by Ed Kurtz
“Now where are you, girl?” he whispered to himself.
***
The porch was dark when she got there. She might have passed right by it had she not recognized Walt’s old hatchback, the same one he’d had for years. It had the same snobby bumper sticker Sarah had noted the last time she saw it: READ THE BOOK—IT'S BETTER.
Classic Walt. Always the smug pedant.
She pulled in behind the car, parked and stepped out onto the driveway. She could only barely make out the shape of the house in the gray moonlight. There wasn’t a single light on inside.
Taking each step with blind caution, she crossed the front yard to the porch, slowly ascended the steps and found the front door. Here she paused, glanced around, and her eyes settled upon the ruined front end of Walt’s car. What the hell? She felt around for a doorbell but found none. Accordingly, she knocked.
Then there was silence. Somewhere in the dense trees beyond the yard an owl hooted. She waited a couple minutes more, then knocked again. Nothing. Not even footsteps or breathing from the other side of the door. She checked her watch, but she couldn’t even see its face. At any rate, she knew it was not quite nine o’clock. Too early to be sleeping, but it was possible that Walt was out.
One last time, Sarah rapped her knuckles on the door. She expected no result and got none. Nobody was home.
She recognized the outline of a rocking chair in front of the darkened bay window and walked over to it. She sat with a deep sigh, allowing the impetus of her weight in the chair to gently rock her. Her eyes slid shut, not that it much mattered. It was just as dark either way.
Her mind floated over her options. She could wait for him, but there was no telling when he would return. She could find a motel and come back in the morning, but the nearest hint of human civilization was at least fifteen miles back the way she came. That seemed somehow regressive. Sarah decided to wait.
And while she waited, she drifted to sleep.
27
Somewhere in the void was a hollow pounding. It sounded like it might be underwater, but Walt didn’t think he was submerged. If he was, he wouldn’t be able to breathe. Or sleep.
He danced over the notion of investigating the noise.
Seeing where it was. What it was. If it really was subaqueous.
Like in the ocean.
But he could not sleep in the ocean.
So he ignored it.
28
Fixing her teeth on the beam beneath her face, Amanda bit down as hard as she could. She had a miniscule glimmer of hope that the ankle would eventually go numb and the pain would stop. It didn’t. It hurt more now than it had since she broke it. Walt was no help, of course. He was still blacked out four yards away. There was nothing else to do but to bite and bear it.
That was what she had been doing for half an hour when she heard someone knock on the front door. The sound was faint, little more than a distant tapping from where she lay in the attic, but she recognized it for what it was. Someone was there. Someone who might save her.
The police? Nora? Anyone would do. Amanda unhinged her jaw and pulled her teeth out of the bitter-tasting wood. She did not realize how deeply her teeth had sunken in. Ropes of drool slavered out of her mouth, which she wiped on her shoulder. She listened.
For a while there was nothing more. But then the knocking resumed.
Sucking in a long, deep breath, she filled her lungs beyond capacity. She was preparing to scream louder and longer than she’d ever screamed before.
“Don’t. Scream.”
The air in Amanda’s lungs pushed out of her mouth in a quiet sputter. Her heart was slamming and her breath came in short, sibilant bursts.
It was the monster.
The thing Walt called Gwynplaine.
Whatever the hell that meant.
The two words, spoken in a calm and glottal manner, terrified her enough to keep silent. All she could hear for several minutes thereafter was her own hissing breath. Then the knocking returned, louder and more insistent than before. Her shoulders jumped, pulling at her body and raking her destroyed ankle against the sail shackle. She let out a shout of pain.
“Quiet!” the monster growled.
Silence drifted back down on the attic like a coat of dust. The minutes passed. Five, ten, fifteen. She didn’t know how long it went on, but it seemed like forever to her. A whole night.
Then the scraping started.
A sandpapery, scratching sound, coming from the far end of the attic. The end where the creature was. She peered into the darkness; she couldn’t see a thing, not even in the weak, ashen moonlight that snuck past the broken slats in the air vent. But the noise went on; scraping, scratching, cracking.
The paneling, the spot where the stain first showed up when Walt moved in. That’s where it was. The stain had grown into a nightmare, and now the nightmare was breaking free.
“Please,” Amanda whimpered.
She was not at all sure what she meant. All she knew was that she was afraid. And she didn’t want to be hurt anymore.
“Please.”
Wood splintered, snapping apart in a rapid series of loud pops. The creature moaned. Amanda could not determine if it was from pleasure or pain. Maybe both.
Ahhhhhh, it went.
A soft, raspy chuckle erupted from that corner.
“Oh, please.”
She started to cry. She didn’t want to, but it couldn’t be helped. As the tears filled her eyes and blurred what little vision she had, one last splitting crack filled the air. It was followed by a strained grunt and a pair of hollow thumps.
It was crawling near.
29
Sarah awoke to a warm, damp hand closing over her mouth. She tried to gasp, but ended up sucking at the sweaty skin of the calloused palm on her face. When she smelled the stale cigarette breath steaming out of the mouth at her ear, she knew exactly what was happening. And it terrified her.
“Hello there, pretty lady,” King hissed. “Almost lost you. But here we are, right?”
Sarah shivered. She had been right about that truck the first time. It hadn’t been any redneck kids. It was King all along.
And now it was too late.
“How come you’re sleeping on the porch? ‘Cause this ain’t your house? Sounds about right. You thought you was free and clear, but ain’t nobody home. Poor lady. Lucky King.”
He gave a phlegmy chortle. His breath was unbearable, filtered only by the stale reek of his hand so close to her nose.
Sarah murmured, unable to make herself heard.
“What’s that?” King asked.
She murmured again.
“Can’t hear you. Trouble is, I take my hand away and you scream your goddamn head off, don’t ya? Then where’d we be? That’s no way to start this romance.”
Warm tears oozed out of her eyes and ran down to his fingers. Strange as it seemed to her, she kept thinking about Walt. Specifically, that this was entirely his fault. If he hadn’t gotten his phone line disconnected, if he hadn’t always been such a contemptible bastard, none of this would have ever happened.
She wouldn’t have driven out here so suddenly.
And she would never have met King.
Fuck you, Walt. I hate you even more than I hate this piece of shit creep.
“So I reckon you’d better tell me, and tell me straight. Is there anybody in that house right now?”
She shook her head, at least as much as she was able to with King holding her so tightly.
“You sure about that? ‘Cause if you’re wrong, it’s gunna be bad, pretty lady. Real bad.”
He pressed his thin lips against her ear canal.
“For you,” he whispered.
She nodded to indicate that she understood. She was ninety-nine percent certain that Walt was not at home. But even on that off chance, that one percent that he might be in there, she felt comfortable with her response.
Because maybe King would just kill that rotten bastard an
d put him out of everybody’s misery.
“All right, then,” he said happily. “Let’s us go on in, now.”
30
Naturally, the door was locked. There was a time when people way out in the boonies never locked their doors, but the collective anxiety of home invasions had reached its black tendrils even this far. It was not, however, a problem for King. All he had to do was deliver a threesome of powerful, full-bodied kicks and it split apart from the jamb. Then only a nudge was needed to push it in, and ingress was secured.
“Easy,” he said.
With his hand still gripped so tightly around Sarah’s arm that the skin was turning paper white, King dragged her into the foyer and bumped the door back into place.
The house was dead quiet and pitch black.
“Find the light switch,” King instructed by way of a harsh whisper.
“I’ve never been here before.”
“I didn’t ask you that, pretty lady. Find it.”
Sarah tried to move away from his grasp, but he held firm. She yanked on her arm, but he kept her where she was.
“Do you want me to find it or not?”
“You make a break for it, and I’ll make a break of you.”
Sarah sneered in the darkness. Dangerous and stupid—a remarkably loathsome combination.
King released her arm and she cautiously wandered close to the wall, feeling for the switch. She found it quickly and flipped it up. A porch light came on outside; it provided enough light through the window for Sarah to see the panel now. There was another switch, which she also flipped. A light fixture dangling from the ceiling came on, illuminating the foyer. King stared up at it like he’d never seen a light bulb before. Then he turned his gaze on Sarah and flashed one his toothy grins.
“Good,” he said. “We’ll find the bedroom in a minute. First let’s see if we can scare us up some hooch.”
She trembled. The son of a bitch wanted to get tight before he ravaged her. The situation just kept getting worse. She could see no reason why he wouldn’t slash her throat once he was done. Seemed like the bastard’s style.
“Come on. Hurry up.”
This time King left her bruised arm alone and seized her by the other one. Then he dragged her into the kitchen.
The area was shrouded in shadows, but the light from the foyer kept enough of the darkness at bay for him to make his way to the refrigerator with Sarah in tow. He opened it up, spilling a sickly yellow glow out onto the linoleum. After a brief inventory, he grunted.
“Shit. No beer.”
“I don’t think he’s much of a beer drinker,” Sarah offered.
“Who?”
“Walt.”
“And who the hell is Walt?”
“My brother,” she said bitterly.
“You don’t say.”
King shut the fridge and, letting go of her arm, started rifling through the cabinets.
“So this shit-bird is your brother, but you never been in his house before.”
“We’re not close.”
“That so? How come—he fiddle with your clam when you was little or something?”
Sarah huffed.
“You’re repulsive.”
That elicited a hearty laugh from King.
“Do my best, pretty lady. Do my best.”
Moving from one mostly empty cabinet to the next, he finished up his search by slamming the cabinet door as hard as possible.
“Goddamnit!” he shouted.
“No liquor either, I take it.”
“This shitheel brother of yours a Baptist or something?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Fuck, man. This is shit. Be okay if I had some blow on me, something. But this is shit.”
King saddled up to Sarah, rubbing his chin.
“Best hope that fella don’t come home tonight. I’ll break his neck just for that.”
An acidic laugh escaped Sarah’s lips.
“Be my guest,” she groaned.
“Hell,” King said. “I just don’t like it without a buzz at least.”
Sarah was about to ask, Don’t like what? But she knew. Her throat tightened up as she curled her hands into fists.
“Let’s not, then, and say we did,” she said through clenched teeth.
King burst into a peal of raucous laughter.
“Nice try, woman.”
Seizing her roughly by the shoulders, he pulled her toward him and smashed his lips against hers. Sarah moaned and wriggled, but she couldn’t overpower him. When he slipped his tongue between her lips, she considered biting it off. It would be easy; just suck it in, clamp down and don’t let go. But then what? Would a severed tongue stop him from tearing her apart?
Sarah did not bite. But when she tasted the sour, nicotine moisture on King’s tongue, she did gag. Her throat lurched and a wet, hollow gurgle bubbled up from it. King snapped his head back and landed a hard slap across her face.
“You wanna puke in my mouth? Is that it?”
“I’m sorry…”
“Don’t piss me off, pretty lady. I mean it.”
“I know you do.”
“You’d best think about what makes King happy. ‘Cause you try something I don’t like, you ain’t gunna be such a pretty lady anymore. Get it?”
“Yeah.”
“I said get it?”
“I get it.”
King smiled thinly.
“Good, baby. Good.”
He kissed her once, softly, and then yanked her by the wrist as he went deeper into the darkness.
“Let’s find us that bed.”
“Oh, God,” she sobbed.
The hell into which she stumbled could not get any more real. All she wanted to do was shove Walt’s selfishness in his face for once, turn around and return to her perfectly ordinary, boring life. Mitch and the house and the stupid neighborhood association. The most intense experience she wanted to have was bullying Maude Kruppa into cutting down that rotten pear tree in her front yard. It was a goddamned eyesore.
But this.
King pulled her across the kitchen and into the tar-black hall behind it. Sarah sucked in a deep breath and lashed out with her free hand, raking her nails across King’s face. He screeched.
“Bitch!”
He brought both hands to his face, an instinctual reaction. It bought her enough time to break into a sprint back through the kitchen, toward the light of the foyer. She was almost to the door when a shrill scream sounded from above.
Sarah skidded to a stop.
What the hell was that?
She wondered if the house had an attic. It had to. There was no second story, and that scream definitely came from above. Someone else King was abusing? But he could not have been in the house before she got there—he had to follow her to see where she was going. Still, she had been asleep for a bit, although she had no idea for how long.
All of this passed through Sarah’s mind in a fraction of a second. King would have already come to his senses by then and come running after her. Now she faced a tough choice: get clear of King and this damned house, or stick around to check on whomever was screaming in the attic.
No contest.
Sarah threw the door open and leapt out onto the porch. Before her feet hit the ground, King wrapped a beefy arm around her waist and wrenched her back inside. He slammed the door shut with his free hand and dragged her back into the shadows.
“No!” she shrieked.
“Feisty is good,” King said with anger in his voice. “But now you’ve gone and stepped over the line.”
Sarah bucked and squirmed, but King’s thick, hairy arm might as well have been an iron girder. He was breathing hard, grunting. She was beginning to feel faint.
“I’m a man of my word, pretty lady. When you and me are done with what we come for, I’m gunna slash your fucking face to ribbons.”
Sarah whimpered.
The light from the foyer abandoned her as they descended deeper in
to the house, past the kitchen into the ink black hallway. A cruel chortle escaped King’s lips. He was enjoying himself.
But didn’t he hear that scream?
Of course he did. He’s got more irons in the fire than just me.
She closed her eyes and held her breath. Not quite resigning herself to her fate, but accepting that it was inevitable. Inwardly, she cursed Walt.
Everything was his fault. Always was.
Completely immersed in the dark, she felt the world tilt and turn. She figured she was just passing out until King emitted a startled squawk and they tumbled over one another. Sarah hit the floor, landing hard on her ass, and King crashed down on top of her a quarter of a second later. Pain shot up her spine, tingling in her shoulders. She planted a hand on the floor to steady herself, hoping to crawl out from beneath King’s dead weight. Her fingers sank into something warm and wet.
“What…”
King growled and rolled off of her. She heard a moist splat.
“The fuck is this?” he grunted.
Taking immediate advantage of the distraction she scooted backward, over the soft lumps and sticky wetness that covered the floor. A sour odor filled the air; excrement, but with a tangy metallic smell floating over it. Wrinkling her nose, Sarah kept skidding over the mess until her back hit a wall. What had Walt done here? Some kind of major septic leak, she guessed. More of an explosion than a leak, though.
This is revolting.
She tried to shimmy up the wall, but her clothes and hands were so sticky from the nasty stuff all over the floor that she just slid back down. A second attempt concluded with the same results.
Another shriek erupted from above. Following it was a guttural yell. Something clattered in front of her.
King shouted, “Shit!”
Sarah flipped over onto her hands and knees and scrambled for the kitchen. She could hear King slam into something and skid across the slick floor. His boots squealed. Once she was out of the morass of the hallway, she was able to spring back up to her feet. This time there would be no hesitation. She bolted for the door.
Sarah was on the front porch before she realized that she was coated in blood. Her blouse and skirt were dark with it, and her bare arms and hands were red and dripping.
