999

by Al Sarrantonio

  Paone’s thoughts seemed to slowly flatten. “What’s this … Escaped?”

  The nurse was smiling now. She opened a pair of black-framed glasses and put them on Paone’s face. …

  The blurred room, at last, came into focus.

  What the fuck is this?

  A tracked curtain surrounded him, as he would expect on an ICU ward, but then he noticed something else. It wasn’t an X-ray nozzle that hung overhead; it was a retractable boom, complete with microphone. And one of the IV stands wasn’t an IV stand at all; it was a stand for a directional halogen light.

  “What the hell kind of hospital is this!” Paone demanded.

  “Oh, it’s not a hospital,” Willet said. “It’s a safe house.”

  “One of Don Dario Bonte’s safe houses,” the nurse was delighted to add.

  Willet again. “And we’re his private medical staff. Generally our duties are rather uninvolved. When one of the don’s men gets shot or hurt, we take care of him, since the local hospital wouldn’t be safe.”

  Bonte, Paone thought in slow dread. Dario Bonte—Vinchetti’s only rival …

  “And the police were all too happy to hand you over to our goodly employer,” Willet continued. “Half of the state police are on Don Bonte’s payroll … and this way, the suffering taxpayers are spared the cost of a trial.”

  Paone felt like he was about to throw up his heart.

  The nurse’s breasts shook when she giggled. “But we’re not just going to kill you—”

  “We’ve got some interesting games to play before we do that,” Willet said. “See, our job was to make sure you survived until Junior could get here—”

  A door clicked open, and then the nurse reeled back the curtain to reveal a typical basement. But that was not all Paone saw. Standing in the doorway before some steps was a frightfully muscular young man with short dark hair, chiseled features and—

  Aw sweet Jesus holy shit—

  —and a crotch so packed it looked like he had a couple of potatoes in his pants.

  “Three guesses why they call him Junior,” the nurse giggled on.

  “And three more guesses as to what happens next,” Willet said. Now he had shouldered a high-end Sony Betacam. “You see, Mr. Paone, your boss may own the market share for child pornography, but our boss owns a share of the rest. You know, the really demented stuff. And as a gut-shot amputee, you’ll be able to provide us with a very special feature, don’t you think?”

  Paone vomited on himself when Junior began to lower his jeans. The nurse jammed a needle into Paone’s arm, not enough sodium amytal to knock him out, but just enough to keep him from putting up much of a fight. Then the nurse took off his restraints and flipped him over.

  “Don Bonte doesn’t like child pomographers,” she said.

  The stitches across Paone’s abdomen began to pop, and he could hear Junior’s footsteps approach the bed.

  “As they say,” Willet enthused: “Lights, camera, action!”

  P. D. Cacek

  THE GRAVE

  I admit, with some head-hanging, that I had to he pointed in P. D. Cacek’s direction. One of the main reasons for the existence of my acknowledgments page at the front of this book is to pay thanks to certain people for “giving” me writers that would have slipped through the cracks in my brain (there are many such). For some reason Trish’s work (she told me I could call her Trish), which has apparently caught fire recently (a novel, Night Prayers, has been compared to Nancy Collins’s Sonja Blue books, and there is also a story collection, Leavings), had escaped me. She is one of those writers whom Charles L Grant would have lovingly tended in the garden of his Shadows series, and her clear head and careful, mood-evocative prose, immediately evident when I read “The Grave,” were a breath of fresh air.

  If you don’t agree, you’re wrong.

  It was as if someone had suddenly wrapped a thick layer of cotton around her. Things that had been ordinary and familiar became muted and removed.

  If she hadn’t been so frightened she might have even laughed at the feeling. Not that it was an entirely unpleasant sensation.

  She could still hear the birds singing in the thick, autumn-bright canopy above her and identify each sweet trill and warble, caw, churr, chirp and whistle. She could smell the moss and moisture from the stream as it gurgled through the shallows not twenty feet behind her and she could feel the whispered urgency of the wind reminding her that she really should be heading home for supper. These things were familiar. These things had accompanied her for the last fifteen years as she walked the wooded path to and from her position as Bryner Elementary School’s Head Librarian.

  These things she heard and smelled and felt.

  But she saw only the tiny grave.

  The imaginary feel of cotton tightened around her.

  For fifteen years she had walked that same path through the woods, had heard the same noises, felt the same seasonal changes, but until today she had never noticed it. Never saw it.

  The grave.

  It was a child’s grave, she was sure of that even though she had no reason to be. Alone and abandoned and forgotten, the grave was tucked back into the shadows at the far end of a narrow gully; the tiny dirt mound in front of the weathered pink headstone

  pink is for girls

  all but eroded by the countless seasons

  how many

  of rain and snow and drought while she, and who knows how many others, passed by.

  What kind of mother would bury her child, alone, in the woods? What kind of mother would do such a thing?

  A bad mother, Elizabeth Hesse thought as she looked down at the little grave, a very bad mother.

  “I would never have done that,” she said out loud. “I would have been a good mother.”

  But even as she said the words she knew it wasn’t true, because a good mother would have seen the grave before this.

  And she hadn’t.

  Until today.

  One of the things she was always telling the children who came into the library was, “Look. See the world. Don’t just wander blindly through it. Notice everything.”

  Wonderful, hypocritical words. She had said them for fifteen years, every day for fifteen years … and still she hadn’t noticed anything. Hadn’t looked. Had wandered blindly back and forth in front of the grave for fifteen years of her own life and never seen it.

  Until today.

  A small sound began to whisper from Elizabeth’s mouth, but she caught it with her fingers before it escaped. Her hand still smelled of the tuna sandwich she’d had for lunch; the fish oil stronger than the gardenia-scented liquid soap in the Teacher’s Lounge.

  Her father’s company had sent a spray of gardenias to his funeral. Small and white, they had nevertheless filled the viewing room with their scent. Her mother had complained about that, saying it was overpowering.

  There were no flowers on the small grave, just a thin blanket of autumn leaves.

  It made Elizabeth shiver just looking at it. A good mother would have tried to keep her baby warm. She would have done that if it had been her child. She would have been a good mother. She wouldn’t have buried it in the woods.

  No.

  Elizabeth closed her eyes and let her hand drop to the top button on her cardigan. It wasn’t a real grave. What she had seen, and would see again when she opened her eyes, would be a rock that only looked like a headstone. She hadn’t noticed it before because there was nothing to notice.

  It’s not a grave. It’s not a grave. It’s not—

  Elizabeth kept repeating the words until she opened her eyes. And then the words and hope went away.

  It was a grave … but perhaps only the grave of an animal.

  Yes. That fit. It was the grave of some beloved pet that had died of old age or accident and been buried. Or a favorite dolly.

  Elizabeth sighed. Of course, it had to be a joke or animal’s grave. No mother in her right mind would bury a child so far away �
� from … everything. Alone. Abandoned.

  Forgotten.

  Good mothers just didn’t do that sort of thing. Good mothers protected their children and made sure they were healthy and happy and …

  But if the grave was only a childish fancy, then that meant some mother … some bad mother had let her child wander into the woods.

  Alone!

  Elizabeth turned and glanced quickly up and down the path.

  The children knew they weren’t supposed to play in the woods. It had been the subject of concern for years; probably even as far back as when she was a child. The woods were not safe, they never had been. Her own mother told her that repeatedly.

  Only last November, the second day of the Thanksgiving holiday, Polly Winter, a fourth grader, had broken her ankle while playing a game of Hide-and-Seek with visiting cousins. Elizabeth had seen her just that morning from the library window and she was still limping, nearly a full year later, poor child. Poor, willful child.

  Something rustled in the tall grass near the stand of red-leafed maple directly behind the

  grave

  gully and Elizabeth bit her lip. The woods were not safe. The woods were secluded. The woods were lonely … so very lonely.

  Whatever was in the grave—doll or dog (or child)—it was alone and lonely, too.

  A shiver followed Elizabeth as she stepped from smooth path to rock-rutted gully. Although she moved carefully and cautiously, the way her mother had taught her, her foot almost twisted out from under her and she saw herself sprawled unladylike in the dirt, skirt thrown back, legs spread wide.

  Stop that!

  Elizabeth kept her footing but stopped when another gust of wind rustled the maple leaves in front of her. That was the sound she’d heard. There was no one in the woods besides her. No children, no adults, no one to see her kneel in front of the tiny headstone.

  It was pink granite flecked with black and silver; and it was cold against the palm of her hand, its edges smooth as butter, the chiseled inscription all but obliterated. With one finger, like a kindergartner connecting the dots with an oversized pencil, Elizabeth traced the letters carved into the stone one at a time.

  This was no childish project or joke. No animal rested beneath the stone.

  M. Y. P. R. E. C. I. O. U. S. O.

  “My Precious One.”

  Elizabeth dropped her hand and sat back on her calves, felt the left knee of her nylons pop and send runners halfway up her thigh.

  The grave was real … but she’d never noticed it before. But more importantly, none of the generations of schoolchildren she told to “Hush” and “Be quiet” had noticed it either.

  And Heaven knows they noticed everything else worth whispering about during Free Reading Time: the broken water main that flooded out the toy shop, the broken-down car, the funny-looking cloud that had been all purple and orange, the new traffic lights, the old park benches, the way the sky looked before it snowed. They noticed everything but the grave. And they should have.

  Because a grave, a real grave, was something much too wonderful and much too terrible not to talk about.

  Rustling again. And not the wind. This time directly behind her. Louder. Closer. Rustle. Rustle. Thump. Thump.

  Footsteps.

  Elizabeth twisted toward the sound and leaned back against the small headstone. Protectively. The way a good mother … but not this child’s mother would.

  “Who’s there?” she said in her Librarian’s voice. “Is someone there?”

  Rustle, thump … and what was that? A giggle? Sitting straighter, Elizabeth took a deep breath and began mentally going down her list of school troublemakers.

  “Kenny Wisman, is that you?”

  A brilliant boy with more energy than control, he was always looking for better and bigger pranks to justify his existence. Creating the small grave would be a minor accomplishment for a boy who had not-so-secretly christened her Mz. Hesse-the-Pest.

  “Kenneth? If that’s you, speak up now! I dislike being snuck up upon.” Without thinking, without caring that she might be laughed at, Elizabeth reached back and hugged the headstone. “Show yourself this instant, young man, or else I’ll be forced to call your mother and—”

  A tufted blue jay screeched as it shot, arrowlike, from the underbrush in front of her and she screeched with it. When it called again, it was already a hundred yards away.

  “Foolish,” she said as she turned back to the grave and smiled. “I scared myself, wasn’t that silly of me?”

  Elizabeth brushed a fallen leaf off the stone. Perhaps no one, including herself, had noticed the grave until now because now was when she was supposed to find it. Perhaps it had been waiting all these years until she was ready to find it. To notice it. To care.

  My Precious One.

  “You’re late.”

  Elizabeth carefully hung her shoulder bag on the coat rack and took a deep breath before answering.

  “Yes, Mother. Sorry, Mother.”

  She had said the same thing (yes Mother sorry Mother) for as long as she could remember, with no variations or modifications, but tonight she noticed that the words stuck a little in her throat.

  The same way she noticed how old and used up her mother looked when she walked into the dining room.

  “My God, what have you done now? Just look at your clothes!”

  Despite every effort not to, Elizabeth looked down and felt the same kind of chill that she had at the grave … a cold numbing that seeped through the layers of flesh and bone until it reached her lungs and made her gasp for air. She really was a mess. The hem of her skirt was stained with mud and a dead leaf clung to the ruined stocking just below her left knee. Although she didn’t remember it happening, three buttons on her cardigan had torn away.

  Elizabeth pulled the sweater closed to cover the mud-flecked blouse beneath. Funny, how she didn’t notice when it happened … but, then again, she hadn’t noticed so much before tonight. …

  “What have you done?” her mother asked again, accusing, all but dropping the covered casserole dish on the table when she mirrored Elizabeth’s action and reached up to clutch the front of her housedress.

  “You’ve been raped, haven’t you?” The words were cold and sharp and stinging, and left bruises where they hit. “I warned you about walking through those woods, Elizabeth, and now look what’s happened. You’re ruined. No man will ever look at you again.”

  Elizabeth fingered the broken thread from one of the missing buttons.

  “No, Mother, I wasn’t raped. I—tripped, that’s all. That path was rather muddy.” The chill moved from her lungs, giving Elizabeth a chance to catch her breath, and made itself comfortable in her untouched womb. “I’m fine.”

  “Oh.” With a sigh, her mother dropped her hand and busied herself with the casserole. “Well, dinner is probably ruined thanks to your tardiness. I try to make sure everything is timed perfectly and you think nothing of wandering in whenever it pleases you.”

  “1 didn’t plan on being late, Mother.”

  “That’s no excuse, Elizabeth. Now, go into the kitchen and wash your hands before the stew gets any colder than it already is.” Sitting herself at the head of the table, her mother began ladling out the steaming chunks of meat and vegetables. “I’ll not wait for you if you don’t mind.”

  “No,” Elizabeth said, nodding as she walked to the kitchen. “Of course not, Mother. I wouldn’t expect you to.”

  Her mother grunted something in reply, but Elizabeth decided to not notice.

  The water, though only lukewarm, stung the abrasions on Elizabeth’s hands as she scrubbed them clean. For all of her life her mother had taught her that pain was the only thing you could truly believe. If whatever it was you did didn’t hurt somehow, then it wasn’t worth the effort.

  Her mother had not been a good mother.

  The chill in her womb rolled over lazily, like a kitten stretching in the sun, when Elizabeth turned off the taps and dried her
hands. Her mother didn’t know how to be a good mother.

  Arms straight out in front, fingers pointing to the ceiling, Elizabeth turned her palms toward her and then back. And sighed.

  Her poor hands were clean, but the flesh was red and swollen from the vigorous washing and two nails had snapped off at bizarre angles. She’d have to file and mend them before the Kindergarten’s Story Hour in the morning.

  The older children wouldn’t notice, but the little ones … the babies, they saw everything. She had to be so careful around the babies.

  My Precious One.

  There was the clank and clatter of metal upon china from the dining room—her mother’s subtle way of telling Elizabeth she was taking much too long at the assigned task.

  But the clinking and clatter didn’t stop when Elizabeth got back to the table.

  “You didn’t bring the dinner rolls, Elizabeth.”

  Elizabeth let her throbbing hands settle against the chill in her womb. Her mother was not a good mother … but she’d show her, she’d show her. “I didn’t know I was supposed to, Mother.”

  Her mother’s fork hit the side of the dinner plate and made it sing. “Well, isn’t that just like you? I would have thought a grown woman, a supposedly mature woman would have taken it upon herself to notice if the dinner rolls were on the table or not and do something about it … without having her Mommy have to tell her. My God, Elizabeth, don’t you notice anything?”

  Not until today, Mother.

  Elizabeth couldn’t help but smile as she turned and walked back to the kitchen.

  “And don’t forget the butter,” her mother whined. “You know I like butter on my rolls. And bring the jam. Strawberry. Not the marmalade like last night. Strawberry is for supper, marmalade is for breakfast. It’s not that difficult a thing to remember, so I don’t understand how you manage to forget so often.”

  Elizabeth picked up the jar with the bright red, plumb strawberries—I forget because I don’t like strawberry jam—and dropped it into the sink.

  “Oops.”

  “What was that?”

  “I dropped the jam, Mother. I’m sorry.” The jar of marmalade felt cool against her palm as she carried it, the rolls and butter back to the table. “I’ll pick some more up tomorrow. And don’t worry about the kitchen, I’ll clean it up after dinner. Would you like me to butter you a roll, Mother?”