Suffer the Children

by John Saul

  “Was Sarah listening?”

  “I don’t know, Elizabeth said again.” I wasn’t really paying much attention to her. Jeff and I were arguing.

  “Arguing?” Barbara Stevens asked. “What about?”

  “She was telling me a story,” Jeff said. “It was really crazy, and she got mad when I told her I didn’t believe it.”

  “But it’s true,” Elizabeth insisted.

  “About the cave?” Barbara asked. Her son looked at her in surprise.

  “You mean you’ve heard about it too?”

  “Yes, I have. But whether it’s true or not, you shouldn’t have argued with Elizabeth about it.”

  “But—” Jeff began, but his father cut him off.

  “No buts,” he said. “You know better than to argue about something you don’t know anything about Apologize to Elizabeth.”

  For a moment it looked as if Jeff was about to argue some more, but then he turned to Elizabeth. “I’m sorry I argued with you,” he said, then couldn’t resist adding, “but I still don’t think there’s a cave.”

  Elizabeth opened her mouth, but Rose spoke first.

  “It doesn’t matter right now whether there’s a cave or not. What matters is what got Sarah so upset What happened?”

  Elizabeth picked up the story. “I was telling Jeff about the legend, and I got to the part about the cave. And we started arguing about whether or not it was real, and then all of a sudden Sarah started screaming. There’s a broken window in the playroom.”

  “A broken window?”

  “She threw the Ouija board through it,” Jeff explained.

  “What in the world were you doing with the Ouija board?” Carl Stevens wanted to know.

  Jeff started to speak, but this time it was Elizabeth who got there first.

  “We were just playing with it. It spelled out Beth.”

  “That’s your name,” Barbara Stevens said with a smile.

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said, shrugging. She flashed a quick glance at Jeff, and he caught her meaning immediately. Don’t let the grown-ups know too much about it. It’s our secret. He smiled at her.

  “But what set Sarah off?” Rose said doggedly, casting about desperately for a rational reason for her daughter’s outburst. Please, she begged, directing a prayer heavenward. Let me understand. Just once.

  Jeff and Elizabeth looked at each other and shrugged. Rose was about to begin cross-examining them, but changed her mind when she saw her husband making his way slowly down the stairs. He didn’t come into the living room, though. Instead, he started across the hall toward the back study. The back study and the bar, Rose thought.

  “Well,” she said, “I guess that more or less takes care of our bridge game, doesn’t it. I don’t think I could concentrate on the cards any more.” She produced one of those bright and cheery smiles that tell the recipient it’s time to leave. The Stevenses got the message.

  Carl glanced at his watch nervously. “It’s time for us to be getting home anyway,” he said. “I’m sorry this had to happen. If there’s anything we can do …” He trailed off helplessly, knowing there wasn’t.

  “Well do it again,” Barbara said quickly, coming to his rescue. “Soon. Call us, okay?”

  Rose smiled at them, and Elizabeth escorted them to the door, holding the door open while they got into their coats. Outside the rain still fell quietly from the gray skies.

  “Not too pleasant,” Carl said.

  “No,” Elizabeth agreed. “But we get used to it” As they left, neither Carl nor Barbara was sure whether Elizabeth had been referring to the weather or to her sister’s outburst.

  Neither of them spoke until they had turned onto the Point Road.

  “It must be hard,” Barbara said finally.

  “What?”

  “Having a daughter like Sarah. I feel so sorry for them both.”

  Carl nodded his agreement. “I’m not sure I could cope with it at all, let alone as well as they do. Elizabeth is remarkable too,” he added. “They’re lucky to have her. In a way, I suppose, it balances things out.”

  “She’s crazy,” Jeff commented from the back seat. Carl reproved his son for talking that way. It never occurred to him that Jeff might be talking about Elizabeth, not Sarah. And it didn’t occur to Jeff that his parents had misunderstood him.

  Elizabeth watched the Stevenses drive away through the rain, then quietly closed the door and went back to the living room. She watched her mother try to comfort Sarah for a moment, then walked over and knelt beside her.

  “I’ll do it,” she said. “I can calm her down.”

  Rose stood up in relief. She never knew what to do in these situations, and she always wound up feeling helpless and frustrated—feelings which she was sure were somehow transmitted to Sarah. Gratefully she let Elizabeth take over, and when she saw that Sarah was indeed getting through her seizure, or whatever it was, she started grimly for the study in the rear of the house. There, at least, she would be dealing with the familiar, and her husband, at least, would understand what she said. Until he got too drunk. An image of Martin Forager flashed into her mind, and then Forager’s features suddenly faded and were replaced by Jack’s. She shook off the image and went into the study without knocking. Jack was sitting in the wing chair, a stiff drink in his hands, his eyes fixed on the portrait of the young girl hanging above the cold fireplace.

  “I could have Mrs. Goodrich build a fire,” Rose volunteered cautiously.

  “It wouldn’t make any difference,” Jack said dully.

  “I’d still be cold.” His eyes didn’t move from the portrait.

  “Are you all right?” Rose asked.

  “I suppose so. I’m sorry I fell apart like that. I had a bad time out there.”

  “I noticed,” Rose said, a trace of acid edging her voice.

  Jack held up a hand. “Don’t start, Rose, not now. I’m still on the edge, and I don’t want to talk about it yet.”

  “You’re going to have to, sooner or later.”

  “I know. But let’s make it later, shall we?”

  Rose sat down in the other chair by the fireplace, then felt the chill of the room. She decided to ask for a fire anyway, and went to find Mrs. Goodrich. When she returned Jack hadn’t moved, but his drink was fuller than it had been when she left. She knew he’d finished the first and refilled his glass, but he didn’t seem to have changed his position at all. His eyes were still fixed glassily on the portrait, as if it held some sort of magnetic force over him. Rose, too, gazed at it, and tried to see whatever it was that Jack was seeing.

  A few minutes later Mrs. Goodrich came in to build the fire. She said nothing, nor was she spoken to. When she left the room her employers still sat silently, gazing at the picture. Only now, a fire blazed cheerfully at their feet. Mrs. Goodrich, returning to her small room by the kitchen, felt vaguely worried. She picked up her TV Guide and settled herself into her chair.

  Elizabeth slipped out the front door and made her way through the drizzle to the barn. When she was inside she walked quickly to the old tack room and pulled the door shut behind her. She took off her raincoat and hung it on a peg. Then she began to unbutton her dress. When all the buttons were open, she sipped it off and folded it neatly. She set it on an empty shelf and covered it with an ancient horse blanket. Then she rummaged around in the pile of old hay in one corner of the tack room and pulled out a small bundle of wadded material. She shook it out. It was the old dress she had found in the attic, torn and stained now, but still in one piece. She put it on carefully, then began loosening her ponytail. When the blond hair was flowing freely over her shoulders, she glanced around the tack room, then opened the door once more. In a moment she was out of the barn and walking slowly across the field toward the wood. The rain began to fall harder now, and by the time she was twenty yards from the house her dress was sodden, her hair streaming. She didn’t feel it. She moved slowly but deliberately through the storm.

  She reached
the edge of the woods, and didn’t pause to enjoy the protection the trees gave her from the downpour. Her hair was plastered shroudlike over her shoulders now, its wet sleekness accenting the features of her face. Her pace quickened, and she moved through the woods with a sure-footedness that would have seemed impossible to an observer, had there been one.

  Lightning was beginning to play across the horizon when she emerged from the woods, and a roll of thunder greeted her as she stepped out onto the crest of the embankment. It was dark, very dark, though the sun had not yet set. The storm seemed to blot it out almost completely, and the sea, barely visible through the rain, had the menacing look of an animal in the night. Elizabeth, slowed by neither the rain nor the darkness, began gliding down the face of the embankment. As the storm intensified she disappeared behind the boulder that guarded the entrance to the tunnel.

  She found the flashlight in its niche next to the tunnel entrance, but didn’t turn it on until she had reached the upper chamber. By now the stench from the dead cat, mixed with the sour smells from the children’s vomiting, had fouled the air throughout the cavern, but Elizabeth didn’t seem to notice it.

  She crept to the top of the shaft, clicked the light on, and peered down. She could see nothing except the large fiat table-rock, but she could hear soft moaning drifting upward. She knew Kathy and Jimmy were still down there, cowering somewhere in the darkness. She smiled to herself and began to lower the rope ladder into the pit.

  She tested it briefly, then began to climb down, the still-lit flashlight casting eerie shadows as it glowed in the pocket of her peculiar, old-fashioned dress. She felt her foot hit the floor of the cave and stepped away from the ladder. She drew the flashlight from her pocket and shined it around the cavern.

  Kathy Burton and Jimmy Tyler sat huddled together against the wall of the cavern opposite the place where the skeleton lay. Kathy’s eyes were tightly shut against the sudden brightness of the light, but Jimmy Tyler held one hand out, shielding himself from the worst of the glare. He was squinting, trying to see past the source of the light. Kathy was whimpering softly to herself, and except for the hand clasped over her face was apparently unaware of what was going on. Jimmy didn’t try to get up, but his eyes moved alertly in the light. Elizabeth shifted the beam to the old skeleton, and a sound crept from her lips as she saw that it was in disarray, the bones scattered a couple of feet in every direction.

  Elizabeth reached into her pocket and brought out some candles she had found in the tack room and a small cigarette lighter she had taken from the house. She wedged the candles into cracks in the walls and lit them, placing the lighter carefully into a crevice just below the candles. Then she snapped the flashlight off, and it disappeared back into the large pocket of her dress. The flames of the candles flickered, then grew steady, and a warm light suddenly bathed the interior of the cavern.

  Ignoring the two children huddled together, Elizabeth began tending to the old bones opposite them. Tenderly she moved each bone back into its proper position, and in a few minutes the skeleton was complete again, its arms folded once more over its empty rib cage. Only then did Elizabeth turn her attention back to Kathy Burton and Jimmy Tyler.

  “It’s time to have another party,” she whispered. Kathy didn’t seem to hear her, but Jimmy shrank closer to the girl next to him, his mind filling with fear. He knew this was Elizabeth, but she was not the Elizabeth he had known all his life. It was another Elizabeth, a terrifying Elizabeth.

  She was covered with mud, and her hair, muddy now, as well as wet, clung to her face and shoulders. The torn dress, soaking wet and slimy with the muck of the cavern, clung to her body in lumpy folds, and there was an emptiness in her face that reminded Jimmy of his grandmother, when he had seen her at her funeral two months ago. She looks dead, Jimmy thought. Elizabeth looks dead. He tried to burrow in closer to Kathy Burton.

  As he watched in horrified fascination, Elizabeth found the remains of the dead cat, its doll’s clothes now covered with the cave slime, and propped it up carefully on one of the rocks that sat like stools around the table-rock. She discovered the head of the cat, now eyeless, but still wearing its grotesque bonnet, and tried to balance it on top of the torso. When she couldn’t make it stay, she grasped the head firmly and ground it into the torso like an orange onto a juicer. The rotting flesh of the torso gave way, and the end of the spine protruded upward into the foramen magnum. The head held, squatting deeply between the cat’s shoulders.

  “Come to the table,” Elizabeth said softly, beckoning Jimmy Tyler to leave the security of the cavern wall and join the cat at the strange table. He shook his head.

  “Come to the table,” Elizabeth repeated, her voice becoming menacing. Jimmy Tyler pulled his knees up to his chest, and tightened his grip on Kathy Burton’s hand.

  Elizabeth moved toward him, and her hand drew back to strike him. Just before the blow was delivered, Jimmy scuttled away from Kathy and crouched, shivering, on one of the small rocks.

  Elizabeth turned to Kathy.

  “You too,” she ordered. Kathy didn’t move, but her eyes flickered open a little, and her mouth worked as if she was trying to speak.

  “Now,” Elizabeth demanded. This time the blow fell, and Jimmy Tyler cringed at the sound of the sharp slap against Kathy’s face. Still Kathy didn’t move. Instead, a small gurgling sound escaped her lips.

  Elizabeth glared down at the inert child for a moment, then began dragging her toward the center of the cavern by her feet. Weakly Kathy Burton tried to kick loose, but Elizabeth’s grasp was firm. In seconds Elizabeth was setting Kathy on the third stool. When she stepped away Kathy slumped back to the floor, and Elizabeth kicked her.

  “Sit up when you’re at the table,” she snapped. Kathy seemed to become slightly conscious of what was going on, and managed to pull herself upright “That’s nice,” Elizabeth said. She stepped back and looked over the strange tableau.

  “Now,” she said. “Kathy, you’re the mother. And Jimmy’s the father. And Cecil is your baby. Your crazy baby. Feed your baby, Mother.”

  Kathy sat quietly, barely able to keep herself upright.

  “I said to feed your baby!” Elizabeth demanded. When Kathy still made no move toward the cat, Elizabeth raised her fist and brought it down hard on Kathy’s back, driving her face first into the center of the table. “You do what I tell you,” Elizabeth snarled through her teeth.

  “K Mother can’t feed the baby, you do it,” Elizabeth said to Jimmy. He looked at her, puzzled, trying to figure out what he was supposed to do. He saw her fist closing again, and decided the best thing to do was to pretend. He quickly mimed putting a bottle in the baby’s mouth.

  “She’s too old for a bottle,” Elizabeth hissed. “She eats real food.”

  Jimmy quickly pretended to pick up a spoon and shovel some food toward the cat.

  “Talk to her,” Elizabeth commanded. “Talk to your baby.”

  Jimmy froze for a moment, then found his tongue.

  “Nice baby,” he said. “Here’s some nice food for the nice baby.”

  “Her name’s Sarah!” Elizabeth screamed. “Don’t you even know your baby’s name? What kind of a father are you?”

  “Sarah,” Jimmy repeated quickly. “Here’s some food for nice little Sarah.”

  He continued pretending to shove food into the dead cat’s mouth, and kept babbling at it, not knowing what he was saying but being careful to call the cat Sarah every few seconds.

  “She doesn’t answer, does she?” Elizabeth said softly. Jimmy shook his head.

  “Do you know why she doesn’t answer?” Elizabeth asked smoothly.

  Jimmy shook his head again.

  “Because she’s crazy!” Elizabeth screamed. “But children are supposed to answer when they’re spoken to, aren’t they?”

  Jimmy nodded dumbly.

  “Then she’s a bad child,” Elizabeth said. “She’s crazy and she’s bad. Punish her.” Jimmy didn’t move. “Punish h
er!”

  His eyes fixed on Elizabeth, and on the hand that was flexing rhythmically into a fist Jimmy slowly picked up the dead cat The head tumbled from the body and rolled into the shadows. Shuddering, he put the corpse over his knee and began spanking it.

  Elizabeth smiled.

  Kathy still huddled over the table, cradling her head in her arms, and she must have moved slightly, for Elizabeth’s attention was suddenly drawn to her.

  “Don’t sleep at the table,” she said menacingly. Jimmy, afraid that Kathy was about to receive another of Elizabeth’s terrible blows, reached out to shake her.

  “Don’t touch her,” Elizabeth commanded. “You don’t like to touch Mother, do you? She wants you to touch her, but you don’t like to. We know what you like, don’t we?” She leered at the little boy, who stared at her in bewilderment.

  “You like the baby, don’t you? We know you like the baby better than you like Mother, don’t we?” And suddenly her voice rose, and the cavern was filled to overflowing with the sound of her words.

  “Well, if that’s what you want, that’s what you can have!”

  Elizabeth leaped on Jimmy, and began pulling at his clothes. He struggled, but he was too weak from hunger and fear to fight very hard. Soon, before he had a chance to realize what was happening, Elizabeth had stripped his clothes from him and flung them in a corner. Naked, he huddled on the floor of the cavern.

  Elizabeth picked up the torso of the dead cat.

  “This is what you want, isn’t it?” she hissed. “You want your baby, don’t you?”

  And she fell on Jimmy Tyler, forcing the rotting flesh of the dead cat against his crotch, mumbling incoherently that if he wanted it so badly, here it was.

  Jimmy Tyler’s helpless sobbing mixed with Elizabeth’s ramblings, filled the cave. He didn’t understand what was happening to him.

  Kathy Burton, the strange sounds penetrating her fogged mind, looked up and watched the vile scene that was transpiring in front of her. She couldn’t grasp it at first, couldn’t sort it all out into anything that made sense. Then her mind cleared a little more and she realized what was happening. She looked on in horror as Elizabeth continued in her efforts to force Jimmy Tyler to copulate with the corpse.