Chain Letter (19 page)

Did you hear about that girl who was stuffed up her own chimney?

It was stuck. Something, a bobby pin probably, had been jammed into the lock from
the outside. A hard slap could knock it out but she would do almost as well calling
out,
Going out the front door, sorry I can’t stay.

A portion of the back door cracked inward.

She started pounding on the lock. And still, it would not turn. First she had been
afraid of someone getting in and now she couldn’t get out. Well, if that maniac could
force his way inside, she could force her way outside. Dropping her purse, grabbing
the shotgun, she swung the stock into the glass panels that lined the entrance. The
resulting jagged hole was tight but she was in a hurry and a scratch was infinitely
preferable to a hack. Once again setting down the weapon, she dropped to her knees
and thrust her arm outside into the cold air, feeling for the lock. Her fingers had
lightly brushed the keyhole—and there was indeed a pin stuck there—when she realized
the chopping on the back door had stopped. That meant . . .

Someone grabbed her arm.

She was yanked, hard. Her head smacked the door and she saw black holes instead of
stars, pain exploding behind her eyes. Had she not been so damn disgusted at being
caught so easily, she might have passed out right there and then.

“Screw you!” she screamed, desperately trying to position her feet against the glass
and door where she could use the strength in her hamstrings to push and hopefully
get her arm back while it was still attached. But the bastard’s hold was firm and
she was too cramped to maneuver her legs into place. After several agonizing seconds
of the insane tug-of-war, what finally came to her aid was her own blood. With every
yank and pull, the teeth of the cracked glass dug deeper into the flesh of her left
arm, bringing a flow of the oily red liquid from her elbow to her wrist, finally causing
the Caretaker’s viselike grip to slip slightly. This slip didn’t set her free, but
it did give her the space she needed to plant her feet. Throwing back her head, she
shoved with every muscle in her body, instantly snapping loose and landing on her
butt over ten feet from the door. Dazed, her arm on fire, she climbed up on her elbows,
seeing the blurred silhouette of a moving ax through what was left of the glass panels.

Yeah, I read about that poor girl. What a mess.

She rolled onto her belly, turning her back to the door, feeling for the gun with
her right hand. She would fill the SOB full of lead, she swore to herself, but not
just this second. If she turned around now, she knew she would pass out.

Her bedroom had always been her place of escape when things were not going well and
tonight definitely qualified as a bad night. Dragging the shotgun like it was a broken
leg, crawling on all fours, she began to pull herself up the steps. She was going
fairly fast for a quadruped, but if she could only stand, she would have done much
better. But she couldn’t get up and she did not know why, other than that her entire
body was a quivering mass of protoplasm. As she conquered the last step, she heard
the front door swing open.

But did you hear exactly what was done to her?

One more brief postponement of the final shoot-out, and she thought she would be able
to pull the trigger. Digging into the carpet with her elbows, slithering like a snake
with a broken spine, she squirmed into her bedroom. Throwing the door shut, she fell
away from it onto the floor. She was crying, she was bleeding, and she had nowhere
else to go.

No, and I don’t think I want to hear about it.

He was coming up the stairs, slowly, pausing between each step. She could hear his
breathing, just as it had been on the phone, thin and scraping. Whether he was male
or female was impossible to tell. The house was new and still the boards creaked with
each plodding footfall. That meant either the building contractors had ignored the
county codes or else the Caretaker was huge—and maybe not even human. If Fran and
Neil had guessed right, she would need silver shot in the shells to stop it, if it
could be stopped.

I’ll tell you, anyway. Hope you’ve got a strong stomach.

He knew which room was hers. He knew everything about her. The steps came to a halt
on the other side of the door. Breathing pushed through the cracks and she thought
she could hear a heartbeat, a ribcage pressed against the wood, the beats echoing
like radar sent out by a bat, rebounding back to the source, telling him exactly where
she lay. If he had a gun, he wouldn’t even have to open the door. He could simply
point and fire, and afterward do what he would with her body at his leisure.

Her blood was everywhere, on the carpet, the curtains, the ceiling.

One good shot, she told herself, climbing to her knees. If she could get that, she
could make her graduation and pick up her diploma in person. The door could stay shut
for her, too, and not be a problem. Clapping down on her wheezing breath, she inched
forward, hugging the left, where a centered bullet wouldn’t catch her begging.

At first, the police weren’t sure if it hadn’t been an animal.

She propped herself up on the wall behind the door and held the shotgun straight out
like it was a weight bar she was doing exercises with, pointing the muzzle toward
the exact middle of the door, squeezing the trigger to within a millimeter of contact.
The malevolent breathing puffed on, inches away, and all she had to do was close that
millimeter. But she couldn’t do it. A sudden memory flattened her will.

The day after the first letter had arrived, Joan had approached her and Fran in the
school courtyard. They had fought, as they usually did, and Joan had warned her to
keep her distance from Tony. In response, she had laughed.
“Why, will I be hurt?”
And Joan had smiled and said,
“Remember, you have been told.”

The same line in the letter.

Joan was the Caretaker. She was a kidnapper, a pyromaniac, and a murderess. But she
was also a sick girl, and Alison simply could not pull the trigger.

“Joan,” she whispered, “I know it’s you.”

The breathing quickened. Alison pulled the gun back and let it hang at her side. “I
know you hate me,” she said. “I know I’ve given you a lot of reasons to hate me. But
I
do
want to help you.”

The door bumped slightly, as if Joan had let her head fall against the wood. Alison
felt perhaps it was a sign of surrender. Then the doorknob began to turn.

“Don’t!” she shouted. The knob stopped. “Don’t come in. I’ve got a gun. I don’t want
to hurt you, but if you come in right now, I’ll shoot.”

The breathing stopped. Joan must be thinking, so Alison started to think some more
herself. Pity, like all virtuous feelings, was delicate and quickly scattered by a
strong gust of reality. Fran had disappeared without a trace. Kipp’s blood had soaked
all the way through his mattress to the floor. And what had been left of Neil had
been hard to sort out from what had
been left of the house. Joan was ill, true, but Joan was still awfully dangerous.

And they say she almost got away.

“Damn you for everything!” Alison cried, and whether she did so the instant before
the knob turned again and the door began to open or the instant afterward was not
clear. The compassion that had touched her heart evaporated, in a boiling wave of
bitterness. Her leg lashed out, slamming the door shut in the Caretaker’s face even
as she pivoted on the ball of her foot and brought the gun to bear. Ramming the wide
barrels into the wood at chest level, she pulled the trigger.

The recoil was cruel, slapping her aside like she was a paper doll. She landed on
her shoulder blades, the butt of the shotgun striking her jaw with a loud crack. She
did not lose consciousness, but her hold on it slipped several notches. Her eyes remained
open, rolling in a mist. A numbing sheet wrapped her brain. And yet, the unhappy triumph
pushed its way through. The breathing on the other side of the door had stopped for
good.

Your hourglass just ran out, baby.

How long she lay there, she was not sure. There seemed no hurry to get up, not even
to bandage her mangled arm, which continued to bleed. A cool current of blessed relief
flowed through her nerves. If not for the dread of what she would find on the other
side of the ruined door, she could have laughed. Instead, and not for the first time
that night, she cried.

Should have told someone else, Joan.

When her heart had finally slowed from its shrieking pace and her eyes had run dry,
she sat up. A glance at her arm brought a rush of nausea; there would be scars, and
a lifetime of having to explain where they had come from. Stretching forward, a half
dozen vertebrae popped in her back. She looked up. Even with the absence of streetlights
and the closed curtains, the hole in the door was impossible to miss. She reached
for a sheet on her bed. She would not look at the body. If she did, she would never
be free of this night. She would cover it, immediately.

She kept her gaze up when she opened the door. The damage the buckshot had done to
the hall closet door stared her in the face, shredded and blackened towels hanging
through the ruptured boards.

But where was the blood? Feeling tentatively with the tip of her toe, her almost forgotten
panic escalating in quantum leaps, she swept the floor and hit nothing. There was
no choice. She had to look down.

There was no body.

The Caretaker was still alive.

The phone beside her bed began to ring.

Alison did not want to answer it. The only one who could be calling was the one who
had originally interrupted the line. And suddenly she began to doubt very seriously
that it had been Joan she had been talking to on the other side of the door.
Joan was tough but even she couldn’t swallow a twelve-gauge shell at point-blank range
with no ill effects.

But her will was crushed. She felt herself drawn toward the ringing, unable to resist.
She was a pawn. Her master wanted to have a word with her. She picked up the phone.
“Hello?”

The voice was weak, on the threshold of hearing, possibly because of a bad connection,
probably because he wished it so. The tone was neither masculine nor feminine, cleverly
disguised, a barren neuter. And yet it was a voice that was not necessarily unkind.
Once, so it seemed, she had heard it before.

“Do you know who I am?” the voice asked.

“The Caretaker.”

“Yes.” The voice sighed. “I am here to take care of you.”

“Don’t kill me,” she breathed, tremors starting in her feet, rising swiftly.

“You kill yourself.” In the background Alison heard a cough, and then thunder, at
the exact moment she heard it outside her own window. “Come to me. I have your task.
Hurry . . . not much time.”

“But I don’t want to die!” she cried, her knees beginning to buckle.

When the voice spoke next, it was clearer. And it was true, she knew this person.
She just couldn’t remember who it was. “You are dead.”

The Caretaker hung up, and no dial tone came on. She did not replace the phone. She
backed away from it as if the cord
might come alive and strangle her. There was nothing to be done. He
knew
her. If they said she was dead . . .

But I live! I’m the star! And I’m only eighteen years old!

Her courage wavered like an uncertain candle, but it wasn’t ready to go out just yet.
The Caretaker was not omniscient. He had tried once to catch her and had failed. He
had in fact retreated, at least far enough away to make the call. It was possible
he was wounded. And she had the gun, and one shot left, and could wound again.

Taking hold of herself and the shotgun, she ran down the stairs. The front door lay
wide open and she found her purse where she had dropped it. The Caretaker had made
a mistake. Her car keys were still inside.

She was only ten strides outside before she was soaked, the cold rain stinging her
gashed arm. Lightning flashed before her eyes and thunder punched her eardrums. Her
soggy socks supped on the concrete walkway and she almost saved the Caretaker a return
visit by breaking her neck. Nevertheless, getting out of the house was like climbing
out of a coffin.

The car door was locked. Her chain had three keys on it and two of them were almost
identical. She tried one. It didn’t fit. She glanced around. No one in sight. She
tried the other key. It didn’t fit! She had it upside down . . . no, she’d had the
first one upside down. The door opened and there was no one in the backseat and she
climbed inside, immediately pressing
down the lock. She was going to make it. Pumping the gas, she turned the ignition.
Nothing happened.

She was
not
going to make it.

Her head hit the steering wheel with a thud. Upside down, inside out—there were no
more ways for her to be torn. She could look under the hood but she knew that would
be futile. The battery cables, the spark plug wires, and probably the fan belt would
be cut. The Caretaker had made a mistake, sure Ali.

She slowly got out of the car, leaning on the door window, the rain melting her wax
limbs—she could scarcely move. She tried to consider her options but she had to wonder
who she was fooling. Whatever course she picked, it appeared she would end up in exactly
the same place. Where was that Caretaker, maybe he wouldn’t be so harsh on her if
she turned herself in.

Huh?

She heard music.

Someone farther down the street was playing the Beatles.

Her spark had died a thousand deaths tonight and she was afraid to let it rekindle
once more, but hadn’t her mother mentioned something last week about another family
that was ready to move in? And wasn’t that an inhabited house, complete with lit windows,
in the same direction as the music? And did this mean that safety had been only a
hop, skip, and a jump away all night?