The Whisperer (Nightmare Hall) (11 page)

As if having to confess wasn’t the worst way in the world to start a new week.

Shea sat up and leaned on one elbow to reset the clock, using her wristwatch as a guide. Ten thirty-eight. She’d been in that elevator forty-five minutes.

It had seemed like years.

She was about to lie back down when the phone rang. Tandy never stirred.

Shea grabbed the receiver quickly to prevent another shrill ring. Maybe Coop or Dinah had heard about her being held captive by the elevator and wanted the details. It would be nice to talk to one of them. Then she might be able to sleep.

But it wasn’t Coop’s voice on the line. Or Dinah’s. It was, instead, the familiar whisper, soft, hushed, so sly, so sinister. And the words it whispered made no sense. Even as Shea realized who was calling and her teeth clenched in sudden dread, the voice sing-songed its incomprehensible message in her ear.

“Shave and a haircut, two bits!”
Click.

Shea knew the ditty. When she was small, with hair falling almost to her waist, her grandfather had sometimes teased her by singing the jingle while making scissoring motions with his hands, pretending he was going to cut off her hair so her grandmother wouldn’t have to braid it anymore.

“Shave and a haircut
…”

A haircut. …

Was he … was he reminding her that he was angry with her? Because she’d refused to hack off Tandy’s hair?

No. He wouldn’t just
call
her. He’d … he’d
show
her how angry he was. He’d … he’d
do
something. Something nasty.

“Shave and a haircut
…”

Something nasty. …

Moving as if she were an old woman, Shea reached out and switched on the small blue lamp next to her bed. A vein at her temple throbbed visibly as her head turned slowly, slowly. Her eyes, wide with dread, scanned Tandy’s sleeping form, saw nothing frightening or weird. Moved away from Tandy, along the bed, then down, over the side …

And there it was.

On the floor.

A round pool of yellow, like melted butter.

Tandy’s hair.

Tandy’s beautiful, lemonade-hued hair, thick and silky and curly, was puddled on the floor beneath the bed.

And Tandy slept on, unaware.

S
HEA GASPED.
O
NE HAND
flew up to keep any louder sound from spilling out of her mouth. No, oh no, he couldn’t have, he
couldn’t
have …

But he
had.

Shea’s lips formed a small, round “O” of horror. If Tandy awoke and saw that splotch of yellow lying on the floor …

Shea switched off the lamp and the room disappeared into darkness, taking with it the sickening sight of Tandy’s shorn hair.

But it was still there. Waiting for Tandy to awaken and see it …

Shea slid backward on her bed until the wall stopped her flight. Pulling her comforter up to her chest, she sat huddled in the corner, staring wide-eyed, fighting tears. Her lower lip quivered, and she had to bite down on it, hard, to keep it still.

She knew exactly what had happened. The scene played itself out in her mind as clearly as if she were sitting on her bed watching it happen:

Tandy comes back to an empty room. She’s glad to have it to herself. She doesn’t lock the door because she knows Shea will be coming in soon.

Tossing the clothes she was wearing onto the floor, Tandy slips into a long white T-shirt and sits on the edge of her bed brushing her long hair fifty strokes, a ritual she never skips, no matter how late she arrives home. Then, humming softly to herself, she washes her face and brushes her teeth.

She spends a few minutes writing in her diary. Then she slips a tape into her Walkman, dons headphones, and flings herself across her bed on her stomach.

She is asleep in minutes.

Shea shivered and yanked the comforter up to her chin, her fists clutching the edges so tightly, her knuckles ached.

The movie in her head continued.

Tandy has been asleep for a while when the electricity goes off. The clock radio stops and the lighted lamp on Shea’s table goes out.

The room is dark.

But Shea can still see everything perfectly, as if the room were bathed in daylight.

The door opens. A figure moves inside, quickly, quietly, an air of stealth about it. Of course. Because it shouldn’t be in this room. It doesn’t belong. Tandy is asleep, unaware of the sneaking, slithering figure. Meanwhile, Shea is being held captive in a dark, stuffy elevator, so she can’t come to Tandy’s aid.

I
would
have, Shea thought miserably, tears pooling in her eyes. I would have stopped him if I could have. But I couldn’t.

The figure is holding something shiny in its right hand. Something shiny and silver is being lowered toward Tandy’s sleeping form. It looks … it looks sharp, pointed
…

A knife. A knife!

No
…
there are two blades, not one. And the two blades make a slicing noise against each other as they’re wielded threateningly above Tandy’s head.

Scissors. The thing in his hand is a pair of scissors.

Tandy doesn’t hear the slicing sound. Tandy is asleep, and wearing headphones. The music is still playing in her ears, drowning out any sound made by the silvery, shiny scissors.

Shea wanted to stop it from happening. She strained forward on the bed, about to scream, “No, no,
don’t!”
She bit back the shout only a split-second before it slid over her lips and hit the air, realizing that shouting would do no good now. Too late. The scene that was playing itself out in her head had already happened. It was over … and Tandy didn’t even know yet that it had taken place.

He bends low over Tandy, the shiny, silvery blades in his right hand. He lifts the thick strands of pale yellow and begins chopping.
…
quickly, deliberately, chop, chop, chop. As each clump falls free of Tandy’s head, it drops carelessly to the floor, until, in a brief few minutes filled only with the cold, slicing sound, the clumps form their soft round pool.

Tandy, asleep, perhaps dreaming, never feels a thing, never stirs as she’s being shorn.

So quickly, it’s over.

There is a deep, triumphant chuckle from the figure as it straightens up, holding the last chopped clump high in the air, like a trophy. Then that handful, too, drops to the floor.

The figure turns and leaves, closing the door quietly behind it.

Tandy sleeps on.

Shea did
not
sleep. All night long, as the shadows in the room deepened and darkened and then slowly faded, she sat huddled in the corner, the comforter to her chin. Her anguished mind tortured her with what-ifs … what if she hadn’t done this or that, what if she
had
done this or that, wasn’t there some way she could have stopped the cruel attack on Tandy?

And it
was
an attack. He hadn’t beaten Tandy, or stabbed her, or slapped her. But he had injured her just as surely.

And when Tandy saw what had taken place while she slept …

Shea groaned aloud, and closed her eyes.

When she opened them, dawn had crept into the room, lighting the hardwood floor with a grayish hue. Monday morning had arrived.

For one brief, hope-filled second, Shea allowed herself to believe that none of it had actually happened. Maybe she’d been asleep and dreaming a terrible dream.

But when she reluctantly sent her eyes to the spot on the floor beside Tandy’s bed, there it was … a golden sun made of soft, thick rays of hair, curled into one another in a circle.

It hadn’t been a dream.

Because anything seemed better than sitting on her bed staring blankly at the evidence of last night’s cruel deed, Shea dragged herself up and out of bed. She took a shower, thinking, If only I hadn’t been so desperate for a copy of that stupid exam. And as she dressed in a long gauze skirt and white peasant blouse, she asked herself, Why didn’t I warn Tandy that some crazy person wanted her hair chopped off?

Something inside her snickered, are you kidding? Tandy would have thought you’d gone off the deep end. She’d think
you
were the crazy person.

Tandy groaned, wriggled, stretched, her eyes opening slowly, reluctantly. She winced as she rolled over on her side and a headphone jabbed against her ear. Pulling off the headset, she flipped onto her back, her eyes on the ceiling.

Shea sat on her bed, hands folded in her lap. Her heart was pounding so loudly in her chest, she half-expected Tandy to lift her head and say, “Cut out that awful racket, will you?”

Instead, Tandy said, “Did I ever tell you how passionately I hate Monday mornings? More than you hate bio, and that should tell you a
lot.”

At the word “bio,” Shea’s stomach rolled over. If she’d studied harder, if she’d hired a tutor, if she’d gone to Dr. Stark for help, the terrible moment about to happen—wouldn’t have to happen.

If, if,
if!
What good did ifs do?

“I propose,” Tandy said lazily, “that we go to the state legislature with a petition to abolish Mondays. How does that sound? Just think,” with a sleepy grin, “that would only leave
two
days of bio! You’ll go for that, right?”

Without answering, Shea remained sitting stiffly on her bed, waiting. …

“What’s the matter with you? Get up on the wrong side of the bed?” Tandy sat up. “And how come you’re already dressed?” She glanced sideways, at her clock. “It’s so early.”

And then Tandy sat up. Shea watched her expression change as she noticed something felt different.

Tandy sat up straighter, and her left hand reached up to see what the problem was. …

As her fingers felt the back of her head, the expression on Tandy’s face became one of utter confusion. Her fingers moved along the back of her neck, stopped in confusion, then moved rapidly, searching, seeking. … Her right hand flew up to join the left, feeling the chopped, ragged ends where there should have been long, silky strands.

Tandy’s mouth fell open. Her eyes widened in shock and disbelief.

“Tandy …” Shea tried, then realized there were no words that would help. None.

Tandy’s eyes, huge with bewilderment, flew to Shea’s face. What she saw there jolted her up off the bed and sent her, barefoot, across the floor to the dresser mirror. In her haste, she failed to notice the puddle of yellow nestled below her bed, It could as easily have been a discarded blouse or sweater.

Shea sat perfectly still, her heart aching as Tandy stood, in her long white T-shirt, in front of the dresser and confronted her reflection. She stared at it for an agonizingly long minute, turning her head to one side, then the other.

Then her mouth opened in a soundless scream.

A
S
T
ANDY TOOK IN
the whole, horrifying picture of what had been done to her, her body went rigid. Her hands gripped the edge of the dresser as if she knew that without it, she would collapse. Her mouth remained open in disbelief. “No,” she whispered, running her hands desperately over her head one more time, as if she might find that her hair had miraculously reappeared, “oh, no, no!”

She whirled to face Shea with bewildered eyes. “What’s going
on?”
Tandy cried. “What’s
happened?”

Shea remained miserably mute. She spread her hands helplessly in front of her. Before she could think of something to say, there was a knock at the door, it opened, and Dinah stuck her head in, saying, “I thought I heard you guys … omigosh, what’s wrong with your hair, Tandy?”

Tandy burst into wild tears and ran to her bed, flinging herself across it, burying her head in her hands as she sobbed hysterically.

Dinah moved on into the room. “What
happened
to her?” she whispered to Shea.

Shea knew she had to say something. She couldn’t just keep sitting there as if she’d suddenly been struck mute. “Someone … someone cut her hair off last night while she was sleeping. When the electricity was off and I was trapped in the elevator.” She pointed. “There it is, on the floor. It was there when I came in.”

“You were stuck in the elevator? I knew the electricity was off. Sharon told me. But she didn’t tell me anyone had been trapped in an elevator. How awful! You okay?”

Shea nodded.

“You’re not serious about her hair, are you?” Dinah asked, glancing at Tandy, wailing wildly on the bed. “Someone cut it off last night? What are you talking about? Who would do that?”

“I don’t know,” Shea answered honestly. She
didn’t
know who the whisperer was.

“I don’t get it,” Dinah said slowly, sitting down on Tandy’s bed and awkwardly patting Tandy’s back, heaving with wild sobs. “You’re telling me that someone walked in here last night and hacked off Tandy’s hair? That’s so crazy!”

Shea nodded grimly. “I know. But apparently that’s what happened.” She still couldn’t believe it herself.

Dinah’s round face registered total confusion “But why? Why would someone do that?”

Shea clenched her fists. This was all her fault. She’d started it, by copying that exam. She’d never intended to hurt anyone, but there it was, that bright pool of yellow on the floor, and there was poor Tandy, crying hysterically on her bed.

This would all end when the whisperer no longer had anything to hold over Shea’s head. She’d be free of him and his stupid, crazy cruelty. And he’d quit hurting other people.

She knew that unless she did something, he wouldn’t stop with Tandy. He’d continue to demand that Shea do things, horrible things, and when she refused, he’d do them himself, knowing she’d feel responsible.

It couldn’t go on.

“I might be able to fix your hair a little,” Dinah offered the sobbing Tandy. “I’ve cut my own hair and my little sister’s a couple of times. Sit up, Tandy. Let me see how bad it is.”