by Brian Hodge
"How do you think I feel?" Kip said, suddenly exploding. His eyes started stinging as tears gathered. He knew that feeling well enough, but he told himself not to start crying now... not in front of her... not again.
"I can see how much it upsets you," Dr. Fielding said softly. "Can you tell me why?"
"You know damn well why," Kip replied. He knew she meant well; he could hear the kindness and concern in her voice, but he couldn't hold back his anger and pain any longer. His lower lip started trembling, and the stinging in his eyes got worse. "It's the whole reason I'm coming here to see you, isn't it?"
"Has coming here helped?" she asked, shifting forward but refraining from putting her hand on his shoulder.
"I still can't remember what I... what I saw, if that's what you mean. I know that I found—" His voice twisted off with a high note, and as much as he tried to stop it, tears spilled from his eyes. "She was dead... my mother was dead... there... in the cellar hole."
Dr. Fielding reached behind her and snapped a tissue from the Kleenex designer box. She handed it to him and he took it without a word.
"She was all cut up... slashed. I remember—or almost remember what I saw. There was something down there with her. Some things in the cellar hole. Lots of them. But—still—you know, in my mind, it's all a blur. I saw this... this flurry of activity... almost like they were giant rats or something..." His voice twisted off with a high note.
"Tell me some more about the cellar hole itself," Dr. Fielding said mildly.
Kip dabbed his eyes, then blew his nose vigorously. The clouds floating beyond the trees had, he decided, definitely turned darker.
"The cellar... where my mom and dad were going to build the house." He closed his eyes tightly until the pressure squeezed out a few more tears. "They had bought the land on Kaulback Road, in Thornton, a year before I was born, but with being so busy at his job and all, my dad never got a chance to start building until—I guess it was around when I was six he started clearing out the land."
"And this cellar hole where he was planning to build the new house, there used to be another house there, right?" Dr. Fielding asked.
Kip nodded. "The kids at school—'specially Patrick MacNair—said it was where there used to be a witch's house. My dad checked into it, and the best he ever found out was a few of the men around town said that sometime back in Colonial times there was a house there that burned down. When we were first clearing the land, when I was little, I remember finding old rusted pieces of metal and stuff—just junk my parents threw away, but it was like a treasure hunt for me."
Dr. Fielding shrugged her shoulders, unable to suppress a shiver. "And what did you think about that, about the idea that the cellar hole might be haunted or cursed or something?"
Kip stifled a chuckle, but the thought of it made his stomach feel like he'd just swallowed a snowball. "I guess I was pretty scared... I mean, I was only seven at the time, and I was the new kid in town 'n all; 'n I didn't know if they were serious or just teasing. But I guess—when I think about it—I wasn't too keen on the idea of building the house where someone else's house used to be."
"How do you feel about it now?"
"Come on," Kip said, suddenly angry. "I told you a hundred times everything I remember from that day."
"Maybe if you tell me again, a little more of it will come back to you."
Kip heaved a deep sigh and ran his fingers through his hair. "My dad was cutting down some trees so the backhoe and the cement truck would be able to get in to pour the foundation. My mom was—" Again, his voice hitched, and tears burned in his eyes. "She was down in the cellar, picking up rocks and branches and stuff so they could dig the cellar deeper. I had a little toy saw and hammer, and I was over near my dad, pretending I was taking down trees. I remember the chainsaw he was using made an awful lot of noise, and it smoked a lot.
Kip sniffled and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.
"I remember how every now and then I'd look over at the cellar hole, and I'd see some sticks or a rock come flying up out of there. I remember seeing my mom's hands flash up above the level of the ground."
"It was getting late. We were gonna be leaving soon. I was down toward the end of the driveway with my dad, and all of a sudden I got—I don't know how to explain it, this really weird feeling, like something was wrong. I didn't know what it was. I had seen Bambi recently, and I remember thinking how the deer must have felt when the forest was on fire. I got that same jumpy feeling except it was for myself. I couldn't help myself. I started to scream, but my father didn't hear me over the sound of the chainsaw, so I ran up to the cellar hole, and that's when I—I saw—"
Kip's voice choked off again, and he covered his eyes with both hands, pressing the heels of his palms so hard against his eyes squiggling point of light filled his vision. His thin shoulders shook like he had a chill.
"Kip," Dr. Fielding said softly, sounding like she was a hundred miles away. "Kip, don't force yourself to—"
"When I got there... to the cellar hole, it looked like it was... was too dark down there... like it was the first place where night came, even though the sun had just dropped behind the hill. Eagle Hill, they call it. And down there, in the shadows, I saw this... this activity—like everything was under water or something. My mother was lying on the ground, and there were these... these things moving all around her. They were moving so fast I couldn't really see anything clearly."
"So you don't know what these shapes really looked like."
It was a statement more than a question. Kip shook his head angrily. "Come on, you know I don't know. I've told you a hundred times, they were... were little creatures... little brown things, and they were swarming all over her. Suddenly, her shirtsleeve flew up into the air and landed right there at my feet. I screamed, and when I did, it was like, all of a sudden they were just gone—vanished."
"And then you've told me you were never sure, but you think you might have blacked out for a short time," Dr. Fielding said.
Kip shook his head vigorously from side to side. "I don't know. I might have. All I know is, the next thing I saw was my mother, lying on the ground, all cut up and bleeding all over the place. She didn't move, and I think even then, as soon as I saw her, I knew she was—" When he swallowed, his throat made a loud clicking sound. "She was dead."
"Now Kip, you've told me before that you and your father were down at the foot of the driveway, more than a hundred yards away from the cellar hole when this happened."
Kip nodded, no longer conscious of the tears streaking his face.
"And you know, too, that the police concluded that someone—some crazy person or maybe several crazy people—must have been hiding down there or had come out of the woods and done that horrible thing to your mother."
Again, Kip nodded. "I know all that," he said, his voice low and trembling. "And I know that you and everyone else I've told about what I think I saw are convinced I imagined the whole thing. My dad and everyone else is convinced that, when I saw her all cut up like that, I sorta went crazy and must have imagined seeing those things that attacked her."
"I don't disbelieve what you say you saw," Dr. Fielding said. She glanced down at her notebook as she jotted something down. "I just want to help you get through this so you can let go and start putting it all behind you."
"That's just the point," Kip said, his voice winding up higher, edged with panic. "That's it exactly. There's no way I'm going to be able to put any of it behind me if my father starts working on the house again, is there?"
"You don't know that," Dr. Fielding said. "Besides, don't you think this might be important to him? He's got to deal with his grief, too. He's suffered just as much as you have. Maybe by starting back to work on the house, he's making his own commitment to try to get beyond what happened."
"Honestly, Dr. Fielding, I don't know if I even dare go out there again."
"That's my point exactly." Dr. Fielding tapped her pen on her notepad
for emphasis. "I think you have to go out there, because I don't think you'll ever get over it—not really—until you do."
"Yeah, sure," Kip said, and again his gaze shifted to the window and the freedom beyond it. "Like you always say, I have to face my fears. Confront them head on."
"Absolutely," Dr. Fielding said.
"But what if... what if those creatures that killed my mother are real? What if they're still out there?"
2
Every Friday morning, after dropping Kip off at Dr. Fielding's office, Bill Howard usually drove out to either the Eastern or Western Promenade in Portland and took a long, brisk walk. Over the past five years, he had dealt with the grief of losing Lori, his wife, as best as he could—which, for him, meant being as solid and steady as he possibly could be for his two boys, Kip and Marty.
The problem was, even now he didn't feel all that strong. Usually it was only on these walks—and late at night—that he let his guard all the way down. If the salty wind was blowing in from Casco Bay, he could even almost convince himself the tears in his eyes were from the wind.
Today, though, he had gone back to the law office on Commercial Street to make a phone call he had forgotten to make earlier. He parked the car in the parking lot besides the office building, and ran up the flight of stairs, taking them two at a time. He was winded when he walked into the office and heard Lillian, his secretary, say, "What a surprise. Here he is now."
Bill glanced over to see Sidney Wood struggling to get his bulk out of the overstuffed chair by the far wall. He'd been flipping through an issue of People. When he dropped it onto the coffee table, it slipped onto the floor, but he ignored it as he started walking toward Bill.
Sidney Wood was probably... no, strike the "probably"... he was the richest real estate dealer and most influential man in Bill's hometown of Thornton, Maine. He also wasn't the kind of man who drove all the way to Portland on a warm Friday morning just to make a social call.
"Sid. How are you?" Bill said, walking over to shake his hand. The man's grip was cool and slightly damp, the kind of handshake Bill had always characterized as a "cold fish." In Sid's case, it was most appropriate.
"Can we step into your office?" Sid nodded toward the closed office door. The aura of stale cigar smoke clung to Sid like a well-worn suit as Bill unlocked the door, swung it open, and stood back to allow him enter.
Sid made himself comfortable in the chair next to the desk, took out and peeled a cigar, and stuck it into his mouth. He made a show of snapping open his Zippo lighter.
"Well, Bill," he said between sucking puffs as he got the cigar stoked. "I seem to find myself in need of the services of a good lawyer. And since you live in Thornton—hell, I sold you that property out on Kaulback Road—so I figured I'd give you the business."
Bill had to resist the urge to say "Lucky me." as he watched the clouds of blue smoke swirl up around Sidney's balding head.
"I need you to race right over to the county courthouse with me and get the bail they set on my son reduced."
Bill walked around his desk and sat down, taking out a pen and legal pad. "Why don't we start at the beginning, Sid? Tell me what happened. Then I'll see what I can do." Sid cleared his throat and leaned forward to tap the glowing tip of his cigar on the edge of the ashtray on Bill's desk. Most of the ash missed and fell to the office floor.
"Hell, you know my boy—Sidney. Everyone around town calls him Woody."
Bill nodded. He knew Woody, and he knew all too well what was coming next. Anyone who had ears had heard the blown-out muffler and squealing tires of his Camaro. Anyone who went to Art's, the corner gas station and convenience store, or the Big Apple had seen Woody and his friends hanging out there. They took pride in their reputation as the local tough guys, but generally their offenses amounted to smoking a little pot and maybe starting a fistfight every now and then. They did it mostly to break the small-town monotony. No real problems, unless you counted a couple of speeding tickets and an occasional "drunk and disorderly." Bill had always thought Woody and his friends were just street punks who didn't have the brains or guts to do anything too serious.
The only question was how serious is the trouble this time? Obviously it was a bit more than a misdemeanor if the judge had set bail.
"Well, he got into a bit of a problem down at—I dunno, one of those bars downtown. Might've been Free Street Tavern. He was down there with his girl friend, Suzie, and—well, she claims he hit her, beat her up, in fact. This was sometime last night."
"Do you know when?" Bill asked. "You must've gotten a phone call."
Sid shrugged his shoulders, waving his cigar like it was a magic wand that could make his son's problems miraculously disappear.
"The cops arrested him and threw him in jail for the night. The bail commissioner set his friggin' bail at ten thousand dollars. The worst of it is, Suzie says she's pressing charges for assault."
Bill frowned from the cigar smoke as much as from the problem that had suddenly dropped into his lap. If only I'd gone out to the Prom for my walk today, he thought bitterly.
"Ten thousand's pretty high, don't you think, if it's as minor as you say?" Bill sat back and rubbed his chin. "When Woody's gotten into trouble before, has he had any problems with not showing up in court?"
Sid shrugged again, rolling the gray tip of his cigar in the ashtray. "He might've had a couple of problems with unpaid speeding tickets."
"That all?" Bill asked, trying to draw him out.
Sid stroked his jowls with one hand and glanced out the window. "Well, last year he got into a bit more trouble. He was... I guess he'd had a bit too much to drink—hell, what boy doesn't overdo it now and then. Anyway, he got stopped for running a red light and had a bit of a scuffle with the cop who stopped him."
"How much is a 'bit'?" Bill asked. "Enough for a charge of aggravated assault?"
Sid looked down at his shoes and nodded. "Yeah, enough for that. The bail for that was posted at five thou, and then the son-of-a—He didn't show, so I lost my money."
It was now Bill's turn to shrug. "Well, at least I can understand why they set the bail so high. But Sid, you've never used me for your lawyer before. Why now?"
Sidney shrugged. "Just haven't had the occasion to," he said. "But I want you to go over there and talk to the judge. See if you can get it reduced."
"I'd have to file a petition for a bail review," Bill said. "That will take a little time. I might not be able to get him out until Monday. But just off hand, would you say he did it?"
"Did what?" Sid asked.
"Did he beat his girlfriend up?"
Sid laughed aloud, but his laughter turned into a wheezing cough. It was several seconds before he regained control. Bill noticed a small glistening line of drool on the left side of Sidney's chin.
"What the hell does that matter?" Sidney took a handkerchief from his suit coat and wiped his face. "My son's in the slammer, and I want you to get him out. I'm sure as hell not going to pay ten thousand dollars and then have him blow it by not showing up. Look—" Sid leaned closer to Bill, looming over his desk—"I don't think I need the Portland P. D. taking care of a personal problem, if you know what I mean. What I want is for you to get my boy out of there. He and Suzie can straighten out whatever differences they might have."
"Where's Suzie now?" Bill asked. "I might have to talk with her."
"Who the hell knows? Last I heard, she was in the emergency room at Maine Med. Got a pretty serious cut on the side of her face. Word is, she slipped and fell in the parking lot after she and my boy had their little spat."
Bill nodded and then glanced at his watch, noticing that it was close to the time to pick up Kip from his doctor's appointment. "I don't think I'll have too much trouble getting him out, but like I said, it might be too late to do anything before Monday."
"I ain't paying you so my boy can spend the weekend rotting in jail," Sid said, scowling deeply. "I want his bail reduced, and I want him out—now!"<
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Bill shrugged, wishing he didn't feel so powerless against Sid. Maybe that was how guys like him got everything they had, by rolling right over everyone. Bill considered himself a pretty tough lawyer, but still... Sidney Wood had a way about him that was pretty hard to beat.
"Look, if the district court judge says the bail's good the way it is, there's not much I can do about it. I'll have to get the police records on what happened and all the reports on any arrests. It's gonna take a little time to prepare the petition."
Sid smiled—smirked, actually, and shook his head from side to side as he exhaled thick blue smoke. "Monday's not good enough, Bill. I want you to hump your ass over there right now and talk to the judge. Get that bail reduced to personal recognizance."
"I'll do what I can," Bill said, standing up. He made a point of checking his watch. "Look, I'm running late. I've got an appointment in five minutes."
"And right after that, I expect you to head over to the courthouse and get Sidney out with no problems. Am I correct?"
Bill did the best he could to mask his irritation. "Like I said, I'll do what I can. I can't make any promises." He dropped his pad of paper—still blank—onto the desk and escorted Sid to the door. They both left the office, and Bill locked the door behind him as he went.
At the front desk, he asked Lillian to give the police in Thornton a call and have them send over Sidney Wood Jr.'s record. Then he dashed out into the warm morning sun, leaving Sidney Wood Sr. huffing as he made his way down the flight of steps to the Commercial Street sidewalk.
3
"Someone's here t'see yah," the police sergeant called out as he unlocked the cell door and swung it open. "I'll wait for you over there." He indicated a chair next to the door as Bill entered the cell. The policeman slammed the door shut and turned the key in the lock.
"Fine," Bill said, nodding, his stomach tightening. "This shouldn't take long."
Sidney Wood Jr.—Woody—looked up from where he had been lying, face down on the blue and gray striped county mattress. His thin blond hair stuck up in several places like oily flaps—"rooster tails," Bill had called them when Kip and Marty were young. His eyes, at least the small amount that wasn't bloodshot, had a yellow tinge, like sour-milk.