Grimm Memorials Page 4

  Judy was impressed by that, but didn't let it keep her quiet. She soon launched on a long discourse about her daughter Margaret, the pluses and minuses of living in Northwood, and who was doing what to whom in and out of bed according to the small town's gossip machine, a prominent cog of which Judy obviously was. On the more delicate matters, she had a comic way of humming and gesturing to get her point across to Diane without the children understanding what she was saying.

  Eventually, she got around to the Halls, the family that Steve and Diane had bought the house from. "Every time I think of them, I want to cry," Judy said, her voice full of emotion.

  "We met them at the closing," Steve said, a little uncomfortable with Judy's exaggerated demeanor.

  "They seemed nice, but quiet, kind of sad in a way," Diane added.

  "They have every right in the world to be sad. I'm surprised the real estate agents didn't tell you. They were probably afraid you wouldn't want the place if you knew. I bet you could get out of it if you wanted to, since they didn't tell, but it really has nothing to do with the house itself, just something that happened to Joe and Mary's little boy." Judy stopped her chattering and paused thoughtfully, as if working out all the legalities in her head. Diane was hanging on her every word, waiting with anticipation and dread for Judy to tell her what horrible thing had happened to the Hall's little boy.

  Judy put her hand to her mouth and waved at her husband. "You tell them, Rog, I can't," she blubbered, her voice full of emotion.

  Roger looked at Diane's frightened face, then at the faces of the children, which mirrored her fear. "I don't think we should be discussing this in front of the kids. I don't want to scare them"

  "What?" Judy exploded. "Of course we should. They should be scared. Maybe it'll save them" Her voice was full of indignation.

  "My God!" Diane cried, unable to keep quiet any longer. "What happened?"

  "The Hall's little boy Jerry .. ." Roger started.

  "Was abducted by some madman or a cult," Judy finished for him.

  "Now, honey, you don't know that. That's not what the police said." Roger argued.

  "I don't, huh? The police don't know what they're doing. They say Jerry ran away because his father beat him, but we never saw any evidence of it and we were friends with them for two years. What about that body they found in the river last year? It had been carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey. That's what Mrs. Lyman said and her husband was one of the guys who found him. He was water-skiing and skied right over the body. It was a little boy who'd been missing from somewhere in Vermont. There's been a whole slew of child abductions in western New England and upstate New York dating all the way back to the 1930s. Every year more kids have turned up missing. One year, might be two missing in Vermont, the next year one in upstate New York. There was a thing about it on `Good Morning, Springfield' on channel 4 a couple of weeks ago. A writer who's been researching the story traced the beginning to 1931, that's when a kid in southern Vermont, and two from Troy, New York, disappeared. Over the more than fifty years since, children have continued to disappear from western Massachusetts, western Connecticut, Vermont, and eastern upstate New York. And this writer said that the center of the abductions was in western Massachusetts, and that's where the person, or cult, was operating from. For over fifty years no less! "

  "That's incredible!" Diane exclaimed.

  "And they've found only one body, the boy in the river, in all those years. None of the children missing from within that area since 1931 had been found until last year. And he was found dead and mutilated," Judy added with a knowing nod.

  "Judy, that's a lot of conjecture. There's no way all those disappearances can be attributed to one person. I'll bet more than half of those so-called abductions were runaways, or were kids stolen by a divorced parent," Roger said.

  "Excuse me! Did I say one person? No, I said it could be a cult, too," Judy raved, her temper flaring. "What about the two kids missing in Springfield, and the ones in North Adams and Belchertown? And now, little Jerry Hall right here in Northwood. Right here on our street. All of them missing in the last twenty-five years. Don't tell me they were runaways. And that little boy all mutilated in the river. His parents weren't divorced," Judy huffed.

  "Don't get so upset," Roger cajoled. "I didn't say that there isn't something going on, just that to try and say it's been happening for over fifty years is absurd. The police or the FBI would have investigated it if that were the case, no matter what some writer who's just trying to make a buck and sell his book says"

  "I think it's true and it just goes to show how truly inept the police and the FBI really are," Judy said, and sniffed, dismissing Roger's argument and turning to Diane. "I walk to the corner with Margaret every morning and wait for the bus to come, and I'm there every afternoon when she gets home. I'm not taking any chances. Who knows what kind of monster is out there?"

  Later in the evening, after Roger had changed the subject so as not to tempt further his wife's volatile Italian temper, and they had eaten all the pizza, plus a bag of oatmeal cookies for dessert, Diane retired to the kitchen to do dishes, with Judy volunteering to help. Roger offered his help with unpacking and moving furniture, and he and Steve went upstairs to get the beds put together and the bedrooms set up.

  Jennifer, Jackie, and Margaret sat in the living room, watching snowy reruns of "Bewitched" on television. Halfway through the show, just after Darrin had been turned into a jackass by Endora, Margaret ended her shy silence and spoke up in a soft, clear voice. "I know where a real witch lives," she said.

  Jennifer, who was glued to a 501 jeans commercial barely heard what Margaret said, but Jackie sat up and looked at her. He hadn't been paying much attention to the tube; he was more concerned with worrying about what Mrs. Eames had said at the supper table. Her comment, "Who knows what kind of monster is out there," had intrigued and terrified him, as did any mention of monsters and such things.

  "What did you say?" he asked Margaret.

  Jennifer turned away from the screen and looked at Margaret also. "Did you say a witch?" she asked.

  "Yes," Margaret said timidly.

  "Really? Where?" Jackie asked in a frightened voice.

  "In the woods right behind your house," Margaret replied.

  Jackie eyed Margaret doubtfully, then his sister. "Did you tell her to say that, Jen?"

  "No way!" Jennifer pleaded innocence. "I was only kidding you before. She's lying," Jennifer said with a sneer.

  Jackie didn't know what the difference was, but kept quiet.

  "I am not," Margaret declared. "Jerry Hall told me there was.

  "You mean the Jerry who used to live here?" Jackie asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

  Margaret nodded.

  "Then Jerry was lying," Jennifer said matter-of-factly.

  "How do you know?" Margaret asked defensively.

  "Cuz there are no such things as witches," Jennifer said. "Even Jackie knows that and he's only six years old."

  Margaret didn't have any answer for that and got up and walked out of the room. Soon after, she and her parents left and it was time for Jennifer and Jackie, who was already nodding off, to go to bed.

  When they were washed, had brushed their teeth, and were lying in bed, Steve and Diane came in to say goodnight. Diane sat on Jackie's bed and arranged his pillow. "Do you guys remember what Margaret's mother said at supper about the boy who used to live here?" she asked, looking first at Jackie, then at Jennifer. Jen nodded. "Do you remember, Jackie?"

  "Yeah," he said. "A monster got him."

  "Not a monster, dopey," Jen said with ridicule.

  "Quiet, Jen," Diane said quickly. "Not the kind of monster you're thinking of, Jackie. There are no such things as monsters like in the movies or in books, but there are people who have monsters inside them. Do you know what I mean?"

  "They're bad?" Jackie tendered meekly. He didn't like having this conversation with his mother. It was bad enough that he had nig
htmares about monsters and spent a good deal of his waking time daydreaming about monsters, but to have his mother start talking about monsters as if they were real was too much. (And to make it worse, ones that were inside people how could you tell who had a monster in them?) He felt very afraid, too, because she was so serious; she wasn't fooling around now like she often did with him.

  "Yes, honey, they're bad and they like to do bad things to children," Diane said taking his hand.

  "You mean like the witch in `Hansel and Gretel'?"

  "Sort of, but there are no such things as witches. These bad people look just like everyone else. They might drive by and ask you to go for a ride with them, or offer you money or candy if you'll go with them. But if you do, no one will ever hear from you again."

  A dread chill sank into Jackie's bowels like a load of worms squirming inside him. No one will ever hear from you again! The words were the most fearful his mother had ever spoken. They conjured horrible images in his mind of being dragged off into a deep dark hole to become supper for some creature of the night. But his mother was talking about human night creatures.

  "So I want you to promise me that you will never-either of you," she added pointing at Jennifer, "talk to, or go anywhere with a stranger, ever! I don't care what they say. Even if they tell you I'm in the hospital dying, or that Steve or I said it was okay to go with them, you stay away from them. Do you hear me?"

  Jackie squeaked out a scared yes, and tried to pull his hand free of his mother's. She'd been squeezing his hand tighter and tighter as she spoke and was hurting him. She realized it and let go of his hand and stood up.

  "Remember what I said." She leaned over and kissed Jackie's forehead, then went and did the same to Jen. Steve followed suit and they left, Diane pausing in the doorway to glance back at her children.

  When they were gone, Jackie sat up in bed and looked across at his sister in the dark. "Jen?" he whispered.

  "Hmm?"

  "Do you think that boy Jerry really told Margaret there was a witch in the woods?"

  "Be serious," Jennifer scoffed.

  "But if there is, maybe she's the one who took Jerry and the other kids."

  "Jackie," Jen said sitting up and looking at him, "how many times do you have to be told? There are no witches. There are no werewolves, no Frankenstein, no vampires, no mummies, no ogres, trolls, or monsters of any kind. They are all make-believe. There are only creepy people, like Mom said. But they can't hurt us if we stay away from them"

  "But an old lady could be a witch and you wouldn't even know it," Jackie countered.

  "Oh, I give up," Jennifer said, flopping back on the bed. "Believe what you want, but leave me alone and go to sleep."

  Jackie lay in bed watching the shadows cast by the moonlight filtering through the trees outside the window. He lay very still and kept his entire body, except for his head from his nose up, under the covers, even though it was a warm night. He didn't know where he had come by the knowledge, but he was sure that if he slept this way, no monsters that might be hiding in the closet, or under the bed, or in the tree outside the window, or in the shadows themselves, could get at him. He was safe.

  When the pattern of shifting leaf silhouettes finally became familiar to him and he was certain that there were no monsters lurking in the room, Jackie closed his eyes and sank into a deep sleep. Sometime after midnight, thunderstorms rolled up the Connecticut River and the skies above Northwood strobed with lightning. Balls of thunder rolled across the sky, leaving crackling retorts to mark their passage. Then the rain came, heavy chilling sheets of water that cooled the muggy land.

  In the midst of the lightning flashes and thunder shots, Jackie came awake within a dream and began to walk through it.

  His eyes were half-opened as he pulled back the covers and swung his legs out of the bed. Wearing only his underpants, which is what he always wore to bed, he padded on bare feet to the window and stood looking out. The lightning flashed brightly, creating a perfect snapshot of the backyard, the field, and the woods. In the snapshot was a boy running. Behind him was a figure emerging from the woods, chasing him. The lightning flashed again and Jackie saw that the boy wasn't running, he was hopping, and the reason he was hopping was because-the lightning flashed again and the boy was in the backyard, swinging on the swing; at the edge of the field stood a dark figure shrouded in shadows-he had no arms or legs.

  Jackie woke with a start as a report of thunder cracked through the night. Another bolt flashed and he saw that the field was empty. He couldn't quite remember what he had seen there in his dream. A pair of lights flashed between the trees to the right and he saw headlights moving on the dirt road through the woods. Jackie ducked away from the window instinctively, as if the headlights were eyes that might spot him. Another flash of lightning and peal of thunder sent him scurrying into Jen's bed where he snuggled close to his sister for protection. The next morning he remembered nothing of his dream, the lights in the woods, or of getting into Jen's bed.

  CHAPTER 6

  Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.

  Thirteen! Edmund crowed.

  "The magic number," Eleanor whispered as she drove.

  Thirteen innocent boys! he said, as if it was the largest number known to man. You'll never do it.

  Leave me alone, she snapped, anger creeping into her voice. She stepped on the brakes and slowed the hearse to a halt at the end of the dirt road. She looked to the right, through the tall lilac bushes, at the Nailers' house.

  "Got one little kitten already sitting in my lap," she murmured, took a swig from a bottle of Jose Cuervo, and licked her chapped lips. "Twelve more to go ""

  You're going to die!

  Eleanor sighed and stepped on the gas, pulling out onto Dorsey Lane. "Edmund, Edmund, go away, come again some other day. Little Ellie wants to play," she sang and giggled.

  Edmund had always been a worrier. Ever since their birth six seconds apart-he had always been the one to think of the worst that could happen. Right out of the womb, she had felt his primitive distrust of first the doctor, then their mother, and she still remembered it; as she also remembered their child hood, listening to his constant paranoid thoughts endlessly intruding on her own. It wouldn't be until much later in life that she would be able to block him out at will.

  In infancy, he was always certain that their mother, whose growing madness they could hear, would murder them in their sleep, or forget to feed them, or drop them over the second floor railing, or down the stairs, or out a window. Since Edmund was the first to discover and master their special gift-which they would later come to call the Machine he fed these images to Eleanor long before either of them could talk, conjuring thoughts so realistic that she soon became as frightened as he was paranoid.

  A car cut in front of the hearse unexpectedly, pulling Eleanor's mind back to the present. She had just gotten off the highway at the Amherst exit and was very near the street she wanted. Ahead, in the beam of her headlights she saw the green reflecting sign for Lincoln Street. Twenty yards down on the left were the university's apartments for students who were married.

  She guided the hearse into the parking lot and parked in the deepest shadows outside one of the rear units. She turned the engine off and looked at the second-floor window of the unit to the left. The light was on in the window. Eleanor looked at the dashboard clock. After midnight-too late for that light to be on.

  The window belonged to the bedroom of a five-year-old boy, Davy Torrez, one of many children that Eleanor had been watching for a few weeks. She'd enticed him and teased him with her thoughts, learning all about him as she did so. She knew that his favorite color was red; his favorite TV show was "Alf"; and his favorite food was pizza. She also knew his deepest desires and innermost fears.

  Eleanor closed her eyes and began to breathe very deeply. Grunting softly, as if coaxing a bowel movement, she pushed her thoughts outward. She envisioned them fleeing her head, passing through the windshield, floating on the
night air, through the bedroom window, and opening a tiny portal into Davy Torrez's mind without him feeling a thing.

  He was awake. His mother was in the room with him. He had had a bad dream about being chased by a witch, like in the fairy tales his father had read to him before bedtime. (Eleanor smiled at the intricacies of the Machine's workings.) His mother had heard him cry out and came to comfort him. He cried that he was afraid to go back to sleep. Good mother that she was, Day's sat on the bed to read him nursery rhymes, which she promised would bring happy dreams.

  "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall," Davy's mother read, but Eleanor heard different voices: her mother's and Edmund's.

  "Humpty Dumpty had a great fall."

  The words filled her mind with memories. She saw her own mother reciting the rhyme, as she had done many times before her death. She had always claimed that they were descendants of the Brothers Grimm and loved telling fairy tales and reciting rhymes, acting out all the parts in her own mad world, mixing nursery rhymes all up with fables and fairy tales and creating weird surrealistic stories. Anyone watching or listening would have marvelled at her creativity and storytelling powers. But Eleanor and Edmund, the Machine tuned to their mother's mind, seeing and hearing everything that sailed in the ocean of her thoughts, knew that when telling one of her stories, Mother was completely unaware of their existence. She lived the stories, and unless they forced their thoughts very loudly upon her, she was oblivious to them. She might start a story for them-she did have moments of clarity, of sanity, though over the years those became fewer and farther between-but she lived the story for herself. Their mother was quite mad, but Edmund needn't have worried about her. The only harm she would ever do would be to herself.

  Eleanor and Edmund were four years old at the time. Edmund had been the first to discover the workings of the Machine; he had a natural talent for it. Within weeks of birth he instinctively knew that he could invade other people's minds, hear their thoughts and make them see his, even when not consciously trying to do so. It wasn't until much later, when she was nearly two, that Eleanor finally grasped some idea of what the Machine could do. Before that, Eleanor had been barraged with thoughts from every person within a three-mile radius. It had caused her great headaches and distress. It was only with Edmund's help that she survived those years until she learned how to use the Machine and could be selective in the voices she wished to hear, blocking out all others. Only then did she come to understand, at first instinctively and later intellectually, that the Machine was really an extension of themselves, their egos, and their subconscious minds collecting and affecting the thoughts of everyone, except their father's, within a three-mile radius, even when Edmund and Eleanor were asleep.