The Maddening Read online

  The Maddening

  Andrew Neiderman

  Copyright

  Diversion Books

  A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008

  New York, NY 10016

  www.DiversionBooks.com

  Copyright © 1987 by Andrew Neiderman

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For more information, email [email protected]

  First Diversion Books edition May 2015

  ISBN: 978-1-62681-785-2

  Also by Andrew Neiderman

  After Life

  Duplicates

  Perfect Little Angels

  Deadly Verdict

  The Magic Bullet

  The Solomon Organization

  Guardian Angel

  Teacher’s Pet

  Child’s Play

  Sight Unseen

  For Uncle Pete, whose smile and gentle way gave my family a better understanding of love.

  Prologue

  Stacey Oberman made the worst decision of her life that hot late Sunday morning in August when she followed the garage mechanic’s advice and turned off the main highway to take the shortcut that would supposedly save her “the best part of a good hour.”

  She had pulled into the garage when the red warning signal lit on her dashboard. The car was still moving well, but she didn’t want it to break down with her five-year-old daughter Tami inside and on this highway. Although it was a well-paved road, the distances between houses and villages seemed enormous to one who had lived most of her life on Jerome Avenue in the Bronx.

  She was on her way upstate to join her husband David who was an engineer working for a firm constructing a multimillion-dollar sewer plant and system for a township in the Catskills. He had called to say that he’d be stuck there for a good week and a half, maybe even two. Usually he returned to their home in Mount Kisco late in the day from the site or remained overnight only one or two nights.

  Despite the demands of his job, Stacey and David were rarely separated more than one or two nights at a time. It was an important accomplishment for them, not because they didn’t trust one another when they were apart for longer periods of time so much as they sincerely enjoyed and needed one another. Both were only children and both had already lost their parents.

  In anticipation of her arrival, David had booked a larger room in one of the nearby resorts, rather than remain in a motel. Stacey was looking forward to making this something of a holiday in the famous Catskill hotel. During the day, she would enjoy the resort’s facilities, and when David returned late in the afternoon, they would go to dinner, hire a hotel babysitter, and go to the nightclub to dance and see the entertainment.

  “It’ll take you about two hours to get here,” David told her when he gave her the directions. She was doing well until she stopped at the garage, but this was something her father used to do when they traveled—confirm and reconfirm his itinerary whenever possible. She had suspected she might have taken a wrong turn anyway, and when the dashboard light went on, it seemed an opportune time to halt and get directions.

  The mechanic had misread the problem. Most of the water had boiled out of the car’s radiator, but because everything seemed to be working right, he just read it as poor maintenance. Women and automobiles, he thought to himself, there ought to be a law against it. When Stacey told him where she was going, he nodded and described the shortcut to her. All she could think about was surprising David with her earlier arrival.

  Although the side road was obviously less traveled, it didn’t look in any poorer shape than the main road. She was encouraged by the smoothness of the macadam because she had almost hesitated to take it, thinking it might turn out to be some cowpath. She had heard about those kind of shortcuts in the country. This road beckoned. Almost as if alive, waiting.

  She passed one small house on the right and then rode for what seemed to be a good couple of miles before she saw another. Tami had gone back to playing with her Cabbage Patch doll and the set of plastic teacups. Stacey had the radio on, happy that she could still pull in WNYN. Perhaps she had had it on too loud because she didn’t hear what finally sounded like a small siren going off in the engine until it was far too late.

  The sound and the sight of the steam rising up from under the car hood threw her into a panic. She hit the brakes and pulled the car off to the side, turning off the engine quickly. She envisioned some kind of an explosion. It sounded like a huge teapot boiling over.

  “Damn.”

  “What is it, Mommy?”

  “Car trouble. That man didn’t fix our problem back there.”

  “What are we goin’ to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  When she opened the door, Tami climbed over the seat from the rear to follow her. Stacey looked at the steaming engine and then down the road behind them. There wasn’t another car in sight. “Leave it to me to screw things up,” she said.

  “What d’ya mean, Mommy?”

  “I don’t know. We gotta get help, I know that.”

  “Are we going to call Daddy?”

  “I hope not. He’d love having to come driving down here searching for us. I’m not even sure where we are.” She reached into the car to get the map off the seat. “I know we’re supposed to come out here and we were over here, so we must be somewhere in this area,” she said, really talking to herself. “Don’t get too close to the front of the car,” she warned when Tami wandered away from her.

  Sometimes, when you let the car cool down, she thought, you can drive it again for a while. The clouds overhead looked bruised and angry. A storm was sweeping in from the west, and thunder rolled in the distance. “Great,” she muttered, and remembering the car, she said, “I guess we’ll give it a few minutes.”

  “Mommy, look,” Tami said. She had gone far enough ahead to look just beyond the bend.

  “What?”

  “A house. A big house.”

  “A house? Where?” Stacey said, and craned her neck. Then she saw: set on a slight incline stood a three-story Victorian manor house, weathered from age and neglect but obviously equipped with modern conveniences. There were no telephone lines, however, extending from the house to the main road, but she thought that they maybe relied on cables buried underground. Several outbuildings encircled the large house. “Oh, thank God. Good work, Tami.”

  “We’re going to go there?”

  “Sure. The least we’ll find is a phone. I’d like to call that mechanic and give him a wherefore. All right,” she said after she locked the car doors, “let’s go for a walk.”

  “I want Sooey. I forgot Sooey.”

  “It’s just for a few minutes, Tami. Your doll will be all right.”

  “I want Sooey,” she repeated much softer, her face beginning to crumple.

  “Okay, okay. I don’t know why I’m locking the car up here anyway. There are probably only rabbits and deer around.”

  “I wanna see a rabbit.”

  “Just keep your eyes open as we walk. You’ll see one, I’m sure. Let’s go,” she added, handing the doll to Tami. She took her daughter’s left hand in hers and they started up the road toward the house. As they drew closer, Stacey could see that it was a small farm. There was a long chicken coop and a nice size barn to the far side. The pasture was well behind the house. A tractor was parked next to a station wagon in the driveway.

  “You’ll see a lot o
f animals here,” Stacey said. They turned into the driveway, but before they reached the front of the house, a rather big man dressed in coveralls came out of the garage. He was tanned dark by the sun, and his features could be called handsome: sharp and angular and framed by medium-cropped hair. He looked to be in his mid-forties, since the complexion was slightly lined, but these farmers spent years in the fields and aged quickly, she thought. He was wiping his hands on a rag.

  At least a hundred times afterward, Stacey would reprimand herself for not paying attention to the bad feeling she got when she looked into the man’s face. Although the look wasn’t exactly the same, she had seen something similar in the face of the man who had mugged her and Fredda Benson on the subway two years ago. It was all in the eyes, the wild, mad look of a trapped animal, something suffering deep internal, almost inexpressible pain. Gulping down her apprehension as her daughter tugged her arm, she started forward, schooling her features into as cheery and relaxed a mask as she could muster. Thunder rolled again in the distance.

  “Hi,” she said, waving. “We need some help.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “My car broke down,” she said. “I shouldn’t have taken this road, I know; but that mechanic back in the garage…”

  He nodded as if he knew from previous experience. Before he could say anything, though, the screen door in the front of the house opened and a tall, large-boned girl stepped out. Stacey thought she was obviously this man’s daughter and she felt sorry for her immediately. She had taken after her father when it came to some physical characteristics. Dark locks framed her face, and her most striking feature were high cheekbones that gave her an off-kilter, angelic look. But there the resemblance ended.

  “Get back inside,” the man said. His daughter didn’t listen and drew closer. Stacey could see what had saddened her on first glimpse of the girl. She was retarded and the results were a kind of stumpiness in her facial features. Her forehead sloped slightly and her nose was too broad. Some drool lined the sides of her mouth and dirt streaked her neck and the bottom of her right cheek as if personal grooming was occasional at most. She wore a faded one-piece brown dress whose hem had fallen out. She was sockless and bad insect bites pocked her calves. Holes ruptured both her sneakers.

  Tami was fascinated by her. The girl had fixed quickly on Tami’s Cabbage Patch doll. She pointed to it and laughed.

  “Didn’t you hear what I told you?” the man snarled. Creases lined his forehead and his smoldering eyes looked dangerous.

  “That’s all right,” Stacey said. She was embarrassed by his show of raw anger and hoped to get back on track. “Hello. What’s your name?” The girl looked up at her and then at her father. There was tremendous fear in her face. “This is my daughter, Tami. Tami, say hello to…”

  “Her name’s Shirley,” the man said. “All right.” He signaled to his daughter and Shirley moved closer to Tami. She reached out to touch the doll and Tami pulled back.

  “That’s okay, Tami,” Stacey said. “You can let her touch Sooey. She calls her Sooey,” she explained to the man, but his face remained stern. Others always smiled on hearing the doll’s name.

  “What’s wrong with your car?” he asked.

  Stacey cleared her throat, glad they were moving on. An occasional raindrop was beginning to fall. “It keeps overheating. I thought this mechanic fixed it, but…”

  “Where is it?”

  “Just over that rise back there,” she said, pointing.

  The retarded girl seized the doll firmly in her grasp and scampered back to the house. Tami started to cry. “Oh, Jesus,” Stacey said. “That doll’s precious to her,” she explained. Shirley stopped on the porch and looked back.

  “She just wants you to play with her,” the man said to Tami. “Go on. It’s starting to rain anyway.”

  Stacey was surprised by his tone. It was more like a command. She put her arm around Tami and drew her closer.

  “She’s afraid,” she said.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  Before either of them could say anything else, the screen door opened again and a tall, slim woman emerged. She stepped forward with the timidity of a bird. Stacey was impressed with the size of her eyes because her face was so drawn and sallow. She looked like someone who was continually in a state of terror.

  “Is it Marlene?” she asked.

  The man looked at Stacey and then back at his wife. Shirley was hugging the porch post with her right arm and clinging to the doll with her left.

  “Yeah, it’s Marlene,” he said.

  “Pardon?” Stacey asked.

  “It’s nothing,” the man said. He looked down at Tami again. “Why don’t you go play? Tell her to go play. I’ll go look at your car.”

  The rain began to fall harder. Stacey realized her options were diminishing rapidly. “Okay,” Stacey said. “Do you have a phone inside that I could use?”

  “We don’t have a phone,” he said.

  “No phone?” She smiled incredulously. So her original fear had been right; they didn’t have underground cables.

  “No need. Go on. Shirley likes to play,” he said to Tami.

  “We’ll both go,” Stacey said. She started toward the house, consoling herself that once the man repaired the car she could drive back to the station and phone David. The woman remained where she was, staring out at her, her right hand against her cheek as though she just remembered something important. “Hello,” Stacey offered. The woman smiled.

  “Where have you been?” she asked.

  “Where have I been?” Stacey kept her smile. “I think you’re mistaking me for someone else. You see, we were driving along this road…”

  “And Donna, where have you been? Shirley missed you.”

  “No,” Stacey said, “this is my daughter Tami.” She looked back. The man had started down the road toward her car. She took a deep breath and shook her head. She didn’t know what the hell this was, but if she could put up with it long enough for him to do what had to be done, it would be all right.

  Shirley held the doll out for Tami to take back. Tami reached out quickly, but the girl, teasing her, jumped off the porch and started around the house.

  “Go on,” the woman said, “Shirley wants to play.”

  “I want my doll back.”

  “Just go on. Shirley will give it back to you, Donna.”

  “No, her name’s Tami. I don’t think she feels comfortable enough to—”

  “Go on,” the woman said. Her words carried the same tone of command as her husband’s. Shirley appeared at the corner of the house.

  “Come on,” she said. “Come on and I’ll give you the doll.”

  Tami looked up at Stacey and then started off the porch. Stacey reached out for her to hold her back, but the woman stepped forward.

  “Oh, let them play,” she said. “It’s so good for Shirley. You can imagine how hard it is for her out here all alone, waiting for Donna to come back.”

  “Her name isn’t Donna. Don’t you understand?”

  “Of course I understand,” she said, smiling widely. Her teeth looked like tiny pearls. This woman has such small features, Stacey thought, compared to her husband; yet the daughter appears to have inherited nothing from her.

  Tami joined the retarded girl at the corner of the house and then disappeared when the girl grabbed her arm and dragged her around it. Stacey started after her.

  “Don’t worry about them,” the woman said, seizing her arm. Stacey was shocked at the power in her grip. She looked to be bones and skin, but there was obviously a nervous energy that translated itself into physical prowess. “Come and have some fresh lemonade.”

  “I…are they going to be all right? It’s raining.”

  “Of course. There are buildings out back.”

  “How old is Shirley?”

  “Shirley will be ten next month. But you know that, Marlene. Why do you ask such a question?” She looked like she was going to laugh.
“Are you teasing me again? Gerald said you would.”

  “No. I’m not Marlene. My name is Stacey Oberman. Listen,” she said, stretching to see over the rise in the road, “I’d better get my daughter and join your husband at the car.”

  “Oh, no, don’t do that. Not now. Not while they’re playing so well.”

  “But I’ve got to get on my way. My husband is expecting us and he’ll be—”

  “You can’t leave us now,” she said. She looked toward the road. “You’ve got to wait for the car anyway.” Stacey sighed with frustration. “Come in and have some lemonade. I just made it and you know how you like my lemonade.”

  “I never had your lemonade,” Stacey said with a growing fatigue.

  “Teasing again,” the woman sang. She laughed and opened the screen door. “Come on.”

  “Oh damn,” Stacey muttered. “Tami,” she shouted.

  “I think they’re inside,” the woman said. “I think they came in through the back door.”

  Stacey looked at her suspiciously. Then she listened for some sounds from within the house. She heard nothing.

  “I don’t hear them in there.”

  “Listen,” the woman said. “Shirley?” she called.

  “Yes,” Shirley replied. They were inside.

  “I can’t believe this,” Stacey said. She was really annoyed now. The woman held the screen door opened for her and she walked in behind her. There was a heavy, musty scent to the house. She thought it smelled like stale urine, like entrances to subway stations often smelled.

  It must have been a magnificent house at one time, she thought as she walked down the long hallway toward what she imagined was the kitchen, an old Victorian structure which had only recently passed its heyday. A stairwell spiraled upward halfway down the hall. Its steps looked worn, but the mahogany banister shone as though recently polished. The woman stopped at the foot of it.

  “They went upstairs to Shirley’s room,” she said. “Shirley?”

  “Yes,” came the reply from upstairs.