Heart cracking hard inside her chest, hands tingling with blood, she forced herself to let the penlight go out. She slid it into her pocket and struggled with the Samsonite until she had it closed again. She twisted the stiff latches, grabbed the handle with both hands, and dragged it toward the stairs. It made a loud, gritty sound as she slid it across the floor.
She pulled on the suitcase, took a step, pulled it again, took a step, and step by step she dragged it halfway to the attic stairs. Her shoulders burned, the base of her spine felt broken, but eventually she got it to the lip of the trapdoor and felt relief course through her body when she saw the clean room down below.
She’d leave the bag here, get Mrs. Greene, and they’d get this out of the house together. She wouldn’t hesitate. She’d drive it right to the police station. She turned around and stepped onto the first step down. That was when she heard voices downstairs and automatically pulled her foot back.
“Mrs. Greene,” a distant man’s voice said. She missed the next part and then: “…a surprise.”
She heard Mrs. Greene say something she couldn’t make out, and then she heard the end of James Harris’s reply: “…come home early.”
CHAPTER 30
Electricity raced down Patricia’s arms and legs, rooting her to the spot.
“…can wrap up,” she heard James Harris say. “…want to go upstairs and get some rest.”
A horrible thought gripped Patricia’s brain: any minute Slick was going to stroll up to the back door and knock. Slick couldn’t lie to save her life. She’d say she was there to meet Patricia.
A voice she couldn’t hear spoke, and then James Harris said, “Lora here today?”
Patricia looked down and her heart banged so hard it left a bruise against her ribs. Lora stood in the door of the guest room, a dust rag in one hand, looking up at Patricia.
“Lora,” Patricia whispered.
Lora blinked, slowly.
“Close the stairs,” Patricia begged. Lora just stared. “Please. Close the stairs.”
James Harris was saying something to Mrs. Greene that Patricia couldn’t hear because everything in her body was directed at Lora, willing her to understand. Then Lora moved: she held out one yellow gloved hand, palm up in a universal gesture. Patricia remembered the other ten-dollar bill. She jammed her hand into her pocket, bending the nail of her forefinger backward, and pulled it out. She dropped it and it fluttered down slowly, right into Lora’s hand.
Downstairs, she heard James Harris say, “Has anyone stopped by?”
Lora leaned down, grabbed the bottom of the stairs, and pushed them up. The springs didn’t groan this time but they were closing too fast and she squatted, extending her hands, catching the trapdoor, bringing it to a gentle close with a quiet bump.
She had to replace the suitcase before he came upstairs. She stood and wedged her right foot beneath it, feeling its weight crush her bones, and lifted, stepping her foot forward, using her shoe as a bumper when she brought the suitcase down, swinging it forward a step at a time. It was loud, but not as loud as dragging. Limping wildly, bruising her shin with every step, her pulse snapping in her wrists, the suitcase scraping the top of her foot raw, she slowly made it to the end of the attic and slid the Samsonite back into place. Then she saw that there were mothballs scattered all over the floor, glowing like pearls in the dim attic light.
She scooped them up and, with nowhere else to put them, dropped them into her pockets. Her head spun; she thought she might faint. She had to know where he was. Stepping from joist to joist, she made her way back to the trapdoor, brushed three dead cockroaches out of her way and knelt on the floor, bringing her ear close to the gritty plywood.
She heard the muffled thumps of bedroom doors opening and closing. She prayed that Lora had closed the one with the attic stairs in it, and then she heard it open, and footsteps right beneath her, and her heart clenched. She wondered if the marks from the ladder could be seen in the carpet’s pile. Then more footsteps and the door closed.
Everything went quiet. She pushed herself up. Every joint in her body ached. How could she get out of here? And why had he traveled in daylight? She knew he was capable of doing it but would only take the risk in desperation. What had happened to make him hurry home? Did he know she was here? And what was going to happen when Slick showed up?
She heard faint voices floating up from downstairs:
“…come again next…”
He was sending them home. She heard a distant, final thump and realized it was the front door closing. She was in the house alone. With James Harris. Everything was silent for a few minutes and then, from right beneath the trapdoor, a singsong voice drifted up.
“Patricia,” James Harris sang. “I know you’re in here.”
She froze. He was going to come up. She wanted to scream but caught it before it could slip out between her lips.
“I’m going to find you, Patricia,” he singsonged.
He would come up the ladder. Any second she would hear the springs stretch and see the light around the edges get brighter, she’d hear his heavy steps on the rungs, and she’d see his head and shoulders emerge into the attic, looking right at her, mouth splitting wide into a grin, and that thing, that long black thing boiling up out of his throat. She was trapped.
Below her, a bedroom door opened, then another. She heard closet doors rattling open and shut, nearer and farther away, and then a bedroom door slammed with a bang and she jumped a little inside her skin. Another bedroom door opened.
It was only a matter of time before he remembered the attic. She had to find a hiding place.
She squeezed the penlight and looked at the floor, trying to see if she’d given herself away. The white cockroach poison had her tracks all through it as well as drag marks from the suitcase. Squatting, forcing herself to move slowly and carefully, she used her palms to whisk the poison smooth, leaving the gritty white layer thinner, but undisturbed. She walked backward, hunched over, brushing the floor lightly, the small of her back on fire until she reached the suitcases and stood. She used the penlight to check her work and was pleased.
She examined the suitcase and realized the one with Francine’s body in it was rubbed clean. She scooped up roach powder and mouse droppings and used them to dirty the suitcase. It would do the job if he didn’t look closely.
Standing made her feel exposed, so she forced herself to lie down behind the draped mound of Mrs. Savage’s things. With her ear pressed to the filthy plywood floor, she heard the house vibrating beneath her. She heard doors opening and closing. She heard footsteps. Then she heard nothing. The silence made her nervous.
She checked her wristwatch: 4:56. The silence lulled her into a trance. She could stay here, he wouldn’t look for her here, she’d wait as long as she needed, and she’d listen, and when it got dark he’d leave the house and she could sneak out. She would be strong. She would be smart. She would be safe.
She heard the springs groan as the trapdoor opened, and light flooded the far end of the attic.
“Patricia,” James Harris said loudly, coming up the steps, springs screaming crazily beneath his feet. “I know you’re up here.”
She looked at the filthy blankets draped over the boxes and realized that even getting under them wouldn’t help. The furniture was too sparse to hide her. If he walked around to this side of the stacks he’d see her. There was nowhere to go.
“I’m coming for you, Patricia,” he called, happily, as he got to the top of the ladder.
Then she saw the pile of clothes on the edge of the attic where the plywood flooring ended. Several boxes had split open and disgorged their contents into a huge mound.
If she could burrow into that pile she would be hidden. She crawled closer, staying low, the reeking stench of rotting fabric scraping her sinuses raw. Her gorge slapped against the back of her throat.
The footsteps coming up the ladder stopped.
“Patty,” James’s voice said from the middle of the attic. “We need to talk.”
She heard the plywood creak beneath his weight.
She raised the stiff edge of the pile and began to slither under, head first. Spiders fled from the disturbance, and roach eggs loosened from the fabric and rained down on her face. Centipedes fell out and squirmed against the hollow of her throat. She heard James Harris coming across the attic floor and she forced herself to fight down her gorge and slither in, moving carefully so she didn’t disturb the blankets draped overhead. His feet came closer; they were at the edge of the boxes now, and she pulled her feet in under the rotting pile of clothes and lay there, trying not to breathe.
Insects seethed across her body, and she realized she’d disturbed a mouse nest. Clawed feet squirmed over her stomach, writhed over her hip. She wanted to scream. She kept her mouth clamped shut, taking small shallow breaths through her nose, feeling the stinking fabric around her crawling with mites, roaches, and mice.
Desiccated insect husks lay on her face, but she didn’t dare brush them away. Spiders crept across her knuckles. She made herself hold very still. She heard another step and she could tell he was lifting the blankets draped over Ann Savage’s boxes, looking underneath, and she pretended she was invisible.
“Patricia,” James Harris said, conversationally. “Why are you hiding in my attic? What are you looking for up here?”
She thought about how he’d gotten Francine’s body into the suitcase, how he’d probably had to take his big hands and break her arms, shatter her shoulders, crush her elbows, pull her legs out of their sockets and twist them into splinters to make them fit. He was so strong. And he was standing directly over her.
The pile of rotten fabric shifted and moved, and she willed herself to become smaller and smaller until there was nothing left. Something extended a delicate, gentle leg onto her chin, then moved over her lips, delicately scraping them with its hairy legs, and she felt the roach’s antenna brush the rim of her nostrils like long, waving hairs. She wanted to scream but she pretended she was made of stone.
“Patricia,” James Harris said. “I can see you.”
Please, please, please don’t go up my nose, she silently begged the cockroach.
“Patricia,” James Harris said from right beside her. What if her feet were sticking out? What if he could see them? “It’s time to stop playing. You know how much it hurts me to go outside during the day. I don’t feel very good right now, and I’m not in the mood for games.”
The roach stepped past her nose, brushed over her cheekbone, and she squeezed her eyes shut, gritty in their sockets with all the rotting fabric flaking into them, and the roach’s progress across her face tickled so badly she had to brush her cheek or she would go insane. The roach crawled down the side of her face, over her ear, probing inside her ear canal with its antenna, then, drawn by the warmth, its legs began to scrabble into her ear.
Oh, God, she wanted to moan.
Please, please, please, please…
She felt the antenna waving, exploring deep inside her ear, and it sent cold shivers down her spine, and bile boiled up her throat, and she pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth, and felt the bile fill her sinuses, and the legs were inside her ear now, and its wings were fluttering delicately against the top of her ear canal, and she felt it crush its body into her ear.
“Patricia!” James Harris shouted, and something moved violently, and crashed over, and she almost screamed but she held on, and the roach forced its way deeper into her ear, three quarters in, its legs scrabbling deeper, and soon she wouldn’t be able to get it out, and James Harris kicked over furniture, and she felt the blankets move.
Then loud stomps moved away from her, and she heard the springs moan, and the roach fluttered its wings, trying to force itself deeper, but it was jammed, and she felt like it was fluttering its front legs against the side of her brain, and she knew James Harris was only pretending to go down, and then there was a bang and the floor jumped, and silence, and she knew he was waiting for her.
She got her left hand ready to catch the back legs of the roach before it disappeared into her ear, and she listened, waiting to hear James Harris give himself away, but then, far away, deep down inside the house she heard a door slam.
Patricia scrambled out from under the pile of clothes, feeling mouse droppings shower from her body, tearing at her ear, and she couldn’t catch the roach, and it panicked and squirmed, pushing its way into her ear, and she grabbed her soft tissue all around it, and crumpled her ear closed. Something crunched and popped and warm fluid oozed deep inside her ear canal, and she pulled out the mangled corpse of the roach, and scraped the hot gunk out with her little finger.
Spiders crawled from her hair onto her neck. She slapped at them, praying they weren’t black widows.
Finally, she stopped. She looked at the pile of old clothes and knew that even if he came back, there was no way she could make herself go under them again.
She watched the louvers get dimmer on the side of the attic facing the back of the house, and get brighter behind the louvers facing the harbor, and then the light turned rose, then red, then orange, and then it was gone. She began to shiver. How was she going to get out? What if he stayed in the house all night? What if he came back up after she’d fallen asleep? What if Carter called home? Did Blue and Korey know where she was?
She checked her watch. 6:11. Her thoughts chased themselves around and around inside her head as the sun went down and the heat leached out of the attic. She felt thirsty, hungry, scared, and filthy. Eventually she put her feet back under the moldering pile of clothes to keep them warm.
Occasionally, she dropped off to sleep and would wake up with a jerk of her head that made her neck snap. She listened for James Harris, shivered uncontrollably, and stopped looking at her watch because she’d think an hour had passed and each time discovered it had only been five minutes.
She wondered what had happened to Slick, and she wondered why he had come back early, and why he had risked going out in daylight, and inside her cold, gummy head, these thoughts went slower and slower and melted together and suddenly she knew it was Slick.
Slick had told him she was here. That was why Slick hadn’t come. She had called James Harris in Florida because her Christian values couldn’t stand to bend the rules, and Patricia had found something, she’d found the something, she’d found Francine, but Slick didn’t care about that, she didn’t care that Patricia had told her James Harris was dangerous, she just cared about her precious, lilywhite soul.
She looked at her watch. 10:31. She’d been up here for seven hours. She had at least that many more to go. Why had Slick betrayed her? They were supposed to be friends. But Patricia realized she was on her own again.
It took a few minutes to identify the noise beneath her, coming through the floor, repeating itself again and again. Patricia wiped her nose and listened, but she couldn’t tell what it was. Then it stopped.
“What?!?” James Harris yelled. Even far away and muffled by the walls, it still made her jump.
The sound had been the phone ringing. She heard footsteps running downstairs, she heard the front door open and slam, then silence.
She sat, heart pounding, teeth chattering. Then her skin crawled: someone was scratching at the other side of the trapdoor. He was coming up again, finding the eyelet, pulling the trapdoor down. She was too tired, too cold, she couldn’t move, she couldn’t hide. Then came a noise like the end of the world as the trapdoor cracked, the springs screamed, and James Harris came up the ladder.
CHAPTER 31
“Patricia?” Kitty whispered.
Patricia couldn’t understand what Kitty was doing with James Harris.
“Patricia?” Kitty called louder.
Patricia pushed hers
elf up on her elbows, then onto her hands, and looked over the top of the boxes. Kitty stood halfway inside the attic. Alone.
“Kitty?” Patricia said, her dry tongue sticking to the syllables.
“Oh, thank God,” Kitty said. “You scared me half to death. Come on.”
“Where is he?” Patricia asked, thoughts coming thick and slow.
“He left,” Kitty said. “Now mush. We need to be gone before he comes back.”
Patricia pushed herself up off the floor and reeled toward Kitty, knees popping, spine cracking, feet screaming with pins and needles as the blood poured back into them.
“How?” Patricia asked.
“Gracious Cay caught on fire,” Kitty said. “Mrs. Greene called and told me I needed to come get you out.”
“Where is she?” Patricia slurred, reaching the trap door.
Kitty grabbed Patricia’s waist and held her steady.
“First thing I did was take Blue and Korey out to Seewee,” she said, helping Patricia place her foot on the top step. “We told them you had to visit a sick cousin upstate. They’ve been crabbing all day with Honey and we rented a stack of movies. I’ve got beds made up for them. They’re having a high old time.”
She got both Patricia’s feet onto the top step, then helped her turn around and come down the stairs. Halfway down, Patricia’s head emerged into the hallway and it smelled so clean she wanted to weep.
“How is Gracious Cay on fire?” she asked, clinging to the ladder as the room spun slowly around her. “Where’s Mrs. Greene?”
“Same answer to both questions,” Kitty said. “I think it’s the first time she’s ever broken the law. Keep moving.”
“No,” Patricia said. “You have to see this.”
The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires Page 27
