The Punished

by Peter Meredith

  With the notes done, he went to Paul's room where he found him sitting on his bed. Curt thought it a good sign that both of his eyes were twitch free and he brazenly held out the two notes for the older boy to take. Paul did so without looking up into Curt's face and after reading the first, he shocked Curt by tearing both of them up. Curt became livid and his blue eyes shone out harshly from his reddening face.

  'Why?' he mouthed the word angrily at Paul.

  Paul came close and the sad look washed over his features, "Listen to me," he said. The sound of the words was shockingly clear, as if Paul had given up fighting the silence. "You will kill her if you try this. You might even kill yourself and believe me, dying here is the worst thing that can happen to you."

  Not only was it the volume of his voice, it was the tone of the words and the look in Paul's eyes that made Curt realize that he wasn't lying about this. But what he said next killed his plan completely.

  "Two years ago, I tried to pass a note to my case worker and was forced to watch helplessly as...as... she died in front of me screaming endlessly and then it was my turn...I dream about it often."

  Paul's twitch began again, and in moments took over his face, so that he looked like he was being ravaged by a seizure. Puzzled and horror stricken, Curt left him alone a minute later, still twitching. Did Miss Feanor really do that? Kill someone in her own living room? Or was this Paul's voice feeding him lies? There was no way to know and so in despair, the little thief went back to his room.

  Chapter 11

  Darla

  1

  As always, time ran different in the home and it seemed like ages before he heard the knock vibrate, not only through the air, along the walls as well. Curt felt it run across the frame of his bed and he marveled at it. But that was only for a second and then he was up, hurrying down the stairs, stopping just at the last step as Miss Feanor came down the hall wearing a look of icy warning.

  A moment later, Matt appeared from the family room and wore the same look. With deliberate intent, he stepped between Curt and the door, causing the smaller boy's heart to sink. His mind might have understood that escape this way wasn’t possible, but his heart was another matter altogether and it ached in its desire to be free as Miss Feanor crossed to the front door.

  When it opened, Curt tried to stop himself from staring out the front door with a look of longing, only that proved impossible and he gazed past the little frumpy looking brunette lady, with his face hanging slack and his mouth open as if hungry. The world beyond her called to him demandingly and it took everything not to run or make a mad dash in that direction, to escape before the door could shut in his face. If he were any closer, maybe only a step or two, he probably would have tried it, as it was, he felt himself leaning forward.

  The day outside was grey and dull, overcast and chilly. It was the kind of a day where children sat huddled around the TV, and moms brewed an extra cup of coffee; Curt longed for it anyways and wished he could breathe in the cool air of the fading winter. But it was not to be, and the caseworker stepped into the house. She was nothing special.

  He had hoped for a twin to Miss Gladys. She wouldn't have put up with any of Miss Feanor's funny business if she had known about it. Instead, this social worker looked a little like a young schoolteacher, enthusiastic and stupid.

  "Hi Miss Feanor? I'm Darla Heines. I'm Amber's new caseworker. Hello Amber," she said loud and cheerfully, looking past Miss Feanor at the skinny blonde girl, who slowly came down the stairs. Darla had short brown hair and thin close-set features that made her head look smaller than a normal head. Curt couldn't stop gawking at it.

  In his periphery, he saw Amber come to stand next to him, a full ten feet from Darla. When he pulled his eyes off the small head of the caseworker and glanced at her, he saw the girl had attempted a smile, but it sat mangled on her delicate features and was nearly all grimace.

  "I told you on the phone that she wasn't feeling well," Miss Feanor said reproachfully to the social worker. Darla gave her a shrug and a, what can you do, smile.

  "I know," Darla commiserated. "I'm so sorry, but it's been over six months since anyone has been out to see Amber..."

  "That's not true," Miss Feanor cut across her. Curt noted how dry and quiet her voice was. She stood very close to the caseworker. "I sent you a copy of the last report and it was dated only three months ago."

  Darla smiled, "But I don't have the original and the state won't accept a copy. Either way, Amber has been on my case load for three weeks and I couldn't put off seeing her any longer."

  "I suppose," Miss Feanor said with condescension. "Why don't we sit in the living room?"

  Darla went to the couch, while Amber and Miss Feanor came and sat close, one on either side of her. They started a small talk that normally would've had him bored silly in seconds, had it been in any other setting, but in that house, where words were almost priceless, he listened intently. The boys hadn't been invited to sit, so he stood next to Matt, by one of the two tall chairs that flanked the love seat, opposite the couch. Matt seemed to act as his personal guard and kept an eye on him at all times, but he did so unobtrusively, keeping his body canted toward him.

  The logical part of Curt didn't know exactly what he was doing there. If there was to be a punishment, he didn't want to be anywhere near it when it happened, but he supposed it was the irrational that had a hold of him. That part of him was very interested in Ms Darla Heines and everything she had to say.

  From her small head to a little white scar on the back of her wrist, he took in everything about her. Her appearance at first seemed drab and frumpy, but the more he looked at her, the more he saw a horde of interesting details. But in truth, all he really saw was someone different. Someone new. Though he had been in the house less than a week, he was already tired of looking at the same people and so this woman, a person that he would have barely noticed at any other time, captivated him.

  A sigh escaped his lips and with it came the realization of just how much he missed hearing the English language spoken so freely without the slightest touch of fear. And Darla used it with abandon, keeping up a steady stream of chirping sound words. He loved it and her voice made him a little giggly. It went up and down like a musical yo-yo and when she pronounced the word 'water', he had to smile. What-er is how it came out, and he mouthed it after she said it.

  She didn't notice it, but Matt did. He must have thought that Curt was trying to signal Darla and gave him a sharp poke in the ribs.

  The movement caught her eye and she directed her attention at the two boys, "Hi, what's your name?" She asked this rather generically and neither boy knew to whom the question was put. They turned to each other, hoping the other would speak first.

  "This is Matt and Curt," Miss Feanor spoke for them, much to their relief.

  "Oh, the famous Curtis Regis," Darla said with a knowing look at him. "I applaud you, Miss Feanor for keeping him here for practically an entire week. There is a pool going on for how long he will stay put this time. Do you like it here?" she asked him.

  He paused only long enough to see if Miss Feanor would answer this for him as well, and in that second and a half, the tension in the room mounted hugely. All eyes were upon him and if ever there was a chance to say something damning, this was it. But Amber's look of total horror stayed his tongue.

  "I like it a lot," he answered in a very quiet voice and he forced a smile onto his face.

  Miss Feanor and Amber let out matching sighs of relief, Darla didn't seem to notice.

  "I'm so happy for you," she said cheerily, practically yelling the words in her exuberance.

  Curt tried to hold onto his smile a little bit longer, but it became increasingly difficult as the air in the room suddenly felt charged, just as it had on his first day. Now Curt realized the charge was like electric fear, clearly, Miss Feanor felt it as well.

  "Do you mind if we cut this short?" she asked Darla. "Amber's not feeling well and I'm starting to
get a migraine..." She trailed off hoping the caseworker would act as Miss Gladys had.

  "Sure, how about I just take her out for a little bit and get to know her. I have always thought that ice cream cures everything." Darla was young and still optimistic about her job. At the suggestion of leaving, Amber's skin went as pale and dry as a dying birch, while her eyes became red rimmed with panic.

  "I'm really not feeling well," she begged off and now she looked actually sick in her fear.

  "Ok sure...I'm sorry. Maybe next time," Darla said and for a moment, this seemed to be the end of the conversation, but suddenly she turned to Curt. "What about you? Would you like some ice cream? I heard a rumor about how you stole ten gallons of choc..."

  Crazed wild hope surged through him at the thought, but Miss Feanor interrupted Darla's invitation, "He's sick as well."

  At this, her brows came down on her small head, "Is there something wrong here?" There was more than a touch of suspicion coloring her voice.

  Quite suddenly, Curt felt queer, like there was something wrong, and he was amazed that Darla didn't feel it. The air had become heavy, thick, worse than it had been on his first day. He looked back toward the doorway of the living room and felt a touch of panic when he saw it blocked by Paul and the mouse. It wasn't as if they were guarding it, still he had a sense of being trapped nonetheless. He was beginning to feel an overwhelming need to move in that direction, to get out of the room, but all of his senses told him not to move a muscle.

  Miss Feanor appeared sick with worry and her eyes shot about, "No, there's nothing wrong, just a bug going around the house is all."

  Darla's face took on a sour, odd appearance, as if she didn't fully believe Miss Feanor's statement, "I think I want to speak with Amber alone. It'll be only for a minute or two."

  "I'm really not feeling..." Amber started to say, and indeed her face was greening as if she were about to vomit, huge.

  Darla stood up. "I'm going to speak to you either way," she announced with authority. "Let's go outside where we can be alone."

  Amber climbed to her feet, her hands shaking noticeably as she did, "In my room...please." There was a scared whiny sound when she said please, like she was begging. It caused Darla to look closely at her for a second and then the caseworker grabbed the girl's pale shaking hand and headed for the front door.

  "No, I want to speak to you in private."

  Miss Feanor hopped up, her face full of panic, "I'm sure that isn't needed, the girl said she wasn't feeling well, why don't you go up stairs. Please," she implored hurrying after the caseworker. Matt and Curt came along in their wake.

  Curt felt the charge of the house as a physical thing every time he breathed in. It made his heart thump hugely and his lungs constrict, as if his chest was shrinking, or being compressed from the outside.

  Dragging Amber along, Darla made it to the front door and tried the knob. It wouldn't budge under her hand and she shook it fiercely.

  "What's going on? Unlock this door!" she demanded angrily yanking on the door. Besides the anger, there was also a touch of fear in her voice and in her eye.

  There was more than just a touch in Curt, he was suddenly more afraid than he could ever remember being and looking around, he knew that it wasn't only him. Paul and the mouse were frozen in place, halfway to the stairs, their eyes huge as saucers, Amber had her fingers stuffed in her mouth and tears rained down from her chin. But what scared Curt the most was the fact that not only Matt looked frightened, Miss Feanor did as well. She had her head craned around as if listening for something from the other side of the house and abject terror stretched across her face.

  Feeling suddenly dizzy, Curt put his hand out to the frame of the living room doorway. It pulsed beneath his hand.

  He snatched it away, clutching it to his chest and felt a flash of adrenaline shoot through his entire body, as if his soul had exploded. The frame had moved beneath his fingers, like a heartbeat or a breath of an enormous creature. It felt as though the house were alive, or possessed by something monstrously wicked.

  At that moment, Darla cried out and pulled her own hand back from the doorknob, "It just moved! Did you see that? It moved! What the hell is..."

  Thum...thum...thum!

  2

  Despite all that had happened in the last minute or so, the house was still an amazingly quiet place and so the sound coming from the basement was frightfully loud. It was the sound of someone...a very large someone with heavy footsteps charging up the stairs. Curt's mind tilted over in confusion and he was unable to grasp clearly how it was possible that someone had got into the house, while he had been so desperate to get out.

  "Run!"

  Miss Feanor screamed this word in a shrill panic and it sent a shock straight away through Curt, and it effected everyone else as well. Pandemonium broke out. Paul and the mouse took off running for the stairs, Amber went wild in Darla's grip, straining and jumping in the air like a bass on the line, and even Miss Feanor began to run.

  Thum...thum...thum!

  Curt made to follow, but his head had swiveled in the direction of the mudroom door, visible down the long hallway, through the kitchen and he didn't see Matt. The older boy hadn't run at that single screamed word and instead took that fraction of a second to shove Curt hard over. He went sprawling onto the gleaming hardwood floors. Bewildered, he looked back at the cause of his fall.

  Thum...thum...thum!

  He saw Matt streaking for the stairs, Paul and the mouse already halfway up, and now Miss Feanor turned on the first stair and she wore a surprising look over her fear. Her face showed concern.

  It was a motherly concern and it was for Curt.

  "Run!" she screamed the word at him as Matt shot past her. She then turned and pulled hard on Amber's outstretched pleading hand and the blonde girl became extended between the two older ladies.

  He heard the last thum...thum...thum! And these were louder than the rest. Curt scrambled to his feet but froze at the noise and his skin shot through with gigantic goose bumps, he was about to see it. The thing from the basement. He knew he was supposed to run, yet he couldn't. He saw the handle of the mudroom door turning as if in slow motion, but then he felt a hand grab him.

  It pulled him away from the hypnotic sight and yanked him with considerable force toward the stairs. It was Miss Feanor. Looking past Curt, her face was riveted in horror at what she saw down the hall. She went whiter than ever and took off in a blind panic, no longer with any concern for him or for anything, but only escape.

  Amber was running too. She had broken away from Darla and raced up the stairs, her light feet thumping wildly. Frantic not to be left behind, Curt blazed past the stunned caseworker and dashed up the stairs. He had no clue as to who it was coming from the basement, but the fear of everyone in the household had become his, in an instant.

  He was halfway up when the first scream split the air.

  Turning as he ran, he saw Darla staring in disbelief down the hall, her face unrecognizable in her terror. She screamed again and just as he got to the top of the stairs, something rushed full upon her.

  It wasn't a man as he had expected it to be, but it was shaped as one. It was grey and translucent, at least parts of it were, but other parts seemed to form from within it and looked far more solid. And nothing seemed more solid than its teeth. These shown large and white through the grey of its ghostly skull and they opened wildly as they came at Darla, the caseworker.

  Chapter 12

  The Disposable Body

  1

  Blessedly, Curt was yanked around then and the sight of those awful teeth digging into the soft flesh of Darla's face was lost to him. Her screams on the other hand were not, they were clear and exact, loud with the agony of slow death.

  They pierced his mind and he had trouble thinking past them. He blinked stupidly at the person in front of him. It was Paul, who had turned him around, and his face was a warzone. A battlefield where rational fear and insane panic
fought for control of his features, but Curt caught only a flash of this before Paul shoved him into his room and threw him bodily onto his now familiar bed.

  Curt struggled up thinking what a tremendously stupid thing to be doing just then. He should be running for his life, but Paul pushed him back down again and covered him over with his blanket.

  "No matter what, don't come out."

  The words were hissed in his ear through his covers and the desperation in Paul's voice made him stop struggling at least physically. Mentally he felt besieged. The endless screams echoing in the otherwise silent hallways, the vision of the larger than life teeth and the near certainty that the house was alive washed relentlessly over his mind, making him feel as though his brain was being squeezed into nothingness.

  He could sense his ability to think clearly diminishing. All that came to him were an annoying series of questions but hardly any answers.

  Was he really going to hide from that creature, that thing, beneath his blankets as his five year old self would have? Where were the others? Were they hiding like a bunch of retarded children as well? Shouldn't they all be hightailing it out of there while the thing ate Darla? Was that thing an actual ghost or perhaps something worse?

  His own failing logic could only answer one of those questions and that was the first one. Yes, he would lie under his blankets and keep absolutely still. He realized he had been doing this, hiding from this creature, every night since he arrived, every night but the first that is. All along, he had thought it had been Miss Feanor, who came at night but in reality, it was this thing and she was afraid of it as much as he was.

  How hiding under a blanket kept the creature at bay, he didn't know, or how sound played any part in this, he didn't know that either. Nor the fastidious cleaning. Nothing made sense.