by Jack Ketchum
It was Saturday. Around four. Stephen was still working in the garage. She could hear the whine of his circular saw.
She sat and listened and drank her tea and petted the cat curled up in what passed for her lap nowadays.
“Look,” Kath was saying. “In the old days they only used cesarean when the mother was dying. Now the whole thing is to save the mother and the baby. What you do is, you make an incision through the skin and the wall of the abdomen. Most of the time there isn’t even much of a scar. Then you open up the wall of the uterus. The incision can be transverse vertical or low vertical, transverse usually because there’s less bleeding and it heals better. Then you deliver the baby and we suture you up again and that’s that. I mean this is all just in case. Only if there’s a problem. But it’s really very simple. You don’t have to worry, I know what I’m doing. I’ve assisted on hundreds of these.”
And on how many murders? she thought.
And she realized now that she was listening to a very good and convincing liar. There was only that single slip in the attic. Otherwise Kath was practically flawless. Which called into question again all these tales all these months about the Organization.
She decided she was going to proceed as though there were none.
Another weight lifted. It was astonishing. Just like that.
The Organization was suddenly…gone. Frozen out of her. Trapped in the glacier of her resolve.
She was going to live.
Where in the world did I find this calm? she thought.
She was suddenly calm as the cat was.
She decided it was in the knowing that she’d found it. In the certainty. What had trapped her up to now was lack of certainty. Not knowing on a daily—even momentary—basis what they would or wouldn’t do to her. These people if you could even dignify them with the word people had played on that uncertainty like a harp. Headbox or no headbox? Beating or no beating? Upstairs in the light or downstairs in the dark? They’d kept her off balance for months now.
Was this balance?Yes it was.
Balance was knowing and knowing was calm.
Take them one by one, she thought. And no time like the present.
Do I have it in me? Yes I do.
As certainly as I have this little girl inside me.
Greg’s little girl and mine.
It was the first she’d thought of him for ages. That was balance too.
“Kath? Do you think I could have a little more tea?”
She shrugged. “Sure. You know where it is.”
She lifted the cat gently off her lap and put her down on the floor thinking yes I do, I know where everything is you bitch and walked past Kath to the kitchen and ran water from the sink into the mug and put the mug into the micro wave and turned it on and then opened the bottom cabinet door and took out the twelve-inch stainless steel frying pan they hardly ever used, the pan looking new as they day they’d bought it, new as the stainless steel cart upstairs and gripped it in both her hands and walked over to Kath who was hunched over her mug, who had the mug to her lips sipping Tummy Mint tea and brought the pan down as hard as she could on the crown of her head, the pan ringing like a bell, the sound true and pure and brave, Kath’s face driven down into the ceramic mug and the mug to the table, the mug shattering between table, teeth, flesh and bone and flooding the surface with a liquid the color of autumn leaves.
Not a sound out of Kath as she brought the pan up and hit her again, the pan musical once more against the side of her head which suddenly sprouted glistening drops of red forming a rough half-circle across her forehead at the hairline.
She examined the base of the pan. The base was flecked with blood and a stray brown hair or two. Despite the rapid heartbeat she felt steady and powerful.
“You dead yet? Should I hit you again?”
She had the urge to giggle.
No. She’d done it right so far and Kath hadn’t made a sound. Only the pan had made a sound and that one was delightful—the tolling of her freedom-bell. She could still hear Stephen’s saw whining in the garage but he might stop at any time. Don’t push it, she thought. You still have him to deal with.
Or do you?
Car keys, she thought. Fucking car keys. In her purse.
Where the fuck was her purse?
The purse was on the couch in the living room.
The cat peered out at her from the hall as she crossed the living room and put the pan down on the couch and rifled through the purse. She felt the baby kick inside. The baby was urging her on.
Yes! Got ’em!
The keys jingled in her hand. Smaller bells of freedom.
The saw outside stopped.
She picked up the pan. The pain had stained the couch. She hadn’t meant to do that but hadn’t thought of it either. She walked quickly through the living room past Kath at the dining room table to the kitchen and looked out the window to the garage. He wasn’t there. He wasn’t cutting across the lawn and walking toward the house. She couldn’t see him anywhere.
What she could see though was that the keys were useless. Kath’s station wagon was the one sitting there in front of the garage which meant that Stephen’s pickup would be directly in back of it. That meant she needed Stephen’s keys, not Kath’s. Stephen would have them in his pocket. And now she realized that she’d been wrong before, she didn’t know where everything in the house was because she didn’t know where they kept the goddamn spares.
They weren’t in the kitchen. She’d spent a lot of time in there and would’ve noticed them. The bedroom? The end-table drawers in the living room?
The basement?
She wasn’t going into the basement. Not ever again.
Goddammit! there wasn’t time! There just wasn’t time to go through every damn drawer in the house. The sawing had stopped. God only knew what he was doing. He was probably finishing up out there. He could walk in on her at any second.
The pan felt puny in her hand.
She needed more.
She needed to get out of there but first she needed more because she wasn’t going to go strolling out like the first time only to get caught again.
The shotgun, the pistol. Where would they be?
The bedroom. She wasn’t allowed in the bedroom and though the door was never locked she never thought to disobey and go there.
She’d damn well disobey now. She had no idea how to shoot a pistol unless you counted what you saw in the movies and what he’d shown her in the basement and even less idea how to load and fire a shotgun but she was counting on the pistol to be the simpler of the two and that probably it would be the easier of the two to find, that most people would want a pistol in the nightstand drawer by the bed in case of intruders.
She went to the phone on the kitchen wall and punched in 911 and let the receiver dangle. Maybe the police would trace the call here and maybe they wouldn’t but she didn’t have time to talk.
Why hadn’t she done this months ago? 911. Such a simple thing.
Greg. Mom and dad. The Organization.
The fucking Organization!
There isn’t any.
The cat followed her down the hall.
There were two night tables in the bedroom and she didn’t know who slept where or which side would be Stephen’s side so she went to the nearest. In the drawer there were a dirty jumble of pads and pencils, cough drops, matches, an address book, a Vicks inhaler, an open package of Kleenex, a tin of aspirin. No gun. She walked around the bed to the other side and opened the drawer and there it was, the pearl handle and the gleaming polished silver and now at the sight of it she remembered what Stephen had done that day exactly. As though she’d memorized it without knowing, stored it away for just this very moment. Her finger went to the cylinder latch and she checked the chamber. The gun was loaded, not even the first chamber empty. She didn’t have to search for cartridges. She threw the cylinder back into place and threw the safety, left the frying pan where it was on the bed an
d walked out into the hall.
All you need to do is get his keys, she thought. Put the key in the ignition and drive away. And that’s the end of it. The end of all of this. You have the gun. He can’t stop you. He can’t hurt you at all anymore.
Just get the keys.
But when she got to the living room and turned and saw him coming through the back door, slamming the door, pausing at the landing at the top of the cellar stairs, saw the old claw hammer in his hand, saw him take in the sight of Kath slumped across the table and saw his face darken with that now-familiar blush of rage it was not the keys she wanted, not anymore.
She felt her own face twist tight into a snarl and the sudden wild pounding of her heart and she raised the gun and fired twice, the gun jumping in her hands and woodchips flying off the doorjamb and as he crouched and stepped back toward the door she fired again lower this time, the bullet slamming him back against the door and bright arterial blood spurting off his thigh and he was shouting no no no no which she could barely hear above the high roar in her ears, his face gone sickly, cowardly white as she stepped forward and forward again with the gun held out in front of her and realized she was roaring too, a sound the like of which she’d never heard before twice in his presence she’d made these strange and awful sounds, the first against the X-frame and as she closed in tighter watched him try to make himself small in the corner, shrinking away, down to his goddamn proper size, trying to crouch in the corner the snake and she took one more step until she was sure she’d get it absolutely perfectly right this time, obeying the tidal pull of her own perfect instincts in this single perfect moment and shot him in the chest and shot and shot again.
Watched him slide to the floor.
Watched him smear his filthy death across the walls.
Watched urine soak his pants and puddle up beneath him.
Saw the open mouth and the open eyes and the bright blood flowing. And felt the baby kick.
Delivery
SIXTEEN
New York city
November 10, 1998
“Greg.”
“Hello, Sara.”
They’d spoken on the phone a few times though she’d yet to see him. It had been much too hard on her to have to see him.
Now it was still hard. But she was glad to.
He looked older somehow but then so did she. The hospital’s bathroom mirror had revealed that very clearly to her this morning. The face that peered back at her was drawn and pale and lines she couldn’t remember seeing only yesterday spiderwebbed her forehead.
“Mother? Could you just give us a minute?”
Her mother had stayed at the hospital throughout.
Her father hadn’t.
“Certainly, dear.” She patted Sara’s hand and got up off the chair. “Nice to see you, Greg.”
“Nice to see you too, Mrs. Foster.”
The door closed behind her and then they just stared at each other, smiling.
On the phone there had been too many tears. Too many regrets and apologies. He was staying on with his wife and son. He was committed to them. Of course he was. He blamed himself for not finding her, for giving up hope of ever finding her. He’d tried, god knows. He and her mother had harassed the police for months. Of course he had. He was a good man.
It was good to be able to smile at him now.
“You saw her?”
“She’s beautiful, Sara. She looks just like you. Just like her mom.”
“She really is beautiful, isn’t she.”
“She is.”
She patted the bed. “Come sit. Talk to me.”
He walked over and sat down.
“Are you all right?” she said.
“I’m all right. Question is, are you all right?”
“I’m fine. A little tired. I was only in there a little over two hours. With Daniel it was more like four. I think she wanted out. Hell, I don’t blame her. But what I meant was, are you all right with…all this now?”
“Sure I am.”
“Diane? Alan?”
“Well, like I told you, Alan was pretty upset at first. But it was more knowing about the two of us than about you being pregnant. I think he’s squared away, though. I know Diane is.”
“You sure?”
“She says she wants to meet you. And the baby. How would you feel about that?”
Just how civilized are we going to get? was what he was asking.
“I don’t know, Greg. Give me some time. Let me think about it, okay?”
“Sure. Of course.”
He sat there looking at her a moment and she watched his eyes turn sad and he reached over and took her hand, the eyes saying, is this all right to do? and hers saying yes, it is while they pooled with tears, both of them still smiling and she thought, yes, I still love you too, always will even before he said it.
“I still love you, Sara. Always will.”
“I know.”
He began to cry. She squeezed his hand.
“It wasn’t such a horrible thing we did, was it?”
His voice breaking with sorrow.
“No, Greg, no. What we did was love one another and I don’t think that was horrible at all, do you? Do you really? In your heart? And you’re doing the right thing now. You know you are. Alan needs you. Diane needs you. And we’re okay, you and I. Aren’t we?”
He wiped the tears off his cheek and nodded.
“What about you?”
She laughed. “I think I’m going to be very busy for a while.”
She was going back to teaching when she could. Greg knew that too.
“Yeah. I guess you are. You gonna need any help? Anything I can do, I mean?”
“That’s between you and Diane. But no, not at first, anyway. I’ve got my mother with me and we’ll be fine. Talk it over with Diane if you want to. See how involved you really want to get. Then we’ll talk, you and I. Take your time. We’ll see.”
He nodded again and then he was silent for a while. “I hear she finally died,” he said. “That bitch. Katherine.”
“She never came out of the coma.”
“Saves us a lot of trouble, doesn’t it.”
“Trouble?”
“Court and all.”
“Yes. I guess it does.”
“I just wish I could have…”
“Greg. I’m sorry but I honestly don’t want to talk about it, you know? It’s over for me. It should be over for you too. Am I right?”
“You’re right. I just…”
“Greg.”
He laughed and shook his head.
“You’re right. I’m talking like a fool. I ’d probably better go. You need to get some rest.”
He squeezed her hand and leaned over and kissed her gently on the cheek and then stood beside the bed but would not release her yet, did not let go of her hand, seemed to want that one last minute holding her. She realized she wanted it too.
“Have you got a name yet?” he said.
She smiled. “I’m thinking Megan,” she said. “It’s Anglo-Saxon. It means strong.”
SEVENTEEN
Her mother was asleep in the guestroom. Her baby whose name was now indeed Megan slept beside her bed in the crib. She lay staring at the ceiling trying not to remember what was impossible not to remember but thankful for the soft warm bed and the quiet apartment and all her old familiar belongings gathered around her, all of it like a comforting womb of its own from which her life could go on and spread itself unconfined, grateful too for this other familiar presence at her feet who had somehow in those months taken the sting from out the whip, the edge off the knife.
The cat sleeping beside her on the bed. The cat who now also had a name.
Ruth. Ruthie. From the Hebrew.
Friend.
Rave reviews for Jack Ketchum!
“Ketchum has become a kind of hero to those of us who write tales of terror and suspense. He is, quite simply, one of the best in the business.”
—St
ephen King
“Ketchum writes with economy and power, in sentences that tighten like noose wire.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Ketchum [is] one of America’s best and most consistent writers of contemporary horror fiction.”
—Bentley Little
“Just when you think the worst has already happened…Jack Ketchum goes yet another shock further.”
—Fangoria
“Ketchum’s prose is tight and spare, without a single misplaced word.”
—Cinescape.com
“For two decades now, Jack Ketchum has been one of our best, brightest, and most reliable.”
—Hellnotes
“A major voice in contemporary suspense.”
—Author Ed Gorman
“Jack Ketchum is a master of suspense and horror of the human variety.”
—Midwest Book Review
Other Leisure Books by Jack Ketchum:
TRIAGE (anthology)
OFFSPRING
OFF SEASON
THE GIRL NEXT DOOR
SHE WAKES
PEACEABLE KINGDOM
RED
THE LOST
Copyright
A LEISURE BOOK®
June 2008
Published by
Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
200 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Old Flames copyright © 2008 by Dallas Mayr
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