Nine Doors (6 page)

He went, “Sorry, sorry.” There were tears in his voice again. I felt bad. I shouldn't have gotten mad at him.

“That's okay,” I said. “Just tell me what happened next.”

“Um. I'm not sure. It took me a long time to get the footage I wanted. I was looking through the camera, walking up to your house, and someone just jumped me from behind and dragged me here.”

“Where's here?”

“I don't know!” He sucked in his breath. “Not far. Somewhere on the street maybe. I got confused. They covered my eyes. I kept falling down. I didn't know which way we were going.”

“Did they say anything to you?”

“No. Well, yes. Sort of. They kept going, ‘Shhh!'”

It had to be the same person.

“Do you think they're going to hurt us, Emery? Who would want to hurt
us
?”

I said, “Nobody.” But the truth was I could think of lots of people.

Bert with the dying wife.

The Naked Guy.

That lady with the screaming babies.

Bebi's dad. She said he was ready to kill me. She might not have been joking after all.

The cops.

No. The cops wouldn't do this. The cops were going to save us! They'd realize we were gone and start a search. We were going to be okay.

I felt relieved for a second—then it hit me. I put my face in my hands.

The cops wouldn't even know we were missing! My mother thought I was at Richard's. His mother thought he was at my place. No one would notice we were gone until the next day. By then, it would be too late.

I was glad it was so dark. I didn't want Richard to see my face. He was upset enough as it was.

The door opened again. My heart slammed into my mouth. I stood up. “Please,” I said, but the door closed before I could say anything more.

Someone else was here—and they were just as scared as I was. I could tell by their breathing. It was fast and squeaky and probably not doing much good.

“Who's there?” I said.

“Emery?”

It was Bebi. “Where are we?” she said. Her voice cracked.

I was just going to say, “I don't know,” when the lights clicked on.

I didn't need to answer. We were clearly in someone's garage.

Bebi's hair was messy and her skin was gray. Richard was curled up on the floor next to a metal shelf full of bottled water and canned food. There wasn't much else in the place. A lawnmower. A plastic rake. A garbage can. It could have been anyone's garage around here. They were all the same. A big door to the outside. A little door to the house. No windows.

Bebi ran over and put her arms around me. Normally, that would have been nice. I couldn't help thinking, though, that if her father was behind this, I'd rather she just kept her distance.

“Someone grabbed me,” she said.

I nodded. “Us too. Did you see who it was?” She put a hand over her mouth and shook her head. Watching her do that almost made me cry too. This was the scariest thing that had ever happened to me.

I sucked it up. “But you're okay?” I said.

She tried to smile.

“What about you, Richard?”

His face was pulled down into this frown, and his chin was trembling. “I'm all right,” he said. He wiped his eyes with the back of his arm and stood up.

“Look,” I said. “It's not so bad. There are three of us. We'll figure some way out of here.”

It was obvious they didn't believe me. I just had to carry on anyway.

“Who's got a cell phone?” I said.

Amazing. Three teenagers and no cell phones. (They must have parents like mine.) So much for that idea.

I let go of Bebi and went over to the garage door. I turned the handle. It was locked. I rattled it up and down. I got everyone to ram their bodies against the door and scream as loud as they could. The door didn't move. Nobody came to rescue us. Did they not hear us scream—or did they just not care?

Bebi said, “Let's try pulling the door up from the bottom.” We wedged our fingers underneath the rubber lip and heaved— but it was useless. The door wasn't going anywhere. We fell back onto the floor and tried to catch our breath.

After a while I said, “Okay. Let's try the other door now.”

Nobody moved.

Bebi rubbed her teeth over her bottom lip. “I don't think that's a good idea,” she said. “We don't know what's inside the house. It could be even worse in there.”

She was right, but what choice did
we have? We couldn't just sit there and wait for something to happen. I looked around for another way out. The place was like a dungeon. It was that door or nothing.

I saw the rake leaning against the wall. I walked over and picked it up. “Come on,” I said. “We'll be okay.”

Bebi looked at me for a couple of seconds before she stood up too. She grabbed a big bottle of water from the shelf. She held it upside down like a club. She handed a bottle to Richard and motioned for him to do the same.

We started walking to the door in single file. I wished I'd grabbed a water bottle instead of the rake. At least a water bottle would hurt if I had to hit someone with it.

We all heard the noise at the same time. We stopped dead. Someone was on the other side of the door, panting. Not panting the way a runner does after a marathon. This person was panting like a hungry animal about to tear apart a carcass.

Lot of good my little rake would do now. I put my arm around Bebi like I was trying
to protect her, but who was I kidding? She must have felt me shaking.

Something shushed along the floor. It wasn't very loud, but we all jumped as if a hand grenade had gone off.

A sheet of paper slid under the door.

We stared at it for a few seconds. I let go of Bebi, picked it up, raced back and put my arm around her again. I don't know if it made her feel better, but it helped me.

Are you all right?
was written in big purple letters.

Bebi crinkled up her face and whispered, “Weird.” I was thinking the same thing. You don't expect your kidnapper to ask how you're doing. (If they really cared, they wouldn't have dragged us here in the first place.)

Thinkingthatkindoftwiggedsomething in my brain. Maybe this wasn't what it seemed. Maybe there was some hope after all. I had an idea.

I whispered, “Do you have anything to write with?”

Bebi patted her pockets and then shook
her head. The only thing Richard had was a chocolate bar. I squinted at him. What was he doing with stunt poo? My guess is he'd been planning some late-night fires after all.

I took the bar and peeled back the wrapper. I flipped the note over and scratched out an answer with it. The chocolate smudged a bit, but you could still read it.
Yes,
I wrote.
R U?
Somehow it just seemed safer to write an answer than say it.

Richard and Bebi looked at me like “What are you doing?” It was a long shot. Someone had wiped my face, turned on the light and sent us the note. Maybe the person wasn't as bad as we thought. Or maybe the bad guy had gone and left us with someone else—someone good. I decided to appeal to their better nature. As far as I could tell, it was our only way out of there.

I pushed the note under the door. Ten seconds later, a new sheet of paper came back. It said,
I am now. Thank you
.

I could feel my heart slowing to a normal rate. Whoever was guarding us was at least polite. That seemed like a good sign.

I wrote back,
U weren't B4?

The answer took a while to come.
No. I was scared
.

I tried to reply, but the bar crumbled in my hand. I wanted to keep communicating. I had the feeling that's what would save us.

“Um, sorry,” I said out loud. “I can't answer you. My chocolate bar ran out.”

The person laughed. Bebi squeezed my hand. Richard's eyebrows shot up. You could feel us all relax a bit.

“What were you afraid of?” I said.

There was shuffling on the other side of the door. The person coughed a few times and then whispered, “You.”

“Me? Us?” I said.

“Uh-huh.”

I looked at Richard. Those fires had been
such
a bad idea.

I started to narrow down who our kidnapper could be. We didn't use a fire with Bert. We used one with the lady, but she didn't seem scared. She didn't even try to put it out. I realized now too it couldn't be Bebi's dad. He wouldn't abduct his own daughter.

I mouthed the words, “It's Naked Guy.”

“Why were you afraid of us?” I said. I tried to sound innocent.

The voice was sort of stumbling and higher than I expected it to be. “I watched you all day...I watched your game...I knew sooner or later you were going to come for me.”

I shook my head at Richard. We both knew immediately it couldn't be Naked Guy. We'd already got
him
.

Who was it?

The person was getting more and more agitated. “Then today, I heard you talking on your porch. You said you were coming tonight.”

Our
porch? Who could have heard us talking on our porch?

I looked at all the water, the canned food. I thought of the curtains moving, someone watching us. It was a hot day. Windows would be open.

The answer kind of washed over me. I suddenly knew it wasn't a man at all.

It was Marjorie.

A sick old lady had caught us. It didn't make sense—but who else could it be? Did she have a helper? What did she do all day in her house? I tried to think if any other kids had gone missing.

Then I tried not to think about it. It was too creepy.

Her voice was getting louder and faster. She was panting again.

“I knew I'd have to come outside...,” she said. “I'd have to put the fire out...What if someone saw me? What if...”

She started making the type of whimpering noise dogs make when they want to be let in.

“We weren't going to ring your doorbell!” I said. “Honest. We really weren't.”

I could hear her trying to get her breathing back under control.

“Are you all right, Marjorie?” I said. “Would you like some water?”

“No, thank you. You're very kind,” she said. She obviously forgot it was her own water I was offering her.

She paused.

“I'm sorry I did this to you,” she said. “I didn't mean to hurt you. I...I just...panicked.”

She had to stop again and calm herself down.

“As you may have guessed,” she said after a while, “I have a condition...a phobia. A fear of the outside. I get panic attacks. I can't control them.”

Richard had been quiet, but now he suddenly felt the need to pipe up. “If you were so afraid of the outside, how come you came out and kidnapped us?” I kicked his leg. Was he nuts? Why get her riled up now? That's all we needed.

“Good point!” She laughed, but when she spoke again she was serious. “Tonight I saw one of you boys pointing the camera at my house. You did it for the longest time. My anxiety skyrocketed. I felt like a trapped animal. You were coming to get me! I was overcome by panic. I had no choice. I had to get to you before you got me.”

We could hear her moving her feet around. “I couldn't bear the thought of you seeing me, so I snuck up on you
from behind. I realize that was a mistake and that of course you'd be frightened, but I wasn't thinking straight. I was only going to ask you to leave me alone, but you screamed and tried to get away. I was so terrified that I dragged you in here.”

I had to ask. “Why did you come for me too then?” I said. “You rang my doorbell.”

“Because you were in it together! You'd notice he was gone, you'd come after me...” She moaned. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry about your head, about everything. I really am. I used to be a nurse, so I was pretty sure you were okay. But I was also sure that I'd got myself into a terrible mess now. I knew I had to call the authorities, but I was too scared to pick up the phone. I was pacing by the window wondering what to do when I saw the girl. I remembered her talking with you today, staring at my house. I had to grab her too! This whole thing was snowballing out of control. I know it sounds crazy, but...but...”

I'm not sure if she was laughing or crying. “But I guess I
am
crazy. Who would
keep themselves locked up in a house for five years if they weren't crazy?”

“You're not crazy,” I said. “We shouldn't have been playing that stupid game. We bugged a lot of people. I bet you're not the only person who wanted to kill us.”

“I didn't want to kill you!” she said.

I didn't have time to explain that it was just a figure of speech. The doorbell rang.

I heard her gasp.

“Oh no!” she whispered. “There's a police car here!”

Her breathing started going nuts again.

Marjorie whispered, “They're coming to get me! They know what I've done! They're going to take me downtown! They'll put my picture in the paper! Everyone will see me!”

The doorbell rang again.

We heard Marjorie begin to rock back and forth. She seemed to be humming or something.

There was a loud knock on the door. A man's voice said, “Open up! Police!”

“Please,” Marjorie whispered. “Help me. Don't make me talk to them.” She was begging. “Tell them what I did. Please. Please.”

“Don't worry,” I said. “We'll help you. You hide. We'll talk to the cops.”

Marjorie unlocked the door.

She disappeared by the time we'd stepped into the house.

I opened the front door.

“Hello, Officer,” I said. “Is there a problem?”

It was the same cop we saw before. He looked at me like “
You
again!” Then he saw Bebi and smiled.

“Not anymore,” he said. “Seems like we found our missing girl. This you, Miss?” He pulled a photo out of his pocket and showed it to her.