by Dean Koontz
Laura smiled and said, “Exotic news.”
Two days later Laura was returned to McIlroy Home.
6
Willy Sheener’s living room and den were furnished as if an ordinary man lived there. Stefan was not sure what he had expected. Evidence of dementia, perhaps, but not this neat, orderly home.
One of the bedrooms was empty, and the other was decidedly odd. The only bed was a narrow mattress on the floor. The pillowcases and sheets were for a child’s room, emblazoned with the colorful, antic figures of cartoon rabbits. The nightstand and dresser were scaled to a child’s dimensions, pale blue, with stenciled animals on the sides and drawers: giraffes, rabbits, squirrels. Sheener owned a collection of Little Golden Books, as well, and other children’s picture books, stuffed animals, and toys suitable for a six- or seven-year-old.
At first Stefan thought that room was designed for the seduction of neighborhood children, that Sheener was unstable enough to seek out prey even on his home ground, where the risk was greatest. But there was no other bed in the house, and the closet and dresser drawers were filled with a man’s clothing. On the walls were a dozen framed photos of the same red-headed boy, some as an infant, some when he was seven or eight, and the face was identifiably that of a younger Sheener. Gradually Stefan realized the decor was for Willy Sheener’s benefit alone. The creep slept here. At bedtime Sheener evidently retreated into a fantasy of childhood, no doubt finding a desperately needed peace in his eerie, nightly regression.
Standing in the middle of that strange room, Stefan felt both saddened and repelled. It seemed that Sheener molested children not solely or even primarily for the sexual thrill of it but to absorb their youth, to become young again like them; through perversion he seemed to be trying to descend not into moral squalor so much as into a lost innocence. He was equally pathetic and despicable, inadequate to the challenges of adult life but nonetheless dangerous for his inadequacies.
Stefan shivered.
7
Her bed in the Ackerson twins’ room was now occupied by another kid. Laura was assigned to a small, two-bed room at the north end of the third floor near the stairs. Her bunkmate was nine-year-old Eloise Fischer, who had pigtails, freckles, and a demeanor too serious for a child. “I’m going to be an accountant when I grow up,” she told Laura. “I like numbers a lot. You can add up a column of numbers and get the same answer every time. There’re no surprises with numbers; they’re not at all like people.” Eloise’s parents had been convicted of drug dealing and sent to prison, and she was in McIlroy while the court decided which relative would be given custody of her.
As soon as Laura had unpacked, she hurried to the Ackersons’ room. Bursting in on them, she cried, “I is free, I is free!”
Tammy and the new girl looked at her blankly, but Ruth and Thelma ran to her and hugged her, and it was like coming home to real family.
“Your foster family didn’t like you?” Ruth asked.
Thelma said, “Ah ha! You used the Ackerson Plan.”
“No, I killed them all while they slept.”
“That’ll work,” Thelma agreed.
The new girl, Rebecca Bogner, was about eleven. She and the Ackersons obviously were not sympatico. Listening to Laura and the twins, Rebecca kept saying “you’re weird” and “too weird” and “jeez, what weirdos,” with such an air of superiority and disdain that she poisoned the atmosphere as effectively as a nuclear detonation.
Laura and the twins went outside to a corner of the playground where they could share five weeks of news without Rebecca’s snotty commentary. It was early October, and the days were still warm, though at a quarter till five the air was cooling. They wore jackets and sat on the lower branches of the jungle gym, which was abandoned now that the younger children were washing up for the early dinner.
They had not been in the yard five minutes before Willy Sheener arrived with an electric shrub trimmer. He set to work on a eugenia hedge about thirty feet from them, but his attention was on Laura.
At dinner the Eel was at his serving station on the cafeteria line, passing out cartons of milk and pieces of cherry pie. He had saved the largest slice for Laura.
On Monday she entered a new school where the other kids already had four weeks to make friends. Ruth and Thelma were in a couple of her classes, which made it easier to adjust, but she was reminded that the primary condition of an orphan’s life was instability.
Tuesday afternoon, when Laura returned from school, Mrs. Bowmaine stopped her in the hall. “Laura, may I see you in my office?”
Mrs. Bowmaine was wearing a purple floral-pattern dress that clashed with the rose and peach floral patterns of her office drapes and wallpaper. Laura sat in a rose-patterned chair. Mrs. Bowmaine stood at her desk, intending to deal with Laura quickly and move on to other tasks. Mrs. Bowmaine was a bustler, a busy-busy type.
“Eloise Fischer left our charge today,” Mrs. Bowmaine said.
“Who got custody?” Laura asked. “She liked her grandmother. ”
“It was her grandmother,” Mrs. Bowmaine confirmed.
Good for Eloise. Laura hoped the pigtailed, freckled, future accountant would find something to trust besides cold numbers.
“Now you’ve no roommate,” Mrs. Bowmaine said briskly, “and we’ve no vacant bed elsewhere, so you can’t just move in with—”
“May I make a suggestion?”
Mrs. Bowmaine frowned with impatience and consulted her watch.
Laura said quickly, “Ruth and Thelma are my best friends, and their roomies are Tammy Hinsen and Rebecca Bogner. But I don’t think Tammy and Rebecca get along well with Ruth and Thelma, so—”
“We want you children to learn how to live with people different from you. Bunking with girls you already like won’t build character. Anyway, the point is, I can’t make new arrangements until tomorrow; I’m busy today. So I want to know if I can trust you to spend the night alone in your current room.”
“Trust me?” Laura asked in confusion.
“Tell me the truth, young lady. Can I trust you alone tonight?”
Laura could not figure what trouble the social worker anticipated from a child left alone for one night. Perhaps she expected Laura to barricade herself in the room so effectively that police would have to blast the door, disable her with tear gas, and drag her out in chains.
Laura was as insulted as she was confused. “Sure, I’ll be okay. I’m not a baby. I’ll be fine.”
“Well... all right. You’ll sleep by yourself tonight, but we’ll make other arrangements tomorrow.”
After leaving Mrs. Bowmaine’s colorful office for the drab hallways, climbing the stairs to the third floor, Laura suddenly thought: the White Eel! Sheener would know she was going to be alone tonight. He knew everything that went on at McIlroy, and he had keys, so he could return in the night. Her room was next to the north stairs, so he could slip out of the stairwell into her room, overpower her in seconds. He’d club her or drug her, stuff her in a burlap sack, take her away, lock her in a cellar, and no one would know what had happened to her.
She turned at the second-floor landing, descended the stairs two at a time, and rushed back toward Mrs. Bowmaine’s office, but when she turned the corner into the front hall, she nearly collided with the Eel. He had a mop and a wringer-equipped bucket on wheels, which was filled with water reeking of pine-scented cleanser.
He grinned at her. Maybe it was only her imagination, but she was certain that he already knew she would be alone that night.
She should have stepped by him, gone to Mrs. Bowmaine, and begged for a change in the night’s sleeping arrangements. She could not make accusations about Sheener, or she would wind up like Denny Jenkins—disbelieved by the staff, tormented relentlessly by her nemesis—but she could have found an acceptable excuse for her change of mind.
She also considered rushing at him, shoving him into his bucket, knocking him on his butt, and telling him that she was tougher than him,
that he had better not mess with her. But he was different from the Teagels. Mike, Flora, and Hazel were small-minded, obnoxious, ignorant, but comparatively sane. The Eel was insane, and there was no way of knowing how he would react to being knocked flat.
As she hesitated, his crooked, yellow grin widened.
A flush touched his pale cheeks, and Laura realized it might be a flush of desire, which made her nauseous.
She walked away, dared not run until she had climbed the stairs and was out of his sight. Then she sprinted for the Ackersons’ room.
“You’ll sleep here tonight,” Ruth said.
“Of course,” Thelma said, “you’ll have to stay in your room until they finish the bed check, then sneak down here.”
From her corner where she was sitting in bed doing math homework, Rebecca Bogner said, “We’ve only got four beds.”
“I’ll sleep on the floor,” Laura said.
“This is against the rules,” Rebecca said.
Thelma made a fist and glowered at her.
“Okay, all right,” Rebecca agreed. “I never said I didn’t want her to stay. I just pointed out that it’s against the rules.”
Laura expected Tammy to object, but the girl lay on her back in bed, atop the covers, staring at the ceiling, apparently lost in her own thoughts and uninterested in their plans.
In the oak-paneled dining room, over an inedible dinner of pork chops, gluey mashed potatoes, and leathery green beans—and under the watchful eyes of the Eel—Thelma said, “As for why Bowmaine wanted to know if she could trust you alone... she’s afraid you’ll try suicide.”
Laura was incredulous.
“Kids have done it here,” Ruth said sadly. “Which is why they stuff at least two of us into even very small rooms. Being alone too much... that’s one of the things that seems to trigger the impulse.”
Thelma said, “They won’t let Ruth and me share one of the small rooms because, since we’re identical twins, they think we’re really like one person. They think they’d no sooner close the door on us than we’d hang ourselves.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Laura said.
“Of course it’s ridiculous,” Thelma agreed. “Hanging isn’t flamboyant enough. The amazing Ackerson sisters—Ruth and moi—have a flair for the dramatic. We’d commit hara-kiri with stolen kitchen knives, or if we could get hold of a chainsaw ...”
Throughout the room conversations were conducted in moderate voices, for adult monitors patrolled the dining hall. The third-floor Resident Advisor, Miss Keist, passed behind the table where Laura sat with the Ackersons, and Thelma whispered, “Gestapo.”
When Miss Keist passed, Ruth said, “Mrs. Bowmaine means well, but she just isn’t good at what she does. If she took time to learn what kind of person you are, Laura, she’d never worry about you committing suicide. You’re a survivor.”
As she pushed her inedible food around her plate, Thelma said, “Tammy Hinsen was once caught in the bathroom with a packet of razor blades, trying to get up the nerve to slash her wrists.”
Laura was suddenly impressed by the mix of humor and tragedy, absurdity and bleak realism, that formed the peculiar pattern of their lives at McIlroy. One moment they were bantering amusingly with one another; a moment later they were discussing the suicidal tendencies of girls they knew. She realized that such an insight was beyond her years, and as soon as she returned to her room, she would write it down in the notebook of observations she had recently begun to keep.
Ruth had managed to choke down the food on her plate. She said, “A month after the razor-blade incident, they held a surprise search of our rooms, looking for dangerous objects. They found Tammy had a can of lighter fluid and matches. She’d intended to go into the showers, cover herself with lighter fluid, and set herself on fire.”
“Oh, God.” Laura thought of the thin, blond girl with the ashen complexion and the sooty rings around her eyes, and it seemed that her plan to immolate herself was only a desire to speed up the slow fire that for a long time had been consuming her from within.
“They sent her away two months for intense therapy,” Ruth said.
“When she came back,” Thelma said, “the adults talked about how much better she was, but she seemed the same to Ruth and me.”
Ten minutes after Miss Keist’s nightly room check, Laura left her bed. The deserted, third-floor hall was lit only by three safety lamps. Dressed in pajamas, carrying a pillow and blanket, she hurried barefoot to the Ackersons’ room.
Only Ruth’s bedside lamp was aglow. She whispered, “Laura, you sleep on my bed. I’ve made a place for myself on the floor.”
“Well, unmake it and get back in your bed,” Laura said.
She folded her blanket several times to make a pad on the floor, near the foot of Ruth’s bed, and she lay on it with her pillow.
From her own bed Rebecca Bogner said, “We’re all going to get in trouble over this.”
“What’re you afraid they’ll do to us?” Thelma asked. “Stake us in the backyard, smear us with honey, and leave us for the ants?”
Tammy was sleeping or pretending to sleep.
Ruth turned out her light, and they settled down in darkness.
The door flew open, and the overhead light snapped on. Dressed in a red robe, scowling fiercely, Miss Keist entered the room. “So! Laura, what’re you doing here?”
Rebecca Bogner groaned. “I told you we’d get in trouble.”
“Come back to your room right this minute, young lady.”
The swiftness with which Miss Keist appeared was suspicious, and Laura looked at Tammy Hinsen. The blonde was no longer feigning sleep. She was leaning on one elbow, smiling thinly. Evidently she had decided to assist the Eel in his quest for Laura, perhaps with the hope of regaining her status as his favorite.
Miss Keist escorted Laura to her room. Laura got into bed, and Miss Keist stared at her for a moment. “It’s warm. I’ll open the window.” Returning to the bed, she studied Laura thoughtfully. “Is there anything you want to tell me? Is anything wrong?”
Laura considered telling her about the Eel. But what if Miss Keist waited to catch the Eel as he crept into her room, and what if he didn’t show? Laura would never be able to accuse the Eel again because she’d have a history of accusing him; no one would take her seriously. Then even if Sheener raped her, he’d get away with it.
“No, nothing’s wrong,” she said.
Miss Keist said, “Thelma’s too sure of herself for a girl her age, full of false sophistication. If you’re foolish enough to break the rules again just to have an all-night gabfest, develop some friends worth taking the risk for.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Laura said just to get rid of her, sorry that she had even considered responding to the woman’s moment of concern.
After Miss Keist left, Laura did not get out of bed and flee. She lay in darkness, certain there would be another bed check in half an hour. Surely the Eel would not slither around until midnight, and it was only ten, so between Miss Keist’s next visit and the Eel’s arrival, she’d have plenty of time to get to a safe place.
Far, far away in the night, thunder grumbled. She sat up in bed. Her guardian! She threw back the covers and ran to the window. She saw no lightning. The distant rumble faded. Perhaps it had not been thunder after all. She waited ten minutes or more, but nothing else happened. Disappointed, she returned to bed.
Shortly after ten-thirty the doorknob creaked. Laura closed her eyes, let her mouth fall open, and feigned sleep.
Someone stepped quietly across the room, stood beside the bed.
Laura breathed slowly, evenly, deeply, but her heart was racing.
It was Sheener. She knew it was him. Oh, God, she had forgotten he was insane, that he was unpredictable, and now he was here earlier than she’d expected, and he was preparing the hypodermic. He’d jam her into a burlap sack and carry her away as if he was a brain-damaged Santa Claus come to steal children rather than leave gifts.
The clock ticked. The cool breeze rustled the curtains.
At last the person beside the bed retreated. The door closed.
It had been Miss Keist, after all.
Trembling violently, Laura got out of bed and pulled on her robe. She folded the blanket over her arm and left the room without slippers because she would make less noise if she was barefoot.
She could not return to the Ackersons’ room. Instead she went to the north stairs, cautiously opened the door, and stepped onto the dimly lit landing. She listened for the sound of the Eel’s footsteps below. She descended warily, expecting to encounter Sheener, but she reached the ground floor safely.
Shivering as the cool tile floor imparted its chill to her bare feet, she took refuge in the game room. She didn’t turn on the lights but relied on the ghostly glow of the streetlamps that penetrated the windows and silvered the edges of the furniture. She eased past chairs and game tables, bedding down on her folded blanket behind the sofa.
She dozed fitfully, waking repeatedly from nightmares. The old mansion was filled with stealthy sounds in the night: the creaking of floorboards overhead, the hollow popping of ancient plumbing.
8
Stefan turned out all the lights and waited in the bedroom that was furnished for a child. At three-thirty in the morning, he heard Sheener returning. Stefan moved silently behind the bedroom door. A few minutes later Willy Sheener entered, switched on the light, and started toward the mattress. He made a queer sound as he crossed the room, partly a sigh and partly the whimper of an animal escaping from a hostile world into its burrow.
Stefan closed the door, and Sheener spun around at the sound of movement, shocked that his nest had been invaded. “Who... who are you? What the hell are you doing here?”
From a Chevy parked in the shadows across the street, Kokoschka watched Stefan depart Willy Sheener’s house. He waited ten minutes, got out of the car, walked around to the back of the bungalow, found the door ajar, and cautiously went inside.
He located Sheener in a child’s bedroom, battered and bloody and still. The air reeked of urine, for the man had lost control of his bladder.
Someday, Kokoschka thought with grim determination and a thrill of sadism, I’m going to hurt Stefan even worse than this. Him and that damned girl. As soon as I understand what part she plays in his plans and why he’s jumping across decades to reshape her life, I’ll put both of them through the kind of pain that no one knows this side of hell.
He left Sheener’s house. In the backyard he stared up at the star-spattered sky for a moment, then returned to the institute.
9
Shortly after dawn, before the first of the shelter’s residents had arisen but when Laura felt the danger from Sheener had passed, she left her bed in the game room and returned to the third floor. Everything in her room was as she had left it. There was no sign that she’d had an intruder during the night.
Exhausted, bleary-eyed, she wondered if she had given the Eel too much credit for boldness and daring. She felt somewhat foolish.
She made her bed—a housekeeping chore every McIlroy child was expected to perform—and when she lifted her pillow she was paralyzed by the sight of what lay under it. A single Tootsie Roll.
That day the White Eel did not come to work. He had been awake all night preparing to abduct Laura and no doubt needed his sleep.
“How does a man like that sleep at all?” Ruth wondered as they gathered in a corner of McIlroy’s playground after school. “I mean, doesn’t his conscience keep him awake?”
“Ruthie,” Thelma said, “he doesn’t have a conscience.”
“Everyone does, even the worst of us. That’s how God made us.”
“Shane,” Thelma said, “prepare to assist me in an exorcism. Our Ruth is once again possessed by the moronic spirit of Gidget.”
In an uncharacteristic stroke of compassion, Mrs. Bowmaine moved Tammy and Rebecca to another room and allowed Laura to bunk with Ruth and Thelma. For the time being the fourth bed was vacant.
“It’ll be Paul McCartney’s bed,” Thelma said, as she and Ruth helped Laura settle in. “Anytime the Beatles are in town, Paul can come use it. And I’ll use Paul!”
“Sometimes,” Ruth said, “you’re embarrassing.”
“Hey, I’m only expressing healthy sexual desire.”
“Thelma, you’re only twelve!” Ruth said exasperatedly.