The Maddening Read online

  “Where…where…where’s my daughter?” she asked.

  “She’s playing with Shirley,” the woman responded. She was standing right behind him, holding a tray. “I have your dinner.”

  The man crossed to the lamp by the bed and turned it on. Stacey tried to sit up. The tremors in her legs and arms were so great she fought for control. She pressed the palms of her hands against her face and then brushed her hair back. In the weak lamplight, the man and the woman looked pale and deadly, like animated corpses. The shadows around the man’s eyes were deep and dark and the lines in the woman’s face had deepened from when Stacey first saw her. It was as though within their house they could become their true selves. Ghouls.

  Stacey’s heartbeat, which had pulsed rapidly ever since she’d been locked in the room, quickened faster. She found it hard to breathe and thought she might pass out at any moment. She had to fight for consciousness and gulped for air.

  Neither the man nor the woman seemed to notice her difficulty. After he’d turned on the lamp, he’d retraced his steps to the doorway and now stood there, as though to block it with his body. He spanned the width of it. There was no way she could rush by him. The woman put the tray down on the table by the bed and unfolded the napkin she had placed between the dish and the glass of what looked to be plain water. There was nothing on the dish.

  “It’s your favorite meal,” she said. “My meatloaf and boiled potato. There are stringbeans from the garden, too. I made an apple turnover. I know how much you like apple turnovers, Marlene.”

  “I’m not Marlene. Why can’t you see that?” She looked to the man, hoping for him to confirm it, but all he did was stare at her. “Where’s my daughter? Where’s Tami?” she tried again.

  “Donna and Shirley are playing in the basement. That’s where Gerald put the dollhouse. Don’t you remember anything, Marlene?”

  “Oh God. Please let me out. I’ll just drive off. I won’t tell anyone anything,” she said to the man, but he didn’t respond or change expression. He looked as though she was this woman Marlene, too.

  “Come on,” he said to his wife.

  “Gerald’s hungry, too. You know how he gets when he’s hungry. Now don’t rush me, Gerald. Marlene and I are having a nice conversation.”

  “Come on,” he commanded. Stacey pulled herself back farther. The man’s voice was so full of anger. She sensed that he was blaming her for his wife not moving fast enough.

  “He’s impossible. I’m sorry. I’ll have to go get him his dinner, too. Now you eat everything, Marlene.” She started across the room.

  “,No,” Stacey screamed, reaching out to grab the woman’s leg. Gerald moved with amazing speed for a man his size and grasped her by the wrist before she could take hold of the woman’s leg. He turned her wrist so abruptly she thought he had broken it. She screamed in pain, but he refused to release her. His grip tightened as he stared down at her as if he enjoyed inflicting agony. Finally he released her and she folded her arm against her body and fell back onto the floor.

  “Now look what you’ve done, Gerald. How do you expect her to eat with only one arm?”

  “Come on, I told you,” he said roughly, and stomped to the doorway. His wife, in her unfazed fashion, followed suit.

  “All of your things are still in the dresser drawers, Marlene, and your pretty dresses are hanging in the closet. Put on the blue and white print for tomorrow, will you? I so like the way that looks on you. And Gerald likes it, too, don’t you, Gerald?”

  “Just leave her,” he said from the hallway.

  “I’ll pick up the dishes in the morning when Gerald and I bring your breakfast, Marlene. Good night, dear.”

  Stacey wanted to scream, but all she could do was moan her plea. Their response was to close the door. She heard the key scrape in the lock and the lock snap shut. Then she heard their footsteps fade down the hallway toward the stairs.

  Slowly she struggled into a sitting position. The pain in her arm was excruciating. She had to take in deep breaths to stop the current from pulsing across her chest into her heart. She got to her feet by sliding up the wall into a tottering position. Gaining some measure of equilibrium she inched toward the bed, wincing at the stabbing pain in her arm.

  When she reached the bed she nearly fell over it in her rush to lie down. Turning on her back, she tried to straighten her arm. Satisfied that it wasn’t broken, she worked it back and forth slowly to return the circulation. After a while the pain became bearable, although it didn’t cease throbbing.

  When she regained her breath, she listened closely to the sounds coming from the hallway, hoping to hear Tami’s voice. Music drifted to her, sounding like the kind that accompanied cartoons. She thought she heard Shirley’s laughter, but she heard nothing from Tami.

  “Oh God,” she chanted, “please help me. David, David, David.”

  After a while she sat up in bed and looked about the room. She couldn’t just give up, but had to find something, some way to free herself and her baby. Maybe there was something she could pry open the window or the door with.

  She went to the closet and, just as the woman had said, she found a pole of dresses hanging among some blandly colored blouses and skirts. There were about half a dozen pairs of shoes on the floor, too. With a morbid curiosity, she picked up a pair of flats and studied them in the weak lamplight. It’s too shocking, she thought; it couldn’t be. When she tried them on, she discovered that the shoes fit her.

  She seized the blue and white print dress and pulled it from its hanger. When she looked at its tag, she found it to be her size as well.

  It’s just a coincidence; it’s just a terrible, terrifying coincidence, she thought. She let it drop to the closet floor as she turned to prowl around elsewhere.

  The drawers of the dresser were filled with undergarments and stockings, all her size. But nothing surfaced that could be used as a weapon or as a tool to get herself free. Exhaustion engulfed her. She needed rest before starting a more thorough search later.

  She returned to the bed and lay back looking up at the ceiling. Her arm still pulsed with a dull ache, and her throat was so dry she could barely swallow. Although she didn’t want to take anything from them, she realized she would have to drink some of the juice. She reached over to the tray, lifted the glass, and took a swallow. It didn’t taste anything like the cranberry juice she was used to, and moments after she gulped the liquid down, she panicked.

  What if they had laced it with poison? Why did she drink it? Maybe they wanted to kill her and keep Tami. What did she do? Renewed fear surged through her and she got up and rushed to the door, pounding on it and screaming at the top of her lungs. No one responded. She pressed her face against the door and slid down until she was sitting on the floor. She fell into a sleep born of terror overwhelmed by fatigue.

  Hours later, when she woke up, she saw that it was late at night. The house was totally silent except for the creaking in the shingled roof as the wind from the storm lingered and pounded the house. She fought to her feet and made her way back to the bed, where she sank down and stared at the floor. Despite the terrible situation, it was difficult to fight sleepiness. Her eyelids felt heavy. Finally she fell back onto the bed and let sleep come over her like a narcotic. Perhaps in the morning all this would somehow be brought to an end and she and Tami would be on their way again. It was that hope that permitted her to drift into sleep. She didn’t let the question about what happened to Marlene, the owner of the closet’s contents, and her daughter Donna puzzle her too long.

  Gerald opened the old barn doors and recalled the fifty-odd head of cattle Pa used to have. The farm had been a lively place then; in stark contrast with now, nothing had stood silent and unused. He could almost hear his father’s reprimand. He lowered his head like a whipped puppy and waited for the echo to die.

  Jerking out of his reverie, he turned back to the automobile. The fan belt had been stuck and the water had boiled out of the radiator. It wasn�
��t hard to fix, but he imagined it was one of those intermittent problems mechanics often missed because sometimes it happened and sometimes it didn’t. The woman had been caught out on the road when it did.

  But in the back of his mind, he didn’t believe it was as simple as that. He really believed the woman had been brought to them by some supernatural force, just like the first one. She, too, had had a little girl, although hers was a lot older. The new playmates were so much better for Shirley, and therefore for Irene. Already a gaiety had returned to their home. The two appeared happy, and Shirley wasn’t crying all the time. He just had to be careful that all went well, or at least better than the last time. This time he would have more say and more control. It was a promise he made to himself and a promise that enabled him to let events unfold.

  He got into the car and drove it into the barn. In the days to come, he would dismantle it just the way he had dismantled the other car. It took a great deal of effort, but it was much safer than just leaving it somewhere in the woods. He couldn’t trust that some trespasser wouldn’t stumble on the abandoned machine. There were too many hunters prowling around, especially during the big game season, even though he had posted his land well. Those sons of bitches from the city ignored his signs. No, this was the better way. He was sure of it.

  After he switched off the ignition and climbed out, he threw the tractor’s large canvas over the vehicle and pulled down the corners until he was satisfied it was well hidden. As he left the barn and closed the doors, he heard Shirley’s laughter through the open basement window. He went over to the house and knelt down to peer in.

  Shirley and the new girl were by the dollhouse. Irene had dressed the girl in one of Donna’s dresses, even though the dress was far too big. She looked swallowed up in it. At the moment she was sitting on the floor, a look of confusion and fear on her face. Shirley was making her play, forcing her to pretend she was feeding all the dolls that were lined up on the small bench.

  He saw Donna’s doll, second from the end, and now the new girl’s Cabbage Patch doll right before that one. Shirley began to bawl out all the dolls for not eating properly. He thought she did a good imitation of Irene five years ago. It almost brought a smile to his face…then he remembered.

  All the shouting, all the blaming, all the fists waved at the sky would never change what happened. Nothing would, and that’s why it didn’t matter that they had the new woman locked in the room upstairs and the new girl with Shirley.

  2

  David bolted from his chair when a knock sounded on the hotel room door. He hurried to answer it and greeted Barry Hingen, the chief of hotel security and a former member of the New York State Police. Hingen was a tall man with an athletic build and demeanor. He was very light-skinned and he looked unruffled and untouched by the recent heat and the sun. He wore a light blue cotton suit with a matching blue tie, and his rust-brown hair was brushed back neatly on the sides, but styled into a tight wave in the front. David was impatient with the introduction and small talk.

  “Has there been a robbery?” Hingen asked.

  “No, nothing like that. I need your advice.” David looked about helplessly for a moment. There was only one chair in the room and he didn’t feel like sitting on a bed to talk to the security man.

  “Sit down, sir,” Hingen said as he leaned against the chest of drawers. “Start from the beginning.”

  David sat in the chair and explained the arrangements he and Stacey had. He talked quickly but calmly, keeping everything in proper chronological order. Hingen listened attentively, but showed little emotional reaction.

  “All right. The first thing we’ll do is check with the state police to see if there have been any accident reports in the vicinity. Give me a description of the car. You wouldn’t know the license plate number, would you?”

  “No, I—”

  “No matter. They’ll get it in a matter of minutes. The computer will cough it up.”

  “Shouldn’t we call the local police? I thought you probably knew…”

  “We will if we have to,” he said. “But for now they’d only do what we’re about to do.”

  “Okay,” David said. The man seemed to know procedures. He decided to be patient. Hingen went to the phone and made his call. He was on a first-name basis with whomever answered on the other end at the nearest state police barracks. After what seemed an interminable time, but what was really only twenty minutes and an unlimited number of uh-huh’s, Hingen hung up.

  “Nothing that fits her description,” he said, “and that’s really over a range of more than a hundred miles in every direction.”

  “What now?”

  “We’ll call the town police. They have a couple of detectives on the payroll. Let them earn their money,” Hingen said dryly. David decided he didn’t like the man’s cold efficiency and wondered how a man with such a personality got along in a hotel that prided itself on informality and sociability.

  “Maybe I should just go down to the station,” David said.

  “Yeah, you could, but what if she arrived while you’re down there? Let them send someone up. It’ll take only a few minutes. The station is just in South Fallsburg.”

  “Okay.” Once again, David sank into the cushion, still feeling helpless, and watched Hingen make a call.

  “Chicky Ross is on his way,” Hingen said after he hung up.

  “Chicky?”

  “His real name is Charles, but I don’t think anyone’s called him that since the first grade.”

  “Is he really a detective or what?” David asked. He couldn’t mask his annoyance now. Hingen’s indifferent attitude had become disturbing, grating on David’s determination to keep himself calm. “This is my wife and daughter I’m talking about.”

  “Oh yeah, he’s trained. He might not look like much, but he’s sharp. This may be the boondocks to some people,” Hingen said, “but unfortunately the crime here has become quite sophisticated.” He sounded almost proud of the revelation.

  “That’s not very comforting.”

  Hingen looked at him and nodded. David sensed that the security man had reached some kind of conclusion about the situation and that he’d chalked up the disappearance as due to some easily explained cause. Where did he think Stacey and Tami were, on their own private holiday? Did he think she had run off with a boyfriend, just because she apparently was not in any fatal accident?

  “I’ll wait down in the lobby,” Hingen said, “and send him right up as soon as he arrives. Is there anything you might want in the meantime?”

  “What could I want? Just an answer, that’s all.”

  “Okay,” Hingen said. As soon as he left, David felt as though a cold chill had been drawn out of the room.

  He stood up and paced about, thinking, trying to arrive at some credible reason for her failure to show. An accident was really the most logical thing. If she got lost, she would have certainly called by now. She knew he’d be worried to death. Or would she?

  Confronting a man like Hingen made him wonder about himself. Did Stacey see him the way he saw the house detective—as someone who could be so unemotional in a crisis that he would lay out all the logical possibilities without personal involvement? If she did, he definitely had to make some changes.

  He looked around the room. There was no way to pass the time. He couldn’t just sit and watch television; he couldn’t read; he couldn’t do anything. The frustration was like a fever feeding on itself. Whatever calm facade he had previously constructed was now crumpling. He decided to go into the bathroom and throw cold water on his face, but he realized that nothing would really lessen this tension.

  Before long, the comfortably sized hotel room became more like a two-by-four prison cell. He spent most of his time waiting by the window and looking out at the guests who were still playing on the hotel’s putting green. What had been a refreshing and enjoyable environment now was annoying, almost infuriating. Their casual dress, laughter, and obvious pleasure only un
derscored his own frustration and pain. No one in the hotel should be having a good time. They should all be together, their faces creased in a single expression of woe, worrying for him.

  Of course, he recognized that his thoughts were ridiculous. It was part of what the mind did to protect itself. If only there were some way to communicate his problem to the whole world. Everyone could step out of his house and look up and down their streets and call out for Stacey and Tami Oberman. In a matter of minutes, his wife and daughter would be located, and this ordeal would end.

  He had to laugh at how silly he was becoming. The sound of his own voice shattered the terrible silence in the room. He looked at his watch and then back out at the hotel guests who were now beginning to saunter into the hotel to prepare for dinner. How much time had gone by? Where was this small-town detective? Damn the delay. He went to the phone and called the front desk, demanding to speak to Hingen. Now anger was replacing frustration and he was more comfortable under the weight of having to plow through bureaucracies.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Where is this detective? I thought you said he was nearby.”

  “He is, sir. It hasn’t been fifteen minutes.”

  David paused. Only fifteen minutes? More minutes than that had surely slipped by.

  “It seems longer than that. Maybe you should call again.”

  “Let’s give it another five minutes, Mr. Oberman. It would take him at least that long to get the call in his car, and change his route.”

  “I just want to impress upon you how serious this is getting to be.”

  “I’m aware of that, sir.”

  “Okay, okay. Thanks,” David said and cradled the receiver. Was he losing it? What happened to the firmness and control for which he was so respected? He went back to the bed to stretch out his tired legs and wait. His stomach began to churn and his heart beat faster. Where was she? Where the hell was she? Just to have something to do, he had the hotel operator dial his home again and he waited through a dozen rings before hanging up.