Suffer the Children

by John Saul

  “So you don’t know whether or not there really is, or was, a cave?” he said.

  “Was?” Jack repeated. “What do you mean, was?”

  “Only that there might have once been a cave, but that it got filled in, or collapsed. It isn’t important Just a mind that deals with details functioning in its usual picky way. Forget I said it. The important thing is that you don’t know whether or not the cave is real.”

  “No, I don’t. And I don’t see how it matters.”

  Dr. Belter lit a cigarette and shook the match out before he spoke again. “I don’t know,” he said at length. “Does it matter?”

  “What are you getting at?” Jack asked suspiciously.

  Dr. Belter smiled at him. “Well, it just seems to me that you’ve attached a lot of importance to that cave. After all, you did go so far as to tell the chief of police that it definitely doesn’t exist. That tells me a couple of things.”

  “Such as?” Now there was definite hostility in Jack’s voice.

  “First, that you think there is a cave. If you were really sure that there was no cave, and that the legend was only a legend, why would you want to try to talk Norton out of searching for it? After all, if you’re sure it doesn’t exist, then you don’t have to worry about it being found, do you?”

  “What’s the second thing?” Jack asked, without conceding the first.

  “Why, that’s easy,” Dr. Belter said with a grin, leaning forward over his desk. “You’re not only sure there’s a cave, but you’re afraid of what might be found in it.”

  “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard of in a long time,” Jack said angrily.

  “Is it?”

  Jack knew he was reacting more out of fear than out of anger, and he wondered why. What was he afraid of? Then he decided he wasn’t afraid of; he was afraid for. He was afraid for Sarah.

  “It’s Sarah I’m worried about,” he said nervously.

  “Are you?” the doctor asked, and Jack thought he heard a mocking tone in his voice. “Let’s talk about that for a minute then. Exactly what are you worried about? Are you worried that Sarah has been terrorizing little children, then shoving them into a cave? That’s what I would call one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard of. For one thing, take a look at Sarah’s size. She’s not big, is she? In fact, she’s small for her age, and a bit underdeveloped.” He noticed the look of anger that was coloring Jack’s face and held up a hand. “Oh, come on. I didn’t say she was abnormally small or underdeveloped. Physically she’s well within the normal range. But on the small side of the average, rather than the large side. Now tell me, do you really think a girl the size of Sarah could do much to a girl the size of Kathy Burton? Kathy Burton, from what I’ve found out, was big for her age, and somewhat athletic. So, considering that she’s also a year older than Sarah, I don’t see much chance that Sarah could have done anything to her. Anne Forager and Jimmy Tyler I don’t know about. They’re both younger than Sarah, and a bit smaller. But Kathy Burton wouldn’t have taken any guff off of Sarah.”

  “I understand that children with … mental problems … sometimes show remarkable strength,” Jack said.

  “You’ve been watching too many movies. Oh, sure, it can happen, but it’s rare, and it only happens for short periods of time, under what we call hysterical conditions. The same things happen with so-called normal people. The mother who lifts the car off her crushed child? Those things can happen. Under severe stress, the body simply shoots itself up with adrenalin, and you have a surge of strength. But it’s rare, and it’s for very brief periods of time. Seconds, not the time it would take to do what you’re suggesting.”

  “I’m not suggesting a thing,” Jack said coldly.

  “Aren’t you? I think you are.” I listen carefully, you know. It’s my profession. And here’s what I heard you saying. Not directly, mind you, but by implication. And all because Elizabeth said she saw Sarah playing with someone who looked like Jimmy Tyler.

  “You see Sarah dragging children into the woods, beating them, and then taking them and dumping them in a cave somewhere. Am I right?”

  Jack shifted in his chair with discomfort. The doctor had stated his thoughts too closely. “Go on,” he said, not at all sure he wanted to hear any more, but feeling that he must.

  “Well, if you don’t mind my saying so, that theory is ridiculous. Not only would Sarah be totally unable to sustain the kind of abnormal strength that would be necessary for such a feat, but even if she could, can you imagine the difficulties in hauling someone your own size down the face of that embankment? You’ve said yourself that it’s tricky for an adult by himself. It sounds like it would be impossible for a child carrying another child of almost the same size.”

  Jack thought it over and felt an odd sense of relief. The doctor was right; it didn’t make sense. He and Rose had been overreacting. And why not? The last days had not been easy for anyone in Port Arbello, and Rose and Jack Conger were no exception. He felt a grin come over his face, and it felt good.

  “Well, that’s done with, anyway,” he said. “Have you got any other ideas?”

  Dr. Belter leaned forward, and his expression took on a seriousness that made the grin fade from Jack’s face.

  “Yes, I have. Mr. Conger, have you ever suffered from blackouts? Recently?”

  It took nearly a full minute for the implications of what the doctor had just said to sink into Jack’s mind. When it finally did and he grasped what Dr. Belter was suggesting, he had to fight to control himself. Trembling, he got to his feet.

  “Only once, Doctor,” he said coldly. “And we both know what happened that time. Since then, never.” He left the doctor’s office without another word, and without waiting for Charles Belter to respond.

  “How can you be sure?” the doctor said to the closed door and the empty room. “How can you be sure you never have blackouts?”

  It was noon when Jack returned to the paper. He closed the door behind him, and a moment later the red light above his door flashed on. The staff of the Courier looked at one another curiously, but none of them was willing to speculate on what was going on. Instead, they all glanced at the clock and began drifting away to lunch. When the office was all but empty, Sylvia Bannister looked at the closed door. She hesitated a minute, then punched the button on the intercom on her desk.

  “I’m going to lunch now,” she said. She waited for an answer, and when none came began putting on her coat She was ready to leave the office when the intercom suddenly came alive.

  “Can you spare me a minute?” Jack’s voice crackled through the wire.

  Sylvia took off her coat and rehung it on the hook. Then she smoothed her skirt and entered the inner office.

  She had been prepared to be cool to her employer, but the expression on his face changed her mind.

  “You’re not all right, are you,” she said, making it more a statement than a question. Jack looked up at her, and she was sure she saw tears trying to make their way out of his eyes.

  “I just got back from talking to Dr. Belter.”

  “I wondered where you went,” Sylvia said, lowering herself into the chair opposite him. “Why did you go see him?”

  “I’m not sure, really. I thought I was going to talk about Sarah. About what to do about her. But he didn’t want to talk about Sarah.”

  “Oh?”

  “He wanted to talk about me.”

  “Sylvia smiled at him reassuringly. Is that such a bad idea? We can all stand to talk about ourselves now and then. And you haven’t been having it too easy lately, have you?”

  “That wasn’t what he wanted to talk about. He seems to think that I might be the one who’s after the kids.”

  Sylvia stared at him in complete disbelief. “You? You must have misunderstood him.”

  “No. I didn’t misunderstand him. He wanted to know if I’ve been having any blackouts lately.”

  “That is the most disgusting thing I’ve heard in a l
ong time,” Sylvia said, her voice reflecting the sickness she felt in her stomach. “That happened a year ago. Not last week, not last month. A year ago. Thirteen months, actually. Does he seriously think it would happen again now? Three times? Besides, we know where you were when the children disappeared.”

  “On the day Kathy Burton disappeared I was in his office, as a matter of fact,” Jack said, smiling thinly.

  “Then what’s he trying to do?” Sylvia demanded.

  “I don’t know,” Jack said. “But, God, it scares me. If that’s what he thinks, what will the rest of the town think?”

  “I haven’t any idea, but I know what I think. I think it’s insane, and I think Dr. Belter needs to have his own head examined.”

  She stood up. “And I think you and I should go have some lunch. At my place.”

  Jack looked at her with no comprehension.

  “Jack,” Sylvia said softly, “don’t you think you’ve absorbed enough? Take some time off for yourself. Even if it’s only a few hours with me. You need it. Really, you do. And so do I.”

  They drove in silence to Sylvia’s house, and talked quietly while she fixed their lunch. They avoided the sensitive subjects, but it wasn’t the studied avoidance that created a distance between Jack and Rose when they were consciously staying away from something. Instead, it was an easy avoidance, a mutual agreement to talk about things that made them comfortable, and they grew closer.

  They didn’t go back to the Courier that afternoon. They started to, but they changed their minds. Instead, they spent the afternoon in Sylvia Bannister’s bed, and it was good. It was good for both of them. For the first time in a year, lack Conger lay comfortably in a woman’s arms. Sylvia Bannister was content. And, for the moment, so was he.

  The two children in the cave clung together, as they had for almost thirty-six hours. Jimmy Tyler had been unconscious for the first hour he was in the cave, and for a long time Kathy had been sure he would die. But he hadn’t died, and eventually he had awakened, terrified in the darkness. Kathy had tried to soothe him and explain to him what had happened. Her voice had been weak, and she had had several periods of incoherence, but the very sound of a human voice in the blackness had seemed to soothe Jimmy, and eventually he had calmed down. And then they had waited.

  They stayed close together, never moving far enough apart so that they couldn’t touch each other, and when they slept, they slept in each other’s arms.

  Jimmy was terrified by the strange scrabbling sounds, but when Kathy told him what they were he tried to catch one of the tiny crabs. Eventually he succeeded, and popped one into his mouth. It was bitter, and he promptly spat it out, retching. Kathy gave him a mouthful of the water to wash the taste away.

  They talked now and then, Jimmy mostly, since Kathy’s voice was weak and her throat hurt her badly now, but for the most part they simply sat silently, holding hands, wondering how long they had been trapped in the cavern and how long they would be kept there.

  It was during one of the tunes that Jimmy was talking that Kathy suddenly squeezed his hand.

  “Shhh!” she hissed. He felt her hand grasp his even more tightly, and stopped talking. Above him Jimmy heard an odd scuffling sound. As the scuffling grew louder, Kathy’s hand continued to tighten on his, until it began to hurt. He sensed that the sounds from above were frightening Kathy, and the fear was contagious. He forgot the pain in his hand as he strained to hear what was happening overhead.

  “Put your hand over your eyes,” Kathy whispered to him. He didn’t know why he should, but he followed her instructions. A moment later he saw a dim red glow through the flesh of his fingers. He opened his fingers slightly and saw a beam of light shining down from the shaft above. Squinting, he removed his hand from his eyes, then opened his eyes completely as they grew used to the light Kathy still sat huddled next to him, one hand clutching his, the other clasped tightly over her eyes.

  “It’s all right,” he whispered. “If you squint the light doesn’t hurt your eyes.”

  Tentatively, Kathy took her hand from her face, and began letting her eyes adjust to the unaccustomed light. The light held steady, and there was silence from above. Curiously, the two children looked at each other. While they were searching each other’s faces, they heard a plopping sound. Jimmy started to speak, but Kathy clapped a hand over his mouth. Both of them saw the small package, wrapped in white paper, that lay in the middle of the pool of light Jimmy struggled free from Kathy’s grip and scurried into the light to snatch it, like a rat snatching a piece of cheese from the middle of a floor, then darting back to its hole.

  He unwrapped the package. “Look,” he said. “Sandwiches.”

  Kathy looked at the food, and her hunger overcame her fear. She grabbed at one of the sandwiches and shoved it into her mouth. Jimmy was gobbling at the food with the hunger of a small child not used to going without.

  The nausea hit both of them simultaneously, and suddenly both of them were lying on the floor of the cave, retching furiously. The sandwiches, the wonderful gift from above, were stuffed with sand. Sand, and seaweed.

  From above they heard the awful, maniacal laughter, and they knew that it was Elizabeth up there, holding the light steady, watching them puke. Instinctively Kathy and Jimmy squirmed away into the protective darkness, like subterranean animals creeping away from the sun. When they were completely out of the pool of light, the beam of whiteness suddenly disappeared, and they heard the sounds of Elizabeth creeping away toward the surface. Kathy and Jimmy cried quietly, clutching each other’s hands.

  20

  The following Sunday was one of those leaden, gray days when fall seems to take a perverse pleasure in giving a preview of the winter to come. In Port Arbello the weather only accented the depression that hung over the town, and the tavern did a brisker business than usual. On an ordinary Sunday morning, only Marty Forager could be counted on to step over the threshhold, announcing that he was there for “services.” He would then stay through the day, and shuffle out only after he had finished “vespers.” But on the Sunday following Jimmy Tyler’s disappearance, the churches of Port Arbello found their pews packed for the early service, and the tavern found its stools packed for Marty Forager’s services.

  The Congers did not go to church that Sunday morning, nor did they show up at the tavern. They wouldn’t have gone to the tavern anyway, and they had omitted church by mutual consent, neither stating why they chose to stay home, neither wanting to hear the reasons voiced. It was as if they sensed something coming, and hoped they might be able to avoid it by staying in their house. They were observing their morning coffee ritual, silently, when the telephone rang.

  “I’ll get it,” they heard Elizabeth call from upstairs. A moment later they heard her call down again. “It’s for you, Mother. Mrs. Stevens.”

  “Barbara,” Rose said, trying to sound more cheerful than she felt. She had, indeed, been growing as depressed as anybody else in Port Arbello, but was able to hide it by using her “professional” voice. “I was beginning to think you people had—” She’d been about to say “died” when she thought better of it. She didn’t bother to try to find a better word. “That was a hell of a thing to say, wasn’t it Well, I guess that’s what’s on all our minds these days.”

  “That’s why I’m calling,” Barbara Stevens replied. “I’m tired of the only topic of conversation in Port Arbello, and I should imagine you are too. And the weather’s too lousy to work on the house, so Carl thought a game of bridge on a wet afternoon might be in order. Do you play?”

  “I’d love to,” Rose said. “What time and where?”

  “Here, about one-ish. And bring the girls.”

  “Let me check with Jack. I’ll call you right back.”

  She hung up the phone and returned to the dining room.

  “That was Barbara Stevens. She and Carl want us to come to their place for a game of bridge this afternoon. With the girls,” she added as Jack looked doubtful.<
br />
  “I don’t know. You know how Sarah can be in a strange place.”

  “Then well leave than home with Mrs. Goodrich,” Rose said promptly. Jack saw that there was going to be a bridge game and decided to go along with it gracefully, even though he hated the game.

  “Why don’t we play here instead?” he suggested. “Unless there’s some reason why the Stevenses want us at their place?”

  “Fine,” Rose said, smiling. “Barbara said one. Is that all right with you?”

  Jack glanced at his watch automatically. “I can’t see any reason why not,” he said.

  Rose grinned at him. “Except that you hate the game, right?” Without giving him time to answer, she continued. “Well, at least it will give us something new to think about. After this week, you might even find you enjoy it.”

  The same thought had occurred to him, and he smiled at Rose, then watched her leave the room. He listened to her talking to Barbara Stevens, but didn’t really hear what she was saying. He was, instead, trying to decide why it was that ever since the afternoon with Sylvia, which had been wonderful, he had been feeling better about his marriage. He supposed that it was simply that he was feeling better about himself. He found that he was actually looking forward to the bridge game. It was nice to be looking forward to something.

  “One club.”

  “Pass.”

  “One spade.”

  “Pass.”

  “One no-trump.”

  The bid was passed out, and Barbara Stevens looked at her partner.

  “Does your husband make you play one bids?” she asked.

  “Only if he thinks he can set me,” Rose replied. Barbara looked first at Jack, then at Carl.

  “Well, boys, what about it? Do I have to play this one?”