Chasing Amanda (12 page)

“Let’s go,” she said in a bored and tired voice.

Tracey let out her breath in a rush of relief. Breathing hard and fast, she followed her captor as she removed the plywood from the opening and headed down the dingy passageway. They neared the entrance to where the bad spot was; Tracey’s legs failed her. She couldn’t walk toward that awful place. Paralyzed with fear, she breathed in rapid, noisy breaths. Her captor turned to face her, rolled her eyes, and yanked Tracey’s arm toward the wretched room.

“No!” Tracey screamed, blinded by her own tears. “I won’t do it again! I promise! I’ll be good!” she begged to deaf ears. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please, don’t put me in the bad spot. Please!”

Mummy began to pray, which scared Tracey even more than the bad spot did. “Hosea 9:7. The days of punishment are coming, the days of reckoning are at hand. Let Israel know this. Because your sins are so many and your hostility so great, the prophet is considered a fool, the inspired man a maniac.”

The rancid smell of urine, dead rodents, and fear pervaded the air of the dark room like rainwater seeping into the cracks of an old foundation. Tracey stood straight as a soldier, petrified. She felt a hand grasp her upper arm. Her captor’s fingers wrapped all the way around Tracey’s slim arm and squeezed—hard. Her other hand pushed against Tracey’s back, forcing her forward.

Tracey’s feet reluctantly disobeyed her desire to run away. The light from the lantern cast menacing shadows across the floor. Loose dirt, littered with rocks and pebbles, receded into a dark hole in the earth—the bad spot. Despite her best efforts not to, Tracey began to sob, “Please! Please! I’ll be good!”

Her captor pushed her forward, “You don’t appreciate anything!” Her words were robotic, as if scripted. “You’re a spoiled little brat, and you are going to learn to appreciate the things I give you!” Her entire body shook. “I saved you!” she said nastily, thrusting Tracey forward with such force that Tracey fell to the ground, just inches from the hole. Tracey tried to scramble away, clawing at the unforgiving dirt, struggling to move away from the hole, fruitlessly digging into the ground with knees and toes.

Her captor put her foot on the back of Tracey’s calf, successfully trapping her. Her captor yelled, “I saved you from being part of that horrible world! Part of the ‘people who don’t care’!”

Tracey wriggled and sobbed beneath her.

Her anger chillingly eased. “I’ll save you. You will be happy.” Just as quickly, her voice became terrifying, “You will learn to appreciate what you are given,” her final word was emphasized by her bearing down on Tracey’s already throbbing leg. Tracey yelped in pain.

In one quick motion, her captor removed her foot from Tracey’s leg, yanked Tracey several inches off of the ground, and dropped her into the hole. Tracey landed hard on her feet—her knees buckled and she sank down, her back up against the cold dirt. The narrowness of the cavity forced her knees against her chest, hindering her breathing. She looked up just in time to see the grate—made out of rough branches and leaves—placed over the top of the hole, evoking more tears of helplessness. As the board was eased over the top of the grate, eliminating all but a single beam of dim light, she pulled her legs in tighter to her chest. Tracey focused on the golf-ball-sized hole that was cut in the center of the rotten board.
An air hole
, Mummy had said. Tracey’s body flinched with each shovelful of dirt as it fell onto the board. She held her breath, afraid the dirt was going to clog the air hole, but too scared to reach up, for fear she’d be sealed in forever. Urine seeped in between her thighs, puddling beneath her. The light faded in and out of the hole. Tracey concentrated on the heavy thumps the dirt made on the board, the sound of random pebbles as they plunked against each other.
One...two...three…four…
She put her head down on her arms as bits of dirt fell upon her through the air hole.
Five…six….seven…..eight…nine
. Eventually Tracey was met with darkness, silence. Her pulse throbbed in her ear like an Indian drum. Her fear was so great that she felt as if her heart were actually breaking, piece by piece, torn out of her chest. Her stomach hurt. She was starving, though it felt like a rock was in her belly. Her tears drained the energy right out of her ravaged body, leaving her limp, inert—she gave into the exhaustion.
Maybe not waking up,
she thought,
would be easier than being here.

Thirteen

Cole worried that his wife might be falling back into the unsettled place of her past. Tense and baffled, he watched her as they sat in their car in front of the schoolhouse. He rewrapped Molly’s injured hand, then put the car into motion to begin the short drive home. White Ground Road was dark, quiet. With no streetlights and the umbrella of trees blocking the moonlight, Cole drove carefully, his eyes bouncing between Molly and the narrow road that lay ahead.

Molly’s hands were pressed against her thighs, shaking. She looked as if she were intently focused, staring straight ahead. “Hold on, Mol,” Cole said, silently calculating the time it would take them to get home—or possibly to the hospital.

The alarm in her voice caught Cole’s attention. He pulled over just beyond the Hoyles Mill Trail. Molly was holding her hands in front of her face, turning them, touching one with the other, as if she were making sure they were actually there.

“Oh my God! Cole!” Tears sprang from Molly’s eyes as she frantically grasped at her face, the dashboard. “I can’t see. I can’t see anything!” she screamed.

Cole instantly reverted to doctor mode. He reached for Molly’s face, placing his warm hands firmly on her cheeks and tilting her head up so he could look into her eyes. “Molly!” he said, sternly. “Can you see me at all? What do you see?”

Cole jumped into action. He ran to the trunk and rummaged frantically through the boxes and medical reference books. “Damn it!” he swore as he dug through the mounds of other insignificant crap in his trunk. “Yes!” he found his first-aid kit and ripped the plastic top open. He rushed to Molly’s door and flung it open. Molly’s body was shuddering, as if she were having convulsions. “Molly! Can you hear me, Molly?” he yelled. Cole tore open the smelling salt package and broke the ampule in half under Molly’s nose.

Molly’s head jerked backward. “My hand,” Molly’s voice was almost a whisper. Then suddenly she grabbed her wrist and screamed, “Cole! Fuck! It’s burning!” Just as quickly, her body shuddered, then went limp.

“Molly!” Cole yelled again, slapping her cheeks and instinctively taking her pulse. She was breathing, but her pulse was elevated. Cole raced to the driver’s side and threw himself into the seat. He slammed the car into Drive and sped off toward help.

Molly’s breathing hitched. “Molly!” Cole yelled, reaching over and holding her head back against the headrest. She lifted her legs off of the seat and curled up into in a fetal position. “Hang on, baby, hang on,” Cole urged. He gunned the engine up around the corner, turning fast into Hannah Slate’s driveway. He threw the gear into Park and turned to Molly, whose eyes were closed, but her breathing had become normal once again.

“Mol?” Cole’s words were laden with concern.

Molly opened her eyes. He grabbed her arm and looked over her bandage—he gasped. “Molly?” He reached up and pushed her bangs off of her head—no fever. He held up his finger in front of Molly’s eyes. She stared at it as if in a daze. As he moved his finger from right to left she moved her head to follow. He placed his hand firmly on the top of Molly’s head, “Follow, Molly,” he directed, in full physician mode. “Follow my finger with only your eyes.”

Molly closed her eyes. “Cole?” she said.

He sensed her need acutely. “I’m right here, Mol,” he said, glad she could not see the tears forming in his eyes. He wiped his eyes with his free hand, “Molly, open your eyes.”

“My legs, Cole,” she began, “they were like ice, but they’re normal now.” She wiggled her fingers and looked at the bandage on her right palm. The letter T was singed into the gauze. She thrust her hand in his direction.

Cole looked angry, although his anger was at the unknown, not Molly. He turned away, clenching his jaw and breathing out of his nose.
What the hell is going on?
He turned back to Molly and hastily unwrapped the bandage. Her wound was pink, healing.

“It’s the Knowing, Cole,” Molly said quietly. “There is
something
here,” she explained. “Well, something back there,” she turned and gazed toward the darkened road behind them.

“What?” Cole was lost. “Why the Perkinson House of all things?” His mind was still sifting through the medical possibilities of what he’d seen happen to Molly.

Molly ignored his question. “I have to get into that home,” she exclaimed deliberately. “There’s something there—a clue maybe. There must be some correlation to Tracey.”

“Molly, please.” Cole shook his head. “After what I just saw, how do we know there isn’t some other explanation—a medical explanation,” he grasped for clarification, rationalization. “There has to be some reason you blacked out, Molly. It looked like you had some sort of a seizure, not some…some...”

Molly broke in, “Some paranormal weird type of thing that you can’t explain, Cole? Well, I’m fucking sorry, okay, but that’s what’s going on with me. I’m not sick! God!” She turned away from him. “You’ve known me forever, Cole. Have I ever had a seizure?”

Cole grit his teeth.

“Why can’t you believe me?” she yelled.

Cole, equally infuriated and concerned, continued staring at Hannah’s driveway, “This isn’t Philly, Molly! Maybe you’re losing it again.”

He turned toward her just in time to see her recoil as if she’d been slapped, then quickly turned away.

“Look at me!” She grabbed his chin and moved his angry face in her direction. “Cole, look at my bandage.” She held the bandage up in front of him, displaying the undeniable T. “You
saw
what happened back there. There must be something in the woods or something…I don’t know, some…thing, or connection, here on White Ground Road.” Just as Molly finished speaking and looked up, a revelation spread across her face. “Hannah, of course.”

Cole turned and spotted Hannah walking toward the car.

The evening seemed endless to Molly. As soon as Hannah had touched her arm she had been assaulted by images
: a woman kneeling on the dirt, surrounded by woods—in a forest-cocoon—leaning over a wooden box; nail heads defining a visible edge across the lid.

She’d pulled back from Hannah and urged Cole to take her home. He’d grown angry at her rudeness toward Hannah, and they’d ridden home in another uncomfortable silence. Their relationship had become a roller coaster of emotions, and Molly was unsure how to change its course.

She was exhausted and felt guilty for having ignored her civic responsibilities. She sat down behind her desk and logged onto her Civic Association email account. As she had expected, there were twenty-seven new emails. Molly sighed, glad to at least be comfortable in her favorite drawstring sleeping shorts and Cole’s comfy long-sleeved shirt. She pulled her feet onto the chair, beneath her, and reluctantly scanned the messages, passing over the political materials.
Great, only twenty-two more.
She grabbed a chocolate from the desk drawer and focused on the task at hand, prioritizing based on the subject line rather than trying to tackle all of them by dated order. She would get through what she was able with the little energy she had left. The rest would have to wait. Molly felt a presence and looked up to find Cole standing in the doorway. The disappointed smirk on his face was one Molly was becoming increasingly used to.

Molly’s heart sank as the fissure between them grew. She knew she should leave the emails for the next day and patch things up with Cole, but she couldn’t find the justification to apologize for wanting to help Tracey. If only she’d have had the courage to have helped Amanda.
Damn it!
Cole is my husband! He should believe me unconditionally.
She pushed her anger aside, took a deep breath, and turned back to her computer, listening to Cole’s heavy footsteps climb the stairs and flinching when he slammed the bedroom door.

Her eyes were drawn to three responses to her original announcement about Tracey’s disappearance. She read the first two—thank you notes from residents that promised to keep their eyes open. Just as she was about to open the next email, Stealth and Trigger suddenly burst into fits of barking. She could hear them clawing at the back door. Molly picked up her mug of tepid hot chocolate, took a sip, and wondered what she’d have to deal with now. She turned back to her computer but could not block out the frantic barking. Annoyed, she went to the kitchen and opened the door, releasing the alerted dogs into the yard—and finding a folded paper taped to the back of the door. Molly snagged the sheet, more annoyed than concerned, and unfolded the simple white paper. The typed message sent a chill down her spine, “FIND HIM AND YOU WILL FIND HER.”