Child's Play

by Andrew Neiderman

  To the right were shelves with very old jars still on them. Cobwebs over the jars formed a fabric of thin white threads that crisscrossed each other in a pattern. It was as though the spiders had followed some preconceived design.

  Carl shuddered. For a moment he had the image of one giant spider as creator. He expected it to emerge out of one of the dark corners and envelop them in its long, wirelike legs. He had seen a spider like that in a horror movie once when he was very young, and the memory often reappeared in nightmares. This was a room for nightmares, he thought. For the first time since he had come to the Manor, he was afraid. But he tried desperately not to show any of that fear, not in front of the others.

  Four gazes followed the path of the lantern’s light beyond the jars. They saw the fieldstone walls and the rafters above—thick, dark timber that looked dried and weakened by age. They saw some more shelves, which were empty, and the hard-packed black dirt floor. The light stopped when it reached the straight-back wooden chair. Alex stared at it so intently that Elizabeth had the chilling idea that he saw someone in it. She looked to Richard, but his gaze was as hard and as unflinching as Alex’s was.

  She felt the moisture in her hand and realized that little Donald was squeezing it hard. When she looked down at him, she saw that his eyes were wide and glassy. He looked more fragile than ever and apt to cry at the slightest provocation. She smiled to encourage him. Alex moved to the chair.

  He had closed the door behind them after they had entered, shutting them up with him in his private darkness. Now he took his seat in the chair slowly, the light concentrated under his face, throwing an eerie glow over his mouth and eyes. He seemed transformed by the small pool of illumination. He looked bigger, as though his body was swelling up right before their eyes. For a long moment, he said nothing. He simply sat there staring at them and they looked back at him. The silence was deep, but they could hear the breeze brush against the plank door. It sounded like somebody whispering behind them. Carl had the urge to look back, but he couldn’t break the hold Alex had over him and the others.

  “Richard,” Alex said, “behind the jars on the bottom shelf there you will find long candles. Bring me one.”

  Richard moved quickly, but gracefully. He felt through the darkness and found the candles, holding one up before him. He held it as though it had magical properties, as though it was one of the most valuable things he had ever seen, as he brought it to Alex.

  Alex put his lantern down and took out some matches. He lit the candle and then turned off the lantern. This smaller, flickering light had the effect of changing the room’s interior for them. A curtain had been raised and another lowered. This one turned the walls of the room into a backdrop for all sorts of dancing shadows. The candlelight was the key that released the spirits that were incarcerated in the thick, undifferentiated darkness. Now they were able to assume separate and distinct identities, shapes and forms. As Alex moved the candle to the center of the room, the dancing shapes slipped off the walls and slid over the hard dirt floor. Some even traveled over the bodies of the children.

  There was something in the floor that held the candle upright. After Alex had fastened it securely, he sat back in his chair and beckoned the children to come closer. Now, only at the rim of the light, his face had changed again. This time it looked as though he wore a mask, and his eyes became two small circles of yellowish light.

  “Everyone sit down,” Alex said. He indicated that they should form a semicircle at his feet around the one lit candle. When they did so, their faces became like his, half masked in darkness, half lit by the flickering yellowish light. Elizabeth had the feeling they had all been transformed into whatever Alex had become. The light was a link; the darkness tied them together, made them into one.

  Carl felt a strange new warmth come over him. Now he was comfortable and unafraid. When he looked at Donald, he saw that his little foster brother’s face had become serene. He was looking up at Alex adoringly. The closeness of their little circle, the sharing of the light had given the little one a strong sense of security.

  Only Richard looked greatly excited. The light danced in his eyes and out, as though it originated from within him instead of from the flickering candle. He looked up at Alex expectantly, enthusiastically awaiting a word, a look, a touch. The intensity of his idolization had a strong influence on the others. A stillness settled over them all.

  “Good people don’t have the same kind of death others do,” Alex said. Here in the secret room, even his voice was different. It was deeper, but softer, smoother, richer than a mere human voice. “When they do die,” he said, “something of them always remains. Call it the spirit, call it the soul, but that something stays with us. It finds a place, a sanctuary, and keeps itself there to serve us in our greatest need. Such a place is this. You must not think that because it is simple and old that it is not worthy.” He looked about. “You must not ridicule it. That would offend the spirit.”

  “We won’t,” Richard said. Alex looked at him and nodded. Then he looked at each of the others.

  “If we are true to one another and we are strong for one another, the spirit will help us, will lead us, will protect us. I brought you here tonight because I believe you have all shown yourselves worthy of it. You care for one another more than anyone has ever cared for you. The time has come for each of you to peel away all outer protection, all walls between us must fall. We must be as honest with each other as we are with ourselves. Are you ready for that?”

  “Yes,” Carl said. He didn’t want to be the first to say it, but Alex’s eyes and voice brought it out of him.

  “Yes,” Richard said.

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said.

  “Yes,” Donald said. His little voice was stronger than ever.

  “That’s good.” Alex sat back and closed his eyes. “I feel him now,” Alex said, “I feel his goodness beside me and I will do what I have never done before—I will share it with you.” He paused and then looked hard at Elizabeth. “You are in danger, aren’t you?” he said quickly. The others turned to her.

  “Me?”

  “In this room, with us, at this moment, you can expose the evil within you. It can’t hurt you here. You’ve been aroused. You have let yourself be touched. Someone wants to use you again, to diminish you. Tell me if this isn’t so.”

  Elizabeth looked to the others as though she expected one of them to come to her rescue. She found no sympathy in any face, only expectation. Confession was on her lips. The candle flickered in anticipation. She looked toward the dark corner to her right. She did feel something in this room beside them. Was it the spirit of Alex’s father? She trembled, debating whether or not to lift herself quickly and rush from the secret room.

  “What have you done, Elizabeth?” Alex asked. “Don’t be afraid to tell us here. We can and we will help you. What have you done?”

  Elizabeth looked at Richard. He must have told him, she thought; he must have told him how I’ve been teasing Mr. Knots, how I deliberately rub up against him, how I went to him after school.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” she said. “He’s been looking at me, making suggestions. He wanted to drive me home yesterday,” she said quickly. The lie seemed to form itself. “But I don’t think he would have taken me straight home,” she added. “So I didn’t let him.”

  “You were strong, Elizabeth. That was good,” Alex said. He looked to the others. “You all should learn from that. But you did want to go, didn’t you, Elizabeth? You were tormented by that…that old desire. The evil tried to emerge, didn’t it? Didn’t it?” he repeated.

  She looked at the others. They expected her to confess.

  “Yes, Alex. I couldn’t help the feelings, but I didn’t go with him this time.”

  When she looked up at him, her eyes were filled with tears.

  “That’s good, Elizabeth. That’s good,” Alex said. He held his hand out and she took it to her face quickly. She kissed his fingers and he leaned o
ver further to stroke her hair. “Elizabeth has been under a terrible strain,” he said, looking at the boys. “In a true sense, she was under attack. We mustn’t let anything bad happen to her. She must not be alone in this battle.”

  He sat back and the boys closed the semicircle tighter until they were all touching her, embracing her, comforting her. Little Donald buried his head in her lap, and Carl took her other hand into both of his. Richard put his arm around her shoulders, and there was a long moment during which no one spoke.

  “All right,” Alex said, and the three boys relaxed back into their previous positions. “This time,” Alex continued, “what’s happened to you has happened to all of us. All of us have been used; all of us have been belittled. It is as I told you—there are they and there are we. Isn’t that what I said, what I predicted?”

  “Yes,” Richard said quickly. Alex smiled at his enthusiasm.

  “But now we are stronger and we will not let anything happen to us, to any of us.” He looked at Elizabeth. “Whenever we are weak, we will come to this room and we will regain our strength. Do you all believe me?”

  They nodded.

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said. She wiped the remaining tears from her cheeks. She couldn’t help but be impressed. In this room Alex did seem to have a power. It was as though they were all naked before him and he could see the smallest imperfections.

  “But we must do something for Elizabeth,” he said. “We mustn’t let this go on.”

  He sat back and closed his eyes. The candlelight appeared to have grown stronger. There was a glow on his face. Elizabeth thought that if there were a spirit in this room, this was the time it would merge with him. All of the children widened their eyes in anticipation as Alex raised his hands from his lap and embraced himself, his eyes still closed, his back still firmly against the chair. Then he nodded, as if he heard a voice, as if he were being told something.

  When he opened his eyes, he smiled as though he were pleased the children were still there before him. He leaned forward; his face looked hot. To the children, the candle burned within him now.

  “We will do something,” he said. He looked at Elizabeth again. “She must never be in danger again.” He turned to the boys. “Are you all with me?”

  “Yes,” Richard said emphatically. He was as quick to support Alex as Beelzebub was to support Satan.

  “Yes,” Carl said, but it was more in a whisper. Little Donald looked up at his two older foster brothers and nodded.

  “What should we do, Alex?” Elizabeth asked.

  As an answer, he took Richard’s hand into his right hand and her hand into his left. When Donald and Carl took Elizabeth’s and Richard’s other hands, the union was complete. With the candle in the center, its light flickering over all their faces now, their meeting in the secret room looked more like a seance. For Alex, it was, in a sense. Each of the children thought he felt an energy passing through him and on to the one beside him. Alex’s demeanor, his solemn silence, the look in his eyes, the way he listened to the darkness made each of them believe he was reaching beyond what they all normally saw and felt. Later, none of them would deny the existence of a spiritual presence. Each would try to outdo the other in describing the experience. Even little Donald would talk about the eyes he had seen in the darkness behind Alex.

  “We will be as one,” Alex said, speaking in a loud whisper now. “Each of us will give our strength to the group so that when we strike, we strike with power beyond anything any of us would know alone. As long as we are together, we are invincible. Do you believe this?”

  “Yes,” they said in chorus.

  “Good. Listen then,” he said, “and I will tell you how we will help Elizabeth and in doing so, help ourselves.”

  As Alex leaned inward, they all leaned inward. Their faces were only inches from the candle itself. They felt the heat on their skin, but that didn’t discourage or frighten them. Perhaps they wouldn’t have felt the pain of the flame had it touched them, so hypnotized were they by Alex’s eyes. In that moment it was as though the darkness of the room closed down upon them, enveloping them. The children barely breathed; their lips and eyes were still.

  Completely entranced, they listened as Alex described what had to be done.

  In the days that followed, Sharon noticed a subtle but significant change in the children. The cheerfulness, the open display of excitement and energy, the effervescence she’d seen developing in them began to diminish. They were still involved in the various rehabilitation projects around the house, but there wasn’t the same pride and enthusiasm. At dinner they didn’t discuss what they had done and what more they planned to do. The conversation was slower; there were long pauses when nobody, not even Alex, would talk. She began to feel like someone who had been excluded from the revelation of some terrible secret. It was as though someone close to them, one of them, or even she, was about to die, and everyone else knew about it but her.

  Of course, the logical explanation for all this was to blame it on Alex’s taking the children to Pa’s secret room. They had begun going there regularly every night after they had all completed their homework. She would finish her work in the kitchen, go into the living room and begin watching some television or reading, while Alex was in the den writing or reading Pa’s manuscripts, when suddenly one of the children would appear in the hallway. It wasn’t always Richard. One time it was Carl and once it was even Donald.

  Whoever it was frightened her because his appearance was so unexpected it was like a spirit manifesting itself before her very eyes. Indeed, part of the change that had come over the children was their phantomlike demeanor. They had begun to move more like shadows behind and around Alex. For a while she suspected they had taken some kind of oath of silence, perhaps some experiment or some test Alex had devised to teach them forbearance and self-control. It wasn’t beyond him to come up with something like that.

  She remembered the time a little more than two years ago when he had gotten it into his head to try something like that on himself. He had been reading and studying about an order of monks that actually cut their tongues out as a commitment to their oath of silence. She had thought he saw it as some kind of personal challenge. He had told her beforehand what he was going to do, so she wouldn’t think him sick or get angry with him for doing it.

  “It’s quiet enough around here as it is, Alex,” she had replied. “At least for me. Do you have to do this?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Well, what if I need to talk? What if something very important comes up?”

  “You can talk to me. I’m not saying you can’t talk.”

  “But I’ll need your reply.”

  “I’ll write it out. Damn, couldn’t you figure that for yourself?”

  She’d studied him and seen how infuriated he was beginning to get. She had taken comfort in thinking that it wouldn’t last long, that it was just something he had to get out of his system. It was better to let him go on with it, which he did. What had surprised her was how long he’d carried on that way.

  There hadn’t been that much conversation between them as it was, but she’d thought he would forget or would find a need to express himself. But like anything else he did, he was a perfectionist about it. First, he was reading all the time, carrying a book with him wherever he went in the house. He often sat and read at their meals. And if he wasn’t reading, he was staring blankly at his own thoughts projected on a wall or in the air before him. For the length of time he had done it, it had been truly like living with a ghost.

  One of the interesting things that had resulted from it, though, was the dramatic increase in her own talking. Perhaps it had been defense against the solidly imposed silence; whatever it was, it had worked. She’d got so she was babbling to him all the time. Whenever she saw him, she had something to say. He had done what he’d promised he would—listened attentively and wrote out replies. For that purpose he’d bought a dozen small message pads and placed them in e
very part of the house.

  A few times some business people had called, but he wouldn’t break his silence for them. He wrote out what had to be said and forced her to say it. She was embarrassed by it all, of course, so she’d claimed he was suffering from laryngitis each time.

  Finally one day he’d decided that whatever he had to accomplish, he had accomplished. He came down to breakfast, sat down at the table, poured himself a cup of coffee, and said, “The silence is broken.”

  For a moment she couldn’t reply. The sound of his voice was so incongruous with the shadowy figure she had been living with during the past month. Often she had imagined the sound of his voice, forced herself to create it. Sometimes this was so vivid that she had had to look at him closely to be sure he hadn’t really said something. She did the same now. He continued to eat.

  “Did you say something, Alex?” she asked. He nodded. Her heart fluttered.

  “I finished with the silence,” he said.

  “Thank God for that,” she said. He looked up sharply. “It has been lonely for me, Alex. I’m sure you realized that.”

  “It was good for you; it made you stronger, too. There are so many distractions out there, so many drums and tambourines, static to prevent us from hearing ourselves, our own deep and significant thoughts.”

  “Is that why you did it?”

  “In a sense, yes.”

  “What kind of thoughts did you hear, Alex?” she asked. She had really meant it as a serious question, but he’d looked at her as though she were moronic, making her feel stupid for asking the question. “I mean, I didn’t hear anything from myself that I can call unusual.”