Girl in the Basement

by Ray Garton

  Elliott reached over and stopped the tape.

  Ryan said, “I just wanted to meet her at first, to talk to her. I figured she must get lonely down there in that basement room, and there was no rule that we weren’t allowed to talk to Maddy. So I went down and saw her. And she talked to me in that voice. She said things in French. And if you want to know the truth, Marie, she scared the hell out of me because she knew something about me no one could possibly know – that I want to be a writer. No one knew that.”

  “Well, I could’ve guessed it,” Marie said. “More than once, I’ve found you writing at the kitchen table in the middle of the night.”

  “Yes, but did you tell Maddy that?”

  Her face scrunched up again and she shed more tears. She sucked her lips in between her teeth and pressed the wadded up paper towel over her mouth.

  “Marie, what do you know about Maddy?” Elliott said.

  “Just what I told you. She has multiple personality disorder. They told me to keep her out of the general population of the house, to keep her in her room except for a period of exercise every day. They ... I shouldn’t be telling you this.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they ... they told me not to tell anyone.”

  “Marie, doesn’t it make you a little suspicious that people in government cars and black suits are telling you not to tell anyone about a girl in your care?”

  She took a couple deep breaths, then sipped her coffee. “We only had swamp coolers in the house, and the summers here are so hot. They put in central air and heat for us. They had the house repainted for us. They put in the pool. They said they wanted to make the house the best possible place to live for the children we cared for. All they asked is that we keep Maddy under wraps. They didn’t want her to mingle with the others.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us that?” Ryan asked. “If I’d known I wasn’t supposed to talk to Maddy, I might not have done it.”

  Marie shrugged. “I thought it would be best if I just said nothing about it. I was afraid if I made it a rule, then you kids would be doing it all the time, just to be getting away with something. I’ve been taking care of foster kids most of my life, I know how they are. So I said nothing, and the other kids just ignored her. Once in awhile, I’ll have one of the girls help me dress Maddy, because she’s so big and unwieldy, but they never really interact with her. So, it worked, my plan worked. At least, it worked until now.” She turned to Ryan.

  Elliott said, “Marie, didn’t you notice there was something strange about Maddy?”

  “Of course I did,” she said, and she started crying again. She dabbed at her eyes some more. “The things she says ... and that voice ... but I had no reason not to believe them. They told me her behavior would be strange. Even frightening. They said at times, she might sound like another person. And she does. That voice she speaks in sometimes ... it is frightening.”

  Ryan said, “Has it ever said anything to you that’s ... personal? Something no one else would know about you?”

  “It? You’re talking about Maddy, now?”

  “No, I’m talking about the thing that talks through Maddy,” Ryan said.

  Marie froze with her eyes on Ryan. Her hand was halfway from the table to her face holding the wadded-up paper towel. Her eyes were widened slightly and her lips parted, and she looked as if she’d just been slapped. Suddenly, she stood.

  “I can’t talk about this anymore,” she said.

  “Marie, I think you should,” Elliott said. He reached out and took her hand. “I’m not accusing you of anything, Marie, so please don’t feel defensive. You were given this girl to take care of, and you’ve taken care of her. You’ve taken good care of her, I’m sure. But we need to discuss the thing that’s talking through her. I find it hard to believe that you don’t know about it, that you haven’t had some experience with it.”

  Marie slowly lowered herself back into the chair. She took her hand from Elliott’s and put it on the table.

  “My mother was murdered,” she said. “She lived down in the Bay Area, in Redwood City. She moved down there to live with her sister, who wasn’t well and needed help getting around. One night, a man broke into the house as she was getting ready to go to bed. My aunt was already in bed asleep, but Mom was still up, and this guy broke in, and he stabbed her to death. He was a serial killer. He’d killed three others before her, and he killed two others after her. He’d break into houses at night and just kill people. Stab them to death. He usually caught them in their sleep. He left Aunt Fiona alone, but he raped and killed my mother. That’s what else he did to the people in the houses he broke into at night – he raped the women, sometimes the little girls.”

  Elliott nodded once. “I remember it in the news. Back in the early eighties.”

  “There was one detail the police never released to the media,” Marie said. “The killer always carved a cross in the victims’ abdomens. They left that detail out so they’d be able to separate the nutcases who confess to everything under the sun from the real guy, if he should decide to confess. It was the one detail only the killer would know. But he never confessed. And they never found him. The killings stopped. Some think he moved, others think he died, and others think he just stopped and went back to his probably perfectly normal life.”

  Elliott had a pretty good idea where Marie’s story was going, and he didn’t like it.

  “But Maddy knew,” she whispered. “One day, I was walking her around the backyard and she turned to me and said, ‘The man who killed your mother is dead.’ She said it in that horrible voice, that deep, rough voice. ‘He got hit by a car while crossing the street,’ she said. ‘That’s why the killings stopped and they never found him,’ she said. Then she stopped walking and turned to me and smiled, and I smiled back because it was such a big smile, I thought she was going to say something nice, or laugh, or something. Instead, she said in that voice, she said, ‘Your mother suffered, you know. She was still alive when he carved that cross into her belly. He did that because he was messed up by religious-fanatic parents, you know. They made him that way. They made him that way in the name of God. Why do you suppose your God lets things like that happen, Marie? And in His name? Why do you suppose that is?’ And I swear, I wanted so badly to slap that girl’s face. I wanted to do it so much, I could already feel the sting on my palm. But I’ve never raised my hand to any of the kids in my care, and I wasn’t about to start with a mentally-handicapped girl like Maddy. The problem was, I believed her somehow. When she talked in that voice, I knew what she was saying was true, and I believed it. But I took her hand and kept walking, and I just wouldn’t respond. She kept trying to get me to respond, but I wouldn’t do it. I just wouldn’t. And I still won’t. I just don’t listen to it. I tune it out. I don’t have to have much contact with her, anyway, so I just put up with it and try to think of other things.”

  A sob quaked Marie and Ryan got her another paper towel. She buried her face in it and cried.

  Elliott reached over and put a hand on her shoulder, gave it a squeeze. “I’m sorry for upsetting you, Marie, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to ignore this. Have you thought about poor Maddy?”

  “What about Maddy?” she said. “I take very good care of that girl.”

  “I’m sure you do, Marie, but think about it. You just said you don’t have to have much contact with her – you don’t like to be around her, and I don’t blame you. But the reason you don’t like being around her has nothing to do with the girl herself. It’s the thing that’s talking through her. Maddy is a nine-year-old girl who needs care and affection. The thing that’s inside her – “

  “I told you, she has multiple personality – “

  ”How do you explain the fact that it knew about the cross in those killings?” Elliott said. “That’s not multiple-personality disorder, Marie, that’s something supernatural at work.”

  Elliott told her of the thing’s recorded comment about the bad conn
ection on the line when he called Francis, and about its remark about breaking his other hip.

  “Have you told Maddy about my hip, Marie?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then how did she know about it? Marie, you’re a religious woman, aren’t you?”

  “I go to church. My faith is very important to me. It’s gotten me through some pretty hard times.”

  “I was raised a Christian,” Elliott said. “I haven’t been to church in a long time, but it’s not the kind of thing you just stop believing. And if you want to know the truth, I’ve been feeling some of it coming back on me in the last couple days.” He glanced at the microcassette recorder on the table. “Whatever it is that knew about your mother’s killer and knew about my hip, it scares the hell out of me, Marie. And it’s using Maddy. It sounds like this poor girl is being held captive by this thing.”

  “You heard her when she asked me for help,” Ryan said. He frowned at his coffee as he remembered it, then looked at Marie. “She sounded so sad and afraid. I don’t think she understands what’s happening to her. Who knows what that thing is doing to her.”

  Marie finished her coffee and stood. She took the cup to the sink and washed it out, then put it on the counter. “What do you want from me?” she said.

  “We have to do something to help that girl,” Elliott said. “What’s your church’s stand on exorcism, Marie?”

  Marie turned around and her mouth opened and closed like the mouth of a desperate fish flopping on land. Finally, she said, “What are you talking about?”

  Elliott said, “I thought you could have your minister come see her. Maybe there’s some kind of ceremony – “

  ”Hank would never allow it,” she said.

  “How can he not allow it, Marie?” Elliott said.

  “You haven’t been around those people.” She paced the kitchen for several seconds, then sat down at the table again and leaned toward Elliott. “You know how, when you go to the dentist, he’s nice and pleasant when he first comes in, asks how you are, that sorta thing, then, bam, he’s all business and you’re just a mouth as far as he’s concerned. Well, it’s funny, but these people remind me of dentists. They come in, they’re all nicey-nice, and then, bam, they’re all business and I feel like I’m nothing but a mouth to them, somebody they’ve gotta respond to to be polite. All they care about is Maddy. They told me she was part of some study, that they were giving her a new drug. I have to give her pills twice a day, and I have to make sure she swallows them. They spend hours with her. Once, they came early in the morning and they stayed late into the night, and they set up this satellite link-up equipment in Maddy’s bedroom. I don’t know what it was for because they wouldn’t let us stick around to find out. We had to go back upstairs and keep everyone out of the basement. They’re not the kind of people you say no to. They’re the kind of people whose orders you tend to follow, too, and I’m going to be in big trouble if they find out about you two.”

  Elliott shook his head. “Marie, don’t worry about that. Ryan and I are going to keep this to ourselves, right Ryan?” He turned to Ryan, who nodded. “This is just between the three of us, Marie. I bring it up because I’m not sure you fully understand what you’ve got in your basement.”

  She frowned. It was not an expression often seen on Marie’s face, and it made her look very unlike herself. “You’re not sure I ... what, I don’t understand.”

  “That’s what worries me. Marie, you seem to be clinging to the idea that Maddy is just suffering from multiple-personality disorder, from some mental illness, when it’s pretty obvious to me that she is possessed by some entity, some being. Ryan and I have come to the conclusion that it is not a friendly or moral being, and frankly, it scares the hell out of us. Do you understand what I’m saying? Those people have been lying to you.”

  Marie put a thick elbow on the table and slowly rubbed her hand down over her face. “It’s always trying to get me to doubt my faith,” she said after a long silence. “I usually hum to myself when it starts to talk to me. When it’s just Maddy, it’s fine. She can be such a sweet girl, you know, she’s very good-natured. When it’s her. But it’s not always her. On those days, I hum a lot and try not to hear all the terrible things it says about God and Jesus. They’re terrible things, but later, they nag at me, the things it says. I have to pray a lot to get it out of my head, but that’s getting difficult to do. I can only hum so much. Some of that stuff ... it gets through. I hate it for that, for doing that to me, for making me question my own faith, the faith that’s saved my life more than once. I hate it for that.”

  Elliott frowned. “So you’ve known all along.”

  She rested the side of her head in her hand. “I’ve suspected. But it’s not the kind of suspicion you share with anyone. People would say I was crazy, and I’m half afraid they might be right. But I’ll tell you right now, I don’t think it would matter one bit to Hank. Even if I could convince him, I don’t think he’d care, as long as all the nice stuff keeps coming in. He probably wouldn’t care if she was possessed by Satan and the ghost of Elvis, as long as those people keep doing things like painting our house and installing central air and heat and putting in a pool, and bringing in that big-screen TV with all that sound equipment, all that stuff. That’s why the idea of calling in Reverend Tomlin would never work. What would be the purpose? To get rid of it, right? Do you know what kind of trouble we’d be in if we got rid of that thing, Mr. Granger? Like I said, you don’t know what these people are like. They’re all business right down to their souls, they don’t have anything else in them.”

  Elliott noticed a change in Marie’s features – they all seemed to collapse a little as if beneath some great inner weight.

  Ryan said, “But I don’t understand, how can you live knowing that thing is under the same roof with you?”

  The rest of Marie seemed to collapse a little then, and she was overtaken by sobs. Elliott could tell that taking care of Maddy had been taking a toll on Marie, and he suspected this was the first time she’d expressed it.

  Her upper body rocked back and forth slightly as she cried. “It’s been awful. Hank doesn’t know. He never sees her. He doesn’t have anything to do with her. Hank has no idea what it’s like.”

  “Maybe it’s time to show him, Marie,” Elliott said. “Maybe it’s time you show Hank what you’ve been dealing with.”

  “I’ve tried, I’ve tried. When I take Maddy for her walk, sometimes Hank is out in the backyard, and I’ll take her over to him. She’s fine then. She always says, ‘Hi, Hank,’ and, ‘’Bye, Hank.’ She’s always just fine with him.”

  Elliott felt a great wave of affection for Marie. She had enough on her hands taking care of six problematic teenage boys and girls – she didn’t need an other-worldly entity in her house chipping away at her faith. He sensed she didn’t get much help from Hank. But she endured and did her job with great care. She didn’t deserve to have something like that in her life.

  “Marie, you’ve got to call in your reverend,” Elliott said. “Just have him spend some time with her, see what happens. Have him pray with her.”

  She dabbed at her eyes and cheeks with the paper towel, then looked at Elliott. Her puffy face was flatly expressionless. “Do you think that would be a good idea?” she said.

  “I think you owe it to Maddy,” Elliott said. “Can you imagine how she must feel? She’s not in control of herself anymore. Who knows if she ever was entirely in control. Don’t you know anything about her, Marie?”

  She blew her nose as delicately as she could, then shook her head. “Only what those dentist people told me. They said her mother was a drug addict, father unknown, and that because of her multiple-personality disorder, she was part of a government study involving certain new medications. They come once a month to spend time alone with her. They always have video equipment. If they were to come and that ... that person, that thing, whatever it is, if it were gone ... I don’t even like to think
about it.”

  “How would they know you had anything to do with it?” Ryan said.

  “Well, they would ask, I’m sure,” Marie said.

  “And you could lie to them,” Ryan said.

  “Oh, no. I couldn’t lie. It’s not just that it’s wrong, I really can’t lie – I’m a terrible liar.”

  “How do you know Reverend – what’s his name again?” Elliott said.

  “Reverend Tomlin.”

  “We don’t even know if Reverend Tomlin can get rid of this thing,” Elliott said. “Just bring him over to see her, Marie. See what he has to say about her. I think someone like a minister or a priest needs to see her. And I think you owe it to Maddy, Marie.”

  Marie got up and took her coffee mug from the counter, went to the coffee maker and poured more. She took it to the table and sat down again, sipped it.

  “I can ask him over to pray for her,” she said. “That wouldn’t seem unusual, and it would be a chance for him to spend some time with her. But that’s no guarantee that voice is gonna say anything.”

  “It can’t hurt to try,” Elliott said. “You’ll do this, then?”

  She sipped the coffee. “I’ll call Reverend Tomlin this morning.”

  Elliott smiled and exchanged a satisfied look with Ryan.

  Marie turned to Ryan and said, “But you’ve got to leave Maddy alone, Ryan. And you can’t tell any of the others about this. Do you understand me?”

  Ryan said, “Yes, I understand, I won’t tell anyone. But you’ve got to let me be there when the minister comes.”

  She started to protest, but thought about it another moment. “We’ll see,” she said.

  “Would you do me a favor, Marie?” Ryan said. “Would you drive me over to see my mom before I have to go to work? She’s staying at a motel in Anderson.”

  “Sure, I can do that, Ryan.”

  He smiled. “Thanks.”

  From the Journal of Ryan Kettering

  I saw Phyllis today. Marie took me. She said she’d wait in the car while I went to see my mom. I told her she didn’t have to, but she said that was okay, she would.