by Abe Moss
“Are you there?” the assistant said. “I know you refused to sign the letter, but—”
“No shit I didn’t sign it,” the girl spoke directly into the door. The suddenness of her voice startled Addie, while not even a shallow gasp escaped the assistant.
“Does that mean you won’t be joining us tonight?”
After a pause, “Joining you for what?”
“Adelaide and I are going for a walk…” The assistant turned her head toward Addie, possibly to see if she would join the conversation, which she didn’t. “…and I thought you might like to come. I know you didn’t sign the doctor’s letter, but I wanted to give you a chance to change your mind. It’d be good to stretch your legs, at least.”
“And you’ll put the restraints on me too, huh?” Clearly she’d listened closely while the assistant had been at Addie’s door. “Forget it.”
“What are you afraid of, Joanna? What can I do to make this easier?”
“I’m not afraid,” she answered. There was a breathy sound, something short of a laugh, harder than a sigh. “I don’t want to be here, period. I want you to take me back ASAP.”
Addie caught the corners of the assistant’s mouth turning up in a broad grin, apparently tickled by the argument. However, Joanna’s unwillingness to participate caused Addie to question her own position, and she wondered what she was doing standing quietly beside this woman, handcuffs and all, so easily persuaded…
“No one wants to be here. Not at first. But being here is a high step above the place you tried taking yourself before. We didn’t save you just to hurt you, or trick you. You must realize that.”
“Save me? It was none of your business. You should’ve left me alone.”
“Will you come or won’t you? You’d rather stay in there forever, than take a chance and trust us?”
“See, that’s just it. You’ll let me stay in here forever, like an animal. You brought me here, kidnapped me, and now you want me to trust you? You aren’t giving me a choice. I already made a choice and you took it from me.”
“We saved you from making the wrong choice. And you’re free to keep making wrong choices as long as you’d like, but not the same one again. Not here with us. We plan to make sure of that.”
The assistant paused, shifting her weight from leg to leg as she waited for a response, but Joanna didn’t seem to have anything else to say. She was pretty good at dropping the conversation, Addie quickly learned.
“So you’re decided?” The assistant pressed her ear to the door. “That’s fine. You don’t have to come tonight. Or tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that. You can be the girl who stayed in her room.”
The assistant turned and started farther down the hallway, and Addie waited, dumbfounded, unsure whether she should continue following or if she should change sides, follow Joanna’s lead and rebel…
…and then her voice cried out, brittle and desperate.
“Wait!” Joanna called. Addie could hear her wet sniveling. The assistant stopped a few short steps away, nodded to herself in the dark. She returned to Joanna’s door.
“Yes?”
Joanna snorted, breathed heavily. “I’ll come.”
That same knowing smile flashed on the assistant’s face, and she produced her ring of keys and opened the trapdoor. Joanna sat on the floor, and Addie saw a pair of dark, round hands slip through. The assistant, with one of the three cuffs hooked over her hand, restrained her the same as Addie. Without being told, Joanna immediately climbed to her feet.
“I’m opening the door now,” the assistant warned. “Stand back.”
When the door was open there came a scream—a warrior cry, more like—and Addie dodged back as a hulking young woman charged through, hands behind her back, and she pummeled the assistant against the wall.
It was hard to see well in the dark, and what Addie saw next didn’t seem possible.
“Agh!” Joanna croaked.
The tall, pudgy, dark-skinned woman suddenly lifted into the air, toes grazing the floor beneath her, hands to her throat where a starkly pale hand throttled her. The assistant peered expressionlessly up into Joanna’s twisted grimace, like a curious child with a new insect trapped in their palm. Her lips pressed to a fine line, the muscles in her jaw clearly knotted.
“Agghh… plea…leggo…”
For a moment Addie could only watch, mesmerized by the assistant’s impossible strength, the way her petite arm, unshaking, held a more-than-grown human suspended in the air like a bedsheet hung to dry, the way Joanna pried helplessly at the twig fingers on her throat, lips sputtering for breath.
“Stop!” Addie stepped toward them, hands useless behind her. “You’re hurting her!”
The assistant’s dark eyes flicked toward Addie, and immediately her features relaxed. She lowered Joanna, took her hand away, and Joanna collapsed to her knees, massaging her neck and wheezing, a bone-rattle sound. Addie took a step back.
“I’m sorry.” The assistant straightened her posture, smoothed her dress down her belly. She cleared her throat. “Are you done?”
She laid her parental gaze upon Joanna, a look of patience run thin. Joanna, still catching her breath, tried to return her own hateful stare, but could barely lift her eyes to do it. Instead she bore her hatred into the assistant’s feet.
“You see now why the restraints were necessary? What might you have tried had they not been there? You might have forced me to take more extreme measures than this.” The assistant crouched, bringing her face in line with Joanna’s. Joanna closed her eyes, in rebellion or embarrassment it was hard to say. “So are we done, then?”
After a time, during which the assistant waited and regarded Joanna sympathetically, Joanna swallowed hard and nodded. The assistant swabbed a tear from beneath Joanna’s eye with a gentle thumb.
“I really hate getting off to a start like this.” Joanna sniffled once. Her eyes remained down or shut—it was hard to tell in the dark. “I suppose you’ll want to stay in your room now. I won’t stop you.”
Joanna made a sound. Her voice cracked.
“Did you say something?”
“I said… I’ll come.”
The assistant perked up. “Will you? Are you sure?”
Joanna raised her head, and to Addie’s surprise she looked not at the assistant, but at her. They held eye contact, a helplessness in Joanna’s gaze, searching for an answer of some kind in Addie’s, until finally Addie grew fidgety and looked away.
The assistant sprouted to a standing position, laughing like a giddy child. She placed a friendly hand on Joanna’s shoulder as she tiredly got to her feet. She truly was a large girl, Addie observed, noticing at least a five or six inch difference in height between Joanna and herself.
“Now,” the assistant began, and started farther down the hall. Addie and Joanna exchanged uncertain glances. “If the next two give me as much trouble as you, Joanna, it’s going to be a long night.” The assistant burst out laughing—that sweet, alluring laughter Addie had heard a few times before—and in the quiet, dark hallway such laughter felt out of place, like forgetting to whisper in a library.
They passed an open archway on their left, leading to what looked like a living room area. Addie didn’t stop to get a good look, but it was mostly dim anyway, lit faintly by a flickering flame somewhere. A few paces farther they came to another bedroom door on the right. Each of the bedrooms seemed to be aligned on one side of the hallway, one after the next in a row. Addie’s and Joanna’s on one end, and what she imagined to be two more on the other.
At the third bedroom, the assistant knocked twice.
“Lyle?” she said. “Are you awake?”
As with Joanna, there wasn’t a response. The assistant turned to them both and grinned, like they were all in on the game now.
“Lyle?” she repeated. “Can you hear me?” Still no answer. She turned to them again and whispered, “He didn’t sign his letter, either. I suspect he’ll be the
hardest to convince.”
It was strange. The assistant had an intoxicating quality about her, an irresistible friendliness, and Addie found it slowly creeping into herself. Infectious. I think she really means to help us, she thought. She knew such thoughts could be dangerous and that wariness was best for now, but couldn’t help feeling drawn to the woman. Never mind that she’d witnessed the other girl’s near-strangulation by her hand only a minute or so ago—no, Addie thought. That was only self-defense. It was warranted. Now they both knew her strength and it wouldn’t happen again…
The assistant knocked again. “Please, won’t you talk to me?”
A faint murmur came from inside the bedroom.
“Was that you? Are you up?”
The murmur came again, a little louder but still unintelligible. The smile vanished from the assistant’s face and she pressed against the door, eyes wide with concern.
“Speak up, Lyle. I can hardly hear—”
“Leave me alone, I said…” His voice groaned, and Addie envisioned him lying in bed, his face pressed miserably into his pillow.
“I have two others here who have decided to join me. They’re as afraid and confused as you, I’m sure, but they’re taking the chance. Please do the same for me. Can you do that?”
“Haven’t you done enough, whoever you are?!” he shouted. “Just let me be. Please.”
“I understand you might…”
The assistant had a wide breadth of things left to say, and she took the time to say them all. But no amount of encouragement or guilt earned another peep out of the young man behind door number three.
“We’ll just have to give him time,” she said quietly to herself. “Yes. Some time to work things out… Not too long. Boredom helps.”
She made her way toward the hallway’s end at the fourth and final door, and without any beckoning both Addie and Joanna followed reverently behind.
Two knocks.
“Bud? Are you awake?”
Already at the door, a voice whispered, “Yeah.”
The assistant seemed pleased by this. “You signed the letter. Are you ready to join us tonight?”
Only a brief pause. “Yeah.”
The assistant explained the restraints and received no complaints or protests. She unlocked the trapdoor and the boy named Bud pressed his pale hands through. Handcuffs on, he got to his feet.
“I’m opening the door now. Stand back.”
The door opened. Addie prepared for another attack. Joanna breathed noisily beside her, perhaps bracing herself for the same. The assistant tilted her head, curious, smiling sweetly, hands joined at her belly.
“No need to look so glum.” She opened her arms to welcome him out into the hall. “You have hope in you yet. Come join us in the parlor.”
She stood aside, away from the door, and a young man stepped in her place, hands behind his back. Face slack, head bent, dragging his feet, Addie felt she understood exactly how he felt. Even given their outlandish situation, a feeling of hopelessness followed like a stench. He looked from the assistant to Joanna, regarded her briefly, and then lastly rested his eyes on Addie. A new emotion took hold of him then: his face came alive, brow raised, eyes wide, lips parted. It didn’t take her long to feel it, too, and she was suddenly drenched in a cold, surreal horror.
No, she thought, it can’t be.
She opened her mouth but couldn’t say anything at all. Together they remained silent, unable to peel their eyes away for more than a second. Panicking, Addie looked to the assistant, at the very least to plead for a distraction, and instead discovered her smirking between them, a hidden, catlike knowledge behind her eyes. The assistant stepped between them and down the hall, moving on. Joanna must have detected the tension, as she looked dubiously between both Addie and Bud before finally moving on as well.
Left alone, Addie couldn’t hold it in. “You,” she accused.
Bud’s eyes darted beyond her, over her shoulder where the assistant waited with Joanna.
“Are you coming, you two?”
They attempted leaving at the same time, shrugging and dancing awkwardly beside each other. Addie stopped and let him ahead. She was filled with the most spontaneous sense of anger and annoyance, laced with a mind-boggling ounce of guilt, and couldn’t decide how to sort herself, her thoughts, or where to even begin.
She brought up the rear and followed them into the house’s large open living area. The assistant led them toward the front door on the other side, where she had a lit lantern waiting, casting a warm glow on them and the room’s immediate décor. There was a dead fireplace on the far wall, with deep-cushioned rocking chairs and two three-seater wooden couches placed evenly on either side of it, a dark oak coffee table between them. Thick drapes hung over the large windows, hanging down to the hardwood floor, cold as stone under Addie’s bare feet. To the other side of the room was a small kitchen and dining area, with basic counters and cabinets, a table and chairs. The only thing separating the kitchen and the living area was a long, red runner rug, which Addie stepped on to save her chilled toes.
The assistant took up the lantern and turned to face them.
“You’ll become much more familiar with your living quarters in time. For now, I’d like to take you all outside. The air here is so fresh, your lungs would cry out for joy if they weren’t so busy taking it all in.” She paused, looking toward the rear doorway they’d come from. She muttered, “I only wish he’d have come as well. Oh well. Can’t force it… can’t force it…”
She turned to the door. Her ring of keys jangled and the door’s inner bolt clunked open. Then, over her shoulder, she said to them, “The open space outside might tempt you. Trust me when I say there’s nothing out there for you. You’re safer here with me.”
She pulled the door open. A cool breeze pressed in on them like a clinging web, light and lingering. She took one step outside and swiveled back around, the lantern swaying in her grip.
“Follow after me.” She looked at each of their fearful faces, but focused on Joanna last. “You’re safe here. There’s nothing to run from.”
With that, she walked out into the night. The three of them looked dumbly between each other, and it was Joanna who took it upon herself to follow first. Intent on avoiding another awkward shuffle, Addie pushed past Bud and walked in Joanna’s shadow out onto the porch. Bud shut the door behind him.
The assistant had told the truth. The air had a taste about it—pure and deep. Addie filled her lungs and held it in. When she finally let it out, she heard the others do the same.
Their small house sat on the edge of a large dirt clearing, flattened smooth and grooved by tire tracks. On the opposite side of the clearing was another house, the main house, an asymmetrical, two-story white clapboard home, bright-faced by the moonlight. Black shutters hugged the windows, all of them dark but one—an upstairs window, birthing yellow light.
“Is that where you stay?” Addie asked.
“That would be the doctor’s home… and mine too, I suppose.”
“Is he watching us now?”
The assistant looked upon the house with admiration. “I imagine he probably is, yes.”
A battered, rust-spotted pickup sat hidden in the nighttime shade at the house’s side like a sleeping beast, and already Addie’s mind swam with ideas at the sight of it. Did it run? she wondered. And if it did, how long a drive to find another living soul…
“Over here…” the assistant began, walking several paces toward the edge of their little guesthouse, “is the toilet.” She gestured to a tall, narrow outhouse. Insignificant to look at, but dreadful all the same. “It’s the only toilet available to you, so you’ll come to appreciate it soon enough. And just next to it here we have our humble little fire pit…” Just a few paces from the outhouse was a small, circular fire pit made of collected stones, the charred logs from its last fire still propped against each other in the center.
As they were turned to see the outho
use and fire pit, Addie took a moment to study the guesthouse itself which they’d come from, and she discovered something like that of an abandoned fairytale cottage. Likely once a bright eggshell white, the home was now a dark and faded gray, nearly as dark as the shingles on its roof. Little flowerboxes hung beneath each window, with nothing growing inside. Forlorn yet hopeful, Addie thought. She wondered about its strange layout, with its orderly row of bedrooms at the rear—almost as though it was built specifically to house terrified visitors such as themselves.
“Anyone thirsty?” the assistant asked. She strode across the clearing toward the main house, and veered to the left until Addie spotted where she was headed. A thick metal pipe stuck out from the dirt, curved at the top like a candy cane, fit with a kind of lever. The assistant stood beside it. “This is where we get our water. You’re free to drink from it as often as you please. You just pump this lever…” She demonstrated the hand pump until a gush of water came from the open pipe into a wooden bucket already placed underneath. “Simple enough, I hope.”
“As often as we please?” Joanna asked skeptically. “Does that mean we’ll be free to walk around?”
“Well, of course! You’ll never warm up to the place shut in those tiny bedrooms all day. Naturally, some level of trust must be reached before that happens, but I’m sure you all understand.”
Quietly, almost too low to hear, Bud asked, “And where does that go?”
He pointed to the far end of the clearing, where it funneled into a narrow dirt road, winding away from the property toward the forest. It looked to be the only road in sight, coming or going.