Hush (38 page)

the sudden victory of seeing the stunned shepherd on his back. Now he pounded

him like a man possessed. He saw his opportunity and drove his fist right into

the shepherd's crotch. With the sweetest satisfaction he'd ever known he crushed

that soft sack with his knuckles. When the shepherd's eyes blew open and he

grabbed himself and moaned, Jack could have done a war dance. He had just

learned that nothing numbed pain faster than hurting...really hurting the person

who had hurt you.
He spotted a rock the size of a honeydew melon and considered smashing the

shepherd's skull, but mostly he just wanted to get out of there. He ran back to

the pickup where he found the sheep still crowding around the injured lamb.
"Get out of my way," he growled. He felt exhilarated, as alive as he'd ever

been, and wasn't about to be stopped by some sheep.
"I said, out of my way!"
But the sheep would not cooperate with Jack in his moment of glory. They just

stood there dumbly. He climbed in the truck, slammed the door, and hit the horn.

They didn't so much as blink.
He considered driving off the road to weave his way around them, but that would

take him back toward the shepherd. Not a pleasant prospect despite Jack's

pumped-up condition.
Before he could think this through, the shepherd climbed to his feet. Holy shit.

Jack dropped the transmission into four-wheel drive and slammed the accelerator

to the floor. He bounced over the much-abused lamb, and hit or ran over at least

a dozen more sheep before he plowed his way through the flock. Despite the

carnage he was impressed with the pickup's ability to surmount these

considerable obstacles, and took no little pride in his own skill as he made his

way over the last of them.
With a clear road ahead, he raised his fist in victory. Mano á mano, and he'd

won. Yes! He felt more courageous, more in control of his life than ever before,

and never heard the tortured bleating that rose in his dusty wake.
57
Celia treaded water right below Chet, still waiting for him to help her out of

the tank. Her legs couldn't keep this up much longer. He'd been strangely silent

for two or three minutes. Another mood swing? As if it would make much

difference: he only went from bad to worse. More than anything she worried that

he had become suspicious.
"You sure you want me to?" he finally said. She had no idea what she was asking

for. Or maybe she did. Maybe she wanted it. Some do. "Ask and ye shall receive."

Father Jim always said that with a smile.
She moved her head up and down emphatically. "Yes, please."
"I should keep you in there for what you did to me." He nodded as if deep in

thought, and the flashlight bobbed. Then he turned it on her, but couldn't see

much. He would, though. Her little-boy butt. Naked. He'd stare and stare and

stare.
Celia said nothing. Her jaw was tight; the rats were all stirred up, brushing

against her body.
"You hurt me," he said petulantly.
She looked up again, blinded by the beam, and managed to apologize. She tried to

sound contrite, and might have succeeded.
"You mean that?" This truly pleased Chet. When they started saying they were

sorry, they were finished. And they did, almost all of them sooner or later. And

then they'd say it over and over again. Even with a mouth plug—"Oom re-ee."

Sometimes he'd make them say it, and they would. Goddamn right they would.

"Again," he'd whisper, and they'd try just as hard as they could, not that it

made a fuck's worth of difference. And here she was saying it already. He

wondered what she'd say later, when she was really sorry.
He leaned over the edge of the tank. Celia saw the tips of his western boots

backlit above her. "Yes, now help me, please."
But something startled Chet, and he backed up. "What the hell was that?"
Celia didn't know what he was talking about. Then the sound of a vehicle reached

down into the tank.
"The sheriff 's patrol! Thank God. You'd better—"
"That's not the sheriff 's patrol. There's no goddamn sheriff 's patrol out

here." He stared at the lights on the county road, he could just make them out

through the trees. "Your goddamn husband?"
"What?"
He hurried to the other side of the tank, grabbed the handle for the cover, and

slammed it shut. Once more Celia found herself in the dark water listening to

his footsteps, but this time they were in retreat.
58
Jack glimpsed the house lights all the way out to the county road. That

surprised him. Celia rarely stayed up this late. He figured it must be a hell of

a good movie. Or a real page turner. But even that wouldn't account for all

those lights. Maybe whatever it is has her all freaked out.
He pulled up alongside the Honda and rushed in the house. He wanted to surprise

her and tell her all about beating up the shepherd. He knew it was juvenile, but

he couldn't help himself.
He didn't find her in the living room, and the TV wasn't on.
"Celia? Celia, you back there, hon? I'm home."
Silence. Hmmm, now that's funny.
"Hon, are you okay?" No answer. Maybe she nodded off reading.
A hissing punctuated the air outside but Jack didn't notice because he'd just

walked into the bedroom and switched on the light. Before him lay the clear

evidence of a violent struggle: the blood on the bed, the window screen and

curtains, and the sheets and covers on the floor. Then he saw the light in the

bathroom and the gaping hole in the door, which hung halfway open.
"Celia?" His voice sounded much softer now, and a pleading tone appeared when he

repeated her name. "Celia?"
He inched his way toward the bathroom, peering into every shadow, looking over

his shoulder, trying to look everywhere at once.
When he stood just three feet from the battered door, he spotted the broken

mirror and the blood puddled on the tile floor. Jesus, is that hers? A tremor

started in his legs, and he squeezed both hands into fists to try to choke off

his fear. In the horror of his imaginings his wife lay slumped and bleeding

against a wall, a terror immediately compounded by a trickle of watery blood

that squiggled like mercury across a square of tile.
Slowly, he pushed open the door. It creaked. He had never heard it do that

before, and he stopped. He didn't want to go any farther, but he couldn't walk

away, not if he wanted to live with himself. She might need his help. But— and

this was his greatest fear— whoever did this to her might be in the bathroom

waiting to do the same thing to him.
He had never felt more defenseless than he did as he took his next step. He had

to will his feet to move, and still he couldn't see past the open door.
He filled his lungs. One more step, and another. Now that he'd left the door

behind he found that he could not turn to his left. Instead, he stared

resolutely ahead. He knew this was foolhardy, knew that he must, he simply must

turn his eyes to whatever awaited him; but this proved more difficult than

forcing himself into the bathroom because now he would see exactly what had

happened here...and what might happen to him.
Or would he? His eyes crawled to their corners, but he spied no one ready to

spring at him. As he turned for a better look he heard a sudden movement. He

jumped and scanned the room in a brutal heart-thumping panic before seeing the

bottom of the window shade shaking. It had unraveled an inch or two. That's all

it was, he promised himself. That's all.
The window itself was wide open, and a blood smear drew his attention to the

bottom part of the frame. He forced his eyes down even farther to the tub and

saw the red footprints. Small footprints, not a man's, and he knew with a

sickening dread they were Celia's. Oh Jesus. Crude violations, savage

intimations. He felt every one of his tightly packed fears break loose from his

bones, percolate in his blood, and push through his pores. Cold sweat streamed

from under his arms.
Celia, he said to himself, too frightened now to speak her name aloud.
Nothing answered but the same eerie silence. He took a step back and his shoe

crushed something squishy. It felt...horrible...like a body part. He swallowed,

looked down, and lifted his foot. A grotesque, gelatinous oval the size of a

child's naval stared back at him. With a stomach-churning shudder he looked

around the bathroom and thought frantically, where's the cat? But he did not see

Pluto, only blood and broken mirror, one splashed on the other; and then he

returned to the mashed oval and could no longer avoid knowing that he'd just

stepped on the cat's only eyeball.
He trembled as he quietly scraped the jellied remains off his shoe. Then he

crept back into the bedroom, listening uneasily to the restless sounds of the

floorboards.
He felt the emptiness of the room, the utter lack of life, but feared what he

could not see, the madness that might be hiding in the armoire, the closet, or

just outside the bedroom door because whoever did this to her...could do this to

him. Always that same terror returned. But he sucked in another deep breath and

told himself that two could play this game, and he found some courage in

remembering how he'd vanquished the shepherd.
He entered the hallway. Light from the bedroom threw long shadows along its

entire length, including the outline of a man. Even though he knew it was his

own shadow, the appearance of another human form gave Jack a monstrous chill.
He had to walk right by the hall closet, dark behind the louvered doors that

opened and closed like an accordion.
If he hit the switch on the wall, it would turn on the lightbulb in the closet

and he'd see if someone had hidden inside. But that would undoubtably force the

hand of the intruder, and if he could make it to the kitchen he could help

himself to the knives.
So he eased past the doors and didn't take his eyes off them for even a second.

He turned away only when he reached the living room. High above him the blades

of the Casablanca fan rotated, and when he chanced to look up he saw shadows

swiftly orbiting the room like dark creatures that fly only at night.
He turned to his right, then quickly left, his ears pricked for even the

slightest sound. That's when he finally heard Celia, far away, barely audible.

He did manage to make out his name and something about a killer. He wondered if

she meant the shepherd. Maybe the son of a bitch had been returning from his

drunken pleasures when he ran into him. That made sense to Jack, and he greeted

this possibility with relief because if the shepherd had done this...well, he

had already taken care of him. We're not likely to hear from that asshole again

anytime soon, now are we? He nodded to himself, for despite his fears the memory

of his victory—mano á mano— pleased him as much as ever. And if the shepherd had

hurt Celia, then what he'd done to the shepherd would seem even more heroic to

her.
He did not call back to his wife. He stepped softly into the kitchen and

withdrew a knife with a foot-long blade from the butcher-block stand. He turned

it edge to edge to catch the light, and admired its possibilities. Now he felt

truly armed. He looked for the flashlight but discovered it missing. He wondered

if Celia had taken it. Or the shepherd?
He picked up the phone hoping against all hope that a dial tone would greet him

and he could call 911. But the line was as silent as the house.
*
Celia gripped the intake line with a straight arm to keep herself as far as

possible from the rat still huddling on the brace. She kept her other arm

wrapped tightly across her chest, and her legs sealed together to try to bundle

herself against the mass of cold slimy carcasses pressing against her body.
She had to marshal all of her will to listen for Jack. She feared she wouldn't

hear if he moved within shouting distance. But only the cicadas called out to

the night, and after no hint of her husband for several minutes she figured he

must have entered the house. But he wouldn't be there for long, not after he saw

the bedroom and bath, and the blood. Good God, be careful, Jack. And get me out

of here.
If he didn't come, if Boyce attacked him, cut him, paralyzed him, killed

him...her fears escalated until she reached the grisly understanding that she

might have to save herself. Climb out of here? She stared at the rat on the

brace, its snout and whiskers moving once more, as if keen to this delicious new

possibility, and doubted she could ever bring herself to grab its gristly body

and drown it. Yes, she told herself, you can, you must. No, she thought, no way,

not in a million years. I'll wait. He'll come. But then she wondered if "he"

would be Boyce. Her hand choked the intake line, and she again resolved to climb

out. It'll bite you and rip at you with its claws, but you'll grab it and hold

it under for as long as it takes.
But she'd give Jack a few more minutes. She'd count off the seconds and steel

herself for the rat. She couldn't wait forever, not with Boyce out there. She

had to move. She had to do something.
She tried to shore up her nerves by reminding herself that many years ago she

had made an escape; and at the time the threats she faced were no less daunting,

the stakes no less high.
*
Her mother's beatings had never paused for more than a week or two, and at twice

Celia's weight and with half a foot more in height she had ample bulk to bully