The Punished

by Peter Meredith

  Seconds passed.

  He heard murmuring, which he strained at and soon his curiosity had his head out from under his blanket and in moments, when he still couldn't catch the words, he stood just behind his door craning his neck to see through the crack. The police and Miss Feanor were nowhere in sight.

  The air around him had relaxed which was puzzling, he reached his hand out to his doorframe and took the pulse of the house; it had calmed a little, and this was odd as well. He had expected the house to be riled and getting more so.

  The murmuring came again, it sounded muffled to his ear and so he slipped out of his room and squatted down on the top step so he could see the front door properly.

  It stood open by a few inches.

  The sight sent blood rushing to his ears and he could feel his own heart beat there. It was loud and fast. Those few inches represented an amazing opportunity, not only was this a chance at escape, but protection as well. Bullets might not stop the monster, but they would certainly aggravate it and with the monster focused on the cop, Curt could run and if he did, he wouldn't look back.

  So it was that on feet that were feather light, he went down the stairs, moving in complete silence. His hand trailing on the wall, feeling the angry awareness in it grow with each of his careful steps. It felt like eyes were in the walls watching him, but what he didn't feel was the growing sense of perverse hunger, which more than anything else about the place scared him.

  It was there, yet distant and uncaring, still replete from the night before. Later he would remark upon this as another sign of the dual nature of the house, but just then the lack of feeling added impetus to his anxious feet. It allowed him to move forward despite the watchfulness centering on him.

  At the bottom step, he took a quick glance into the family room and saw the other children had set up the monopoly board. They sat about it nervously, no one moving any of the pieces or rolling dice. It was only a prop and like actors, they were waiting on their cue, the entrance of the cop, to begin their scene, but Curt wasn't part of their performance, he was in his own drama.

  His sudden appearance caught their attention, they all turned and looked at him in shock. Yet in a flash their expressions collapsed into dread, every one of them, the mouse included and this made him pause, his fear doubling within him. But unlike them, he wasn't faking a game, he was gambling for high stakes and putting steel in his spine, he stepped boldly toward the door.

  "No," Amber said. It was only a tiny squeak of a word, but it stopped Curt three feet from his objective. Behind him, he heard a rustle of cloth and a dull smacking sound. He shot a look back and saw the very white girl, holding her arm and fighting against tears. Matt had hit her for trying to stop Curt. Fury coursed through Curt in an instant, sweeping aside his fear, yet not his common sense. He glared hard at the boy and vowed his revenge silently, but knew it would have to wait.

  Freedom was too near at hand to waste this chance. The door was so close that he could hear Miss Feanor plainly.

  "I don't know, Officer. We only spoke twice and she seemed fine. Not at all anxious or suicidal, but you can never really tell." By her tone, Curt could tell the conversation was going the way she wanted and that she wasn't a suspect in the disappearance of Darla Heines.

  She soon would be, Curt thought and his feeling of revenge grew within him.

  As a good gambler, Curt knew the risks involved with trying to make an attempt at the door, but like so many bad gamblers, he was letting his emotions over rule his thinking. Revenge, anger, and hate clouded his judgment; yet even greater than those was a simple desire for freedom.

  It burned, overpowering everything, including his jangling nerves, which were trying desperately to warn him about the house. The house was very aware and angry that the boy wasn't in its proper place. And now the hunger for pain began to awaken within it. Curt sensed all this, however he didn't care and at that moment, he put his life, as well as the police officer's on a lucky roll of the dice.

  But just like in Vegas, the house always wins in the end.

  2

  He stretched out his hand to grab the knob, thinking that nothing could stop him from simply yanking the door open.

  "Miss Feanor, I'm going to Jonny's now. Oh, and thanks for setting up this play date. I'll be back by dinner."

  This is what Curt planned on saying to Miss Feanor when he went out onto the small cover porch. He also planned to move quickly, skipping elusively by her as if they were playing a game. He was certain that she would try to grab at him.

  But none of this happened.

  The house was more alive than Curt had counted on. As he stretched out his hand, the door retreated before him. It was as if the door and his hand had the wrong end of magnets within them and the closer he got, the further the door closed. It hadn't been open much to begin with, but with a sinking heart, Curt's advancing hand chased the door closed.

  It shut with an empty silence. Now the whole house seemed focused on the little space left between his hand and the knob. There was an energy in that small gap, very much like electricity. Curt hesitated at grabbing it, wondering if that force would actually stop his hand from touching it. He moved his hand a hair closer, without feeling any resistance and he knew he could grab the knob if he wanted. But would he be allowed to open the door? He probably wouldn't, yet that great longing for freedom filled him, demanding that he throw caution to the wind and take the chance, anyway.

  The thief in him suddenly spoke out against this, quiet and authoritative, Don't. It's a sucker's bet.

  That voice inside his mind was right and he curled his fingers in toward himself, making a fist. He realized, he couldn't win this way, cop or no cop and now he pulled his hand back. And as if by magic, the house seemed to turn its focus away from him, it again centered on what was occurring on the porch. He began to shake, feeling as though he had narrowly averted a certain disaster, and it was with a crazed, giddy sensation running through him that he turned from the door, he saw that the other children had frozen in place staring at him. Amber smiled, happy that he made the right decision, while the mouse roved her eyes over his body and if she had a thought, he couldn't tell what it was. Matt, meanwhile looked only curious, which gave Curt a nervous thrill in his stomach.

  The last person he turned his attention to was Paul, who slumped his shoulders in sweating relief. He smiled at Curt, and Curt smiled back, feeling wired as the tension dissolved out of him. Thinking it would be wise to be in bed when Miss Feanor came back in, he gave the children a small wave and then headed upstairs, missing an opportunity that he'd regret later. Just then, he had no way of knowing that he would see this sweet version of Paul only a few more times before the blonde boy died, if he had, he would've stayed longer and played fake monopoly with him.

  The police officer was gone a few minutes later, but Curt was oblivious to it. The very long sad night listening to Paul being punished, coupled with his own near catastrophe, had left him exhausted and he slept half the day away.

  When he woke, he read the note Paul had left for him earlier.

  Hi Curt,

  You have to stop thinking you are going to escape. The house can feel! It's alive! Miss Feenor is the only one who can leeve and that's if the house lets her. i don't know why this is so but it is and you are right, the house and her do seem to work together. i already told you, i don't know whats in the atic and Beth has always refused to talk about what happened to her in the basement. i dont think she can anymore. About the difference between your first week here. im sorry but we all thought you'd be punished and it took the pressure off us a little. im glad you weren't.

  Curt wasn't going to stop thinking of escape, he was only going to stop asking Paul about it. Every lock has a key, he thought to himself, but with a queer turn to his stomach, he worried that his key might be found in the basement. With that unsettling notion, he left to see the others.

  He spent the remainder of the afternoon sitting with Amb
er reading, sniffing her hair when the desire came upon him and she would stroke his arm softly when the desire came on her. Paul kept to himself during this time, locked away in his room and Curt at first thought that it was an after effect of the punishment, perhaps he was in pain or just plain tired. However, minutes before dinner, he heard a noise from Paul's room. He had just come from the bathroom when the sound of murmuring came to him, he crept closer.

  "I don't think that's a good idea." It was Paul speaking in barely above a whisper; Curt knew that he was in his room alone. "Quiet down or they will hear us."

  Embarrassed for his friend, Curt wanted to slip away, but since Paul's 'voice' was easily as malignant as Matt, he felt it best to stay and eavesdrop and in order to listen better, he pressed his ear to the boy's door.

  "Please don't...or...how bout you do it to Matt," Paul continued. "You hate Matt."

  There came a long pause. "He's one of us already... Will you at least tell me what you are planning? I won't tell, I..." another long silence and then Paul's voice rose slightly higher and more desperate, "No please I want to stay, I told you I wouldn't..."

  Now a long pause was accompanied by a light step from within the room and this had Curt hurrying down the hall toward the backstairs. Not wanting it known that he had been listening, Curt ducked into the first room that he came to; it belonged to the mouse. Thankfully, she wasn't in and he dodged behind her door. Paul slipped by seconds later, oblivious to the boy standing in the shadows of the room.

  Curt breathed a gentle sigh of relief, but his relief didn't last long as he bent his mind to the partial conversation he had heard. Paul had a plan working, very likely to have Curt punished. Had it been Matt, Curt would have very much considered going on the offensive, doing damage of his own, but he couldn't with Paul. The blonde boy had just been punished the night before and Curt felt sorry for him.

  He was almost about to step out of the room, when he realized he had never properly inspected the mouse's bedroom. This was an innate part of Curt's nature. He snooped. No matter where he was or with whom. Inside him, was a constant need to study humanity and there was no better way of doing this, than to look where they least wanted you to. Find what a person had hidden away and you find their true selves.

  The mouse had secrets.

  She had been in the basement at least once, and she might know if there was a way out in that direction. However, with her insanity, those secrets could be locked away, beyond the ability of any thief, but there could be clues, pictures, drawings, perhaps even a diary. Her room was as spartan and bare as everyone else's, which made his quick search easier. The mattress and box spring were first to undergo his close scrutiny, and then the bed frame and finally the little dresser, none of these revealed a thing...at first.

  On his second go round, he became far more methodical and eventually discovered a veritable treasure, pinned under the bottom of the dresser. Not knowing how much time there was until dinner, he quickly tilted the dresser back and saw a slim stack of wrinkled notebook paper. The one on top was visible to him and had writing all over it. His heart leaped with excitement, not just at the paper, but more at what held the paper in place. Four bent paper clips had been pushed into the soft wood of the dressers frame. Every lock has a key he thought happily to himself and lowered the dresser without touching anything.

  There was no sense grabbing the papers just then and risk being caught, when he would have no time to read any of it with dinner so close. The papers weren't going anywhere; he'd get the papers the next morning, it would only be day two since Paul's punishment and the pressure would have barely begun. This meant that the mouse would be hard at work on her stupid cat puzzle for at least two hours. That would be the right time.

  He stepped unseen from her room and almost chortled going down to dinner. It was the thought of those paper clips. Before that moment, if any locks had stood in his way to escape he would've been helpless against them. Now he would have at least a chance and happily, he pictured the door to the attic, but his happy thought died at the sight of Paul.

  3

  The boy's twitch had already begun, still worse was the ill-concealed hatred in his eyes. It was there for but a second before he replaced it with an oily smile, Curt smiled back, pretending he hadn't noticed the look, but all the while feeling ill at it.

  All through dinner he tried to predict exactly what Paul would do and more importantly when. His biggest fear was that he'd gang up with Matt in some scheme, knowing they would be impossible to stop if they ever worked together. Normally Curt wouldn't have expected a day one attack, since it didn't make any sense. Nobody was on the verge of cracking so soon after a punishment, however Paul's look had not been entirely sane. And that evening after he had completed his chores, Curt found subtle evidence of someone tampering with his possessions.

  It wasn't much, just enough to have him second-guessing everything else and he sped about quietly checking and re-checking all his areas, which was likely Paul's intention. He wanted Curt on edge, unable to relax. Another aspect of the boy's psychological warfare came in a very subtle but unnerving manner.

  Out of habit, Curt checked to see if there was a note in the toilette paper dispenser, only to find the pen missing altogether. He remembered then how Amber had been punished when a pen had been found in her belongings and with doubt gnawing at his insides, Curt checked his things again, but he didn't find the pen.

  There was no sleep in him that night and when the stairs began to crreik, crreik, crreik, his hands and arms commenced to shiver, and he had to force himself to remain completely still, hugging his arms about his body.

  No punishment occurred that night.

  The second day following Paul's punishment he felt the pressure far greater than he should have and he worried endlessly over what Paul was up to.

  But his day was not all bad, the high point came late in the afternoon when he stole the paper clips from the mouse's room. He took also the papers and read each but they held nothing of interest. In fact, they were sad and painful. They were love letters from Matt to Beth, the girl who would eventually become the mouse. After reading them, he couldn't help but feel sorry for Matt. He seemed to have really loved her, but in the end, she had asked too much of him. Even though Curt could only read one side of their correspondence, it was plain that eventually Beth had pleaded with Matt to be punished for her.

  It hadn't even been for something specific, it seemed that she was just feeling the overwhelming pressure and had worried that she were about the break. It was an utterly impossible thing to ask, and Matt had understood and tried to explain to the girl, Beth that if he did it that one time, it would become a never-ending thing. She would expect it of him always. Curt had to agree with the older boy, when he told her no. If Amber ever asked him to be punished for her...he dreaded the very idea.

  Curt had been gone too long by himself and thinking that the mouse's idea of where to store the papers was a good one, he put them under his dresser. When they were safely hid, he went to join the others. Dinner followed soon and the low point of his day came during that meal as Paul's twitchy eyes never left his face. It was so disturbing that Curt decided he couldn't sit back any longer and scarfing down his hated meal he swiftly raced up stairs to the bathroom.

  Back Off!

  Using soap, he wrote this on the bathroom mirror and fully expected Paul to see it first, but Amber came upstairs after dinner and went straight away into the bathroom. She left the room minutes later with big eyes.

  'You wrote that?' she pantomimed. He could only shrug and look sheepish, at this she hurried off, not wanting to get in the middle of an escalating war. Knowing he couldn't protect two places at once, Curt sped through his chores downstairs and came puffing back up in record time. He then commenced to follow Paul about just as he had Matt the week before. Poor Paul slipped back and forth between personalities and couldn't decide which way he was going, but longer and longer, he spent time seething
in the hate personality.

  Curt managed to avoid punished that night as well, however the next night would find him downstairs well after the lights had been turned down, racing in horrible darkness toward the very creature itself.

  4

  The third day after Paul's punishment started off with a great deal of promise, the trapped children woke to a steady drizzle of rain. Curt ate breakfast wearing a broad grin, but the promise was a false one and when it turned to snow an hour later, everyone felt the pressure of the house and its near insatiable hunger intensify.

  No one felt it more that Curt, though from an outward appearance, one would've thought Paul and his terrible twitch might have. But if one could look past the spazzing muscles of his face, they would see an awful insanity in his eyes. He seemed hell bent on making Curt break.

  The only solace Curt could find was that Matt had become aware of the sudden enmity between the one-time allies and had stepped back from any mischief, the eldest child in the house appeared not just content, but happy to see the two younger boys destroy themselves. Disappointingly, Amber wasn't exactly broken up by it either. He understood it from her point of view, Paul was like a brother to her and he was her boyfriend. It would be nearly impossible for her to choose sides and what's more, she would escape punishment yet again. Still it stung that she refused to even help with little things like keeping a watch over Paul.

  Nevertheless, Curt was a survivor above all things and he changed his routine that day just to befuddle Paul's attempts. Before dinner, he went up to the bathroom, but quickly left as soon as he arrived and ducked down the stairs leading to the kitchen. In secret, he then began to work on his downstairs chores and completed everything except the backstairs.