Captors

by Farris, John

  A good night for an elopement, she thought. But she couldn't make herself believe it. Dev had not looked like a man on his way to a hasty wedding. And Carol would never—

  She drifted out into the hall, chilled, and closed Kevin's door behind her.

  The hall lights went off suddenly, without a preliminary flicker, leaving her in blackness. She had been half expecting this but she shuddered just the same.

  The lights came on within a few seconds.

  And went out again before she could adjust.

  Then they blinked to life and glowed dismally, precariously low, so low that she scarcely cast a shadow as she walked toward her room.

  There was a forceful easing in the storm, a taut suspension of the rain. Felice looked at a high window, reflectant, rain trails like molten metal upon it. In the lull she found it hard to breathe. She was aware of a fury above her, of the worst of the storm to come, and she wanted to be in her bed.

  Someone came in downstairs. She heard the whack of the screen door on the back porch, a sweet tinkling from the wind chimes.

  Felice turned and went to the head of the stairs. As she reached them, the weak lights gave up and it was black again. Her eyes smarted; she saw an afterglow, a scintillating rainbow.

  "Carol?" she inquired, listened. No reply. But she heard—

  There was no way to be sure; the rain was hitting again. A kind of snuffling groan, then labored effortful sounds. Then she couldn't really hear anything through the rain hiss and cataract. The long silence scared her.

  "Carol!" she said. Hall lights flared on, hurting her eyes. Felice squinted at the floor of the center hall below. No one there. She went down, a slow step at a time. She could see that the front door was closed.

  The lights flickered just before she reached the first floor. Stop it! she thought irritably, as if someone were playing a demented joke. She could feel the beat of her shocked heart in her throat, in her fingertips. She was fainting cold.

  "Carol?" she said, demanded. "Please?"

  From a glint the lights failed completely. Felice froze to the banister. She was listening, listening, but there was nothing to hear. She descended the last three steps. Living room to her right. Windows a torrid whiteness, walls richly blacked with enlivened shadows, but nothing human discernible there.

  "Where are you?" Felice asked, in a voice too choked to be audible more than a few feet away. She heard the back screen, clapping in the wind, the glassy notes of the wind chimes.

  Perhaps, she thought, perhaps someone had gone out and left the door unlatched.

  The lightless seconds dragged on; Felice stood rigidly in the center hall, slowly turning her head. A bolt paled her face to the color of mercury. She caught her breath and became, very gradually, sensible and voluntary. She forced herself to go toward the kitchen.

  It began again, somewhere in front of her.

  Hah—huh-ah. Breathy, explosive.

  She whirled and ran for the front door. Outside something heavy, like a tree limb, crashed, its shadow in glissade across the wind. Felice turned again, seized a metal vase from a table. The weight of it kept her from bolting into hysteria.

  "Carrrrrr—" she screamed.

  Hah, it said to her, grisly, expectant. It was not Carol, she knew that. It couldn't possibly be Carol. Huh, it pleaded.

  Felice beat against the oaken front door, wrestled with the lock. The overhead light came crisply on, throwing her antic shadow to the ceiling. Behind her, in the kitchen, the thing dropped with a clump and a clatter, as if overwhelmed by the presence of light. It groaned.

  Felice set off down the long hall to the kitchen, momentarily impelled by terror to find out what was possessing her.

  She halted in the doorway, saw it lying near the sink. She didn't hear her own sucked-in scream.

  There was a muddy track on the vitreous tiles. He had been drenched by the rain. His hands and feet were lumped with mud. He sat up with a gruesome strained elegance like an aged man welcoming sickroom visitors. The rain had partly cleansed his face but there were dark gobbets of blood everywhere. Blood had come from the ear suspended Dali-like and obscenely auditory by a scrap of tough gristle; from the steep gash which exposed pearly teeth deep in his jaw; from multiple stab wounds and a cut throat. He tried valiantly to speak to her. But obviously his vocal cords had been severely damaged, or sliced in two.

  "Dev," Felice said, in a small absolutely toneless voice. The lights glistered sadly.

  Hah, he breathed, and fresh blood welled from the stab wound in his throat. With his knees under him he was able to get to his feet. When he had made it, there was a look on his face similar to joy. The lights faded and faded until Felice couldn't see his face anymore. She sobbed for him.

  "Dev, I'll help you!"

  The back screen plopped open. Felice turned dumbly at the sound. Hurt as he was, Dev caught it too. There was a suppurating sound of terror in his ruined throat.

  Kitchen lights surged and flagged in a confusing flicker. A bedraggled figure stood on the back porch, peering in at them.

  "Carol," Felice said, gladly. The kitchen went dark.

  She came toward them, breathing hard. Felice heard her wet shoes squeaking on the floor, slowly at first, then more urgently. "Carol," Felice said again, "help us! Dev is—" The lights flashed around them. She was almost there. Her eyes were lidless, sharp-edged. Her face was half masked by wet tendrils of blonde hair. She looked like something drowned and washed up by the sea. She had a butcher knife in one hand.

  Dev raised a protectionless hand. She stopped, just beyond his reach, totally intent on him. His own eyes were mad with fright. She gathered herself, made a clean decisive lunge with the knife, putting muscle into her attack. His head was nearly severed by the blade. As he fell grotesquely, leaving a bouquet of fresh blood on her blouse, she slashed a second time at him. Then she turned and calmly threw the knife into the sink. The metal vase which Felice had been holding dropped and rolled aimlessly on the floor.

  She glanced once at Felice. "Get back out of the way," she said, preoccupied.

  Felice, no longer thinking for herself, obeyed.

  "That finished him," Felice heard her say grittily. Blood was pooling on the floor. Dev's head was at a terrible angle. She looked up, trembling, with an air of casual lunacy.

  "I said he's dead, Mother. I've killed him." Her lips turned up rather slyly, but she was too inflamed by the act of killing for laughter.

  "Now I expect you'll have to help me get rid of him."

  Chapter Sixteen

  Wednesday, July 10

  Babs hated the stairs and went up them as seldom as possible, but sometimes, when Jim left in the early morning for the prearranged place to await the call from the boys, she had to take the breakfast tray up herself. It also had become necessary at other times—more frequent lately—during the tedious afternoons and evenings when Jim was work-mg and couldn't be bothered. She would begin to feel lonesome because it was contrary to her nature to forego company for so long a time. What she craved and needed was girl talk. When the craving became a misery she would make the considerable effort required to climb the stairs again.

  Babs was five feet eight inches tall and she weighed two hundred and eighty pounds; most of the excess pounds were in her hips and butt. Her hips were three-quarters of an inch wider than the walled staircase, so she was forced to climb sideways, inching up with her back pressed against one wall. That made it awkward for her to lift the lead foot to the next riser, and there was always a dangerous moment when she was tilting downward, unsure of her balance. Because of its narrowness the staircase lacked a railing, which would have given her something to hold onto. When she had a loaded tray in her two hands she just held her breath and prayed that she wouldn't fall, because she had a very weak back and once down she couldn't get up without help.

  On the morning following the storm which knocked out the lights and the TV in the middle of Woman of the Year, her favorite Tracy-Hepb
urn flick, Jim left in an easter-egg dawn and she made the trip upstairs to the white bedroom, crabwise, not spilling anything this time, and said hello as cheerily as always.

  Only a burning silence from the bed. Babs, although she didn't show it, was crestfallen, because she'd hoped to sit awhile and visit and catch her breath. Jim had groceries to buy and wouldn't be back for at least an hour. There were still FBI men in the area (although probably the number became less each day) so the route had to be changed each time. Each disguise was different. This morning he had created jowls for himself by packing Silly Putty into his cheeks, padded his belly, tackied up his eyebrows and bulbed his nose. He had driven Uncle Webb's jaunty Triumph, and he looked like a thousand other slightly disgruntled upper-ech executives off a little early to the suburban offices of the corporations across the river in Westchester.

  Babs was dying to tell all about the disguise; obviously, though, she was not going to be welcome this morning, and she never lingered when she wasn't welcome. Rule Number One in Babs's book.

  With a smile she set the breakfast tray down, opened the windows several inches. The air was cool and windless. She admired the view for a few moments, then returned to the bed.

  "I fixed currant buns this morning," she said. "And plenty of poached salmon. We're all out of English tea, I'm sorry to say—" She was still hopeful of a friendly visit. But she wasn't encouraged so she stopped talking and shrugged, as if she were slightly embarrassed by Carol's obstinacy (what was the point of being chummy one day, and enemies the next?) but still gracious in defeat. She set about unlocking the chain at one end so Carol could get up from the bed and go to the bathroom.

  The arrangement which Jim had decided upon, after Carol had tumbled out the window and nearly broken her neck, was simple and effective. Carol now wore a cyclist's leather support belt with buckles and a steel ring at the back. At night when she was ready to sleep, a chain was passed through the ring. The chain bisected the bed lengthwise and was locked to the frame at either end. There was enough play for Carol to sleep on her side if she felt like it: she was really much more comfortable that way, although she complained often about the wide, close-fitting belt, which she said made it difficult for her to breathe. Once the chain was fastened she couldn't leave the bed, or even sit up.

  Her wrists were always manacled now, with eighteen inches of chain between the bracelets so she could feed and clean herself: she wore the stainless steel manacles even when bathing. Jim had provided manacles for her ankles as well, but they were used only on occasion.

  When Carol was to be taken downstairs for sun on the sky-lighted porch, she was made to step over the wrist chain. Then her hands were drawn up behind her back and the chain fastened to the ring with a small padlock. Jim had explained to her that any attempt to escape meant the drugs would be resumed, with a needle if necessary. Carol had no idea of what her captivity with the drugs had been like; only a stubbornly sore throat remained as a memento. But that, along with what she had been told of the near hanging, was enough to frighten her into obedience.

  After the accident they'd given her no drugs except a necessary pain killer and, later, when it seemed that she might be developing pneumonia, Babs had used antibiotics freely. For four days Carol had had someone with her constantly because of sporadic, potentially fatal hemorrhaging in the throat. Each time she awakened she was sick to her stomach from the swallowed blood. She was often delirious and dangerously weak; Babs, the little doctor, was glumly afraid they would lose her. It had been so close anyway; another half minute of hanging by her neck and she surely would have strangled. But Jim had risked his own neck and averted a terrible tragedy and now Carol was recovering. Her throat was still in poor shape but not abscessed. When her appetite improved she would gain strength. At Babs's insistence she was doing simple exercises to maintain muscle tone.

  Mentally she was better too; although she still had her confused and depressed times. Babs wondered what kind of day this would turn out to be. Maybe, she thought, an extra treat would be good for Carol's morale.

  As soon as she was freed, Carol walked slowly and wordlessly to the john. Babs busied herself at the chiffonier and selected new lingerie, a clean shirt and a pair of slacks for her, arranged the things on the bed. Carol came back with her face washed and glistening and looked hollowly at the clothing.

  "You don't have to do that, Babs. You're not my maid."

  "Oh, that's all right, Carol. Don't let your breakfast get cold."

  Carol sat down on the bed and uncovered the food. The rising sun had filled the room with a golden light that was very flattering to Carol, Babs thought. But she wished with all her heart that there was something they could do about those bronzy circles under her eyes. Probably Carol needed shots of B12 and iron. Babs had been tempted to give her a rejuvenating shot, the whole works, including ACTH, Demerol, DEX, vitamins, calcium gluconate and gamma globulin, but she doubted if Carol's system could stand the "buck," or abrupt acceleration. Let mother nature take her course, Babs decided. Good food, fresh air, sunshine. Carol's tan was coming along: a couple of hours on the porch this afternoon and she would be almost as dark as the day she arrived.

  Carol ate only a little breakfast but drank all of the orange juice Babs had painstakingly squeezed for her. She seemed listless and yawned a lot, as if she hadn't slept. No wonder, with that king-size storm banging around God's heaven half the night. Babs told her how scared she'd been: "I would've hid in a closet if I could have found one big enough to fit me." Carol nodded thoughtfully, as if she hadn't noticed the humor in that remark, and asked what day it was. Babs told her. Carol tried to figure it out.

  "That makes—fifteen days, doesn't it? No, sixteen."

  "Seventeen," Babs said apologetically. "It'll be three weeks Sunday." She laughed; she had a happy little girl's laugh. "We'll have a cake," she said. "With candles on it." Carol didn't seem to be listening. She was staring out the windows at the muted blue sky and a milky cloud.

  "We ought to put some curtains over those windows," Babs said. "I'll bet you didn't get a wink of sleep."

  "I don't know," Carol said indifferently. "I wouldn't have slept anyway. I was thinking. I wished—"

  "What?" Babs asked, after a wait.

  Carol looked patiently at her, then through her. "I wanted one of those bolts of lightning to come through the roof and strike me dead. So it would be over with." She spoke slowly and with a slur. But every day her diction had improved. For a week following the accidental hanging she hadn't been able to utter an intelligible sound. "I can't understand why you worked so hard to keep me alive." Her eyes were fuming, exhausted. "You'll just have to kill me anyway."

  "Kill you?" Babs said, appalled. "Oh, Carol, what put an awful idea like that in your head?"

  Carol's expression altered gradually; she looked stricken, as if she were being mocked, and then hideously angry—anger paralyzed every muscle in her face. She raised her manacled hands deliberately, shook the chain until she couldn't catch her breath and all but fainted from the exertion.

  Babs was grimacing. "I told you I was sorry about the chains! They're just to keep you from, you know, running off until—until after—until it's time to let you go. Carol? Please! My Lord, we're not—we wouldn't think of—Jim's a pacifist, you know that! He's nonviolent. Look, I was almost a doctor. I believe in the Hippocratic Oath, that oath is as sacred to me as the Lord's own Prayer! I mean, I don't go as far as Schweitzer. Sometimes there are good reasons for letting a spirit out of a body that's corrupting it, but—"

  "Oh, Babs, shut up," Carol said ruthlessly, and sat down on the bed to cry.

  Babs felt vulnerable enough to cry herself, but she controlled the wobble in her big chin and said in an injured tone, "You're safe with us, Carol. Gosh, you're just as safe as you'd be in a convent, and boy, I can tell you about convents."

  "Maybe," Carol gasped, "you d-don't have anything to say about whether I live or die." She stopped crying as abruptly as s
he had begun, looking dewy and overheated. But the hiccups happened on schedule.

  "Whup-whu-whup what abou-bout the rest of your gang? Huh? What about Handsome Dan, or whatever his name is?"

  "Turo? Turo certainly wouldn't hurt you. He's got the biggest crush—"

  Carol dabbed her wet eyes with a tissue. "He does?"

  "He's flipped over you! Gosh, how did you miss that?"

  Carol said in a pathetic voice, "I've been sick." And she laughed, a bawl of laughter that brought fresh tears. Babs giggled along with her, holding her belly with both hands, like Santa Claus in children's Christmas books.

  "That's—uh—an interesting piece of—huc –news," Carol said, stopping the flow at last. She had a long drink of water. Her ears remained scarlet, but otherwise her normal color had returned. Babs wiped at the tears on her own cheeks and dried her hand on the half acre of gray denim skirt she wore. "Where is Turo?" Carol asked. "Haven't seen him—huc!–oh, shit—lately."

  "Oh, he's—" Babs clammed up rather obviously and snitched the breakfast Danish which Carol hadn't wanted. When she'd eaten it she licked her fingers and said, "I'm going to ask Jim if you can come down the rest of the day. Do you want me to help you change clothes now?"

  "In a minute. Babs?"

  "Yo.”

  Carol was looking very seriously at her, with just a trace of sternness. "I'd say we were friends, wouldn't you?"

  Bab's face took on a shine. "Gosh, I hope so. After what we've been through together."

  "If it wasn't for you I wouldn't have survived. I owe my life to you, I know that, and I'm sorry I said—what I said about being killed; it was flaky of me and I didn't really mean it. I was just depressed. I think I'm about ready to start my period, or something. I needed a good cry."