The Woman

by Jack Ketchum

  Maybe he has some kind of sister-in-spirit here, maybe that’s it.

  Maybe he sees something in her that he also sees in himself — only purer of purpose, sleeker in its aggressive design. He loves his own aggression. It’s made him what he is today.

  Maybe he’s doing this because he loves himself. His pure self. The self without the makeover.

  It’s possible.

  He hammers the bolt home.

  SEVENTEEN

  And there they were again today like any other day, all those dopey sweet hormone-driven bubblegum-popping teenage girls with their tight jeans and tight bottoms filing out of her classroom with sidelong glances at the boys — and she wished she’d looked like some of them at that age truth be told, it had taken her four years of aerobics and yoga and fat-burning and nickel-and-diming on her diet to get to where she was today. Which admittedly was pretty good. But still…

  There they were, all those girls. And there was Peggy Cleek. Faded hoodie and sweatpants again. Posture all gone to hell just like some of the freshman girls who were trying to hide their new-blooming breasts, who didn’t yet get what their assets were going to be.

  Hiding.

  It came to her all at once like some kind of Zen slap. She knew enough about how her particular brain worked to suspect that it had been forming for quite a while, an uneasy intuition. But now there it was.

  “Can I talk to you for a minute, Peg?”

  “I don’t want to be late for next period, Miss Raton.”

  “I’ll write you a note. Sit down for a sec, would you?”

  She sighed and sat, slumped forward. Like she’s trying to crawl into herself, she thought. Genevieve sat at the desk in front of her, straddling the chair to face her. She studied the girl’s face a moment and realized something.

  She reminds me a little of Dorothy Burgess. My first.

  It was sad how that had ended.

  “You alright?” she said.

  “I’m fine. Why?”

  She smiled, trying to relax her. The girl was tight as a guitar string.

  “How come you’re dressing like this lately?”

  She shrugged.

  “I’m sorry, Peggy. But the only reason a girl your age would cover up this much is if she had something to cover up. You didn’t until just recently.”

  “I don’t get what you mean, Miss Raton.”

  “Nausea. Baggy clothes. Mrs. Jennings tells me you’ve been sitting out gym for weeks now. Peg, I’m not stupid.”

  Though I have been, for not getting this sooner. That, and for not anticipating her reaction.

  Defensive is what she’d expected. What she got was hostility.

  “Why don’t you mind your own business, Miss Raton!”

  Okay. She rolled with that one.

  “You are my business,” she said. “You’re my student. You used to be one of my very best students. Who’s the father?”

  “Father? You’re crazy!”

  “I’d like to speak with your parents, Peg.”

  It was as though she’d smacked her across the face. She stood suddenly rigid at her desk and then took one step backward.

  “No. Don’t do that,” she said. “Listen, I’ve got to get to class…”

  She picked up her backpack and turned to go.

  “Wait. Hold on. Let me write you that note.”

  She’s trembling , she thought. Her whole body’s trembling. She’s scared.

  Very scared.

  Leave it go, Genevieve. Don‘t push her. At least not for now.

  Still, she took her time walking back to her desk and even more time scribbling out the note to her teacher. She wanted to let the girl think about it for a moment or two. To let her calm down a bit. She shouldn’t have to go to another class this way. It was possible she shouldn’t have to go to another class at all.

  “I’d like you to consider confiding in me, Peggy,” she said. “It helps to have someone to talk to sometimes, you know?”

  She didn’t answer. Genevieve hadn’t expected her to. She handed her the note. The girl practically ran for the door.

  She said, “Any time you want.”

  ~ * ~

  Belle sat in the late afternoon sunshine streaming through her living room window, feeding blue cotton fabric through her mother’s old Singer, keeping a practiced even pressure on the pedal. Chris had wanted to buy her a Brother computerized-type model last Christmas but she’d said no, her mother’s machine still worked just fine thank you very much. Bad enough there were already three computers in the house — one in Peg’s room, one in Brian’s room and one in Chris’ study — and bad enough they each had cell phones too and a flat-screen Blu-ray TV that looked like something out of Star Trek and an answering machine with caller ID and call waiting. The modern age could stop at sewing.

  Normally it was something she enjoyed. The last time she’d done any sewing was for Darleen’s Halloween costume. Darleen wanted to be Peter Pan. They reminded her that Peter Pan was actually a little boy but she was adamant. So Peter Pan it was. And the first time she’d used her mother’s machine was on the pattern for a wrap skirt for her sister Suzie when they were both just teenagers, Belle the elder by three years. Suzie had loved it. But her sister had moved to Dead River, Maine and wasn’t speaking to her anymore. Not for several months now. Not since Thanksgiving dinner down there when Chris, slightly in his cups, had insinuated that her husband Willie, a garage mechanic or grease monkey as he tended to put it, was a loser. He and Willie had almost come to blows. Well, Willie was a loser. But Chris didn’t have to announce it over Thanksgiving dinner.

  But today she wasn’t enjoying sewing at all. It was the why of it.

  The dress was simple, easy to make.

  But the dress was for that woman.

  ~ * ~

  Brian loved the power-sound of it. The hiss of water and the growl of the generator and now too the pounding against the plywood that reduced the dogs’ frenzied barking to mere background noise. Paint-chips flew off the old weathered board.

  “Dial it down,” his father said. “But not too much.”

  ~ * ~

  She hears a strange sound coming from outside or perhaps a mix of sounds none of which she understands except for the barking of the dogs. Her head is pounding. She pulls hard against her restraints but there is no give this time. She waits. There is nothing to do but wait.

  She has learned patience on the hunt. And vigilance.

  EIGHTEEN

  Cleek and Brian lug the generator down the stairs. Heavy sonovabitch, Brian thinks. Brian’s got the top and most of the weight is at the bottom but even so. They set it down and his dad takes one more drag off the Winston dangling from his lips and tosses it away.

  The woman’s watching them. Giving them the evil eye.

  “Make sure the extension’s secure up there and then go inside and fetch your mom and Peg.”

  “Can’t I help?”

  “You helped plenty. Go on.”

  The woman’s still glaring at them and his father’s leaned down to flip the switch of the pressure washer’s onboard storage tank of cleaning solution to the ON position so Brian takes that opportunity to pick up his dad’s butt, still smoldering, and flick it at her. It hits her in the belly and sparks fly. He grins. She continues glaring. He gathers she doesn’t like him. So what.

  Inside the house mom’s at the sewing machine.

  “Dad’s ready for you,” he says.

  “’I‘ll be finished here in just a minute.”

  “He wants Peg too.”

  “Well, get her.”

  He goes to the stairs and yells. “Hey Peg! Dad wants you!”

  Belle’s voice is angry behind him. Like she’s speaking through gritted teeth.

  “Brian, go up and get her. Do not scream in my house.”

  “Sorry,” he says.

  But he isn’t sorry. He’s pissed off. His sister gets to go down there while he doesn’t. Why? Because he’
s got a prick, that’s why. Well so does his fucking father. And what’s the big deal anyway? He’s already seen pretty much all there is to see of her. Except for her ass. And her cunt.

  He didn’t dare look that far when he was cleaning up in front of her. He knew his dad was watching. But thinking about what he didn’t see is making him hard again. Funny how that takes the edge off his anger.

  Peg’s at the top of the stairs.

  “What now?” she says.

  ~ * ~

  She wants no part of any of this. She wants to wish it away. All of it. Maybe her entire life. But if it wasn’t clear to her before it’s crystal clear nowadays that wishing is like praying and you had to be blind or stupid or both to do either. So she follows her mother down the stairs.

  Her father is fitting a black low-pressure nozzle into the spray wand. Thank god for that at least. She’s used the pressure washer on her father’s car and knows that even a medium pressure nozzle has enough kick to it to bring down a low-flying bird. You don’t play spray-me-with-the-garden-hose with that thing.

  Her father looks up and smiles.

  “There’s my girls. All done, Belle?”

  “Yes.”

  She holds the dress out for him to see.

  “Great.”

  Her father produces a pocket knife and snaps open the blade and walks over to the woman chained against the wall. She can see the woman tense. She can feel herself tense. She can’t for the world imagine herself in her position.

  This is awful.

  Her father cuts away the rag at her hips and the woman is naked. Wholly naked for the first time and she glances at the thicket between her thighs but it’s only a glance. It’s her face that compels her. She does not see vulnerability in that face. She’s not sure what she sees. Only that the woman is looking directly into her eyes now and Peg is amazed at herself because she’s able to meet and hold that gaze which is at once predatory as a hunting bird’s yet open as a child’s.

  The woman’s nose twitches.

  Her eyes move down Peg’s body. To her belly.

  To the mound of her belly invisible beneath the hoodie.

  Impossibly, softly, she says, “bah-bee.”

  Peg flinches.

  There’s the urge to just goddamn run. To just get the hell out of there. Yet she’s aware that this is not an accusation, not a confrontation, nothing like that. This is not like Miss Raton today. This is something else entirely. Did she mishear it or imagine it or was there pleasure in her voice? Who and what is this woman?

  Nobody else seems to even have noticed. Her father’s walking slowly around her, inspecting her. Her mother is watching her father.

  She can read her mother’s expression.

  Not good.

  The woman’s eyes are still fixed on her belly.

  She’s almost grateful when her father holds out the woman’s filthy rag to her.

  “Take that out to the burn barrel,” he says. “Torch it, then come on back.”

  “Yes.” she says. “Okay, I will.”

  ~ * ~

  Cleek looks to his wife, who is frowning, her arms crossed over her chest, hugging the dress.

  “You got something on your mind, Belle?”

  “Do we really need Peg down here? She’s sixteen.”

  “You think she doesn’t get an eyeful in the girls’ locker room?”

  “That’s different. Those are girls. This is a…”

  “Woman. Yes, I know. I’m aware of that. Hey Belle?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do me a favor and leave this to me, okay?”

  He thinks, always in my face. If it’s not one thing it’s a goddamn ‘nother.

  He puts on the work gloves and checks the old rusty drain in the floor. It’s clear. He picks up the spray wand. He turns on the pressure washer and pulls the trigger.

  Cold soapy water blasts the woman in a sixty-five degree arc all up and down her body. It buffets her flesh like a wind-whipped flag. He’s never seen anything quite like it before except in those movies where some guy’s being subjected to g-force acceleration. She’s closed her eyes against it and closed her mouth against it and she’s tossing her head side to side. When it hits her chafed bloody wrist she opens her mouth and screams.

  He lets go of the trigger.

  He turns to his wife and smiles. Or sort of half-turns. Because he‘s sporting an erection you‘d have to be dead to miss. He wasn’t aware of it but Belle’s stepped back nearly all the way to the stairs. She almost returns the smile, she takes a shot at it, but not quite.

  “Let’s see how we did,” he says.

  The woman is shaking her head and sputtering out the white film of water that slides down her body from head to toe. He has a look.

  “Not bad,” he says. “Need to get her back though. And then for some of this, need to get in closer.”

  ~ * ~

  Brian’s throwing free throws when Peg walks back from the burn barrel. Darlin’s trying to rebound for him. Which means chasing a ball she can barely get her arms around. Brian’s tolerating this.

  They all hear the woman scream and it stops them dead. Darlin’s brow furrows like it does when she’s puzzled. Peg’s brother only smiles at her.

  “I always miss out on the good stuff,” he says.

  “That’s the good stuff? What the fuck is wrong with you, Brian? Jesus!”

  She trudges back toward the cellar.

  “Peg said a bad word,” she hears her sister say behind her.

  Which one? she thinks. Fuck or jesus?

  In the cellar she’s immediately aware of two things. First, her mother has moved so far away from this she’s practically on the steps. She’s clutching at the dress so hard her knuckles are white. Second, her father has moved in close, he’s only a few feet away now and the water is pounding at the woman, her face pure agony as he moves the wand from her crotch to her thighs to her belly to each of her breasts and back down again, hurried strokes like he’s painting some wall except that this wall is moving, writhing with each stroke of the wand that‘s got to be torture on her skin, the dressing from her side wounds sodden at her feet. She watches this and can practically feel it on her own skin like she’s the woman and the woman’s her and sees the woman’s eyes go to the two of them standing back by the stairs and silently plead with them.

  She’s saying something. Or trying to say something. “Maithairs,” she hears but that’s all.

  Her father varies his stroke. Up her breast and up her arm…to her wrist. The wrist she reached for him with, the hand that grabbed him. Her wrist black now with caked blood frothing white. The woman howls, absolutely screeches. Gasps. And then howls again and it’s fucking huge. Peg has never heard a sound like this and never, ever wishes to hear it again.

  “Daddy, please! Daddy! Stop! She’s hurt! YOU‘RE HURTING HER!”

  She’s never made quite so big a sound herself.

  He releases the trigger, turns to her. She guesses she’s surprised him. Well, she’s surprised herself. And mom too. Mom’s looking at her like, is this my daughter? My little Peggy? Who played so quietly as a child I had to check her in her playpen to make sure she was alive? Or so the story went.

  “Please, dad. Please. Enough.”

  Her father looks…dazed or something. Like she’s broken him out of some strange deep concentration. He shakes his head.

  “She’s not clean,” he mutters and turns on the spray again.

  Pummels her wrist again.

  And there’s that pig-being-slaughtered screech again.

  “Fuck this!” Peg yells and turns for the stairs. He mother tries to stop her but it’s only halfhearted. Her mother’s hands fall away almost as soon as they touch her. But her father’s heard her too and he’s turned off the spray.

  “Get your ass back down her, Peg. Goddammit!”

  And she’s halfway up the stairs knowing her father’s right behind her, that her mother won’t try to hold him there either
, won’t dare to, when she hears something that stops them all.

  From the woman. In a very small voice. A voice thick with tears.

  “P-puhleese.”

  They’re all turned to her then. Did she really say that? Peg thinks. Was that our language? Please? She’s nodding to them. She says it again. The sound of it makes her heart race.

  “P-uhleese.”

  Her father smiles and drops the pressure wand clattering to the wet cellar floor.

  “Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch,” he says. “Belle? Peg? Go get some towels. And the first aid kit. We’ll need to patch her up again.” He shakes his head. “I’ll be a pure damn son of a bitch!”

  NINETEEN

  The girl’s actions have surprised her. She has begged them both for aid (“Will you help me, mother?”) but has not actually expected it. She is grateful. And very much wounded. Everything stings. Her entire body. She feels rubbed raw as if by sand. She’s freezing. Her breasts ache. Her hair hangs wet in her eyes so that she can barely see and she has not yet the strength to shake it free.

  The man steps closer. Licks some spittle off his lips.

  The man is a dog with the foam of madness on his lips.

  ~ * ~

  “Finally had enough, have you?” he says.

  “Puh-leese.”

  She says it a third time. To him. Just him.

  “I take well to manners,” he tells her.

  He goes to the winch and cranks it down. Lets some of that tension out of her arms — so that they’re suspended at around shoulder length. He’s giving her a gift. A little bit of comfort.

  He can see that she appreciates it too, relief apparent on her face.

  They’re making friends here.

  Belle walks down with the first aid kit and towels. Peg’s not with her. He decides to let Peggy skate on this one at least for the time being. No point making another scene down here. He’ll have a talk with his damn daughter later.

  “Dry her off,” he says.

  His wife hesitates.

  “Her arms. You loosened her arms?”

  “Don’t worry.”