In a hushed tone, Randy said, “You’re gonna like this.”
*
The old woman’s release — bless you, Mabel — had been Heather’s favorite yet. Truly a joy. Mabel’s tears of elation had been contagious, moving Heather to join the old woman in celebration. While the release took much longer than she’d anticipated — knives were usually the most efficiently righteous tools — at the same time, it prolonged her ecstasy. Mabel hadn’t struggled, completely surrendering to God, ready to join her husband beyond Heaven’s gates.
Now, Mabel’s spirit soared, dancing about the kitchen. Another light joined her. Her husband. The two green shapes merged, becoming one. Heather liked to think all the righteous became one in God’s domain. As the souls departed, she wiped away the last of her tears, and whispered, “You’re welcome.”
Beautiful. The nice part of her work.
Invigorated by her holy high, she prepared for the task ahead. Banishing the bad souls of the others at the Dandy Drop Inn. The even nicer part of her job.
She modeled Mabel’s winter coat in front of the full-length bedroom mirror. Sinfully decadent with a zoo’s worth of fur, the coat’s collar tickled her earlobes. The length draped the floor. So big, room enough for two or three Heathers. But not large enough to contain her holy spirit, bursting at her body’s seams.
From the refrigerator, she downed a quart of milk and wolfed through a healthy chunk of cheddar cheese. Fortifying her body to do the spirit’s work.
Mabel’s car keys were a cinch to find. Like her mother, she kept them in a foyer nook. So obvious, yet oddly nostalgic.
Mabel also had a wonderful set of cutlery from which to select the tools she would need.
Outside, the coat provided ample protection from the bitter cold. She didn’t bother clearing the car’s back windshield or side windows. No need to. God was her co-pilot, guiding her through the most turbulent of storm-tossed times.
A police officer’s car sat in the Dandy Drop Inn’s driveway. As she ambled by, she rolled down the window. A very recent visitor based on the fresh tire tracks. Not a problem, just a little more work to accomplish.
She parked directly across the street from the inn. She stepped out, head in the clouds, invulnerable. Safe in God’s hands.
Only once, ever so briefly, did she falter on her mission. She wished for boots as she trudged through the snow. Her flats provided no protection, her feet freezing. But it’d be sinful to pray for personal betterment, for material things. Instead, she remembered the glory of Mabel’s delivery. It warmed her like a nice cup of hot chocolate, all the way down to her feet. After all, Jesus trudged bare foot on his way to His crucifixion.
She opened the cellar doors, knife ready, and entered Hell’s gates.
Chapter Ten
Old Mr. Dandy carried Kyra up the stairs, laughing and chatting like everything was fine. But ever since Kyra had gone into the basement, things had been scary in a way she didn’t understand. Not scary like her daddy sometimes got. Scary like the movies he watched.
On the stairwell, she gave up screaming, just too tired. But the tears wouldn’t stop.
“I want Mommy. Please, please, take me back.”
“Don’t you worry none, Kyra. We’ll take care of your mommy. Just like we’re gonna see to you, too. It’ll be nice, you’ll see. You’re part of the Dandy’s now.” He smelled funny, old and rotten, like dirty clothes.
“I want my mommy …”
Mr. Dandy kept on gabbing, saying things that didn’t make sense. Ignoring Kyra, the way adults always do. “Everything’s gonna be just fine. Mark my words. You’re the granddaughter we never had, the one God done snatched away from us. And we got room for your momma as well.” He rattled on, talking to her as if she were nothing but a doll, seen but not heard. “Things’ll be a bit different now for you and your momma. Growing pains as they say. But dependin’ on how fast you and your momma learn, you’ll be happy here at the ol’ Dandy Drop Inn. I just know it.”
With each step up, Kyra bounced in his arms. He drew his fingers through her hair, stroking it, combing it. She shook his hand off, pushing her head back, keeping the stink away. “I don’t want to live here. It’s not my home.”
Mr. Dandy’s face cracked, a scary look, meaner looking than an owl. “None of that talk now, y’hear? You do as you’re told, when you’re told.”
Kyra closed her eyes, too afraid to say anything else. Once they reached the top floor, Mr. Dandy let out a long sigh. Then he dug deep and found his nice voice again.
“I done heard you been to Jody’s room already. How’d you like it?”
Kyra said nothing, just nodded, her voice lost.
“Well, now, that’s just dandy. And you are, too.” Quickly, he walked down the dark hallway. The blackness came alive, poking her with smoky, dark fingers and pressing in with shadowy fists. She heard Mommy downstairs talking to Mrs. Dandy. She sounded scared. Except for Daddy, nothing ever scared Mommy.
Mr. Dandy stopped, rattled a doorknob. When he opened the door, a familiar old smell blew over her like a breeze over a garbage dump. Jody’s room. The dolly room.
Light on his feet, Mr. Dandy floated over to the bedside table and turned on the lamp. Nothing had changed in the room since her last visit. Except it felt different. Before the room had been filled with magic, packed with excitement, life dancing in the dolls’ eyes. Now, the dolls looked unhappy, very angry. Their eyes glared, dead eyes, nothing but dim marbles. And like Kyra, they looked trapped. The hanging dolls no longer danced like ballerinas. Instead, the ribbons bound them into place. Yearning to escape and reunite with their missing mommies.
Gently, Mr. Dandy lowered Kyra to Jody’s bed. “This is your bed now. Your room.” He straightened like a giant, frightening and tall enough to reach the ceiling. His cap’s bill draped curtains of shadows over his face. Except for the wide, green grin. “You’re gonna be happy here.”
Not knowing what to say, Kyra climbed under the bedspread, seeking shelter. With the blanket gripped to her nose, she carefully watched Mr. Dandy.
He chuckled. “Well, now, that’s more like it. Makin’ yourself at home already.” When he messed her hair, his hand felt rough like sandpaper.
The door opened as did Kyra’s hopes. But it wasn’t Mommy. Mrs. Dandy’s smile stretched like a jack-o’-lantern’s, her eyes nearly closed. Her hands slapped her knees. She bent over and spoke to Kyra in the annoying way adults talk to their pets. “Who’s a good little girl? You, that’s who.” She pinched Kyra’s cheek, something old people liked to do. “Yes, you are. You are.”
“Please, Missus Dandy … can I see Mommy? I’m scared.”
For whatever reason, they both laughed. “Child, ain’t nothing to be scared about. Your momma’s fine. We just need to … talk to her. Teach her the way things will be. Soon as she cooperates, you can see her.” When Mrs. Dandy sat on the bed, the mattress tilted, the springs squealing like pigs. “Now, I want you to get used to your new room. Isn’t it wonderful?” As if praying, she folded her hands beneath her chin. Then she reached for the music box, the one that’d seemed so exciting before. The ballerina sprung up, twirling, dancing for her life. “There we go. Isn’t that nice?”
They stared at her, waiting for an answer, one Kyra couldn’t give them. It’d help if she understood things. The way they acted frightened her. On the outside, they seemed like nice old people, kind of like Grandma. But they kept her from seeing Mommy. Holding them both prisoner. But she’d learned adults wanted to hear things, things that made them happy. When you learned how to do that, life got easier. For now, she’d play along. Until she found Mommy. Mommy would know what to do, she always does.
“Yes, it’s nice,” she said, her voice smaller than the tiniest doll in the room. She cleared her throat and spoke louder. “I like it a lot.” Her lips couldn’t hold her smile. Tears stung behind her eyes, but she wouldn’t loosen them. She wasn’t a crybaby. She had to be strong. For herself and
for Mommy.
“Why, that’s just wonderful. Wonderful.” Mrs. Dandy clapped her hands and shrieked to the ceiling. “Ain’t that wonderful, Poppa?”
“Darn tootin’ it is.” With a weird little growl, he tousled her hair again. “Think the lil gal’s already fittin’ right in.”
Mrs. Dandy’s cheeks wobbled as she nodded. “I think so, too.” She looked funny, ready to laugh or cry, hard to tell. She leaned in, arms outstretched. Like Mr. Dandy, she smelled bad, but different. More like medicine, the strong kind that hurts your nose, the kind Mommy puts on cuts. She wrapped her arms around Kyra, squeezing her tight. Cheek to cheek, Mrs. Dandy’s face scratched Kyra’s, short hairs prickling her. Kyra clenched the bedspread, holding it like a security blanket. “You’ve had a long night, Kyra. Now give Grandma a kiss, and we’ll let you sleep.”
Grandma? She wasn’t Kyra’s grandma, nothing like her. But she thought she was. Or wanted to be her grandma.
Last night Mommy’d told Kyra Daddy was sick in the mind. She thought she understood it, maybe not completely. But she knew, absolutely knew the Dandy’s had sick brains, too. Tremors swam over her, crashing through her like pounding waves.
Help me, Mommy! I don’t know what to do!
She thought about how scary Mr. Dandy’d been. How he’d changed back and forth as easily as slipping on a Halloween mask. A bad face she didn’t want to see again. She decided to pretend they were playing a game, the best way to get through this. Of course, she knew it wasn’t a game. She wasn’t a little kid. But even big girls can pretend sometimes.
“Good night, Grandma.” She pecked Mrs. Dandy’s cheek fast, then tried to pull away. But Mrs. Dandy hung on forever, wouldn’t let go. When she hummed along with the music box, Kyra felt vibrations coming off Mrs. Dandy’s chest, deep notes and not very pretty.
“Alright — ‘Grandma’,” said Mr. Dandy, “plenty time for that later. As you said, let’s let the lil one get her beauty sleep. Not that she needs it. This one’s prettier than the last one.”
With a sad sigh, Mrs. Dandy finally released her. “Well, fine then. G’night, Kyra.”
While Mrs. Dandy climbed off the bed, Mr. Dandy stood at the open door, a long and spooky shadow. Mrs. Dandy caught Kyra with camera eyes before turning off the light. Then she followed her husband out the door. A key rattled in the lock, followed by a couple of clicks.
This one’s prettier than the last one.
Kyra couldn’t be sure, but she had a pretty good idea what Mr. Dandy meant when he’d said that. She wasn’t the first girl they captured.
Something snapped like a mousetrap.
Her first instinct was to burrow under the covers and not come out. But that’s how a baby would act. She tapped the air until she found the lamp. Her fingers walked up the base, then snared the chain. Somehow the small circle of light made the rest of the room look even darker.
Again, another tick from the other side of the room. Where the dolls hung like tortured marionettes. Two clacks, a swish. The dolls awakening, dancing in the midnight hour.
She yanked the cover over her head, trying to block out the sounds, settling her imagination. But her imagination wouldn’t rest. When she closed her eyes, she saw dolls unspooling from ribbons like yo-yos. Plastic knees stretched, wooden joints clacked. They spun, swinging their partners, dancing about the room to the song of the music box. Wearing their plastic frowns and staring with unblinking glass eyes. Glass, surely what their eyes were made of, nothing alive.
No way.
Please don’t let them be alive, God.
No, that’s all just baby stuff. Scary stuff for little kids. Not real.
The sounds continued. Soft clicks, dresses ruffling. Something skittered like a mouse. Breathing?
Kyra felt odd, out of place, out of time. Everything had happened like a bad dream. But she wouldn’t let her imagination gobble her up. There were real things, scary things, happening at the Dandy Drop Inn. She didn’t need any make-believe fears.
Behind the table, she found a long cord connecting the lamp to the wall. She wasn’t chicken, not a fraidy-cat. She’d use the lamp to investigate. Her feet swung out from under the covers and lowered to the floor. The lamp upheld like a torch, she approached the hanging dolls.
It hadn’t been her imagination. The lamp illuminated plastic legs in black shoes, swaying, gently jostling a neighbor doll. One doll twirled, glared at Kyra, then faced the wall and back again. She heard breathing, no doubt about it. Someone breathing heavily. Or something breathing. But dolls don’t breathe, can’t breathe. Impossible.
She raised the lamp. Two dolls clacked together like magnets.
She felt someone was there. Behind the dolls. She couldn’t explain how, just absolutely knew it. She lowered into a squat, bringing the lamp with her. All she could see beneath the dolls were shadows. Moving shadows.
A frightened dog’s whimper raised into a coyote’s howl. But when the dolls parted, a bear with a human’s head rushed out, knife in its paw.
*
Randy whipped Rebecca’s hands behind her back, bunching them together at the wrists. He shoved her toward the host’s desk at the back of the inn.
“I bet we got us a little time to get fully acquainted, Rebecca.”
She couldn’t believe she’d found him appealing — sexy, even — last night. Now his foul nature sickened her. She seriously needed to reevaluate her taste in men once she and Kyra escaped. And they would escape, count on it.
“Be a real shame to not sample the goods.” Menace changed his voice, now a sexual predator. Revulsion at the thought of his “sampling her goods” tore her stomach apart.
“Why’re you doing this? Just let us —”
“Shh, shush now.”
She wanted to bite the finger he pressed to her lips, but she controlled herself.
Not now, not yet. Wait for an advantage. Keep him talking.
With an arrogant swagger — the same he’d always had, just now intimidating — he pushed her past the desk, tilted his head to the door behind it. “Ladies first.”
“I heard what Dolores said. You’re doing this for money?”
“Go on. Through the door.”
With an elbow, Rebecca nudged the door open. Hesitantly, she entered the room. An orange bulb, dangling from a wire, dripped carrot colors and ginger shades over the small room. A cot, unmade, was wedged into the corner. She recognized one of Christian’s vests wadded up in a velvet ball. Undoubtedly his room, surprisingly filthy considering the fastidious nature of his duties as the Inn’s host.
With a small shove, Randy followed her in and grinned at the cot. “Christian ain’t gonna need that now. May as well put it to good use.”
Rebecca turned. Randy stood close enough for her eyes to water at his cologne. Obviously, he’d splashed it on liberally for the occasion. “You owe me an explanation. This is just about money for you?”
How she’d grown to hate his shrugs. “Don’t make much on a deputy’s salary. Gotta supplement my habits somehow. Man’s gotta live, right? When I found out what the Dandys were doin’, I thought a little blackmail might be nice. But they recognized a good opportunity when they saw one. Put me on their payroll. I brought ‘em stragglers I’d find. For an allowance, of course. Nothin’ personal.” He unbuttoned the top of his shirt, working his way down. His gaze never left Rebecca’s chest. “Get undressed. Guarantee you’re gonna like this. Ain’t had no complaints yet.”
Bile rose in Rebecca’s throat. Especially at the thought of what she had to do next. But it was about survival, just acting. “You brought them … women so they could kill them?”
Randy clicked a side of his mouth, pinched his cheek up. “Not exactly. Bit more complicated than that. We’re wastin’ time. They’ll be down soon. Take your damn clothes off.”
“And you took money for them.”
“That’s about the size of it.” He ran his hand over his crotch, leering.
It’d been
a while since Rebecca had reason to act seductive. She hoped she hadn’t lost her touch, forgotten how to bring the sexy. And it sickened her. But whatever it took. She bit her lip, grinding her fingernails into her palms. She wiped the fear — the disgust — from her face, easier than she thought. “I think that’s hot.” She came closer, an extra swing to her hips. Her arms fell on his shoulders, hands roaming his back.
His jaw dropped, an uncustomary look for him. Clearly, his victims had never given themselves willingly before. Her stomach kicked, a rebel in her body. Bitterness rocketed up into her throat, scathing and sour. She swallowed it, swallowing a bit of her soul with it. “What can I say? I like the bad boys.” Never again.
“Well, all right, that’s more like it. And I like me a woman who ain’t afraid to go for what she wants.”
She nuzzled his neck with the lightest of kisses. His cheap cologne filled her nose. To stop her gag reflex, she opened her mouth, drawing in air. Agitated breath whistled through his nose, a putrid smell riding it. Her lips found his earlobes. How easy it’d be to bite one off, so close, so tempting. But Rebecca had her eye on the bigger prize. She dropped a hand to his arm, moved it toward his back, massaging small circles, lowering. Her other hand found his crotch. His erection jumped at her touch, straining for freedom. He groaned, closed his eyes.
Fool.
Either he’d forgotten about the gun or was too ignorant to worry about it. She plucked the weapon — Harton’s gun — out of his belt at the small of his back. Her knee jerked up into his crotch, aiming low and hammering hard.
“Oof.” His eyes squeezed tight, tears leaking from them, his pain palpable and earned. He doubled over, coughing, hands cradling his crotch. “You bitch. Goddamn you, I’m gonna —”
“You’re not gonna do shit, asshole.”
His eyes flew open at the click of the hammer. Rebecca relished his fear as he looked down the barrel of the gun. Something he’d probably never experienced, but certainly had no problem bringing to others.
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