Safe House

by Jenny Carroll

  When we'd gotten far enough past the sheriff's deputy that we could pull over without him seeing us, Rob did say, keeping the motor running as he asked, "You want to ask him to join us?"

  "Not yet," I said. "I'd rather … I want to make sure first."

  Even though I was sure. Unfortunately, I was really sure.

  "All right," Rob said. "Where to now?"

  I pointed into the thick woods off to the side of the road. The thick, dark, seemingly impenetrable woods to the side of the wood.

  "Great," Rob said without enthusiasm. Then he put down his helmet's visor again and said, "Hang on."

  It was slow going. The floor of the woods was soft with decaying leaves and pine needles, and the trees, only a few feet apart, made a challenging obstacle course. We could only see what was directly in front of the beam from the Indian's headlamp, and basically, all that was was trees, and more trees. I pulled back the sleeve of Rob's leather jacket and pointed whenever we needed to change directions.

  Don't ask me, either, how I knew where we going, me—who can't read a map to save my life and who's managed to flunk my driving test twice. God knew I had never been in these woods before. I was not allowed, like Claire Lippman, to swim in the quarries, and had never been to them before. There was a reason swimming here was illegal, and that was because the dark, inviting water was filled with hidden hazards, like abandoned farm equipment with sharp spikes sticking up, and car batteries slowly leaking acid into the county's groundwater.

  Sounds like paradise, huh? Well, to a bunch of teenagers who weren't allowed to drink beside their parents' pools, it was.

  So even though I had never been here before, it was like . . . well, it was like I had. In my mind's eye, as Douglas would say, I had been here, and I knew where we going. I knew exactly.

  Still, when we hit the road again, I was surprised. It wasn't even a road, exactly, just a strip of land that, decades before, had become flattened by the heavy limestone-removing equipment that had passed over it, day after day. Now it was really just a grass-strewn pair of ruts. Ruts that led up to a dirty, abandoned-looking house, all of the windowpanes of which were dark—and busted out—and which had a DANGER—KEEP OUT sign attached to the front door.

  I signaled for Rob to stop, and he did. Then we both sat and stared at the house in the beam from his headlight.

  "You have got," Rob said, switching off the engine, "to be kidding me."

  "No," I said. I took off my helmet. "She's in there. Somewhere."

  Rob pulled his own helmet from his head and sat for a minute, staring at the house. No sound came from it—or from anywhere, actually—except the chirping of crickets and the occasional hoo-hoo of an owl.

  "Is she dead?" Rob asked. "Or alive?"

  "Alive," I said. Then I swallowed. "I think."

  "Is anybody in there with her?"

  "I don't … I don't know."

  Rob looked at the house for a minute more. Then he said, "Okay," and swung off the bike. He went to the back storage compartment and dug around in it. In the glow of the bike's head lamp and the dim light afforded from the tiny sliver of moon, I saw him pull out the flashlight, and something else.

  A lug wrench.

  He noticed the direction of my gaze.

  "It never hurts," he said, "to be prepared."

  I nodded, even though I doubted he could see this small gesture in the minimal moonlight.

  "Okay," he said, closing the lid to the storage compartment and turning around to face me. "Here's how it's going to go down. I'm going to go in there and look around. If you don't hear from me in five minutes—oh, here, take my watch—you get on this bike and you go for that cop car we saw. Understand?"

  I took his watch, but shook my head as I slipped it into the pocket of his leather jacket.

  "No," I said. "I'm coming with you."

  Rob's expression—what I could see of it, anyway—was eloquent with disapproval.

  "Mastriani," he said. "Wait here. I'll be all right."

  "I don't want to wait here." I couldn't, I knew very well, send him in to do what by rights should only have been done by me. I'd had the vision. I should be the one to go into the creepy house to see if the vision was real. "I want to come with you."

  "Jess," Rob said. "Don't do this."

  "I'm coming with you," I said. To my surprise, my voice broke. Really. Just like Tisha's had, when she'd gone into hysterics outside the Chocolate Moose. Was I, I wondered, going into hysterics?

  If Rob heard the break in my voice, he gave no sign.

  "Jess," he said, "you're staying here with the bike, and that's final."

  "And what if," I asked, the break having turned into a throb, "they come back—if they aren't in there now—and find me out here all alone?"

  I did not, of course, even remotely believe that this might happen, or that, in the unlikely event that it did, I would not be able to get away on the Indian, which went from zero to sixty in mere seconds, thanks to Rob's dedicated tinkering.

  My question did, however, have the desired effect on Rob, in that he sighed and, hooking the lug wrench through one of the belt loops of his jeans, reached out and took my hand.

  "Come on," he said, though he didn't look too happy about it.

  The steps to the house's tiny front porch were nearly rotted through. We had to step carefully as we climbed them. I wondered who had lived here, if anyone. It might, I thought, have served as the management office during the time the limestone had been carved out of the quarry down the road. Certainly no one had lived in it for years. . . .

  Though someone had certainly been inside recently, because the door, which had been nailed shut, swung easily under Rob's palm. In the bright beam from the Indian's headlamp, I could see the shiny points of the nails gleaming where they'd been pried from the wood, while their heads were nearly rusted through with weather and age.

  Rob, shining his flashlight into the dank blackness past the door, muttered, "I have a really bad feeling about this."

  I didn't blame him. I had a pretty creepy feeling about it myself. All I could hear were the crickets outside and the drumming of my own heart. And one other sound, much fainter than the other two. But, unfortunately, familiar. A dripping sound. Like water from a faucet that had not been properly shut off.

  The drip, drip, drip from my dream.

  I mean, my nightmare. Heather's reality.

  Rob took a firmer grip on my hand, and we stepped inside.

  We were not the first ones to have done so recently. Not by a long shot. In the first place, animals had clearly been making use of the space, leaving scattered droppings and nests of leaves and sticks all over the rotting wooden floor.

  But raccoons and opossums weren't the dilapidated building's most recent tenants. Not if the many beer bottles and crumpled bags of chips on the floor were any indication. Someone had been doing some major partying. I could even smell, faintly, the intoxicating scent of human vomit.

  "Nice," Rob said as we picked our way across the floor toward the only door, which hung crazily on its hinges. He paused and, letting go of my hand for a second, stooped to pick up a beer bottle.

  "Imported," he said, reading the label by flashlight. Then he put the bottle down again. "Townies," he said, taking my hand again. "It figures."

  The next room had apparently been a kitchen, but all of the fixtures were gone, except for a few rusted-out cabinets and a gas oven that looked beyond repair. There were less animal droppings in the kitchen, but more beer bottles, and, interestingly, a pair of pants. They were too big—and unstylish—to have belonged to Heather, so we continued our tour.

  The kitchen led to the third and what I thought was the final room. This one had a fireplace, in which rested an empty keg.

  "Someone," Rob said, "didn't care whether or not he got his deposit back."

  That's when I noticed the stairs and tightened my grip on Rob's hand.

  He followed the direction of my gaze, and sighed.


  "Of course," he said. "Let's go."

  The stairs were in only a little better condition than the porch steps. We climbed them slowly, taking care where we put each foot. One wrong step, and we'd have fallen through. As we climbed, the dripping sound grew steadily louder. Please, I prayed. Don't let that be blood.

  The second floor consisted of three rooms. The first, to the left, had obviously been a bedroom at one time. There was still a mattress on the floor, though a mattress covered with so many stains and discolorations that I'd have only touched it with latex gloves on. A crunching noise beneath our feet revealed that my fears had not been ill-founded. There were condom wrappers everywhere.

  "Well," Rob remarked, "at least they're practicing safe sex."

  The second room was even worse. Here there was no mattress, just a couple of old blankets … but just as many condom wrappers.

  I really thought I might be sick, and hoped the pizza Mark and I had consumed earlier had had time to digest.

  Then there was just one last door, and I really, really didn't want Rob to open it, because I knew what we were going to find behind it. The dripping sound was coming from behind its closed door.

  "Must be the bathroom," Rob said, and he let go of my hand to reach for the knob.

  "No," I said, stepping forward. "No. Let me do it."

  I couldn't see Rob's face in the darkness, but I could hear the concern in his voice as he said, "Sure … if you want to."

  I gripped the doorknob. It felt cold beneath my palm.

  Then the door flew open, and it was all exactly the way it had been in my vision. The dank, stained walls. The dark, windowless cell. The stained and ancient toilet, drip-drip-dripping.

  And the figure curled up in the bathtub, her mouth stretched into a hideous grin by the dirty strip of material holding the gag in place, her hair unkempt, her arms and legs twisted at painful angles by matching strips of material around her wrists and ankles.

  It was only because of the purple and white uniform that I knew who she was at all. Well, that, of course, and my dream.

  "Oh, Heather," I said, in a voice that didn't sound at all like my own. "I'm so sorry."

  C H A P T E R

  12

  "Jesus," Rob said, holding the flashlight so that it shined on Heather's tear-stained face . . . which wasn't actually much help, since I was trying to loosen a knot at the back of her head, the one holding her gag in place, and I could barely see what I was doing.

  "Rob," I said. I had crawled into the bathtub with Heather. "Hold the light over here, will you?"

  He did as I asked, but it was like he was in a trance or something. I couldn't blame him, really. I mean, I'd had a pretty good feeling what kind of shape Heather would be in when we found her. He'd had no warning. No warning at all.

  And it was bad. It was really bad. Worse even than I'd seen in my vision, because of course what I had seen, I had seen through Heather's eyes. I had not been able to see her, because in my dream, I'd been her.

  Which was how I'd known she'd been in pain. Only now was I able to see why.

  "Heather," I said when I'd gotten the gag out of her mouth. "Are you all right?"

  It was a lame question, of course. She wasn't all right. The way she looked, I was willing to bet she'd never be all right again.

  But what else was I supposed to say?

  Heather didn't say anything. Her head lolled. She wasn't unconscious, but she was as close to it as a person could be.

  "Here," Rob said, when he saw the trouble I was having with the knots at her wrists. He dug into his pocket and came up with a Swiss Army knife. It only took a second for the bright blade to sever the thin strip of material holding her hands behind her back.

  It was only when one of those arms dangled limply after it was freed that I realized it was broken.

  Not that Heather seemed to care, or notice, even. She'd balled up into a fetal position, and though Rob took his denim jacket off and draped it over her, she was shivering as if it were winter.

  "I think she's in shock," Rob said.

  "Yeah," I said. I'd heard things about shock. Like how shock alone could kill someone after an accident, even someone who was not all that seriously injured.

  And Heather, if you asked me, was very seriously injured.

  "Heather?" I peered into her face. It was hard to tell whether or not she could hear me. "Heather, can you hear me? Listen, it's all right. Everything is going to be all right."

  Rob gave it a try.

  "Heather," he said. "You're safe now. Look, can you tell us who did this? Can you tell us who did this to you, Heather?"

  That was when she finally opened her mouth. But what came out was not the name of her attacker.

  "Go away," Heather wailed, pushing ineffectually at me with her one unbroken arm. "Go away before they come back . . . and find you here...."

  Rob and I exchanged glances. In my concern over Heather, I had forgotten that there was a very strong possibility this could happen. You know, that they might actually come back and find us, I mean. I hoped Rob still had that wrench handy.

  "It's all right, Heather," I said, trying to calm her. "Even if they do come back, they can't take on all three of us."

  "Yes, they can," Heather insisted. "Yes, they can, yes, they can, yes, they can, yes …"

  Okay, this was getting creepier by the minute. I had thought, you know, we'd find her, and that would be it.

  But clearly, that was not it. There was a lot more to it. Like, for instance, how the hell we were going to get her out of there. No way was she going to be able to stay on the bike in her condition. I wasn't sure she could even sit up.

  "Listen," I said to Rob. "You've got to go get that cop. The one by the turnoff? Tell him to call an ambulance."

  Rob looked down at me like I was nuts. "Are you crazy?" he wanted to know. "You're the one who's going for the cop."

  "Rob," I said, trying to keep my tone even and pleasant, so as not to alarm Heather, who seemed to have enough on her mind at the moment. "I am staying here with Heather. You are going for the cop."

  "So you can get your arm broken like hers when they—whoever they are—come back?" Rob's tone was not even or pleasant. It was determined and grim-sounding. "Nuh-uh. I'm staying. You're going."

  "Rob," I said. "No offense, but I think she'd be better off with someone she—"

  But Rob didn't let me finish.

  "And you'll be better off when you're miles away from here." Rob stood up and took me by the arm, half-lifting, half-dragging me out of the bathtub. "Come on."

  I didn't want to go. Well, all right, I did want to go, but I didn't think I should go. I didn't want to leave Heather. I wasn't sure what, exactly, had happened to her, but whatever it had been, it had traumatized her to the point where I wasn't sure she even remembered her own name. How could I leave her alone with a guy she didn't know, especially since it was a fair guess that what had been done to her had been done by just that? Some random strange guy, I mean.

  Or guys, I should say, since she'd said "they."

  On the other hand, I didn't exactly want to stay with Heather alone while Rob went for help, either.

  Fortunately, Rob made the decision for me. Bossy boyfriends do come in handy sometimes.

  "You follow our tracks," he said when he'd pulled me down the stairs, through the party rooms, and out into the night air. "The tracks we made through the pine needles. See them? Follow those back to the road, then make a left. Got it? And do not stop. Do not stop for anything. When you find the guy, tell him to take the old pit road. Okay? The pit road. If he's local, he'll know what you're talking about."

  He had shoved his helmet over my head, making speech difficult. Still, as I straddled the seat of the Indian, my feet barely reaching the boot rests, I tried to express my great unease with this plan.

  Rob wasn't listening, however. He was busy starting the engine.

  "Don't stop," he shouted again, when he'd suc
cessfully maneuvered the kickstart. "Do not stop for anyone not in uniform, understand?"

  "But Rob," I said over the noise from the engine, which wasn't all that loud, actually, since Rob kept his bike in good repair. "I've never ridden on a motorcycle alone before. I'm not sure I know how."

  "You'll be fine," he said.

  "Um. I hesitate to mention this, but I think you should know, I don't exactly have a driver's license yet—"

  "Don't worry about it. Just go."

  He'd been holding on to the brake. Now he let go of it, and the bike jolted forward. My heart lurched as I grabbed for the handles. I was so short, I had to stretch out practically flat against the body of the bike to reach them . . . but reach them I did. I'd be all right, I realized . . . until I had to stop, anyway. No way were my short legs going to be able to reach the ground while still keeping the bike, which had to weigh eight hundred pounds, upright.

  Rob had been right about one thing, anyway. I absolutely could not stop, and not because some of Heather's attackers might still be lurking around, but because once I stopped, I'd never be able to get the stupid thing up again.

  And then I was careening back through the woods, trying to follow the ruts the Indian's wheels had made through the bracken on our way in from the road. It wasn't hard, exactly, to see where I was going—the headlight was bright enough that I could see a dozen or so feet ahead of me at all times. It was just that it was much harder to steer than I'd thought. My arms were straining with the effort of navigating the bike around all the trees that kept looming up in front of it.

  This is what you always wanted, I told myself, as I drove. A bike of your own, to feel the wind on your face, to go as fast as you've always wanted, but no one would ever let you....

  Only when you are driving through the woods in the middle of the night looking for a cop, on your boyfriend's motorcycle that is, without a doubt, more bike than you can handle, you can't actually go very fast at all. Not if you don't want your wheels to spin out from beneath you.