Graven Images

by Jane Waterhouse

  “Put your arm around my shoulder,” Blackmoor said to Temple.

  I took her other side. We leaned toward each other, eyes fixed on the gabled outline of the house. What we’d do when we got there, I had no idea; but still, it would be something—a place I knew; a safe haven, with pokers in the fire, and knives in the kitchen; with places to hide. It beckoned us, less than two hundred yards away—two hundred yards of open, unprotected space.

  I felt it even before I heard the idle of the engine, before I risked that first backward glance. The crane lumbered steadily in our direction, its headlights casting crazy ellipses over the uneven ground. We ran toward our shadows, which were tapered and distended, somber, frightening, like figures in a painting by El Greco. It was gaining on us.

  “Dane!” The wind swallowed my scream.

  Blackmoor had thrown Temple over his shoulder. “Stay with me!” he shouted. He was trying to dodge the ever-widening spheres of light, but it seemed useless. Whether we went left or right, the crane followed, trampling the ground, pelting us with gravel—inevitable, relentless. Bird Turner stood inside the cage, a shrouded silhouette, less man than machine.

  “Watch out!” Dane yelled.

  A long, menacing shadow appeared over my head. Split seconds later the metal claws lowered, pinpointing me, bearing down, snapping viciously in my ear. I was running as fast as I could. Breathing in and out had become incredibly painful. In a small, still section of my brain I considered what it would feel like—the metal teeth, making their deadly clean lacerations. I saw myself being lifted skyward, like a child riding in a Ferris wheel, imagined myself part of the sky, the air, the hot, woolly whiteness. I was just about to give in to it when a pair of arms shot out of the darkness, pushing me forcibly out of the way. I tumbled backward, with Temple on top of me. We landed in a heap, watching in horror as the three-pronged grabs went for Blackmoor, snatching him with pointy jaws before hurling him to the ground.

  The crane lurched into reverse, with Turner at the helm, coming in for the kill.

  “Stay here,” I said to Temple.

  I crouched low, my face to the dirt. Dane was still conscious, but blood was everywhere. I took off my jacket and put it over him. “Go,” he rasped.

  “I won’t leave you.” The crane was making a wide loop, approaching lazily, toying with us.

  “Don’t you trust me yet?” His breath was labored.

  “Of course I trust you,” I sobbed.

  “Then get out of here, or he’ll kill all of us.” He tugged on my jacket, pulling me toward his chest. His kiss was still salty, but sweet, too, on account of the blood. “Go,” he whispered, hoarsely, “before he gets to Temple.”

  I kissed him again and ran toward my daughter.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Wind hootchy-kootched the windows. The big grandfather clock on the landing tick-tocked peacefully. We’d almost made it to the steps when two round spots of light appeared in the windows. They grew larger and larger.

  “Get into the closet.” I pushed Temple through the door seconds before the wall of glass shattered, tinkling like so many discordant wind chimes.

  Turner cut off the motor, swiftly, one in a series of sudden deaths. Then he dismounted, a length of rope hanging from his shoulders like a necklace. The unsheathed knife glinted in his belt. Greasepaint flattened all the familiar lines of his face. For some reason this frightened me more than anything. I called up the memory of the boy I once knew: Jeff Turner in his pressed khakis and navy blazer; in his county-issue periwinkle blues. But I couldn’t seem to get past the gleaming makeup, smearing his features, obliterating his eyes.

  “Hey, lady,” he said cheerily.

  “Hey, Jeff.”

  I stood at the foot of the stairs holding the butcher knife I’d taken from the kitchen.

  “So, what do you think?” he asked. “Not bad for a country boy, huh?” He edged closer. “I really had you goin’, didn’t I?”

  “Yes,” I told him. “You really did.”

  “Don’t talk down to me.” Jeff circled in front of me, his hand playing nervously over the hilt of his knife. “You know, I hate when people underestimate me.” He leaned forward, just beyond striking distance. “And I love it.”

  He feinted in my direction. “Boo.” I flinched, and he laughed. His eyes scanned the room. “Where’s our girl?”

  “She made a run for it,” I told him.

  “Garner, you disappoint me,” Jeff said. “First that big ole knife, and now these deceptions.” He began walking around, calling, “Hey, pretty baby, it’s lover boy. Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

  “I told you,” I said, “she’s not here.”

  “She’ll turn up,” Turner said, “sooner or later. Didn’t I tell you, it’s the lonely ones that can’t ever get enough of me? Sweet Temple. Little Jenny Price back home. Now she was a good one, because she couldn’t talk about what I did, after…”

  When he lunged, it was so swift and unexpected, the image registered in my head as just a blur, unsubstantial energy, not matter. And suddenly his fingers were locked over my wrist. I cried out, releasing the kitchen knife into his palm.

  “Temple,” he called, his face so close I could feel the warm, sticky greasepaint on my cheek. “You’re not gonna leave your pretty mama out here in the clutches of the big bad wolf, are you?”

  I tried not to scream No, don’t do it, but he cut me off with steady pressure from the crook of his elbow to my vocal cords. “If you don’t get your little ass out here by the time I count three, sugar,” Jeff said calmly, “I’m gonna have to cut sweet mama’s throat and then come looking for you. One—”

  Temple stepped out of the closet, face ashen, her hair matted with sweat and sand. “Good girl,” he said. “Now sit.” He nodded his head toward a chair. She looked at me. Jeff jabbed the point of the blade into my neck. “1 said sit.” She obeyed.

  He loosened his grip on me so completely I fell forward. “Tie her up,” he commanded, tossing the rope.

  “I don’t know how—”

  “Start with the hands.” I moved slowly, mentally calculating the distance between the chair and the piano bench, desperately trying not to look at it, not to give myself away.

  I felt his eyes on me as I circled the rope around Temple’s wrists. “You were never totally sure about me, were you?” He came over to test the knot himself. “Even after Susie went and changed her story.” He mimicked Susan’s voice. “God knows Mr. Turner is an innocent man.” Jeff signaled for me to kneel. “Man, that was one crazy bitch, huh?”

  He was running the knife down my scalp. The blade snagged on the tangles in my hair. I wrapped the rope several times around my daughter’s bare ankles. She had a nasty cut just above the bone there. I wanted to kiss it. Instead I concentrated on the piano bench. The bench where only yesterday I’d hidden my stash from the hardware store. The nails. The big Phillips screw driver with the thick yellow handle.

  Jeff said, “I never did it with two before. Hope I came prepared.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw him pull a condom from his pocket. It fell out of his hand and rolled under Temple’s chair. “No matter.” He grinned. “I know where you two ladies been.”

  I pushed Temple’s chair as hard as I could. She screamed, spilling from the seat, half-tied, but immediately rolling away.

  I crawled on my hands and knees toward the bench. Jeff caught me as I was lifting the lid. I slammed it down on his fingers. He howled like a mad dog, striking me so hard I fell forward; but my hands kept moving with a life of their own. On a mission, unstoppable.

  His knife found my flesh somewhere above the shoulder blade.

  In nomine Patris, et Filii…

  There was a delayed reaction to the pain while my fingers danced across stacks of sheet music, clutching, grabbing, as unwilling to believe the simple truth—

  …et Spiritus Sancti…

  The tools were gone.

  Cilda had stealthily
moved them to another location. I’d find the screwdriver in an unlikely place, when I least expected to, on some other day.

  Only this time there wouldn’t be another day.

  I twisted around to face my killer, watching his man-in-the-moon face rise above me, knife out, already bloody. Before it struck, he moved it up and down, and side to side, in the sign of the cross, the way I knew he would.

  Each cut was slow and methodical.

  I heard my voice crying, Run, Temple! Run! but inside there was an enveloping warmth, an easy calm. I wondered if this was how death had been for Dane Blackmoor. I hoped so.

  Jeff was praying again, In nomine…, his mouth in a perfect O, when his greasy moon face suddenly darkened, and he grunted, falling forward on my chest.

  Two long steely knitting needles were sticking out of the middle of his back, like arrows.

  He struggled to his feet, trying to pull them out, moving his arms backward in wild circular strokes, like a drowning man attempting to swim. But Cilda was already poised over him, the crutch held high in her hands, carefully aiming it before she struck.

  In the ambulance I dreamed that Diana Gold had sent the policeman back—something about not being able to reach Blackmoor on the phone—about needing to tell him that Lucy Moon had confessed. She’d killed Torie and the other girls. Lucy Moon and Elizabeth Rice…

  In my dream Diana Gold dispatched that officer…

  Someone whispered it all into my ear. And I thought, It’s not a dream, then, Oh shit. I owe my life to Diana Gold…

  EPILOGUE

  I woke out of another nightmare.

  The sheets were wrapped so tightly around me that for a moment I thought I’d been tied up. I struggled, relaxing only when I realized where I was.

  The hospital.

  Lights were lowered in a semblance of night. Still, I could clearly make out Temple’s face. “Dane’s alive,” she said, “but—”

  I put my hand up, weakly. It was enough that I could see her, and Cilda; and she’d said the words I wanted most to hear.

  For now it was all that mattered.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jane Waterhouse is an award-winning play wright, scriptwriter, and the author of several critically-acclaimed novels, including Playing for Keeps, Graven Images, Shadow Walk and Dead Letter. Her books have been translated into several languages and appeared on several “Year’s Best Lists.” She lives in Fair Haven, NJ.