Only Women in Hell

by A. R. Braun

  “Just how much fuckin time?” Therese asked.

  “Let’s watch our language, okay?” Amanda said.

  Therese groaned, sat, and doubled-over on the couch.

  Amanda put her hand on her shoulder. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

  Therese had her head between her knees. “I don’t feel so hot.”

  “What’s wrong, specifically?”

  “I can’t catch my breath.”

  Devon and Sam asked if she was okay.

  Amanda helped her stand. “Come on. Let’s get you to the nurse.” She looked at Devon and Sam. “Your mom just needs a day or two to calm down and sort things out, that’s all. I promise it won’t be for long.”

  As Amanda led her toward the orderlies, the sun shone brightly through the windows, and the heater kicked on. Therese looked over her shoulder and saw Devon and Sam gawking at each other with eyebrows raised and panicked eyes.

  “Guys,” Amanda told the two orderlies standing by the door to the ward. “Therese here’s not feeling too well. Could you take her to see the nurse?”

  “Sure,” they said.

  Therese looked over her shoulder. “Are you coming with me?”

  “I can if you want,” Amanda answered.

  “What about Devon and Sam?”

  Amanda craned her neck. Two very frightened-looking girls stared back at her. “Why don’t you let them stay with your little sisters.” She walked alongside one of the orderlies.

  Therese started to fall, but the orderlies caught her. She put her arms around them. Therese couldn’t breathe. She tried to suck in breaths, but just wheezed.

  “You’ll be all right, hon,” Amanda said. “Whatever’s wrong, we’ll take care of it.”

  <^^>

  Devon noticed she was shaking. She and Sam plopped down in the chairs.

  Sam held her. “Momma will be okay. That’s what Amanda said.”

  Devon hugged her back. “I hope so.” They broke the embrace. “She acts like she doesn’t love us anymore.”

  “Stop second-guessing Mom. Amanda said she was just upset about how we’re sick.”

  The triplets raced over to them while the heater died down and the sun hid behind the clouds. Devon thought it strange that one wall was made of glass. Outside, the snow coated the ground, dominating any dead grass that might be hiding underneath.

  Bobbi jumped up and down. “I don’t remember you! You’re not my sissy!”

  Devon tried her best to give her the death stare. “Kid, don’t start with me.”

  Sam frowned at Devon. “Don’t get mad at her. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.” She reached out to hold Bobbi, but the latter pulled away.

  “Yes I do!” Bobbi continued. “You’re not my sissy!”

  Sam looked at Devon. “Oh boy.”

  Kyra started crying. Louisa followed suit, rubbing her eyes. Devon’s heart broke, and if her icy heart broke, she knew Sam’s did. They reached out and pulled Kyra and Louisa into their laps, holding them.

  “Shush,” Sam whispered. “It’ll be okay.”

  “Big babies!” Bobbi stomped off.

  Louisa had her head on Devon’s shoulder, soaking her shirt.

  Devon looked up. “Bobbi!”

  “How come,” Kyra struggled to say through her sobs, “how come we never seen you in our house?”

  “Because Daddy wasn’t very nice,” Devon answered. “Remember when Amanda told us that?”

  Kyra wept. “My daddy’s not ni-i-ice!”

  Louisa pulled her head up from Devon’s shoulder. “I miss my mommy, Marie!”

  Devon shook her head, trying to look as sweet as possible. “No, honey, no. Amanda said Stacey’s our mommy, remember? We remember your cribs in our little apartment before Daddy took you away.”

  Kyra and Louisa buried their heads in Devon and Sam’s shoulders and bawled. Devon looked at Sam, whose eyes were as confused and scared as hers, probably.

  A nurse walked over, holding Bobbi’s arm. “Is this your sister?”

  Devon nodded, as did Sam.

  “Well she was kicking and slapping the other children. Could you watch her for a while? She needs a time out.”

  “Good lord.” Sam hefted Kyra up and sat her in the seat next to her. She bent before Bobbi and pointed at her. “It’s not nice to hurt the other kids.”

  Bobbi made a defiant face. “You’re not my mommy! Where’s my mommy, Marie?” She wept.

  Oh my good damn god.

  Devon felt her nerves start to go out of control as panic kicked in, hurting her fragile mind.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Christina walked into the interrogation room where Marie Alley sat with her face in her hands. The police officer who guarded the door opened it, then locked it behind her.

  All right, bitch, I’ve got the goods on you.

  The fluorescent lights flickered above her, sounding like a bug zapper. Christina struggled to control herself. In her mind, she saw herself running up to Marie and bashing her head in with her fists. Instead, she walked over to the table, pulled out the screeching chair, and plopped into it.

  Marie looked up at her, tears streaming down her cheeks. Her huge frame sat sprawled in the chair. She looked uncomfortable, switching her butt to different positions every couple of seconds.

  Christina cleared her throat, then, in a serious, lower voice, started her offensive. “Stacey said you knew.”

  Marie’s eyes became wide, and her eyelids rose. “She said I knew what?”

  “You tell me,” Christina almost growled.

  Marie furrowed her brow. “I told you I didn’t know he had her in that dungeon!”

  “Keep your voice down.” Christina sighed. “Don’t you want to know what Stacey said?”

  Marie slapped the table. “Am I under arrest?”

  Christina hissed and shook her head. “You’re just here for questioning. Have you done something I should arrest you for?”

  “This is entrapment.”

  Christina rubbed her eyes, then put her hands flat on the table and locked eyeballs with Marie. “Stacey said you knew Dick was beating her when she was a child, and you knew Dick had her in the dungeon.”

  “I knew no such thing! I work twelve hours a day! How am I supposed to know everything that’s going on?”

  Christina stayed locked on her eyes. “Of course there’s physical evidence he raped her and fathered their daughters. I just find it hard to believe that you were Little Miss Innocent and never knew a thing. That’s ludicrous.”

  “Got any proof?” Marie yelled.

  “Not yet. Didn’t I tell you to keep your voice down?”

  “Like hell I will! You let me go if you’ve got no evidence!”

  Christina slapped her hands down on the table, making Marie jump. “Look. I know you knew about everything: the beatings, the imprisonment, and that those three girls weren’t the children of a cult leader. I know it in my heart. A mother knows these things. And I’m going to find a way to prove it! I promise you that. If it takes the rest of my life, where there’s a will, there’s a way. So you might as well come clean now.”

  “I didn’t know anything,” Marie screamed. “I didn’t fucking know. Now arrest me or let me go.”

  Christina laughed, then looked her over. “The three older girls are anemic, have an oxygen deprivation illness, and a vitamin D deficiency. It’s from being in a dungeon without sunlight for almost a decade and a half. Does that bother you at all?”

  Marie’s bottom lip quivered and her eyes misted up. “I… that’s… terrible.”

  “Oh, good show, Grandma, but I don’t know whether you’re blubbering because you’re at the police station or whether you give a damn about your foster daughter and her children.”

  Marie put a hand over her mouth and bawled.

  “Yes, make it convincing,” Christina added.

  Marie turned her head and broke down crying. Her tubby frame shook. The sobbing sounds made Christina sic
k. Marie drew a few breaths and proceeded to get herself together.

  Christina slid a folder across the table. “That will show you how pale and sick Stacey and her oldest three look. Check out those pictures, then tell me in good conscience you didn’t know, or you did know and weren’t willing to help them, ‘cause I want an answer.”

  With shaky hands, Marie first looked at Christina, then checked out the photos. When she saw them, her eyes went predictably wide and she put her hand over her mouth. Her face went white. She didn’t peruse the photos for very long before sliding them back across the table.

  Finally, Marie looked at her with red, rheumy eyes. If Jabba the Hutt had a sex change and was undergoing a nervous breakdown, he would be the spitting image of Marie.

  “I swear to you I didn’t know anything about it,” Marie said. “I want a lawyer.”

  “You’ll need one.”

  Marie downed her glass of water, then plopped it on the table. “I’m not saying anything without a lawyer present.”

  “You’ll be appointed an attorney, don’t worry about that.” Christina sighed. “So much for the questioning.” She sighed again. “All right, then.” Christina clutched the folder and stood, the chair whining in protest as it scraped across the floor. “Marie Alley, you are under arrest for aiding and abetting a child abuser, a rapist, and a kidnapper. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law…” As Christina finished the rote speech, her mind burned in fury. She motioned for the police officer to come into the room.

  We probably won’t be able to make anything stick but, damn it, I’m going to try like hell.

  “Get this sack of shit out of here,” Christina added as the cop finished cuffing Marie.

  <^^>

  Amanda let her forehead bonk on her desk as she winced.

  Twenty-four years at this job and I thought I’d seen it all. For the first time in my life, I want to quit, just run away like a little girl and hide.

  She closed her eyes and raised her head, putting her face in her hands. Amanda was putting off calling for Stacey.

  The woman’s going to completely break down, and I mean a stay in the quiet room.

  Though they’d set the heater on a reasonable temperature, Amanda found she was sweating bullets.

  Maybe I should quit. Get into a new line of work.

  She shook her head.

  Can’t, I have my kids to think of. That’s another thing. Thank god my children are healthy and normal. I guess Stacey wasn’t so lucky.

  It was now or never, so Amanda hit the button on the phone.

  <^^>

  A day after Stacey demanded a break from her children, she stood looking out the window in her room. She used to be so happy to be out of the dungeon; now she was empty, lifeless, and desolate.

  She mulled over seeing her girls. What good would it do to hide in here all alone? Wasn’t it her daughters who had put things in motion to get out of the dungeon? Weren’t they the only reason she didn’t go completely insane down there? How could she shut them out?

  Maybe I should see them, just for a little while.

  Her new sexual preference scared her to death. Then, when she’d been tempted to beat her daughters, that had been it; she’d almost snapped. It had helped to get away from them for a while. Now, she felt isolated and downtrodden.

  I could go hang out with the other patients, but they’re loonies.

  Snow started to fall, and the flurries waxed beautiful from way up here, as if she gazed at the world’s largest snowglobe. She felt like a god, watching over all the earth.

  “It’s like Amanda said,” Stacey soliloquized, “it’s the devil’s lie. I need to resist him.”

  And I need to give those kids a break and see them. If it gets to be too much, I’ll just take another break.

  Oh, how they’d been brats the last time she’d been with them.

  I want to go outside. When are we getting out of here?

  Amanda had also told her about Bobbi’s tirade, accusing her big sisters of being phonies. This had discomfited her immensely.

  But what do you expect? My, what those kids have been through—what I’ve been through. We need each other.

  Hot tears rolled down Stacey’s cheeks as she watched a blizzard white out the aesthetics of the city like dandruff on an anthill.

  “I’m going to see my kids.”

  A knock on her door startled her. She turned around, noticing the fluorescent fixtures filling the room with sterile, white light. Wesley, the black-haired orderly she’d thought hunky when she’d first came to the hospital, just looked like a beast now.

  A man’s evil made me and my children sick. I hate men.

  Zander trailed just behind them. They looked like angels in a black, blasphemous comedy in their white adornment.

  Oh my god, they’re going to lock the door and rape me! I just know it!

  Wesley cleared his throat. He didn’t look too chipper the way his eyes kept averting hers. “Miss Alley, Amanda wants to see you.”

  “What’s wrong?” came out of Stacey’s mouth before she could even think about what she’d asked. Her heart sunk and her stomach turned, a mother’s instinct.

  Wesley’s smile was obviously forced. “I think that’s something she wants to talk to you about herself.”

  “Is it one of the girls?” Stacey blurted.

  “Why don’t you come and see?” he let out.

  Smart-ass. Stacey turned away. I can’t deal with this. I’m not going anywhere with a man. “I… I don’t want to go with you.”

  Zander sighed. “Then how are you going to go?”

  Stacey wheeled on him. “Not with you!”

  The orderlies jumped, their eyebrows sank, and their mouths hung open.

  “I’ll go with a nurse.”

  “Never mind,” Amanda said as she gingerly shoved the orderlies out of her way.

  Stacey’s eyes locked on Amanda.

  “I thought you’d have this reaction.” Amanda looked over her shoulder. “Guys, get out of here.”

  “Sure,” Zander said.

  They exited.

  Stacey fumed, looking away sporadically. She forced herself to face her. “What the hell is going on?”

  Amanda choked on a sob. She looked like she didn’t know what to do. For the first time, Stacey realized this woman was a human being, and sometimes she felt lost.

  Amanda looked past her. “A blizzard, great. That’s what was missing.”

  “Just out with it,” Stacey almost growled. “What happened?”

  Amanda wiped her face with her hand. Stacey wondered if it was to wipe away the horrid situation she was about to reveal.

  Amanda gestured toward the table. “Sit with me.”

  Stacey looked at the institutional table, then back at Amanda, then back at the table. Goosebumps erupted on her flesh as she realized the heater hadn’t kicked on in a while. She moved toward the table and sat, Amanda sitting across from her.

  Stacey sighed. “God, that heater, it—”

  The heating ducts roared to life.

  “Really?” Amanda asked. “I’m hot.”

  Stacey looked her over, knowing that if Amanda was uncomfortable, she was about to be very uncomfortable. “Why are you avoiding the issue? Is one of my girls dead?”

  Amanda touched her hand. “Oh, no, it’s nothing like that.”

  Stacey furrowed her brow and looked down at her hand. Amanda removed it.

  “Then what?” Stacey asked.

  Sighing, Amanda gazed at the wall. “I’m going to start smoking again. I haven’t smoked for ten years, and I’m buying a pack of Marlboros as soon as I get off work.”

  Stacey rose, making the table bounce and causing a wide-eyed Amanda to jump. “Tell me what the fuck is going on!”

  Amanda stood, smoothed her skirt, and looked her in the eye. “It’s Therese.”

  “What about her?”

  “Well… sh
e being the oldest and being in the dungeon her whole life, plus being so young, the oxygen deprivation took its toll on her instead of the other children.”

  Just as I was starting to miss them.

  Stacey’s anxiety made her head swim. Her legs trembled and she saw stars.

  “I’m afraid she’s in a coma. Her brain has shut down.”

  Stacey slowly sank into the chair, her legs going out from under her. She wept.

  Amanda sat again. “I’m so sorry.”

  Stacey covered her face. She removed her hands and looked toward the window. “I want to die,” she squeaked out.

  “No, no, don’t feel that way. It’s not like she’ll never come out of it. She’s strong, and with our prayers…”

  Stacey fell to her knees and felt her mind give way. The panic took her then. More scared then she’d ever been in her life, her mind reeled. “I… I… can’t…”

  Amanda hurried out of her chair, which scraped the floor like a child’s nails on a blackboard, and she knelt with Stacey, stroking her back and embracing her. “It’s going to be all right. She’s not dead. We’re not going to give up on her.”

  “Is… is there…” Stacey sobbed the words. “… a chance she might not… come out of it?”

  “I wish I could tell you no, but there’s always that chance.”

  Stacey broke from her embrace and tried to hurl herself out of the window.

  Amanda caught her and pulled her backward. “No! No!” Her voice was throaty and low. “Your kids need you.”

  Stacey’s brain reeled, vertigo wheeling around in her madness, her emptiness, her Hades. She fell to the floor as she lost control of her nerves.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Dick traipsed toward the lunch table with his tray. He found it hard to sit, but did anyway, in an area where no one else lurked. He was starving. The institutional food in the jailhouse didn’t look too appetizing, a hamburger with crinkle-cut fries, green beans, and a slice of chocolate cake. He had nothing but a small carton of milk to wash it down with, as if he was a schoolboy.

  The sunlight stormed in through the open windows by the ceiling of the pod. Dick shut his eyes. He felt blinded.

  Why the hell do they keep the windows open in the winter? Stupid fuckers.