The Punished

by Peter Meredith

  As all the children in the house were, she was an extremely light sleeper and his little laugh woke her. Beneath the blanket, he saw her stiffen and he gave her a little shake. She came out from under the covers very slowly, afraid, but brightened slightly when she saw him. His reaction was the opposite, fear at what she would think of him, darkened the little light within him that her snoring had brought forth and he could barely meet her eyes.

  'What happened?' she mouthed the words.

  "I- made- a- mistake," he told her the story, whispering or mouthing it one word at a time, sniffing back his tears as he did. By the end, she cried as well, but her tears were those of a frightened little girl.

  'What are we going to do?' she gestured the question; remarkably the movements were able to convey her great fear. Curt could only shrug, unwilling to come out and state the reality of their situation; the day before, their future looked bleak, filled with future punishments and horrible stress, but now their future was downright terrifying.

  Miss Feanor's last words had been correct. The house was sentient and had an intellect that was smart enough to know that it couldn't let any of them leave. Curt could envision them slowly starving to while punishments came with greater and greater frequency. The biting would go from leaving bruises to leaving jagged wounds and then to death.

  With these thoughts weighing him down, he went to Paul's room and tapped at his blanket under which he hid, until the boy's twitching paranoid face emerged. There was a caution to him that told Curt that Paul knew that something very wrong had occurred last night.

  'Come with me. I talk to everyone.' Curt's gestures were still pathetic, like those of a three year old. But in truth, he didn't care, they weren't likely to get much better in the time he had left in the house. Paul glanced sharply to the side and then shook his head no, he then shook it even harder. He was having an unheard conversation with an unseen person. Curt waited. Finally, Paul nodded and Curt pointed him toward Amber's room where he had asked the blonde girl to wait.

  Giving in to the coward within him, he put off going to Matt's room and instead went to the mouse's. Due to her advanced state of mental illness, he felt that it was a waste of time including her in his confession, but he didn't know how the others would feel about her not being there.

  The old sense of guilt at the pain he had caused the mouse came back to him when he stepped into her room. It layered thickly on the fresh guilt in his soul and for a moment he wanted to give up and go hide in his bed, letting the others figure out what happened as best as they could. But he mastered that childish feeling, perhaps because of the visual in his mind of hiding in his bed. He had done that too much already.

  If the mouse were already awake, it wasn't obvious since she could be very still at times.

  "Ahem," he cleared his throat softly, he didn't want to touch her. Her insanity repulsed him. But when she didn't budge a muscle, Curt gave her a squeamish little poke, however the girl only laid there. After a few seconds, he pulled down her covers. He wished he hadn't. She was awake and her eyes spun in lunacy as if it was a fifth or sixth day rather than a first.

  "Why? Why? Why would you do this?" The mouse whispered the words, barely breathing them out. Again, a normal fifth day sign. She had heard the commotion or the screams clearly, but what wasn't clear was why she would suddenly assume it was Curt that had done anything wrong. Could she sense his guilt? Was that it?

  Curt felt himself freaking out, and he had to get out of the room. The mouse however was surprisingly fast and hopped up quick, grabbing him by one of his pajama tops. She pulled him in close.

  "No! No, Susan is too sweet...she's so sweet," the mouse whispered to him. Curt remembered the words that Miss Feanor had used. They pained him greatly to hear them again and in his anguish, he shoved the mouse roughly away. She fell back on her bed, her eyes turning circles and her lips moving non-stop.

  He fled from the room.

  Instead of going to Matt's, he went to the bathroom and tried to hold back the tears that were on the verge of over-powering him. Looking into the mirror helped, he hated the boy he saw there. That boy was a killer. He was ugly and looked beaten. The scabs on his face were nasty and raw, and the rainbow of bruises made him a little queasy but he felt that he deserved each one.

  His tears dried up and when at last he had control of himself, he went to Matt's room and found the boy whom he hated even more than himself was already awake and out of his bed. He gave Curt a piercing look, not an angry one as expected. His eyes were cold, calculating and Curt's insides squirmed beneath them. Not knowing what to say and not wanting to argue or fight, Curt simply jerked his head back down the hall and then left.

  Matt would come.

  3

  "I say we tie him up and throw him into the basement," Paul said with deadly intensity, twenty minutes later, after Curt had slowly, using whispers and pantomime, explained what had happened the previous night.

  It wasn't quite the reaction Curt was hoping for.

  Especially from Paul. Except it wasn't really Paul, the boy who had twice saved him. It was one of his personalities, every one of which was more awful than the last.

  An uncomfortable silence settled on the five of them until the mouse broke it, "Why? Why? Why would you do this?" she intoned. Her reminders of Miss Feanor's words weren't exactly helping Curt's explanation of what had happened, they seemed designed to heap upon his soul more guilt and the eyes of the children surrounding him glittered with increased anger every time she whispered.

  "That's enough, Beth," Matt said in a kind voice. It sounded weird coming from him, but it shut the mouse up quick. She had been driving Curt so crazy with her whisperings that he actually wanted to thank the older boy just then.

  "But what are going to do?" Amber said leaning in close. It was the only thing that she had added to the near silent conversation, and she had added it three times already. Each time everyone had simply looked at one another cluelessly.

  This time though, Matt had an answer. "We don't do anything. We carry on just like we always have. The house expects us to clean and behave just like before and that is what we are going to do."

  Curt wanted to protest this bit of lunacy, only he was afraid of the older boy and instead glanced around to see who else would challenge the boy's nonsense answer. No one said a word. Now he hadn't expected anything from the mouse, but Amber only looked at her hands and Paul was staring into the closet.

  "No...that won't work," Curt murmured, summoning a scrap of courage.

  'Oh really? Then what's your great plan?' Matt glared across Amber's bed at him.

  'We go escape. Right now...' Curt's sign language was cut off by Matt.

  "Are you insane? That is how you got us into this mess in the first..." he paused looking around, Curt put a hand to the floor. Matt had been too loud and the house was becoming angry. They could all feel it in the air and they each sat back and waited and waited and waited. The house took a long time to calm and Curt began to wonder if it had heard and understood the word escape.

  When it felt safe to communicate, Matt leaned in to the little group and gestured, 'No escape, that's final.'

  'You aren't in charge,' Amber motioned to Matt. 'I want to know his plan.'

  Curt was thankful for her confidence in him, but he had decided already that it was best for him to keep mum about his intentions. For one, the plan he had been considering would never work without everyone's complete participation, and that included Matt. Without him, it would be a waste of time and certainly would only end in horrible punishments, if not death. It had to be all of them going in full force or nothing.

  The second reason he wished to remain silent was that the plan was immoral, full of black sin. It crossed the line well into evil and after the previous night's wickedness, Curt was ashamed that it came to him at all and that he actually entertained the idea. Paul hadn't been the first to envision tying someone up and throwing them into the basement. For Cur
t's plan to work, that horrible deed would have to be done and he had chosen the poor mouse as his offering to the creature. She was just plain useless and the others would be needed.

  He hated himself just for thinking it.

  Curt's unspoken plan centered on using the ornate love seat from the living room as a ram. It was heavy and would take the three boys and maybe Amber to lift it and slam it repeatedly against one of the plexiglass windows. He figured it would take at most three minutes to break down the window, but without something occupying the creature, they would be lucky to have thirty seconds. That was where the mouse came in, she'd have to go into the basement to buy the time needed.

  It was a sound plan. A loathsome criminal plan, for sure, but one that he felt in the end would result in less pain, and death for everyone, the mouse included. There was no denying that like everyone else she would be dead soon, regardless if they carried through with his plan or not.

  A few days before, in his search for the missing paperclips, Curt had seen the kitchen cabinet where the spam, rice, carrots and oatmeal were kept. There had been lots of rice, three huge bags full, but only maybe nine or ten tins of spam and an even smaller stack of carrots. Even if they made that last, they were looking at three weeks before their bodies would start to disintegrate from lack of protein.

  And this didn't take into account the bodies need for nourishment after one of the terrible punishments. Curt suspected that without Miss Feanor there, the punishments would begin to increase in frequency and if that happened, then that three weeks would likely drop to two.

  All of this was logical and should have been within the limits of the discussion, however, Curt's shrewd reasoning told him to stay silent. Fear held sway over common sense in that room and he could tell that Matt was going to use that fear to sink any plan that wasn't his own. But unfortunately, he didn't have one.

  Curt sat unspeaking for a time, pondering their situation and considering ways to get his plan into action. At his hesitation, Matt took this as a sign that Curt didn't have a plan at all. The older boy sighed loudly.

  'Well?' The mouthed word was drawn out, annoyingly and Matt's question came with a self-satisfied look. Curt shrugged and looked glum, not at all faking the emotion. With that, Matt declared in a whisper, "Escape is out of the question, and anyways I think we will be rescued soon."

  Curt's mind boggled at the very unlikely concept of rescue and he was sure that his face must have registered just that. But if it did, Matt didn't seem to notice and went on whispering, "Until then, we go about our day like nothing happened. Except for you Curt. From now on, you will do my chores and yours, and..."

  Amber interrupted gesturing, 'That's not fair.'

  "I'm in charge and I'll tell you what's fair and what's not." Matt stood up, his face becoming dark, he looked very tall and Amber shrunk back, wilting before him. "I will do Miss Feanor's chores...he'll do mine. And another thing. I'm getting tired of you sticking up for your old boyfriend and if I get any more back talk from you, Amber, I'm going to break your legs."

  The calm way he said it made them all realize that he was deadly serious.

  Chapter 26

  The Thief Alone

  1

  Breakfast that morning, the first day of "week" six, was as always oatmeal. However, it was ineptly prepared by Matt, being so thick that actual chewing was required before any attempt at swallowing could be made. At one point early on, Amber spent nearly thirty seconds choking on a large glump of it, turning a frightful shade of red before she finally managed to swallow it. In addition to the thickness of the oatmeal, it set a record in blandness and Curt, who would have rather been chewing on toilette paper again, thought it likely that Matt had forgot to add the salt.

  Curt wasn't about to mention this. The older boy was reveling in his new power as head of the household and had already hit him twice, once for being slow to get to the table and once, simply because he could.

  All around, it was a terrible meal. Though Matt had taken on the roll that Miss Feanor had played in the house, he had not sat in her chair at the table or even removed it. It sat empty and each of them worked very hard not to look its way, going to exaggerated lengths to pass their eyes well above it if their heads happened to swivel in its direction. Except of course the mouse, who seemed unable to mentally process the loss of Miss Feanor. Her eyes spun in the direction of the empty chair and her lips whispered half-heard words to it.

  "Why? Why? Why would you do that?" she said with very painful repetition.

  It was grating and not just to Curt, whose guilt could not be any heavier within his chest. The others were bothered as well and looked at her with growing concern while they edged further and further away from her over the course of the meal. The mouse didn't seem to notice. She went right on whispering despite the escalating anxiety in the air.

  There was a great deal of tension in the house. Its harsh mood had never fully calmed after the meeting of the children in Amber's room and an aura of uncertainty and dangerous unpredictability seemed to follow them about. That capriciousness became apparent just as Curt's spoon scraped the bottom of his bowl.

  A movement away from the table caught all of their attention at once. The mudroom door swung easily and silently open, and there, immediately beyond it, the basement door stood open as well. From his side of the table, Curt could see partially into the basement. It was utterly devoid of light and the blackness seemed thick and tangible.

  Something moved within it.

  The children bolted as one. Silent screams spread across their faces as they raced out of the kitchen and down the long hall. In his panic, Curt easily outdistanced the others and gained the stairs quickly. He tore up them blindly, allowing his body to worry where to place his feet to avoid the worst of the creaks and groans in the wood and it was only when he spied the door to his bedroom and knew the false promise of security that his bed afforded was only just there, that he was able to think at all.

  Amber!

  He stopped abruptly on the main stair, dancing to the side to let Paul zoom by. Amber was still coming up the hall. She was moving slower than the rest mainly because her head was cranked all the way around so that she was looking backwards and running into things as she moved.

  Curt wanted to scream at her to just run and not look back, but of course, he couldn't. Finally getting to the stairs, the first thing she did was to trip on the first step, falling on her hands, still she kept her head torqued around. She scrambled to her feet and stumbled up the stairs like a drunk, intoxicated with the terror of being left behind.

  To his panicked mind, she seemed to be moving in slow motion and his heart quaked in fear. He very nearly left her, his feet dancing like leaves in the wind, and he would have too, but his hands gripped the railings fiercely as though they could defy his heart with their meager strength. There was something there, which he could feel through his hands, something that wasn't right. When the mouse ran by next, he let go of one of the railings and hugged the wall to let her pass and now he could sense the same feeling beneath his cheek and hand.

  The mood of the house hadn't changed. It felt the same as it had when they were eating, nasty and evil, angry as well, but not in proportions that suggested the house was angry enough to send out the creature. Not only that, he could discern the thing, deep in the tombs it had dug for itself and its victims, beneath the house. It lay unmoving.

  But his mind had no time to come to terms with this, because in a blink Amber was upon him clawing past him like a drowning girl fighting for the surface. In her frenzy, she fell again and then once again a second later. Battling his own mixed emotions, chief of which was the great panic in his chest, he forced himself not to run and instead stooped to help her up. Grabbing her around her thin midsection, he hauled her bodily up and once steady on her feet, they raced hand in hand for the top of the stairs. There he propelled her vigorously towards her room, pausing only long enough to look back down the stairs. />
  They were blessedly empty.

  He didn't wait to see if anything was going to come along and stepped lightly into his room and slipped under his covers. There he went completely still while his ears strained for the slightest sound of the telltale Crreik, that would mark the coming of the creature, yet no sound came. He yawned hugely and waited, but for what exactly, he wasn't sure. As far as he knew, there had been no reason for the creature to come up, or for the basement door to open on its own either.

  It made no sense. He tried to puzzle this out, but the sheets were reassuringly soft; the warmth and the dark familiar, and weary as he was after the terrible night, he was soon asleep.

  2

  Later he came awake, feeling disoriented, wondering what time it was and what, if anything, had happened. The warmth and smoothness of the sheets had disappeared, they were now damp with sweat, and the stale air beneath them suddenly became suffocating. He had to get up and so Curt very slowly reached out a cautious hand and felt the floor. The house seemed content and the creature slumbered.

  "Good," thought Curt and pulled back the covers looking around with a sharp eye. The sunlight slanting through his shutters had changed considerably and he judged the time to be late afternoon. Climbing out of bed, he walked with the light feet of a cat to the hall and paused again, this time to note the feel of the air house. It had never before seemed this still.

  Feeling like the only visitor in a terrifically odd museum, or a boy walking through a moment frozen in time, he went from room to room and saw the other teenagers lying huddled beneath their covers.