That was where I was when Daddy came home and came looking for me. He stood in the doorway, astounded. “What . . . what’s going on in here?”
“The detectives asked me to go through her things to look for a clue!” I cried. “I got frantic and frustrated. Sorry, Daddy.” I shook my head and shouted, “I didn’t find anything! She didn’t leave a single clue!”
When I began to sob, my shoulders shaking, Daddy rushed in and lifted me off the floor as if I was a little baby. He kissed my cheeks and held me tightly as he carried me out and back to my room.
Mrs. Lofter, hearing all the commotion, came running up the stairs.
“The police asked her to search her sister’s room for some sort of clue,” Daddy told her. I had my face buried against his chest. “She didn’t find anything that would help us. Her heart is broken.”
“Oh, dear me,” Mrs. Lofter said. “Perhaps I was a bit too hard on her today. I’m sorry.”
Neither of them could see me smile, and even if they could, they wouldn’t be sure that it wasn’t a sobbing face.
12
Kaylee
His arms were loaded with tools when he came into the house, but I thought he might have to make more than one trip. If he did, I hoped he would drop these things off at the door and head back out before going down and discovering that I wasn’t there. That would give me a better chance to sneak away and a better head start after he went out again to his tool shed. If I could get down to the road before he returned to the house, I’d have all the time it would take him to carry down the tools and materials, see I wasn’t there, and come rushing back upstairs. He might waste time searching the house first. I might even be able to reach his closest neighbor.
I saw the look of eagerness on his face when he was in the entryway. He was whistling, too, sounding as happy as I imagined he could. In his mind, everything he had planned and imagined with Haylee was coming true. He was building a new home here for his fantasy family. But I knew that the moment he realized I was gone, his happiness so high up would come crashing down hard, and I feared how he would be if he caught me. I trembled envisioning that but kept very quiet, holding my breath.
He did pause for a moment and look in my direction. Had I touched something, left some sort of evidence of my escape from the basement? One of the tools he carried looked sharp enough to cut off my head. Terror was almost at a boiling point inside me. I was sure I had uttered a small sob of alarm, as if there was truly a second me inside myself, a me I couldn’t control.
Had he heard it?
He did stop whistling.
I cringed and waited, squeezing my eyes closed and pressing my hands so tightly against my breasts that they hurt. After a long and frightening moment, I heard him start whistling again and continue down the hallway. I stepped out and listened harder, hoping to hear the basement door opening. He appeared to have stopped again, probably right at the doorway to the bedroom that had a coffin on the bed. It seemed like minutes passing rather than seconds, because he wasn’t moving, and I didn’t hear the basement door opening. Was he unloading his tools and coming back to get more things as I had suspected? I waited, but I didn’t hear anything. I continued inching forward until I could see him in the hallway, just staring into the bedroom. I thought he was whispering.
I remained back, holding my breath. Finally, I heard him open the basement door and start down the stairs, carrying what he had. There would be less time than I had hoped. I moved quickly but as quietly as I could to the screen door and opened it just enough to slip out, closing it softly behind me. The house was higher up from the road than I had envisioned and there was no lawn in front, just patches of weeds, rocks, and gravel. I hurried down the steps and, holding up the skirt of the oversized dress, began to run to my right and down the slope. The stones poked and cut the bottoms of my feet, and some weeds scratched the bottoms of my legs, but I did the best I could to ignore the pain. I had to make it to the road below. I was nearly there when I heard the screen door slam, sounding like a gunshot.
He was coming.
Screaming for help at the top of my lungs, I turned onto the macadam road. I didn’t look back, but I could hear him screaming, too, sounding like a wild animal in pain. I looked down the road, hoping and praying for the sight of an automobile or a nearby house, but there was nothing on the road and nothing but wild brush, fields of hay, and thick wooded areas. My feet felt as if the soles were on fire because this was more or less a dirt and gravel road. How far was I from the city?
I kept running. Vaguely, I imagined myself as something of a comical sight. I was sure I looked like I was tiptoeing over hot coals, keeping the skirt pulled up to my knees as I charged forward. A thick black snake slithered into the ditch and bushes. The road was surrounded by trees and bushes, and as far as I could see, there was no other house, no neighbor within reach.
Suddenly, the sound of an engine gave me hope. If I could just stay ahead of him and keep going, maybe he would realize someone was coming and stop chasing me. A pickup truck was soon visible in the distance. It was coming my way. I raised my arms to wave frantically, hoping the driver would see me, but the moment I let go of the skirt, the hem fell just below my feet because the oversize dress had slipped down off my shoulders. I struggled to keep it up and then I stepped on the material, tripping myself and sailing forward and to my right. I hit the ditch hard with the right side of my head and my shoulder. The pain shot instantly through my back and took away my breath.
Before I could get back to my feet and continue running toward the truck, I heard him shout. He dove and slammed down over my body, pressing my face to the dank earth. I gagged, and he quickly held my arms so I couldn’t lift them to wave at the driver of the oncoming truck. I squirmed and twisted, but he was too heavy for me to break free. The sound of the truck drawing closer gave me some hope, but when I went to scream, he shoved his hand hard into my mouth until I gagged and choked again. The truck went by, the driver apparently not noticing anything, because I didn’t hear the vehicle stop. Anthony waited until it was gone and then slowly retreated, lifting himself off me. I didn’t move. I coughed and spit, keeping my eyes closed, my body frozen.
What would he do to me now? It seemed like a full minute had passed, but I dared not turn or try to get up and run. I was too frightened even to cry.
“Look at you,” he finally said. “Ain’t you embarrassed acting like that? Suppose somebody had seen you . . . and me chasing after you. Huh? What would they have thought? Damn. You can’t walk on those feet.”
I still didn’t move. The scent of damp earth rushed up my nose. I saw some worms uncurl and start to slither away.
“Luckily,” he said, “the one thing my father did teach me was the fireman’s carry.”
I didn’t open my eyes, but I sensed he was circling around to stand in front of me.
“He didn’t actually teach it to me. He liked to do it to me, just come over to me while I was playing or doing something and whip me up, frightening the hell out of me. I’d scream, and my mother would yell at him, but he’d just laugh and do it again and again. Watch. I’ll show you how it works. Go on. Open your eyes. Open them!”
I did and looked at his feet as he squatted.
“First, facing you, I’m hooking my elbows under your arms, and then I’m lifting you to your feet,” he said.
I closed my eyes again because my head was spinning. His face was inches from mine. He leaned forward and wiped some mud from my cheek with his tongue. Then he spit it out.
“What a mess. Okay. Now I’m putting my right leg between your legs, see, and I’m squatting down and hooking my right arm around your right leg, and then up you go.” He lifted me and threw me over his shoulder with ease. He held on to my right wrist and turned, stepping out of the ditch and starting back to the driveway.
My feet still felt on fire, my shoulder ached, and I realized I must have scraped my face along the right temple and cheek. He was walking stead
ily, easily, like I was a sack of cotton dresses. We started up the driveway. I opened my eyes and looked down the road to my left, hoping to see that truck or maybe another vehicle, but there was nothing.
“I’m disappointed in you, Kaylee, but I understand. Young women are often nervous when they first set up a new home. You should have just told me how nervous you was. Running off like that is not good for you or me. People misunderstand. Who knows what anyone woulda thought if they had seen you looking so frantic, huh?” he said. “They’d never guess we was husband and wife and about to set up a new home.”
The fact that he sounded more reasonable than angry actually frightened me more. A tornado of madness swirled around us. Black was white, tall was short, and thin was thick. Nothing in his mind was what he didn’t want it to be. I wasn’t trying to get away from him. Oh, no. I was just an insecure young married woman afraid of disappointing my new husband.
I bounced against his body as he walked up the driveway and onto the porch. When I heard him open the screen door, I felt my whole body give up, every muscle that had tightened with some resistance softening. I was back in the madhouse. My moments of hope seemed cruel now, teasing me. Did I dare to permit myself to think that the driver of that truck had seen me, seen Anthony fall over me, but he was too frightened himself to stop? Would he report it to the police? Should I live with that hope, any hope? Optimism had become a form of torture. I’d never even dream of a rescue now.
Anthony marched us down the hallway. He paused at the bedroom.
“You were right,” he said. I turned my head. Whom was he talking to? “Not good to rush things.”
He opened the basement door, and we started down the stairs.
“Hey, Mr. Moccasin,” he said joyfully when we reentered the basement apartment, “look who’s back. You were worrying she was gone for good.”
He brought me to the bed and unloaded me gently. Then he stood back and looked down at me, shaking his head.
“What have you done to yourself? You don’t want to look at your beautiful face. And these feet. You’d get nauseous if you could see them,” he said, lifting them to look at my soles. “You’re going to have a tough time walking for a while. Uggies, like my mother used to say. I’ll get a warm washcloth and the disinfection stuff and some bandages. You made quite a mess of your dress, too. You ripped it at the shoulder, you know. I told you that was one of my mother’s nicest dresses.”
He seized my left wrist and looked at the watch he had given me.
“Lucky it’s not scratched,” he said, but he unfastened it and put it in his pocket. “You don’t deserve any of her good things yet.”
He pulled the dress up roughly over my arms, leaving me stark naked. I covered my breasts with my arms and crossed my legs.
“Wow, look at that bruise on your right leg. What a mess,” he said. “You’re going to be achin’ for days.” He tossed the dress to the floor and went into the bathroom.
I was crying so softly that I didn’t realize it until some of my salty tears reached the scraped parts of my right cheek and burned. I turned onto my side. He was back with the washcloth and grabbed my shoulder to turn me onto my back again.
“Just lay still,” he ordered. He knelt and began to wash off my feet first, mumbling under his breath. “I did something like this to myself once,” I heard him say. “I was running away from my father. My mother let me play in the little inflated pool she had bought me, and I was running the hose. He came home and screamed about wasting the water. We got a submersible pump here, ya see, and he was always complaining about wasting water. So he rips the hose out of my hand and smacks me one good one across my right arm and my back with it.
“Shit, that hurt something awful, but it frightened me more than anything else. I got up and out of the inflated pool and started running away. I didn’t know where I was going. I just wanted like hell to get away from him. I ran over the gravel drive, too. My mother scooped me up before I went too far, but I did damage and had to have her do for me what I’m doing for you now.
“She tore into my father, of course, but her curses and complaints were water off a duck’s back to him. He took out a knife and cut the hell out of my inflated pool. I was too frightened to cry, but I was hurting and cried when no one was looking. Took days to get me to walk anywhere near normal. Be the same for you, if not longer. This is a helluva lot worse.”
He smeared the disinfectant over the cuts and scrapes and wrapped a gauze bandage around my feet. He taped it and then started on my right arm and shoulder. I tried not to look at him, but he kept seizing my chin and turning me toward him.
“You’re lucky I know what I’m doing here. I took one of them courses in first aid. I was going to join a volunteer ambulance squad once but decided not to. Too many big shots were already in it.”
He put some smaller Band-Aids on me, covering some of the other scrapes and cuts, and then returned everything to the cabinet in the bathroom. I lay there with my eyes closed, trying to deal with the pain and aches that seemed now to be coming from all sides of my body. I opened my eyes at the sound of the chain.
Oh, no, I thought. “No, please!” I cried.
“Yes,” he said. “We gotta go back to this, unfortunately. You ain’t as ready as I thought.”
He fastened the cuff around my ankle. I was hugging myself tightly. He stood back and looked at me.
“Even now, you look pretty to me,” he said, smiling and shaking his head. Then he turned angry again. “We’ll have to put off all the work on the floor and curtains and stuff. You’re not going to be much help, and I want this to be something we do together. This is a big disappointment, Kaylee. I don’t like setbacks. What you got to say for yourself now, huh?”
“I want to go home!” I wailed. “Let me go home.”
He shook his head slowly. “Why would you say such a thing? I told you, you are home. Now, get yourself under the blanket. You’re going without dinner tonight. You sleep and start healing, see? Move,” he ordered.
I sat up and, because of the pains shooting up my legs and down my right side, gingerly turned on the bed so he could pull the blanket out and then toss it over me. I closed my eyes and turned onto my left side. He walked away and began putting his tools and equipment in a corner, mumbling to himself. I could hear him arguing with himself. He slammed things and cursed. His anger appeared to be growing. At one point, I thought he punched the wall. Every sound made me wince. Suddenly, he returned to the foot of the bed. I cringed in anticipation of his doing something worse to me.
“I’m going out for a while,” he said. “Right now, I can’t stand the sight of you. The disappointment’s making me sick to my stomach.”
I didn’t open my eyes until I heard him leave. With the chain back on me, it didn’t matter if he remembered to lock the door behind him or not. I could feel Mr. Moccasin hop onto the bed and sprawl out beside me.
“We’re trapped, you and I,” I said. “Forever.”
He began to purr. I wished I was a cat, too, and unaware of how miserable I was. Despite the pain, I felt exhaustion climb up and over my body, seeping into every pore and through every muscle. I had bounced hard between different emotions. That and my physical effort sapped the energy from me. Sleep was very welcome. Right now, it was my only means of escape. The oncoming night shut down what little light came through the boarded windows. Darkness enveloped me. I drifted slowly into something that resembled unconsciousness more than sleep and didn’t wake again until I heard the door being opened roughly and Anthony cursing. He turned on the light by the kitchen sink.
I didn’t move or open my eyes again. I heard him banging things around, and then it grew quiet, so quiet and for so long that I wondered if he had left again. I was too curious to pretend to be asleep, so I turned and saw him looking down at me at the foot of the bed. He was stark naked. His mouth was open dumbly. He looked surprised to see me. It was as if in that insane mind of his, he had forgotten that I had
run away or even that I was here. The chill that went through my body overwhelmed the pain. He stumbled around to his side and pulled up the blanket. I could smell the beer. He reeked as if he had taken a bath in it. It soured my stomach. Whatever he said was garbled.
I cowered in anticipation. It took a while, but I finally felt him reach for me under the blanket. He seized me by the wrist and held on to me tightly. I was waiting for him to do more. I thought he was surely going to punish me with sex, but he didn’t move. Minutes went by, and then his grip softened. His hand moved up my arm and settled on my shoulder. He stroked me surprisingly softly, affectionately, but I still cringed.
“We need a baby. Once we have a baby, you’ll never want to leave me,” he said. He patted me as if he wanted to reassure me. “But we can’t make a baby when you’re in pain. I know that. My mother told me that. A woman in any kind of pain won’t give birth to a happy baby, she said. A baby remembers its mother’s pain. You’ll get better. When you’re healed enough, we’ll make our baby.”
Why would his mother tell him such a thing? Had he beaten some other girl? Was it possible that I wasn’t the first one imprisoned down here? Was his mother as insane as he was? Could she have known? The possibility that I wasn’t the first made what was happening to me even more terrifying.
He drew his hand away, and moments later, I heard his breathing, heavy and regular. Not long after, he snored and choked. He woke up many times during the night, and every time, he would reach for me as if to assure himself that I was still there. With that and with my pain, I didn’t sleep much. He woke in the morning with such a shudder that the bed trembled. I had my back to him, but I knew he had sat up. He pulled the blanket off me and gazed at me. I didn’t speak. I didn’t move.