Devils night, p.24
Devil's Night, page 24
Marian made another grunting sound. The girl’s eyes widened, scanning Marian’s bonds, her clothes. The blood stains.
The girl turned away again, burrowing even further beneath her blankets.
Marian started grunting in protest, but then the girl emerged holding a pointed stick. It looked like a piece of wood sharpened to a spike at one end.
So the girl had a weapon. What did she mean to do with it? Marian forced herself not to move.
The girl wrapped a blanket around herself, with the baby tucked securely inside. Then she beckoned Marian closer. “So you can breathe better,” she murmured. She gingerly held the gag and began sawing at the fabric. She was so weak, though. Each movement of her arm seemed to take tremendous effort.
Marian held out her bound hands and nodded at the spike. Give it to me. The girl hesitated. Then she set the spike between Marian’s palms. After a few tries, Marian sliced through the gag. The fabric fell away. She panted, licking at the scrape the spike had left on her lip.
“Who are you?” It came out too harsh. Marian tried to soften her voice. “I’m Marian. What is your name?”
“Shhh,” the girl whispered furiously. “We can’t. He’ll punish us.”
Marian focused on her wrist bindings instead. These were trickier. It was hard to get enough leverage with both hands still bound. The girl had to help her hold the spike at the right angle, while Marian applied the pressure. Finally, her wrists were free.
Marian sat back. All was quiet for a few more minutes.
“Anabel,” the girl eventually said. “And this little one’s Bea.” Her voice was thin and high. She was a mother, but she looked and sounded like a scared child. She tucked the spike back into its hiding place.
“Why haven’t you used that spike against him, Anabel?” Marian asked.
She rocked the baby back and forth.
“You don’t ken.”
“Oh, but I do. You’re not the only girl who’s been used in such a way.”
The girl’s eyes met hers. Pale brown, intelligent if weary. “When I was little, my father come out here. He’d claimed some land after they made the Utes leave. My mama and the rest of us came to the ranch later. But my father done raised his hand one too many times to me. I hated him, and I thought anythin’ would be better than living under his roof.”
She glanced around the room. There was no hatred in her eyes, not even sadness. Just a profound exhaustion that didn’t match her years. “There was a boy I rather liked, and I think he cared for me well enough. Rex. We run off together, and he found work in one of the mines near Eden that Mr. Fitzhammer owns. We told people we’d married. Didn’t live in much more than a hovel we shared with another family, and near starved. Then Rex died last year. Crushed by some falling rocks. Mr. Fitzhammer gave me a little money, and that’s when I met him.”
The baby whimpered in its sleep. Anabel put a hand on the little one.
“He came for me a few days later. Told me that Mr. Fitzhammer had took a liking to me and wanted to help me. I wasn’t blind to his intentions, but what else was I to do? So I went. Bart brought me here. I didn’t ever see Mr. Fitzhammer, nor anybody else. He said he’d kill me if I made too much noise and I was found out. Sometimes I couldn’t help myself, though.”
She described how Bart would bring her food and water every couple of days at first. She was supposed to empty her chamber pot through the window. But it opened onto a tiny, closed-in space between the buildings. No means of escape without trying to climb the walls. And before too long, her condition prevented any such attempt.
“But what was the use of even tryin’ to get away? If I got out, or if he just put me in the street, how’d I be any better off? I had a roof, and I had food. There wasn’t nothing else for me. Not anywhere. Don’t you see?”
Anabel’s speech had gotten slower and slower, and here she stopped. She stared into the empty space of the room. Marian thought of her own darkest days and nights. That feeling of hopelessness, that the future held nothing but coercion and pain.
It was hard to see all of that in the mirror of this girl. Part of Marian hated Anabel for it. She eyed the window—there had to be some method to get out that way. The girl hadn’t tried hard enough.
But I didn’t escape either, did I? Not until the asylum, when Bart and Fitzhammer both had already cast her aside. If they hadn’t, she would’ve stayed in Fitzhammer’s house. She’d truly believed she had no other choice. It was terrible, the things that subjugation did to one’s mind.
Forgiveness was not easy for Marian, least of all for herself.
“And the baby?” Marian asked.
“Bea came a couple of months ago. Bart—he was angry when he saw I was in such a state so soon. I like to think she’s Rex’s. She has pale hair like him.”
She touched the silky strands on her child’s head.
“But it’s hard to keep her quiet. I’m afraid of what he’ll do. That’s why I sharpened the wood, just in case he tried to take her away…I think she’s the only thing that’s kept me alive. In my heart, I mean.”
“Then we have to get her out of here. Before he returns.”
“We can’t. There’s no way out.”
Marian went to the narrow window. She opened it and stuck her head out. There were four sheer walls surrounding a tiny patch of dirt. Night was coming soon. There was only a bit of graying sky visible from this pit. As if she was inside a well and looking up. The air smelled stale and rotten, but still fresher than Anabel’s prison.
Ignoring the pain in her scraped hands and wrists, Marian went outside and started rapping on the various walls. There were more of the slot-shaped windows on the second and third floors. If they could climb up there, though…
“What’re you doin’?” Anabel hissed through the open window. “Get back inside.”
“I will not die here.”
“Please, you’re just makin’ things worse.”
Marian squeezed back through the window into the horrible room.
“Bart is set on seeing me dead—I’ve a long history with him, just as ugly as yours. I fear he intends you for the same fate. But even if you live, do you want to raise Bea like this? Trapped in this hell?”
“But where would we go?”
“Someplace they cain’t hurt us!”
Despite everything, Marian still believed that such a place might exist. Tears had filled her eyes. “Even if we die of starvation in the wilderness, at least we’ll be free. Your daughter will be free.”
Anabel looked at the sleeping child. “D’you really think that’s possible?”
“I’ll help you,” Marian said. “I’ve survived as much as you, and more.”
Anabel bit her lower lip. She shook her head. But the girl was merely warring against her own thoughts, rather than expressing a conviction. Marian waited.
“I’ll try, if you wish,” the girl finally said. She spoke without hope, as if resigned to a new but equally bleak fate. How can she make it with so little will left? Marian wondered. But she couldn’t leave the girl and the baby here. That would be like leaving her own soul behind, tattered though it was.
Marian instructed the girl on how to prepare. The climb would be difficult. And escape from Eden would be ever more tenuous. But staying in this room meant certain death. If not for their bodies, then without a doubt for their hearts and minds.
Marian went back outside, and Anabel tossed items to her through the window. The blankets, spare linen, food. Anabel handed out the baby and finally emerged herself.
The two of them took almost all the space in the yard. Anabel wrapped some blankets into a bundle. She tucked her few belongings inside, including the wooden spike. Then she held it out to Marian, who slid this bundle around her body to carry it.
Next, they constructed a sturdier sling, in which the baby could travel against Anabel’s body.
Marian held the little thing as Anabel wound the sling around herself. The baby felt awkward in her hands. Squirming and warm, pink lips and cheeks. Tiny veins ran along her eyelids. How could such a fragile creature survive? This beautiful child could be crushed as easily as a flower, and this world seemed utterly indifferent to her fate.
Anabel was probably right. There was nowhere for them to go. No place that would be safe for this child. But this knowledge made Marian want to scream in defiance.
We’re alive! We live and breathe and feel.
“Would you be able to carry her, too?” Anabel said.
“What? No.” She tried to hand the child back, but Anabel was removing the sling. She draped it around Marian instead, crossed oppositely from the bundle that Marian already wore.
“Please. You’re stronger. If I drop her while I’m climbing, if I fall…” Anabel’s expression was so plaintive.
“All right.” Marian adjusted the sling and tucked the baby inside. The warm weight of her rested against Marian’s right torso. It felt lovely and natural and monstrous all at once.
It was getting dark when they began to climb. Anabel started first, so that Marian could help push her up. “The brick is far more uneven than it looks,” Marian said. “Feel with your fingers.”
“But it’s madness! I can’t!”
“Then use your legs to push against the opposite wall.”
It took several more minutes of cajoling before Anabel tried in earnest. Marian followed, moving at a quicker pace. Her hands were still raw and bleeding from holding the rope earlier in the day. The baby wiggled against her side. Right away her hand slipped, and she tore skin from her finger pads. Blood once again made her hands slick. Every inch up the building was both triumph and agony. But the pain meant nothing. This was the only way. This, or death.
“I can’t,” Anabel kept moaning, “I can’t.” But she crept upwards like a spider mounting a narrow shaft.
Marian braced herself against the other walls, forcing her way up. The space between the buildings was only a few feet across, and for that, they were lucky.
Quickly, Marian overtook Anabel. She reached the second level. Here, the metal roof of the wooden building sloped up into a peak. But it was steep. Escape would be far too dangerous that way. Balancing her weight, Marian tried the hotel window. It wouldn’t budge. Painted shut from the looks.
“We’ll have to reach the next window up.” If it too didn’t open—but she wouldn’t think on it.
Anabel moaned. Marian kept climbing.
After a while, Anabel began to quietly sob. She’d stopped trying to speak.
Marian was first to reach the third-floor window ledge. Her muscles were trembling. She rested her left side against the stone lip, still hanging precariously. A glance down reminded her of the audacity of what they were doing—two skinny, exhausted women climbing sheer brick walls.
Marian forced up the narrow window. It wanted to stick, as if it had rarely been opened. She was looking into the corner of a guest room of the hotel. It was a grand room, full of large windows on another wall overlooking the moonlit canyon. She lowered the baby inside first, then levered herself over the sill. The baby whimpered.
“Don’t fuss now,” Marian murmured. “You must wait a bit longer yet for your dinner.”
Leaning sideways out of the window, Marian reached for Anabel’s hand. “You’re almost here. A little farther, come on.”
Anabel moved up her hand by another inch. But she was still too far below for Marian to grab hold of her. Anabel’s fingers were turning white from holding so tightly to the brick.
“I can’t.”
“You must.”
Anabel’s limbs shook. She screamed as her hand slipped. Marian leaned her whole torso out of the window. The sill cut into her stomach. She grabbed for Anabel’s arm and caught it by the wrist. They slipped against one another, but Marian held tight. Come on, damn you, she thought.
Anabel’s foot slipped. Her legs swung, colliding with the brick beneath the window. She was dangling in mid-air.
Marian could hardly breathe, the window was pushing so hard against her. Behind her, the baby began to cry.
Marian hauled Anabel upward. The girl was frail and far too thin for a healthy young mother. But she was still heavy enough for Marian, exhausted and bloodied, to struggle. She could barely hold on to the girl. Marian’s jaw ached as she bit down on a scream. They were so near safety, yet still so close to the edge.
Anabel’s wrist was slipping from her grasp.
“Give me your other hand,” Marian said through gritted teeth.
Anabel’s body was limp. “I can’t.”
“You must try. I can’t do it myself!”
The girl didn’t answer. She was still slipping.
“God damn you, try! Your baby needs you.”
The girl’s brown eyes lifted. “She has you now. Take care of her. Please. I’m so tired.”
“Give me your hand. Now. You must.” Marian screamed and cursed at the girl. She didn’t care who might hear her and discover them. She couldn’t let Anabel go.
But Marian couldn’t hold her there. The weight was too much.
It had taken them endless minutes to reach the third floor. But now, the girl plunged through the same distance in less than a second. Her body hit against one wall, then another. She crashed to the ground, which was now hidden in shadow.
The minutes ticked by at a snail’s pace. I had to stop myself from chewing my nails. The only sounds were our footsteps, our breathing, the occasional click from Jason’s video camera or the electromagnetic detector.
Penny started whispering.
“What honey?” I asked. “What’re you saying?”
“I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to her.” Penny looked toward the hotel.
Helen inhaled sharply. Debbie was shaking her head, the tears starting up again.
“Do you mean Marian?” Helen asked. “Is it her again?”
“I don’t know. She’s really upset, though. And scared.”
Just as she had in front of the bank, Penny stopped at the hotel’s threshold. We all gathered behind her. The street was quiet.
Then Jason, suddenly animated, pushed his way to the front. “There’s someone inside. Do you hear that?”
I couldn’t hear anything. I looked from Debbie to Helen, and they both shook their heads. But Penny said, “Yes, that’s the lady. She’s crying.”
-from A DEVIL IN EDEN by Lawrence Wright
Chapter Thirty-Six
2019
Penny banged on the door and screamed. “Let me out! Someone, help!”
He couldn't keep her in here all night. Tripp couldn't be serious about this. She clawed at the paneling, but the wood was just as solid as it had been a week ago.
He didn't care about Linden or Anvi or anyone else. He’d never believed Penny at all. And she’d fallen for it completely, let him lead her straight here like it was really her idea all along. How had she been so stupid?
She could go to the police. But that consolation wouldn’t get her out of here any faster. Besides, would they believe her word over Tripp’s? She’d gotten herself trapped here before.
She turned around and faced the room. Her mental walls were up. She didn't want the ghosts to come back. Yet she knew they were already coming, already here. She’d heard the baby’s cries and the woman's whispers.
“I’m Penny,” she said aloud, over and over. She paced the tiny room. “You’re gone. Stay out of my head.”
But she couldn’t keep the emotions from seeping in through the cracks. The anguish, despair. Those confused, contradictory thoughts.
Please let me go. I hate him. What if he doesn't come back? What will become of me?
“Go away!”
She went over to the window, peering out. The dirt was turned over, the bones dug up and gone. Only a few plastic markers hinted at the investigation. But the ghost remained. Had it been her body, this woman who’d been trapped here? Who was she?
Penny felt a presence beside her. The baby shrieked, and then its cry was muffled. She looked over.
A woman sat on a narrow bed. She was gaunt, her dark hair long and stringy. She bent over a tiny child wrapped in blankets, begging it to stay quiet. Hush, she said, hush, little one. I’ll catch a beating if you don't.
Anabel. The name appeared in Penny’s head. Her name was Anabel.
The woman looked up suddenly. Penny thought at first that the ghost was staring at her, but then she realized that Anabel was looking at the door. Anabel started wrapping her baby around and around with the blanket, as if she were muffling the despairing cries of her own heart.
He’s here. He’s come.
Anabel’s fear flooded into her. Yet it was also relief—a hateful, detestable relief—because without the food and water that he brought, she would die.
Anabel hated herself for that sense of relief.
“This isn’t happening,” Penny said. But she couldn't keep Anabel out.
Cold blew in from the window, pushing Penny to the center of the room. Hands slammed into her back. “Let me go! Stop!” But the hands pulled her up, only to force her roughly down once again. She contracted her body into a ball, tears blurring her vision.
Her body lifted from the ground, then fell. Penny's breath left her lungs.
The hands gripped her throat. They squeezed.
We have nowhere to go, Anabel said.
She couldn’t fight the images any longer. Penny felt her own self fading away as Anabel’s memories invaded her mind.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Linden swam in and out of consciousness. Her head hurt when she turned it a certain way. She was sure that she was dreaming. This awful, burned-out place couldn’t be real. Sometimes, she thought she saw things moving in the depths of the shadows.
Anvi’s face appeared, kneeling over her. “Drink.” Anvi held the spout of a water bottle to Linden’s mouth. Linden tasted the water, then drank.
“Where are we?” Linden heard music playing.
She was starting to remember things. Being chased in the night. The blow to her head. Walking—no, being led—through a gate, then down a darkened street. The clank of a padlock opening, an enormous door swinging wide like a mouth. And being swallowed up into something’s charred insides.
