The Punished

by Peter Meredith

  A foster mother could say any number of things to sabotage an adoption and this was probably a threat that she used to keep them in line. She was using the old carrot and stick game. But it wasn't going to work on Curt, he wanted adoption even less than he wanted a foster home, making this an entirely useless threat to him.

  "Do you think I could ever be adopted?" he asked Miss Feanor in his sweetest voice, as they drove away from the social service building. "A family of my own is what I've always wished for." He just wanted to see what she would say.

  "Anything is possible," she replied cryptically and then in order to end conversation, she cranked the tunes once again. The aspirin had done just so much and again the sound thumped into his head, but it was only for a short time and then unbelievably, she turned into the parking lot of a McDonalds. She had to be one of those schizos for sure, he thought. If she were, this personality was definitely his favorite. Testing his boundaries to the limit, he ordered enough food for two people and surprisingly, she asked if he wanted more.

  "Would you like a shake? It'll be good for your throat."

  "My throat?" His throat hadn't hurt anymore than the rest of him, but when he touched it, he felt a good deal of tenderness there. "Yes, a shake would be wonderful, thank you very much."

  She ate a great portion of food as well and this seemed to effect her mood, but not in a good way. On the car ride back to her house, she grew quiet again and as they pulled into the garage, she sighed audibly. Leaving the engine running, she turned and looked at Curt, appraising him as she had the day before and just like then, her eyes were cold and dark.

  "You impressed me yesterday," she said, back to her customary whisper. "For your sake, I want you to impress me again. I need you to remain as still and quiet as you can, while I speak."

  "I..."

  "No talking. I'm going to tell you the rules of the house now and you need to obey them to the very best of your ability. When you hear them, you may want to scream or maybe shout, and maybe even hit me...don't do these things, again for your sake. Nod your head if you understand."

  He nodded, but he didn't really understand. The only thing he knew for sure was that he had been likely right about her being a schizo. Just the way she was talking, told him that she was obviously a whack-job, a loon. He had dealt with loons before, they were a dime a dozen on the streets and they were mostly dangerous only because of their unpredictable nature.

  And like everyone else, loons wished to be told exactly what they wanted to hear, the trick was knowing what that was. It could be quite confusing at times and as far as Curt knew, this was his first experience with a real schizo and having to deal with two personalities, seemed like way too much trouble. He decided at that point, he'd be leaving that night, with or without Paul or the silver, if there were in fact, any to be had.

  Miss Feanor had paused, perhaps knowing that he would need some time to come to grips with what she had said, and now she continued.

  "You are thinking that you will run away tonight," she said.

  That she somehow knew exactly what he was thinking, at first gave his stomach a sour turn, but after a moment, he realized, everyone likely had those same thoughts and he settled down rapidly.

  She shook her head gravely, "If you try, you will be punished. There is no escape from this house; smarter boys, bigger boys, luckier boys than you, have all tried, and they have all failed, and they were all punished.

  "When in the house, do not talk or you will be punished. Do not laugh, or cry, or scream, or make any noise that will draw attention to yourself, or you will be punished.

  "Do not sneak food, or attempt to cook or touch anything in the kitchen, or you will be punished. The dining room, the living room, the powder-room, the basement and the attic are all off limits, stay out of these places, or you will be punished.

  "Do not scratch the walls, or the floor or break or mar anything in the house, or you will be punished. If you do so by accident, tell me immediately and there is a chance we may avoid your punishment.

  "Do not move any of the items in the house. If you do, show the child in charge of that particular room. If you don't, you will be punished.

  "You will want to test me, but for your sake, don't. Now, the first question everyone wants answered is, what's the punishment?" She looked at him grimly, "Take off your shirt."

  "But..."

  "Now," she repeated coldly, raising her voice just the tiniest amount. Her eyes told him that now would be a good time to do what the loon asked.

  Curt was still not especially frightened, unnerved was closer to his true emotion. Being punished was a part of childhood and some forms were worse than others, but since he could read people remarkably well and could sense their emotional state, he usually avoided the worst of it.

  That there would be a severe punishment for breaking her ridiculous rules went without question. The faces of the other children in the house had been enough to tell him this, but for him it was just a matter of avoiding it for as long as it took to make his escape.

  So he obeyed and taking off his shirt, he stared down at himself in dread fascination.

  Terrific bruises covered his body. The bruises seemed to bloom like mottled flowers, erupting on his skin in shades of red and purple and black. They were horrible. He couldn't stop staring at himself and then he noticed an odd pattern in the discolorations.

  Undeniably, within the bizarre and unnatural bruising there were bite marks on his flesh. Human bite marks. A wave of goose bumps swept across his bruised skin and he found that he now had trouble breathing. Miss Feanor had been right, he suddenly wanted to shriek in terror, the cry welled inside his chest and it was a struggle not to let it out. It built greater and greater, the longer he stared.

  "Huhh, huhh, huhh."

  Noises began to slip from his mouth and he became terrified of himself that he would scream against his will. He looked up sharply at his foster mother expecting her to be looming over him with her mouth wide, but instead she only gazed at him with an ugly pinched look on her face.

  The look told him she wasn't happy with the sound he was making and he snapped a hand over his mouth.

  "Last night, I made sure you were out cold, before your punishment...I won't do that again," she said this so quietly that he nearly leaned in to her to hear it. "You will obey the simple rules of the house or you will suffer, is that clear?"

  "Yes..."

  "Don't answer, just nod your head," she whispered viciously. He nodded, still with his hand clamped to his mouth. He hated being bitten. It wasn't only the sharp pain, it was the fact that struggling against it only seemed to make it worse.

  "Yesterday, you were too loud," she continued in a low dangerous tone. "Don't try to deny it. I see in your eyes that you want to, but don't. You were loud and you were punished. And if you're loud again, you'll be punished again, am I clear?"

  Still with his hand over his mouth, he nodded.

  No longer did he feel the scream in him, but now he had a fantastic desire, an overwhelming need to make her happy with him, and he pulled his hand away and attempted a smile. He could tell that his eyes weren't part of the smile and he blinked heavily a few times trying to change his look. It didn't work. His eyes held only fear, but he hoped she would at least appreciate the attempt.

  A corner of her mouth went up, but besides that, she only looked upon him with her merciless gaze. Suddenly, she reached into the back seat of the car and brought forth a stack of pictures. They were snapshots of the downstairs hallway, the back staircase and the powder room.

  "These are your areas of responsibility. Every evening after dinner, you will make sure that they are clean, spotless and looking exactly like these pictures and I mean exactly, down to the smallest detail. You will wax and polish the floors as needed, usually every two or three days. You understand what will happen if you don't?"

  His mouth came open, but at the last second, he snapped it closed and nodded. She smiled at t
his.

  "Good. So far, every child coming into this house has wanted to test me. Don't. Please, please, don't," she said this last with fear in her eyes. It was a fear for him and this more than anything else, cemented the idea that she was insanely dangerous. To threaten him in such a way and then to pretend to worry for him...was simply crazy.

  "You may go into the house now. The other children generally read or do puzzles, throughout the day, but I need to warn you again," she paused significantly. "Don't try to escape."

  Of course, he was going to try to escape.

  Chapter 3

  The second Day

  1

  Curt stepped out of the car and found himself two feet from a door that lead to the outside world. Through the small square window set in the door, he could see the green of Miss Feanor's backyard and the trees that lined her large lot, but since the house was set so far back, he couldn't see any of her distant neighbors. The view of the world beckoned to him and he felt a tremendous urge to run, to make a dash for it.

  But he held back.

  Undoubtedly, he could outrun the middle-age lady, but she had a car and what's more, she could call the police and with his record, they'd never believe his wild stories. And it was daytime, he would run at night. The darkness had been his ally for as long as he could remember, it hid him and kept him safe and allowed him to do things that were impossible in the light.

  So he turned away from the door and its false promise of freedom. Miss Feanor had been watching him with inquisitiveness and now as he looked over to her, she pointed at the door and gave a wave of her hand. She wanted him to try to leave. He knew when he was being set up and he gave her a smile and a small shake of his head, but she snapped her fingers quietly and pointed at the door again. Her muddy brown eyes seemed black in the dim of the garage and they held more than a glint of annoyance at having to repeat her gestures. Therefore, he turned toward the door, but at first, he couldn't bring himself to grab the knob.

  It gleamed up at him and he could only stare at it, as he felt Miss Feanor's eyes burning into his back, he pictured her licking her lips in anticipation. It sent shivers up and down his body, and he heard the snap of her fingers again, but this time they seemed closer.

  With a shaking hand, he made to give the cold knob a halfhearted turn, but it wouldn't budge. It didn't even wiggle as many old doorknobs did, in fact, it seemed welded in place. There would be no getting out this way.

  He looked back over his shoulder and felt a touch of relief as he saw that she wasn't standing over him as he had imagined but had barely moved around the car. Seemingly satisfied, she nodded at him and then pointed toward the door that led to the mudroom. He was to go through it.

  She waited next to it as he passed by, and his muscles quivered as he turned his back on her, heading into the house. He hated the feeling of her behind him, knowing she could sink her teeth into the back of his neck like some horrible vampire. This thought sent the shivers down his spine again, and as much as he wished that he could stop himself, he couldn't. Just being so close to her, made him feel vulnerable and his subconscious must have been envisioning terrible things. Stepping through the mudroom, he entered the kitchen and saw that it was deserted; not knowing what to do with himself, he turned sideways and gave her a questioning look.

  Her eyebrows came together in anger. 'Get out of the kitchen,' she motioned with her hands, which were quite capable at expressing what she wanted, he turned quickly and left the room. Feeling aimless and unsure of himself, he headed to the family room and was pleasantly surprised to see the four teenagers there. Now, the room wasn't warm and inviting as the name would suggest. Like the rest of the house, it clearly was for looking at, not for touching and the children sat on the floor instead of on the large expensive looking furniture.

  The two boys were reading hard covered books, while the blonde girl doodled using an etch-o-sketch and the mouse worked at a puzzle. Since he was usually a loner, it seemed weird, but Curt felt an odd sort of camaraderie with them and he gave all, a large friendly smile.

  However, they were not so happy to see him and did not return his smile and each offered him varying looks. Matt's was a sharp look of angry jealousy, with perhaps a touch of revulsion, however this last might have been fear. Paul wore a sympathetic look of sadness for the new kid. He then, nicely gave Curt a friendly wink, but oddly, he followed that with a second wink and then a third. Curt didn't know if the boy was trying to communicate with him in this way and if he were, Curt didn't know what he was trying to say.

  It confused him greatly and he glanced away, looking first at the mouse of a girl, and as before, her eyes whipped up and down him. However now they bulged in their sockets as they moved and she shied back as if in fear. His smile froze on his face at this and he nearly blurted out a question as to why she should fear him so much, but just in time, he recalled the warning. He swallowed his question and looked away from her, seeing next the blonde girl.

  She no longer appeared as listless as she had the other times he had seen her, but this was mainly due to her obvious fear. Like the others, she was afraid of him, however, there was something else in her eyes as well, a hidden intelligence, even a curiosity, he saw just a flash of it before she buried it back behind the fear.

  The fear in their eyes was very real and within seconds of him entering the room, they left one by one, including Paul who had seemed the friendliest, slipping up the stairs like soundless wraiths. Now a sudden painful loneliness gripped Curt and it was as if someone had punched him in the gut. What was wrong with them, he wondered. Why on earth would they be afraid of him? Questions came and went in his mind, but no answers and quickly, he began to despair and he could only stand there trying to blink back his tears.

  In a minute however, he lost his battle and he cried in honesty, for the first time in years. These tears weren't part of a greater subterfuge, as so many of his others were, these stemmed from a desperate overwhelming feeling that he had become enmeshed in something that would lead him to a horrendous ending. Suddenly an answer to his question sprang up in his mind, perhaps the other children thought that he was about to be punished and wanted to be nowhere near him when it happened.

  Curt began picturing teeth and his skin crawled in horror.

  And now the shriek of terror, that he had felt earlier, started to well up inside him again. Soon he worried it would burst right out of him and he pictured Miss Feanor charging into the room with her mouth open wide, blood already dripping from her fangs.

  "Huhh, huhh, huhh," he began to cry louder at this image and he clamped his hands over his mouth in desperation. Those little noises in that house were loud and he was sure they could carry far, perhaps all the way to the kitchen. In the last few minutes, since he had entered the house, not a single sound had come to him. No whispers or footsteps, no ticking clocks...the place was absolutely still and his whimperings seemed vulgar in their volume. He kept his hands where they were and figured he would leave them there until he settled down, but he couldn't seem to calm himself and soon his chest developed a hitch. And he became louder still.

  He found himself in a terrible loop.

  The more noise he made only caused him to become more afraid, which caused him to make more noise, and he knew that he was moments away from shrieking in terror and running from the house. With his last remnants of control, he hurried out of the family room and after a quick look back down the hallway, he slipped to the foyer. In anguish, he went to the front door, he could still sneak out before his uncontrollable panic brought Miss Feanor and her terrible teeth.

  The old knob was just there and with a simple turn of the thing, he would make a run for it. He'd show Miss Gladys his bite marks and she would almost certainly investigate that. All he had to do was get past that door. But the door didn't seem like much of an obstacle and that's what stopped him. It seemed too easy, this door wasn't like the garage, welded shut, and he had seen it open a number of times alr
eady. His hand came up, however an inch from the knob he held back as he suddenly pictured it hooked up to an electric current, he yanked his hand away quick.

  The idea that the door was trapped flipped a switch in him. One moment he was practically on the verge of a meltdown and the next, he was bent over peering in close as the thief in him came out in full force. He gave the door a thorough inspection, starting at the top, and working his way down; with his complete attention on the door, he calmed down without realizing it and his breathing relaxed to its normal state. The first thing he noticed about the door was that it hadn't received the same attention as the rest of the house. Constructed of a dark heavy wood, the door had beveled edges on its panes and these held a light layer of dust. This was the first dust that Curt had seen in the house, which is the only reason why he noticed it. The dust certainly wasn't years thick, but it probably hadn't been cleaned in quite a few weeks.

  The knob of the door, he noted, seemed very old and there were intricate carvings and letters on it, but where the door hadn't been dusted in weeks, the knob looked to have never been cleaned. He would bet money that no child had touched that knob since the last time someone had attempted running away.

  Now, he was heartily glad he hadn't touched it.

  For some minutes, he had been peering at the door without thought to his surroundings and realizing this, he spun around in fear but he was very much alone. He cocked an ear, trying to listen for any sound from the house, but there was nothing and the feeling of being alone intensified. However, it wasn't the same terrible loneliness of a few minutes ago, it was just that the house could have been deserted, with the still air and the total lack of sound it felt that way. Yet it wasn't, the children were there, somewhere, probably sitting as motionless as statues, trying not to draw attention to themselves. So strange, he thought and then bent again to the door.

  This time he inspected the very large lock. It sat an inch below the knob and obviously was just as old. The key that fit it would undoubtedly be enormous compared to modern ones and Curt could only imagine the size of the tumblers within it. If the lock even had tumblers, he just didn't know enough about locks, especially ancient ones like this, to know.