by Diane Hoh
Then she almost laughed aloud. Like it mattered…he was probably going to kill her, anyway, right here in the infirmary supply room. Hadn’t he said he had to “stop” her from showing her face in public? Hadn’t it sounded like he meant…permanently? As in forever?
“Stop shaking,” he ordered in that same ominous whisper. “I can’t do this right if you won’t sit still.”
Couldn’t do what right? What was he doing with that gauze?
Then she felt it. Hands on the top of her head, the softness of gauze being wound around her head, across her forehead, then around her head again, and again across her forehead….
“I didn’t want to have to do this, Jo. But you refused to understand how important it is for the world to be a beautiful place. All you had to do was stay inside until your bandages came off. Was that so much to ask? I don’t think so. I did it for years, day in, day out, for years! Never going outside in daylight where people could see me and hate me for the way I looked. I never even knew what the world really looked like until I was twelve because for all those years, I only saw it after dark. You can’t see much in the dark, Jo. Not much at all.”
Jo gasped and instinctively kicked out with her feet when the first layer of gauze reached her eyes. Having her eyes covered was terrifying. “No,” she cried, “no, don’t!”
In answer, he jerked cruelly on the bandage. “Shut up! I told you not to make a sound! If that stupid nurse comes running in here, I’ll have to kill her. And you’ll be responsible. So shut your mouth.”
“You didn’t lock the door?” Jo asked, hope in her voice.
“You need a key to lock it. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. The nurse is the only one here, and she’s busy. By the time she finishes with that idiot, Professor Lang, I’ll be long gone. And it’ll be too late for her to do anything for you.”
Another layer of gauze was wrapped around her eyes, then another. She could no longer see. Becoming suddenly blind was utterly terrifying.
“Forget about the door,” came the voice in her ear. “You’d never make it. I’m faster than you are, and my eyes aren’t covered.”
If she’d known about the door sooner….
“Quit kidding yourself,” as if she’d said the thought out loud. “I’d never have let you get to the door. That would have ruined everything.”
The wrapping continued, the gauze slowly, efficiently winding around her cheekbones, her nose. If it covered her nostrils, she would have to breathe through her mouth. And if someone didn’t come, didn’t help her, before it reached her mouth…how would she breathe then?
She wouldn’t.
Jo felt like she’d been kicked in the chest. This…this was what he was doing? Wrapping her like a mummy, suffocating her like he’d tried to do with the plastic bag? But…but that had only been a warning. He’d left her hands untied so she could free herself.
Her hands were tied now.
This was no warning.
“Please,” she whispered as the gauze, once, twice, three times, circled her nose and effectively shut off her ability to breathe through her nostrils, “please….”
“Please? Please?” A low, wicked chuckle. “As in pretty please? For years, I thought when She said ‘pretty please’ to get me to do something, that She meant pretty things were pleasing to her. And I thought that was really cruel, considering what I looked like then. I was anything but pretty. It made no sense, her saying ‘pretty please’ to me, because She wasn’t a cruel person, not at all. She was kind and protective. But I never, ever talked to any other human beings except Them, so how could I know that ‘pretty please’ just meant an extra please?”
The gauze covered the space between her nose and her upper lip. Once, twice, three times.
There was nothing she could do. Her hands were tied behind her back, and no matter how hard she tried to free them, the ropes failed to give. Her legs were free, but useless, with him standing behind her chair instead of in front of it. And screaming for help would just make him kill her more quickly.
“You don’t know what it was like. Being trapped inside all those years. Never feeling the sun on your face, never playing with other children. But even when I was very small, I understood that They were doing the right thing. The world shouldn’t have to see such ugliness.
“And They did it for my sake, too. Other children would have made fun of me for the way I looked, tortured me, wounded me to the core. I would have been emotionally scarred forever by their cruelty. Knowing that, They protected me from it. They kept me safe. That’s all I was trying to do for you, Jo. But you wouldn’t let me. You ignored me. I thought you were smarter than that.”
Any second now, the gauze would reach her mouth, cover her lips, shut off her air passages completely. She had to do something, had to stop it…
Before she could think of something, the fingers stopped, left her face. Footsteps padded away.
He’d run out of gauze. He’d gone to the cabinet for another roll.
She had maybe one split second in which to do something, anything…
If only she could see…
But she could use her legs. The chair she was tied to was lightweight wood, and only her wrists were fastened to it. She could lift it. If she moved quickly….
Taking a deep breath through her mouth, Jo pulled herself to her feet, taking the chair with her. A few steps to the door….
But she had never walked with a chair tied to her back. She lost her balance before she took even one step. Toppling sideways with a startled cry, she crashed to the floor, where she lay on her side, the chair still attached to her back by her wrists.
“What do you think you’re doing?” The whisper was furious. “You never learn, do you? You refuse to take me seriously! Sharon Westover could tell you that’s a mistake, Johanna. Sharon could tell you that when I make up my mind to do something, it gets done.” Another evil chuckle. “That is, if Sharon could still talk. Unfortunately, it’s too late for Sharon to tell you anything. Too bad. Sorry about that.”
So she’d been right about Sharon. How horrible.
The chair, with Jo still fastened to it, was hoisted upright and slammed back into place.
Jo was dizzy. Her head reeled. And her stomach lurched as she realized she’d missed her only chance to escape.
“If you think your face looks bad, you should have seen hers. It was grotesque. She must have gone through the windshield. I couldn’t believe it when she showed up on campus. Wasn’t even bandaged. I sent her a hat with a veil, too, and a tube of that corrective makeup. She just ignored them. People said she had guts, coming back to school. But it wasn’t guts. It was thoughtlessness. Cruelty…making people look at her. When she ignored my efforts to protect her, to keep her away from offended eyes, I knew I had no choice. It was her own fault, Jo. Just like this is your own fault. You should have listened to my warnings.”
Jo breathed heavily through her mouth. She couldn’t see the gauze on its way to cover her mouth, but she could feel it. If she took a huge, deep gulp of air and saved it, as if she were about to dive underwater, maybe that would buy her some time. Somehow she had to escape.
But Sharon Westover hadn’t. She was dead. And the figure in black who was now beginning to wind the gauze around Jo’s mouth was responsible.
She was trapped in this small white room with a cold-blooded killer.
Who meant to kill her, too.
Here came the gauze over her lips. He yanked it in tightly, to cut off any possibility of her breathing through her mouth.
With only one layer of porous gauze over her mouth, she was still able to breathe, though erratically. But as the second layer pressed itself harshly against her lips, she knew she had only minutes to live.
Now that she could no longer see, he had moved from behind her over to her right side. She could feel him moving near her right arm.
If she was going to do something, it had to be now.
She leaned back in her chair, lifted
both legs high, and quickly brought them back down, slamming them onto the floor as hard as she could while at the same time, throwing herself backward. The push of her feet against the floor combined with the weight of her body leaning to the rear, sent the chair toppling a second time, but this time backward.
She landed on her back.
And although she couldn’t see, she knew he was bending over her. The curses he uttered told her where his head was. She brought both legs up and kicked out with a fury born of desperation.
And connected. A startled, angry “Ooof!” told her the breath had been knocked out of her target. She had missed the head but probably hit the chest. Footsteps staggered backward, there was a crashing sound, and then something hit the hard wooden floor.
Jo scrambled up, yanking the chair up with her, and raced for where she thought the door should be. She ran right into it, the doorknob jabbing her cruelly in the stomach when she and the door collided.
But she couldn’t open it. Tears of frustration melded into the gauze over her eyes as she faced her helplessness. Even if she turned around, her back to the door, the chair tied to her wrists would prevent her from reaching the doorknob.
Scrambling sounds behind her told her time was running out.
She did whirl around then so that her back was to the door, and began crazily, wildly, slamming the chair legs against the wooden door.
And it opened.
“Okay if I fill my thermos with water in here?” a deep, male voice asked, and then, in a totally different voice, said, “What…what the hell?”
There was a scuttling sound off to Jo’s left, then the sound of another door opening, slamming shut, and then silence.
He was gone.
Chapter 18
DISSOLVING IN RELIEF, JO fell to her knees on the floor.
“Hey, what is this?” the deep voice behind her cried. “Some dumb college stunt or something? You look like a mummy.”
“Please,” Jo begged, “please…get this off.”
She didn’t know who it was that knelt beside her, unwrapping the gauze, removing the chair, but she didn’t care. All she knew for sure was that it wasn’t him. He’d gone, left by a back door she hadn’t even known was there.
Gone…for now….
But he wasn’t finished with her. That was another thing she knew for sure.
When her eyes were free, she saw, kneeling beside her, a huge man in a plaid jacket, a red hardhat on his head.
No wonder her attacker had run away. What she saw before her was no small, thin nurse, easily disposed of. The man in the hardhat was the size of a truck.
“You playing some kind of game here?” the man repeated as he helped Jo to her feet. He frowned in disapproval. “Looks kind of sick to me.”
“No,” she said, sinking gratefully down into the chair he’d uprighted for her, “It wasn’t a game. That…that person who ran away when you opened the door tried to kill me. Could you please call the police?”
The police barraged her with questions. Most of them she couldn’t answer. No, she didn’t recognize him. He was wearing a ski mask. No, she didn’t recognize his voice. He had whispered.
But she did tell them what he had said about Sharon Westover.
“Well,” one police officer told another, “that’s no surprise. The girl hasn’t turned up anywhere. We knew the chances were good that we were talking homicide here, right?”
It was only later, when they’d finally escorted her back to her room and left, that Jo remembered one thing that had been whispered to her. “I thought you were smarter than that, Jo,” the voice had said.
The room was empty. Kelly and Nan and the others must have gone to eat without her.
“I thought you were smarter than that.”
So it was someone she knew. At least…someone who knew her.
How well did you need to know someone to know how smart they were?
Maybe all it meant was that he was in one of her classes…a class she did well in…English, maybe, or chem.
Maybe all it meant was, he’d heard someone say, “Jo Donahue is no dummy.” It could be something as simple as that, couldn’t it?
Or…Jo sat up…it could mean that he was someone she knew well.
How well?
Well enough to know what room she lived in. Well enough to know she would be at Cath’s party, and what she would be wearing at that party. Okay, so he’d made a mistake and pushed Tina instead of her, but that was a mistake. He’d thought it was her.
As for the rest of it, he must have been following her. That’s how he knew she’d gone down to the riverbank, and over to the infirmary. He’d been watching to see if she heeded his warnings and hid in her room, the way he wanted her to.
Jo shuddered and wrapped her arms around her chest. Yes, that had to be it. Because she hadn’t planned to walk along the riverbank. That hike had been an afterthought, and she’d told no one ahead of time. So he couldn’t have known that. He’d simply been following her, and gone where she’d gone.
And he was still out there…waiting…for her….
Jo glanced around the room, and noticed the note on the mirror.
She got up and walked over to read it.
Starving. At Burgers Etc. We waited
forever for you.
One of us will come back to pick you
up so you can eat, too. Hope you got your bandages okay.
Kelly
The mere thought of food made Jo ill. And she didn’t think she’d ever leave the safety of her room again.
Chapter 19
OF ALL THE LUCK! That stupid Neanderthal had to show up just when I was getting to the finish line with Jo. Another minute or two and she’d have been history.
Johanna will tell the police what I said about Sharon. No problem. Jo doesn’t know who I am, and neither do they. And what fun is it disposing of blights on the landscape if no one knows about it? I’m glad I told her.
Jo’s a fighter, I’ll give her that. Westover was so much easier. Anyway, I was doing her a favor. She could never, ever have been happy in this world. Not with that face.
They’ll never find her. I made sure of that.
So let Johanna tell the police anything she wants.
I’m not worried.
Worry makes frown lines.
Now, about Jo….
Chapter 20
JO WALKED OVER TO the window. Darkness had fallen, and the old-fashioned pole lights on campus cast lemon-colored rays across a thin blanket of fresh new snow. The storm had ended as quickly as it began, and the navy blue sky had cleared, revealing a sliver of moon and an abundance of stars.
Such a peaceful-looking night. So deceptive….
As she turned away from the window, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the dresser mirror. She had forgotten to replace the tape that had fallen off at the pond. Two of the deeper cuts on her cheeks were laid bare.
She walked over to the mirror and calmly studied what she saw there. Not a pretty sight. The bandage under her eye, dampened by snowflakes, drooped, soggy as wet toast. Two pieces of clear tape were peeling away from her skin, and the uncovered cuts still had a rawness to them, like fresh meat.
Her face was the reason he was after her. Just as the damage done to Sharon Westover’s face in that car wreck was the reason she was no longer alive.
It made no sense. But it was true.
Jo turned away from the mirror. What good did it do her to know the reason for the attacks on her? How did that help?
She could point it out to the police. Maybe it would somehow help them find the person responsible.
A sharp rapping on the door startled her, set her heart pounding. Then she remembered Kelly’s note. Someone was supposed to come and collect Jo, take her to Burgers to join her friends.
She didn’t want to go. Not now. She wouldn’t be safe there, not even in a crowd.
“Jo? You in there?”
Evan’s voice.
> On the other hand, she didn’t want to spend any more time alone, either.
She hurried to the door and let him in.
“Where have you been?” he asked. His cheeks were still red from ice-skating. “We’ve been looking all over for you. I went to the infirmary right after you left the pond, but the nurse said you’d come and gone.”
“She probably thought I had. But I…I was still there. She just didn’t know it.”
“Still there?” Evan frowned. “We all left the pond right after you. We…” Evan’s cheeks flushed, “we forgot about…well, I guess we forgot that we didn’t want you to be alone. I’m sorry, Jo. You okay?”
“You all left the pond right after I did?” They hadn’t been at the pond, still skating while she was being mummy-wrapped?
Her attacker had been someone who knew her….
Evan nodded and sat down in Jo’s desk chair. “Yeah. When you weren’t at the infirmary, I went back to the pond. Nan and Kelly said they needed dry gloves, anyway, so they’d check to see if you were here. Reed said he’d stay at the pond, in case you went back there, and Carl went ahead to Burgers to see if you’d decided to get there ahead of us.”
“I didn’t even know we’d decided to go there,” Jo protested.
“We thought maybe someone had mentioned it. Anyway, we all separated to hunt for you. Then we collected at Burgers. Obviously none of us had found you.”
Uneasiness flooded Jo. She had thought all of her friends had been at the pond. She had thought they were together. But they weren’t. They had separated.
Someone who knew her had tried to kill her.
It couldn’t be one of them. It couldn’t.
“There wasn’t any sign of you when we got to Burgers,” Evan continued, frowning. “I was pretty steamed at myself for letting you take off for the infirmary alone, after everything that’s happened. Couldn’t believe I’d been that dense. We were all worried about you.”
“Not as worried as I was,” Jo said heavily. “You’d better sit down. This may take a few minutes.”