The Punished

by Peter Meredith

  Now came the tough part. Waiting.

  There was no way he could know the exact time, however he did know that it was still too early to reconnoiter the home as he had planned. Patience was a hallmark of a top-level thief. There were four prime attributes that a successful thief must have: intelligence, patience, courage and imagination.

  Curt had far too little patience. It was a failing he recognized in himself but as yet, had been unable to conquer it to a proper degree and now he found himself bored silly. To combat that, he thought about the layout of the house and tried to recall what the exterior of the place looked like.

  All that he could remember was that it was three story red brick home with ornate shutters and a steeply slanted roof. If he had known that he would be forced to break out of the place, he'd have paid closer attention. In his vague recollection of it, the chimney seemed regrettably normal. He had been down a normal sized chimney before, but never up one and the prospect seemed daunting. Had it been one of the big ones that some of the older houses possessed, he wouldn't have been too worried, knowing the climb would've been easy.

  The other aspect of the house that he just couldn't recall was whether or not the home had eaves jutting from the roof. It would making climbing down that much harder and would mean a couple of extra feet to drop at the end as well. His current plan had him climbing down the roof using the sheets that were currently on his bed. He'd attempt to rip them diagonally, wind them up and tie them together.

  He figured, that would give him approximately twenty-seven feet of homemade rope and that without eaves, he'd still have to handle a nine foot drop at a minimum. This he figured he could do, anything more than that scared him. It would do no good to escape the house only to break his leg on its front lawn. If he had access to more sheets this would be less of a fear, but so far, he hadn't seen any.

  And this was another reason that tonight would only be about research.

  He smiled, realizing that he was acting on patience. Waiting until the situation was as perfect as it could be, before committing himself was the intelligent thing to do. It had been such a bad day for him that this little triumph would be considered the high point of his day.

  His smile however was very brief and it disappeared beneath a huge yawn. Rolling over to get more comfortable, he began forming a list of the minimum required tools that he would need to escape. He became too comfortable and though he didn't think it was possible after what had happened the night before, he fell deeply asleep.

  2

  Crreik

  The sound was quiet, but the house quieter still.

  Curt came awake with a strange but dreadful feeling that something was different.

  Glancing around in fear, he saw that his room looked the same. The crack in the door shed a dim light and that too hadn't changed. In fact, the only thing that had changed was that his covers were tucked under his arms instead of over his head as they had been.

  Crreik

  Curt eyes went wide in the dark. He knew that sound. He had made it himself trying his best to slip up the stairs that afternoon, before Paul had helped him out. It was the sound of someone trying to move slyly.

  Crreik

  Someone was coming up, and that someone brought with them a cloud of fear. The feeling preceded them up the stairs and it had frozen Curt in his bed. His only movement was to clutch the blanket closer to his thin chest.

  Crreik

  Now, his blue eyes peeled back and he stared with fascination through the slim crack between the door and its frame waiting to see what horror it was that came up toward him. Was there someone else living in the house? Someone worse than Miss Feanor?

  Crrrreik

  There had to be, no one in the house made this sort of furtive noise, not even Miss Feanor. When she wished, she could be as quiet as the others and the only time she had been loud at all, had been the morning before when she had woke him up. Even then, she had moved noiselessly.

  Crreik

  But maybe she didn't want to be quiet, perhaps she was just trying to scare him. Or worse, maybe the personality that was so weird for biting had come out and was hungry and was now coming for him. In the dark, she was coming for him.

  Crreik

  That thought took his breath away. He pictured her advancing up the stairs with her lips pulled back away from her overly large teeth, drooling in anticipation. In this vision of her, she had huge maniacal eyes and claws where her fingernails should have been.

  Crreik

  How long did he have? How many stairs were there? These questions came unbidden to his frightened mind and unbelievably he considered it. Picturing the staircase just outside his door, he figured the number thirteen to be close.

  Crreik

  That last footstep had been too loud. It was almost as if it had been purposely louder than the others, like a final warning. It jarred him into action and he pulled the covers over his head, for a moment he felt altogether stupid and childish.

  Crreik

  This one was sly again as the others and now Curt held his breath straining to hear, no longer feeling stupid, but rather feeling scared nearly to death. She was coming for him. In the dark house, she climbed the stairs, making sure he heard her coming and her teeth were opening wider and wider...

  Crreik, crreik

  These last two steps had been quick as if she were trying to catch him in something and he could feel her standing near his door waiting for his panic to engulf him completely, so that he would fly from his bed screaming. But Curt held back the panic with all that was left of his terror-stricken mind and lay as an absolutely motionless little ball under his covers.

  He desperately wished he hadn't held his breath however. Miss Feanor stood there for long agonizing seconds and soon his lungs burned with his need to breathe. But there was no way he could do so now since just exhaling would be clearly audible. He laid there fighting against his natural urge and just when he didn't think he could last much longer...

  Crreik

  She turned away from his door then and he could hear her footsteps moving slyly, but not slyly enough, down the hall toward Amber's room. He let out his breath as quietly as possible and fought the great demand of his body to begin hyperventilating. She was still too close.

  After a half minute or so, Miss Feanor moved across the hall to the unnamed door and paused as she had done at the other doors, after this she moved on to repeating the process stopping at Paul's, Beth's and Matt's doors. No further sounds could be heard in the entire house and where she went to, he had no idea. Minutes ticked by and still he remained motionless, sweating through his pajamas with the stifling heat of the re-used air, waiting for some noise or sign of her. But eventually, he felt himself go limp, feeling as though he had passed a great test.

  He hadn't been punished again, so in one sense, he had passed a test. Presently he rolled over, away from the door and ever so slowly built himself a small tunnel to breathe through.

  The rest of the night passed with glacial slowness. Time stretched out in a way he had never experienced before and hoped he never would again. His adrenaline and his fear had him so wired that he couldn't go back to sleep and he only laid under his covers straining to hear the slightest noise.

  If he had any clue of the time, he would've planned to wait a couple of hours before going to explore the house. But he hadn't the vaguest idea of how long he had slept for, nor was there any way to judge how long a couple of hours were, when a dark blanket and a beating heart were all he had to work with.

  However, these were simply excuses. In truth, he was deathly afraid to leave the safety of his bed.

  Chapter 5

  A New Day, The Same Day

  1

  Eventually Curt felt a movement of the air in his room and his body went stiff and when a hand shook the blanket at his shoulder, he jumped beneath it. The touch had been light, but still he was afraid to see who it was. A moment later, the touch came again with more i
nsistence and this time he felt his blanket being pulled down.

  Miss Feanor stood over him, dressed in a soft looking, dark blue sweat suit. She looked at him closely and raised her eyebrows as if surprised.

  'It's time to eat,' she motioned and then left the room.

  Sunlight bounded through the slats of the shutters, making his dull room glow and for just a few seconds he lay back on his bed relaxing for the first time in hours. Desperately he wanted to lie there longer, but he knew it wouldn't be wise to keep Miss Feanor waiting.

  His first stop was to the bathroom however. He had felt the need to go for the last three thousand heartbeats or so, but he had held it without question. When he was done, he checked his reflection and saw what had so surprised Miss Feanor. Both of his eyes were shot through with red, he blinked at his reflection and felt the grit in them.

  "Damn," he said quietly. The vibrations of the word bounced off the tile of the bathroom for a moment before being absorbed into the walls, and Curt's muscles tensed at the sound. He would have to be more careful he thought.

  Going down to the kitchen, he noted that little had changed in the other kid's demeanor towards him, except maybe the fear they had of him was more pronounced. He was too tired to care. They ate quickly and he ate slowly between huge yawns, some of which disturbed the air of the house. Miss Feanor would glare at him when he did this, and for that moment, he'd remember to be quiet, but soon would forget again.

  With breakfast done, he wanted to go check to see if Oliver Twist had been moved by Paul yet, however the moment he had begun sliding in that direction Miss Feanor stopped him.

  'Take a shower. Brush your teeth. Get changed,' she said with her gestures. It was interesting to Curt how universal these signs were and he responded with the equally well-known sign for Ok.

  There was a short line for the bathroom, the blonde girl stood outside of it waiting with a towel in her hand. She purposely turned away from him so he wouldn't start any sort of conversation and that was fine with him, breakfast hadn't perked him up at all and instead of bothering her with his presence, he decided to go wait on his bed. Though he didn't know it, he had slept not even an entire hour the night before and so, relaxing on his bed, he was soon fast asleep.

  As usual, he had no idea how long he slept, though it had to have been a few hours, judging by the position of the sun. And again, it was Miss Feanor that woke him up. She didn't seem mad, but only jerked her thumb toward the shower. Quickly, he washed up and changed and when he had finished, he hurried down to the family room to check on the book. The sight that greeted him gave him such an intense feeling of déjà vu that he stopped in his tracks. Just as the day before, he saw the blonde girl working the etch-o-sketch, the mouse was doing the very same puzzle and the two boys were reading. And again, just as the day before they all left as soon as he walked in.

  He shook his head in bewilderment, but this time he didn't cry.

  Not even, close. Instead, he felt a fire of resentment burn in his belly, they were being unnecessarily mean, and acting like he was something to be feared was just stupid. He lingered in the room, looking about nonchalantly, giving the others enough time to make it back to their rooms, and only after a good five minutes, did he go and check for Oliver Twist, but it was gone and must have been the book that Paul had taken with him when he left the room. Curt was terribly disappointed, since he still had so many questions, almost all of them centered around how to escape. Sitting himself on the floor Curt decided to wait on his coming note before investigating a few possibilities that he had been pondering. However, with his customary lack of patience, he was up minutes later, peeking up the stairs and down the main floor hallway, with no one about, he slid toward the front door, but this time he veered away from the small foyer and went into one of the forbidden rooms, the living room.

  He moved without hesitation to the fireplace and looking up into it, he saw that the black metal flue was closed. With trepidation making his hands shake, he gave the handle a quick tug, but it didn't budge. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that the coast was still clear and so he turned back to the handle of the flue and gave it an even harder tug. Again, it didn't budge. A third attempt saw him straining at it in silence with all of his puny strength, but still nothing and he had to give up.

  A curse almost escaped him. Instead, he quickly left the room heading for the bathroom to wash the black dust off his fingers before anyone noticed. Hurrying up the stairs, he misjudged a step.

  Crreik!

  He had been too impatient and too quick and the noise had been very loud. He stopped for only a second, midway up the stairs, alarmed at the sound but he worried that someone would come out to berate him so he started back up, and this time he placed his feet more carefully, making it to the bathroom without further incidence. The black dust came off easily, but Curt took his time rechecking his hands and the sink for any telltale sign of it and only when he was satisfied, did he bend to look through the cabinet below the sink, something he had yet to do. More cleaning supplies. The closet too held mostly cleaning supplies, but now he noticed that on the upper shelves, that he could only see when on his tippy-toes were extra sheets as well.

  Curt gave them a grim smile.

  2

  If he could ever figure out how to get the flue open, he would be in business. But there was more than one way to skin a cat, he supposed. He went to his bedroom, pulled his blanket off the bed and then yanked off the top sheet. Spinning it so that it resembled the rope, he hoped it would soon be used as, he tied one end to his doorknob and the other to his bed, making a loose sort of lock.

  He didn't expect this to hold anyone back, but he hoped it would give him some time so he could check his room more thoroughly. This he did, giving it his thief's eye, he went up and down the walls in a precise and organized fashion, making sure to touch and visually inspect every inch of them. Next he turned his attention to the empty closet doing the same thing and finally to the bed and dresser.

  His main concern was finding out if he were being monitored in some fashion as Paul had suggested and he looked for anything that would indicate an audio or visual recording device. He found none. The only thing of interest that he did find was on underside of the box spring of his bed. The wood there was soft and easily marred, and he discovered innumerable tick-marks. He had seen a movie once where a prisoner had scratched these same types of marks, one for each day he spent in his cell. What he saw under his bed made the movie seem like nothing. Every inch had a dozen marks first one way, then the other and Curt guessed he was looking at thousands of them.

  He tried to do the math in his head, but he couldn't and only figured that someone had put up with the craziness of this house for years. It didn't seem possible.

  Trying his best to think past the tick-marks and an endless future of slowly going crazy, he went to his prime objective, the window. What he saw made his brow come down in consternation. The windowpane did indeed look very thick and it appeared to be imbedded deep into the frame. Moreover, the shutters were heavy and strongly built and Curt was very sure that these had been nailed shut as well.

  To escape this way wasn't impossible, it was only impossible under the circumstances he found himself in. The glass was probably a hard plastic that hadn't been nailed shut, but more likely drilled down with screws, that went through the plastic and the wood. Had it been a normal window, he would be able to work the caulking loose and slide one of the panes out, but this was just one large sheet of heavy plexiglass. It wasn't going anywhere.

  A loud sigh escaped him, but in his consternation, the sound went unnoticed. His window wouldn't work as an escape route, however maybe the bathroom or a kitchen window might. Putting his bed back in order, he headed for the bathroom next. The window there was unfortunately constructed in the same manner, but one thing that he did glean from his visit was that by peering through the slats of the shutters, he saw that the roof did indeed have eaves.

 
Unhappily, he sighed again. It was becoming a bad habit.

  "Sss," the noise came from behind him. The little sound sent his heart into his throat and he spun about feeling cold fear wash over him.

  3

  The blonde girl stood in the doorway eyeing him with a queer look of curiosity mixed with suspicious fright.

  'What are you looking at?' She mouthed the word what, and then pointed at her own eyes and then out the window. Paul had told him not to trust her and so far, he hadn't been wrong, so Curt pantomimed a bird.

  She didn't believe him and advanced on him with a slightly unpleasant look on her face. He backed away from her, but she wanted to see out the window so she ended up pushing him aside and looked up at what he had been eyeing. He figured that the most likely reason Paul didn't trust her was that she was a snitch, but if she was, then she was a snitch whose hair smelled of strawberries and as she looked up through the shutters, he breathed her in.

  It was very nice, and for a moment, he forgot his terrible predicament. She didn't let the moment last, instead she gave him an odd look that he failed to grasp.

  'Get out, I gotta go,' she motioned irritably as he only stood there.

  Curt let his red ears speak for themselves and left, heading for the family room. Oliver Twist sat on the shelf, but this time it was pushed neatly into place. Without hesitation, he grabbed it and went to his room, looking all about him as he went. There was a note right where the last one had been.