Soul Hostage

by Jeffrey Littorno

  The development was surrounded by a white wooden fence about seven feet high which had probably looked real classy at one time. Now, the fence made me wonder whether it had been built to keep things out or to keep things in.

  As soon as we drove into the area surrounded by the fence, I felt an almost overwhelming sense of depression. It was sort of like the feeling of having something that makes you real happy taken away. I know it sounds silly, but I got a picture in my head of a happy little kid with a big red balloon. Then some bigger kid comes by and for no reason pops the balloon. That is the best way I can think of to describe it. Judging by the comments of my companions, no one shared my feelings.

  “In comparison, I have to say that this place makes prison life look positively cheerful!” Louis joked from the backseat.

  “Yeah, if this is how the better half lives, they can have it!” Joey replied, and both of them laughed.

  I tried to laugh along with them, but the sound kind of caught in my throat and only came out like a cough. “So, Louis, have you got any ideas about how to get started with this business?” Something about his sunny expres-sion filling the rearview mirror made me want to needle him a little. “I mean you had lots of time in the joint to come up with some sort of plan.”

  I pulled the car to the side of the street and turned to face him. I was expecting some sign of irritation, but Stoaffer gave me the complete opposite. His face lit up like I had just said something that delighted him.

  “Yes, that’s right. Thanks for reminding me, Thomas.” I listened of it but caught no trace of sarcasm in his voice. “While I was locked up, I spent many hours imagining what I would do once I got back to this place. I pictured myself standing in front of Theresa and smiling as I stared into her shocked and then frightened eyes. I could feel the warm, pleasant tingling sensation as I became aroused. In my mind, it was a clear moment in time. No distractions. In my mind, it was just her and me and all that had happened.” Louis paused for a long time noisily juggling the mint in his mouth.

  Finally, Joey could no longer stand the silence, and he asked excitedly, “So whadja do then’ Lou? I mean in yer mind, didja slap the bitch?”

  Stoaffer did not answer right away. The Lifesaver was still. A smile curled his lips for just an instant and then was gone. “Well, that’s the strange part. I never really got beyond that point.” His voice was slow and flat.

  I have never been much of a poker player. The reason this is I have never been very good at reading other people to see whether they are telling the truth or not. This is crucial for winning in poker. But none of that mattered, because right then I knew without a doubt that Stoaffer was lying. And when he looked straight into my eyes, I was sure he knew that I knew he was lying.

  This moment of mutual understanding was ended when Joey exclaimed, “Ah, c’mon Lou! Didja fuck or fight?”

  Stoaffer shifted his gaze to Joey and smiled. “Joey, as much as I would like to answer your question, I cannot honestly tell you what happened next. In my mind, I simply saw darkness at that point. It was always the same.”

  It was clear from his expression that Joey was not pleased by this answer. Having seen Joey not pleased in the past, I really expected him to charge forward until he got an answer which he liked. But just as with so many other things over the last few days, what I expected did not happen. Instead of simply charging ahead and pushing Stoaffer for some answer, Joey just smiled and said nothing. Now, I was the one who was not pleased.

  “What kind of guy does that? Spends ten years in prison without imagining what he will do when he meets the person who put him away?” My frustration and maybe fear were clear in my voice.

  I looked around at the car’s other two occupants expecting some sort of reaction. I am not sure what I was expecting. Anger? Agreement? Hostility? Whatever I expected did not matter, because what I got was indifference. Both Joey and Louis were silently gazing out of the window. I turned to look straight down the street in front of the car.

  I was barely holding in my anger. There is nothing worse than being furious and seeing the people around you are not paying any attention. Just as I was about to scream, a hand touched my shoulder.

  “Here.” The voice from the backseat was calm and quiet but left no doubt that it was to be followed.

  I pulled the car back to the curb and for the first time really saw the neighborhood. The houses were fairly new but old. I mean most of the places looked like they were in pretty good shape but left to the elements. Most of them had yards full of overgrown weeds or just dirt where lawn should be. Some of the houses had cars in front or in the driveway, but most did not. The house in front of us looked pretty well abandoned. The weeds in the yard were about a foot tall.

  Despite the absolute still of the neighborhood, I felt a bit nervous about being out in the open as we got out of the car and walked toward the house. The place was clearly uninhabited. But as if to remove any doubt, yellowing sheets of paper hung in many of the windows announcing:

  Notice of Trustee Sale:

  Foreclosure process has begun on this property, which may affect your right to continue to live in this property. Twenty days or more after the date of this notice, this property may be sold at foreclosure. If you are renting this property, the new property owner may either give you a new lease or provide you with a 60-day eviction notice. However, other laws may prohibit an eviction in this circumstance or provide you with a longer notice before eviction. You may wish to contact a lawyer or your local legal aid or housing counseling agency to discuss any rights you may have.

  For some reason, the cold language of the law grabbed my attention. Maybe it was a dose of reality in a place that felt unreal. Anyway, I was standing to the right of the front door reading the notice when Louis grabbed my arm just above my elbow and said, “We should get inside, Thomas.”

  Joey tried to open the front door but the knob just turned in his hand. He turned to look at us with a broad smile. “Not this way, Lou.”

  Stoaffer stepped around me and then around Joey. He

  took hold of the knob and turned it. It turned freely just as it had done in Joey’s hand. I was standing close enough to see a perplexed expression cover his face as he took his hand off the doorknob and put it on his hip. He stood still for a minute.

  I started to suggest that we try the backdoor, but something about the slight tremble which began moving through his body kept me quiet. It was like the tremor that goes through cartoon characters before steam shoots out their ears. There was no steam to be seen here, but Stoaffer’s hand shot back to the knob. He twisted it again quickly while at the same time turned slightly to launch his shoulder into the door. As he made contact, there was the sputtering sound of wood separating from wood. It sounded like it had been a long time since that door was last opened. It popped open with a complaint.

  “All right, Lou!” Joey cheered as he moved closer to the door. “You got the magic touch!”

  The old man turned to look at us with a grin stretching his face. Joey brushed past to enter the house. As for me, I wanted nothing more than to be off that porch and through that door or anywhere else really. I just wanted to be some place where I wasn’t staring at the grinning face of Louis Stoaffer.

  Nothing more than wishful thinking, because that grin stretching his face to the point that it looked like it would split in two… that grin froze my feet in place even as my mind raced back to that moment in the grocery store when I first saw Stoaffer. I saw the same strange glow which made me want to puke and keep puking until my insides spilled out.

  My vision blurred and then cleared enough to see him staring at me. “Thomas, we really should get out of sight.” The old man turned and walked quickly into the house without saying anything else.

  I was left on the porch by myself. Of course, I didn’t really appreciate it at the time, but it was another one of those big moments in life that decide how things are going to turn out. I mean, Stoaffer and Joey wer
e in the house. I had the car keys in my pocket. Nothing stopped me from simply running back to the car, firing it up, and motoring out of this place. In a matter of seconds, it could all be behind me. It could all be just a bad memory. So why didn’t I do it? It was the perfect opportunity. I could have escaped from the strange old bastard. Maybe I could have gotten rid of the strange feelings of dread and some of the weird thoughts. So why didn’t I do that? Maybe it was fear of the unknown. Like they say, “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t”. In all honesty, I really don’t know why I didn’t get in that car and drive away as fast and as far as I could. All I know for sure is that I walked off that porch and into that house.

  The first thing to hit me when I got inside was a strong musty smell. It was a mixture of dust, mold, and shit. The odor forced me to turn back to the open door and take a breath of fresh air.

  As I was taking a gulp of air, a flutter of movement in the window of the house across the street caught my eye. I was sure someone had passed quickly in front of the window. The house looked as though it was still occu-pied; the lawn although brown and patch had been mowed recently and faded yellow curtains hung in the windows. I wondered if whoever was there had seen us. It suddenly occurred to me standing in the doorway was increasing the chances of being noticed.

  I stepped back into the house and closed the door. Turning to face the stench and whatever else waited in the house, I stood on the dusty white linoleum just inside. Sunlight from the windows gave the whole place a dusty almost foggy glow. Off to the right was a hallway which I figured led to bedrooms. On my left was a kitchen. Straight in front of me was the living room. Without any thought, my feet carried me toward the mound in the middle of that room.

  The heap was made up mostly of clothes. Lots of tiny t-shirts and shorts sat on top. Some faded, adult-sized blue jeans and a women’s short red dress jumped out at me. Other pieces of clothes peaked out from the pile, but my attention was really captured by the toys. Within the mound, a little girl’s dolls rested against a small red metal fire truck, a bunch of different-colored Legos buried dark green plastic toy soldiers, and random playing card struggled to make pairs for Go Fish.

  I stood back from the mound and considered the variety of things. A picture forced its way into my mind.

  A man and woman stood right in front of me. They gazed at the pile. Both of them stood very still. All of a sudden, the man let go of the woman’s hand and took something out of the pile. As soon as he released her hand, the woman’s body sagged and began trembling. For the first time, I was aware of a little girl with long, shiny, straight black hair sitting cross-legged on the floor next to me. She had been crying and was ready to start again. I heard before seeing a little boy of about four screaming as he ran toward a bright green and yellow tricycle sitting on its side at the back of the pile. The woman stepped forward and grabbed the boy’s arm before he reached the tricycle. As she turned him away from his goal, the woman revealed a tortured face with mascara smeared from tears. I wanted to do something. I wanted to offer some kind of help, but obviously I was invisible to her. My sense of helplessness was quickly replaced by a pang of fear. The man turned and glanced though me to the front door. As he did so, I realized what he had taken from the pile. In his right hand next to his leg, he held a dirty black pistol. He did not threaten anyone with the gun, and it never moved from his side as he moved past me to the door. As weird as it seems, I was scared for this family. I had never met these people. I did not understand how or why they found their way inside my head. In the next moment, my confusion was brushed aside by the shock of connection with the eyes of the little girl. She looked right at me as tears streamed down her dirty face.

  A crash from the kitchen drew my attention away from the girl’s gaze but did not completely wipe the family from my mind.

  I walked into the kitchen to find Joey glaring into one of the cupboards saying something about “fucking mice”.

  “Find anything good?” I asked trying to sound casual.

  Joey turned his eyes from the cupboard to me. “Nah, just a buncha mouse shit!”

  I suddenly occurred to me this was one of the very few times that we had been out of Stoaffer’s sight since stumbling across him in the grocery store. “Listen, Joey, are you sure you want to get deeper into this thing with Stoaffer? I mean the scheme has a real good chance of going bad. The guy’s story is kinda shaky. He sure doesn’t seem to have much of a plan.” The words were clearly aimed at convincing me as much as Joey to simply take off and leave Louis Stoaffer far behind.

  He stared at me for a moment and then grinned. “Thomas, are you gettin’ cold feet?” Joey paused as if really enjoying my discomfort. “Whadda we gonna do if we leave? Sounds like Lou’s deal might be worth some big bucks.” He watched me for a moment before continuing, “Yer the one who’s always goin’ on about makin’ a big score and takin’ off somewheres.”

  All of a sudden, the strange things I had been seeing and feeling over the last couple of days seemed a bit silly. “You’re right. I guess I’m just worrying too much.”

  Joey let out a laugh and said, “Jus’ try not to be such an old lady.”

  Even though I knew it had little chance of changing Joey’s mind, I offered one last point, “Don’t you think it’s kind of strange that we rob a little grocery store in the middle of nowhere and just happen to run into an old guy with a scheme to grab a fortune?”

  Joey was now shaking his head and chuckling, “It’s called good luck! Don’t know ‘bout you, but I think we could use some o’ that.”

  I nodded and asked, “So where is he?”

  He flipped his head in the direction of the hallway. “Back there somewhere.”

  “Hmm, perfect time to skip outta here,” I said

  only half-kiddingly.

  Joey looked at me with a flash of irritation.

  “Just kidding!” I added to defend myself.

  As if on cue, Stoaffer called from down the hall, “Gentlemen, your accommodations await!”

  Joey’s expression changed to amused curiosity as he stepped around me toward the hallway. After a few seconds, I turned and followed him. Down the hallway, several doors awaited. The only opened door was at the end of the hall on the left. The sound of things being moved clearly came from that doorway. Joey was inside the room as I stopped at the door and peered inside. What I saw surprised me.

  Unlike the rest of the house with its haze of dust and smell of shit, this room appeared bright and clean. The room almost seemed to be unconnected to the rest of the house.

  Apparently, Stoaffer had found three mattresses, because he was sliding one of them against the far wall. Joey had already planted himself on one of the others and beamed at me with a wide grin. “Well, arncha you gonna grab a nap?”

  Louis observed me and said, “These mattresses don’t appear to be of the highest quality, but I hope they will suffice under the circumstances.”

  At the moment, those mattresses seemed to be the most inviting things in the entire world. For the first time in quite a while, a genuine smile curled my lips. ‘Yes, I think they will more than suffice, Louis.”

  My reply obviously pleased Stoaffer as he smiled back. Joey was also thrilled as I made way to a mattress on the wall opposite his.

  “Jus’ like one, big, happy fam’ly!” He exclaimed.

  I kicked off my shoes and lay down on the mattress to the left of the door. As I did, it struck me that all of the strange thoughts I had been having and the visions of the house’s previous occupants were nothing more than the products of a very tired brain.

  Nothing struck me or my tired brain again until I woke up with a start in a dark room.

  Chapter 8

  Anytime you wake up in a new place, it takes a minute to remember where you are. You may go through a certain period of near panic when you first become aware of being in an unfamiliar place. For me, the period of confusion lasted a little longer than usual. Adding
to my confusion was the sense of someone standing in the dark a few feet from me.

  The realization of not being alone put a charge through my body. With this jolt of energy, I spun off the bed and to my feet facing the dark form. ‘Who’s that?” I yelped trying unsuccessfully to keep the traces of panic out of my voice.

  The shape started to move toward me, and I almost ran screaming from the place. All of a sudden, light stabbed into the dark room. A small fluorescent lantern dangled from a hand belonging to Louis Stoaffer. The effect was not much different than the ghostly appear-ance of someone holding a flashlight under their chin.

  “Jesus Christ, Louis! You scared the shit out of me!” The forced irritation in my voice did not completely mask my fear. “What the hell are you doing standing in the dark?”

  He stood completely still as if deep in thought. The shadows made his face appear sharp and threatening by finding every wrinkle and crevice. For what seemed like minutes but was more likely just seconds, Stoaffer stood still and silent As I was about to repeat my question, the old man twitched and then stared right at me.

  “Thomas, I need your help,” he said in a flat voice.

  “And just how can I help you?” I asked somehow knowing the answer was very important to him.