The Bad Box

by Harvey Click

  He eased open the door to a mammoth kitchen, vacant. The other kitchen doors were shut. He crept to one of them, pushed it silently open, and followed his gun into a spacious dining room where no one was dining but the shadows.

  Its doors, too, were shut. There was an oppressive odor in the dark air, like the smell of a thousand dead flies. Ben opened one of the doors and found a parlor, its doors also closed, and he kept opening more doors until he found the foyer with the staircase.

  He listened for Sarah’s voice—surely she should be screaming or crying?—but there was just an abominable silence. He didn’t want to think about what that might mean.

  As he mounted the wide staircase, the air seemed rotten with the odor of a sickroom. Darkness gathered in a thick clump at the top of the stairs, ripe with the stench of disease.

  Ben could barely make out the two hallways, one leading to the front of the house and a longer one stretching north and south, but he didn’t dare switch on the flashlight. The few doors that he could pick out of the gloom were shut, and the entrance to the tower apparently was hidden behind one of them. Then he noticed what seemed to be an open doorway at the end of the hallway—hard to tell in the murk.

  As he crept toward it, something suddenly came racing toward him through the doorway. It was a woman, naked and ghastly white, but she wasn’t coming through a doorway after all—she was a reflection in a full-length mirror on the wall.

  Ben whirled around, his gun up and the safety off, but there was no one else in the hallway, nothing moving toward the mirror. And yet the flickering reflection in the mirror kept rushing toward him, floating rather than walking, speeding toward him but drawing no closer.

  The woman was emaciated and bald, her face contorted with malevolence or terror, her lips and eyes sewn shut, the sealed eyelids staring blankly while her stitched lips writhed as if trying to rip themselves open.

  Sheer terror caused Ben to kick the mirror and shatter it to pieces. He shouldn’t have done that—he had made too much noise—but even now, even with it broken, he could barely keep his legs from buckling.

  And breaking it hadn’t helped, because fragments of the woman’s features still flickered in the shards of glass scattered on the floor, a white breast in this piece, a clutching hand in that piece. In one of the fragments Ben saw an eyelid rip free of its stitching, and a pale blue eye peered at him.

  He recognized the eye of the phantom-Darnell he had seen at Ed’s house. It blinked, its torn lid bleeding, and stared at him like a chunk of blue ice. Ben was transfixed; he couldn’t remember where he was or what he was doing here.

  How long this lasted he couldn’t say, but eventually he thought he heard a man’s voice faintly singing. With difficulty he tore his gaze away from the eye and forced his attention back to the dark hallway.

  “La dee da da, la dee da,” someone somewhere was singing, the sound so hushed that Ben couldn’t locate it.

  He hurried back toward the stairs, and it seemed that the singing was coming from behind one of the shut doors there at the center of the house. He turned the knob, eased the door open, and found a little room with iron stairs spiraling up. The voice was coming from the tower. It must be Stonebrenner, singing while he danced with Sarah, so maybe Ben wasn’t too late.

  He started up the stairs, the twisting stairwell so narrow that he had to stoop so his head wouldn’t hit the steps above it. The singing was clearer now: “La dee da da, la dee da, la dee da dee da dee da . . .” It was a song that Ben faintly remembered, an old dance tune.

  He stuck his head through the opening at the top of the stairs and peered into the tower. It was larger than he had expected, maybe 20 feet in diameter. A man and woman were dancing, but the woman wasn’t Sarah, and the man wasn’t Stonebrenner: it was a gangly young man with sandy hair.

  Holding the woman close to his body, he led her slowly around the circular floor while he sang in her ear. Her head hung limply against his shoulder, and her bare feet weren’t moving—the young man was dragging her. She was dead or unconscious. Behind them, the quarter-moon peered into the top of one of the windows.

  The man was too preoccupied with his dance to notice Ben until he emerged the rest of the way into the round room and said, “Where’s Stonebrenner?”

  The young man knelt to lay the woman’s body gently onto the dusty floor. As he straightened up, Ben aimed his Springfield at the center of his chest and repeated his question, but the man just watched him with a vacant, fearless look.

  Ben moved a step closer, and the man stepped sideways. Ben moved another step and so did the man. At first Ben couldn’t make sense of his movements—he didn’t seem to be trying to get away—and then he realized the man was trying to keep himself between Ben and the woman’s body. He was protecting her. His expression wasn’t malevolent, just stupidly wary, like a determined but feeble-minded dog.

  Ben got a hold of his arm and pressed the gun against his temple. “Talk. Where’s Stonebrenner? Where’s Sarah?”

  The man began to weep. The wary look left his face, replaced by grief.

  “He killed her,” the man said at last. “He killed her.”

  “Killed who?” Ben asked.

  The man didn’t answer. Sobs racked his body.

  “Look, I’ll blow your fucking head off if you don’t tell me where Sarah is.”

  But the man was crying too hard to speak. Ben stepped away from him and glanced out one of the windows. Maybe they were down there in the yard? A reflection moved in the glass: the man was lunging at him.

  Ben stepped aside, and the man fell clumsily against the window. The wary, canine expression had returned to his face. Ben grabbed his shirtfront and shoved the gun into his throat. The wariness fell from his face, and he started weeping again.

  The Hermesium bullets, Ben realized. When the gun was close to him, the Hermesium broke Stonebrenner’s spell.

  “Tell me who Stonebrenner killed,” Ben said.

  “Kathy. He raped her the day he came here. He made me watch.” The man whimpered like a puppy, and a trail of mucus oozed out of one nostril.

  “Who’s Kathy?” Ben asked.

  “I couldn’t do nothing, I couldn’t do nothing.”

  Ben pressed the muzzle deeper into his throat, and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “I said, who’s Kathy?”

  “My wife. He killed her tonight. I found her up here.” A shudder rippled through his body, and he let out a mournful howl. “Can you hear me, Kathy? I couldn’t do nothing to help you.”

  “Where’s he now?” Ben asked.

  “In the barn. I saw him flying through the air like a big ugly bird with a woman clutched in his claws. He took her to the barn.”

  “Where’s the other one—Angela, Darnell?”

  “You mean Angel? I don’t know. Maybe he killed her too.”

  Ben dropped the gun’s magazine into his left hand, slid out a cartridge, and handed it to the young man. “Keep this with you,” he said. “It messes up Stonebrenner’s power.”

  The man stared at it for a moment and then swallowed it.

  Ben heard a scream from the direction of the barn. It sounded like Sarah. He raced down the narrow twisting stairs, no longer caring how much noise he made.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Sarah stood at the edge of the south hayloft, trying not to sneeze in the chaff-filled air. Stonebrenner had carried her up there and then had disappeared somewhere into the shadows, maybe hidden behind the stacked bales of hay. One story beneath her was a wide threshing floor, and above the floor to the north was another dark hayloft. She felt her hip pocket and realized the Ruger was gone—it must have fallen out.

  There was a built-in wooden ladder leading down to the threshing floor, and she grasped its rungs and started climbing down. A hoarse chuckle from deep inside the barn made her freeze.

  “Fe fi fo fum,” said a voice as dry as the hay chaff. “To bloody hell shall you come!”

  She started climbing
down again, and the voice said, “Come to me, said the spider to the fly.”

  The voice seemed to be coming from below her now, maybe hidden behind the tractor on the threshing floor, and she scrambled back up to the hayloft.

  Stonebrenner chuckled again, and his laughter was a raspy scratching sound like an animal’s feet racing over the straw.

  “And who might you be, little girl?” he asked from somewhere behind her. “And what are you doing on my property?”

  “I ran outta gas,” Sarah said, her voice sounding small in the big barn. “Just down the road by a little cemetery. I was hoping I could use your phone.”

  “Liar!” the voice rasped.

  Now it seemed to be coming from the north hayloft. She peered into darkness over there and thought she saw a clump of shadow shift.

  Suddenly the shadow darted across the floor of the north hayloft. It scuttled up the barn wall to the high ceiling and scurried across the rafters toward her. It was Stonebrenner, dressed in a gray suit like a banker but crawling across the steeply pitched ceiling like a spider, clinging upside-down to the beams.

  He scuttled closer until he was directly above her, grinning down. She closed her eyes and whimpered.

  “There’s someone else here too,” he said hoarsely. “There’s a man in my house, but I don’t think it’s Newman. Who is it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Liar! All women are filthy liars and most men too. You and the man are both working for Charles Newman, aren’t you?”

  “No. I told you, I ran out of gas.”

  “Liar! I could melt your brains in a few seconds, and they would pour out your nose like snot. But not yet. Live bait will be more useful than dead. Let’s see what you’re afraid of. People who are afraid tell the truth.”

  Sarah felt something brushing against her arms like cobwebs wrapping themselves around her. She tried to brush them off, but they were binding her arms to her sides, wrapping her like a mummy. Her legs, too, were being bound by invisible thread.

  Suddenly she was jerked up off her feet. She dangled a few feet above the floor of the loft and spun slowly, as if hanging from a rope. Another jerk, and she was yanked a few feet higher. Then invisible thread tugged at her ankles, tilting them up behind her until she was lying face down and horizontal in the air. She floated up and out of the loft, and then she was staring at the threshing floor far beneath her.

  She screamed.

  “Ah, I believe you’re afraid of falling,” Stonebrenner said. “You’re afraid of falling and snapping your pretty neck, aren’t you?”

  Spinning slowly, she stared at the floor sinking deeper and deeper beneath her. She was too frightened to move a muscle, afraid that struggling might snap the thread.

  Up and up she went. Now she dangled just a few feet below the center of the high-pitched ceiling, and the floor was slowly spinning far, far below her. She swayed like a pendulum and spun slowly, almost afraid to breathe. She shut her eyes.

  “You dangle by a thread spun from sheer imagination,” Stonebrenner said. “My imagination. So you understand the problem you’d face if any harm came to me. If Charles Newman should do anything to weaken me, my imagination would weaken too, and so too the imaginary thread. Thus our fates are bound.”

  Sarah made herself open her eyes and saw that Stonebrenner was standing on some bales of hay stacked in the south hayloft. He was looking out of a high window toward the house.

  “Now talk to me,” he said. “Who is the man in my house and where is Charles Newman? Is Newman somewhere on my property too?”

  Sarah tried to say, “I don’t know,” but she screamed instead. It was a high-pitched shriek that didn’t sound like her own voice at all.

  A terrifying minute or two passed in silence, and then Stonebrenner said, “Ah, here your man comes now. I see him leaving the house. Your screams have drawn him like sirens. Thusly do women’s lying voices sing their men to their graves. Scream again, young lady, and let him know where you are.”

  She clamped her lips tightly together.

  “Then I’ll do it for you,” Stonebrenner said, and he let out a hoarse shriek maybe not so different from hers. “Help me! Help me!” he shrieked.

  Sarah forced her eyes open and saw him shaking with laughter.

  “Did I sound like you?” he asked. “Did I have the precise tone a woman uses to lure her man over the abyss? Does this man love you or is he only your partner in crime? Do you suppose he will sacrifice himself to save you? Oh, I do hope he loves you—it will make things so much more interesting.”

  ***

  Before he left the house Ben called Ed and said, “Stonebrenner’s in the barn with Sarah.”

  “Meet you there in a minute,” Ed said.

  Ben unlocked the kitchen door and ran to the barn. It crouched above him like a monstrous, mocking sphinx. It was the setting of his worst nightmares, an emblem of time doubling back on itself to repeat his darkest hour of grief. A year ago he had found his wife hanging from a beam in a hayloft, and he dreaded what he might find tonight.

  The side door opened easily. The hot air was itchy with chaff and smelled like hay and ancient horse manure. This end of the barn was horse stables, though there weren’t any horses. Something ominous was hanging on the wall, ready to pounce, but when he aimed his flashlight at it, it transformed itself into an old saddle.

  He saw a couple of barrels, some feed bags, and something straight in front of him that looked like a man standing perfectly still. He eased toward it, aiming his pistol at it with one hand and his flashlight with the other, and it turned out to be a pitchfork propped against the wall with an old straw hat resting on top of its handle.

  He passed through an open gate from the stables to the large threshing floor, empty except for a tractor parked at the far end. Above him on either side was a dark hayloft. A barn owl strummed his nerves with its cry, and then a very human cry came from straight above his head.

  Ben aimed his light at the high ceiling. Something was hanging up there, twisting slowly, and for a moment he saw Isabel dangling from her rope. But it was Sarah, floating up there horizontally, face down, her mouth wide open with terror.

  Something moved in the south hayloft, and a bald head peered down at him from the edge. Ben aimed his gun, and the man ducked out of sight.

  “This gun’s loaded with Hermesium bullets, Stonebrenner,” Ben yelled. “But I’m not interested in killing you. I just want Sarah, and then we’ll get out of here and leave you alone.”

  Stonebrenner’s hoarse answer came from the darkness of the loft: “Ah, but if you shoot me, the woman falls to her death. Look carefully—do you see any ropes holding her? Here, I’ll move her around a bit to show you.”

  Sarah screamed as she suddenly started to fall, and then she was jerked back up to the ceiling.

  Stonebrenner appeared at the edge of the loft again, this time holding a gleaming sword in his right hand.

  “There, you can see for yourself,” he said. “There’s nothing holding her up there but the power of my mind, and if you even so much as scratch me with one of your bullets she shall plunge like a rock. So I hold one card and you hold one. Give me your card and I’ll give you mine.”

  “What card do I have?” Ben asked.

  “Don’t waste my time on games. Even I’m not powerful enough to hold her up there forever. Your card is Charles Newman. I know he’s here somewhere—I can smell his vile stench. Somehow you’ve managed to unlock my property so he’s free to roam around on it like a hyena. Bring me his head and you can have the girl.”

  “How do you expect me to do that?” Ben asked.

  “You’re his ally, so it should be easy,” Stonebrenner said. “You said yourself that your gun is loaded with Hermesium bullets. He trusts you, doesn’t he? Then go outside and shoot him. Do you see that machete leaning against the wall down there? Take it with you—it should remove his head easily enough.”

  Since they were playing ca
rds, Ben decided he may as well bluff. “Okay, I’ll do that,” he said. “But let Sarah down first. As soon as she’s safe beside me, I’ll bring you his head.”

  “Don’t waste my time on idiocy!” Stonebrenner shouted hoarsely. “Bring me Charles Newman now or she’ll die!”

  “I’m here, Becker,” someone said.

  It was Ed, stepping out of the shadows of the horse stables.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Ed also had a sword, and Ben recognized it as the ornate sabre that usually hung on the wall of his front room.

  For a few seconds nobody moved, and then three things happened almost all at once. Stonebrenner dove out of the hayloft and swept down through the air straight toward Ed with his sword extended in front of him. In the next instant Ben heard Sarah screaming and looked up to see her plunging down from the ceiling. And in the next instant he saw a man soaring up into the air and catching her in his arms.

  The man drifted down slowly with Sarah and landed softly on his feet beside Ben. It was Ed. He handed Sarah to Ben, snatched up the sword that he had dropped on the floor, and swooped up to the north hayloft.

  “You never could fight worth a damn with a sword, Becker,” Ed yelled. “I wasted many hours trying to teach you, but you were a dull and stupid student.”

  “We’ll see who’s stupid,” Stonebrenner answered, and Ben saw him standing in the opposite loft. “You’ve lost your cradling, Newman, and you’re weak as a kitten without it. But I have my own cradling now, and her power surges through me like lightning.”

  “Ah, so you need a woman to help you,” Ed said. “Well, let’s see what one weak woman and one stupid man add up to.”

  Ed swept out of his loft and Stonebrenner swept out of his, and there were brilliant flashes of light and sharp cracks of thunder as they clashed their swords together in the dark air above Ben’s head.