The Punished

by Peter Meredith

  Yet he didn't think there would be much contemplating this time. If he went in that direction, he would try to make a break for it; he was sure he lacked the will to stop himself. But he knew deep inside the he wouldn't be able to, the door was locked somehow and the teeth would come. The image of the teeth set his tears free to run down his face, they raced each other in an effort to get away.

  Amber saw the tears and hopped up quick, as did the others and the déjà vu was fast becoming reality for him with its single grotesque ending.

  "No."

  The word, muffled by his left hand, still was as audible and as distinct as the sound of someone pulling the hammer back on a loaded gun. To the other children, it seemed as deadly as well and everyone froze in place.

  This was suddenly new and different, and the feeling of déjà vu passed then, but Curt felt far from normal. Now he was looking at a room immobilized, stuck in time between heartbeats. No one budged, not even the mouse, who knelt on one knee with her head down and if her eyes spun madly in their sockets, then no one saw them. In those few seconds, it was a good thing for Curt that he didn't see them. He felt that his mind was close to breaking and every time he saw those eyes, he wanted to scream.

  In truth, he wanted to scream regardless, it had begun to form deep in his chest and it only needed a trigger to unshackle it. But the thought of a trigger made Curt remember that the scream was one as well; it would summon the foul teeth. One thing led to the next, day followed night, but what would follow the teeth?

  Insanity.

  The word fit the puzzle of the house.

  Insanity, like the mouse with her mad eyes and empty mind, or insanity like Matt's, hate and anger filled, bordering on evil. This was the logical progression, and Curt felt a tremendous, but very rational and sane fear of it.

  But panic wasn't exactly sane and as his fear slipped toward that mindless void, he backed out of the room before leaping up the stairs and racing in absolute silence for his bedroom as if the other teenagers were chasing after him, ready to drag him in front of Miss Feanor for sentencing and then punishment.

  3

  For a long while, he leaned up against his door panting, using his slight form to bar entry into his room, but no one had followed him up, and after a long span of time, his breathing relaxed and his fear shriveled into a manageable knot in his stomach. He went to his bed and sat upon it thinking about triggers. Sound triggered Miss Feanor and she triggered insanity, and what came next was obvious.

  Death would come.

  Dying as a raving lunatic frightened Curt badly, but the fact that he couldn't see any way to keep that from happening had his mind tipping. Even as quiet as he was, he had to talk. It was part of his humanity and despite seeing the progression of the triggers, he still felt the need to make noise, to be heard. To be someone. The contradictions that he wrestled with, overwhelmed his twelve year old mind and without realizing it, he began sucking his thumb and rocking back and forth.

  Sometime later, Paul came up the stairs and stood looking sadly at him with his dull grey eyes. Eventually Curt became aware of the older boys presence and at the same time, he realized what he was doing and quickly pulled his thumb from his mouth.

  Before he could stop himself, he said, "I..." The explanation for his thumb sucking died on his lips as the word darted from between them. Paul stepped back in alarm as if he didn't want to be coated with the sound of the word, and he craned his head around listening, not to Curt of course but for Miss Feanor.

  She must not have heard.

  Paul grimaced at his new friend and between winks, he flicked his eyes toward the bathroom, where a note undoubtedly awaited Curt. With that, he left, but Curt did not immediately head for the bathroom. He was afraid of the note. Writing notes had not been expressly forbidden, still Paul's secretive ways suggested that it too was a path toward punishment and just then, Curt feared the punishment far too much.

  So instead of going to read the note, he wrapped himself in his blanket and purposely ignored Paul's warning against sleeping in the daytime. Napping seemed the best way to follow the rules as well as a good way to pass the time and he cuddled up with the corner of the blanket in his mouth, falling quickly asleep.

  It was a dreamless sleep and later, minutes or hours, he couldn't tell, there came a nasty sharp pain at the back of his neck, which woke him in a hurry. He pulled himself blearily into a sitting position. Rubbing the sore spot he looked around stupidly, and saw Matt leering over him, holding a tuft of hair up to Curt's face. It was a moment before Curt realized what he was seeing, and when he did, he felt a surge of white-hot anger course through him.

  Matt's face combined with a small shoulder shrug asked him, 'What are you going to do about it?'

  Curt averted his eyes and buried his anger deep within him since there was no use trying to fight the bigger kid. This seemed to disappoint Matt who waited for a reaction he wasn't going to get.

  And after a few moments, he sullenly motioned, 'Miss Feanor wants you to go take a shower.'

  Curt nodded and was just getting up when Matt, with sudden viciousness, shoved the smaller boy backwards off the bed. Though his mind might have been flirting with a fear and stress induced madness, Curt's body was still agile and lithe. Falling backwards, he twisted, cat like so that he landed on his hands and then pushing off the bed with a delicate kick from his trailing leg, he guided his body around in an ungainly, but quiet cartwheel.

  Matt seemed cheated by the way Curt had landed so noiselessly and in a flash of insight, he saw that Matt was somehow jealous of his quietness.

  Though he didn't doubt the truth of this, it still seemed preposterous to Curt because the older boy did everything in virtual silence. His clothes never rustled when he walked, his spoon never scraped against the side of his bowl, and the pages of his book never made even the slightest crinkle sound as he turned them. If Curt were to close his eyes, Matt would disappear from the universe as if he never were.

  That is, if it wasn't for his cruelty. His cruelty disturbed the air around him and it was only during those times when he was acting on that base emotion that he could ever be heard at all.

  The insight went through Curt in a flash as the two boys froze in position staring at each other. At first he thought the older boy would come around the bed for him, but Matt stood just as he had, when he had pushed Curt; bent over at the waist with his arms extended.

  He had locked his brown eyes onto Curt's blue ones and glared into them ferociously. It seemed as if they had entered into an odd contest of wills. Not much earlier, Curt's mental state had the structural fortitude of a snowflake, and if Matt had woke him with that same glare, Curt might have broke down crying right then. But the stinging pain in his neck and the hard shove that followed had him reacting physically, not mentally and he had ended his vulgar cartwheel in a low crouch.

  A comfortable crouch, one that he could dart in any direction from, and one that he could maintain for a long time if need be. In contrast, Matt looked uncomfortable and when ten seconds had elapsed, Curt knew the boy would have to straighten soon and when he did, Curt stood as well, in one graceful move. Matt's eyes narrowed further at this and Curt saw another reason for the jealousy. The little thief made it look too easy. Curt was such a natural, and he adapted so well to extreme circumstances that even though he had only been in the house barely four days, he could already move nearly as quietly as Paul, who had been there well past three years.

  But there was more to this anger than merely being quiet, however what it was, Curt didn't know just yet and he wasn't going to get a chance to find out right then. After holding his glare a moment longer, Matt left in a huff as quietly as he had come.

  When he had gone, Curt drooped in fatigue and sat back on his bed, feeling exhausted and it was a few minutes before he could force himself to go into the bathroom for his shower.

  4

  Curt still didn't read the note left by Paul. Just after strippin
g down and turning on the shower, he actually decided that he would, but as he walked past the mirror, he caught sight of his bruised body. It stopped him in his tracks and he stared hard.

  The colors of his skin were turning a nasty green yellow and it gave him a queasy sensation to look at his own body, but he also became morbidly curious as to the bite marks. With the help of the mirror, he counted fifty-three of them and as he counted, his skin broke out in large goose bumps and stayed that way until well after he was done with his count.

  In a daze, he forgot the note and showered but all the while in the back of his mind, he pictured the bite marks, they seemed very large to him.

  As one would expect, showering in Miss Feanor's house was a noiseless endeavor. The water came from the showerhead in something slightly heavier than a fine spray and somehow, instead of with the usual gurgling, it slid down the drain as if disappearing down a black hole. Even the curtain sighed back on cloth sleeves, but noise could still be made, if care wasn't taken. Therefore, Curt moved through his toileting routine with deliberate slowness, but still he made tiny noises and each caused his anxiety to flare. However, this was nothing compared to the anxiousness he felt after he had dried himself and slid with increasing skillful silence to his room.

  There he found a purposeful chaotic mess.

  His few belonging were strewn widely about and his sheetless bed lay overturned. He stood for a long time staring in disbelief and ever so gradually, the suppressed scream that had been with him earlier came back, thickening and squirming in his chest like a live snake. It wanted out. It demanded out.

  This time it would come bursting from him and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He felt the urgency of it as if he were about to vomit and he staggered into his room, shutting the door behind him. Knowing that he only had seconds, he grabbed up his pillow and then taking his blanket he used it to wrap the pillow to his face and only then did he scream.

  "Mmmmmhhhrr!"

  Chapter 7

  Déjà Vu

  1

  Curt had no way of knowing how loud the scream had been, since it had been muffled even in his own ears. He could do nothing but wait for his punishment. It was not long in coming.

  Perhaps no more than a minute went by before his door opened with dreadful slowness, but it was only Paul who stood there. He surveyed the scene of the trashed out room and with a look of reproach, he came in uninvited and began to clean quickly. Oddly, this grated on Curt, who after days of insanity felt nothing but a crushing despair. He didn't want to be rescued, he wanted to give up and though he didn't really know what giving up entailed in such a perverse house, he knew that cleaning wasn't a part of it.

  Taking the older boy gently but firmly, Curt guided him out of the room and then went to sit back down on his bed to await his doom. The house was all a stir over his scream apparently, because Amber came up stairs next and peeked dully past his door. Curt had been crying silent tears, and when he saw the blonde girl he attempted to wipe them away, however his face was so wet that it was a useless gesture. For some unknown reason, she looked even more dejected than Curt, and he felt a stirring of sympathetic emotion for her. He tried to ask her what was wrong but in her state, Amber missed his hand gestures and just as suddenly as she appeared, she left again.

  Despite his own issues, a spasm of worry for her went through him. She wasn't moving as silently as she should have and he heard her walking away instead of gliding. He got up to look down the hall after her, but nearly ran into the silent menacing form of Matt, who had come back just then.

  Surprise at seeing him there sent a shock wave through Curt, he backed into his room and it wasn't playacting that made his face morph into a mask of dread. However, he needn't have feared. Matt seemed only to want to make sure that Curt was suffering, before heading down stairs, and he merely glanced into the room, happily seeing that the mess he had made was still there.

  The house was usually so subdued that Curt's brain was whirling with all the activity of the last few minutes, but as he sat there on his bed, letting the despair take a good grip of him, the mouse made her appearance. He heard someone coming. Unlike the others, she generally crept about instead of sliding, and though she was nearly as quiet as Paul, she still made very soft sounds. The mouse gave him the willys, and he slipped off his bed, darting to the other side of it, hoping that she was only heading for the stairs. But he wasn't that lucky. She came in to his room slowly and he saw that she had added a new dimension to the outward aspect of her insanity. In addition to her horrible rolling eyes, her lips formed long strings of words that kept the thin pink lines of her mouth moving ceaselessly.

  With her hands out, the brown haired girl came around the bed toward him and it looked as though she wanted to tell him a secret, or perhaps hand something to him. However to Curt, all that she looked capable of giving him was a disease and he put his hand out, telling her to stop, but she ignored it and kept coming. Fear of her insanity blossomed within him. He knew little about mental illness, save only that the insane were horrible and disgusting and stank of urine or regurgitated beer. Though the mouse looked clean enough, he guessed that if she were ever to escape, it wouldn't be long before she resembled the rest of the bums sleeping in the alleys.

  But this wasn't the streets, where if he had met her, he could elude her with ease, but instead it was a rather small bedroom. Therefore, he let her come nearer and as she approached, he noticed the words that formed on her lips were all in her head and no noise escaped her. When she was close enough, despite his mounting fear, he calmly dodged to the side and vaulted neatly over his bed before scurrying to the bathroom, locking the door behind him.

  The lock was a cheap one and Curt, with the help of his Swiss Army knife that as of three days ago he carried about with him, could have popped it easily, but he figured it would hold against the mouse. Just in case, however he took a firm grip of the knob, hoping that a shut bathroom door was enough of a discouragement and that she would go away and perhaps bother Matt. But clearly she wanted something from Curt and it was with a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach that he felt the doorknob twitch beneath his fingers. She wanted in bad enough to make noise and the knob rattled back and forth, as she jerked at it from the other side of the door. Fear of the insane girl had Curt's hands damp with sweat and now he worried that if the lock failed, he wouldn't be able to hold her back.

  But without any forewarning the movement against the knob vanished and there was absolute silence from the other side of the door. Curt immediately dropped down to the floor, pressing his face against it, hoping to see the mouse's feet through the crack. However, the angle wasn't a good one and he couldn't see even a shadow. He had no way of knowing if she were skulking about on the other side of the door and so in essence, he was trapped in the bathroom.

  After a few minutes of boredom, he went for the note.

  Hi Curt,

  i know how you are feeling. i have been there. You want to scream and yell at the top of your lungs, but don't. It won't do you any good. You will be punished and an hour later you will want to scream some more. My first time, i talked myself into thinking that the punishment wouldn't be so bad, it was a hunderd times worse. Stay cool it will pass.

  When he finished, he wished he hadn't read the note. The activity of the last few minutes had caused the need to scream to recede, but now with the notes reminder it was there in the forefront of his mind. He had to do something to take his mind off his need, so he wrote Paul back.

  Hi Paul,

  i didn't make the mess in my room, Mat did. He hates me for some reson. i didn't do anything to him. i think i have to scream. It feels like my throat and lungs are atached to my brain and it is telling me to scream. Does Miss Feenor ever leave? Can we scream then, or will Mat rat us out? What's wrong with Beth? She came after me just now in weird way. Will she try to hurt me? i think the windows will break if we hit them with something hard enouf. Sorry about my hand rig
hting but i haven't been going to school much.

  He reread both notes before putting his in the secret hiding spot and flushing Paul's. In order to kill time and take his mind off the need to scream, he went through the closet and the cabinet beneath the sink again. These held nothing but cleaning supplies and he wished he knew something about chemistry, thinking he could make a bomb out of what he had found there. From long ago, he remembered a vague warning from one of his foster parents not to mix bleach with something. But he couldn't remember whether it was ammonia or comet, and at the time in that far away home, he hadn't planned on touching any of the chemicals, since he hadn't planned on doing any cleaning.

  There wasn't any bleach in the bathroom either way, but still he read the warnings on the back of the various bottles until he became bored silly. At that point, he got up and paced back and forth, his anxiety building in him along with the scream. Finally, he couldn't stand the little white room any longer and went to the door and opened it in a silent rush.

  The mouse wasn't in sight. Nobody was. Curt looked into his room and saw that it had been cleaned up and everything sat perfectly placed just as it had been on his first day.

  He wished it wasn't.

  He liked the mess. The lack of structure. Part of him, the part that naturally rebelled and could stand up to the scream and maybe even stand up to Matt, wanted to go in and destroy the room again. But the weak part of him, the part that felt fear and needed friends, thought it would be disrespectful and so instead he went and sat on his bed, not knowing what to do.

  2

  He wanted a note from Paul. And he wanted to scream. His leg bounced up and down in a frenzy of jiggling as he waited to see which would come first. Thankfully, Paul came out of his room, just as the silence of the house began to overwhelm Curt. He smiled at the older boy, but Paul didn't return the smile, in fact, he gave Curt an exaggerated purposeful frown.