Instinct (18 page)

“I’m right here, boss,” Richmond said.
 

“I thought you said she was injured.”

“Nossir,” Richmond said, in one slurred word. “I said she was attacked. Helen was the one that got snared by the vines. They’re working on her up in the bathroom. They got about half of the thorns out, but she’s bleeding all over the place.”

“Okay, okay,” Luke said. “Shut the fuck up.” When he turned back to Judy, his face had reverted back to gentle condescension. “You didn’t see what attacked you?”

“It wasn’t,” Judy began. She swallowed hard. Luke motioned to one of the bearded men and he somehow knew to fetch a glass of water. “It wasn’t a physical attack,” she said. Her mind raced. She realized quickly that she had to embellish the truth or she would reveal her own escape attempt. “I was drawn up into the neighborhood. It was like my body was taken over.”

Luke’s eyes narrowed a tiny bit, so she veered back to the truth, the whole truth, so-help-her-God.

“I heard a loud noise. It sounded like two big wooden blocks clapping together. You know those wood blocks they used to use for percussion in grade school?”
 

Luke nodded. She wondered if he knew, or if he was just nodding to keep her talking.

“It sounded like those. It was a hollow sound and it made me remember.”

The room was dead quiet when she paused. One of the bearded men set a glass of water on the table and the sound of it seemed to echo in the room. She picked it up and took a silent sip. Judy was careful to set it down carefully so it didn’t make a sound.

“It seemed like the sound drove me into the past. I wasn’t just remembering—I was there. I was back on Christmas day, waiting for everyone to come downstairs so we could open presents.”

“Was that a happy memory?”

“Yes, mostly. There were sad things around the edges. I felt excluded and ignored. But I was also excited. You know. I was a kid at Christmas. I had that anxious feeling.”

“And you associate these memories with the sound you heard?” Luke asked.

Judy nodded. “Absolutely. I could tell that it was what drove me into the past, but I couldn’t ignore it or break the trance.”

“So you knew, while it was happening?”

“Yes. Well… In a way. It was like when you get caught up in a movie. You know you shouldn’t be frightened because it’s just a movie, but it’s still scary. That’s a bad example. I wasn’t all that scared because I was home.”

“Luke?” a man asked from the door. It might have been Winslow. Judy had a hard time telling the bearded men apart.

“Yeah?”

“You might want to come talk to Helen. She’s talking about Dayton.”

“I’ll be right there. Hold tight and have someone write down everything she says.” Luke turned back to Judy. “Can you do that too? Can you write down everything you remember from tonight. Start right at the beginning, when you left here. I want to know mostly about the sound and the dream, but I’d like to have a full text. Understand?”

“Sure,” Judy said. She reached for the glass again and her hand was trembling even worse. She paused until she could get it under control.

“You know what? Let me find someone who can write for you. That way you can just dictate, okay?”

“I’d…” Judy began. She stopped herself. She wasn’t quite sure what she had been about to say.

“What?” Luke asked.

She glanced up at Winslow, who was still waiting to take Luke upstairs. She wished Luke would just go, but he was waiting to hear the rest of her thought.

“I’d prefer to go outside, if I could,” she said. She felt herself blushing and hoped it wouldn’t show up in the candlelight.
 

“No problem.”

Luke pointed to one of the men and gave him quick instructions.

✪
 
✪
 
✪
 
✪
 
✪

As Judy recounted her story to a bearded man named Norway, she developed a fresh perspective on the situation. Her story wasn’t very remarkable on its own. Something else must have happened for them to want so many details from her.

She got near the end and then paused. Norway wanted her to continue. She wanted information.

“What happened to Helen?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Norway said.

“You must know something.”

He shook his head and looked down at the pad he was writing on. Judy felt that she was terrible at reading people, but Norway was clearly trying to hide something.

“I was there,” she said. “I was attacked. I deserve to know what happened to the others. Did something happen with…” She struggled to remember the other name she’d heard. “Dayton? Wasn’t she partnered with a man named Dayton?”

Norway let out a surprised gust of air, like he’d been hit in the stomach.
 

“What happened?” Judy whispered her question and leaned close.

Norway looked up from his pad. He glanced around to make sure there was nobody else around before he decided to talk.

“I don’t know for sure, but I heard that they were almost eaten by some kind of monster.”

“What? Are you serious?”

He nodded and put the tip of his pencil down in the margin of the paper. He made dot there and then looked back up.

“A couple people said it was a plant. Yonkers said it had poison flowers that would shoot out spores or something.”

“And thorns, right? They said they were pulling thorns from Helen?”

Norway nodded.

“Yeah, they cut her free from the vines and got them off. She was lucky. I heard Dayton was torn in half.”

“That’s terrible,” Judy said. She shuddered.

“But you didn’t see any plants like that?”

“No,” Judy said. She finished her story. Norway wrote for several minutes after she finished talking. He asked a few questions so he could accurately record the story, and then wrote some more. When everything was written, he closed his book, thanked her, and left.

Judy picked at one of her cuticles and glanced at the kitchen window. They must have put out some of the candles. There was barely a glow coming from in there. She tried to remember the features of each of the bearded men. How many had been with their group since the very beginning? How many had been at that Denny’s meeting where she’d first met Luke? Frank was the only one she knew for sure. Maybe some of the other bearded men had been there. She couldn’t say. Certainly this Norway guy had joined on the trip. She would have remembered him. He seemed more likable than the others.

Judy recognized that her memory was terrible, just as she admitted that Luke’s memory was awesome. He knew the names and stories of every single person in their group. It was probably why he remained so popular. He could greet each person, remember their hometown, who they missed, what kind of food they liked, or anything else he’d heard. Luke would definitely remember Brad’s story about the killer vines, and rock monster, and weird memories. Judy was struggling to recall the details. She’d heard Brad’s story twice, but she’d heard a lot of things back then and retained only a few.

“Hey,” a voice called from the dark.

Judy watched until the face materialized from the night. It was Ron.

“Hi,” she said.

“I heard you had an adventure,” Ron said.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“You lost four people? Must have been quite an ambush.”

“I guess it was,” Judy said, with a sigh. She’d only known for sure that they’d lost Dayton. Was it possible they’d lost four? She wanted to find out for sure. Ron’s gossip was never accurate.

“I had an adventure of my own while you were gone,” Ron said.

“Yeah?”

“I haven’t told anyone yet. I’ll wait until daylight. They’re going to shit.”

“What are you talking about, Ron?”

Ron looked her in the eyes for several seconds. She was impressed. This was easily the longest amount of time he’d ever held onto a secret, as far as she knew. He caved. He came forward with a pleased smile and lowered his voice.

“I found a secret place,” he said.

“What are you talking about?”

“You know that little grain shed behind the barn?”

Judy shrugged. The farm was littered with little sheds and buildings, not to mention at least three barns. He could have been talking about anywhere.

“I finished my chores early, so I decided to clean it out. One of the metal bins had a rusted corner and the mice got into the grain. Looks like it happened years ago. I decided to take out the old bins so we could use the space to store something more important.”

“Does this story have a point, Ron?”

“I’m getting to it. Anyway, I took out the old metal and was going to keep the wooden framing there, but then I saw something. I almost yelled for everyone right then, but then I figured it might be interesting to just see for myself before I got anyone else involved. Some of it is uncovered now, but I’m going to need help to do the rest. That’s why I’m going to wait until daylight and then I’ll have my big reveal. That way everyone will know at once.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s like a bomb shelter or something. There’s a door built right into the floor underneath where the grain bins were. They must have decided it wasn’t useful anymore and then covered it over or something. Who knows what’s down there. We could find supplies and stuff.”

Judy nodded. His enthusiasm was not contagious.

“Do you want to come see it?”

Judy picked at her cuticle some more. “I should get some sleep. It’s been a long day.” She yawned, only to drive home her statement, and then she really did feel tired.

“Come on. Just come see it. It’s going to be like opening presents on Christmas morning.”

Suddenly, she was fully awake.

“Fine.”

✪
 
✪
 
✪
 
✪
 
✪

Ron made her go all the way inside the little shack before he would turn on his headlamp. It was about the size of a big walk-in closet, but she would never want to put clothes in here. The place was filled with dust and spiderwebs. The room served one purpose—it housed three big bins. They were framed in wood, but lined with metal. Judy could see the details of their construction because Ron had torn one of the bins out. Under the neighboring bin, she saw shredded paper and dried grass stuffed under there. It was probably the remnants of an old mouse nest.

“Look,” Ron whispered.

She couldn’t see anything. His headlamp was directed up towards the ceiling and the shadows were deep.

“Give me that,” she said. She grabbed the lamp from his head and knelt down. He had bent up the floor of the left bin. She saw the corner where the metal was rusted through. She imagined mice chewing through the red metal. The idea made her teeth hurt. She had to get low to see under the bent metal. Ron usually hated getting dirty. She couldn’t imagine how he’d come upon this discovery.

She saw it.
 

The bent metal was sitting atop a wooden frame. Through the gaps in that frame, she saw underneath to where the door sat. It was big, round, and gray. The top was arched and the back had two giant hinges. It looked like the exhaust cap of the old tractor, although a much larger version. Judy was about to get up off the dusty floor when she saw something else. There was another set of hinges, but these were attached to the wooden frame.
 

“It’s cool, right?” Ron asked. His voice was still low, but his excitement was evident. “We’ll have to tear out this whole bin and the one in the middle. That’s why I need more help. I won’t be able to get these things out on my own.”

“Hold on,” Judy said. She was trying to piece together what she was looking at, and Ron’s constant babbling was interrupting her thoughts. There was a gap between the bins and the back wall. It was bridged by shelves, but why would you put bins in and not set them against the back wall? “Help me,” she said.

It wasn’t difficult since the shelves were empty. All they held was dust and spiderwebs. The air became cloudy in the enclosed space as she handed the shelves to Ron and he stacked them against the side wall. When the boards were moved, she removed the metal supports that were hanging from the rails. Judy nodded when she took down the supports. There were scrapes on the rails. These supports had been inserted and removed many times before, from the look of it.

“What are you doing?” Ron asked.

“Shhh!” Judy said. She wanted to figure out the next part. With the shelves out of the way, there was enough space above the bins. And the hinges would allow the bins to tip back towards the wall, but there would have to be some other type of mechanism somewhere. It would make sense to put it somewhere convenient. Judy spun around, looking at the walls of the shack. They were unfinished. A randomly-spaced set of studs were the scaffolding for the horizontal planks. They were rough-cut. She could still see a cross-section of bark along the edges. Between the planks, she saw the tarpaper that sat between the planks and the outer clapboards. She couldn’t imagine how any mechanism would be hidden there.

“It must be down here,” she said, kneeling in front of the bins.

“What are you talking about.”

She reached under the front lip at the bottom of the middle bin and felt around. Her fingers found the cottony balls of old spider eggs and she frowned. She wanted to wipe her hands off. She expected to be stung or bitten at any moment. Her finger found a metal ring and her eyebrows shot up. She pulled on the loop and it made a satisfying thunk.

“What is it?” Ron asked.

Judy didn’t have to answer. The bins answered for her. When she released the ring, the entire rack of bins began to raise up on springs. They creaked and then stopped. Judy pushed up to her feet and then pressed on the front of the bin, giving it a push upwards.

Surprise spread across Ron’s face. His mouth made an O. When the bin had risen about two feet, the front of it began to tip back. It was rotating on the hinges Judy had seen earlier. It tilted back until the bins came to a soft landing on the back wall. The bins now occupied the space where the shelves had been.

When Judy pointed the light down, they saw that the bins had lifted away to reveal the metal door.