Girl in the Basement

by Ray Garton

  ”Did I read something into that guy who beat his baby to death then shot himself?” Ryan said.

  Frowning, Elliott slowly lowered his arms to the chair’s armrests. “No. No, you didn’t.”

  “Mr. Granger, what was the translation of the other lines? She said something in French.”

  “Yeah, that.” He picked up the Post-It pad. “She said, ‘Your father was one of your mother’s drug dealers. He screwed her in an alley. You were conceived on a pile of garbage.’”

  Ryan’s eyebrows remained high for a long time. Moving as slowly as molasses, he sunk back in the chair and slumped there. Tears spread over the bottom edges of his eyes and sparkled there for awhile. One finally spilled over the edge and crept down his cheek.

  “I’m sorry, Ryan, I didn’t mean to upset you,” Elliott said.

  “S’okay. It’s just that ... I believe her. She knows. It knows. How does it know?”

  Elliott played the entire tape again and listened carefully, his eyes narrowed and intense. Both voices came from the same nine-year-old child. Even if she had multiple personalities, she would be limited by her knowledge, her lack of maturity. It was as if an adult were speaking through the child.

  And that’s crazy talk, Elliott thought, especially coming from someone like you. Possession is horror talk, not real-life talk.

  But what other explanation was there?

  “Maybe I should talk to Marie about her,” Elliott said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I might be able to find out something about Maddy, where she came from, what her situation is.”

  “Would you tell me?”

  “Sure. I’ll give Marie a call today, come up with some excuse for her to come over.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Granger.”

  “So, you’ve already written some stories, huh?”

  “Yeah. They’re all written in notebooks. I could type them up and print them out if you’d really like to read them.”

  “I would. Do that.”

  “Okay.”

  Elliott walked Ryan to the front door. Out on the porch, Ryan looked over at the Preston house.

  “Who’s that, I wonder?” Ryan said.

  Elliott leaned out the door and looked over at the big house next door. Two dark Lexus sedans were parked in front. It looked like they had government plates, but he wasn’t positive at that distance. It was common to see government cars in front of the Preston house, usually driven by social workers – but not usually such nice government cars. Apparently, they had just pulled up, because the doors opened and people were getting out. Men in dark suits and sunglasses.

  “I’m going to go see what’s up,” Ryan said.

  Elliott said goodbye and Ryan headed off for the house. Elliott remained in the doorway for awhile, watching the men. A woman was the last to get out. She was silver-haired and wore a smart blue suit. She was the only one not wearing shades, but she wore glasses. A tall, balding man with grey hair sidled up to her and they stopped and spoke a moment. They were joined by a short greying man with dark hair and a mustache. The two men carried briefcases, and the woman had the strap of a satchel over her shoulder. There were four other men and they all stood and looked around. They looked to Elliott like security men who were quickly assessing the area while the woman and two men talked.

  He came inside and pulled the security door closed, locked it. One of the cats meowed.

  His chest felt tight and his stomach felt cramped from tension. He was not sure why.

  From the Journal of Ryan Kettering

  There’s some weird shit going down around here and it’s starting to make me very nervous. Whatever’s going on, I get the feeling it’s been going on for awhile.

  As I left Mr. Granger’s house this morning, two black Lexus sedans pulled up to the house and a bunch of people got out. The cars had federal plates. These were government people. I could tell right away that four of them were agents of some kind – they were the guys who’d gotten out of the front seats of both cars. They all looked alike. I remembered seeing, in Toys-R-Us once, a Ken and Barbie set in which Ken and Barbie were dressed up like Mulder and Scully from The X-Files. These four guys looked like Ken-doll Mulder. Then there were three older people. A tall old guy who was bald on top, a shorter guy with a mustache, and a woman with white hair and glasses. The three of them stuck together and talked as they went up the front walk. The four suits followed. They were on the porch by the time I got to them, and the tall bald man had pressed the doorbell.

  “Can I help you?” I said.

  The four suits turned to me and looked me over.

  “Hello, Ryan,” one of them said.

  That really gave me the creeps.

  “We’re here to see Marie and Hank,” another one said.

  They continued to look at me as the older people stepped back out of my way and let me in. When I opened the front door, Marie was just inside, on her way to answer the bell. She smiled at me, then saw the people behind me. For the first time since I’d moved in, I saw Marie’s smile completely disappear. Her whole face went loose for a couple seconds and the color left her cheeks – her cheeks are always rosy – and her eyes got a little bigger. Then she cleared her throat and her face was back to normal – smiling and pleasant, but still not quite as rosy as before.

  Marie went to the door and said, “Come in, come in. Just a second.” She turned to me, put her arm around me and slowly led me away from them, into the living room. “I want you to get the boys and I want you to go out back and water Hank’s garden, then talk to Hank and see what he wants you to do next. All right? Will you do that for me, Ryan?”

  I knew she wanted us out of the way. She’d probably give the girls something to keep them busy, too. She wanted our attention on other things.

  “Who are those people?” I said. “And how do they know who I am?”

  Still smiling, she said, “Never you mind who those people are, just do as I say, all right?”

  “All right.” I didn’t like it, but there was nothing I could do about it. I headed upstairs to find Gary and Keith, then remembered Gary was at work. As I was going down the upstairs hall, I ran into Lyssa coming down the attic stairs. “Hey,” I whispered as I went to her. I stood close. “There are some people downstairs. I have to go outside and water the garden, but do me a favor, okay?”

  She nodded anxiously, her eyes wide.

  “Try to keep track of what they do and say while they’re here.”

  “What if I can’t?”

  “Do your best. I’ve got a feeling Marie’s going to give you chores, but try to keep an eye on these people. I want to know why they’re here.”

  “I’ll do my best.” She surprised me with a kiss, then smiled. It made me smile, too.

  I got Keith – he was lying on his bottom bunk, beneath Gary’s bed, reading a Spider-Man comic book – and we went out to the backyard. When we passed through the living room, Marie and the federal people were gone.

  After watering the garden, Hank had us pick plums off the plum trees before the birds got them all. We put the plums in buckets, then emptied the buckets into cardboard boxes. On Saturday, we would take the boxes down to the end of the road in Hank’s pick-up and set up a table at the Fig Tree Lane Flea Market, and we’d put the plums in Ziplock bags and sell them all by noon or one o’clock.

  When it came time for me to leave for work, the two Lexuses were still parked outside, but there was no sign of the five men and one woman inside. There was no sign of Lyssa, either. I hoped she was keeping her eyes open.

  When I got back home from work, the sedans were gone, but there was a truck parked in front of the house, and men were moving things into the house on dollies. Ramps had been set up over the front steps.

  I went inside to find Marie hovering over it all.

  “What’s going on?” I said.

  “Oh, just some new things for the rec room,” she said. “I think you boys will be very pleased.�
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  Gary thundered up the basement stairs and punched me in the shoulder. “You see the stuff we’re gettin’?” he said.

  “No. What are we getting?”

  “A big high-definition plasma TV with surround sound, a new DVD player and a buncha new DVDs, and four new arcade video games. Can you believe it?”

  I looked at Marie, and I caught her eye, but only for a second. She looked away and didn’t look at me again. It wasn’t that she didn’t look at me, she wouldn’t look at me.

  I found Lyssa in the dining room, setting the table for dinner.

  “What’s been going on here?” I whispered.

  “I’ll tell you later. After dinner in the rec room.”

  Over dinner, everyone was excited about the new stuff in the rec room and it was the main topic of conversation. Nobody asked where it had come from, or how Hank and Marie were able to afford it. Nobody but me, and I kept my thoughts to myself.

  After dinner, everyone was in the rec room, playing the new games. Hank watched the news on the enormous new plasma flatscreen on the wall between the cupboards.

  Lyssa and I went to the loveseat against the wall by the entrance to the hallway. With everyone talking and the television playing so loudly, we could talk about whatever we wanted unnoticed by the others.

  “They were down here in Maddy’s room,” Lyssa said.

  “All of them?” I said.

  She nodded. “All seven of them. They were down here the whole time.”

  “Did you see or hear any of it?”

  “No. Marie kept us busy upstairs. But I did hear something. Afterward, they came up to the dining room and met with Hank and Marie. I was in the kitchen cleaning up after lunch. Marie fed them, believe it or not.”

  “Of course she did,” I said. “Marie feeds everybody.”

  Lyssa told me she’d overheard most of the meeting between Hank and Marie and the federal suits. The woman, Dr. Sempris, had done most of the talking, she said. She’d repeatedly reminded Hank and Marie “how very important it is that Maddy not interact with any of the other children living in the house. Of course, it’s important she interact with no one but you, Mrs. Preston, but we’re especially anxious to know that every precaution has been taken to prevent any interaction between Maddy and the other children in this home.”

  I was impressed by how well Lyssa remembered what was said. She said Marie had assured them that the other children in the house had no interest in Maddy and virtually ignored her.

  “They seemed pretty happy about that,” Lyssa said. “Then the woman, this Dr. Sempris, said, ‘Now, Mr. And Mrs. Preston, what can we do to make this house a better place for these kids?’ And Hank went down the list – a big high-definition plasma flatscreen with surround sound, a new DVD player, every Disney movie ever made on DVD, and some new arcade video games. And the woman said, ‘I don’t see a problem with that at all, do you?’ and she turned to the bald man and he shook his head and said, ‘No problem at all,’ and the guy with the mustache said, ‘I don’t see a problem.’ Then the woman said, ‘They’ll be delivered by this evening.’ And then they left.”

  “Have you seen Maddy since then?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “You haven’t mentioned to anyone that I’ve gone down there to talk to her, have you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Good. Don’t.”

  I played one of the new video games for awhile. As soon as I had the opportunity, I talked to Gary.

  “Hey, you noticed those guys in suits who came here today?” I said.

  Smiling, Gary nodded and said, “Yeah.”

  “Have they been here before?”

  “Oh, yeah. I seen ‘em a couple, three times. I think they come to see Maddy.”

  “Who are they?”

  Gary shrugged. “I dunno. I figured maybe they was relatives, or somethin’. Wanna play another game?”

  “Not right now.”

  Gary started playing one of the video games. I sneaked out and went next door to see Mr. Granger….

  SIX

  Elliott sat in his recliner looking at Ryan on the couch, and found himself trembling with fear and thinking, What am I living next door to, anyway? He was giving serious thought to the kinds of things he normally reserved for his fiction – like possession, either by some spirit or a demon – things he never thought he would be looking at realistically.

  “What do you think it means, Mr. Granger?” Ryan said after a long silence.

  Elliott thought, I think it means either I’m having some kind of breakdown, or the fat little girl in the basement next door is possessed by something bad – something that people in the government apparently talk to every now and then.

  Ryan had told Elliott everything that had happened at the house that day – everything he knew about, at least – and about the new goodies that had been delivered shortly after the government people had gone.

  “You’re sure they were federal plates?” Elliott said.

  Ryan nodded.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I know city, county, and state plates, and they weren’t any of those, but they were government plates.”

  Elliott nodded once – it made sense. Besides, he’d seen what Ryan had called the four Ken-doll Mulders, and they certainly looked the part.

  “It means that the government is interested in Maddy, Ryan. That’s the only explanation I can come up with. Why they would be interested in her, I don’t know.”

  “Yeah, you do,” Ryan said. He met Elliott’s gaze levelly and didn’t look away.

  Elliott said nothing, but he knew the boy was right.

  Ryan said, “They’re interested in whatever it is that talks through Maddy. It knows things. It can do things. And they’ve got her tucked away in this group home in this nowhere town where nobody’ll know about her, hidden away in a place they can come to and talk to it when they need to.”

  Elliott saw that Ryan was trembling, too.

  “Mr. Granger, I don’t like the idea of living under the same roof as that thing.”

  “How would you feel about talking to it again?”

  Ryan frowned. “Do you think I should?”

  “Take the recorder again. Ask it what the government wants with it. See what it has to say. It probably won’t tell you anything, but whatever it says, get it on tape. Then, tomorrow, I’m going to talk to Marie. I didn’t call her today because I knew there were people over there and I figured she’d be busy. Then I saw that truck unloading things, and I figured she had plenty to deal with and left her alone. But I’ll call her over tomorrow, and I’ll play the tape for her.”

  “Wait, if she finds out I’ve been talking to Maddy – “

  ”I don’t think you’ll be in any trouble, Ryan. In fact, it might be a good idea to have you here when I tell her. We could tell her together. Maybe she doesn’t know what she’s keeping in the basement.”

  “How could she not know?”

  “Maybe it doesn’t show itself around her,” Elliott said with a shrug. “This thing isn’t always obvious, right?”

  Still frowning, Ryan nodded. “That’s true.”

  “Are the Prestons religious?”

  “Marie goes to church every Sunday, but she’s not, like, pushy about it, or anything. You’re thinking Maddy’s possessed, aren’t you?”

  “Well, I’d rather you didn’t quote me on it, but given everything you’ve told me and what I’ve heard ... yes, it’s crossed my mind.”

  “Whatever that thing is, it’s bad. I mean, it’s really bad. Just hearing that voice makes me feel ... I don’t know, dirty. And it said it helped that man beat that baby to death. It helped.”

  “You said you asked why it stays in that house,” Elliott said. “Tell me again what it said.”

  “Because it had a job to do. It said, ‘We have a job to do.’”

  Elliott wished he could get up and pace, but with the walker and the painful hip, it j
ust wasn’t the same. Instead, he rubbed his jaw with his right hand, back and forth several times. Then he cracked his knuckles one at a time. He thought of the voice on the tape – the voice that made him deeply uncomfortable, that made him want to turn off the recorder because he didn’t want to hear it anymore. He imagined that voice talking to those two briefcase-carrying men and their female companion. They looked important. Who were they? For what government agency did they work? What kind of questions would they ask the ... thing? What kind of job did it have to do?

  “What the hell is it?” Elliott muttered as he rubbed his jaw again. He looked at Ryan again. “I’m sure Marie won’t be too upset with you about talking to Maddy. You’ll have me on your side. I think we need more on tape, though, more for her to listen to. Talk to Maddy one more time tonight, then you and I will talk to Marie tomorrow.”

  Ryan took in a deep breath as he nodded, let the breath out slowly with his cheeks puffed up. “Okay. I’ll do it. I won’t like it, but I’ll do it.”

  From the Journal of Ryan Kettering

  I just got back from Maddy’s room and my hands are shaking so bad, I can’t write very well. I may not be able to read this later. I had to go to the bathroom before I came back here to the bedroom. I nearly wet myself down there in the basement.

  She laughed in that deep, husky voice as soon as I came into the room. I decided to stand and didn’t bother with the chair this time. I noticed there were more Barbie accessories in the room, all unopened in their boxes.

  “I bet you’re just full of questions, aren’t you, Ryan?” the voice said. “Well, ask away. ‘Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.’”

  I got just enough religion to recognize those as the words of Jesus Christ, and even though I’m not religious at all, I was offended to hear them spoken by that rough, smoky voice, by that thing. My mouth was dry, and I had to work up some spit to talk. I nodded and said, “Yeah, that’s from, what ... Matthew, right?”