Surrogate Child

by Andrew Neiderman

  “One of these days, she’s going to break loose.”

  “Why did you tell her to come to the party? She thinks you practically invited her.”

  “Tell her? What are you talking about, Audra?”

  “She says you called and told her to come tonight.”

  “You’re kidding. First of all, she called me, and all she talked about was the party. Coming here was entirely her idea. I just didn’t discourage it. How could I?”

  “That’s not what she said.”

  “So? She’s fantasizing. Solomon said she would.”

  “Solomon said? What do you mean, Solomon said? When do you talk to Solomon?”

  “It’s not that I talk to him, exactly. I showed you.”

  “You mean that stuff in the computer?”

  “Yeah. But now that you ask . . . in a strange way I do feel like I’m talking to him when I turn it on and read his files.”

  “Files.” She looked away, and then a thought occurred to her. “Is there a file on me, too, Jonathan?” He didn’t reply. “Well? Is there?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What does that mean, not exactly?”

  “I’ve seen references to you here and there, but no file like Sal’s.”

  Audra continued to study him. Was he telling the truth? Suddenly she understood what she had felt in Solomon’s old room as she sat before that computer monitor and began reading the words about Sally. She knew why she didn’t want to continue to sit there and read. It wasn’t only because of what was said; it was because of how it was said. It was like “The Twilight Zone”; it was eerie because as she read the sentences, she could hear Solomon saying them.

  She imagined Jonathan was addicted to the computer, drawn to it by spiritual magnetism. Her imagination began to go wild. She knew so little about computers and had such little interest in them. They seemed too impersonal, too mechanical; but she was well aware of what Joe Stern did for a living, and in her mind, because computers were still relegated to some magical part of technology, she saw him as being more of a magician than a technician.

  She recalled that Solomon rarely talked about his father’s work, but when he did, he always cloaked his conversation in metaphors. “My father is just another piece of machinery,” he once said. She thought that was a terrible thing to say about one’s father.

  “You don’t understand,” he went on. “The machines dictate to him. When they break down, he goes. He’s at their every beck and call.”

  “You make it sound as if they are another form of intelligent life.”

  “You’d be surprised,” he said. And then smiling, he added in a soft, subtle admonishing manner, “You’d really be surprised.”

  Jonathan finished his cup of punch and put it on the seat beside them. The DJ returned, and the music began again. Almost immediately the lights were dimmed, and the floor became crowded with dancers. Sally, who was usually quite shy about these things, was out there dancing with Larry Elias, but she kept looking their way.

  “Were there files on other kids, Jonathan? Solomon’s other friends?” Audra asked. She had to bring her face very close to his because the music was so loud. The scent of Solomon’s old cologne was so strong. If she closed her eyes, she went reeling back through time. Jonathan didn’t respond immediately. He continued to look out at the dance floor as though he hadn’t heard her.

  “Jonathan?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What is this not exactly? Don’t you know one way or the other?” she asked, the irritation evident in her voice. He turned to her.

  “I haven’t read it all, Audra. There’s quite a bit, and I’m just getting the hang of that computer. Joe’s given me a lesson or two, that’s all.”

  “You handled it pretty well the other night.”

  “I learn fast,” he said. “Come on, let’s dance.”

  “No, I don’t feel like it just now.”

  “Really? Mind if I go out there? I feel like it.”

  “Go on,” she said. She watched him make his way into the crowd until he was close to Sally. Before long, she had turned away from Larry, and she was dancing with Jonathan. Audra watched the way he moved his head, eyes, and shoulders. He’s teasing her, she thought, or tempting her. Was that what the computer told him to do?

  She gulped down the remainder of the cup of punch Jonathan had brought her, and then she made her way across the gym through the dancers and got herself another cup. In a moment, Paula was at her side.

  “I don’t believe Sally Kantzler. Is that the Sally Kantzler we all know and love dancing with Jonathan?”

  “I’m not sure who she’s dancing with.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” Audra said. She took a long sip of her punch. “Where’s Gary?”

  “Billy Marcus had some pot, so they went into the boys’ locker room.”

  “Amazing. What would they do if they had only music and food and beautiful cars and great clothes and parents who kept giving them everything they wanted?”

  “Jesus, you sound angry.”

  “Well, I am angry. I’m sick of this. We came to have some fun, not to go off in our own little worlds.”

  “Excuse me,” Paula said. “But you and Jonathan had no trouble going off into your own little world at my house the other night.”

  “Thanks, Paula. I knew you could be discreet.”

  “Huh?”

  “Forget it. If Jonathan ever comes off the dance floor, tell him I had a headache and went home.”

  “Are you serious?”

  Audra didn’t respond. She finished the cup of spiked punch, slapped the empty cup down on the table, and sauntered across the dance floor again. When she looked back at Jonathan and Sally, she saw that he was dancing very close to her and that someone had gotten them both another cup of punch, too.

  From this angle, with the lights dimmed and the crowd of young people massed together in what looked to her to be an orgy of rhythmic and suggestive movement, Jonathan and Solomon began to dissolve into each other again. After all, Jonathan had Solomon’s hairdo, wore Solomon’s clothes, and just about had Solomon’s height and build. She rushed away from the image.

  She went to the pay phone in the lobby of the school and called her father, telling him she wasn’t feeling well, but she didn’t want to spoil things for the others. He said he would pick her up in a few minutes; and she told him she would be waiting in front of the school.

  She went out the front door, which was not the entrance for the party. Students were supposed to come into the school through the gym entrance only. Consequently when she closed the front door behind her, it locked automatically, and she couldn’t get back into the building. The custodians had put lights on only by the gym entrance. She found herself standing in the darkness on the steps of the school.

  Perhaps it was because of the two cups of spiked punch, or perhaps it was a result of her anger and disappointment, or maybe it was the effect of the anxiety that had been created when she and Jonathan talked about Solomon’s computer . . . it could have been a combination of everything, but whatever it was, it suddenly made her skin cold and her heart beat madly.

  She would swear later that she sensed another presence, and since she had always been a sensible and intelligent girl, no one would simply tell her she had imagined everything. Her parents would just nod silently in understanding and continue to comfort and calm her.

  The overcast skies permitted no moonlight. Except for an occasional passing vehicle on the highway in front of the school, there was no illumination whatsoever. The world she now saw around her was a world filled with enormous liquid shadows, rearranging their shapes in the flow of the cool, autumn night air, pouring their darkness into one form and them emptying it quickly into another.

  The school lawn was a sea of blackness from which emerged faceless night creatures, some of which crawled quickly up the front of the building. They were gathering out there, drawn from their sle
ep by her intrusion into their world. They oozed over the long, circular driveway, driving away any barriers between her and them.

  She even imagined she could smell them. Their scents were sickly sweet and suggested the stickiness of honey and molasses. If she took a step forward, she imagined she would be sucked down into their putrescence. She would drown in the sea of rotting organic matter. Her body would peel away like the skin off a grape, and she would be left screaming in the night, a pulsating body made of only exposed red flesh, her eyes two molds of jelly-like matter threatening to burst and pour into everlasting blindness.

  The images terrified her, but froze her into a statue on the top steps of the school. She willed her legs to move forward, but every appendage of her body was in mutiny, angry and defiant because of what she had permitted her imagination to do. She saw herself to be a prisoner of her own body, locked within and at the mercy of muscles and tendons. She pleaded with her bones, begging them to press against the recalcitrant sinews.

  First she heard someone in the shadows on her left, and then she heard his voice. There was no doubt about who it was. He pronounced “Audra” in the same manner he had always pronounced it, elongating the “a” sound just a little more than needed, having told her at one time that Audra sounded deific, like some mythological goddess such as Phaedra or Diana. He used to tease her sometimes, but she loved it. “Audra of Sandburg, Goddess of the High School. Your wish is my command,” he would say, and perform a sweeping, European bow.

  Was that her laughter or his? The sound trailed off into the darkness and was quickly absorbed by the night creatures. They fed off the living in every way possible, fueling on the sounds of laughter, of conversation, and especially the sounds of fear and sorrow.

  She heard it again, but she didn’t turn toward it. Her neck was immovable. The chill over her body was driving her blood back toward her heart in a hysterical retreat. She felt her chest grow heavy. It was getting harder and harder to breathe.

  He called again and again. And then there was that distinct laugh. He sounded so close. All she would have to do was turn her head, and he would be there beside her.

  But she had gone to the funeral, and she had seen the coffin lowered into the earth.

  She closed her eyes hard, and when she opened them, she was able to burst forward and break free of the shackles of fear. She charged down the steps of the school and ran madly across the driveway, sensing him right behind her. The night creatures tried to hold her back, but she pressed onward with such intensity that their grips were easily broken. Only, she could feel their cold fingers sliding from her ankles and waist, and occasionally, even her neck.

  She broke onto the highway and continued to run, disregarding the oncoming vehicles that swerved to the right to avoid her. Tears were streaming down her face now, but she wasn’t even aware of the sounds of her own sobbing. Finally a car came right up behind her, and the driver leaned on the horn. She moved over to the side of the road and waited for it to pass, but it didn’t. It pulled up beside her, and her father emerged quickly.

  “Audra. What the hell are you doing? Audra?”

  She was spinning around, waving her arms about like someone battling an attack of honeybees whose hive had been disturbed. Harry Lowe finally had to seize and embrace his daughter vigorously to get her to stop, and even then he had difficulty getting her to understand that it was he and not some horrible monster who had wrapped its arms around her.

  Finally she collapsed in his arms, and he got her into the car. Something told him he had better take her right to the hospital emergency room. They had to take her in on a stretcher. While Audra was being examined, he called his wife, even though he wished he could hold off until he found out exactly what was wrong. However, he knew she would wonder what was taking him and Audra so long to get home.

  By the time she arrived in her car, the emergency room doctor had a preliminary diagnosis.

  “Someone slipped her something,” he said. “Looks like acid.”

  “Christ,” Harry Lowe said. “At a school party.”

  “That boy,” Stephani Lowe muttered, but Harry didn’t hear her. He called the police immediately, and they went right to the school and seized possession of the punch bowls.

  By the next day, it was learned that one of the punch bowls was indeed spiked with vodka, but as far as the police and the school authorities could determine, no one else had been given any drug-related substance. Some students were drunk, and some had vomited afterward, but that was the worst of it. Nothing compared to what had happened to Audra Lowe.

  TWELVE

  Kevin and Mindy Baker were quite shocked by Martha’s new look. Both were politely complimentary, but Joe saw immediately that like him, neither of them approved. However, Joe sensed that not only didn’t they like it, but they both saw it as characteristic of Martha’s emotional instability. To them she appeared to be some madwoman, perhaps a schizophrenic who was now in her second identity. It made the entire evening fragile. The Bakers handled Martha, and even him, like thin china. He could almost hear the tinkle of delicate wineglasses.

  At first the Bakers hid their faces behind frightened smiles, their eyes dancing with anxiety as they looked quickly from him to Martha and back to him. Mindy was overly solicitous; her voice was filled with high-pitched sounds, making it seem as if she were talking to a child. Kevin was restrained, obviously afraid to make his usual witty remarks. Joe felt sorry for them, but he didn’t know what to do to ease things.

  Martha, who was normally the quietest of the four whenever they did go out together, was loquacious, babbling like someone on uppers. And her entire conversation was about Jonathan. From the moment she got into the car, to the moment they arrived at the restaurant in Goshen, nearly an hour away, no one could introduce any other topic. Kevin tried twice, but each time she managed to turn what he said into a reference to Jonathan.

  She began by giving them a remarkably detailed account of all the things Jonathan had done since his arrival. Her narrations were filled with minutiae that even surprised Joe. It was as if she had been at the boy’s side from morning until night, studying his every move. Joe recalled that she had often talked at great length about Solomon when the Bakers and they were together, but nothing she had said before seemed comparable in detail or even in enthusiasm.

  Mindy picked up the fact that something Jonathan had said had been the catalyst for Martha’s new, cosmetic look.

  “Solomon even hated me wearing lipstick,” Martha said.

  “Then Jonathan’s quite different from Solomon,” Mindy concluded. Joe saw that Kevin would rather Mindy had not fueled the discussion, but her own natural curiosity about all of it was overpowering.

  “Oh, yes.” Martha laughed. It was a short, dry laugh, the laugh of someone who had caught her fugitive or trapped her victim. “In the beginning, we thought he was remarkably like Solomon, but as we got to know him, we realized he is, as you say, quite different. Right, Joe?”

  “Maybe the Bakers want to get a word in about their own kids,” Joe said gently. This time Martha’s laugh was more natural.

  “Of course. How are the boys? What’s happening in your house?” she asked, but almost immediately after Mindy said something, Martha had a comment about Jonathan. It seemed impossible to turn her away from the topic.

  When they arrived at the restaurant, they were able to change the conversation to a discussion of the decor, the music, and the selections on the menu. Here, in a better-lit setting, Martha’s exaggerated makeup was even more grotesque. She had mentioned Joan Collins, because Jonathan had mentioned her; but Joe thought Martha looked more like a caricature of Joan Collins and other television stars than an imitation of them. How could she look in the mirror and not see it? he wondered. What did she see?

  Now that they were among other people, the Bakers were more demonstrative about the embarrassment and sympathy they felt for him. Twice Joe had to ask Martha to lower her voice when she broke
out into anecdotes about something Jonathan had done or something Jonathan had said. Before long, he and the Bakers were devoting all their attention to handling Martha—showing her that they were interested in her stories, keeping her voice down by keeping their own voices down, easing her into other topics as best they could.

  When Mindy suggested that she and Martha go to the ladies’ room, both Joe and Kevin looked at her with an expression of relief and gratitude. At first, Martha wasn’t going to go, but then Mindy mentioned the need to freshen up her own makeup, and that did the trick. Kevin and he watched them walk off, and then Joe sat forward, put his elbows on the table, and rested his head in his hands.

  “This was a mistake, Joe,” Kevin said. “Wrong day to take her out.”

  “It wasn’t my idea. It was hers. I didn’t want to go.”

  “Really?”

  “You don’t know what’s going on. Do you know that I went to Solomon’s grave by myself today? She wouldn’t go.”

  “You don’t say.” He thought for a moment, and then added, “Well, maybe she couldn’t take the pain of—”

  “Pain? No pain. She wanted to ignore the meaning of today because it might spoil the happiness she’s having taking care of Jonathan. She didn’t go because of Jonathan,” Joe added, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. Kevin nodded, but it was evident he didn’t really understand Joe’s point.

  “She’s still treading on thin ice. The loss was too great. I imagine the new boy is merely a distraction.”

  “Oh, no, Kev,” Joe said. “He’s become much more than that. You heard her. He’s more of an obsession.”

  “Well, what kind of a kid is he?”

  Kevin sat forward, both his forearms resting on the table. Kevin was a stocky man with wide shoulders and a thick neck that made him a natural on a wrestling team. Although he had developed something of a middle-age paunch he still worked out periodically. He kept his rust-colored hair cut short on the sides, but never gave up the pompadour in front for which he was famous in high school. In fact, in their yearbook, “pompadour” was next to Kevin’s name for “Most noted for.”