Captives (Nightmare Hall) (2 page)

They had been on the dirt road for fifteen minutes, the rain hammering down on the car roof, when Lynne said, “I have not one clue where we are. All I know is, we’ve been driving for hours. We should have reached Salem by now. Maybe we’re lost.”

“We’re not lost,” Daisy scoffed. “How could we be lost?”

“Well, where are all those other detour signs you mentioned, Molloy? I haven’t seen a single one.”

“We just haven’t got to them yet,” Molloy replied with less confidence than she felt. “So that means we’re right on course. When we’re supposed to turn, there will be a sign telling us to turn.”

“Unless the wind blew it down,” Toni said. She clutched her violin case tightly. It contained her most precious possession, the violin she had treasured since she was six years old and had lovingly nicknamed Arturo. She often joked that if a thief ever broke into her house, he’d have to kill her to get the musical instrument away from her. She was only half-joking.

Toni was only taking the math course at Salem because her friends were. She understood mathematics as well as she understood music. They seemed similar to her, and neither had ever given her a problem. But she was anxious to get to college. Attending summer school meant that in August, when they all entered for real, Salem wouldn’t feel so new and strange. She hated that feeling … being someplace new, not feeling like she belonged.

It was hard to imagine any of her friends ever feeling like they didn’t belong. Molloy had been president or vice-president of practically everything in high school, and Daisy was always surrounded by a group of people. It was hard, too, to imagine either of them afraid.

I’m afraid
now,
Toni thought, her hands seeking comfort from the violin case. Lynne isn’t that familiar with this car yet, the road is a sea of mud, we can’t see out of the windows, and I haven’t noticed the lights of a single house since we got on this road.

“Maybe we should turn around and go back,” Toni said hesitantly. “We could find a gas station on the highway and ask for directions.”

“That wouldn’t take away the detour,” Lynne pointed out sensibly. “We’d still have to go this way.” Her head turned from side to side. “Anybody see any lights?”

No one did.

“When they build a road,” Lynne said angrily, “why can’t they build it straight? It’s making me crazy, one curve after another, and I can’t
see
them until I’m right on top of them.”

“They don’t make them straight,” Daisy said, because sometimes there’s a
town
in the way, Lynne. What do you want them to do, mow down everything in their path just so you won’t have to turn a corner?”

Lynne shot her a disdainful glance.

Taking her eyes off an unfamiliar road for even a second in such bad weather conditions spelled disaster. The car swerved on the muddy surface and the rear wheels slid to the right.

Lynne gripped the steering wheel and fought to straighten the car. But in her panic, she overcorrected.

The car skidded, slid, then the wheels took hold and the car shot across the road and dove, nose down, into a shallow ditch overflowing with rainwater.

The engine made a soft, sighing sound as if to say, “Now look what you’ve done!” and died.

I
T’S A GOOD THING
I saw their headlights coming down on the back road and came out to check. If I hadn’t been looking out the upstairs window just then, I’d have never known anyone was out here. I suppose they saw my light, too. That’s why they’re headed this way. They saw my light and now they think there’s someone up here to save them. That’s a laugh.

Shouldn’t have had my light on. But I was on the back side of the house and didn’t expect anyone to see it. There’s nothing out there but woods.

What are they doing out in this weather, anyway? Lost, I suppose. That damn detour. If it weren’t for that, I’d be long gone, myself.

Things were going to be okay. They were. No one knew where I was. And who would have thought to look for me here? I could have stayed until the roads were clear, and then split. But now, I’ve got unexpected visitors. They could ruin everything for me.

Any second now, they’ll be at the top of the hill, they’ll see the house, they’ll want to come in and get warm and dry.

Well, I’m sorry, little Missies, I was here first. Squatters’ rights. In pioneer times, people were killed for infringing on squatters’ rights.

Now there’s a thought.

I wonder if it’s easier the second time?

Maybe I won’t have to use such drastic measures. I could try and scare them off first. Since they don’t
know
I’m out here. And since they probably aren’t expecting to meet anyone out here in the middle of the woods on a night like this. Scaring them could send them racing back down that hill.

If scaring them doesn’t work, well, it’s all their fault. They’ve spoiled everything. So if more drastic measures are called for, they have only themselves to blame. Not me. It’s not my fault.

Why are people always getting in my way? Why can’t they leave me alone?

Before the night is over they’ll wish they had.

E
RNIE DODD SAT IN
front of the computer in his small, cluttered room in Devereaux Hall on the campus of Salem University, his fingers poised but unmoving on the keyboard. A large, framed photo of Molloy sat at his elbow at an angle that made it look as if she were smiling directly at him. Shaggy, dark brown hair touched the shoulders of his denim jacket as he tilted his head to listen to the words of the campus radio announcer who had interrupted Ernie’s train of thought by beginning his announcement with the phrase, “Special bulletin.”

Something about the weather, Ernie guessed.

Instead, as Ernie listened attentively, he heard,
“This news just in. University officials have announced that the body of Dr. Milton Leo, a member of the Salem faculty and a practicing psychologist, has been discovered in his campus office. According to police, Dr. Leo’s death was caused by repeated blows to the head with a blunt object. There was no forced entry of the premises, and the whereabouts of the assailant at this time are unknown.

“Police report there is a list of suspects who will be questioned immediately. Those names have not been released.

“Dr. Leo’s only survivor is a daughter, Tanner Melissa Leo, a sophomore at the university.

“This station will provide more details on the incident as they arrive.”

Then, as abruptly as it had ended, music began again.

Murdered? Dr. Leo had been murdered?

Ernie, his hands still poised on the keyboard, felt sorry for Tanner, who had only recently reached some kind of peace with her father. Because of a divorce when she was very young, she hadn’t known him when she was growing up and had only come to Salem to live with him so she could go to college. They’d had some rough moments; everyone knew that Dr. Leo was a cold fish. Completely the opposite of Tanner. But was that reason enough to bash in the guy’s skull?

Ernie’s eyes moved to Molloy’s photograph. He thought of Molloy finally making it to Salem even though her parents didn’t approve,

“They’re never going to like me,” he told the photo matter-of-factly. “We both know that, Molloy. And it’s going to make for a pile of problems somewhere down the road.”

Didn’t matter. Well, it mattered, but they’d handle it. He wasn’t giving up Molloy. He’d put up with a lot of garbage in his life because he knew that was just the way things were.

But then, on a really rotten, cold, rainy day in October of his junior year of high school, he’d met Molloy Book.

At Christmastime of that year, Molloy had said, although he hadn’t asked how she felt about him because he hadn’t had the nerve, “I really like you a lot, Ernie Dodd. And I think I’m always going to.” And all he’d given her, all he could afford to give her, was a stupid tape he’d made of her favorite Christmas song, and his football sweater. She didn’t seem to care that it wasn’t a cashmere sweater or expensive jewelry.

He wasn’t giving up Molloy. Not for anything.

Thinking about her sent his eyes to the watch on his wrist. The placement of its hands jolted him upright. Eight-thirty! Eight-thirty? That couldn’t be right. If it was really eight-thirty, Molloy would be here by now. She had said six, and she was never late. Six o’clock, she’d said. Two-and-a-half hours ago?

Ernie got up and strode to the window, tried to look out. He saw nothing but a slick veneer of rain sliding down the glass.

Maybe that was why Molloy was late. Lynne was driving a car she’d hardly driven at all and with the roads so bad, they’d probably decided to take their time. Hadn’t Banion said something earlier on the radio about the highway between school and Twin Falls being flooded? Closed down temporarily? Lynne would have had to come that way from Briscoe. So maybe they’d stopped somewhere. That would have been smart. Waiting it out, until the rain let up.

Ernie went to the phone in the hall to check the time. His watch could be wrong. “The time is now eight-thirty-two p.m., Daylight Savings Time,” a smooth voice assured him.

He should have been paying attention, instead of getting so totally lost in his writing. It was a short story for his comp class, due Monday, and it was almost done. He hadn’t realized how much time had passed since he first sat down in front of the word processor.

“Aren’t you sick and tired of being poor?” his mother had said when he told her he wanted to become a writer. But his father, the person Ernie had expected to really be disappointed that he wasn’t shooting for lawyer or doctor or scientist, had said, “If that’s what you want, son, go for it. I can’t help you out much, you know that, but if you want it bad enough, you’ll get it yourself.”

And although Molloy’s father had said scornfully, “A writer? Aren’t you going to get a real job?,” Molloy herself had said, “Great! Reading is one of my favorite things and now I won’t have to buy the books, you can just write some for me.” As if she didn’t have the slightest doubt that if he wanted to be a writer, he would be.

But he wondered how she’d feel if he confessed that he hadn’t even known she was two and a half hours late because he’d been busy writing.

I should do something, he told himself, beginning to pace back and forth in the small room. But what?

Call Molloy’s house, see if she’d left when she said she was going to? If the weather was as bad in Briscoe as it was here, maybe they’d postponed their trip until tomorrow.

No. She would have called him. She knew how he hated calling her house. She wouldn’t make him do that if she could help it. If they’d started out and hadn’t been able to get through or had decided to wait it out somewhere, she’d have called.

Unless the telephone lines were down where she was. A distinct possibility.

Ernie hurried out into the hall again and lifted the receiver off the wall phone. It was still working, although there was a lot of static.

Ernie replaced the receiver and went back into his room. Just because the phones on campus were working, that didn’t mean all the phones in the area were.

He tried to relax, and couldn’t. The bad news about Dr. Leo had unsettled him, made his skin crawl. Bad things happened. Even to important people like Dr. Leo. He’d made someone mad and that someone had killed him.

So bad things could happen to Ernie Dodd, too. Already had, more than once. But the very worst thing that he could think of was something bad happening to Molloy Crandall Book. That, he couldn’t deal with. No way.

She was probably fine.

Of course, she was fine.

She
had
to be.

“W
HAT
WAS
THAT?” LYNNE
whispered to the three girls flanking her. They stood as still as statues on the mud-slicked slope, listening to see if the rustling in the woods above them came again. They had been glad to leave the ditched car, but they hadn’t expected the woods to be so dark.

“Maybe it’s someone looking for us,” Toni said, her eyes searching the crest of the hill.

“They wouldn’t be looking
here,”
Daisy said. “Why would they be looking for us in the woods? We’re supposed to be on the highway!”

“Maybe someone found the car in the ditch, and figured out that we hiked up the hill,” Molloy suggested. “Should we call out or something?”

“No.” Lynn waved the flashlight around, but the beam, steadily growing dimmer, revealed only dripping trees and bushes. “Not yet. Let’s just listen for a minute. It’s probably a raccoon or a squirrel.”

“It’s just so
dark,”
Toni said, her voice quavering slightly. “They don’t have bears around here, do they?”

Even Lynne blinked. “Bears?” She waved the flashlight more aggressively, playing it in a circle around them. She had just completed the circle when the pale yellow beam blinked out.

Toni gasped, and Daisy said, “Oh, great. I don’t suppose anyone happens to be carrying extra flashlight batteries, do they?”

This time, the sound, still above them, was louder. They could hear it clearly over the rain beating down upon the trees and bushes and leaf-covered ground.

Someone or
something
was up there.

“That did not sound like a raccoon,” Molloy whispered, one hand reaching out to clutch the sleeve of Daisy’s windbreaker. “And if it was someone looking for us, they’d be calling out to see if we were in here.”

“Let’s go back down,” Toni said, her words rushing together with urgency. “Come on, it’ll be easier going downhill. We’ll go back to the car and wait there for someone to find us.”

“I’m too tired to turn around now.” Lynne shook the flashlight vigorously, but it refused to come back to life. “Besides, that road is probably an ocean by now. And do you really want to tackle that creek again? I don’t. We’re almost to the top, and there’s a house up there. I can see it. A nice, warm, cozy house, with a telephone. Come on, guys, don’t wimp out on me now. There are four of us and we don’t even know what’s making that noise. It
could
be a raccoon. A big one.”