Grave Intent

by Deborah LeBlanc

  Janet wet her lips and hesitantly stepped out into the hall. To ease her own mind, she wanted to check through the rest of the house, but some piercing intuition demanded that she not leave the girls upstairs alone.

  Just as she was debating on whether or not to inspect the master bedroom, which was only one door away, she heard something behind her. A shuffling sound, like someone in slippers hurrying along. She turned on her heels, hands held out in defense.

  No slippers. No shuffling. Nothing.

  Janet barely had time to register confusion when the sound of shattering glass from the family room sent her spinning in the opposite direction. She raced to the staircase landing and peered over the rails, but couldn’t see into the family room because of the support wall.

  She forced herself around the railing and began to descend the steps slowly. Her teeth chattered with fear.

  Halfway down the stairs, when she could finally see past the wall into the family room, Janet’s jaw dropped in disbelief.Shards of glass and mangled pieces of picture frame were strewn across the floor. The ship-at-sea picture, which normally hung over the mantel, looked like it had exploded. Strips of canvas lay everywhere.

  Janet took another tentative step down, her eyes whipping from left to right, searching, watching, her body shaking with terror.

  “Aunt Janet!”

  The shrill, frightened cry startled Janet, and she had to grab onto the banister to keep from falling over. Once rebalanced, she bounded back up the stairs two at a time. Four steps short of the top, she tripped and rammed her left knee against the edge of a step. She cried out, struggling back to her feet. Pain, like knife blades slicing through her kneecap, threatened to drop her again.

  “Aunt Janet!”

  With teeth clenched, Janet hobbled as fast as she could up the remaining steps and down the hall. Finally, after what seemed like a decade, she burst through Ellie’s bedroom door—and blinked.

  Heather was sitting up in bed with her blanket gripped up to her chin. Her terror-widened eyes were glued to Ellie, who sat cross-legged on the other bed, her face covered in blood.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Michael peered through the rain-smeared windshield and cursed again. In the last two hours he’d only managed a little over a hundred miles. Most of it had been on Interstate 10, where it seemed every eighteen wheeler in the country had decided to line up one behind the other and add road spray to the already heavy rains. When traffic finally slowed to a crawl, he’d detoured onto Highway 28, thinking he’d make better time. He had. Until now.

  Just ahead, orange cones ran at an angle across the road, shoving two lanes of traffic into one skinny, slow-moving thoroughfare. A flashing orange sign on the shoulder warned: CONSTRUCTION NEXT FIVE MILES. Michael lifted the windshield wiper lever, hoping to speed up the blades so he could get a clearer view. All he got was more smear.

  He hunched his shoulders closer to the steering wheel as though it would shove traffic out of the way. “Come on, come on,” he grumbled, looking for another detour.

  Shadowy tangles of oaks, pines, and willows bordered the right shoulder of the road, and the Cadillac’s headlights revealed no side street between them for as far as he could see. To his left, shimmering circles of light from southbound traffic threw a silvery glow over a wide, flooded median. He had no other choice but to link into the string of traffic.

  Immediately having to slow the sedan down to fifteen miles an hour, Michael slammed a fist against the door panel, then reached for the cell phone. The last call he’d made was to Shirley Woods, the dispatcher for Brusley’s police department. The connection had been choppy, twangy, as if her words were being filtered through a vibrating, metal guide wire. From what he’d been able to piece together, she still hadn’t reached the sheriff’s office in Grant parish or anyone else for that matter beyond a ten-mile radius of Brusley. As she’d attempted to theorize why, the cell phone went silent, and its small, dimly lit screen promptly read: NO SERVICE.

  The same two words faced Michael now, but he dialed the number to the cabin anyway. All he got for the effort was three short beeps, then silence. He laid the phone down beside him and fidgeted in his seat, trying to temper the feelings of inadequacy and anger that threatened to overwhelm him.

  He wished he were stronger, faster, smarter. His wife and daughter needed him, and all he had to offer was this crippled response, this moving inch by inch. He wanted to lash out at someone, and his list of possible targets grew longer as traffic slowed even more. There was the Louisiana highway department for choosing this road and this time to begin construction. Then came the airlines, for not offering direct flights into Carlton and for deciding to cancel what service they did offer into a larger, neighboring town due to inclement weather. Even God wasn’t exempt. What good was omniscience or omnipotence if the two most important people in his life weren’t spared from danger? At the top of the to-be-attacked heap, stood Michael’s father. If it hadn’t been for Wilson taking the gold piece in the first place, none of this would be happening.

  Taillights brightened ahead, and Michael braked again. “Goddammit, move!” he shouted. “I can fucking walk faster than this!”

  He lowered the driver’s window a little, ignoring the splash of rain against his face. He had to breathe, had to get rid of the scent of Old Spice, Marlboro cigarettes, and worn leather, the coalesced redolence of Wilson.

  How could his father disappear like that, knowing that at least one of the Stevensons knew about the coin and wanted it back? Was Wilson just sticking to old protocol and leaving his son to clean up his mess?

  Michael glanced over at the cracked, burgundy leather seat beside him. What if his father had figured out that Ellie had found the gold piece? Could he be on his way to Carlton even now to retrieve it? But if so, in what?—since Michael was driving his car. The windshield wipers gave an extra long squeak as though to confirm this was so.

  Nearing a standstill, Michael pounded against the horn. It let out a low, pitiful noise, like that of a muzzled sheep being led to slaughter. Something about the sound made Michael stiffen. He’d been so fixated on his father’s usual antics, creating chaos and hauling ass, he hadn’t taken the time to consider other possibilities for his disappearance.

  What if the Stevensons had found him? What if the old man they’d seen in the funeral home had made good on his promise? What if the investors his father had been so nervous about had shown up to collect their money?

  Michael rubbed his throbbing forehead. He couldn’t worry about his father now. His attention had to stay fixed on Janet and Ellie. He had to get to them.

  Not normally a praying man, Michael made a rapid and awkward sign of the cross. “God, please let them be okay. When I get to Carlton, let Ellie and Heather be asleep in their beds, and Janet curled up somewhere with a book. Give me the chance to hug and kiss them again, to tell each one of them how much they’re loved.” Michael hesitated a moment. “And, God . . . I . . . if you take good care of them, I promise I’ll do anything you want. Just please, let them be all right. Amen.” Another wobbly sign of the cross.

  Worrying about whether he’d given clear enough instructions to the Almighty, Michael raised the window. The cell phone rang, and he quickly scooped it up.NO SERVICE was still illuminated on the screen.

  Puzzled, Michael said, “Hello?”

  A whispery voice answered, “Daddy.”

  Recognizing Ellie’s voice, Michael slammed on the brakes. A horn blared angrily behind him.

  “Ellie . . .” Michael thought about what Anna Stevenson had told him, about Ellie calling to him from her mind. But his daughter’s voice sounded so clear now, so close. It had none of the static from her earlier call. “Ellie—Ellie are you okay? Where—”

  “Shhh. You got to be quiet, Daddy. They’re gonna hear you.”

  Fear fogged Michael’s eyesight. “Who? Ellie, who’s there? Where are you? Are you okay? Where’s Mommy?” A symphony of horns blasted outsi
de, startling him. Michael threw a hand over the phone’s mouthpiece, looked over his shoulder at the glare of lights behind him, and shouted, “Shut the fuck up!” He released the brake, and allowed the sedan to coast up a foot. Removing his hand from the phone, he said firmly, “Ellie, put Mommy on the phone right now. Do you hear?”

  “Daddy. . . you gotta hurry, please. I’m afraid. The bad man’s here He’s so mad. The lady’s here, too. She’s trying to stop him, but he’s too big.” Michael heard her take a deep, trembling breath before a buzz of static filled his ear.

  Michael’s sweaty palm slipped off the steering wheel. “Ellie!”

  “Daddy, hu—now—be—”

  Just as they had been with her first call, Ellie’s words became nonsensical syllables, and Michael pressed the phone closer to his ear. He grabbed the steering wheel again. “Ellie, listen to me. Listen carefully. Put Mama on the phone, right now. Do you understand? Put her on the phone.”

  “I—don—can’t—de—” A sudden scream cut off the syllables, but it wasn’t the scream of a child. It was deep and hoarse, and sounded more like an outcry of anger than one of fear.

  Michael gripped the steering wheel until his fingers burned with pain. “Ellie! Ellie, can you get to Mama? Where’s Mama?”

  Through the static, Michael heard sobbing, then a hollow, resonating voice simply said, “She’s dead.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Don’t panic, Janet told herself, and hobbled over to Ellie’s bed. Slow—slow and easy.

  Ellie rubbed the right side of her face, inadvertently smearing blood all the way up to her forehead. Her cousin whimpered.

  “Is she gonna die, Aunt Janet?” Heather asked, her voice quivering.

  Janet cupped Ellie’s chin and lifted it. Her daughter looked up, her expression deadpan, her gaze faraway. Two steady streams of blood flowed from her nostrils.

  “Is she gonna?” Heather asked again.

  “No, honey.” Janet tilted Ellie’s head farther back. “She has a nosebleed.”

  Heather nodded, her eyes wide and uncertain. She bunched the blanket close to her chest.

  “Does anything hurt you?” Janet asked Ellie.

  Ellie stared at the ceiling, mute.

  “Honey?”

  Ellie blinked, but remained silent.

  Worry squeezed Janet’s thudding heart. What on earth was happening to her child? “O-Okay,” she stammered. “You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. Just keep—keep your head back. I’ll get a towel.”

  She turned to head for the bathroom, then halted in mid-limp, remembering the shattered picture. She’d been so frantic after hearing Heather scream, then seeing all the blood on Ellie, she’d actually forgotten about it for a few moments. That painting wouldn’t have ripped apart like that simply by falling. Someone would have had to literally, purposely destroy it. And for someone to do that—they would have to be in the house!

  “Oh, hurry, it’s more!” Heather cried. “Look, it’s bleeding more!”

  Janet turned back to see crimson bubbles pop over Ellie’s nostrils. The front of her T-shirt was striped with blood.

  “Quick, get me a clean T-shirt,” Janet said to Heather. She pointed to a chest of drawers. “In there.”

  While Heather hurried to the bureau, Janet lifted her daughter’s chin again. “Listen to me, Ellie. You have to keep your head back or the bleeding won’t stop.”

  “Here, Aunt Janet,” Heather said, suddenly appearing beside her, clean shirt in hand. Her face was ashen, her eyes filling with tears.

  “Don’t worry,” Janet said to her niece, then glanced nervously toward the bedroom door. “Everything will be all right.” She offered Heather a weak smile. The child nodded and leaned in close.

  Janet took the shirt from Heather, folded it into quarters, then pressed it under Ellie’s nose. “Now keep it there for a few minutes. Breathe out of your mouth.”

  Pushing her mother’s hand away, Ellie whispered, “He’s here.”

  Janet bit her bottom lip, afraid to say anything. She felt Heather push against her, the child’s breath warm through the back of her blouse.

  Ellie scanned the room tentatively, blood no longer dripping from her nose. She froze for a few seconds as though listening, then slowly twisted her body to the left. Her gaze settled on the window between the beds. “She’s here too,” she said quietly.

  From the corner of her eye, Janet saw the curtains flutter. She turned hesitantly and shivered when she realized the window was closed. She looked back at Ellie. “Who’s here, baby?”

  The look in Ellie’s eyes traveled between perplexity and dread. “The man who broke the picture downstairs.”

  “The picture?” Janet echoed. The girls hadn’t seen the mess in the family room yet. How could Ellie possibly know? Janet looked back at the window and gripped the bedsheet when she saw the curtains give a final ripple, then settle limp against the window frame.

  “They’re both watching,” Ellie said. “But he’s mad. I don’t know why, but he’s really, really mad.”

  Janet felt herself being sucked into the rhythm of her daughter’s voice. She suddenly sensed they were being watched from the ceiling, through the walls, the floor. Heather wiggled under her aunt’s right arm, and Janet cleared her throat, fighting back fertile paranoia.

  “I wanna go home,” Heather cried. She tugged at Janet’s blouse.

  Ellie shook her head. “We can’t go home. He won’t let us.” Her bottom lip began to quiver, and her shoulders drooped. “And he won’t let Daddy come get us—”

  Without warning, the bedroom door slammed shut. Heather shrieked and plowed her head into Janet’s jaw as she scrambled onto the bed.

  “I told you,” Ellie said. She looked back at the door and began to rock her body from side to side.

  Heather inched to the foot of the bed and eyed her cousin fearfully. “Aunt Janet?”

  Janet wanted to curl up next to the girls and pull the covers over all three of them. Instead, she said, “Stay here,” and limped to the door. After saying a silent prayer, she pulled it open cautiously.

  The hallway directly across from the room was empty. She peered right, toward the stairs, and she had to bite back a gasp when she spotted a shadow slip past the landing. The crunch of glass quickly followed, then Janet heard the sound of heavy furniture being dragged across the floor downstairs.

  She pulled her head back into the room and closed the door quietly. What the hell was going on in this house? Anna, the curtains, the painting, now furniture moving across the floor?

  “Aunt Janet?” Heather’s small body trembled, and tears streamed down her face. Ellie, still rocking from side to side, only looked at her mother curiously.

  “Shh.” Janet said, pressing a finger to her lips.

  The bedroom door had no lock, so she searched frantically around the room for something to jam beneath the knob. She couldn’t pull one of the beds or the dresser to the door because moving either would make too much noise, and if there was an intruder in the house, he’d be able to find them. If something else lurked in the cabin, however,—the kind of something that made curtains move by themselves, barring the door would probably be futile.

  Still, Janet grabbed a pogo stick that leaned against the jamb of Ellie’s closet, and shoved it under the doorknob. It held for a second, then slipped and fell to the floor. She tried again and again, then finally, after too many tries, the pogo stick held. Janet backed away and signaled for the girls to keep quiet.

  The sound of moving furniture grew louder, and Janet hesitated only a second before hobbling over to the window. She shoved the curtains aside and peered down, searching for the ground below. It was obscured by night. The only way she’d be able to get the girls down would be to tie sheets together and lower them one by one. But then they’d be alone until she reached the ground, which created another problem. If she jumped, her knee wouldn’t hold up under the jolt, especially from this height. She tho
ught about shimmying down a sheet rope but feared it wouldn’t hold. What if she fell? Who would protect the girls?

  Backing away from the window, Janet went to the bed and sat, pulling the girls close. Ellie rocked harder under her mother’s embrace.

  “Are we gonna die?” Heather asked. Her body shook so hard it vibrated.

  Ellie giggled softly, which added to the black, naked horror seeping into Janet’s chest. How was she going to get the girls out of the house? There were no other exits upstairs except for the windows. To get to either the front door or the side door of the house, they’d have to go through the family room.

  “Nobody’s going to die,” Janet said fiercely.

  Heather sobbed louder.“But . . . but . . . I—”

  Before the child could stammer out her thought, the pogo stick rattled beneath the knob, sending the three of them into a tighter huddle. The closet door suddenly flew open and out rolled Ellie’s soccer ball followed by a florescent green roller skate. In a flash, clothes began to rip away from hangers and land in a heap on the floor. Janet tented her body over the girls just as a Barbie car and an old pair of rubber boots rocketed over their heads.

  “Make ‘em stop!” Ellie cried, struggling beneath her mother.

  “I want my mama!” Heather shrieked, her voice muffled beneath Janet’s left breast.

  Ellie’s collection of Pokeman containers pitched from the closet shelf and flew across the room like egg-shaped mortar shells. One crashed into a porcelain dolphin that stood on top of the dresser, shattering the figurine. The rest bounced off the back wall, then dropped to the floor.

  Abruptly, the closet door slammed shut, and the pogo stick fell from under thedoorknob. Janet watched in terror as the bedroom door slowly creaked open. Light from the bedroom washed shadowless across the hall toward the bathroom. The furniture noises had stopped, and in the heavy silence, Janet heard only their ragged breathing.