THIRTY
Zee stood motionless at the door of her cell. She had given up trying to break the weakened rebar for now. Her arms still hurt from the effort. The voices in her head had finally calmed, but the howling in the enclosed cell next to her had started up again. She looked at Natalie. She was sitting on the ground, her back and shoulders leaning against the wall, her head tilted forward so that her chin rested on her chest.
Zee wasn’t sure if the woman was awake, but she talked loud enough to be heard over the din. “Do you think that’s man or beast making all that noise?”
“Man,” Natalie said without looking up.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” After a short pause, Zee said, “We need to find a way out of here.”
The woman lifted her head. “Agreed.”
“Sorry if I went a little crazy earlier. Without my medication, it’s not easy being me.”
“Do you have an illness?”
“I have schizophrenia,” Zee said. “A disease of the brain. The doctor told me there are abnormalities in my brain’s structure and function.”
“Then it seems we’re both in a bit of a pickle.”
“You have schizophrenia?”
“Type 1 diabetes. I wear a device that pumps insulin into my body, but he must have taken it.”
“You don’t look too good. You’re not going to die and leave me here alone—are you?” For the most part, Zee didn’t like being around people, especially strangers. But the woman was sick. She looked deathly pale. And nothing bonded two people faster than having a creepy man lock you up in his basement.
She’s probably a spy. You better be careful.
“I’m not going to leave you,” Natalie said. “I promise.”
Zee wasn’t sure how Natalie could make such a promise under the circumstances, but she let it go. What would be the point of arguing with her? Since the woman was naked, Zee thought about taking off her coat and handing it to her through the bars, but the voices in her head stopped her.
What if you need it later? It might get cold, and you hate being cold.
Zee had to stifle a giggle by slapping a hand over her mouth. Not because there was anything particularly funny going on, but because she just couldn’t help it. If she started laughing, though, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself.
The howling stopped. Abruptly. Like a faucet being shut off.
Thank you, Jesus!
“I wasn’t laughing at you,” Zee found herself saying. “Sometimes I just laugh at inappropriate times.”
“I understand.”
Zee narrowed her eyes. “You do?”
Natalie nodded. “Stress will make people do things they wouldn’t normally do.”
“What are you, some sort of therapist?”
“A psychotherapist.”
“No shit?”
Natalie smiled.
“Maybe you can help me while we’re stuck in here?”
“Maybe.”
“Do you think he’s going to come back?”
“I do.”
“He seemed like a nice guy when I met him at the park. Sure, I thought he was a bit off and sort of quirky, but aren’t we all?”
“You know him?”
Zee nodded. “I met him six months ago. I’m not a big fan of people in general, but we hit it off, talked about everything. He used my Polaroid camera to take pictures of me but wouldn’t let me take a picture of him. Now I know why.”
“Why?”
“Because of all this,” Zee said, opening her arms wide. “It makes sense that a crazy man wouldn’t want any record at all that he even existed.” She paused before adding, “He was supposed to meet me at Rainbow Park, but when he didn’t show up, I decided to go looking for him.”
“So you know where he lives?”
Zee grunted. “On a small farm in Woodland, at least ten miles from Rainbow Park. That’s all I know.” She scratched her leg. “I should have been paying better attention, but I wasn’t. After he didn’t show up at the park, I headed toward the wooded area. I’ve never wandered that far before. It’s not like there were road signs and streets,” she said defensively. “There was nothing but trees forever and ever, it seemed. Once the trees disappeared, I crossed over a lot of farmland and tall grass.”
Zee liked the way Natalie looked at her when she talked—as if she really was interested in what she had to say. One thing she’d noticed in her lifetime was that nobody listened. “It got dark,” Zee went on, “and cold real quick. That’s when I started seeing strange things.”
“What sort of things?”
“Mostly circus people. But also an elephant and a tiger, and all the usual stuff you would expect to see at a traveling show. It was the clowns, though, who kept pointing and telling me I was almost there, so I kept going. I walked for days.”
“You spent the night in the woods?”
Duh. She’s not a good listener, after all. Hasn’t she heard a word you’ve said? How do you walk for days without spending the night in the woods?
“Four nights,” Zee said, ignoring the voice in her head. “Scar had said something about owning a horse, an old gray mare with a swayback, so when I—”
“What city do you live in?”
“Woodland,” Zee told her, trying not to get overly annoyed by the interruption. “Anyway, I passed a few horses on the way, but when I saw the gray horse with the swayback, I was pretty sure it had to be his horse and that I was on the right track. Sure enough, there he was in the middle of a field, digging a hole in the ground.”
Zee frowned. “He was digging a hole when I found him. Do you think he’s going to kill us and bury us in that hole?” She shivered. She didn’t like being confined, trapped in small places. The cell was bad enough, but being put in a hole didn’t sit well with her. And what about the person in the box? she wondered. For the first time since being thrown down here, she remembered the box. “When I was outside walking toward the house,” Zee told Natalie, “there was a box, the same size as a small coffin. I think someone was inside, pounding their fists against the wood.” Zee grabbed both sides of her head and squeezed. She could feel her heart thumping against her ribs. “That’s when he hit me over the head with his shovel.”
“I think we should concentrate on getting out of here,” Natalie told her.
Zee looked up at the rebar.
You’re weak and dumb. You’ll never get out of here.
“I’m pretty strong,” Zee said, “but I don’t know if I can break through these bars.”
Natalie pushed herself to her feet. “That’s okay. We’ll just have to think of something else.”
“I know!” Zee rushed over to their shared wall of rebar. “If he enters your cage, try to get him to stand over here so I can grab him.” She reached both arms through the space between the bars to demonstrate. “I’ll lock my elbow around his neck so you can get the keys out of his pocket, or wherever he keeps them, and get us out of here.”
“I think that’s a great plan.”
For the first time in a long while, Zee felt proud of herself. She opened her mouth to say thanks when the door above the stairs creaked open. She couldn’t see the door from her cell, but she could hear someone rustling about at the top of the landing. She hoped he was bringing food and water. Her mouth was dry, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so thirsty.
Natalie hurried back to the far corner of her cell while Zee returned to her door and wrapped her fingers around the bars.
He’s coming. He’s going to kill you. I told you months ago that he was bad news. You should have listened to me.
“It stinks in here,” the asshole said as his feet hit the cement.
He set his canvas bag on the floor and lit one of the kerosene lamps. Then he fished around in his bag and pulled out a dead chicken, feathers and all, opened the mail-slot-like door in the cell where the howling came from, and shoved the dead bird inside. She heard a thump when it hit the ground on the other side.
“Hey, Dog,” he called through the opening. “I brought you some food.” He tossed a couple of water bottles inside, too, then let the metal door fall back in place with a loud clang.
Zee heard chains clinking as someone moved about inside. Why would his prisoner be chained? It wasn’t good enough that he was locked inside an enclosed cell? She looked over at Natalie, who was sitting with her knees up close to her chest and her head down.
“Who do you have locked up in that cell?” Zee asked him.
“None of your business.”
“Why are your eyes so red?” She crinkled her nose. “And your neck is bleeding. Did you get into a fight?”
“Why did you have to show up here and ruin everything?” he asked, still angry. “I thought we were friends.”
Zee stiffened. “You said you would meet me at the park.”
“I got sidetracked.”
“With what?”
“A stranded girl on the side of the road,” he stated proudly, all anger gone.
Who’s the schizo now? she wondered.
“Her car had a flat tire,” Scar said. “She needed help.”
“Where is she now?”
“In a box.”
So she had heard someone in the box. She knew it!
Natalie stirred, rustling the straw.
The young man Zee no longer recognized as the guy she once thought was sort of cool walked over to Natalie’s cell and pressed his face up against the bars. “Are you awake?”
Nothing.
He chuckled. “I know you are.”
“She’s sick,” Zee told him. “She’s a diabetic and needs her medicine.”
“What about you?” he asked, turning to face Zee. “Don’t you need your medicine?”
“I can take it or leave it,” she lied. Even when she took her pills, she still heard voices, but her medication eliminated other problems, like hallucinations. She wanted out of there. “Let me go.”
“It’s too late for that.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“I already told you,” he said, his attention back on Natalie. “Natalie’s mother could have saved me, but she did nothing. She simply looked the other way. Someone had to pay. Since I couldn’t locate Sue Sterling, I figured her daughter should be punished in her place.” He sighed. “Look at me, Natalie.”
When she failed to move a muscle, he walked back to the stairs and disappeared within the dark space behind the steps. When he returned, he was pulling what looked like a fire hose along with him. “Nobody cared about me growing up,” he said as he approached. “I was tortured all my life, and yet nobody cared. How does it feel, Natalie, to be trapped and suffering and to have no one help you?”
Natalie lifted her head; the anger scrawled across her face matched his. “On May 14, 1999,” she said through gritted teeth, “the same day my mother visited you, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. My mother was more concerned about you than her diagnosis. She spent days making phone calls, pleading your case to get you the help you needed, but—”
The lines in his forehead deepened. He turned the nozzle, spraying Natalie in the face with a gushing stream of water, pushing her back against the cement and forcing her to turn her head to one side and gulp for breath.
“Stop it!” Zee cried.
A few more seconds passed before he finally shut off the water.
“My mom wanted to help you,” Natalie cried, water dripping from her face.
“Bullshit! She shook my father’s hand, the same hand that had been torturing me and my mother since the day I was born, and left without another glance my way.”
“She didn’t want your father to know that she was on to him. She knew you were suffering, and she wanted to help, but she was dead within weeks of visiting your home.”
Chills swept up Zee’s spine as she watched Scar’s expression change. He’s gone from slightly deranged to full-blown cray-cray. His face was red, eyes bulging, the muscles in his neck thick like corded rope.
“You’re a liar!” he shouted.
“It’s true,” Natalie said. “She was worried about you. Your name is Forrest Bloom. I only know that because you’re all she talked about. Years later, I looked you up and saw that you were enrolled in college and doing well.”
“After your mother left,” he said, his voice an octave higher than before, “Dad made my mother homeschool me so I would no longer have contact with the outside world.” His hands trembled. “Do you have any idea what my life was like after your mother left me to rot in hell?”
Nobody said a word.
“Dad liked to pull my teeth out with pliers just for fun, just because he could. If I wet my bed, he put me in a box outside, kept me there for days. He enjoyed throwing darts at my mom and me. He made me do unspeakable things. My own grandmother purposely starved herself so she wouldn’t have to watch us all suffer. I would have done the same if I could have found the courage to leave my mom alone with the bastard. He did all of these things to me because he enjoyed it. So, no,” he said, calmly now, “I was never doing well. I was never fine. My mom filled out applications and begged me to go to college after I was accepted.” His jaw hardened. “When I found out my mother passed away, I left school early so I could return home and take care of some unfinished business.”
Natalie lifted her chin a notch. “So now you spend your days hurting others just as your father hurt you?”
He smiled, a wicked smile that silenced all the voices inside Zee’s head.
“By George, I think you’ve got it!” he said, startling Zee. He turned the nozzle and sprayed Natalie again, forcing her to turn away. When he shut the hose off, Zee watched the excess water circle the drain in Natalie’s cell and disappear. A tiny stream of water trickled into her cell. She dropped to the ground and began to lap it up with her tongue.
“Is that tasty, Zee?”
She ignored him.
“I have something for you, too,” he said, which made Zee look over at him. He was holding a small box. Her stomach growled. She was starving.
He stood next to her door, close enough for her to reach out and touch him.
“Come and get it,” he said.
He likes you. It’s food! Reach through the bars and get it! Hurry before he feeds it to the bitch in the other cell!
She was confused, wasn’t sure what to do. She stood, then looked over at Natalie, who very subtly shook her head. She’s a smart lady, another voice warned. Don’t go over there.
You’re an idiot! She wants the food for herself. Go get it before that lady eats it all!
Zee walked over to him, her body pressed against metal as she reached through the bars and wiggled her fingers. “Give it to me,” she said. “I’m hungry.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Don’t be an ass.”
He pulled off the lid, raised the box high in the air, and then slammed the open end of the box against the metal bars above her head so that the contents spilled out over her. Tiny little legs skittered through her hair, down her face and neck. They were everywhere.
Terror froze her in place.
Spiders.
He knew she hated spiders. He knew her worst fear, and he was using it against her. There was one crawling inside her ear. The tiny creepy crawlers tickled her flesh as they worked their way into her shirt.
Move, you idiot! Walk. Dance. Hop. Jump up and down! Do something!
Her feet wouldn’t budge. She couldn’t move a muscle. She didn’t make a sound, either, not even when a spider darted into her mouth.
The monster laughed, guffawed as if he’d never seen anything so hilarious. His face changed again right before her eyes. He was suddenly one of the circus clowns she’d passed on her way there. Tufts of red, wiry hair above his ears vibrated with laughter. His mouth was wide-open, his brown-stained teeth pointy and revolting. Like most clowns, he had a red ball for a nose. It cracked and fell off. Blood oozed from both nostrils, but he didn’t seem to notice or care. He wouldn’t stop laughing.
The howling wolf man began shrieking and beating his fists against the wall closest to her. She wondered if he was laughing at her, too, or if he just wanted out.
Before today Zee had thought she knew crazy better than most. But this guy, Forrest Bloom, or whoever he was, gave crazy a whole new meaning.