“Good thing you had it on.” Her mind pictured Sandy’s head breaking through the windshield, jagged glass ripping her body, then the last of her disappearing into the fog, forever lost.
“Wish I hadn’t.”
“Let’s undo it. Hold on.”
The girl braced herself against the dash, and Donna unlatched the seat belt.
“Okay, let’s get out now. I’ll go first. Don’t do anything until I say it’s all right.”
“Okay.”
Climbing out, Donna slipped on the fog-wet grassy covering of the slope. She clung to the door until she found her footing.
“Are you okay?” Sandy asked.
“So far, so good.” Holding herself steady, she peered through the fog. Apparently the road had curved to the left without them, and they had nose-dived into a ditch. The rear of the car remained at road level: unless the fog was too thick, it would be visible to passing cars.
Donna worked her way carefully down the slippery embankment. The Maverick’s front bumper was buried in the ditch. Steam hissed from the crevices of the hood. She crawled across the hood, got down on the other side, and climbed the slope to Sandy’s door. She helped the girl out. Together they slid and stumbled to the bottom of the ditch.
“Well,” Donna said in a voice as cheerful as she could muster, “here we are. Now let’s have a look at your wounds.”
Sandy untucked her plaid blouse and lifted it out of the way. Donna, squatting, lowered the girl’s jeans. A wide band of red crossed her belly. The skin over her hip bones looked tender and raw, as if layers had been sandpapered off. “I’ll bet that stings.”
Sandy nodded. Donna began to lift the jeans.
“I’ve gotta go.”
“Well, pick a tree. Just a second.” She climbed up to the car and took a box of Kleenex from the glove compartment. “You can use these.”
Carrying the box of tissue with one hand and holding up her jeans with the other, Sandy walked along the bottom of the ditch. She vanished in the fog. “Hey, here’s a path!” she called.
“Don’t go far.”
“Just a little ways.”
Donna heard her daughter’s feet crushing the forest mat of dead twigs and pine needles. The sounds became faint. “Sandy! Don’t go any farther.”
The footfalls had either stopped, or faded so completely with distance that they blended with the other forest sounds.
“Sandy!”
“What?” The girl sounded annoyed, but her voice came from far away.
“Can you get back all right?”
“Geez, Mom.”
“Okay.” Donna leaned back until the seat of her corduroy pants pressed against the car. She shivered. Her blouse was too thin to keep out the cold. She would wait for Sandy, then get jackets out of the backseat. Until the girl’s return, she didn’t want to move. She waited, staring into the gray where Sandy had gone.
Suddenly, the wind tore away a shred of fog. “That was a longer-than-average pit stop,” Donna said.
Sandy didn’t answer, or move.
“What’s the matter, hon?”
She just stood there, above the ditch, motionless and mute.
“Sandy, what’s wrong?”
Feeling a prickling chill on the back of her neck, Donna snapped her head around. Nothing behind her. She looked back at Sandy.
“My God, what’s wrong?”
Pushing from the car, she ran. She ran toward the paralyzed, silent figure at the forest edge. Ran through the gray, obscuring murk. Watched the shape of her daughter twist into a crude resemblance as the fog thinned until, a dozen feet away, nothing remained of Sandy but a four-foot pine sapling.
“Oh, Jesus,” Donna muttered. And then she shrieked, “Sandy!”
“Mom,” came the distant voice. “I think I’m lost.”
“Don’t move.”
“I won’t.”
“Don’t move. Stay right where you are! I’m coming!”
“Hurry!”
A narrow path through the pines seemed to point in the voice’s direction. Donna hurried.
“Sandy!” she shouted.
“Here.”
The voice was closer. Donna walked quickly, watching the fog, stepping over a dead pine trunk blocking the path.
“Sandy?”
“Mom!”
The voice was very close now, but off to the right.
“Okay, I’ve almost reached you.”
“Hurry.”
“Just a minute.” She stepped off the path, pushing between damp limbs that tried to hold her back. “Where are you, darling?”
“Here.”
“Where?”
“Here!”
“Where?” Before the girl could answer, Donna shoved through a barrier of branches and saw her.
“Mom!”
She was clutching the pink box of Kleenex to her chest as if it would somehow keep her from harm.
“I got turned around,” she explained.
Donna hugged her. “That’s all right, honey. It’s all right. Did you take care of business?”
She nodded.
“Okay, let’s go back to the car.”
If we can find it, she thought.
But she found the path without difficulty, and the path took them to the opening above the ditch. Donna kept her eyes down as she stepped past the pine sapling she had mistaken for Sandy. Silly, she knew, but the thought of seeing it frightened her; what if it looked like Sandy again, or like someone else—a stranger, or him?
“Don’t be mad,” Sandy said.
“Me? I’m not mad.”
“You look mad.”
“Do I?” She smiled. Then the two of them climbed down the slope of the ditch. “I was just thinking,” Donna said.
“About Dad?”
She forced herself not to react. She didn’t gasp, didn’t suddenly squeeze her daughter’s hand, didn’t let her head snap toward the girl in shock. In a voice that sounded very calm, she said, “Why would I be thinking about Dad?”
The girl shrugged.
“Come on. Out with it.”
Ahead of them, the dark bulk of the car appeared through the fog.
“I was just thinking about him,” Sandy told her.
“Why?”
“It was scary back there.”
“Is that the only reason?”
“It was cold, like that time. And I had my pants down.”
“Oh God.”
“I got afraid he might be watching.”
“I bet that was plenty scary.”
“Yeah.”
They stopped at the side of the car. Sandy looked up at Donna. In a very small voice Sandy said, “What if he gets us here? All by ourselves?”
“Impossible.”
“He’d kill us, wouldn’t he?”
“No, of course not. Besides, it can’t happen.”
“It might, if he escaped. Or if they let him out.”
“Even if they did, he’d never find us here.”
“Oh yes he would. He told me so. He said he’d find us wherever we went. He said, ‘I’ll sniff you down.’”
“Shhhh.”
“What?” Sandy whispered.
For a moment, Donna held to the hope that it was only the sound of the ocean surf beating the rocky shore. But the surf was across the road, and far down the cliff. Besides, why hadn’t she heard it before now? The sound grew.
“A car’s coming,” she muttered.
The girl’s face went pale. “It’s him!”
“No, it’s not. Get in the car.”
“It’s him. He escaped! It’s him!”
“No! Get in the car. Quick!”
3.
She first saw the man in the rearview mirror, hunched over the back of the car, turning his head slowly as he looked in at her. His tiny eyes, his nose, his grinning mouth, all seemed far too small, as if they belonged to a head half the size of this one.
A gloved fist knocked on the rear window.
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“Mom!”
She looked down at her daughter crouched on the floor below the dashboard. “It’s okay, honey.”
“Who is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is it him?”
“No.”
The car rocked as the stranger’s hand tugged the door handle. He knocked on the window. Donna turned to him. He looked about forty, in spite of the deep lines carved in his face. He seemed less interested in Donna than in the plastic head of the lock button. He pointed a gloved finger at it, pecking the window glass.
Donna shook her head.
“I’ll come in,” he called.
Donna shook her head. “No!”
The man smiled as if it were a game. “I’ll come in.” He let go of the door handle and leaped to the bottom of the ditch. When he hit the ground, he almost fell. Steadying himself, he glanced over his shoulder as if to see whether Donna had appreciated his jump. He grinned. Then he started hobbling along the ditch, limping badly. The fog nibbled at him. Then he was gone.
“What’s he doing now?” Sandy asked from the floor.
“I don’t know.”
“Did he go away?”
“He’s in the ditch. I can’t see him. The fog’s too thick.”
“Maybe he’ll get lost.”
“Maybe.”
“Who is he?”
“I don’t know, honey.”
“Does he want to hurt us?”
Donna didn’t answer. She saw a dark shape in the fog. It slowly became distinct, became the strange, limping man. In his left hand he carried a rock.
“Is he back?” Sandy asked.
“He’s on his way.”
“What’s he doing?”
“Honey, I want you to sit up.”
“What?”
“Get up in your seat. If I tell you to, I want you to jump out and run. Run into the woods and hide.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll try to come, too. But you go when I say, regardless.”
“No. I won’t go without you.”
“Sandra!”
“I won’t!”
Donna watched the man climb up the embankment to the car. He used the door handle to pull himself up. Then he thumped the window, like before, pointing at the lock button. He made a smile. “I’ll come in,” he said.
“Go away!”
He raised the gray, wedge-shaped rock in his left hand. He tapped it lightly against the window, then looked at her.
“Okay,” Donna said to him.
“Mom, don’t.”
“We can’t stay in here,” she said quietly.
The man grinned as Donna reached over her shoulder.
“Get ready, hon.”
“No!”
She flicked up the lock button, levered the door handle and thrust herself against it. The door swung, jolted, and knocked into the man. With a yelp of surprise, he tumbled backward, the rock flying from his hand. He did a crooked somersault to the bottom of the ditch.
“Now!”
“Mom!”
“Let’s go!”
“He’ll get us!”
Donna saw him motionless on his back. His eyes were shut. “It’s all right,” she said. “Look. He’s knocked out.”
“He’s playing possum, Mom. He’ll get us.”
Hanging onto the open door, one foot down on the slippery grass, Donna stared at the man. He certainly looked unconscious, the way his arms and legs were splayed out in such strange, grotesque ways. Unconscious, or even dead.
Playing possum?
She raised her foot inside the car, pulled the door shut, and locked it. “Okay,” she said, “we’ll stay.”
The girl sighed, and lowered herself, once again, to the floor in front of the seat.
Donna managed a smile for her. “You okay?”
She nodded.
“Cold?”
Another nod. Awkwardly, Donna turned and stretched an arm over the back of the seat. She reached Sandy’s coat first, then her own.
Curled against the passenger door, Sandy used the coat to cover all but her face.
Donna got into her blue windbreaker.
The man outside hadn’t moved.
“It’s almost dark,” Sandy whispered.
“Yeah.”
“He’ll come for us when it’s dark.”
“Do you have to say that kind of stuff?”
“I’m sorry,” the girl said.
“Besides, I don’t think he’s coming for anybody. I think he’s hurt.”
“He’s pretending.”
“I don’t know.” Bent forward with her chin on the steering wheel, Donna watched him. She watched for the movement of an arm or leg, for a turn of the head, an opening eye. Then she tried to see if he was breathing.
In his fall, the sweatshirt under his open jacket had pulled up, leaving his belly exposed. She watched it closely. It didn’t seem to be moving, but the distance was enough that she could easily miss the subtle rise and fall of his breathing.
Especially under all that hair.
He must be a mass of hair from head to toe. No, the head was shaved. Even the top. There seemed to be a bristly crown of dark stubble on top, as if he hadn’t shaved it for several days.
He ought to shave his belly, she thought.
She looked at it again. Still, she couldn’t see any movement.
His gray pants hung low on his hips, showing the waistband of his underwear. Baggy boxer shorts. Striped. Donna looked down at his feet. His sneakers were soiled gray, and held together with tape.
“Sandy?”
“Hmmm?”
“Stay inside.”
“What are you doing?” Fright in the girl’s voice.
“I’m going out for a second.”
“No!”
“He can’t hurt us, honey.”
“Please.”
“I think he might be dead.”
She opened the car door and climbed out carefully. She locked the door. Shut it. Tried it. Fingering the side of the car for balance, she eased herself down the slope. She stood above the man. He didn’t move. She zipped her windbreaker, and knelt beside him.
“Hey,” she said. She jiggled his shoulder. “Hey, are you okay?”
She pressed a hand flat against his chest, felt its rise and fall, felt the light throbbing of his heart.
“Can you wake up?” she asked. “I want to help you. Are you hurt?”
In the growing darkness, she didn’t notice the moving, gloved hand until it grabbed her wrist.
4.
With a startled yelp, Donna tried to twist free. She couldn’t break the man’s stiff grip.
His eyes opened.
“Let go. Please.”
“It hurts,” he said.
His hand squeezed more tightly. His grip felt strange. Glancing down, Donna saw that he was holding her with only two fingers and the thumb of his right hand. The other two glove fingers remained straight. With a vague stir of revulsion, she realized there were probably no fingers inside those parts of the glove.
“I’m sorry it hurts,” Donna said, “but you’re hurting me, now.”
“You’ll run.”
“No. I promise.”
His tight grip eased. “I wasn’t going to hurt you,” he said. He sounded as if he might cry. “I just wanted in. You didn’t have to hurt me.”
“I was frightened.”
“I just wanted in.”
“Where are you hurt?”
“Here.” He pointed at the back of his head.
“I can’t see.”
Groaning, he rolled over. Donna saw the pale shape of a rock on the ground where his head had been. Though the night was too dark to be certain, there didn’t seem to be blood on his head. She touched it, feeling the soft brush of his hair stubble, and found a lump. Then she inspected her fingers. She rubbed them together. No blood.
“I’m Axel,” the man said. “Axel Kutch.”
“I’m Donna. I don’t think you’re bleeding.”
“Dah-nuh.”
“Yes.”
“Donna.”
“Axel.”
He got to his hands and knees and turned his face to her. “I just wanted in.”
“That’s okay, Axel.”
“Do I have to go now?”
“No.”
“Can I stay with you?”
“Maybe we can all go away. Will you drive us somewhere for help?”
“I drive good.”
Donna helped him to stand. “Why don’t we wait for the fog to lift, then you can drive us somewhere for help.”
“Home.”
“Your home?”
He nodded. “It’s safe.”
“Where do you live?”
“Malcasa Point.”
“Is that nearby?”
“We’ll go there.”
“Where is it, Axel?”
He pointed into the darkness. North.
“We’ll go home. It’s safe.”
“Okay. But we have to wait for the fog to lift. You wait in your car, and we’ll wait in ours.”
“Come with me.”
“When the fog lifts. Good-bye.” She feared he would try to stop her from getting into the car, but he didn’t. She shut the door and rolled down the window. “Axel?” He limped closer. “This is my daughter, Sandy.”
“San-dee,” he said.
“This is Axel Kutch.”
“Hi,” Sandy greeted him, her voice soft and uncertain.
“We’ll see you later,” Donna said. She waved good-bye and rolled up the window.
For a few moments, Axel stared silently in at them. Then he climbed the slope and was gone.
“What’s wrong with him?” the girl asked.
“I think he’s…slow.”
“You mean a retard?”
“That’s not a nice way to put it, Sandy.”
“We’ve got them like that at school. Retards. Know what they’re called? Special.”
“That sounds a lot better.”
“Yeah, I guess. Where’d he go?”
“Back to his car.”
“Is he leaving?” Sandy’s voice was eager with hope.
“Nope. We’ll wait for the fog to thin out, then he’s going to drive us out of here.”
“We’re going in his car?”
“Ours isn’t going anyplace.”
“I know, but…”
“Would you rather stay here?”
“He scares me.”
“That’s just because he’s strange. If he wanted to do us harm, he’s had plenty of opportunity. He certainly couldn’t find a better location for it than right here.”