Fraidy Hole: A Sheriff Lester P. Morrison Novel (32 page)

“Hold on girl, I was only trying to cover you up. You looked cold.”

“I know what you were doing! I’m calling the police.”

Melissa
, the sheet pulled tight to her neck,
stared at the man with a hate
so intense it scared him a little. The threat was real.

“Wait, wait. I don’t know what you think happened, whatever, but I’ll make you a deal. You don’t say anything about this and I promise, it’ll never happen again.”

“You touch me again, and you’ll go to jail.
You g
ot that…Daddy?”

Yes, Albert still remembered that morning
. He
always wondered if the girl was bluffing, or would she have really told on him, told the cops. Probably not. Oh, she might have
said something to her
mama but that’s as far as that would have gone.
He’d have seen to that. But
there might be a next time, another opportunity. If
Imogene goes to church
and leaves
her precious little daughter
at home
, well, he just might make
another move, a little more aggressive the next time around. He closed his eyes and smiled to himself.

It was Albert’s last conscious thought.

*****

The old Belgian
-
made double
barrel, double hammer shotgun was where Albert always kept it, the broom closet just off the kitchen. Albert was proud of the gun, it being an antique and all. He could never have afforded to buy such a fine weapon
,
but a farmer who owned it owed him some money and an agreement was made.

It was loaded with two twelve-gauge shells. Imogene knew that without looking. Albert kept it loaded at all times in case a snake happened across his property. She had fired it once; Albert had insisted she do it. She still remembered
his roars of laughter as
the old gun
kicked into her shoulde
r, nearly knocking her down, leaving a bruise that lasted a week
.
The other
thing that stuck with her from that day was how easy it was to shoot. Just pull
both
hammers back and pull the triggers,
boom, boom
. She carried the scattergun back to the bedroom and
stood over
her husband for a moment, being sure he was asleep and not trying to fool her with his snoring, pretending.
But tonight there was no acting, no pretense. Albert was out of it, the whisk
ey
and the exertion from the failed sex taking its toll.

Imogene held the end of the barrels about an inch from the back of Albert’s sweat stained
tee
shirt and over an old grease spot that he had picked up earlier in the week
when
he was crawling around under the tractor.
It would be the last time he would wear a greasy shirt to bed. She cocked the left hammer and with only an instant of hesitation. pulled the trigger, sending the load of buckshot to tear out Albert’s evil heart. Then, and just because it felt
so
very
good,
so right,
so justifiable,
she
fired the other barrel
as well. She stood there a moment, letting the ringing in her ears die down before placing the gun on the floor and
climbing the stairs
to her daughter’s roo
m. Imogene stood in the doorway
, hesitating,
hoping to absorb a semblance of her daughter’s essence, to feel her love, her warmth. It was not forthcoming. Instead, an ominous chill, like an unseen fog, permeated the room. An outside pole lamp cast an eerie, bluish-green hue through the window and across the bed. Melissa’s mother turned back the covers and slid in, shivering at the touch of cold sheets. She pulled the bedspread up
and over her shoulders, feeling the peace
. She sighed, a long and satisfied sigh.

“Goodnight
,
Melissa,” Imogene said, and went to sleep.

Chapter 25

Melissa Parker sat motionless in the inky darkness as the patter of light rain against the steel door diminished. The storm front had passed, trailed by
what the local weatherman described as
partly cloudy
with
scattered showers.

“Don’t you panic
,
Lissa, don’t you dare panic
,”
she whispered.

The rain poncho was long gone, most likely still tumbling across the prairie or hung up in the top of
a tree
,
shredded
by the wind.
Somewhere on the steps—near her left elbow as she remembered—sat the glass jar, her only means of holding water
;
if
she
could
figure
out
another way to collect it.
If she were to brush against the jar and knock it off the steps, there was nothing but a layer of leaves to save it from the concrete below.
With the way her luck had been running, the jar would hit a bare spot and smash to smithereens.
The box of matches and the candle were somewhere on the steps as well, somewhere close, but where? It was so very dark.

She thought about the consequences of a wrong move
.
Say you find the jar but the candle falls, or the matches are brushed off, and then what? I’d have to feel for them, down there, in the leaves, in the dark, with the snake crawling around waiting to poke two tiny holes in me and inject his poison juice. Where would that leave you
,
Lissa?

She thought about waiting it out, sitting right where she was, third step from the top—or was it four?—and holding on until morning. But the wooden steps were hard and her rear-end was already aching from the long wait to collect the rain water and get a drink. Sooner or later, she would have to move if only to change position.
Better to make your play now, take your chances, before you stiffen up.

She was facing the wall, the precious opening to the outside directly in front of her, damp and chilly air flowing through the crack.
Her left butt cheek was jammed onto the narrow step with her legs cocked beneath her.

Okay, what’s my first move? Play it in your head Lissa, like a movie. So, if I turn, I’m liable to hit the jar or the matches or the candle with my shoulder or elbow. If I turn too far, my butt will slide off the step and down I go. Not good. How about standing up, as far as can, straight up, until you get your feet beneath you? Get your balance and then rotate, face the steps, and start feeling around. Keep your hands and elbows in front of you. Yeah, that’ll work…I think.

Melissa bent forward, carefully placing her hands on her knees for leverage, and stood. The top of her head struck the metal door with a resounding
clang
followed by a burst of blasphemy
without a single apology to any deity.

“Ow,” she yelled aloud. “Goddamn it that hurt.”

She rubbed her head but did remember to use the hand opposite the stairs. Collecting herself and waiting for the pain to subside, she reviewed her plan.
Pivot, get your legs under you, wide stance.
But as she started her movement, she realized her hands were trembling in fear.

Now Lissa, you know you can perform under pressure. You’ve done it before. Remember the winning free throw you made in the girls basketball championship game? It was all on the line and you did it, you came through when you had to. This is no different.
She took a deep breath just as she had done that day with every eye in the auditorium on her.
Calm yourself
,
Lissa. Get steady. Concentrate.
Now she spoke aloud, to the night.

“Who are you kidding? That was a game, this is for my life, or if not my life, my sanity. I cannot survive this hell hole without my candle, no way; I’ll go stark raving loony tunes.”

With her right hand on the cold wall for support, Melissa slid her left foot sideways, never losing contact with the wood until her toes were pointing inward, toward the steps. Her right foot followed. Now using her left hand, she reached for the opposite wall, easily finding it, the space no more than three feet across the opening.
She spread her feet, feeling her body mass settle in, finding a center of gravity. Losing her balance here, falling, could be disastrous; broken neck, arm, leg.

“All right now. What was it the guy said as he was falling from the ten-story building, so far so good, so far so good?” Next move, now do it.”

But as Melissa slid one hand from the wall and, with no visual point of reference, the sensation of vertigo made her brain spin as if caught in an Oklahoma twister.
She felt herself tipping, reeling, whirling, her sense of balance gone, destroyed by the blackness. Frantically, she threw her left arm out, feeling for something, anything solid. Instinctively, one foot moved backwards an inch or two, to correct for the imagined fall, her heel now hanging over the edge of the step.

“Noooo!”

It was as if she were on the deck of a rolling ship in a tempest, fighting to stay upright. Nothing for support, nothing to grab, no lifelines. The sensation of falling through space was overwhelming. Just as she felt as if she were going over backward, her flailing fingers touched the wall and although there was nothing to actually grab, the contact with a solid object was enough to restore her sense of space, to once again distinguish up from down. Her middle ear responded, sending signals to the brain that all was well and the world was right side up as it should be. Melissa closed her eyes, waiting for her equilibrium to return and that seemed to help. It was as if the brain knew there was nothing to see and to stop trying to make sense of the blackened void.

Her heart was pounding, an audible
thump, thump, thump
in her ears. Sucking air in huge gasps, she steadied herself in a desperate attempt for some sense of normalcy in this terrifying world of blindness, desperately willing her body and mind to work together, to persevere.

Tentatively, she eased her left hand in front of her, feeling for the steps, moving her fingers up and down, vertically, then leaning forward a few more degrees with every wave of her hand. On the third pass, the tip of one index finger touched wood, one of the steps, right in front of her, just where it should be. Now she had her reference point and felt confident enough to remove her right hand from the wall and place it alongside her left. By now, the vertigo had disappeared. Working from right to left, she swept her hand across the span of the step, an inch at a time, feeling the dampness of it from the rain that had blown in through the crack. A sharp prick reminded her of the splinters and she adjusted her tactile senses with the wood. She reached the left edge. Nothing. Moving up one step, she repeated the action. Still nothing.

Third time’s a charm
she thought adjusting her balance to a new angle. On the next pass, she touched something round and smooth, the jar. Sliding her fingers up to the rim, she found she had left the lid off and easily grasped the mouth of the container. Had she left the matches inside or sat them on a step? She couldn’t remember, her frantic effort to get a drink overriding the thoughts of such a simple act. Holding the jar carefully with both hands, she gave it a gentle shake. A match box rattled inside. A sigh of relief. Ever so carefully, Melissa tilted the glass until she felt the box slide into her hand. With no pockets in either her top or skirt, the only place to put it was in her bra and she did so.

Now she had another decision. What to do with the jar? Two options; ease her way down the steps, entirely by feel, set it on the floor, and hope she didn’t kick it and break it, or put it up and above her head, on the top step. She opted for the latter. Clutching the jar to her chest with one hand, she used the other to feel along the stairs. She took a tentative step, another, and stopped, remembering the collision with her head only minutes before. She found the middle of the step by feel and gently released her grip on the jar.

Now for the candle.

She tried to think. It should be in the same area, maybe the same step. That’s where she had put it in order to shed a tiny bit of light on the poncho operation that had gone so horribly wrong.

The sky had lightened.
Melissa could now see the space beneath the door and cellar wall; a shade of dark gray, not quite black, but one level lighter than the interior of the cellar. It was far from the proverbial light at the end of a tunnel, but it was something. The candle surely had to be on the same horizontal plane. Cautiously, she resumed her touchy-feely search along the steps, much easier now using the slot of gray as a visual reference.
She touched the small wax cylinder, felt it slide, and froze.

Easy Lissa, easy.

Backing off, she made a cup shape with her palm and fingers. This time the stubby candle cradled itself in her grasp. Fearing a new bout of vertigo, she sat down, facing the cellar, and bumped down the stairs on her butt, a step at a time, until her feet hit the floor.
Feeling she was a safe distance from any more unpredictable wind gusts, she put the candle between her knees and fished the matches from her bra. Drawing the tip of the match across the box, the tip blossomed to life on the first try. She placed it to the wick and held the flaming candle in her hands, close to her face, feeling the amazing sense of comfort that such a tiny blaze could bring.