by Rick Hautala
The tightening grip clamped Dianne’s arms to her sides, pinning her tightly. She rolled her head back and looked up at inch-thick rope that was looped several times around the tree branch. The sky overhead was a mass of roiling, tumbling, gray clouds veined with jagged white lines of lightning.
Pure, numbing terror filled Dianne. She tried to cry out, but the other end of the rope was wrapped around her neck, strangling her, squeezing ever tighter. Her tongue felt swollen, too large for her mouth; it pressed outward against her teeth, trapped behind the metal wires that kept her mouth shut and prevented her from screaming. Brilliant flowers of light popped like Fourth of July fireworks across her vision as she struggled to move her arms and legs. The pressure around her throat increased, stopping off all hope she had of making even the tiniest sound. Hammering white flashes—either lightning or some defect of vision—filled her eyes, searing her with pain. A muffled silence embraced her, broken only by the agonized wail of the baby, growing fainter with distance.
Someone! Help me! I can’t breathe!
Dianne’s mind was paralyzed with panic. The crying of the baby was drowned out by the steadily rising beat of her pulse as it throbbed in her head. Every nerve in her body was on fire. She imagined that, out of the darkness around her, dozens—no, hundreds of thin, black hands reached out for her, trying to pull her down into the darkness where she knew they would rip her to pieces.
“—I curse this man! May the Lord smite him and all the liars who have brought me to this untimely end!—”
The words filled Dianne’s mind as though someone was standing right beside her, shouting them into her ear. Her body trembled as she strained to move an arm or a leg so she could turn and see who was speaking to her. The baby’s crying continued, unabated.
“—None of ye shall escape the cleansing fire of the Lord’s judgment! Do ye hear me?—”
The voice rang in the raging darkness like metal striking metal. The fire-edged night closed down around Dianne like smothering smoke as she looked frantically to both sides, trying to discover who was speaking. A heavy, gray cloak flapped behind her, sounding like the flutter of unseen wings in the dark.
“—I beseech the Lord in heaven to smite with just retribution whomever is living in my house! Let them and all their kin burn in the agony of hellfire!—”
“… No-o-o-o-o! ! !”
The single word rose up inside of her mind like the shriek of a jet engine. Higher and higher it whined, louder and louder until it passed beyond hearing. With a nearly superhuman burst of effort, Dianne forced her arms to move. It felt as though every muscle up to her neck and shoulders ripped from the strain. Her stomach muscles contracted, and with a sudden roaring exhalation through her mouth, she jerked forward into a sitting position. Her vision pulsated with bright flashes as she looked around the darkened bedroom.
“Hey! Hey, honey! What’s the matter?”
Edward’s voice came to her from far away. Cringing and trembling with fright, Dianne listened for the crying baby but could hear nothing. When Edward’s hand touched her from out of the darkness, she squealed and pulled away from him, mistrusting everything. She feared that his hand might suddenly grab her and drag her back down into the pure, freezing darkness that had almost claimed her.
She swallowed and tried to speak, but the muscles and tendons in her throat were ruined. Each gulp of breath felt like she was swallowing liquid fire.
“Hey, it was just a dream—just a dream,” Edward whispered as his hands sought her in the dark and pulled her to him. Dianne’s mind went blank with terror as his embrace pinned her arms down to her sides.
“There, there,” he cooed as he stroked her hair back from her sweaty forehead. He cupped her chin in his hand, turned her to face him in the darkness, then kissed her forehead. “You just had a bad dream, that’s all … Nothing more.”
Hot tears welled up from deep inside her until they exploded in a shuddering gasp. She pressed her face hard against his shoulder and tried to shutout the rush of horrifying images that filled her mind.
“It was … it was horrible!” she said.
Her shattered voice, distorted by the wires in her mouth, still sounded like someone else was speaking. Maybe, she thought, it was that person who had spoken to her in her dream, saying words that, try as she might, she could no longer remember.
“There was a—a helicopter, and I was … was hanging from it. I—” She touched her neck with one hand, surprised not to feel angry welts around her throat where the rope had chafed her. “I was … hanging!”
“Okay, okay … Just calm down, now. It’s all over. It was only a nightmare.”
“But it was so real!”
“Just relax. It’s all over.”
“But I … I hope you realize that I don’t blame you,” she said, sobbing as Edward hugged her close and massaged the muscles knotting up in the back of her neck. Her warm tears made the skin beneath her bandages feel unbearably hot.
“Honest—honey!” she said, forcing out each word as if it were her last. “I don’t blame you … for what happened … to me!”
Chapter Nine
Red Ball
A thin blade of morning sun sliced around the edges of the drawn bedroom window shade. A flat laser angled across the floor and clipped one corner of Brian’s bed. Gentle puffs of breeze shifted the shade back and forth like a limp sail; then it snapped loudly once when a door opened downstairs. Brian heard his father’s footsteps click like a turning gun cylinder as he walked out to the garage. He heard him open the garage door, start up the car, then back out to the backdoor steps before killing the engine.
Brian lay on his bed with his hands clasped behind his head as he stared at the glowing line of white fire around the window edge. He kept his mind focused on the activity downstairs and outside. When his father came back into the house, the window shade snapped again. Brian heard his father and Dianne talking in hushed tones, but he wasn’t able to tell what they were saying. He guessed they were eating breakfast before heading out to the hospital. Brian figured that, as always, Dianne was complaining about how miserable she felt … as if she could make things better by making his father—and him—just as miserable as she was.
Brian knew the drive to the Maine Medical Center in Portland would take at least an hour. He had no idea how long his dad planned to stay around there with Dianne, but he knew his father would spend some time getting her settled in her hospital room before the surgery tomorrow morning. Brian figured he’d have pretty much most of the day to himself, the whole morning, at least. Last night before bed, his dad had asked him if he wanted to come along with them for the day, but he had declined, saying he’d just as soon hang out at home. Thankfully, his father hadn’t called up to him this morning, asking again if he’d like to come with them.
Of course, there was nothing to do at home, but it sure beat spending any more time than was absolutely necessary with Dianne.
As soon as his father shouted “We’re leaving,” and he heard the car start up again and pull away, Brian leaped out of bed. He quickly dressed in his standard jeans and dark green T-shirt, and went downstairs for breakfast. The silence of the house seemed oddly both relaxed and tense as he poured himself a glass of orange juice, fixed a bowl of Rice Krispies, and sat down at the kitchen table to eat.
With the sound of crunching cereal loud in his ears, he stared at the sunlight pouring through the kitchen window, unable to stop thinking about what he’d have planned for today if he were back home with his real friends. It frustrated him that he still hadn’t connected with Nate Beck and his “good buds.” He’d talked to them a few more times downtown, but it now seemed to Brian as though those boys were purposely snubbing him. His ears burned whenever he remembered them shouting out, “Did you see that? Holy shit! The Old Witch Lady’s back!”
Indeed, she was!
Over the past several weeks, at least in Brian’s mind, Dianne had turned into a horrible, deformed witc
h. What little he could see of her face beneath her bandages was deathly pale and scarred, like some freakish creation of Dr. Frankenstein’s or, in fact, a witch who drank the blood of little children to stay alive. But, he told himself, it wasn’t just Dianne’s looks that made him dislike her—it was a lot more than that. It was her attitude, her entire personality that bothered Brian. With each passing day, he found himself wishing more and more that his father had never married Dianne. Once or twice, he had actually wished that she had died in that fall from the cliff.
“That would have solved everything,” he whispered.
His hand holding the spoon curled into a fist, and he slammed it down hard next to his cereal bowl, making Rice Krispies and milk slop out onto the table.
“And if she had, that sure as hell would have made my summer a whole lot better!”
The day grew steadily hotter, but it was cool in the shaded backyard, so Brian dragged the spider web-encrusted croquet set out of the garage, intending to play a game against himself. After pounding in the posts and setting up the wickets, though, his frustration about being by himself all the time crested. Simmering with anger, he lined up all of the colored balls side by side and then fired them, one by one, across the lawn. With each hit, he muttered, “Fuck you! Fuck you!” He knew exactly whose face he was picturing on every single wooden ball.
Hissing through clenched teeth, he stalked around the yard, slamming a croquet ball whenever he found one. It didn’t matter which direction they went or if they even came close to the wickets, just as long as he pounded the crap out of them. When one went sailing off into the fringe of woods that bordered the yard, though, a chill raced up his back when he considered plunging into the dense brush after it.
Hey, what’s the big deal? he wondered as he stood on the edge of the woods, crouching as he peered into the tangle of green. The ball—he thought it might be the redone—was out of sight. Lost. So what?
But then he thought, what if his dad noticed the ball was missing? What if he got into trouble for it?
“Goddamn it!” Brian whispered as his frustration rose even higher.
He pounded the ground with his mallet, making a rounded divot in the sod, then swung the mallet viciously at the brush. The rustling sound startled a bird, who flew up, squawking, from nearby in the woods. The sudden noise made Brian squeal and jump, but then he took heart. Determined to find the ball even if it took him all day, he plunged into the woods. What the hell did it matter, anyway? He didn’t have anything better to do!
But after fifteen minutes of searching, he still hadn’t found the ball. He thrashed through the underbrush, and several times went back out onto the lawn and tried to reenact the hit, but he couldn’t get a line on where the ball might have gone. Had it rolled down into a woodchuck’s hole or something? He considered getting the lawn mower out of the garage and plowing through the underbrush but decided against it. It was too hot for that kind of work, anyway.
But he didn’t want to give up. He had to find that damned ball. It had become a matter of pride.
Brian wasn’t sure when the feeling first hit him, but at some point while he was swatting the brush with his mallet, he realized that he was feeling odd … as if someone hidden nearby was watching him. The hairs at the nape of his neck prickled, and a light chill that had nothing to do with being in the shadows raced up his back. He paused and looked around but saw and heard nothing unusual. When the feeling that he was being watched spiked into certainty, he had to force himself to continue doing what he had been doing while he glanced furtively around, trying to see who it was.
“Damned ball!” he muttered, hoping to convince whoever might be listening that he didn’t suspect anything, that all he cared about was finding his croquet ball.
He wanted to believe that he was imagining things, that he had simply gotten spooked—for whatever reason—and was letting his imagination get carried away; but as much as he tried to deny it, the woods seemed suddenly alive with menace. The dappled blue shadows deepened like spreading ink stains. The sluggish breeze in the pines made a faint whistling sound just at the edge of hearing. It sounded almost like someone nearby, breathing heavily. A rippling chill sprinkled Brian’s arms with goose bumps. His eye tracked the distance back to the house as he mentally calculated how fast he could get back there. And then, like a bolt of lightning striking from a clear summer sky, a memory hit him.
He’d had this feeling before!
That afternoon out at his grandmother’s house!
Icy tension knotted in his stomach as he recalled that morning more than a month ago. While his father and Dianne had been going through the house, collecting the dead woman’s things to give to Goodwill, he had gone into the back yard. Over by the rusted swing set, he had the feeling that he was being watched.
Could there really be someone out there in the woods? Was someone lurking around and keeping an eye on him, for whatever reason? Could it have been the same person then as now?
He squinted and stared into the woods but saw nothing except a riot of green light and dark shadows. Sure, someone could easily be hiding anywhere in there. Brian’s breath came in shallow gulps. His throat felt raw and dry, and he squeezed the mallet handle so tightly he lost all feeling in his hands as he started moving slowly back toward the house. The impulse to start running was strong in him, but he maintained the façade of searching for the missing ball as he retraced his steps.
To hell with the croquet ball! he thought when his apprehension suddenly jolted into needle-sharp panic. Uttering a low cry, he doubled over and started running toward the house as fast as he could. He crossed the small yard in a flash, almost losing his balance when he leaped up onto the top porch step. Flinging the mallet aside, he fumbled to turn the doorknob. He was fearful that the door was locked, but—thankfully!—it turned, and the door swung wide open. He stumbled on the doormat and practically fell into the house. As soon as he was inside, he spun around, slammed the door shut, and bolted the lock with a wild swipe of his hand. Then, without pausing to catch his breath, he ran down the hallway to the front door and made sure that was locked. As soon as that was done, he checked the bolt on the cellar door, then raced all through the house, making sure the latches on all the windows were secured.
“Okay … okay! … Just calm down! … No one’s out there! … Nothing’s gonna happen!” he gasped, clutching his knees as he leaned forward and tried to catch his breath. A trickle of cold sweat made him shiver as it dripped down the back of his neck.
“You’re safe now … Just take it easy!”
His voice sounded thin and tinny, and as much as he tried to convince himself otherwise, he didn’t feel at all safe. He still felt exposed, still in danger, as if whoever might have been watching him from the woods was still hidden somewhere nearby and was still able to see him. From somewhere, unseen eyes were watching everything he did, every move he made.
“Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!” Brian muttered. He wished he still had the croquet mallet, but that was outside on the porch, and there was no way he was going back out there to get it—not until his father came back home. If he needed something to protect himself, he could find something else in the house—a kitchen knife or something.
“But this is ridiculous!” he said. He straightened up, squared his shoulders, and looked around the silent house. “I’ve got to get a grip!”
His sneakers made mouselike squeaks on the floor as he walked into the kitchen. His empty juice glass and cereal bowl were right there on the table where he had left them, but he looked past them to the counter, where the handle of the large carving knife stuck up out of the cutlery block. His hand was trembling as he grabbed the knife and pulled it out. Light glinted wickedly off the blade as he twisted it back and forth and whispered, “All right! So just try and scare me now!”
He glanced at the clock and saw that it was almost one o’clock—past time for lunch. He knew he should just act like nothing was wrong. The thing to do was
make himself a sandwich, sit down and relax, and enjoy the rest of the afternoon. But his stomach was so twisted with alarm that he didn’t feel at all hungry. He didn’t think he’d be able to eat for a week! When’s Dad gonna be home? was the question topmost in his mind. It’d be no problem to stay inside all afternoon if he had to. He could watch TV, play Nintendo, listen to music, or read—whatever!
But what if Dad doesn’t show up until after dark?
The thought gnawed at his stomach like a hungry worm.
What if he calls and says he’s going to spend the night in Portland so he can be with Dianne before her surgery tomorrow morning?
Still clutching the handle of the carving knife, Brian moved from the kitchen into the living room. He paused at the big picture window, crouching low and pushing the edge of the curtain aside with the knife blade so he could peek out at the heat-hazed afternoon. Everything looked peaceful, completely normal. There were no threatening shadows shifting in the fringe of woods across the road. No skulking figure darting quickly out of sight.
Was there really someone out there? he wondered over and over. Or am I just making it up?
Back home in Arizona, he had never been afraid to be left alone for a few hours. Lots of times his mother had to work late at the real estate office, and he had to get supper for himself and sometimes even go to bed before she got home. He’d never had a problem with that before, so why now?
Was it just the unfamiliarity of this house? This town? This whole damned state of Maine? What was it about this place that was getting to him so badly?
It couldn’t simply be his father’s house. He’d felt just as threatened, just as vulnerable that other day out at his grandmother’s house. So what was it? Was it only a fabrication of his loneliness? … Or was there really someone out there, hanging around the area and spying on him?
But why would anyone do that?