THE TRAP

by Tabitha King

  He had returned to the Russells’ house, collected his cap and gloves, and tipped a burning log and coals onto the old carpet in front of the fireplace. He had thrown the pills Olivia had given him into the fire. Just in case he had the bad luck to be picked up. He didn’t need a possession of scheduled drugs charge. At best, he thought, the house would be fully engaged before old Walter arrived, and then it would take a while for the fireboys to come to the rescue. They would all be very busy for a long time, trying to rescue the woman and the boy, who weren’t inside to be rescued. Then they would stand around and talk about it, and feel bad about having to dig out the bodies they thought were inside. At worst, the fire would merely confuse the evidence he and Ricky and Gordy had left behind—the charred linen from Gordy’s accident, the splintered lock on the boy’s bedroom window. In the meantime, Rand would settle accounts with the old bitch, and the woman and her boy. And set another fire, a sure thing, that would consume not only his enemies, but Ricky and Gordy, too. Only Rand would ever know what really happened, Rand and maybe his father, if he felt like telling the old man. He would have to explain what had become of Ricky and Gordy, and between them, he and his father would put it about that Ricky had gone to Massachusetts or New Hampshire for work, or into the service, perhaps with some pregnant girl to inspire him, and that Gordy had been put into a home. No one would be much surprised. No, that would be his father’s job. This might all be God’s way of telling Rand it was time to head for someplace warm. California. Texas. Maybe Mexico.

  Rand crept completely around the foundation of the house. The cellar windows had been bricked up. The foundation walls were Christless big stones set in homemade mortar since the Year One. He listened a long time at various places, and heard no sounds within. The old bitch was playing a waiting game. How could she be so sure he would come, that there were three of them? The woman, of course, had warned her, if she didn’t already know. Another thing to thank O-liv-i-a for.

  He squatted by the porch steps, thinking. It was only to be expected that a woman with a talented cunt, instead of making a fortune using it, was also a raging bitch. Probably a dyke, just like Miss Alden. But she wouldn’t be much use; he had done her sufficient damage to sideline her. There was nothing to fear from the boy, of course. It was still him against the old bitch, who had at least one shotgun on her side. The only gun he had had, the tin-plated Saturday night special he had liberated from the dog-lady, was in the woods, rusting. Some more.

  Rand dropped back to the corner of the porch, seized the porch railing with both hands and swung himself over it, landing on the tips of his boots and rolling at once into a crouch in the far corner. He was surprised by the crunch of glass, and then by a dozen little firepoints in his palms and fingers where shards of glass had penetrated his gloves, when he came down on all fours.

  “Jesus!” he shouted, tearing them off. Most of the glass came out as he pulled off the gloves, but his hands were running blood. He willed himself to freeze. There were no sounds inside the house, not so much as excited breath, or a footstep or a creak of a shutter being cracked. He felt safe to examine his hands. One by one, he picked out a half dozen bits. He was sure there were more, but he couldn’t get them without tweezers. When he thought of the coke that got cooked and the pills he had nonchalantly tossed into the fire he had set, he felt like kicking himself. What he really needed was a local anesthetic, some of that burn spray she had found for Gordy. Only it was burning up back at her house. It was almost funny, but it also pissed him off even more.

  Only then did he wonder where the glass had come from. It was a question easily answered. The glass of the storm window was gone from the one large window in the porch wall. There were pieces of plant pot among the glass to show how it had been done. The Indian shutter was more than open; the bolt had been gouged open. In their past adventures here, they had always just broken in the door. Why had Ricky bothered to frig with the lock on the window, open it, and then break down the door? It didn’t make sense. It might be the woman had done this, but why? Why hadn’t the old bitch just admitted her and the boy to the house? All they had to do was give a holler.

  Rand crept under the window, expecting any moment to see a shotgun come poking out it. He planned to grab it from underneath and yank it out of the old bitch’s hands. So he waited several minutes, but still there was no sound, and no gun over the sill. He stuck an empty glove, half inch by inch over, over the sill. Still nothing happened. He dared to peek, lifting his head even more slowly than his glove, ready at any sound to duck. Sweating like a pig, he thought he would tell his father. ‘Bout ready to shit.

  He was stunned. At first it didn’t make sense, he couldn’t make head nor tails of it, and then he understood, all at once. The old bitch wasn’t there. But she had left him a message all the same, and it was still the same: You next.

  He moved cautiously toward the doorway. The snow on Ricky’s chest was like a thick pad of gauze, soaked red-brown at the center, pinking toward the edges. It made a thin tattered veil over the rest of him, covering his eyes entirely as if in observation of some natural rule of decency. But his jaw had slackened so his mouth hung open and his tongue protruded from his lips. Here the snow dusted and gathered in the corners and did not hide an increasing purplish coloration. When the wind flicked at the snow and exposed a few centimeters of Ricky’s cheek, the skin had no more color, less, to it, than the snow had. A wave of revulsion turned Rand’s stomach. Daddy, he thought, first in supplication, and then in righteous anger, Daddy, I like to puke.

  He worked his way past Ricky and peered into the house. Snow had drifted in. People had disturbed it, passing through, and dragged it farther in. Someone had hunkered only inches away, just inside the door, and done some bleeding there, all in one place. Not Ricky. His gore was spattered on the door frame, and the broken door, and the floor, but it was evenly distributed, and there was both blood and tissue, in a readable pattern. The shotgun blast had blown Ricky right out and killed him at once. Someone had scattered snow from the other side of the room, from the hearth, back over the room, obscuring but not obliterating the evidence, like a snail’s glistening trail, of a belly march under the wire. More than one someone, less than many. The woman and the boy. They had entered the old bitch’s trap and reached the hearth and disappeared.

  He studied the wires, sure now that what triggered the trap was tripping the wire, that there was no danger from anywhere or anything else, unless the woman had gotten hold of a freelance shotgun from the old bitch’s armory. He could see how easy it would have been for the boy, and how possible, if not easy, for the woman. The lowest wire looked about eighteen inches from the floor. It would not be impossible for him, for though he thought he ran about twenty-six inches shoulder to shoulder, he ought be able to do it flat on his belly, the way the woman must have. His margin, his odds would be a lot worse than hers. A sneeze might get his head blown off. He wouldn’t be able to lift his head so much as an inch to see where he was, let alone who might be creeping up on him, shotgun in hand. Wounded or not, O-liv-i-a, Our Lady of the Talented Cunt, was a jungle fighter. She had gotten away from him, hadn’t she? He had to assume she had one of the old bitch’s shotguns and would be waiting to take him unawares.

  Where was she? There were stairs to the dormer bedroom, but to reach them, the woman and the boy would have had to crawl in another direction. The bedraggled snow led directly inside the hearth, where the fire was laid. No, there was faintest dusting of snow on the wood. And dark spots—a scattering of polka dots—on the birchbark that were all wrong to be knots, or scabs, or natural markings, and just right to be blood. He nearly grunted with satisfaction. She had tried to cover her tracks, but not hard enough. She and the boy were hiding inside the chimney. He had looked up the throat of the particular chimney once or twice, on previous visits, and knew it had a ledge wide enough to accommodate a narrow, steady foot. He had looked right up and seen a patch of sky as big as a TV screen. That
particular chimney was big enough to house half of Nodd’s Ridge. So she would have to give up her hidey hole to take a shot at him. But she couldn’t do that without him hearing her. Still, he couldn’t see how he could afford to pin himself down under those fucking wires, where even if he heard her he wouldn’t be able to move fast enough to save himself. It was just a frigging shame he hadn’t gotten her in the small of the back or somewheres a little more useful in slowing her down. And it was a frigging shame he couldn’t put it to the old bitch today, but he would, sooner or later, settle that account, too.

  Rand cleared his throat.

  “O-liv-i-a,” he said. “Little mother. How’s your leg, O-liv-i-a? Hurt some? Bleedin’ some? How’s your cunt, O-liv-i-a? Getting lonely for me, O-liv-i-a?”

  He waited. He fingered the crumpled pack of cigarettes. There was just one stale butt left. He was saving it for when this was over. Maybe he’d light it with O-liv-i-a’s little finger. There was no response.

  He sighed loudly. “I’m hurt, O-liv-i-a. Don’t you love me anymore?” He laughed. “Shit.” He coughed. “I know where you are,” he said. “I’m coming for you.”

  Then he withdrew.

  Chapter 17

  Once they were beyond the causeway, it had become immediately apparent that they would have to choose one side of the lake and follow the shoreline, for as the lake widened, the poor visibility would blind them to where they were. They might wind up traveling in circles in the middle of the lake. So they had gone to the north side, and were almost as lost anyway. Cottages on the shore offered shelter, but they had ignored them, because however near, reaching them meant taking steps out of their way.

  Pat had stopped trying to keep his nose dry. From the growing numbness in his extremities, he knew he was being frostbitten. But it didn’t hurt too much. What worried him most was the fear that Sarah’s hand might slip from his without his realizing it, and so they would be separated, and lose each other in the swirling snow. But she clung tight, struggling alongside him, as if she knew. It was hard to think beyond holding onto Sarah’s hand and putting one foot in front of the other. He was chilled and weary to the bone. He cursed himself for not having stayed in the car back at the narrows, or at least for not leaving her. But there wasn’t any turning back. They had come too far.

  Then Sarah tugged at him. Just ahead, a small peninsula surged into the lake. At its tip was a dilapidated boathouse. She led him, stumbling, into the shelter of its lee side. There they crouched and rested.

  Sarah studied him anxiously. She raised fingers to his face.

  “Feel anything?” she asked him.

  He shook his head.

  “Shit,” she said. “You’re frostbit. I was touching you.”

  He seized her wrist and raised it to his lips.

  She hugged him quickly. Then she hunkered back and looked around. “It’s not so far now. Do you know where we are?”

  The blowing snow stung his eyes. “No. No idea.”

  “This is Spellmans’ boathouse.”

  “Great,” Pat said. “Let’s get going.”

  Sarah’s hand on his elbow tugged him back. “You need a rest.”

  “I need to shelter. I need to get home, baby.”

  Her smile was understanding, motherly.

  “Right. Miss Alden’s place is between here and home. How about we go there, and you get out of the weather? Then I can go the rest of the way and bring back mom.”

  “Thanks,” he said, “but I can make it home.”

  “All right.” Sarah gave way. “But we’ll rest a little longer, okay, and then we’ll stick close to the shoreline, just in case.”

  “Okay.”

  Resting, Pat tried to think about what a tale he would have to tell. His revenge on the elements. This wouldn’t go to waste. He’d make something back on it, one way or the other. The only thing was, he couldn’t come up with a story. Just here he was, an American hero, freezing his balls off, wandering around on a frozen lake with his teenage daughter, who seemed to be better equipped to survive it than he was. It was very tempting just to squat where he was, working on the problem.

  But after a while, Sarah tugged gently at his arm, and led him back onto the ice.

  Shortly thereafter, he grabbed her wrist and halted. “I smell smoke,” he said.

  She sniffed the air. “So do I.”

  “Woodsmoke?” he asked.

  Sarah shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  And as they stood peering into the blowing snow, they realized some of what was blowing over the increasingly familiar tree line on the shore was not snow. Leaning on each other, they watched it thicken and begin to billow, and flicker with sparks.

  “Lady bird, lady bird,” Sarah recited. “Fly away home.”

  “It’s a house,” Pat said. “It’s too big.”

  “Mom!” Sarah screamed, and tore free from Pat’s grasp. She ran a few steps, remembered him, and stopped.

  He was running after her, in his fashion, like a baby who was just learning how to walk.

  Light seeped in from around the doors so that at the top and bottom of the secret passage it was possible to see a little. But in the middle, where the passage bent around the chimney, it was so dark that even after their eyes adjusted, they could see next to nothing. They hugged each other for a while and then Liv whispered, “Trav, we need to know about the bedroom.”

  He squeezed her hand.

  “Take off your boots,” she advised and while he did that, she began to push herself up the steps on her bottom. The stone steps were rough and cold, but the method evoked her childhood and cheered her, or perhaps it was only relief at having achieved a sanctuary. Travis, in his stocking feet, caught up with her and eased open the panel at the top. Liv got a good look at him and her courage faltered. His face in the light the crack admitted was like melted candle wax, translucent and too pale. It occurred to her she probably looked worse, and she shrank back a little into cover of the darkness, for his sake. She forced herself to concentrate on the slice of room visible in the opening of the secret door.

  There was only one shotgun, on a tripod, aimed at the bedroom’s one window, but the room was thickly webbed with trigger wires, except for a small space directly behind the gun, between the gun and the door to the secret passage. Looking at it was a revelation.

  “Miss Alden did this first,” she whispered to Travis. “Set up the gun, and went down the secret passage.”

  Travis bobbed his head in agreement. The thought seemed to excite him.

  She tugged at his sleeve, and he pulled the door shut. They crept back to the turn of the passage.

  “I could get that gun for us,” Liv whispered. “But then he could come in through the bedroom.”

  Travis cuddled up next to her. “Let’s stay here.”

  Liv put her fingers over his lips.

  In the still thick quiet, they could hear the wind sucking at the chimney, but it seemed far away because of the thick stone walls that entombed them, sheltering them from the weather. The cold in the passage was the cold of the stone itself, unheated by sun or fire. With one great shiver, Liv realized she was chilled as much from loss of blood as from the absence of warmth in the passage. Sitting still in the narrow passage, with Travis tucked against her, she could tell without touching the leg that the bleeding had slowed. She could feel blood-soaked cloth drying against her skin. She was suddenly sleepy, yet she was also too cold to go to sleep. But Travis had dozed off, leaning against her.

  Rand cursing on the porch woke him up.

  She clapped her hand over Travis’ mouth and held him tightly. He burrowed into her tensely.

  She thought how lovely it would be if the next sound was one of the shotguns blowing Rand to hell. But though she listened very hard, little sound penetrated into the passage. He was creeping around out there, and that was all she could be sure of. He might already be halfway across the floor, taking their route under the wires, though his iron pump
ing had made him so bull-heavy in the torso that it would be slower and riskier for him than it was for her. The waiting made the time go slower and seem longer, so when he finally spoke to her, she actually felt relief.

  He called her name mockingly. She smoothed Travis’ hair over his brow. Through the stone, the words were not always intelligible, but the anger and the threat were. The last part was very clear.

  “I know where you are,” he said. “I’m coming for you.”

  Soon she would know if her false trail had succeeded. She wondered where Walter was, where Pat was. Then she heard the growl of a snowmobile, close to the house, and sat up straight, transfixed with unbelieving joy. The threats had been all bluster. He was leaving.

  Rand crouched over his brother’s body, drawing off Ricky’s polyvinyl snowmobile gloves. The exposed flesh of finger and hand was candle-white and ghastly except at the tips, which were turning blue-black under the nails. His brother’s fingers in Rand’s were slack, as the rigor had not yet set in, but like a spaceman’s, the thick, foamlined gloves were stiff. Rand discarded his own rent and bloody gloves and pulled on Ricky’s. Their thickness cushioned his glass-perforated palms.

  From the porch, he slunk down the steps and around to the snowmobiles Ricky and Gordy had left on the lee side of the house, started Ricky’s and rode it well into the orchard. The ancient apple trees spread a low sprawling roof over him that baffled the wind, and camouflaged him among its dappled bark and shadows. He let the machine idle, gradually choking it off, trying to imitate the fading sound of an engine departing. A gap in the roof of branches framed the single window of the bedroom. He thought he could make out the black gleam of a muzzle. Craving his single remaining cigarette in its pack, he felt the length of his sleeve to locate it, like a finger bone loose in its crumpled package. But it was for later. He sighed heavily and dismounted.