Midnight Voices

  “Are you asleep?” Tony asked, a little louder.

  Ryan made himself stretch, yawn, and mumble, “Uhn-hunh,” but didn’t trust himself to roll over and look up at his stepfather.

  He felt Tony bend over him, and then Ryan’s nostrils filled with a stench that almost made him throw up. Chloe started to growl, but the sound was suddenly cut off and Ryan felt the dog being lifted off the bed. He had to struggle hard against the instinct to reach for his pet, to pull her out of his stepfather’s arms, but his fear of betraying what he’d seen and heard a little while ago was even stronger. He lay still, giving no sign that he even knew Chloe was gone.

  “The morning then,” he heard Tony say, and once more the terrible odor—like rotting meat—washed over him.

  “Unh-hunh,” Ryan mumbled again, then snuggled deeper into the bed, pulling the covers over his head.

  He waited, hardly daring to breathe, but even more terrified to give himself away by not breathing at all.

  Finally the putrefying stench began to weaken, and then the room went dark again as the door closed.

  The night—and the terror of his mother’s scream—closed around Ryan.

  He had never felt more alone or more frightened in his life. Yet every time he started to cry, he repeated his father’s words once more.

  “. . . just keep on playing the game. . . .”

  The trouble was, he didn’t know exactly what the game was.

  CHAPTER 34

  The weight of sleep was a burden that lay so heavily over Caroline that she could feel it beginning to crush not only her mind, but her body as well. Merely to breathe sapped so much energy away that each breath felt like it might be her last and her heart felt as if it could barely beat, with spaces so long between each throbbing pulse that she began to fear the next one would never come at all.

  Her mind was as slow as her body; her brain barely able to find words for the abstractions that drifted through her mind. Even when the words came, they were single scraps of sentences, not connected together into anything coherent.

  . . . dead . . .

  . . . neighbors . . .

  . . . Tony . . .

  . . . death . . .

  . . . Laurie . . .

  . . . draining . . . pumping . . . sucking . . . feeding . . .

  Get up.

  The simple fact that the two words were strung together into a single sentence brought a vague focus to her mind, and a tiny fraction of the crushing weight lifted from her spirit. Slowly, her mind began to process the simple command, to begin the sequence of actions that would carry it out.

  She opened her eyes. Not in my own bed. Not in my own room.

  She closed her eyes again to try to process the information her eyes had just sent her brain. An image began to form in her mind, an image of the tiny bedroom she and Brad had shared in the apartment on West 76th Street.

  But that wasn’t right—there was a dim memory of another bedroom, a large bedroom with a crystal chandelier— Suddenly the memory snapped into focus. It was Tony’s bedroom . . . her husband Tony—the man she’d married after Brad.

  Brad . . .

  A terrible feeling of loneliness came over her, an aching in her heart that made tears well in her eyes. Where was Brad? That’s who she loved. Then why had she married Tony?

  Who was Tony?

  . . . dead . . .

  Get up.

  . . . dead . . .

  Laurie!

  Get up!

  Once again she tried to galvanize herself into some kind of coherent action, to make her body respond to the commands in her mind. Opening her eyes, she peered at the walls around her. They were covered with wallpaper—pale green, with some kind of pattern. Bamboo?

  She wasn’t sure.

  But where was it?

  A hotel? Why would she be in a hotel? Why wasn’t she at home?

  She tried to sit up.

  Tried, and failed. It was as if the weight was bearing down even harder on her, pressing her to the bed. She took another breath, this time trying to suck air deep into her lungs, to regain her strength by filling herself with oxygen. The effort nearly exhausted her, and the pain in her chest—a constriction that felt as if bands were wrapped around her—grew worse. Gasping against the constriction, she tried to catch her breath, then turned her head to look at the clock on the night table.

  No clock. No table. Not my bed . . . not my room . . . where am I?

  Now she tried to sit up again, this time using her arms to lift herself.

  Once again she failed. Her arms—lying at her sides—were immobile.

  Paralyzed! The word seared her brain, and a great wave of panic—a towering fear such as she’d never felt before—rose up in her, wiping every other thought from her mind, threatening to crash over her and destroy not only her courage, but her very sanity.

  “Noooo!” The word erupted from her throat as a prolonged howl, but the sound itself turned the panic back, and as her fear receded, her mind began to work again. The single words drifting through her mind began to coalesce into full thoughts, fragments of memory into recognizable images. But what she was remembering had to be a nightmare—it couldn’t possibly be true!

  A door opened, and a moment later a face—a woman’s face, surmounted by the kind of old-fashioned nurse’s cap Caroline remembered from childhood—loomed above her. The woman’s eyes were a liquid brown, and her lips were pursed with concern. Caroline felt the nurse’s fingers on her wrist, and saw her gazing at her watch as she counted Caroline’s pulse. The nurse nodded in satisfaction as she released Caroline’s wrist. “How are we feeling? Better?”

  Caroline searched for the right words, but couldn’t find them. What was ‘better’? Better than what? Was she sick? She didn’t remember being sick. All she remembered was the dream—the terrible dream where she’d seen Laurie and the neighbors and Tony—

  “Wh-what . . . ?” she heard herself stammer. “Wh-where . . .” But that wasn’t what she’d wanted to say. She wanted to know what had happened and where she was, only the words hadn’t formed in her mouth the way they had in her mind.

  The nurse seemed to understand though. “We’re in the hospital,” she said. “We had a little—” She hesitated a second, then smiled sympathetically. “We’re just exhausted, dear. We’ll be fine in a few days, though—just you wait and see.”

  A hospital? What kind of a hospital? “C-can’t—” Caroline began, struggling once more to sit up, but failing yet again.

  The nurse laid a hand on Caroline’s shoulder. “It’s all right, dear. We just got a little excited during the night, and we wouldn’t want to fall out of bed, would we?”

  Excited? Fall out of bed? What was the nurse talking about? But even as she put the question together, the answer came to her.

  Tied down!

  She was tied to the bed like the patients in a mental hospital!

  But that was wrong—she wasn’t crazy! She wasn’t even sick! She’d just had a terrible nightmare. She’d seen Tony and what he and the neighbors were doing to Laurie and—

  An image exploded in her mind, an image of Tony coming at her, with Dr. Humphries on one side of him and Max Albion on the other. And she’d attacked him, slashed at his face. His skin had ripped away, and underneath she’d seen—

  The memory of the stench of death suddenly filled her nostrils once more as the suppurating rot of Tony’s flesh rose before her eyes. She felt herself gag, then her mouth filled with the foul taste of bile.

  “It’s all right, dear,” the nurse said as Caroline’s stomach contracted violently and vomit spewed forth from her mouth. “It’s just the drugs—sometimes they do that. But you’ll be fine in a day or two—you’ll see.”

  As Caroline’s stomach heaved once again, and her eyes filled with tears, and a choking sob of fear, confusion, and frustration constricted her throat, the nurse began cleaning the vomit away with a wet cloth, then changed the soiled case on the pillow beneath Carol
ine’s head.

  But even after she was gone, and Caroline was once again alone in the room with the bamboo-patterned green wallpaper, the sour smell of her own vomit still filled her nostrils, and the nausea in her stomach wouldn’t subside.

  But it wasn’t the drugs that had caused it.

  It was the memories.

  The memories of what she’d seen last night.

  The memories that weren’t of nightmares at all.

  All of it—every bit of it—had really happened.

  And now they’d locked her up, and she had no idea where she was, and no idea of how to get out.

  And Tony Fleming had her children.

  Out! She had to get out, to get back to her children, to save them! Her terror dissolving into rage, Caroline struggled against the bonds once more, but it did no good.

  She was held fast, unable to help herself, let alone Ryan and Laurie.

  Neither his fear nor determination had been quite enough to keep Ryan awake through the long hours of the night, but they’d kept him away from sleep long enough so that when he finally woke up he knew instinctively that it was late in the morning. But even as he started to scramble out of bed his memory cleared, and the terror of last night came flooding back. The chill that began as he remembered what he’d heard through the closet in his stepfather’s study culminated in a shudder as his mother’s scream echoed once more in his head. The memory made his eyes sting with tears and nearly sent him back to the security of his bed, but then he heard his father’s voice once more: ’Crying won’t help . . . get up . . . keep on playing the game.’

  With the memory of his father silently urging him on, Ryan pulled on his clothes and went to his bedroom door. But before he reached for the knob, he stood gazing at it for several long seconds, questions—questions for which he had no answers—flicking through his mind. What had made his mother scream last night? And why hadn’t she wakened him this morning? Even though he couldn’t go to school, she wouldn’t have just let him sleep in. What if his mother wasn’t even there? What if Tony had locked the door last night, and he couldn’t get out of his room? What if . . . ?

  But there were too many what ifs, and finally he reached for the doorknob, closed his fingers on it, and twisted.

  Not locked.

  He pulled the door open and stepped out into the hall.

  Silence.

  He moved to the head of the stairs, instinctively treading so lightly that he made no sound at all. He paused to listen, but there was nothing to hear except the ticking of the hall clock downstairs, mournfully noting each passing second. Ryan started down the stairs, the sound of the clock growing louder with every step he took. When he came to the last step he paused again, but now the clock seemed so loud he was sure it would drown out anything else. But then the aroma of frying bacon filled his nose, and in an instant his fear eased. Everything was all right! His mother was making breakfast, and in a minute he’d be sitting at the kitchen table drinking his orange juice, and everything would be the way it was supposed to be. “Mo—” he began, but the word died on his lips before he could even complete its single syllable.

  It wasn’t his mother frying bacon at all.

  It was Tony.

  “Where’s my mom?” he demanded, his voice as truculent as the glare he fixed on his stepfather.

  Anthony Fleming looked up from the skillet, his gaze meeting Ryan’s. Ryan did his best not to look away, but as he stared into the man’s eyes a strange feeling started to come over him. This wasn’t like the staring contests he’d had with his friends, or even with his father, when both of them knew it was a game, and behind the intense stare you could see the laughter that would burst out when one of them—either of them—finally blinked.

  This time all he saw was a terrible flatness, and a single word came into his mind.

  Dead.

  It was like a dog he and Jeff Wheeler had seen in the park last summer—the dog had been trying to cross the 79th Street Transverse when a cab had hit it. The dog had yelped with pain but the cab hadn’t even stopped and the dog had just lain there, getting hit by two more cars before there was a break in traffic and he and Jeff had been able to drag it off the road onto the grass. But it was already too late—the dog wasn’t breathing, and blood was running out of its mouth, and it wasn’t even twitching.

  “Jeez, is he dead?” Jeff had breathed as they both stared at the animal. Its eyes were wide open, but there was a look in them that told Ryan the answer, and he’d silently nodded his head.

  Now he saw that same look in his stepfather’s eyes. Flat and empty, like he couldn’t even see Ryan, it was a look so frightening that Ryan turned away, then sank onto his chair and reached for the glass of orange juice that was exactly where his mother always put it. He started to take a sip of the juice, but then changed his mind, certain he wouldn’t be able to swallow it. When he spoke again the truculence was gone from his voice, and his eyes remained fixed on the glass of juice.

  “Where’s my mom?” he asked again. “And where’s Chloe and Laurie?”

  Anthony Fleming put a plate of bacon and eggs in front of Ryan, then sat down across from him. “Laurie’s gone to school,” he said. He reached across the table as if to take Ryan’s hand, but Ryan pulled it away, dropping it into his lap. “And I’m afraid your mother got sicker last night.”

  Liar! The word popped into Ryan’s mind so quickly that he almost blurted it out, catching it at the last instant before it could betray him. ‘. . . keep on playing the game . . .’ his father’s voice whispered. He looked up, forcing himself to peer once more at Tony Fleming’s eyes. “Sh-she’s going to be okay, isn’t she?” he asked, hoping his stammer didn’t sound as fake to Tony as it did to himself.

  Tony nodded. “But she had to go to the hospital.”

  Ryan kept his eyes on Fleming’s, searching for the truth, but could see nothing at all—just that strange emptiness. And there was something about his stepfather’s skin—it almost looked like there were scars on his cheeks. But they hadn’t been there yesterday. “Can I go see her?” he asked, his voice quavering.

  “Not today,” Tony said just a little too quickly. “Maybe tomorrow.”

  “What’s wrong with her?” Ryan asked. “I thought all she had was the flu.”

  Anthony’s eyes narrowed. “Flu can be very dangerous,” he said. Then he tilted his head toward the untouched plate of food in front of Ryan. “Eat your breakfast.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Ryan countered. Then he repeated the question his stepfather hadn’t yet answered: “Where’s Chloe? She was in my room last night, but she wasn’t there this morning.”

  Tony Fleming’s strange flat gaze fixed on Ryan. “I took her out this morning,” he said. “She ran away.”

  Ryan’s jaw tightened. “She wouldn’t do that,” he countered.

  His stepfather seemed not even to hear him. “Just eat your breakfast.”

  “I don’t have to eat it,” Ryan flared. “Besides, how do I know it’s not—”

  He caught himself just before ‘poisoned’ slipped out, but it was too late; he could tell from the way Tony was looking at him that his stepfather knew what he was going to say.

  Anthony Fleming reached out and closed his fingers on Ryan’s upper arm. “Why do you think I would want to poison you, Ryan?” he asked, his voice soft, but carrying a note of menace that made Ryan want to draw away. But his stepfather’s grip was too tight, his fingers digging too deeply into Ryan’s flesh.

  “I—I didn’t say that,” Ryan said, and this time his stammer was utterly genuine.

  “But you thought it,” Tony insisted. “Why?” Now his eyes were boring into Ryan, and Ryan had the terrible feeling his stepfather could see right into his head. “Were you really asleep when I came in last night, Ryan?”

  Ryan nodded too quickly, and this time his words escaped his lips before he could control them. “I didn’t see anything! Honest!”

  “You’re not tel
ling me the truth,” Anthony Fleming said, his voice as cold and flat as his eyes. “I don’t like that.”

  “I am!” Ryan wailed, but even he could hear the lie in his voice.

  Fleming pulled Ryan to his feet and steered him out of the kitchen, down the long hall, up the stairs, and back to his room. “I think you should stay here for awhile,” he said. “In fact, I think you should stay here until you learn to tell me the truth. I’ll be back at lunchtime. If you’re ready to talk to me, you can eat. If not . . .” Leaving the words hanging, he pulled the door closed, he took a key from his pocket, twisted it in the lock, and tried the door. Satisfied that it was locked, Anthony Fleming returned the key to his pocket.

  Ryan waited until he heard his stepfather’s footsteps fade away before he went to the door and tested it, even though he knew it was locked. Then he went to the window, opened the latch, and raised it. Sticking his head out, he peered down at the sidewalk below, the dizziness he was feeling just looking down the six floors telling him he’d never succeed in creeping along the narrow ledge outside the window even if he could work up the nerve to try. But there had to be a way to escape from the room—there had to be!

  He went to the big walk-in closet and peered up at the ceiling, but there was nothing—just the same cedar planks that lined the whole closet. He was just about to abandon the closet when he remembered last night, when he was in his stepfather’s study and had seen the open closet door.

  And heard the voices that sounded like they were coming from inside the closet.

  Or maybe from another room that was hidden behind the closet?

  He went back into the closet. There was a built-in chest of drawers at one end; open shelves at the other. The back of the closet was bare except for the cedar paneling. But when he tapped on the paneling, it sounded hollow, like there was empty space on the other side of it instead of a solid wall.

  He went over every inch of it, trying to find some kind of hidden latch, but there was none.