by Ed Kurtz
For the second time that day, he pulled off a bloody shirt and let it fall to the floor. He crouched down beside the prostrate form of Miss Stuben and hooked his hands into her armpits. Amanda appeared in the corner of his eye, rushing by the island counter. He heaved, jerking the tall woman hard and fast.
“The hell?”
“She’s not breathing.”
“Who is she?”
“Goddamnit she’s not breathing!”
Walt dragged the woman into the stark overhead light of the kitchen and released her. Looking up at Amanda with wide, wild eyes he gasped, “Tell me you know CPR.”
Amanda stood there in silence, staring and trembling.
“Amanda!” he shouted.
She remained frozen, stunned into inaction. He sneered and grunted at her. Then he leaned over Miss Stuben, pinched her nostrils shut, and expelled a long breath straight into her mouth. Having never taken any kind of emergency resuscitation training (although it was required within his first year of teaching), Walt could only imitate what he’d seen on television. He breathed into her lungs and pressed on her chest, on the bony part above her breasts. Amanda had begun to whimper, wringing her hands and saying, “Oh, oh, oh.”
It didn’t work. Miss Stuben neither breathed nor moved at all. For all Walt knew, she was already dead. Which would not be the most awful outcome imaginable, except that Amanda had come along to complicate everything so terribly. He tried one more round of breath and compression, and when that produced no results he laid a hard, open-handed slap across Miss Stuben’s face.
Amanda gave a startled cry, but it worked—Stuben’s eyes popped open and she wheezily gulped at the air.
“Oh my God,” Amanda gasped.
Walt expelled a sigh of relief even as he acknowledged the fresh problem in front of him: if Miss Stuben could breathe, she could also talk. For now she was preoccupied with feeding oxygen to her bloodstream and rebooting her brain, but he did not expect it would take long before she got to blabbing.
“I’ll call an ambulance,” Amanda suggested, scanning the kitchen for the phone.
“Can’t,” he said. “Phone’s dead.”
“Oh shit, oh no,” she mumbled.
“Calm down. She’ll be fine. She just needs to rest.”
“Who is she? What happened to her?”
“Will you calm down?”
“I just want to know what the hell is happening here, Walt!”
His face darkened as he rose to his feet, turning his glowering stare at her.
“Be quiet,” he snarled. “Be quiet, be calm, or get out.”
“Walt…”
Miss Stuben coughed.
“Geh,” she weakly gurgled.
“Ma’am?” Amanda called to her. “Are you all right?”
“Geh,” she repeated.
“You’re walking on thin ice, Amanda,” Walt warned her.
“Shut up!” she barked back. Then, to Miss Stuben: “Ma’am, do you need an ambulance?”
“Heh…help…”
“Help?”
“Help…”
“Jesus. Jesus, Walt. What is this?”
“You’re not supposed to be here.”
“What does that mean?”
“Help me,” Miss Stuben croaked.
Amanda stormed past Walt, toward the woman on the floor, but he grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her back.
“Let go!” she roared.
“This is your last chance,” he warned her.
Amanda drew her brows together and glared at him.
“Last chance? Last chance for what?”
Her eyes wandered back to the woman on the floor. Tears ran down either side of her face, pooling on the linoleum beneath her ears. A runner of snot hung from one nostril.
“What have you done?” Amanda whispered.
Walt groaned. That did it. Now it was too late.
“I didn’t want this,” he said by way of apology. Then he threw an undercut punch that collided with Amanda’s chin and sent her crashing to the floor.
17
Nora sat on a rickety stool behind the counter in abject silence. No one other than her had set foot in the store since she opened it two hours earlier, which was bad enough in itself, but Amanda hadn’t bothered to come in either. Though Nora had all but demanded her partner sleep in, by a quarter to noon there was still no sign of her. At 12:30, Nora rang her home phone, but she got the machine. At 1, she left a mildly concerned message. Now Nora was beginning to wonder whether her next message should be angry or worried.
This simply wasn’t like her at all.
Although Nora and Amanda were equal partners in their faltering venture, Amanda had always been the driving force behind it. It was her idea, and she always played the part of boss-lady. That was fine by Nora. She got to be independent and do whatever she pleased, but inevitably there was someone to bear the brunt of the big calls and the bigger problems. They each had their roles, and life on the career front was exceptionally comfortable, if not terribly profitable.
Less comfortable was the fact that Amanda—a woman who had never called in once since In the Reads’ grand opening—was nowhere to be found. And Nora did not fully realize just how worried she really was until the bell over the door jangled and her heart nearly leapt out of her mouth. For a fraction of an instant, she’d thought it was Amanda, merely running late. It wasn’t. Instead, a short, chubby teenager snuck shyly in. With her neat, black bob and equally black T-shirt emblazoned with the words napalm death, the girl wasn’t one to melt into a crowd around those parts.
“Good morning, Alice,” Nora said.
“Hi, Nora,” the teenager said, her full mouth nearly forming a smile, but not quite.
“I daresay you’ve read every Anne Rice novel there is,” Nora told her. “But we do have the new Poppy Z. Brite back there, if you’re interested.”
Alice nodded knowingly. She was one of the shop’s few loyal customers, a sweet kid with a penchant for gruesome paperbacks. Without another word, she beelined to the back of the store and immediately began scanning the shelves in the horror section. Nora exhaled heavily.
Where the hell are you, Amanda?
***
They walked right into it. Both of them. Like flies stupidly setting down in the waiting maw of a Venus Flytrap. He was taking care of it, solving the problem. And in they walked, blind and hopeful, ignoring every creeping threat that lurked around them. Walt could hardly feel responsible. He was far from pleased about it, but there was no guilt. By God, he’d told Amanda to calm down. Now she was in the attic, her and that irascible Margaret Stuben. And she had no one to blame but herself.
Dragging the women up there had been no easy feat. He took Amanda first, still conscious but disabled by pain and tear-blurred eyes, and she kicked and fought all the way up. It was the work of an hour, all told, from the bottom of the pull-down ladder to hogtying her in the attic.
“It’s only temporary,” he explained. “I wouldn’t leave you like this.”
She screamed and hissed and spat. It broke Walt’s heart to see her that way. He realized that their relationship had likely come to an end the minute Amanda went running out of the house that night (only days ago, but it felt like months), but this was another can of worms altogether.
“I hate you,” she cried when he descended the steps again. “I hate your filthy goddamn guts!”
He gave a sigh and lowered himself down to the floor beside Miss Stuben—Margaret. No real need for formalities. Not anymore.
She too was conscious, but in remarkably worse shape than Amanda. It was all a ridiculous misunderstanding, of course. The nosy woman had taken it upon herself to waltz back into the forbidden hallway and got an eyeful of the very quandary Walt had been working toward eradicating all morning. How was he to know that the damned thing was still alive? He’d certainly beaten it with the hammer enough to kill any ordinary creature, but then this monster was anything but ordinary. And o
h, how she screamed. Like bloody murder, and like Walt had anything to do with it. By the time he caught on to what happened, those terrible red arms were stretching taut, reaching for her; a mouth full of chipped and broken teeth chomping at the air. Even half-dead and beaten to a bloody pulp, that thing was blood crazy.
Walt took up the hammer again, had it ready in half a second, and slammed Margaret out of the way with his shoulder, giving himself the room he needed to bash the creature’s head one more time. Looking back on it now, he supposed he must have shouldered her right in the throat, although he couldn’t see how that was possible. She was taller than Walt. But it was dark; perhaps she was stooped over for some reason. Whatever the precise order of events, she went down gasping and Walt swung but he missed, driving the head of the hammer straight into the wall.
After that, pandemonium.
“Christ,” he said as he loosened Margaret’s bun and ran his trembling, blood-stained fingers through her hair. “You two sure caused a clusterfuck in here today.”
Margaret moaned sullenly.
“Well, then. Up we go.”
Had Margaret been the first to go, she would have been easy. There was no fight in her at all. But the exertion of hauling Amanda up there took its toll, and now his every muscle and tendon burned under the weight of Margaret’s limp body and the pumping strain of climbing the ladder. They were fit enough ladies, the both of them, but Walt was in no great shape and he knew it.
Maybe I’ll start working out, he thought blithely at the top of the steps.
He forgot all about that once he had the women arranged at a safe distance from the pod. He secured Amanda with a length of frayed rope left in the attic by some previous tenant. He loosened and retied the cord, this time just around her wrists, which he held behind her back. She spat on his face when he was done, a whole mouthful of saliva she must have been working up for a while. He was a fairly good sport about it, though—he wiped his cheek with the back of his arm and smiled.
“Fair enough,” he said. “But just the once, okay?”
“Bring me a cigarette,” she gruffly demanded.
“Are you kidding?”
“No, I’m not. There’s a pack in my car.”
“Huh,” he said, mostly to himself. “The cars.”
“Never mind that. Just bring me the pack.”
“You’ll burn my house down.”
“No I won’t. You can watch me the whole time.”
“You’ll stink the place up. Besides, you know how I’ve been on your ass about that since, well, since we met, almost.”
“I thought you were concerned about my health,” she rasped.
“That, too.”
“Sure.”
He blew a snort of air through his nose, half laugh and half rebuff. The pod pulsed and a hollow gurgle bubbled out of it. “What has that thing done to you, Walt?”
“I was killing it. Before she came, before you. I was killing the fucking thing. Well, too late for that now.”
“Why is it too late?”
He didn’t have to answer her. Because across the attic, below the throbbing, vein-streaked pod, came a pealing bellow that chilled Amanda’s skin.
“BLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!”
Her mouth dropped open as if she were powerless to keep it closed. Tears welled up in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. She croaked, trying to speak, but nothing more came out. Walt grinned knowingly.
“Everyone’s got to eat,” he said.
FALL
A NIGHT IN OCTOBER
1923
The fire in Agnes’ eyes is hot and angry. She does not know what to make of it. Only minutes ago she saved Agnes from a nasty thing, the worst bad thing. Saved her from ever having to go through it again. She should be hugging me and kissing me all over. Thank you, little sister, thank you!
But no. Agnes looks like a wild beast, a wolf about to tear its prey apart. Her eyes glimmer as though wet, tremble almost imperceptibly. The older girl is shaking with rage. Agnes closes two fists over her nightdress and drags her from the bedroom.
You are going up there, she says. Up into Papa’s attic.
And you are never coming out.
18
“You have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. Please check the number and try again.”
Sarah Blackmore-Hall dropped the receiver on the hook and frowned. This was a new development. Until now, the line had just rung and rung, countless times until she ultimately decided to give up. Now the line was dead and gone, cut off by the phone company. The question was, did he fail to pay his bill or did he intentionally kill the service?
Neither sounded very much like her little brother, despite how little she knew about the man. Sarah knitted her brow and glanced over to Mitch. He was engrossed in the morning paper, the sports section as usual. So long as he didn’t actually bet on anything, she permitted him that much.
“Number’s disconnected,” she said.
“Hmm?” He didn’t bother to look up from the sports page. Some hulking young kid in a numbered football jersey scowled on the front.
“I said Walt’s number is disconnected.”
“Huh,” Mitch replied.
“Guess that means I’ll have to go over there.”
“Over where?”
“To Walt’s. Are you even listening to me?”
Mitch smiled bitterly and laid the paper down on the kitchen table.
“I am.”
“Momma’s sick.”
“I know she is.”
“Don’t you think Walt might like to know about it before she dies?”
“Nobody’s dying, Sarah…”
“I’m sorry—what is your medical expertise again?”
He opened his mouth, about to reply, but thought better of it. Instead he picked the sports page back up and buried his face in it.
“I’m going to Walt’s. Today.”
“Mm-kay.”
“It’s a long drive. Won’t be back until tomorrow at the earliest.”
“See you then.”
Sarah screwed her face up and glowered at the huge kid on the newspaper, the best substitute she had for her husband’s hidden face.
“Fuck you, Mitch,” she growled as she stomped out of the kitchen.
“Love you, too, sweetheart,” Mitch said quietly.
He smiled; the Razorbacks had whooped A&M at the Southwest Classic. He would have bet on that.
***
Walt would have been staring out a window, but the room didn’t have any. In fact, there were very few rooms anywhere in the building with a view of the outside world. One had the distinct feeling of being trapped in an underground shelter while the bombs dropped above. Nuclear fallout for a thousand years and entombed in this moldy, fluorescent lighted hell.
The school was built in the mid-Sixties, so he had to wonder whether the Bay of Pigs had something to do with its design. He vaguely recalled the panic on nearly every adult’s face in those days, but of course it came to nothing. And this was Middle of Nowhere, USA. Nobody was going to blow them up. Nonetheless, the only windows he’d seen since beginning his first year as a teacher were in the offices and the hallways, the latter being small, frosted, and cross-hatched with ribbed iron rebar. Even light couldn’t pass through. The classrooms were stark gray, no windows; the only light blared yellow from the humming fluorescents among the rotted ceiling panels. If it wasn’t a bunker, it might as well have been a prison. They had uniformed security guards waving wands over the poor kids at the door every morning, not to mention regular surprise room and locker searches. It was a wonder any actual teaching got done.
His kids were quietly scribbling in the sixteen-page bluebooks he’d passed out at the start of class. The month since the beginning of the school year was taken up by Great Expectations, a choice that elicited no dearth of moans and groans from the excitable fourteen-year-olds who faced him every day. Today, Walt waited for the bell
to ring and then pointed to the question written on the blackboard: Discuss the significance of the novel’s title—what are Pip’s great expectations? He raised a single eyebrow at the school district sanctioned essay question once the students set to it. His own expectations were meager at best.
The bell sounded at the conclusion of the hour, and those students who remained awake groaned some more, having run out of time prior to completing their essays. Walt rounded the monolithic teacher’s desk and leaned back on it.
“All right, pass them up.”
Pages crinkled, paper shuffled. Soft murmurs gradually built to a crescendo of jabbering adolescent voices, every other word like. Walt ignored them, stacking the bluebooks, dreading to read them. As the last few students filed out of the room, he slumped in his chair and frowned at the cover on the top of the stack. The handwriting was barely legible; huge, looping letters intersected, invading one another’s space. And that was just the kid’s name. Walt grunted, looked up at the clock, and jumped at the portly girl obstructing his view of it.
“Oh. Hello, Alice.”
“Hi, Mr. Blackmore.”
“Is there a problem?”
“I didn’t finish my essay.”
“I doubt very many of you did. It’s all right. I’ll bear it in mind.”
“Okay, Mr. Blackmore.”
He tried to manage a smile, but his face refused to comply. So he dropped his gaze back to the unreadable garbage on the desk and waited for Alice to leave. Which she didn’t.
“Mr. Blackmore?”
He ground his molars together.
“Yes, Alice?”
“What do you think happened to Miss Stuben?”
“How should I know, Alice?”
“I didn’t think you actually knew. I was just wondering what you thought.”
“Well, I’m a teacher, not a policeman. It’s not for me to speculate.”
The girl squeezed her eyebrows together into an upturned point and let her eyes roam the drab room.
“I guess everybody figures she’s dead.”
He cranked his mouth up to one side and inhaled deeply.
“Well,” he mumbled, “let’s hope not.”