Deranged

by Lonni Lees

  Outside it was nearly dark, but inside Meg Stinson’s house the lights burned brightly. She sat with Jerry on the couch as Amy continued to sleep in the other room.

  Amy was his angel, just as Sabrina was hers. Amy’s health was poor from the start and her first year was spent in and out of hospitals. Later, other problems surfaced. It was difficult for Meg to come to terms with the fact that the baby she’d left for dead was alive. It was a miracle.

  “Amy is everything to me,” he said.

  “I know.”

  Jerry Hamill’s sincerity moved her.

  Amy entered the room, yawning and rubbing her eyes. Meg rose and knelt down before the child, looking into her face. “Amy, you know what happened in this house, don’t you?”

  “The bad man took the pretty girl.”

  “Who was he?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Amy, where did he take her?”

  “By the Christmas trees.”

  “Where are the Christmas trees?”

  “Two lakes.” She turned to her father. “I don’t feel very good.”

  “Don’t ask her any more questions. I think we should call the police.”

  “And tell them what? That a little girl had a dream? We have to find her before….” She put her hands firmly on Amy’s shoulders. “Where are the lakes? Please, you have to tell me.”

  The corners of Amy’s mouth turned down and her lip quivered. “The bad man yells.”

  “Leave her be,” Jerry said.

  “No, Daddy. We gotta find her.”

  Sabrina and Charlie sat at the kitchen table. He wore the same dirty jeans but a clean t-shirt and appeared unaware of the chill. Sabrina ate her cold meal. Charlie had brought supplies. Her period had ended as abruptly as it had begun and things were looking up. She didn’t ask about the woman at the window. She didn’t want to know.

  “You tried to untie the ropes,” he said.

  “But you don’t need them—see?”

  “…just you and me, Lucy.”

  “Yes.”

  She stared at his face, distorted by the dim light of the candle. You think that I’m your prisoner, she thought, but I’m not. I’m smiling at you, but I’m watching old Miss Cooney eat an Oh Henry®. I’m not alone, not in my head. Meggie is here and Betty and you can’t control that. They’re here, inside of me, all the time.

  “Thank you, Lucy,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “For coming back. It was so empty out there without you.” He reached for her hand across the table. “I never stopped looking, I never stopped missing you.”

  “I’m here now.”

  “And see? I haven’t hurt you, have I? I even threw away the packrat. I been good to you, treated you nice and everything.” He sighed, looking at her pleadingly. “Maybe now you can….” But his voice drifted into silence.

  “I can what, Charlie?”

  But he was gone again, staring into the candleflame. Twitching. He didn’t blink. His breathing was shallow. She thought she saw a tear on his face, but it could have been a trick of the light.

  It didn’t matter.

  She took another bite of her sandwich. When this happens to him, he goes somewhere else, she thought, and it’s not happy there. When I close my eyes, when I try real hard, I float away, beyond this place and I’m free. I am free and he is in a prison.

  The rules of his game still eluded her. It was strange. Bizarre. He wanted his sister, she knew that much. He promised not to hurt her, but she knew when Momma’s voice came that the rules shifted. That’s why he kept hurting himself—so he wouldn’t hurt her. But he could. It was creepy. And there was something else she couldn’t figure out. (Can I what, Charlie?)

  Something important.

  She pushed away from the table, broken glass scrunching beneath her slippers. Charlie cocked his head. As hard as she tried to think like him, insanity gave him the edge. As soon as she thought she’d nailed it, something in his head would shift, exposing another layer of madness, and she’d have to start over.

  She hated him.

  One wrong move, one wrong word and it would be over.

  She could feel his eyes watching her, holding her as tightly as any rope. Her hands felt cold. She shoved them into her pockets. Her fingers felt something—something she’d forgotten was there.

  Her hand closed around the small Girl Scout knife.

  “There’s just too many lakes,” Jerry said, looking at the atlas. “There’s Castaic, that’s close to here.”

  “So’s Lake Hollywood, but there’s no Christmas trees,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Amy said Christmas trees. The lakes around here are warm as bath water and surrounded by scrub. I think we should be looking for mountain lakes.

  “Trees. Two lakes,” Amy said absently. She was sitting between them looking at the sketches pinned to the refrigerator. “You’re an artist,” she said with admiration.

  Meg reached out and stroked her hair. “You’re a beautiful child.” Amy smiled sweetly, then turned her attention back to the drawings.

  Jerry slammed his fist on the table. “There’s lakes everywhere! We don’t even know if they’re in California. They could be in Oregon or Washington. Or anywhere. I don’t know where to start.”

  “California. We have to start someplace. Mountains—Santa Monica, Angeles Crest. There’s Frazier Park—I know there’s trees there. God Jerry, there’s so many. There’s the Sierras, the San Bernardino’s.”

  “Yes, the Sam Berdino’s,” Amy said.

  “Amy, are you certain?”

  “I think so. I think I heard that name…but I’m not sure. I’m scared, Daddy. We gotta find her quick.”

  “Please God, help my baby.”

  “Meg,” said Jerry, “do you have any road maps?”

  “I think Betty might.” She stopped. Her voice choked as she continued. “There might be some in the night stand in the other bedroom…I still can’t go in there.”

  Jerry returned with several folded maps, tossing them on the table. “Bingo,” Meg said, waving the San Bernardino map. Jerry unfolded it. “Well, there’s certainly trees and lakes, lots of them.”

  “Look for two lakes close together—or Twin Lakes, something like that.”

  “Hawk,” Amy said.

  “Hawk Lake, Twin Lakes, two lakes. Damn it Jerry, it’s got to be there. Look!”

  “That’s not helping,” he said calmly.

  Amy put her arms around Meg and hugged her. “It’s okay,” she said. She was as frightened as Meg. If only she’d paid closer attention to the dreams. If only she’d known they were important. Finding the girl, Sabrina, was up to her. They were depending on her and she was scared. “Don’t worry, we’ll find her.”

  Meg burst into tears.

  “…Crestline,” Jerry said. “Big Bear, Green Lake….”

  “It’s hopeless,” Meg sobbed.

  “…Deep Creek, Running Springs, Arrowhead….”

  Amy gasped.

  “All the way to Arrowhead,” she whispered.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Charlie descended deeper and deeper into the bowels of madness, incapable of back tracking to even a flash of lucidity. The deeper he sank into the darkness, the more frightened Sabrina was. He no longer ate. He no longer slept. One moment he was quiet as death, the next babbling and incoherent.

  And there was the rabid, endless pacing.

  And the screams…and Momma’s shrill voice…and the tears. It was unnerving, watching this big, strong man sob like a baby. She didn’t know what to make of it all. Just when she’d think she had a handle on things—that she could calm his rages—everything would turn upside-down again.

  During one of his rants she’d recovered her knife, unnoticed, and had slipped it back into her pocket.

  But the game was impossible when the rules kept changing.

  Sabrina looked at her hands and wondered if they could kill—if that was what re
ally made one brave in this world—if that was what she’d need to do to survive this asylum. It looked so easy in the movies, but this was real. A sick, empty feeling stirred inside of her.

  The birds were silent.

  She looked up.

  Charlie had stopped pacing.

  Jerry Hamill pulled off his tie and threw it on the dashboard. They should have started out earlier, he knew that now. It was his own fault and Meg was frantic. She’d wanted to start out last night—right away—but he’d convinced her to wait until morning. Their search would have been futile in the dark. It seemed an impossible enough task in daylight. After a restless night, they hit the road at 5:30 am. It should’ve easily been a two hour drive from Los Angeles, but this wasn’t the weekend. Jerry hadn’t calculated work-day traffic and it was taking far longer.

  Meg was unable to sit still in the seat next to him, constantly shifting her weight and checking the map.

  It was daylight when the BMW began its ascent up the steep mountain road.

  “Look at all the Christmas trees,” Amy said from where she sat in the back seat. She was laughing. “These are the trees.” The sun burned away the early morning mists and they saw pine trees everywhere.

  When they got to Running Springs, Jerry saw the road sign pointing the direction to Arrowhead. He hung a left. The BMW climbed the twisting mountain road, through vacillating sunlight, through shadows of towering pines, toward their destination. He prayed they were on the right track.

  “Arrowhead,” Amy said, hope in her voice.

  Jerry looked over at Meg and wondered what would happen to her if they couldn’t find Sabrina—or if they were too late. He knew, that in him, she had recruited the most unlikely of saviors—a man who lived in his head—a man whose greatest adventures were played out in law libraries. He was no hero, he knew, but he also knew that he must find Sabrina—for his daughter—for Meg. And the urgency propelled him onward.

  Meg was at her breaking point. She was tense, her features drawn. She fidgeted and hyperventilated. Even little Amy showed more pluck—Meg’s courage was tenuous at best.

  “It’s alright, Meg,” he kept repeating. “We’re going to find her.” But his words were of little comfort.

  “I wanna watch, you rotten little bastard! Do you hear me?” His Momma’s voice pierced the air like an icepick.

  “Good little boys mind their Momma’s!”

  Sabrina cringed. He was pacing again. He swung his arms stiffly from side to side, and with each motion the makeshift bandage loosened from his wounded hand. He clenched his hands into fists and held them over his ears. He moaned, and the moan became a growl, the growl a roar. Momma’s poison burned through his brain.

  Charlie opened his mouth and detonated an explosion of screams.

  Sabrina bolted upright and ran into the bathroom, slamming the door. She pushed her back against the door and gasped for breath. The heavy pounding of her heart reverberated throughout her body.

  This was the most frightening episode yet.

  She shook.

  “God says you better fucking mind your Momma!”

  Then silence.

  Scary silence.

  Sabrina did not move…she did not breathe.

  “Only six more miles,” Jerry said, glancing at the odometer.

  “Hurry, Daddy—she’s scared.”

  Meg covered her face with her hands. “We’re never going to find her.”

  “Damn it, you have to have hope. Hope is all we’re running on and we need all we can muster.”

  “We’ll find her,” Amy said. Her thin fingers reached forward from the back seat and touched Meg on the shoulder.

  Meg covered Amy’s hand with her own.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Charlie slammed his body full weight against the door. Once. Twice. The force threw Sabrina across the room. Hinges tore loose. Wood splinters flew through the air as the crippled door swung inward and crashed top first into the shower stall.

  Sabrina spun around.

  Charlie filled the doorway, arms upraised, hands gripping the door frame like a demented Sampson, chest heaving.

  She was trapped. There was no means of escape. The small bathroom shrunk around her. Charlie’s form loomed like a giant in the narrow doorway. The window was too small—she knew that. The door where Charlie stood was the only way out.

  But he blocked the exit.

  Panting, giggling, eyes glazed.

  He held no weapon.

  He didn’t need one.

  He was a giant and she was twelve years old.

  She was trapped. She didn’t want to die. She had to do something.

  Anything.

  “Roboscout!” she yelled, charging straight at Charlie. Startled, caught off guard, it took a split second for his brain to send the message to his body. He started to lower his arm. To grab at her. But it was too late. She was too fast. She dodged to the side—dove under his arm before his hand could reach her. She yelled again as she ducked past him—“ROBOSCOUT!”—and raced into the other room, aiming for the kitchen.

  Charlie spun around, his long arms stretching toward her. He grabbed her from behind; stopping her in her tracks.

  Sabrina flew through the air, onto her back, across the mattress.

  “Cretin! Bastard!”

  She looked up, into his maniacal, watery eyes.

  Death looked back at her.

  Not now, her mind screamed, not like this.

  Her right hand reached into her pocket.

  “Momma says,” he was saying as he slid across the mattress next to her. He cocked his head sideways. “Listen,” he said. “Can you hear?”

  “No! She’s not here, Charlie. Don’t listen. Don’t….”

  But he moved closer.

  And he was smiling.

  Her heart pounded.

  Her body froze.

  His bandaged hand reached toward her. The reek of infection permeated the space between them, making her gag. Then, his fingers touched her.

  There was no time to think.

  The sharp blade of the Girl Scout knife plunged downward, through the bandage, into his festering wound.

  Amy gasped.

  Charlie shrieked.

  He bolted from the bed and grabbed his wrist—raised his hand above his head and looked up.

  At the seeping blood.

  At the offering.

  He shrieked again—tore off the bandage—stared at his ribboned, rotting flesh—at the fresh stab wound.

  He stood between Sabrina and the kitchen door. Between Sabrina and escape. Between life and death.

  He was sobbing again.

  Like a child.

  Knife in hand, Sabrina ran into the kitchen and through the shards of broken glass.

  To the door.

  She reached for the handle.

  The sounds of scrunch, scrunch, scrunching across the floor behind her.

  Coming closer.

  Closer.

  Charlie grabbed the hand which held the knife and squeezed her wrist.

  “Drop it.”

  “No.”

  He squeezed harder.

  “NO!”

  Maintaining a tight grip around her wrist, his other hand went for the knife. Slowly, one by one, Charlie peeled away her fingers.

  It clattered to the floor.

  Sabrina kicked at the knife.

  Missed.

  He leaned down. Picked it up. Faced her.

  “He has a knife!” Amy yelled from the back seat.

  Meg burst into tears. “We’re too late. Oh God, why? Why, my Sabrina?”

  Jerry’s foot pressed down on the accelerator. Tires screeched around the sharp curves. The car swayed back and forth across the center line, barely missing an oncoming van. Jerry refused to believe that it was too late. If Sabrina died, what would happen to Amy? But he knew. The bond between them was too strong—one could not survive without the other.

  Up the two-lane road, past a sign
which read: Pine Lake, elevation 6,400 feet, and straight through a stop sign.

  Jerry knew that if he could save Sabrina he would save his precious Amy as well.

  “I know that thing,” Amy said, pointing off to the right, to an old wagon wheel leaning against a building. “Daddy, stop! I know that thing.”

  But he was going too fast.

  He took his foot off the gas, allowing the car to slow down some before applying the brakes.

  “Daddy, go back. I knew that.”

  Jerry u-turned, then stepped on the gas. The BMW’s speedometer shot upward.

  “On your side, Daddy. Over there.”

  Jerry lifted his foot from the gas pedal and jerked the steering wheel to the left. “Hang on!” he said—hitting the brake. The car skidded off the road and into the graveled parking lot. He slammed the brake pedal to the floor.

  Gravel flew. The car spun.

  Once. Twice.

  Tilted over onto two wheels as they careened across the lot.

  The BMW slammed against the wagon wheel, then into the corner of the building, thudding down on all four tires.

  Clouds of dust swirled around the car. A broken wagon wheel spoke sailed through the air, then crashed down onto the hood of his car. He looked around to make sure Amy and Meg were unhurt, then unsnapped his seatbelt.

  “The knife,” Amy said.

  Jerry bolted from the car and raced toward the building.

  Charlie pushed Sabrina against the wall, to the left of the kitchen door. He held her there and looked at the knife which he held in his right hand.

  “You promised, Charlie.”

  He looked down at her. At her pretty green uniform. At her pleading eyes.

  “You promised not to hurt me, remember?”

  He appeared puzzled, as if he didn’t know who she was.

  Sabrina looked straight into his frozen gray eyes. “It’s me, Charlie. It’s your Lucy Mae. It’s Lucy.”

  “…won’t hurt you ever again.”

  “That’s right, Charlie. You promised,” she said calmly, but her heart was pounding.