“Well goodnight.”
“Goodnight Ellie.” Randall said kissing her once again before turning and heading back to the Cherokee. Ellie headed inside, happy for the first time in quite a while.
SEVEN
It was a veritable paradise. Jack Darrow walked the basement below the Talcott mansion for the first time. He lit up. The smoke hung motionless in the dead air. This was a place of death, but something lived, or at least something stirred, in the depths of the old Porter place. It was hard to say how he knew, but he did. It was a homecoming of sorts.
The hallway was dark, the bulbs having burned out and not replaced. Darrow moved through the darkness neither seeing nor feeling the walls. His footsteps echoed off the walls and around corners, guiding him. A sonar for the damned. The first room was the embalming chamber. He stepped through the doorway and flipped on the light. This one worked. The soft hum of argon filled the room. Darrow’s pupils shrank, adjusting to the growing light. Inside a plethora of instruments adorned the walls and shelves, Porter’s tools of the trade: surgical needles, scalpels, trocars (both hyper valve and straight line), aspirators, arterial tubes, and embalming machines. Darrow approached the embalming table. The steel was cold to the touch. He was a kid in a candy store, drawn to the sweet lure of death.
Darrow.
He didn’t hear the voice, he sensed it. It moved up his spine exciting the nerve cells and beckoning him forward. He took another drag on his cigarette, not wanting to rush this, but to savor it. In the corner of the room a door waited, slightly ajar. A soft red glow filtered through the cracks surrounding the doorjamb. He moved forward. The door swung inward effortlessly when he pushed it.
Inside it was cold, much colder than the rooms and hallways surrounding it. Darrow stopped, waited patiently. His breaths swirled about him, dancing quietly to the rhythm of silence. He was not sure how long he stood there. He looked at his watch. The hands had stopped moving. Time had no hold on this place.
The room was small and square with cement walls. Porter had obviously used the room as a janitorial closet. Brooms, mops, rusted tools, and cleaning supplies adorned the south wall, huddled together in a clustered pile of disarray. A large boiler sat alone in the southeast corner of the room. An intercom was installed on the west wall. The intercom system ran throughout the entire house, but Darrow had yet to see a speaker installed in the basement, until now. Porter must have spent considerable time in this room. To anyone else it would have seemed odd, but to Darrow it made perfect sense. This room was the apex for something grand, the heartbeat of Talcott Manor.
Welcome home Jack.
Darrow moved to the boiler and traced his hands up and down its metallic surface. It was cast iron, and Darrow knew that it was the original heating source for the mansion. Other areas of the house had been updated with the technologies of the modern age, but this room had been preserved exactly the way it was during the original construction. The boiler was coated in a thin layer of rust. The oxidation had given it an almost sinister appearance, glowing red in the soft light streaming in from the embalming room. An energy filled the room, an odd energy that he had not felt before. Jack Darrow smiled. He was home at last.
Just as Darrow had promised, a large plate glass window overlooked the woods behind Talcott Manor. Her room sat on the second story, twenty feet from the ground that sloped down into the woods below. Darrow had placed her twin bed against the west wall, a small end-table next to it supporting the solitary lamp with a sixty watt bulb, other than that the room was bare. Abby slowly wheeled herself to the windowsill. The task was painstaking and arduous. Her feeble hands shook as she grasped the wheels. Willing herself through sheer determination she forced her arms to exude enough pressure to move the chair forward an inch at a time. The chair creaked in squeaky protest, content to sit motionless. It was a test of wills filtered through the constraints of physics, the unstoppable force of Abby’s determination pitted against the immovable object set fast by the pull of gravity. At last inertia overcame gravity and Abby was able to peer out at the landscape below.
The woods descended gradually into a miniature vale where Myer’s creek trickled along in the distance before the hills rose again leading up to the center of town two miles away. It was too far away to see the intricacies of the surging water, but Abby pictured in her head a soothing continuous flow of swirling eddies and streaming currents. The trees obscured her vision of the town but the lone radio tower located at the edge of the municipality betrayed its location. There was no wind today. The trees sat motionless giving the woods an even more desolate appearance. Abby scanned the hillside looking for any sign of life, anything that would make the haunting feeling in her stomach go away.
It had been two days since they moved into Talcott Manor and each day dragged by with a cruel slothfulness. Jack had promised to take her for a walk on the narrow dirt paths that surrounded the manor, but as yet he had not done so, content to spend his time in the basement doing God knows what. And so Abby had no choice but to sit alone with nothing but her thoughts to keep her company. She was going to die here, she knew it, and try as she might she just couldn’t shake the prescient vision of her own demise.
She tried to think of other things, to recall happier times in her life but the memories were faded, blocked by the swirling thoughts of negativity that abounded in her head. It was human nature Abby knew. Left with nothing but one’s thoughts to consume them, inevitably those thoughts turned dark, revealing the instinctive fears harbored in the back of the subconscious. Abby guessed it was a survival mechanism, a primal warning system wired into the human psyche through thousands of years of evolution. Fear was a great motivator, keeping one alert to the dangers surrounding them. Now Abby sat amid those dangers and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. Her mind raced.
Why had she chosen the path that had led her here?
She didn’t know.
Why hadn’t she left when she was able?
Again, no answer.
Now she sat locked away in her tower awaiting a knight to come to her rescue, a knight that Abby knew would never come. Jack was supposed to be that knight, he was the one who was supposed to protect her, to take care of her, instead he had put her in this chair. A tear rolled down Abby’s cheek as she recalled the night of the accident. Jack was drunk as usual. He sat in the overstuffed recliner sucking down the Budweisers and watching Sports Center. Abby was in the cellar hunting down a jar of green beans for dinner. As she made her way up the cement stairs she heard Jack’s voice bellowing from above.
“Abby grab me a case of Bud.”
He had already drunk an entire case tonight and Abby knew he didn’t need any more. The drunker he got the more prone he was to violence. She paused halfway up the stairs; tonight she decided to take a stand.
“Where the fuck is my Bud?”
“I think you’ve had enough tonight Jack.” Abby said, closing the cellar door behind her.
The door was rustic, the old fashioned kind that had to be secured with a bolt latch. In her anticipation of the coming confrontation Abby had forgotten to slide the steel bolt through its bracket, leaving the door to set idle on its hinges.
Why didn’t I latch the bolt?
All I had to do was latch the God damn bolt.
Darrow rose from his chair, stumbling in a drunken stupor he knocked over the ashtray perched precariously on the armrest. A collage of cigarette butts bounced off the carpet emitting a disgusting smelling cloud of ash.
“God damn it, get your ass back down those stairs and get me a fucking case of Bud.”
“No! I won’t Jack. You’re done drinking tonight.”
Abby stood with her back to the cellar door, awaiting the inevitable confrontation. She clutched the jar of beans in her trembling hands. Darrow’s rage erupted from deep inside, tremors rumbling through his body as he looked at his wife.
“Last chance bitch.” Darrow loomed menacingly above her, trying wi
th inevitable futility to control his growing fury. “Get your fat ass down those stairs, AND GET ME MY FUCKING BEER!”
The last words came out in a hiss, splattering her face in a mixture of beer and spittle. Abby mustered her courage, wiping the spit from her cheeks and lips with her free hand. “No Jack, I won’t.”
The ensuing slap was so hard it stunned Abby with its ferocity. The back of Darrow’s hand collided with the bridge of her nose crushing the bone and rupturing the cartilage with a sickening thud. In her head the echo of her nose disintegrating was the sound a large bug makes when it splatters on the windshield, only amplified a thousand times. Abby toppled backward striking the door first with the back of her head, knocking it open and exposing the steps below. And then she tumbled.
The event played through Abby’s mind in slow motion. She saw the jar of beans silhouetted against the fluorescent glow of the living room lights, motionless at the zenith of its fall, poised in a quiet symphony of expectation. Her spine struck the steps, buckling under the unrelenting force of her own weight, rupturing her vertebrae. The splintered bone cut through Abby’s spinal cord like a scalpel through fatty tissue, causing her legs to flop lifelessly about her as she toppled. The jar collided with the cement steps exploding in a torrent of bean juice and shattered glass. Abby lay unmoving in a crumpled mass at the base of the stairs, her legs twisted behind her in a grotesque statuette of the unnatural. Darrow peered down the steps at his wife.
“Serve’s you right you fucking bitch.” He rubbed his temples trying in a vain effort to stop the pounding in his head. “Now get me my beer.”
There was no answer.
Darrow wiped his brow and squinted, trying to pierce the darkness below.
“Abby?” Darrow’s concern gave way to terror. “ABBY!”
He bounded down the steps, supporting himself against the cement wall. At the base of the steps he found Abby unconscious and barely breathing. He knelt beside her, cradling her head in his hands.
“Abby. Oh dear God Abby. Talk to me sweetheart. Abby, baby please wake up!”
Darrow called an ambulance, but the damage had already been done. Abby’s spinal cord had been severed and the doctors said she would never walk again. In addition she had extensive hemorrhaging in her cerebellum causing damage to her arms and severely damaging Broca’s area, the segment of the brain responsible for controlling speech. That night a little more than two years ago Darrow sat at her bedside, holding her hand and weeping quietly to himself.
Abby refused to press charges, opting (metaphorically) to stand by the man she loved. There was a torrent of pressure for her to indict Darrow. The local police had been called to their home on several occasions when neighbors had heard sounds of domestic violence, but each time Abby had declined to have her husband arrested, and without her testimony the prosecutor refused to take it to trial on the state dime.
She had been hospitalized seven times in three years for various physical injuries, a broken wrist, fractured jaw, cracked ribs, and several concussions. The list of so-called accidents that Abby had given to explain away these injuries was as distinguished as it was creative. But it had become harder to come up with viable excuses for her injuries. Darrow was beginning to get nervous. He knew that if Abby ever did decide to press charges, the evidence was overwhelmingly stacked against him. Too many meddling cops and doctors with their police reports and medical charts had created an indisputable paper trail of evidence pointing the finger of guilt directly at him. Now that Abby was in a wheelchair nothing would make them happier than to see him go away for a long time, making Darrow a nervous wreck. Every time the phone rang or there was a knock on the door he was convinced it would be another meddling social worker or cop trying to persuade Abby to press charges. He decided that it was time to get out of town. Luckily for him he now had the financial resources to do it. Abby’s mother had passed away just two month’s prior and left her entire estate to Abby.
Word spread that Darrow was about to come into some serious money and the pressure on Abby to turn State’s evidence mounted. Local social workers began contacting Abby frequently, urging her to take refuge at one of the battered women’s shelters or to stay with relatives until a divorce and legal separation could be finalized, but Abby would hear none of it. She had pledged for better or worse until death does them part, and Abby was determined to stick to her vows. But the main reason she would not press charges against Darrow was because she loved him.
There were other reasons of course, she had a history of attracting the wrong kinds of men, or maybe subconsciously she had sought them out, she didn’t know. When she was seventeen she had left home, dropping out of school and following her boyfriend around the southwest. Chase Barrett was a bronc’ rider and they had traveled the country for a while making the rodeo circuit and living out of a camper. At first it was exciting, the competitions, the call of the open road, and a romance with a real live cowboy, but three years later life on the road began to wear on Abby and she found herself wanting for something more. Although Chase never physically or verbally abused her, he had an annoying habit of parking his boots under the wrong beds. The final straw came one night when Chase had failed to return to the camper after a competition. Fed up with his philandering she had pounded on every camper and trailer in the mobile park until at last she found him clad in only his boots and hat and having a private rodeo session with two of the well known circuit groupies. Abby packed her bags that night and hitchhiked her way west to California.
In Sacramento she had met a local DJ named Darrin Tretcher, or just “Treatch” to his friends, the two had hit it off immediately. Darrin had dreams of cracking into the big media markets like San Francisco and Los Angeles, claiming that Sacramento was merely a pit stop on his path to fame and fortune. But Darrin was naturally big into the local music scene and it brought with it a cast of bizarre friends and a raging drug habit. For six years his drug usage increased before the habit finally robbed Darrin of the ambitions that had attracted her to him in the first place. He lost his job at the local station and began dealing marijuana and methamphetamine out of their small apartment in order to support his worsening addiction. An ensuing drug deal gone badly had prompted two masked men to break into their bedroom one night while they slept. The intruders had bound them both and pummeled Darrin to a pulp, leaving him with a broken arm, rupture spleen, and several skull fractures. The entire time Abby lay bound and gagged, forced to watch the horrific event. They never reported the incident, fearing for their lives and worrying that getting the police involved would incriminate Darrin for trafficking. Every night after that was spent in sheer terror, thinking the men would come back and finish what they had started.
Abby convinced Darrin that it was time to get clean. He checked into a rehab center and began the painful detox. His rehab was filled with night terrors, vomiting, the shakes, the sweats, and intense physical pain, through it all he was determined to kick his addiction, if not for himself then for Abby. He emerged clean and sober from his three-month stint at the center. Abby convinced him that it was time to leave Sacramento and start over, Darrin agreed and Abby was looking forward to their new life together. It was 1991 and they decided to move to Seattle where a growing media market and exploding music scene led by the grunge movement would offer Darrin a better chance to land a DJ gig, but then just three days before their scheduled departure Abby returned from buying milk and bread at the supermarket to find Darrin unconscious in a pool of vomit, severely bleeding from his nose. He had overdosed on a speedball, a mixture of cocaine and heroine. The paramedics were unable to revive him and he died on the way to the hospital.
Undaunted Abby moved north to Rainier Beach, a small suburb on the south end of Seattle. The neighborhood though rough, felt like home to her. She took a job as a cashier at a convenience store, earning just enough money to pay her modest rent and put food on the table. After a year her boss sold the store to a local Korean man who staffed th
e store top to bottom with members of his own family. The nepotism resulted in her termination and Abby was forced to look elsewhere for employment. Although cashier jobs were in abundant supply, none of them were willing to match the generous wage her former employer had given her. Facing eviction, Abby was left with no choice and took a job as an exotic dancer at a local gentlemen’s club, the Dancing Bare. The tips were good and she was able to afford a bigger apartment and purchase a car for the first time in her life, but the degradation that came along with being a stripper left her feeling empty inside. Six months into her employment she met a thirty-six year old self employed electrician named Jack Darrow.
At first Jack seemed much different than the men she had dated in her past. He was soft-spoken and mild mannered with a dashing smile and kind eyes. He quickly became a regular, purchasing lap dances from her and always tipping generously. His witty remarks and sense of humor brightened Abby’s nights and soon she found herself watching the door as she danced on stage, hoping that Jack would be in that night. The nights he did come in, Abby found herself spending all of her breaks at his table listening to his stories and watching him smoke cigarettes and drink rum and coke. He seemed happy and content to eek out a modest living doing individual contract work and Abby had long ago stopped looking for a man with big ambitions, opting to settle for one who would treat her like a lady. They were married four months to the day that Jack Darrow first walked into the Dancing Bare and plopped down twenty dollars for a lap dance. They eloped in Vegas, and although the wedding was nothing like the one she had pictured when she was a twelve-year-old girl, Abby was happy for the first time in a long time.
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