“Uh-huh.”
“Good.” She pulled him close, held his shoulders, and looked directly into his eyes. “Listen to me, Randy, okay? If, for any reason, you and I get separated, you use the walkie-talkie to call the emergency assistance people, then call 911 on the cell phone and don’t hang up, don’t disconnect the call. If you stay on the phone, they’ll find you. It’s got a battery that runs for an extra long time, so you don’t have to worry about losing power, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Promise me?”
“I promise.” He was starting to sound scared again.
She took his hand and led him back to the kitchen, lifting him onto the counter and pointing out the window over the sink. “See that trail way back there, that starts by that old well?”
“Uh-huh...?”
“If you need to get to the main road, you just follow that trail, okay? It’s almost a straight line, so you don’t have to worry about getting lost. I’m only telling you this just in case something happens.”
“A backup plan!”
“What?”
“That’s what Dad calls things like this. I been on trips before, and Dad says you should always have a backup plan.”
“That’s right, and this is our backup plan. Later tonight, I’m going to fix up a backpack for you; food, water, pop, comic books, a blanket, there’s a compass and a pair of binoculars, things you can use while you’re waiting for emergency assistance people to come get you.
“But don’t worry about anything, hon, I’m not gonna let you out of my sight, okay? We just have to be real careful until I…until I get rid of Mr. Hands, understand? So promise me that you’ll keep the radio and the phone on you all the time, even when you’re sleeping or have to go to the bathroom. The phone folds up and you can keep it in your pocket, and the radio, see, it can hang off your belt. Promise me you’ll always have these with you?”
“Promise.”
“Good.” She planted a big wet one right on his face, making silly slurping noises that made him laugh.
“Okay, then,” she said. “Let’s make popcorn and watch movies!”
“Yay!”
* * *
He fell asleep on the double-wide sofa around nine-fifteen that night, and Lucy set about placing the weapons at what she hoped were strategic locations.
The .45 she kept on her person, along with the knife (she decided to switch the five-inch for the ten-inch with the serrated edge), which she strapped to her boot.
Double-checking the security system, she took the Mossberg shotgun and placed it on the floor in front of the sofa, then snuggled down next to Randy, covering them with a heavy quilt.
Kylie’s birthday was now nearly over and they were still safe.
She tried to take comfort in that.
Staring into the dying embers of the fire, she tried to remember the rest of the Shakespeare passage, couldn’t, and so tried to sleep.
Somewhere around five-ten a.m. she nodded off, a part of her still very much aware of every sound, every movement, every vibration made by the wind outside as a second dusting of snow covered the world with a fresh layer of crystalline white.
* * *
Next morning, it was buttermilk pancakes and sausage for breakfast, then building another fire, then they built a fort from boxes and pillows, then more movies and a Star Wars spaceship-racing game on the Super-Nintendo system she surprised him with.
It was a great day.
As Randy fell asleep next to her on the couch that night, a Gordon Lightfoot CD playing softly on the portable boom-box, she looked out into the snowy night—if Sarah had been here, she’d have been raising holy hell to get out there and build a snowman—
—Grief fills up the room of my absent child—
—and thought: Where are you?
Kylie’s birthday was one day gone. Maybe Mr. Hands had given up trying to find them.
Is that it? Will there be mercy, then?
Silence.
She didn’t think that could be good, no matter how you looked at it. The two of them were connected in a way few people could understand. She had created him and he, in return, had sustained her.
I know you can hear me, sense me, so why won’t you answer?
She drifted off to the refrain of “If You Could Read My Mind.”
* * *
She came awake around five-thirty when her bladder announced to her in no uncertain terms that she’d had too much Pepsi with the pizza they made for dinner. She pulled herself up—careful not to jostle Randy—and sat on the edge of the sofa. Her side hurt like hell from where the gun and holster had been pressing into it while she slept and her head was screaming for aspirin.
She rose slowly and shuffled toward the bathroom—leaving the door open so she could lean forward to see Randy—then she pulled a bottle of water from one of the bags and found the aspirin.
She wandered over to the front window and stood there, staring out into the night. The moon was full and made the snow shimmer. Light moved like glissandos over the tree tops in the distance as the wind caused them to sway side to side, sometimes forward, then backward, just once, and—
—and then she saw him.
He was so still among the trees and skirling snow that he’d looked like part of the scenery.
Mr. Hands just stood there, motionless, staring with his black-pit eyes.
Lucy moved quickly and quietly; she picked up the Mossberg, grabbed her coat, disabled the alarm, and stepped out onto the porch, pumping a round into the shotgun’s chamber.
Mr. Hands did not move, only continued staring coldly, an entomologist observing the behavior of an insect under glass.
Lucy looked behind her once—I won’t let him harm you—then stepped off the porch, down the steps, and crossed the distance between herself and the thing she’d brought into the world.
She raised the shotgun and thought about firing but that would wake Randy and the last thing she wanted right now was for him to awaken and find himself alone in the dark in a strange place.
Still, she kept her finger near the trigger.
“Leave him alone,” she said. “I’m begging you, please leave him alone.”
Mr. Hands still did not move or give her any indication that he cared.
The wind came up again, blowing snow against her face. She blinked, stopped moving, and brushed her eyes clear.
Mr. Hands began to bend down toward her. For a crazy second, she thought he was falling, the movement was that stiff, but then she didn’t think about it any longer because she knew what it meant when he started to bend down toward a person, she had no choice, so she pumped off three shots from the Mossberg in rapid succession, straight into his gut, and that must have done something because he seemed to explode from the center as he fell toward her and—
—and a moment before he hit the ground, one of his eyes dropped from his head.
Or, rather, a large black stone dug up from the shore of the river.
She snapped her head back up just as the rest of the giant snowman Mr. Hands had fashioned after himself crumpled into a white heap.
“OhGod—”
The sound of logs and wood being smashed reached her even before she was fully turned around, then the sight of Mr. Hands—pummeling the top of the cabin like some rabid-mad animal, turning the roof into kindling—and the sound of Randy’s horrified screaming grabbed hold of her and pulled her forward, running, screaming in terror and rage, firing to no avail because she was too far away and couldn’t get a decent aim while she was moving—
—Mr. Hands threw away a section of the roof, then shoved his arm down inside and began ripping out the heavy ceiling beams—
—Lucy forced herself to stop about fifteen yards from the porch, knelt on one knee, took aim with the Mossberg—
—screamed “LEAVE HIM BE!” once and once only—
—and when Mr. Hands didn’t heed her warning, she fired once, twice, the recoil knocking he
r backward but not before she saw both shots hit him squarely in the neck—
—but when he screamed it wasn’t the scream of a monster, it was the agonized wails of tortured children and Lucy thought she’d rather be rendered deaf than endure another moment of that hideous sound—
—but he wasn’t stopping, didn’t seem to be hurt at all, and with a hard yank he ripped out the section of ceiling beams he’d been working on—
—Lucy scrambled to her feet, slipped in the slick snow and twisted her ankle and went down again, crying out from the pain—
—and this time Mr. Hands screamed his own sound, an ancient, dark, furious sound, full of death and dirt, as he dropped the ceiling beams and teetered on the verge of falling and Lucy wondered if Randy had found one of the guns and fired it at the monster that had come to punish him for Kylie—
—but as she struggled onto her feet again and the pain of her ankle shot up her leg, Lucy saw Mr. Hands shudder—
—and she stood still for a moment, as did he—
—and then, slowly, with as much pressure as she could stand, Lucy pressed the business end of the shotgun down against her injured ankle.
The pain registered with Mr. Hands at the same time Lucy forced back a shriek.
And then she knew.
Dropping the shotgun, she pulled out the .45 and aimed at the ground, placing the palm of her left hand alongside the front of the weapon.
Mr. Hands stared down at her.
Lucy fired, and the muzzle-flash from the gun seared a second-degree burn into the palm of her left hand.
Mr. Hands screamed again as he threw his left hand into the air.
Lucy shoved her injured hand into the snow and felt immediate relief as the cold, wet snow sucked away the pain.
Mr. Hands’ screams began to fade.
Lucy rose to her feet and walked toward the cabin. When it looked as if Mr. Hands was going to start after Randy again, Lucy didn’t fire another shot but instead shoved the business end of the gun directly under her chin.
Mr. Hands stood very, very still.
Lucy said, “Try anything and I’ll kill us both, Mr. H. I’m serious.”
He moved slowly away from the cabin.
“Farther!” shouted Lucy.
He did as she said.
“Remember what I said.” And with that she went into the cabin.
After climbing over several mounds of debris, she found Randy in the kitchen, huddled between the pantry door and the refrigerator. He was shaking and crying, but he’d been composed enough to remember his backpack, winter coat (another present from Lucy), new boots, and the two-way radio.
“I…I g-g-got my phone in m-my pocket,” he said.
“Good boy.”
“Is he gone?”
“No, but he’s not going to try to hurt you now.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.” She slipped the .45 back into its holster, then grabbed a battery-operated lantern from the kitchen table, checked to make sure it worked, and handed it to Randy. “Okay, hon, here’s what we’re gonna have to do. You take your backpack and this lantern, go out the back door, and get on the trail like we talked about, okay? You keep walking and…here—” She pulled off her watch—a birthday gift from Eric and Sarah—and stuffed it in Randy’s pocket. “You keep track of the time. It’s almost a quarter of six in the morning, right? You keep walking until it’s six-thirty. If I haven’t caught up with you by then, you’ll—”
“—I use the radio, call the emergency people, then call 911 and don’t hang up.”
She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him. “That’s exactly right.” She turned him around and started pushing him toward the door. “Now scoot.”
She opened the back door and shoved him out onto the steps.
“I don’t want to leave you alone,” he said, his voice cracking.
“I’ll be fine, honey. Remember, if I haven’t caught up with you by six-thirty—”
He spun around and threw his arms around her waist. She touched the top of his head.
“You’re a good boy, Randy,” she said, kneeling down and taking hold of his shoulder so she could look him in the eyes. “Always remember that. What happened with Kylie was an accident, a terrible accident, but those things happen and it’s nobody’s fault. Cry if you want. But it won’t do you any good. It never does. So don’t bother trying to blame yourself. Promise me?”
“I promise.”
“Good. Now get going.”
He pulled away from her and ran toward the trail. Lucy was proud of him: he never once looked back at her.
“Good boy.”
Then she reached down and pulled out the serrated knife.
She knew that she should be frightened out of her mind, but an odd, almost empowering calm was taking hold of her. She limped outside and down the front steps and made her way toward Mr. Hands.
He stood there, shaking his head back and forth like a child pleading no, No, NO!
Lucy smiled at him, then closed her eyes, remembering, at last, the rest of the passage from Shakespeare:
Then I have reason to be fond of grief.
Fare you well. Had you such a loss as I,
I could give better comfort than you do.
Mr. Hands made a deep, soul-sick sound from somewhere deep in his core.
Lucy opened her eyes. “I know, and I’m sorry, but…but thank you.”
She plunged the knife deep into her stomach, then collapsed on the ground, watching the snow turn red around her.
“This is the only way now,” she croaked as Mr. Hands, doubled over with pain, dragged himself beside her.
Lucy stared into his face and tried to smile but only coughed up a spattering of blood and mucus. “I hope it doesn’t take us too long to die.”
Mr. Hands gently took her into his grip and lifted her from the ground. He was in tremendous pain but they weren’t dead yet.
Before closing her eyes for the last time, Lucy saw a winter carnival on the ground beneath her, and there she saw Heather Wilson, Daniel McKellan, Rosie and Thad Simpkins, Billy Lawrence, Crystal and Emily Ransom, and the dozens upon dozens of other children whose sad and pained faces had decorated the Walls of Madness, only now they were smiling, laughing, playing happily, and among them was a little girl holding a small wooden doll as if it was the greatest treasure in the world. “It’s Misserhands!” shouted the child, dancing in kairos. “He’s good luck! Misserhands won’t ever let anything happen to me!”
Kylie Ann Patterson clapped her hands and giggled, asking Sarah if she could hold Misserhands.
A toy rocking horse was there, its snout unstained.
Blood no longer bound Big Bird’s wings.
* * *
Randy stopped running at six-fifteen when he came upon a large rock. He climbed to the top of it (it seemed like a good place to be) and dug into the backpack for some water and some bread and cheese. He cried for a while, then he cried some more, and then, for a while, there were no more tears.
He wasn’t as scared, though, and that was good.
He pulled the watch from his pocket. At six-thirty he radioed for emergency assistance just like he promised, then called 911 and told them he was lost in the woods. They told him to stay where he was and not to hang up and they would find him.
Then he waited.
Later, when the sun was bright and the sky was clear, he took out the binoculars and stood up, looking around at the trees and hills in the distance—
—until he saw something glint.
Something that looked almost gold.
He steadied his hands until he again found the mountain in the distance.
Even with the snow, it looked gold in the sunlight.
He saw Mr. Hands, climbing up the side. He looked like he was hurt. There was some kind of big basket on his back.
Randy fiddled with the focus until the image was clearer.
Then wished he hadn’t.
L
ucy, her blouse covered in blood, her head hanging limply to one side, had been stuffed into the basket on Mr. Hands’ back.
Randy dropped the binoculars and threw up, then started crying again.
When he was able to move again several minutes later, he grabbed the binoculars and tried to find them again.
He saw only the mountain of gold and nothing more.
He was still looking for them three hours later when the first of the rescuers found him, but they were gone forever, somewhere up on the mountain of gold...
* * *
...the same mountain of gold that he returned to many years later, that he’d been fighting for the last seven hours, and whose summit was now in sight.
He gripped the ledge and pulled himself over. This was a wide one, wide enough for a man to roll out his sleeping back and rest upon for a while.
The sunlight cast golden light onto the surface of the mountain wall behind him. Blinking, he turned around and saw—
—oh, sweet Jesus, ohGod—
—the skeletal remains of Mr. Hands embedded in the mountain.
His chest hitched and his vision blurred but he refused to weep.
“You were real,” he said, the last word shining, full of glory, and in his mind Randy Patterson, now almost forty-two years old, wiped away all the stares and questions and “Are-you-sure’s” that had blended together into a lifelong mantra of doubt.
“I’m not crazy,” he whispered toward the fossil hands. “I’m not crazy.”
And then he saw her.
There were other human skeletons and parts of skeletons embedded into the mountain, but he saw the one that was looking down at him, that seemed to be trying to free itself from the fossilized remains of Mr. Hands so it could come down and embrace him, and he knew without question or doubt that it was Lucy.
He had no strength left to climb or he would have tried to get to her, to touch her; instead he pressed himself against the mountain’s wall and looked up toward her remains, his left hand reaching up as far as it could so she’d know he wanted to touch her, and called out: “I never thanked you, Lucy! I just…I just needed to do this, to know that it was all real—that you were real and I...” He released a long breath and cast a glance downward to the world he would return to in a little while, where, finally, he could shake away the ruins of the past and start his life.
Mr Hands Page 20
