Once Upon a Halloween (8 page)

    Hunter thought,
No way.

    Then he rushed into the room, hurried past Eleanor's thrashing body and chopped downward with the sword. Midway between her hands and the plug, the cord leaped apart. The blade chomped into the floor. And Eleanor came to a halt, fingers digging into the loop around her neck.

    She pulled it off and threw it aside. Sprawled on her back, she-gasped for air.

    

    

    Worried but not yet alarmed, Jeff hurried up the sidewalk with the girl keeping pace beside him.

    "I'm Rhonda, by the way," she said. "Rhonda Gale."

    "Hi, Rhonda. I'm Jeff."

    
Where are they?

    "Gale, that's my last name. I'm not like Rhonda Gale Something. Just Rhonda Gale."

    "Oh. Okay."

    Far ahead of him, one house from the end of the block, Bret and Mandy and Phyllis came down from a driveway and gathered on the sidewalk.

    
Thank God.

    "There they are," Jeff said.

    All three of the kids turned toward him. The smallest of them, ret, waved.

    "Wait for me!" Jeff shouted at them. "Don't go anywhere!"

    They stayed. Probably not so much from obedience to Jell as from curiosity about the girl walking with him.

    He looked at the girl. "So tell me what happened, Rhonda."

    She shrugged both shoulders "I don't know what happened. I wish I did. They got away from me."

    "Who did?"

    "My little brother and... two of his friends. I was taking them around, you know? I was supposed to
take care
of 'em." As she said that, her voice broke. She was crying again, making quick, soft gasping sounds.

    "It's all right," Jeff said. He reached behind her and patted her on the back. "I'm sure they're fine."

    He realized he was a thirty-seven-year-old man with his hand on the back of a teenaged girl and he only meant to comfort her but the way things had gotten to be in recent years, the slightest little touch or glance or comment might be viewed as sexual misconduct or abuse.

    He took his hand off Rhonda's back. "What are their names?" he asked.

    Rhonda sniffed, rubbed her nose. "My brother, he's Gary. The others are Doug and Rosie." With a sleeve of her cheerleader sweater, she wiped her wet cheeks. "They're brother and sister, Doug and Rosie."

    "How old?"

    "They're all in first grade... six, I guess." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I know Gary's six. Guess the others are, too."

    "My Bret's eight," Jeff said.

    "My parents are gonna kill me."

    "No they won't. Everything'll be fine."

    "Hey!" Phyllis called out when they were still more than twenty feet away. "You're Rhonda Gale!"

    "Hi," Rhonda said.

    Phyllis turned and whispered something in Mandy's ear. Mandy nodded. Bret complained, "Isn't polite to whisper."

    Ignoring him, Phyllis continued to whisper.

    To Rhonda, Bret said, "Hi."

    "Hi there," said Rhonda.

    "My son, Bret," Jeff explained. "And the one in the poodle skirt's my daughter, Mandy."

    Mandy nudged Phyllis aside and said, "Pleased to meet you."

    "Hi, Mandy."

    "And Elvira there, she's Phyllis."

    "I'm
not
Elvira," she said, frowning. Then she cast a large smile at Rhonda and stepped up to her, extending a hand. "It's
so
nice to meet you."

    Rhonda shook her hand, and Phyllis kept it, pumping it vigorously.

    "I'm a
huge
fan. I've been to
all
the games. I'm Jason Filbert's sister. You know Jason?"

    Rhonda nodded.

    "You're the best on the
whole
squad, everybody says so. The prettiest, too."

    "Well, thanks."

    "I'm gonna be on the squad when / get to be in high school."

    "It just takes a lot of hard work," Rhonda said. "I'm sure you'll make it if you really give it all you've got."

    This is a very nice girl, Jeff thought.

    Then Phyllis said, "You go with Brad Farris."

    "Used to."

    "Did you break up with him?"

    "Phyllis," Jeff said. "Calm down and stop asking questions."

    "Don't you know who she is?"

    
I do now.

    To Phyllis, Rhonda said, "Say hi to Jason for me, okay?"

    "Oh, I will."

    Rhonda retrieved her hand.

    "He'll wanta just
die
when he finds out he missed you. He could've been here, but he had
better
things to do. That's 'cause he didn't wanta go around with his 'punk sister,' meaning me. This'll teach him."

    "You've got to excuse Phyllis," Mandy said. "She gets easily carried away."

    "I'm
not
carried away."

    Bret chuckled.

    "So how come you broke up with Brad?"

    "Hold the phone," Jeff said. "Look, kids, there's a problem. Rhonda was out with her brother and a couple of other little kids and now she doesn't know where they are. Two boys and a girl, all six years old."

    "What're they wearing?" asked Mandy. Her tone was no-nonsense; she was on the case.

    "Gary, my brother, he's a clown. Doug's dressed up like Dracula and Rosie's a tramp."

    "Like a whore?" Phyllis asked.

    Mandy elbowed her. "Like a hobo."

    "Oh."

    "Where did you last see them?" asked Mandy.

    Rhonda turned halfway around and waved a hand toward the street behind her. "Back there," she said. "I'm not too sure. I think I'm a little lost."

    "Let's start heading in that direction," Jeff said. He patted her shoulder to start her moving, suddenly realized his mistake and dropped his hand to his side.

    She was already on the way. As she glanced back at him, he hurried forward to walk beside her. Looking over his shoulder, he said, "Everybody keep a sharp eye out."

    "Are we going on a search for them?" Phyllis asked, following close behind Rhonda.

    "We'll see what we can do," Jeff said.

    "Search and rescue!" Bret announced, running past everyone In the lead, he jumped onto the sidewalk in front of Rhonda and walked backward. "Don't worry, we'll find them. Won't we, Dad?"

    "More than likely." To Rhonda, he said, "They're probably wondering what happened
to you."

    "I sure hope so."

    "How did it happen, anyway?"

    She shrugged. "They went on ahead. We were going down till driveway and I stepped on one of my shoelaces and almost fell. So then I stayed careful till we got to the street and I told them to wait up for a minute and I stooped down to tie my shoe. I was down on one knee and they were all standing around me and it was fine, but suddenly Rosie whacked me on the head and yelled, 'Not it!' and ran off down the street laughing. And Gary and Doug ran off with her. I yelled and told them we're not playing tag and to come back. But they kept on running. I couldn't go after them, not with my shoe untied. Besides, I wasn't really worried. They hadn't gone very far. I could still see them and everything. But I screwed up a couple of times tying my knot..."

    "I
quadruple-knot
my laces," Bret announced, still walking backward. "They
never
come untied."

    "I should've thought of that," Rhonda said.

    "I have some pretty good ideas sometimes. Mostly they aren't."

    Rhonda smiled at him. "I bet you have lots of good ideas," she said. To Jeff, she said, "Anyway, it didn't take me very long to get my shoe tied. Even with the screw-ups. But they were almost to the corner by then and they had a pretty good headstart on me. I didn't want them to go around the corner. Especially because this woman at the last house, she told me about some kid who said people were chasing him. So I yelled and told them to wait up. But they didn't. They laughed. Rosie even yelled, 'Can't! catch us!' And then they went running around the corner."

    "They should've stopped when you told them to," Bret said.

    "And
you'd
better stop walking backward," Jeff said, "before you fall down and crack your head open."

    Half-turning, Bret sidestepped briskly along in front of them. "How's this?"

    Behind them, Phyllis muttered, "What a wad."

    "Cut it out," Mandy told her.

    "Well, he is. I'm glad
my
brother isn't some little dork."

    "Hey, Dad," Bret said, "what's a dork?"

    "Never mind," Jeff told his son.

    "Anyway," said Rhonda, "that's how it happened. They just ran around this corner. I bet they weren't even half a minute ahead of me. By the time I got there, though, they were gone."

    "I bet they hid from you," Bret said.

    Rhonda nodded. "That's what I thought. I didn't think anything had
happened
to them. I figured they must've ducked into some bushes or something close by, you know? To play a trick on me. So I told them, very funny, ha ha, time to come out, game's over, that kind of thing. But also, I kept on walking in case they'd gone into hiding a little farther up the block. I kept thinking they'd get tired of screwing with me and come running out any minute, you know, laughing. But they didn't. Pretty soon I saw some kids so I ran and caught up to them, but it was just some
other
kids. Then I was another block away, and another, and I went around corners and hurried after kids I saw, thinking it was them, but it never was. Finally, I didn't know where I was any more. That's when I sat down on the curb and... sort of lost it. Then pretty soon you came along."

    Mandy's voice came from behind Jeff. "Didn't you
ask
anybody about them?"

    Rhonda looked back at her. "Not till your dad. I didn't exactly want everyone in the world to find out I'd screwed up. Besides, I kept thinking to
find
them. I really did think they were just, you know, hiding... playing a trick on me. But it went on way too long for that."

    "By the time they quit hiding from you," Jeff said, "maybe they couldn't find
you."

    "I keep hoping it's something like that."

    

    

    Hunter stood near Eleanor, watching her. She was still sprawled on her back, panting for air. She was shiny with sweat and a little bloody, but her skin had lost some of its flushed redness. She kept a hand at her throat as if to convince herself she was no longer being strangled.

    When she seemed better, Hunter said, "Do you want to gel out of here?"

    Instead of answering, she sat up. Then she raised her knees and slumped forward and rested her arms on them. Her head drooped.

    "Are you all right?" Hunter asked.

    "What do you think?"

    "Can you get up?"

    "Sure." But she didn't try.

    He looked at the looped cord. It lay nearby on the carpel, gray and motionless.

    "I think we'd better get out of here," he said.

    "Do you? Really?"

    "Before something else happens."

    Head still drooping, she muttered, "What is this fucking place, the House on Haunted Hill?"

    "I don't know, I don't know what's going on."

    "The fucking cord tried to
hang
me, that's what."

    "I guess so."

    "You guess so." She raised her head and looked at Hunter. "Wanta help me up?"

    Worried she might try something, he said, "I'd better not get too close."

    "Forget about it," she muttered, and struggled to her feet. Swaying slightly, she fingered her throat. Then she twisted halfway around and gazed down at the cord. She stared at it for a long time. Then she murmured, "Jesus." Meeting Hunter's eyes, she nodded slightly.

    Is that a thanks? he wondered.

    "Want me to go first?" she asked.

    "That'd be a good idea."

    She staggered toward the door.

    Following her out of the room and into the hallway, Hunter watched her back. It was red with rug burn, marked here and there with small scratches. Her buttocks shifted and flexed as she walked.

    "I need to use the John," she said.

    "I don't know..."

    "I do." She pointed straight ahead. "It's right there."

    As they approached it, Hunter said, "I don't want you out of my sight."

    "You wanta watch?"

    "I just don't want you getting away."

    "Yeah, right." She entered the bathroom and turned its light on. Leaving the door wide open, she walked past the sink. She bent over the toilet, raised its lid, and peered down into the bowl.
"Looks
okay," she muttered. Then she turned around and sat down.

    Still in the doorway, Hunter had a full view of her. She was sitting with her back straight, hands resting on her thighs. She looked toward the bathtub straight in front of her, apparently paying no attention to Hunter. He turned his head away when she started to pee.

    "Wasn't really the cord," she said

    "Huh?"

    "Not like the cord came to life. Felt like someone was
there,
you know? I was all set to go. Had my hands loose, had the belt off my feet. I'm about to stand up and all of a sudden the noose goes over my head and someone
pulls
it. Like there was a
guy
behind me doing it, some kinda maniac."

    In his peripheral vision, Hunter saw Eleanor turn her head toward him. Even though he still heard her urine drilling the water, he looked
at her. She asked, "What's the story? This place got ghosts?"