The Coffin (Nightmare Hall)

by Diane Hoh

  Tanner was tired. She was especially tired of being frightened, of not knowing what was going to happen next, of never knowing exactly when Sigmund might return or what he would do when he did return. But she wasn’t ready to give up. “Back to work,” she muttered, bending awkwardly to retrieve the metal ruler. “You had a nap, so you have no excuses. Get busy. Think of Silly. Think of Charlie. Think of Jodie, and quit feeling sorry for yourself.”

  She had no idea how long she worked before she heard the key turn in the lock. There didn’t seem to be any point in continuing with her toe-timing, since she had no idea what time it was when she woke up. And it was impossible to tell from inside The Booth whether or not daylight was flooding the skylight. It could still have been the middle of the night for all she knew.

  She had pried away from the side only a dozen nails, leaving them in place on the back wall, when she heard the music room door open. As far as she could tell in the darkness of The Booth, Sigmund wouldn’t notice what she’d been up to unless he checked closely. The back wall was still in place. Only she knew that one hefty push would separate at least the upper half of it from the left side wall. She slid the ruler into its corner on the floor beside the tape dispenser.

  “What time is it?” was her first question as her arm came up to shield her eyes again from the sudden flood of light. It was morning, she realized as she stepped out into the music room. Pale sunshine filled the skylight.

  “Why? You got a date?” he asked sarcastically.

  She glanced up at the cuckoo clock. Eight A.M. People on campus would be getting dressed, eating breakfast, going to class if they had an eight o’clock, maybe rolling over and going back to sleep if they didn’t. Oh, God, she prayed fiercely, let me go back there, let me be a part of campus again, I promise I’ll never complain about my father again, never! Just let me have my life back.

  Had he come to kill her? The worst part was not knowing, ever, whether or not this would be the time.

  Her spine tingled.

  She wanted to walk around the room to get her circulation flowing, but her feet hurt too much. She sat on the couch instead. “What have you done to Jodie?” she asked bitterly. “Is she all right?” She lifted one leg and propped it on the other one so she could examine, finally, the sole of her foot. What she saw made her ill.

  “Well, if she isn’t all right,” he said, perching on the arm of the leather chair, “there’s nothing you can do about it, right? And if she is all right, then she doesn’t need you worrying, so shut up about her.” He was still wearing the mask and the green plaid shirt.

  Tanner’s left foot was crisscrossed with jagged cuts, and caked with dried blood. The cuts were puffy and red, with angry streaks radiating outward from the wounds. Infected, she thought despairingly. I should have washed them right away. She put that foot down and lifted the right foot, the one that she had hurt again, in The Booth. It was even worse. The cuts were swollen and several of them oozed a runny, yellowish liquid.

  “I need antiseptic and ointment for my feet,” she said, thrusting them outward so he could see. “They’re infected.”

  He shrugged. “That’s your fault. Breaking all that glass and then being dumb enough to step on it. By the way, you look like hell.”

  “Like I care,” she said angrily. She sat up straighter. “You aren’t feeding me, and you aren’t giving me medicine. Prisoners of war get better treatment than this. It’s the law. I could get blood poisoning and die, is that what you want?” Stupid question.

  “Oh, stuff a sock in it. I’ll get you something to eat.”

  “Don’t forget the medicine. There’s antiseptic and ointment in the medicine cabinet upstairs. I don’t suppose you’d let me go up and get it, and take a nice bath while I’m up there, would you?” Her skin felt oily and grimy, and her hair hung against her shoulders like wet yarn.

  “Get real,” he said coldly, and left the room, locking the door after him.

  Tanner closed her eyes and waited. If he brought her real food, that would give her strength. She needed strength. And if she could do something about her feet before they got any worse, she’d be able to stand longer to work on the nails.

  He came back carrying a metal tray with another sandwich on it, this one peanut butter, and only a wet paper towel for her feet. No antiseptic, no ointment. “Just wash them off,” he said, handing her the tray. “Don’t be such a whiner. I can’t stand whining.”

  It wasn’t enough, any of it, but Tanner knew she had no choice. She ate the sandwich, hoping he’d let her get a drink from the lavatory before sticking her back in the booth.

  The paper towel was not only inadequate to treat the wounds on her feet, the barest touch of it made her wince in agony. But it was all she had. She dabbed at the soles of her feet as gently as she could, and could see no improvement at all.

  “You were a patient of my father’s, weren’t you?” she asked. “That’s why you’re mad. You didn’t like the treatment he prescribed for you, whatever it was. So you’re punishing me.”

  “Your father’s treatment,” he hissed, bending to thrust the gray mask into her face again, “was to send me away! Like I needed that. I came here to Salem expecting everything to be okay, better than high school, which wouldn’t have been hard. High school was a nightmare. But I had a few problems adjusting here. I made the mistake of talking to some stupid counselor, and he sent me to see the ever-popular psychiatrist, Dr. Milton Leo. And that was all she wrote. After five crummy sessions, like he could know who I was after only five forty-minute sessions, he shipped me off to a hellhole known as a ‘residential treatment center.’ All that time, wasted! He talked my parents into approving the deal. The excuse they’d been waiting for my whole life. Ship me out, get rid of me, free them from this creepy kid of theirs. The insurance paid, so what the hell did they care?”

  “My father and I aren’t a mutual admiration society,” Tanner said wearily, resting her head against the back of the couch, a retreat from that mask so frighteningly close to her face, “but he knows his profession. There must have been a reason why he sent you there. He probably knew what I know now, that you’re violent. You … hurt Silly.” She couldn’t bear to say the word “killed.” “And I know you hurt Charlie and Jodie. And look what you’re doing to me.” Her voice went cold and unsympathetic as she added, “No wonder my father sent you away. I don’t care how horrible that place was, they should have kept you there.”

  That enraged him. He grabbed her hair and dragged her up off the couch. “It’s because of him!” he screamed into her face, “I wouldn’t be doing any of these things if he hadn’t sent me there!”

  “Yes, you would!” she shouted back. If she was going to die, she was going to have her say first. “You would have done it all, sooner or later. My father saw that, and that’s why he sent you away. Only it didn’t help, did it?”

  “I should kill you right now, right this minute,” he said, tightening his grip on her hair. Then, just as quickly, he released her. She fell backward, onto the couch. “But it’s not time yet. I haven’t been able to reach him, to tell him what’s going on. What’s the point, if he doesn’t know? Of course, he can’t get back here in time to stop anything, not all the way from Hawaii. But imagine what that trip will be like for him? That long, long flight, already knowing that I’ve got you, and that I don’t intend to let you live. He’ll be in his own little Booth, there on that airplane, a prisoner of his fear and anxiety. He won’t be able to breathe right and he’ll have chills. Then he’ll start sweating like a pig and he’ll think an airplane has never moved more slowly than that one. And it won’t do him a bit of good. God, I wish I could be here to see the look on his face when he comes home and finds you, the way I’ve left you. It won’t be a pretty sight.”

  Tanner, listening to him, hearing the hatred, and then the excitement and the triumph in his voice, felt as if she might pass out at any moment, from sheer terror. She knew that if she tried to stand up,
her legs would never hold her.

  “If you let me go,” she said urgently, “I won’t tell anyone what you did. I’ll say I was staying with a friend. They’ll never know you were here.”

  “Oh, that’s brilliant,” he said. “And I suppose you’ll say that precious housekeeper of yours just jumped into the freezer of her own accord, right? Wanted to chill out, did she?” He seemed to find that very funny, and began laughing, watching her reaction through the tiny eye slits.

  Tanner closed her eyes again. To hear him talk that way about the one person who had made life in this house bearable made her feel as if a giant vise was squeezing all the life out of her heart.

  Her eyes still closed against his ugly face, she said softly, “Why don’t you just drop dead?”

  “I expect to get in touch with your father today,” he announced. “And the minute that I do,” he paused, and when he spoke again, it was with an Arnold Schwarzenegger accent, “I’ll be back!” He laughed again.

  When he reached out to grasp the neck of her sweatshirt to put her back in the coffin, Tanner knew she should protest. She should scream and kick and drag her feet, as she’d done before, or he might get suspicious.

  But she couldn’t. She just couldn’t. What little energy she had left, she needed for her work inside The Booth. A plan was formulating itself in her head, and she knew now what her purpose was in pulling the nails free. The plan could work. If she got lucky. And now, ironically, getting back inside The Booth was her only hope. Strange, when up until now she had thought of being put inside that horrible coffin as the end of hope.

  “Don’t tell me all the fight’s gone out of you,” Sigmund said as he opened the door and pushed her inside. “Good. Makes it easier for me. See you later.” Then, after he had closed the door and the wooden wedge had dropped into place, he chilled her blood anew by saying in a light, casual voice, “We don’t have much time left, Tanner. Pretty soon, the police will have to step in and take action. I intend to get on with my life after yours is finished, so I can’t afford to have the law snooping around here. Besides, I’m getting tired of putting my plans on hold just because your father decided to see paradise. ’Bye, now. Back later, I promise. Don’t go away.” He laughed, and a minute later, he was gone.

  And she was trapped in The Booth again.

  Chapter 19

  CHARLIE DIDN’T WAKE UP in the infirmary until almost noon. His stomach turned over when he glanced at his watch and saw how late it was. He’d slept the entire morning away? Damn that nurse and her needle!

  His first thought then was of Tanner. Where was she? Was she okay?

  She had to be okay.

  His second thought was of Jodie, wondering if Sandy had located her, and his third thought was that his body felt as if he’d been run over by a train. Everything hurt, even his teeth.

  He was anxious to leave, but he was told by the nurse that he would not be allowed to go until he had been officially discharged by the doctor, who hadn’t arrived yet. “And the police are waiting to talk to you,” she added as she left Charlie’s cubicle.

  The Twin Falls police officer who came into the room asked Charlie routine questions. Had he seen the driver of the motorcycle? No. Did he know what kind of motorcycle it was? Yes, a Harley. Did he know any reason why someone would want to run him down?

  This was the question Charlie had been impatiently waiting for. He told the officer everything, from the note hanging on the mailbox to his second trip to Tanner’s house, brutally interrupted by the motorcycle on the sidewalk. “I know it had something to do with Tanner,” he finished. “Someone didn’t want me going to her house and snooping around. You can see that, can’t you?”

  Noncommittally, the officer asked, “You still have that note?”

  Charlie nodded. “Over there, in my jeans,” he said, pointing to his clothes, folded over the back of a chair.

  The officer unearthed the note, read it quickly, and turned back to Charlie. “This her handwriting?”

  That was the question Charlie hated to answer. “Yes,” he admitted reluctantly, then added hastily, “But she wouldn’t have written that unless someone made her do it. I tried to explain that to the other officers, but …”

  “So where exactly do you think your friend is?”

  Charlie’s heart leaped with hope. This officer was listening to him, which was more than the others had done. “I think she’s still in that house,” he said firmly. “And I don’t think she’s able to leave or get to a phone. If she could, she’d have called me. And then there’s Jodie, Jodie Lawson,” he added, “another friend of ours. She went to that house, at least I think she did, and no one knows where she is now. So could you please check it out? The house, I mean? You can get a warrant or something, right?”

  The officer pocketed his notebook, “Let me get this straight,” he said. “You think that two of your friends are being held prisoner in Dr. Leo’s house right there on Faculty Row? With professors going in and out of their houses every day, and kids playing in the street? Don’t you think that’d be a little hard to pull off?”

  Charlie sagged back against the pillow.

  The officer smiled. “The nurse said you might have a concussion. A blow on the head can do some mighty strange things, kid. But then,” he added sympathetically, “so can being dumped by a girlfriend.”

  “She didn’t dump me,” Charlie said wearily, giving up. This guy wasn’t going to be any help. Making one last attempt, he asked, “Can’t you at least try to call Tanner’s mother? Just check it out?”

  The officer shrugged, “You said you don’t remember her last name. And you don’t even know where exactly she is. If you can’t find her, what makes you think we can?”

  “You have computers!” Charlie cried in disgust. “You’re supposed to be able to find people.”

  “Yeah, well, even a computer needs more to go on than the fact that someone is traveling in the Orient,” the man said drily. “The Orient’s a big place.” As he turned to leave, he said over his shoulder, “If you can remember the woman’s last name, and come up with any more information on her whereabouts, let me know. Maybe I can make a phone call or two.”

  When he was alone again, Charlie made his own phone calls. He couldn’t just sit in his bed doing nothing while he waited to be discharged. He had to do something. There was always the possibility that Tanner and Jodie had turned up while he was sleeping off the effects of that shot the nurse had sneaked into him. If it hadn’t been for that, he could have been out looking all night.

  Maybe his friends had done it for him.

  They hadn’t. Philip and Vince weren’t in their room. Sloane, when Charlie reached him, said that Philip was probably working and Vince had a class. “Sandy’s frantic, though,” he added, his tone of voice indicating that he couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. “She’s called here half a dozen times this morning. Can’t find her roomie. Personally, it wouldn’t kill me if Joellen stayed lost. She’s a pain in the …”

  “Not funny, Currier,” Charlie said sharply. “Jodie may not worship the ground you walk on, but she’s a friend, and something’s happened to her. I have another call to make, and then I’ll meet you at the frat house. We’ll go to Tanner’s together.”

  “Charlie, I have classes, and my g.p.a. isn’t all that great.”

  Charlie held the phone to his chest, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. When he spoke again, it was coldly and carefully. “Sloane, be there!” He hung up.

  He made one more phone call. And to his relief, the next voice he heard, traveling a long distance through the telephone wires, was Dr. Leo’s.

  Charlie was reluctant to tell Tanner’s father the truth. If he said Tanner was missing, Dr. Leo would hang up immediately and phone the Twin Falls police. And they would tell him it wasn’t true. Not officially, anyway. He’d think Charlie was jerking his chain, and that would make things at the Leo house even chillier than they were now.

  Mo
re important, Charlie wouldn’t have learned a single helpful thing.

  He made up some stupid story about wanting to get in touch with Tanner’s mother to find out what Tanner wanted for her birthday.

  The doctor was incredulous. “You called me in Hawaii, and you’re planning on calling Gwen in the Orient to ask some ridiculous question about a birthday present? What’s going on, young man? Is this a joke?”

  Somehow, Charlie stumbled through the conversation long enough to discover that the ex-Mrs. Leo went by the name of Reed now, and that she was probably in some place in Japan called Kyoto. But Dr. Leo had no idea what hotel she was staying in, or if she was even staying in a hotel, adding coolly that “Gwen has friends all over the planet. She could be staying with friends in Japan, but I would have no idea what their names are. We no longer share that sort of information.”

  Okay, so that hadn’t told Charlie much. But he wasn’t ready to hang up. He had never believed that Tanner was with her mother, anyway. He had just thought it was important to know how to get in touch with the woman if necessary.

  Charlie decided to take a different tack. “Dr. Leo, while I have you on the phone, this is going to sound crazy, but hang with me for a minute, okay? Do you … well, is there someone on campus who might have it in for you?” Enough to hurt your daughter, he added silently.

  The sound that Charlie heard then sounded very much like a snort. Hard to believe, but there it was. “You can’t be serious, young man. I am probably the most universally disliked teacher on that campus, as if you didn’t already know that. I tell people the truth, and that is not something most people want to hear. Why are you asking me such an odd, and completely unnecessary question?”

  It was stupid, Charlie admitted to himself. The list of people who disliked Dr. Leo could be a mile long. But, what else did he have to go on?