by A. P. Fuchs
With a slight dip of the chin, she obeyed and closed the front door.
Alone in the front hall, the house suddenly felt much bigger than it was, the room that much wider, the ceiling that much higher.
Mind the house while I'm gone, her master had said.
The first thing she would do is check on the misses. Elizabeth hadn't been out of her bedroom all night.
"I hope she's all right," Clara said. "Headaches are nasty things especially when they grab you unexpected. And on her anniversary, too. Pity." But with the way Terrance had been treating the help lately, with the way he dictated orders without feeling in his voice and the way he wanted things done now ---a part her was glad Elizabeth hadn't joined him for dinner. He doesn't deserve her, she thought. He doesn't deserve anybody.
She made her way up the winding staircase, left down the hallway and to the next set of stairs that led up to the master bedroom. Before she opened the bedroom door, a chill swept through her and she adjusted the short sleeves of her dress so they covered her upper arms completely.
It was more than just a chill. There was no heat at all. It was as if the master had closed all the vents in this wing of the house. The brass doorknob was like ice when she turned it, the wooden door cool when she pressed against it.
The door opened; the room was dark. In the shadows, Elizabeth's sleeping form was barely visible; the outline of the white sheets were a blurry gray against the dark dresser beyond.
I shouldn't wake her, Clara thought. Yet perhaps she thinks it's still evening and is waiting for someone to come for her so she could visit with her guests? She didn't know if she should be the one to let her down, that her husband had left her there all evening and into the night, missing her own wedding anniversary.
No, I'd best not, she thought. Let her sleep. As she turned to leave, something moved on the pillow: the waves of Elizabeth's long brown hair.
Seeing the misses was awake, Clara went into the room and gently approached her.
"Ma'am?"
The hair stirred against the pillow again.
"Would it be all right if I switched on the lamp?" Clara asked. I don't want to burden your eyes, but if I could see you . . .
No answer.
"The guests---" No, don't, just wait. The master will be back soon and he could tell her her friends have gone. Let him face her and see what happens.
Clara knew that Elizabeth, as sweet as she was, could be as cold as a frosted window if needed be.
Elizabeth lay still. Clara drew nearer and placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Ma'am," she said.
Elizabeth's skin was cool beneath her evening dress.
The poor thing. She must have froze while she slept, Clara thought. As she leaned over her and gripped the corner of the blanket to cover her up, she caught sight of what was moving on the pillow.
Her scream echoed off the walls, piercing her own ears.
IV
Charles's tall, lanky form burst into the room, his weight shoving the door into the adjacent wall as he swung it open. It smacked against the wall with a woody thud!
"Clara!" he said.
His friend and fellow servant stood pressed up against the dresser, palms at its edge, eyes wide and as hard as stone, staring at Elizabeth. Her mouth was drawn so tight it appeared that if she did speak, any words that broke through would shatter her lips. The lamp was on, Clara's face white compared to its light yellow glow.
"Clara," he said again and went over to her. When he touched her arm, it was as ridged as a clothes hanger and just as hard.
Elizabeth lay facing them, eyes open, mouth slightly agape. Above her left eye was a large dark blotch of brownish-red, shining and wet. Blood still oozed from the wound, pooling on the pillow then dripping off as it ran down its edges, coating and matting her hair.
"She's-she's---" Clara started.
Carefully, Charles reached across her and cupped her cheek, turning her head toward him. Even as he did so, it wasn't until she fully faced him did her eyes leave Elizabeth's body. He pulled her into him, hiding her from their employer's departed wife.
The stone-like gaze that held Clara in check gave way and she burst into tears, crying into his shoulder.
"She's-she's---He killed her!" she said.
"Who?"
"The master. Mr. Michaels. He killed her!"
She shook beneath him.
"Lord, have mercy," he said calmly. "First things first. Let's leave the room, get the boys and ring the police." Madam, he thought.
Elizabeth, the queen to a king, was dead.
"He could be back any moment!" She shook again.
"Where did he go?"
"He---"
Instead of letting her finish, he took her from the room, eyed the body of Elizabeth Michaels one more time, then closed the door.
* * * *
Clara was to meet Charles in the kitchen after he got the boys. The four would then exit through the back and go to the police station in town using the master's old horse-and-carriage. Hooking up the two horses to the carriage wouldn't take long and it was the only option lest they walk; the Michaels's Estate was outside town and far from any neighboring homes.
Charles rushed to the boys' room on the third floor. He entered. The room was dark, the boys beneath their covers. Moonlight from the large window in the middle of the room cast a pale glow on the boys' white sheets, turning them a bluish-gray. Their chests didn't seem to rise and fall as they breathed.
If they were breathing.
Darting first to Terrance Junior on the left, Charles flung back the covers. His legs buckled beneath them when Junior's sleepy stare and slightly open mouth greeted him. Dark liquid encompassed his head like a murky halo around the pillow. "Ter---"
David!
He ran to the other boy and tossed the sheets back. David lay with eyes closed, his forehead a mess of hair and flesh, blood and---
Charles fell to his knees and slammed his fists against the hardwood floor. "No. They-they . . . not them, too."
"Charles?" called Clara from the foot of the stairs, distant and almost not there. "Are you all right? What happened?"
They're-they're--- "They're dead," he whispered.
Hands shaking, innards shaking worse, he stood, swayed on his feet, then debated if he should cover the bodies or just leave them be.
Leave them be, he thought. "Clara," he said softly. How could he tell her of the boys' demise without sending her into a panic?
They had to leave, get out of the house and get hold of the police straight away before the master returned.
"Where did he go?" Charles said through gritted teeth. When he exited the room, he left the door open thinking that if he closed it---for why, he did not know---he would somehow be abandoning the children, really allowing them to be dead.
The decent down the stairs never took so long.
* * * *
"We're leaving," Charles said the moment he entered the kitchen.
Clara was not there.
Where the---? he thought.
"Clara?" he said again, thinking maybe she was behind the rack of pots that hung over the large, tiled counter in the middle of the kitchen.
He was alone.
Mind racing, he ran out the back door and into the yard, moving straight for the stable.
Maybe Clara was already with the horses.
* * * *
Clara heard shouting and cursing and---weeping?
On her hands and knees by the living room window that overlooked the front lot, she kept herself from view, only peeling back the curtains just enough to see outside. Fortunately, there was a large shrub in front of the six-foot-tall window, its tops coming up about a foot above the windowpane.
Outside, Terrance paced back and forth, shaking a fist at---
* * * *
"I can't believe you told him!" Terrance shouted at Judy. "I confided in you!" He gripped the vehicle's door where the window met metal, and shook
it. The automobile rocked from his force.
John lay on the cobbled-stone unconscious, his breathing slow, his breath visible in the cool night air.
* * * *
What is he doing? Clara thought.
Terrance stood there, his hands latched onto---
* * * *
Judy wouldn't leave the vehicle. She held onto the inner handle for sweet life.
John lay at his brother's feet.
Just . . .
. . . laying there.
"You're killing him!" she screamed.
"He drove me to it! It was him. All him!" Terrance said. "He was sleeping with Elizabeth!"
"No, he wasn't!"
You lying b--- "He slept with her! I saw them together. I heard her call his name. She even spoke of him while she slept."
Terrance pivoted on his heel and kicked John in the head.
* * * *
When Terrance's foot came back down, Clara yelped and covered her mouth.
* * * *
"Come here!" Terrance growled, balling his fist. He punched the car's window, a spider web spiraling outward over the glass.
Judy jumped back in her seat, releasing the door handle.
On the second strike, the glass shattered. He reached through the window; Judy turned to go out the other door. He grabbed her from behind and hauled her out.
Squirming, screaming, she beat against him . . . but it was useless. Throwing her to the cobbled-stone drive, Terrance pounced on her, slamming first his right fist then his left into her face. His bony knuckles reveled in the softness of her flesh when he struck her cheeks; recoiled when they hit her cheekbones. She screamed for help but somewhere inside, Terrance knew no one would come. No one would challenge him.
No one knew to come.
He eyed John, making sure his brother was watching him beat her into the nothing that she was.
"You stole my wife, my life, my family," he said. He didn't know if he uttered the words aloud or if they were in his head.
Screams turning to whimpers, Judy stopped struggling.
He hit her, beat her, coated her face with her own blood and mangled flesh.
Within moments, her face a mess of pink and red, distorted and torn, he finally stopped.
Panting, brow coated with sweat, his shirt untucked from his trousers, he stood and kicked his brother in the head once more.
* * * *
Even from her low position, the blood and ripped skin and muscle on Terrance's fingers caused Clara's stomach to churn. She had to leave. Had to get out of there.
Had to get help.
But she couldn't turn away.
Terrance's mouth moved furiously though what he was saying was muted by the window's glass.
She turned away and covered her eyes. She didn't know how much time had passed until there was a hand on her shoulder.
* * * *
He spat upon him, a murky wad of phlegm upon his brother's face.
"Elizabeth was mine!" Terrance said. "She was everything." I am everything.
* * * *
"Clara?" It was Charles.
She peered up at him. When she spoke, her voice wavered. "He's killing himse---" The words were too painful to speak.
Charles peered out the window. "Killing who?"
Clara got to her feet and flung upon the curtains.
The front drive was empty.
"There's no one there, Clara," he said. "The horses are re---"
"The master was just there! He was just---" Her heart caught in her throat when she realized she and Charles were not alone.
"I'm here," Terrance said.
He pulled the hammer out from his jacket's inner pocket and took a step toward them.
* * * *
Like a Worm
The sweat that coated his skin was thick, like oil. Each lungful of air was like breathing deeply on a muggy night, after the rain. The air was warm inside his lungs.
Gary Smith couldn't see anything. Darkness and isolation hung on the air almost as thick as the humidity. He didn't know where he was, but one thing was certain: it was a cramped space, tight, weighing in from all sides. He lay on his stomach and the ground beneath his belly was like a moist sponge covered in breadcrumbs. This sponge pressed against him, left, right, top and bottom, even above at the top of his head and below at the soles of his feet. He soon realized he was buried alive, deep beneath the earth's surface. He felt like a giant worm burrowing through a gardener's bed.
There was something else on his skin, too. Steam, or, at least, what felt like the moist warmth left on your skin after you take a hot shower and stand before the mirror shaving.
I'm not supposed to be here, Gary thought, knew. But yet I am, aren't I? After all, I deserve it. His heart sank at the notion.
He felt along the bread-crumbed ground with his fingertips. Some places in the sponge were weaker than others. He dug his fingernails into it and, with barely any room to move, slowly pawed at the sponge, scraping it away bit by bit. The crud got beneath his nails and more oily sweat dripped off his brow. A drop leaked into his eye. It stung. But he kept digging, pawing like a dog, hoping that because the sponge felt weaker where his fingers pried, so would he find a hope for escape from this confined place.
I'm not supposed to be here, he thought again. There was nothing worse than being where you didn't belong.
Each time he grabbed a handful of sponge, he scooped it to the side, beside his palms. Soon there was no more room to push the sponge aside and the hole he was creating began to fill quickly. As he dug, as if the sponge around him knew he was trying to get out, the more it pressed on him, collapsed on him.
"Oh . . ." he said and spat out a bit of sponge that got in his mouth. He wished he could see. Anything would be better than this darkness. Just knowing where you were always helped, always brought comfort.
The sponge beneath his fingertips gave way to an open space. He probed the hot air with his fingers. Hope. He pressed his palms where he had dug and the sponge gave way completely and his arms hung down into a hot room below, his arms bent at the elbows, dangling.
Gary tried digging his feet into the sponge, but it was too thick. There was, however, a light down in the room. The light was dim, a golden yellow. It reminded him of his living room back home on cold winter evenings. The light was inviting.
Wriggling his body between the mash of sponge, he managed to free himself a little more. The sponge began to break apart beneath his upper torso and, finally, broke apart completely. Gary hung at the waist from the ceiling of a dimly lit room, the source of the light concealed. The light was just there. He could now see what was around him. Dirt, damp soil, bathed in yellow warmth.
He arched his back as hard as he could, his muscles straining, so his torso was parallel to the floor. Quickly he stuck out his arms, pushed his palms against the inner edge of the hole. It was hard for his fingers to find purchase in the soil, but he found enough to hold himself up parallel to the floor momentarily. His back gave way before he could twist his legs and wriggle them free. He grabbed the inner edge of the soil and tried again. Twisting his hips and kicking his feet, his legs broke free and he fell to the ground of the dimly lit room. It was like landing face first hard into a mattress. Gary lay on his stomach, catching his breath. He spat out more soil, a bitter taste on the tongue. Sweat dripped off his dark hair and ran along behind his ears before trickling down and off his jaw.
Face first in the dirt, there was only one thought: I'm not supposed to be here . . . . But it all makes sense. I do belong here. I'd give anything for home.
He didn't know how much time had passed before he sat up, one leg out before him, the other bent at the knee and brought up to his chest. And he didn't know how much time had passed until he realized what he was wearing. Black, liquid rags covered his body, with only his neck and head, hands and wrists exposed. The inside layer of the fabric was wet against his skin but when he felt the material, it was dry, like crusty, d
irty cloth.
I deserve this, he thought. Where am I?
Just then a voice off to the side startled him.
"You got out?" it said. The voice was raspy, like an old man who'd spent the better part of his life smoking.
Gary looked around. His eyes must have gotten used to the light because it wasn't as dim now and the walls weren't as blackish-yellow as they first were. They were grayer, like dry dirt, but the occasional sparkle in the dim light told him the soil around him was damp. Damp from what? Just damp.
"I can't believe you got out," the voice said.
"Who's there?" Gary said. "Where am I?"
"Oh, calm down, now, won't you? This isn't so bad. You and I probably would have met in a hundred years or so, once the dirt around you wore away over time and your head could peek in."
Gary's heart leapt into his throat when he saw a face on the ground in the corner of the room, looking up, as if whomever it was had been buried alive and only his face was left out in the open like a doormat. The brown eyes of the face didn't look at him when it spoke but instead stared up at the ceiling.
Backing himself away, Gary brought both his knees to his chest. The oily sweat still sat on his face. His hands were sweaty, too. It was very muggy in here, the air fuzzy, like that of a steam room but not nearly as thick. Just a fine haze over what would normally be a clear image.
"And now you recoil in disgust, hiding away from a face on the floor. No wonder you're dead, friend. You probably got offed up there by some bugger who wanted your wallet and instead of trying to defend yourself, you let him kill you when, after you gave him your wallet, it wasn't enough and he wanted more. Your watch, perhaps? Your ring? Hey, even the jacket off your back. You didn't put up a fight because you're a coward."
Gary thought again about his clothes. He held his arms out before him.
