, hoping to relax and forget the scene she had just experienced.

  From this vantage point, Dr. Lawrence’s house stood directly above her. She paused for a moment before lying back. Someone was peering out of a window. Was that the doctor’s crazy son? she wondered.

  She closed her eyes, shook her head, and lay back. But a few moments later, she opened her eyes again and sat up to look up at the house. She thought she’d heard someone scream. Whoever had been there was gone, but the scream had frightened Justine. Even though the sun was bright and the air was warm, she was left with a cold chill.

  Something wasn’t right; something was just not right.

  But moments later, she couldn’t recall thinking about it. She even had trouble remembering why she was mad about what Brad Duke had done. In fact, when her father came home and asked her about the incident, after her mother had mentioned it, she drew a blank.

  “I don’t remember,” she said.

  He thought she didn’t want to talk about it.

  But the cold truth was, she didn’t remember, and that was the most frightening thing of all.

  3

  He could see the toy girl down there, stretched out on a lounge chair. His eyesight was still very good. It wasn’t a matter of seeing objects; it was a matter of identifying them. He was interested in the girl because she was wearing one of those skimpy bathing suits, the kind his father did not approve.

  How did he know his father did not approve of it? he wondered. How did he remember that?

  Things were coming back. Whatever it was that had blocked the past was moving aside to permit it to be heard and seen and remembered again.