Little Sister (37 page)

Beth felt light-headed, as if she were going to faint. The flashlight on the bridge belonged to the man looking for his dog, the dog that had come sniffing around the skating house. She felt weak in all her limbs, and she could hear the beating of her pulse in her ears.

Andrew giggled as if he could read her thoughts. “It’s such a nice bright night,” he said. “The two of you made a pretty picture crossing the lake. I could see what you were up to right away. So I just went back to the truck, drove around to this side, and waited for you.”

Beth felt as if someone were ringing a giant bell inside her rib cage. No sound came out, but the clanging inside was shaking her. He had them now. This time he would not let them go.

Francie pushed her glasses up and spoke in a quavering voice. “Andrew, please stop doing this. Okay, I know you’re really mad—pissed off, but please just stop this. You’re really a nice person under all this.” She started to edge toward him, holding out her hands.

Beth gasped as if she was watching her walk into the path of a rattler. But Francie paid no attention to her. “We can talk if you want.

I still like you. You remember all the things we talked about. We can still do them.”

He watched her approach him with unblinking, reptilian eyes, and Beth felt as if he were coiling back to strike as Francie unwittingly came closer, thinking she could pet him into submission.

“Come on, Andrew,” Francie said. “You and I are close. We shouldn’t be here like this.”

“You cunt,” he snarled. His hand flicked out and gripped her wrist. “I treated you like you were special. Different from the others. I should have known, the way you threw yourself at me like a whore. You’re shit, just like the rest of them.”

“We’re friends, Andrew,” Francie cried.

“Friends?” He said the word incredulously. “I have no friends. All I know are whores and creeps. Friends.”

He shoved her away, and she fell on the ground. Beth crouched down to help her up, but Francie was already up on one elbow.

Andrew sneered down at them, relishing his moment of power. Beth felt revolted by him. All the power he had was in that gun. He was a weak, pathetic tyrant. But with the gun he held them captive, and she was sure that there was no mercy in him.

“I was thinking about a little pain for the two of you,” he was saying. “I was hoping I could make it so bad for you that you would beg me to kill you. I’d like that. It would serve you two scheming bitches right.”

Beth tried to stop the flow of his words from entering her head. She had to think, she told herself. She was still crouched down at his feet, supporting Francie. She looked at Francie’s face. Her eyes were glassy, and her lips were white. Her mouth was hanging slack. Beth could feel the girl’s body shaking with an uncontrollable tremor. The flashlight glared off her spectacles. Beth had the sudden realization that Francie might be going into shock. It’s all crashing in on her, crushing her. The mind has a way of withdrawing from unbearable pain.

“I don’t have time unfortunately.” He was rambling on. “You see, they’re going to be after me soon. They’ll find Noah sooner or later. And that dentist and his ugly wife. I don’t have a lot of time to fool with you two, although you deserve it the most. Next to my mother, of course.”

He was confessing to murder, but his words had a strange, calming effect on Beth’s mind. Suddenly everything was crystal clear to her. He was a killer on a rampage. There was nothing to speculate about, no hoping against hope. He was a killer, and he was proud of it, to

judge from the tone of his voice. It made him feel good. She could feel Francie fading in her grasp. Francie was listening, thinking about what he was saying, and it was draining her.

Beth glanced up at him. The gun was pointed at her head. The man who was looking for his dog had long since gone on his way, and all was still and silent. There was no help in sight and no doubt in her mind. Andrew was going to kill them. There was only this moment, and she had a simple choice: Sit still and be killed or try something, anything—no matter how reckless. At least try.

It was an easy choice now that she faced it. There was a sturdy-looking branch about a foot away from her. She studied it for a moment, picturing what she was going to do. She had read once that an athlete could improve his results by visualizing his performance just before the event. Beth went through the motions mentally. Then she took a breath, shoved Francie down with her left hand, and grabbed for the branch with her right. She swung it upward and smacked him in the hand with it as she followed through.

Andrew let out a cry of surprise as the gun flew up in the air, landed on the surface of the lake, and skittered across the ice. With a bellow of rage he tried to strike her, but Beth scuttled out of his way, dragging Francie. Andrew slid down the bank and lunged out onto the ice toward the gun. There was a loud, sharp crack and then a hoarse cry as the ice broke beneath the weight of his landing, and Andrew plunged down through the ice into the water.

Beth and Francie leaped up and scrambled down to the edge of the lake, galvanized by the sight of the black, jagged hole in the ice. Suddenly Francie started to scream. Andrew was crying out for help, pleading, although they could not see him.

“The flashlight,” Beth mumbled. “Where is it?” She began to search the bank frantically, and then she laid her hand on it. She picked it up and clicked it on, sweeping the light over the surface. The light caught and rested on Andrew, who had bobbed up and managed to grip the slippery surface surrounding the hole he was in. He could not see them, but his eyes stared into theirs with an expression of the purest terror.

“Help,” he screamed. “Help me.”

Beth felt as if she were locked in place, staring at him as he hung there, clinging for his life to the sliding sheet around him.

“Oh, God,” Francie whispered. She took a step out on the ice, and they suddenly heard a loud, splintering noise, and Andrew’s anguished screams as the edge he was holding broke off and he sank below the surface.

“Oh, Christ,” said Beth.

“Andrew,” Francie screamed, wringing her hands. “Find him,” she demanded.

Beth swept the beam of the flashlight out over the ice. They began to call out to him. The surface was slick and glassy, and the shadow play beneath the ice made it hard to determine where he was. But they could hear the bump of his body under the ice, the dull thudding as he pounded with his fists underneath and then sank back down.

“Give me that branch,” said Francie.

Beth ran over and grabbed the branch she had used to knock the gun away. Francie snatched it from her and laid it down on the ice. “I’m going to try to reach him,” said Francie. She crouched down and then stretched out on the icy surface and inched her way across to the black hole he had disappeared into.

“Don’t,” Beth screamed at her.

“He’ll die. He’s dying under there,” Francie wailed.

Francie held the branch awkwardly in one hand and began to smash at the ragged edges of the hole, breaking it up and making the hole larger. All the while she called Andrew’s name. Her hands went into the frigid water, but she pulled them out again and continued to flail away, making the hole larger.

“No,” Beth screamed. “Come back.” Beth trained the flashlight on her, screaming all the while. “It’ll break. Leave him there.” But Francie ignored her cries.

Suddenly, out of the black water, Andrew’s arm shot up and groped for the edge. Francie threw the branch aside and caught his hand, pulling at him. “I got him,” she cried.

Andrew’s head came up out of the water, and he clung to Francie, but his soggy weight was much greater than hers, and as she started to scream, she slid toward the hole in the ice.

Beth shoved the flashlight in her pocket and crept out onto the ice. Flattening herself out on the surface, she crawled toward Francie and grabbed her outstretched legs, pulling her back from the hole and lifting Andrew, who clung to her.

Desperately Andrew began to thrash, for he could not hoist himself in his waterlogged clothes out of the water. Suddenly, beneath the cries and the splashing, Beth heard the ominous cracking sound again. She tried to tug Francie back, but it was too late. The ice broke beneath her, and Francie plunged head and shoulders into the frigid blackness.

“Francie,” Beth screamed, and tried to pull her out, but Andrew’s weight was holding the thrashing girl down below the surface.

Then, in the darkness, Beth saw him emerge from the water. He was rising up, hand over hand on Francie’s back, using her submerged upper body as a ramp, hoisting himself by grabbing fistfuls of her clothing as Beth held onto her sister’s legs.

In the moonlit darkness Beth and Andrew were only a few feet apart, Andrew straining to get his heavy, sodden-clothed body up and out while Francie struggled helplessly beneath the water. Beth watched his ascent over her sister’s bent form for only a second, but it seemed like an eternity. Their eyes met in the darkness. He seemed unconscious of the fact that he was holding Francie down with his weight. His eyes glittered with determination. He might have been climbing up on a log.

In the next second Beth acted. Anchoring Francie’s feet with one arm to her chest, she reached into her pocket and grabbed the flashlight she had used to find him. She lifted it up as high as she was able and cracked it down again and again with brutal force on Andrew’s grasping hands.

“Oh, no, you don’t, you bastard,” she cried.

Shocked by the blows, Andrew let go of his hold on Francie and slid back with a shout of rage. Beth crawled forward, ready to smash him again, but he was sinking. With a strength she didn’t know she had, Beth hauled her sister back from the hole as Andrew disappeared, howling, into the icy water.

Francie did not seem to be conscious, but Beth did not stop to be sure. Praying for the ice to hold, she dragged Francie slowly toward the edge and then, pulling her up under the armpits, hauled her off the ice to the bank as Francie’s limp arms and hands brushed against her sides.

She laid the girl down and fell down beside her, cradling Francie’s soaking head and shoulders on her lap. She bent over and listened to Francie’s ragged breathing and then turned her head to the side and pumped down on her chest. Francie coughed and retched. Water spurted from her nose and mouth. Beth smoothed the wet matted hair off her face as Francie continued to cough and then abruptly struggled to a sitting position and retched. She started taking deep breaths, and then her teeth began to chatter. Beth thumped gently on her back.

“I’m okay,” Francie managed to stutter out.

Beth reached around her and tried to cover her with her own jacket.

“Are you sure?” Beth asked.

Francie nodded. “I guess so.” She wiped her nose and then looked up at Beth. “Andrew?”

Beth glanced at the hole in the ice. There was no sound from it, and the surface was still. All traces of him were gone. Francie followed her gaze.

“Do you think he’s dead?” she whispered.

“He must be,” said Beth. “He must have drowned.”

Francie began to shiver violently. She rocked back and forth, her arms wrapped across her chest.

“I had to,” said Beth. “He would have drowned you.”

“I know.”

They huddled together on the bank, staring at the frozen lake. Finally Beth said, “We’ve got to get you somewhere warm.”

“That s-s-s-ounds good,” said Francie through chattering teeth.

“Can you walk?”

“I think so.” Francie got up unsteadily and leaned against Beth, who held out an arm to encircle her. Slowly she urged Francie forward.

Francie reached up and groped around her eyes. “I lost my glasses in there,” she said.

“Seen one moonlit lake, you’ve seen ’em all,” said Beth.

Francie nodded and laughed and then began to sob.

“I know,” said Beth, hugging her tightly. “I know.” She looked back fearfully at the black hole in the ice. Then she turned her back on it. Clutching her sister, she started up the bank on wobbly legs toward the car and the road home.