by Mia Zabrisky
No response.
“Little girl?”
Nothing.
I wanted to talk to her and find out what was going on. Or maybe she was dimwitted like her brother? Or maybe she would speak in tongues?
“Hello? Are you awake?” I inched closer into the room. The whole scene was much creepier in the daylight. Morning sunlight streamed into the room. How could she sleep in the direct sun like that? And if she was unconscious, why was she tied to the bed? How did she eat? Why wasn’t she connected to a respirator, a heart monitor or a feeding tube? Why wasn’t she institutionalized? Nothing made sense, and for the first time in my life I felt a bit uneasy, to tell you the truth. I wasn’t used to feeling this way. I started to think that maybe there was something seriously wrong with the widow.
“Hello?” I said again, shuffling closer.
Nothing. No movement. Just a steady, gentle breathing.
I reached for the pale hand bound by velvet to the nearest bedpost and touched her small, curled fingers. They were cold. “Isabelle?” I whispered.
All of a sudden, her eyes popped open. They were shiny black as a turtle’s and just as reptilian. I gasped and drew back, so startled by this unexpected sight that I stood cringing in a corner.
She said nothing. She didn’t move a muscle. She just gazed at me with those awful, wetly primitive eyes. It was one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever witnessed, and I’ve seen a lot of terrible things. Wicked things.
Suddenly, I was overcome with feelings. Emotions. Fear. Revulsion. My body shook with the kind of quaking terror I’d never experienced before. Inexplicable. And then sorrow surfaced, and longing and sadness. I couldn’t bear the thought of feeling anything, not even hate. I turned and ran down the narrow staircase and slammed the door and stood in the hallway, panting. I had to get the hell out of there. The house was old and worn and warm and nurturing and unnatural and full of children and cruelty and love and twisted tenderness and horror, but most especially a silent knowingness. Somehow a knowingness of who you were and where you’d been and what you’d done. A horrible judgment. And I swore, that creature upstairs knew all about me.
I tore down the staircase and out the back door and stood in the sunshine. I closed my eyes and faced the sun, my pulse racing. I took a few minutes to gather my thoughts. A warm wind shouldered through the trees, shaking them gently. I noticed a giant oak tree on the edge of the property. It was huge and sprawling and defied gravity, like a haunted-house tree, its gnarled branches reaching for the sky and begging for light. The hot wind made the leaves flutter—it sounded like faint rain.
I glanced around the property and saw Delilah’s stunted rose bushes, the ones she’d blamed those scratches on. The pink roses were coiled up tight, just like the widow. I stood in the afternoon heat with the sun beating down on me like a heavy rain and realized I would have to kill the thing in the attic. And then I’d have to kill Andy. And then I’d have to kill either Delilah or Olive. One or the other. Only three of them would die. Thirteen was my goal. Thirteen and done. I had a sense of renewal, of something very promising and rewarding waiting for me on the other side of that unlucky number.
I hesitated before going back inside. I was tempted to get in my car and get the hell out of there. You could only travel on the slate-gray road for so long before you fell under its spell, and then traveling was the only thing you wanted to do. You tore up a mountain in the Rockies knowing you could spin right over the edge of the world. You drove through a fleshy southern city the way an arrow pierces a beating heart, and you never wanted to stop. Ever.
Two squirrels were making a racket in a nearby tree. I picked up a fallen chestnut and flung it at them, and they scattered. I looked up at the attic window, and the fear ran up my legs and into my neck and congealed inside my face, especially around the eyes. At the same time, a ridiculous impulse to stay here forever burned in my brain. I was confused.
As a math teacher, you have to admit three plus ten equals 13.
Or T-H-I-R-T-E-N-E, depending on what kind of a moron you are.
I carried a physicality inside me that was built over time by hard labor and fueled by resentment and envy. I was much stronger than I looked. I had faced death many times. I had embraced death. Now I willed myself not to be afraid and went back inside the house.
The stairs creaked. The banister creaked. The walls creaked. I went directly to my room and rummaged through my duffel bag, aware of the girl’s presence hovering above me. I was sweating like a pig. I ran my hand over my chin. I’d forgotten to shave that morning.
I hurried down the hallway toward the bathroom, where I locked the door with the chintzy little latch and took a quick shower. I needed to clear my mind and wash off the heat and humidity. I cranked the faucets until the pipes rattled. I stood under a mere trickle of water, running my hands over the knotty, bumpy, purple scars on my flesh. Before he left me for dead, Baldilocks had carved T-H-I-R-T-E-N-E on my chest. He couldn’t spell worth a damn. I don’t know what made me madder—the ugly scars he’d left on my flesh or the way he’d misspelled my age that day.
I used to sleep like a baby, all twisted up in my sheets and breathing softly, just like the little girl in the attic. I used to think I was safe in my own home, and so I slept soundly, drunk on the fresh air wafting through my bedroom windows and sunk inside my own fluffy childhood dreamscape. My room used to smell of crayons and cookie crumbs, too. Just like any little kid’s room.
But then Baldilocks got inside my head and turned me into a monster.
And I blame him for everything.
He opened up a sick need in me and ruined my life.
And I’m going to get him.
We’ve been crisscrossing the country—him running, me chasing.
Baldilocks has been leaving me little messages in the classifieds for years.
The duct tape was a nice touch.
Killing morons is beneath you.
Okay, I get it. The latest one looks just like me. Happy birthday!
I’m 30 years old. My life ended on my 13th birthday. I was reborn a monster. I’ve been searching for the man who butchered my mother 17 years ago, and one of these days I was going to find him. And that would be a very bad day for him.
*
I was good at lying. I was even better at killing. I had mad skills. I could break into a room or a house or a heart. I could become invisible while standing right in front of you. All the best predators blended in. I could be anybody, and nobody.
And now, while I shaved my face in the mirror, I was filled with an understanding of my energy and my destiny and my fate. I definitely belonged in this house.
*
After a shower and shave, I got dressed in clean clothes, rooted around in my duffel bag, found my hunting knife, checked on the whereabouts of Olive and Andy—they were still outside playing games—and went upstairs to the attic.
The little girl heard me coming—I just knew it.
I opened the door and stood on the threshold. Her eyes were closed, and she pretended to be sleeping, but I knew the truth—she was lying in wait for me. I cautiously approached the bed and said, “Hi. My name is Clay.” No more pretenses. I stood beside the bed and slipped the knife out of my pocket. I held it down by my side. “I know you can hear me,” I told her. “I’d like to know why you’re stuck up here all by yourself, hidden away in the attic, while your brother and sister get to play outside. They had pancakes this morning. Does that seem fair to you? What’s the story here?”
I watched her breathing steadily, gently. There wasn’t the faintest suggestion of a response. Not a flicker of recognition.
“Don’t you think you should be allowed to go outside and feel the grass under your feet? Don’t you want to jump in the autumn leaves and build a snowman, like normal kids do?” I drew the knife forward and sliced through the velvet straps binding her wrists to the bedposts. I held her small hands for a moment before I released her.
&nbs
p; I stepped back and watched as she slowly rose up from the bed like a helium balloon. I heard a sound like old wooden joints creaking, a restless tension released from the aching woodwork and tired crossbeams. She rose up, lighter than air. She opened her turtle eyes and looked at me, and I froze, unable to think or move. Those blackest of eyes pierced my soul, and I fought off the impulse to bolt.
And then, silently and horribly, she started to paw at the air with frantic little movements, like a mouse trapped inside a toilet bowl. She floated silently toward me, pawing at the air, still tethered to the bedposts by the ankles—only the leg restraints kept her from dog paddling into my arms. It was a pathetic sight. She wasn’t crying or screaming or growling. Her head didn’t roll around. Her eyes didn’t shoot out jets of blood. She was just this desperate little thing trying to grab hold of me like a drowning child.
I was repulsed by her strange silence. I could hear her breathing rigidly through her nose, but it was her neediness that terrified me the most—every one of her gestures was so vulnerable and tender and raw, and above all, silent. No words, no screams, no swearing, no cursing, no shouting. Just this awkward, unbelievable silence, her mouth forming a perfect little ‘oh.’ Like an anxious dog choking on its collar, straining greatly on its leash and wheezing because its collar was too tight. It was awful. Hideous.
I realized I had to tie her back down. I attempted to grab her hands, while she pawed at my shirt and batted me harmlessly on the side of the head. I could hear her desperate little pleading breaths—in out, in out—like an animal fighting for its life. Her scalp smelled of overripe fruit and her cotton nightgown wilted on her small frame. I finally got one of her hands tied to the bedpost with a velvet restraint, but her other hand kept eluding me. Catching it was like catching a butterfly. She finally swiped me across the face, her nails grazing my cheek. “Ouch!”
But I finally got things squared away and got the hell out of there.
*
I sat in my room and drank from my flask and smoked a cigarette. Fingers trembling. Hands shaking. Really freaked out. All was dead silent up in that attic. Quiet as falling snow—an eerie absence of sound.
Okay, what had just happened? What had I seen? Was I losing my mind?
It’s not like I’m a normal sane person to begin with. I am ruled by my compulsions. Sometimes I count inside my head. If I’m tapping my finger on a table, I’ll start counting—one, two, three, four. If I’m rinsing the dishes, I’ll start counting—one, two, three, four. If I’m stabbing a victim, I’ll start counting—one, two, three, four.
Do they realize I count their last breaths? One, two, three, four.
What was wrong with that little girl? Could she really float? Or was it a trick?
I sat smoking my cigarette and gazing out my bedroom window. A pair of hawks circled the sky. They made a sad screeching sound, trying to flush the field mice out into the open.
Suddenly Olive started screaming bloody murder down by the swamp. “No, Andy! What are you doing?”
I strained to locate them, craning my neck. They were playing down the hill a ways, yelling at each other. “Stop it!” Olive shrieked.
I hurried out of the house and ran down a short hill toward the murky pond, where the water rippled like very old glass. Andy hitched up his shorts and jabbed a stick into a dead raccoon that lay belly-up on the muddy bank, its carcass bloated with decay. “Is it dead yet, Olive?” he asked, poking it furiously. “Is it?”
“Stop it, Andy. Don’t poke it like that!”
He pierced the dead animal’s swollen belly with the tip of the stick and said, “See, Olive? Those are its guts.”
“Please don’t!” she cried with alarm.
He pushed the stick in so deep that intestines gushed from the incision. “Look!”
I couldn’t rip my eyes away. The morning had exploded like a bomb, everything white hot and shimmering with shrapnel. All beauty had turned ugly. All truth withered. The sun was too hot. The pesky flies were too annoying. I could smell the rotten carcass deep in my nostrils, and it smelled like… Jesus, it smelled like the attic.
The boy stabbed and stabbed. “Stupid raccoon. Is it dead yet, Olive?”
The little girl trembled all over. “I hate you,” she whispered.
He stabbed the stick deeper, and more green stuff oozed out of the incision. “Ew!” he said delightedly. “Look at that, Olive! Its guts are coming out! See that?”
“Leave it alone!”
“Disgust-o.” He stabbed and stabbed. “Heck, yeah!” he said joyfully. “Oh! Do you see that? Do you see its shit? Its shit is coming out of its asshole. Look, Olive!”
“No!” she screamed and ran away.
I snatched the stick away and held it high out of reach.
“Give it back!” Andy cried shrilly, his face red and blotchy. He kept tugging on the crotch of his shorts because his crazy clothes were too tight.
I tried to grab him by the sweaty arm, but he was quicker than he looked. He ran around in lightning-fast circles, and Olive surprised me by flinging herself at me and wrapping herself tightly around my legs so that I couldn’t move.
“Run, Andy, run!” she cried.
The boy tore up the hill, waving his flabby, rash-ridden arms.
I peeled the girl off me like a Band-Aid and shook her angrily. “Stop that.”
“I hate you!” she screamed.
“Calm down.”
“No!”
She dug in her heels as I dragged her toward the house, thinking that perhaps my plans have changed. Maybe I’d have to kill them all.
“Let me go! I hate you!” she protested, her hair a sweaty swirl. She kicked and slapped and pushed and tugged until I finally let go, and she ran sobbing into the house.
I couldn’t move for a second. It was like one of those strange dreams you can’t wake up from. As if the sun had set and the sky had gone dark and the bats were out, but you couldn’t even summon the strength to go inside.
*
I found her in her mother’s room. The closet door was open, and Olive was standing on tiptoes, reaching for something on the top shelf.
“Can I help?” I offered from the doorway.
She turned to stare at me. She wiped away the tears and said, “My daddy died in the war. He died last year, and Mommy cried almost every night. I could hear her crying in her room.”
“What are you trying to get from the closet?”
“His ashes.” She pointed. “See the box?”
I spotted the tin biscuit box and nodded. “Are those your daddy’s ashes?”
She nodded.
“Want me to get them for you?”
“Yes, please.”
I walked over to the closet, picked up the tin biscuit box and made the mistake of shaking it. Something rattled around inside.
“Bone fragments,” she said.
I just looked at her.
“He’s not my real daddy,” she confessed.
“Not your daddy?”
“No,” she answered. “He’s my step-daddy.”
This must be Delilah’s husband, I thought, the one who died in Vietnam and left her a widow. Not Olive’s daddy? So who was Olive’s daddy? Not human, I’d bet. I’d bet a lot of money on it. I hefted the biscuit box in my hands, weighing what little remained of the soldier. I wanted to know what I was holding in my hands, but you could never really tell for sure.
“Where’d you get that cut?” she asked now, pointing at my face.
I touched my cheek where the girl in the attic had just scratched me. “Shaving.”
She made a disbelieving face. “You cut yourself shaving?”
I pulled out my handkerchief and wiped the blood off my cheek. “So who’s your real father?” I said, changing the subject.
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “We never met him.”
“We who?”
“Isabelle and me.”
I knelt down. “Your twin sister who lives in th
e attic?”
She nodded. “Our daddy was a bad man.”
“What’s his name?”
She shrugged.
“So you don’t know anything about him?”
“Mommy says he was a real bad man.”
“Was?”
“He’s gone.”
“That’s it? That’s all you know?”
“He was a real bad man,” she whispered, eyes narrowing. “Evil.”
“What did he do that was so evil?”
Olive shrugged. “I don’t know. He disappeared.”
“He ran off?”
“No,” she said impatiently. “He disappeared.”
“Oh,” I said uneasily.
“Just like the others.”
“What others?”
She shrugged noncommittally. “My step-daddy taught me how to whistle. Want to see?” She blew a thin, amateurish whistle.
“Wow. Impressive.” I put the ashes back on the closet shelf and tried to arrange the tin box the way I’d found it. The widow would be coming home soon.
Now Olive eyed me curiously. “You weren’t really in the army.”
“No,” I admitted with a shake of my head. “Not really.”
She looked at me for a long time. “You say things to make people feel calm and trusting, but you lie.”
I studied her a moment. Then I shrugged. “I wouldn’t call it lying, exactly.”
“What would you call it?”
I smiled. “Maybe I live in a different world than everybody else?”
She nodded smugly. “We live in a different world, too.”
“We who?”
“Isabelle and me.”
Just then, Delilah’s car pulled into the driveway.
*
That afternoon, I found the widow outside in the yard pruning her rose bushes. She wore a pair of gardening gloves and looked as if she’d been crying. Her face was red and splotchy, and her eyes were hidden behind a pair of dark sunglasses.