Whisper in the Dark (9 page)

R
UNNING
.
MY MOM
used to say that I started trying to run when I was only able to crawl. I would get up on my toes and my hands, sort of in a stance like a lineman in football, and scoot forward as fast as I could. When I finally did get up, it wasn’t to take tentative steps, but to hurl myself forward, no matter what was in my way. Fortunately it was usually my mom or dad ready to catch me before I hurt myself.

By the time I was in first grade, I was such a fast runner that none of the other kids could keep up with me on the playground. In fact, I remember one day in second grade. During gym class out on the ball field, some of the other kids were teasing me about my hair, which was always thick and dark. I hadn’t figured out how to style it in those
days, and so it was always kind of matted together back then. This one boy started saying my hair looked like a doormat.

“Madeline’s a doormat,” he chanted, “Madeline’s a doormat.”

Naturally the other kids took up that chant. Some kids would have cried at being picked on like that. What I did was to push that boy so hard that he fell right on his butt. Then I took off. My gym teacher tried to catch me, but even though his legs were three times as long as mine, I left him in the dust. When I reached the fence, I crawled over it like a squirrel, hit the ground on the other side, and just kept running.

By the time I got home, I was so sweaty that my hair was no longer matted but hung down around my eyes in wet curls. I wasn’t angry anymore either. I had run all the anger out of me. But I was worried about what my parents would say.

Mom was away that day doing some kind of special workshop. But my dad was there on the front steps waiting. The school had called him at his office. As soon as they told him what had happened, he knew where I was heading.

Dad didn’t say a word to me. He just opened his arms and I fell into them and started to cry. After I’d gotten through crying, he took me inside and had me drink a glass of water. Then he drove me back to school. He didn’t come in with me. I knew why that was without his having to tell me. I had to take responsibility for what I’d done. All he said, before giving me one more big hug and a kiss on my sweaty cheek, was one sentence that I’ve never forgotten.

“
Nittaunis
, my daughter, just remember that no matter how fast you run, you can’t run away from your problems.” He must have gotten that from Grama Delia.

After the accident it was all too much for me to bear, losing my mom and dad like that. Lots of days I wished I had been killed too, that the rest of me was as numb and unfeeling as my hand. Then I started to run again. It took me a little bit to get my balance right. My body was stiff, and my left hand threw me off at first. It all came back, though, and I was as fast as I’d ever been. Maybe even faster, because my legs had gotten longer and my stride was just as swift. And running made me feel alive
again. No matter how far or how fast I ran, I wasn’t running away from anything. I was running toward the memory of my parents’ loving arms, always there to catch me at the end. Running.

Running.

Roger and I were running hard. Not away from my problems, but toward them. Our arms pumped, our legs churned, our breath was even and strong. I don’t know how much adrenaline I had in my system, but it seemed as if I could run and keep running forever. Even though I knew deep inside me that it wasn’t solving anything, I felt as if I was in control of things while I was running.

A horn sounded from the street next to us.

“Maddy,” Roger said, “Maddy, come on.” Roger was turning toward the sound of that horn, slowing down, heading for the taxi that was pulling up next to us.

My feet didn’t want to stop, but I forced them to. Part of my mind was telling me to keep going too. We’d only been running about five minutes and hadn’t reached our rendezvous point. It was as if I had to get to that point while running, or things would not turn out all right. Even though the
logical part of me knew that the sooner we got into a car the better, I went through a mental wrestling match, convincing myself to do what I knew was best.

“Madeline, come, come, come,” said the taxi driver, holding the door open for me.

Of course, the driver was Mr. Patel. As soon as Mrs. Jenkins got him on the radio, he had figured out what our route would be to the pick-up point and reached us well before we got there.

I should have felt relieved. But now that I’d stopped running, every feeling of calm or relief left me. My legs were shaking as I got into the cab, and all I could think was that no matter how soon we got home, it would be too late.

M
R
.
PATEL DID
what any responsible adult would have done from the start. As soon as we explained to him why we were so upset and in such a hurry to get home, he called the police on his radio.

“This is R. G. Patel. I am the owner of the Providence Taxi Company. I am calling to report a probable home invasion. I believe it is connected with the recent animal mutilations. You must send assistance immediately. Yes, yes. Here is the information.”

Then he read off the number of his license and gave the police the address of Aunt Lyssa’s house.

Mr. Patel hung the microphone back on its hook.

“It is good,” he said. “With any luck, the police will be there soon after we reach the house. It may
be that just seeing our cab pull up to the door will frighten away this intruder. Such men are usually cowards.”

Such men. Of course, we hadn’t told Mr. Patel what we were really afraid of. Not a person, but a bloodthirsty monster out of a Narragansett legend. We’d just told him that we thought the person who had killed those animals was in my house, and had lured my aunt home by calling the library and saying I’d been hurt.

“He probably said that he was a policeman or something,” I had said, “and that I was at home waiting for her.”

That was all it had taken to convince Mr. Patel that a call to the authorities was of the utmost importance. It had also convinced him to break every speed limit in Providence. Even though he still diligently used his turn signals, he made each of the corners on two squealing tires, and the powerful engine of his taxi roared as he pressed the accelerator to the floor each time there was a straightaway. He even went around the barriers across the road at the construction site. The workmen had gone home early for the day because of
the bad weather. I remembered hearing a story about how no one ever uses dynamite on a day when lightning might strike and set off a catastrophic blast. There was a single strip of undamaged road left that we sped down, past the idle equipment, including a truck marked
EXPLOSIVES
parked to one side, well away from the place where they had been blasting.

A quick turn, properly signaled, and we were back on the main road again. Aunt Lyssa’s house was only a little ways away now. Another taxi was coming down the street toward us. Had it just dropped my aunt at the house? I had my hand on the door handle. Roger was holding my other elbow, which was probably a good idea. I was so keyed up that I was ready to open the door and jump out, even though we were still a block away.

But as soon as we screeched to a stop, the most amazing thing happened. Mr. Patel threw the cab into park and turned it off in one motion, did what looked like a forward roll across the front seat, and went right through the passenger side window to land on his feet on the sidewalk outside the cab. As a result he was ahead of us, his arms outstretched
to hold us back as Roger and I piled out of the cab.

“We should wait for the police,” Mr. Patel said, keeping himself planted firmly in front of us.

“No,” I said. “No!” I tried to push past Mr. Patel, and struggled to pull my elbow out of Roger’s firm grasp.

He nodded his head, seeing how frantic I was.

“All right,” he said. “But we shall go together, carefully.”

We approached the front door. Part of my mind was registering things that were a surprise to me. Mr. Patel wasn’t just a taxi driver. He owned the cab company. And he’d actually gotten out of his cab. Now that I saw him fully on his feet, I was amazed at how tall he was, almost big enough to be a basketball player.

But what pushed all of that into the back of my mind was what I saw as the three of us went up the steps. The front door was slightly ajar, as if someone in a big hurry had just gone inside. My aunt’s key ring was hanging from the door, her key still in the lock.

“Aunt Lyssa,” I yelled. “Aunt Lyssa, get out of there!”

R
EMEMBER WHAT I
said about the way Roger and I criticize the way people act in certain movies? You know, those scenes they seem to have in every single scary film. Like the one where the kids go right in through that open door, when you just know a monster is waiting for them. You know, just so the werewolf or vampire or brain-sucking mutant from outer space can pick them off at its leisure one by one. And everybody goes: “Yeah.”

“Great idea.”

“Cool.”

“Let’s all wander off and get massacred.”

Guess what we did as soon as the three of us saw that open door? Naturally we went right inside and split up, me still loudly calling my aunt’s name.
A convenient way to let whatever was lying in wait know that its next dinner course had arrived.

“AUNT LYSSA!” I shouted.

There was no answer. I should add that in her old house, that isn’t unusual. For someone to yell and no one to answer, I mean. The walls are thick, and the way the carpeted hallways turn corners seems to deaden the sound. You can’t hear anyone calling to you even if they’re only two rooms or a floor away. It’s great to be able to play your music as loud as you want and know that no one is going to tell you to turn it down because no one can hear it except you. But it is not so great when you are trying to find someone. You’d be amazed at how often on a normal day Aunt Lyssa and I find ourselves playing involuntary hide-and-seek with each other as we go from room to room calling each other’s names until we finally meet up more or less by accident.

So what did I do then when there was no answer? Of course, I acted out scary movie cliche number two. I ran upstairs on my own. My feet thumped on the stairs, their beat only a little louder and more frantic than my heart. As soon as I
reached the top, I called my aunt’s name again. There was still no answer. And unlike that famous scene in
Psycho
, no homicidal maniac with a big, long knife jumped out to stab me in the heart.

But as I started to approach the closed door to my aunt’s room, a long-fingered hand suddenly grasped me hard by the elbow.

“Maddy, don’t run off like that,” Roger said.

Mr. Patel was close behind him. They had come up the stairs after me. The two of them apparently were unwilling to follow the “Let’s split up and get gruesomely killed one at a time” scenario.

I took a deep breath. I needed to get a grip on myself and start acting like I still had some sense. I closed my eyes for a moment, listening for the memory of my dad’s voice, thinking what he would say to me right now.

Be calm,
Nittaunis. Maumaneeteantass.
Be of good courage.

“You’re right,” I said.

“We will stay together now,” Mr. Patel said, looking down over Roger’s shoulder at me. “Yes?”

I nodded my agreement. Then, together, the three of us thoroughly checked out each of the five
upstairs rooms. We looked behind the doors, in the closets, under the beds, and in the stand-up wardrobes. We even peered up at the ceilings, but all we saw hanging there were a few small spider-webs, no Dracula-fanged black-robed figures waiting to fall on us from above.

Together we went back down the stairs. There was still no sound of approaching police sirens. I looked at the hall clock. It seemed as if we had been looking for my aunt for hours, but our search had taken us no more than five minutes so far. We made a semicircle through the house, walking through the entranceway, the sitting room, the front dining room, the small back porch, the closet under the stairs. Just as before, we found nothing. No sign of Aunt Lyssa, not even her purse.

But there was one more place to look. The one place I had unconsciously saved until last because I didn’t want it to be the place where we had to go. As we entered the kitchen, I opened the cupboard and pulled out the largest flashlight, an electric lantern that was as big as a club.

“Here,” I said, handing it to Mr. Patel. Then I gave Roger the next-largest one. I didn’t take a
flashlight myself, even though there were two left. I guess it was a mistake on my part, considering what happened later. But if you had only one good hand like I do, you might have hesitated, too, about not keeping it free.

“There’s one more place to look,” I said.

Then I led them around the corner to the cellar door.

As soon as I looked at it, I felt my knees grow weak. It was unlocked.