by Rick Hautala
“Mikie … Please answer me … I’ve made your favorite meal … a tuna fish sandwich and potato chips … Come on, honey. Answer me … You can even have a Pepsi if you’d like.”
The voice was louder, and the footsteps were coming closer. Now they sounded like someone hammering on the floor right underneath him.
Or else they’re nailing my coffin shut!
“I have news for you, too.”
Please … just leave me alone!
“About that boy … about Ray Saunders.”
I know, Mikie thought. He’s dead! You think I killed him, and you’re coming for me now! But I won’t be fooled!
The floorboards creaked as someone walked down the hallway toward his bedroom.
It’s not my mother! It’s them! The people from the mill! They’re the ones who hurt Sandy! Not me! But they know I’m in here! They’re coming for me! I should have locked the bedroom door!
The doorknob clicked. The sound of squeaking hinges grated his teeth as his bedroom door swung slowly open. It vibrated like a drum when it banged against the wall. A heavy sigh filled the darkness, sounding as close to him as his own skin.
“You don’t have to hide from me … not from your own mother.”
You’re not my mother! You’re someone else! You’re them, trying to trick me into coming out!
The floor shook as the footsteps came straight toward his hiding place. The doorknob on the closet jiggled, then turned. Mikie took a quick sip of air and held it, knowing this might be his last breath.
This is the end!
A light as bright and painful as an atom bomb blast shot across his vision. He remembered the film from history class and thought for a moment that maybe the Russians had launched an atomic bomb from Cuba. He cringed, waiting for the thundering rumble of the explosion before everything around him dissolved. Images of people melting and whole buildings getting squashed flat filled his mind. He was only dimly aware of the shadowy form that stood in the doorway and leaned down toward him.
“That boy who fell … out at the mill … Ray Saunders he’s hurt—he’s hurt real bad, honey, but he didn’t die … You can come out from hiding now … I—I want to take you somewhere … I want to take you to see a … a doctor.”
His mother’s kind and gentle words were lost beneath the rising wail of terror that ripped like a torrent of flame from Mikie’s throat. He wasn’t even aware that he was screaming as he waited for the burning flash that would dissolve his body. The sound of his screaming wound upward until it was lost when his throat closed off.
And then, once he had lost the ability to make any sound at all, the insane scream continued to spiral higher and higher inside his mind.
PART TWO
The ‘Old Witch Lady’
June and July, 1994
“A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.”
—Jean de La Fontaine
Chapter Three
Knife Edge
Only one person heard Dianne Fraser scream.
At the time, even Dianne wasn’t aware that she had screamed. In the hospital several days later, with her jaw wired shut, her face swollen and wrapped in bandages, she acknowledged that she must have screamed, but all she remembered was losing her footing and then falling, pinwheeling her arms wildly for balance as she slid and rolled down the sheer, angled rock face of the cliff. She was unconscious by the time she hit the bottom of the thirty-foot drop, so she never felt her impact on the rocks or heard her fading scream as it echoed from the surrounding mountains.
For the space of a single heartbeat, as the shrill cry rang behind him, Edward Fraser, Dianne’s husband, thought she was playing a practical joke on him. He was leading the way along a narrow ledge on Mount Chocorua which the A. M. C. Guide to the White Mountains referred to as the “Knife Edge.” The warbling scream rose to a piercing shriek and then faded in an instant, sounding almost fake, like the volume of a radio being turned down to nothing too quickly. But then the sudden, horrifying sensation of being utterly alone on the cliff edge filled Edward with a cold stirring of dread. Flattening himself against the rock wall, he turned around carefully, a smile twitching the corners of his mouth. He was prepared to laugh at Dianne’s warped sense of humor, but already in his heart, he dreaded that the cry had been all too real.
“Jesus! No! Dianne!” he shouted when he looked down and saw her at the base of the cliff. The hot June sun illuminated the scene with a harsh, surreal glow. His wife’s crumpled form lay sprawled facedown, motionless on the rocks. Her widespread arms and legs lifelessly conformed to the rough contours of the rocks, making her look like a casually tossed-aside rag doll. Her long, brown hair was like a tangle of seaweed cast up onto a rocky shore.
Edward’s mouth hung open in amazement; his breath froze in his chest as his gaze focused on the quietly spreading pool of blood beneath Dianne’s head.
Oh, my God! No! Please, no! Please don’t let her be.
The next stretch of time was lost to him, nothing more than a whirling blur as he frantically sought a way down to her. He considered backtracking and looking for a way down, but finally in desperation he crouched at the edge of the cliff, braced himself with his hands and feet, and slid down the angled rock face in a controlled fall. The friction made his hands and feet burn, but he barely noticed that or the pain of the slices he got in the palms of his hands from the gritty rock. All he could think was how he and Dianne had met and married in a matter of just a few months, and how terrible it would be if it all ended like this.
Please, God! Please don’t let her be … dead!
He knelt at Dianne’s side and leaned close to her face, hoping—praying that he would feel a faint stirring of breath. Thick streams of blood were pouring from both of her nostrils. At first Edward could detect nothing, but then he noticed a warm, trembling breath—shallow, almost gone, bubbling through the blood that flowed from her nose.
“Oh, Dianne … Dianne,” he said softly as his hands fluttered helplessly above her. He didn’t know whether to pick her up and comfort her or leave her where she was, in case moving her would make her injuries worse.
What should I do? Jesus Christ, what do I do?
He knew he couldn’t just sit here and watch her bleed to death. Should he make her as comfortable as possible and leave to get help? What if she went into shock and died—all alone—while he was gone? What if she regained consciousness and saw that she was alone? Would she know that he had gone for help? How far was it to the nearest phone or radio? How long would it take to get a medical team out here?
These and other questions filled his mind like a whirling storm as he stared down at his wife’s motionless form. At last, knowing that, no matter what else, he had to make her as comfortable as possible, he eased his arms underneath her and lifted. A rushing gasp of air came from her lungs as her weight pressed her into his arms.
Was that her last breath? Edward wondered as he dragged her away from the rocks over to a small patch of tufted grass under some scrub pines. After clumsily removing her backpack, he eased her flat onto her back, careful to tilt her head to one side so the flow of blood wouldn’t fill her throat and choke her. He was sobbing uncontrollably as he stared at the distorted, flattened side of her face. Thick, red blood mixed with the black clots, stone grit, and bone fragments that smeared the torn flesh of her cheek and jaw.
“Oh, Christ! Oh Jesus!”Edward whispered.
He was convinced that the bleeding was too severe, that she was going to die right there in his arms. He knew that any significant loss of blood could mean possible shock. That was the immediate danger; but he also knew that the trauma to her head as well as possible skull fracture and brain damage were the real dangers. Gently, carefully, he lifted first one eyelid, then the other, studying for a moment her glazed, vacant stare. Even in the bright sunshine, her pupils were dilated and her eyes were rolled up inside her head as though she were staring at the sky.
E
dward drew his hunting knife from his backpack, cut a piece of cloth from his shirt, and pressed it gently against the side of Dianne’s face. Even through the padding of the cloth, the jellied, pulpy texture of her face made his stomach do a sour little kick. It felt as if there were no bones underneath the skin; they were gone—pulverized.
Once he was sure the worst of the bleeding had stopped, he took his sleeping bag from his backpack and spread it over her to keep her warm.
“Damnit!” he said, his voice tight and high, struggling for control as tears poured from his eyes. “How could I let something like this happen?”
But he knew he couldn’t lose control now. This was not the time for guilt or recriminations. He had to think clearly and act decisively so he could get help out here as fast as possible. It was a beautiful June morning, and the Piper Trail was one of the most popular trails up Mount Chocorua. Someone was bound to be out hiking. If he stayed with Dianne, making sure she was still breathing, still alive, a group of hikers would have to pass by. He could ask them to go down the mountain to phone for help so he could stay with his wife. If she was going to die, he didn’t want her to die alone.
But the minutes stretched into what seemed like long, agonizing hours. Dianne’s shallow breathing remained the same for a while, but then Edward noticed the muscles in her arms and legs were beginning to spasm. Her fingers clutched feebly at the sleeping bag covering her. Soft, fitful moans escaped her mouth, and her breath wheezed in her chest.
What if she’s having some kind of fit or seizure or something because of the pressure on her brain? Edward wondered as the intensity of the tremors increased. With tears in his eyes and sobs wracking his chest, he stood up, looked around helplessly and then, cupping his hands to his mouth, shouted, “Help!”
—Help-p-p!
The echo rebounded from the sheer granite walls above him.
“Can anybody hear me?”
—hear me-e-e?
He looked down at Dianne. Framed by the sleeping bag, her blood-streaked face looked pitifully small, pale, and lifeless. Edward fought the impression that she was already dead and that her muscle spasms were merely her dying nerves firing off one last time.
“Please!” he yelled, trying desperately to fight back his panic.
—Please-e-e!
“We need help!”
—need help-p-p!
The echoes of his cries faded, and he heard nothing in response except for the thin, high hiss of the wind on the cliff and the distant chatter of bird song far down in the valley. Fluffy white clouds drifted silently across the brilliant blue of the sky, casting gray washes of shadows over the trees and rocks below. Edward shivered, but then, reminding himself that this was the time to act decisively, he checked Dianne once again—dreading that this would be the last time he would see his wife alive—and then started off through the woods, backtracking until he hit the trail down the mountainside. As much as he wanted to break into a run, he knew it was at least a couple of miles back to the base of the Piper Trail. The worst possible thing for Dianne, now, would be for him to get injured or lost. Even if she was still alive, he knew he didn’t have very long to get help … and conscious or unconscious, he knew she would never survive the night alone out here.
After no more than thirty minutes on the trail, however, he met up with a group of campers with their counselors from Camp Calumet who were on a day trip, hiking the mountain. After Edward blurted out what had happened and that his injured wife was unconscious back at the foot of the “Knife Edge,” one of the counselors started down the mountain to get help. The incident obviously soured the day’s outing and worried the remaining counselors, who seemed inclined to head in another direction with their young charges.
Edward immediately went back up the trail to be with Dianne.
Unless he had damaged his watch when he slid down the cliff, time was playing tricks on him.
It had been a little more than two hours since the accident, but to Edward it seemed as though he had waited at the bottom of the cliff for most of the day before he heard the distant thump-thump-thump of a helicopter’s rotor blades. By the time the Air-vac rescue team had gotten Dianne loaded onto a stretcher and into the helicopter, her left eye was swollen shut.
The blood on her face had dried to a thick, brick-red crust. Two wide streaks of blood ran from her nose, down into her jacket collar. Feeling drained and nauseated, Edward stared silently at the shreds of dark, mangled flesh hanging down over his wife’s blood-caked cheek and mouth. Another death image—from when he was five years old, and his father had been crushed to death beneath a truck while changing a flat tire—filled his mind with a numbing sense of dread and finality.
This is how it will end!
The thought rang out clearly in his head, drowning out the softer, fainter voice that whispered a faint, fragile hope. This is how it will all end!
The two-person rescue team worked fast and efficiently, with little conversation above the thumping of rotors and the whine of the helicopter’s turbine engine. They checked Dianne’s blood pressure, made sure the bleeding from her nose had stopped, and then worked a plastic tube down into her windpipe so she wouldn’t choke on her own blood and mucous. As the helicopter sped to the hospital in North Conway, the pilot used the radio to report their initial assessment of Dianne’s condition and what steps had been taken so far. Edward caught only small snatches of the conversation, but none of it made sense.
Throughout all of this, Dianne was semiconscious—at times fitful and agitated; at other times quiet, nearly comatose. Her eyes were glazed with pain and confusion, terrifyingly vacant as she looked around the interior of the helicopter. Several times she twisted her head from side to side, as though trying to get away from these men—her tormentors, but her arms and legs were securely strapped to the stretcher. When her gaze fixed on Edward; he had the distinct impression that she didn’t even recognize him.
Once they landed at the hospital, the medics quickly loaded Dianne onto a gurney and rushed her into the emergency room. Covered with blood and feeling completely distraught, Edward was asked to remain in an office near the waiting room. The on-duty nurse—her name tag read Kate—explained what steps the doctors would take, but Edward barely heard her as he sat there, his gaze riveted to the double doors at the end of the corridor that led to the operating room.
“Would you like some coffee?” Kate asked.
Edward looked up at her as if he hadn’t understood her question, so she repeated herself.
“Some coffee … would you like some?”
“Uh … no. No thank you,” he said, biting his lower lip and shaking his head.
“There’s a sink in the next room, if you’d like to wash up a bit.”
“No, I—I’d just as soon wait here, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” Kate said, smiling sympathetically. “You know, this could take quite some time.”
Edward remained silent, his eyes barely blinking as he watched the double doors. His mind was filled with tortured, horrifying imaginings of what might be going on behind those closed doors, and that damned voice in the back of his mind wouldn’t stop repeating—
This is how it will end! … This is how it will all end! …
Edward sat beside the desk, his body rigid with tension as Dr. Miller, the neurosurgeon at the Conway General Hospital, explained to him the extent of Dianne’s injuries. Most of the terms he used—Hemi-Leforte II midface fracture, communited displaced left zygoma and left periorbital fracture—didn’t make any sense to him, but they all translated to one thing: Dianne wasn’t dead—not yet, at least, and the left side of her face had been smashed to shit!
“She’s transferring to Maine Medical Center in Portland where Doctor Collett will be working on her,” Dr. Miller said after finishing a thorough review of Dianne’s injuries.
Christ!, Edward thought, he makes it sound like she’s a fucking car that needs an overhaul!
“H
ands down, Collett’s the best maxillo-facial surgeon in the state. Believe me, after reviewing the CAT scan, I’m positive your wife is going to pull through this thing just fine. It’s not going to be easy, I won’t deny that, but there’s no indication of intracranial hemorrhage, which would cause pressure on her brain and some possibly very serious problems. Of course, now that she’s calmed down, we’ll observe her overnight, and then in the morning—”
“But her eye!” Edward said, his voice almost breaking. “Her left eye had no white—it, was all bright red. Doesn’t that indicate internal bleeding?”
“That’s entirely normal in a situation like this. That’s called an ecchymotic eye. The condition is temporary. Her eye will look relatively normal in a few days and be just fine in a few weeks.”
“Relatively normal,” Edward echoed. “But what about the rest of her face? How will you—I mean, can you rebuild her entire face? You told me yourself that some of the bones weren’t just broken, they were pulverized and that the surgeon wouldn’t be able to get her face put back right the first time!”
“The most important thing for you to remember, Mr. Fraser, is how much I stressed to you that this isn’t going to be easy, for you or your wife. She’s facing several months, possibly up to a year of healing and reconstructive surgery. Doctor Collett will operate on her right away to begin reconstructing her face by supporting and replacing the broken bones with metal plates and wires. After a month or so of healing, she’ll need a second operation to remove the, temporary metal appliances and insert interpositional and onlay bone grafts. Even then, she won’t look like herself because of the soft tissue damage, so six months or more after that, she’ll undergo the final plastic surgery to restore her face completely.”
Edward tried to speak, but his mind was a roaring, white blank. He slouched back in the chair, feeling as though the air pressure in the room had suddenly doubled. He was dimly aware of his pulse, pounding like a jackhammer in his neck, and that the voice in his mind was back, whispering softly to him:
