Twenty-seven
Ruben dropped her off in front of Amy's house in the
continuing downpour. She watched the glare of red taillights vanish in
the darkness, amazed that she felt no regret for what she had done. Her
life had been at stake. Now, she and Ruben were entwined forever in a
perverse marriage of self-preservation.
Drenched a hundred times over, she pounded on the
front door of Amy Radcliff's house and heard the children scream inside.
"Leslie, it's me! It's Mom! Open the door!"
Leslie cried out his frustration with the locks and
latches. Finally, the door flew open, and the seven-year-old leaped into
her arms. Behind him, the twins stood with clenched fists, screaming in
terror of the drenched stranger at their door.
She phoned Karen's house, and then her own in hopes
of catching either Amy or Karen before the stormy night deteriorated
further into the angry hell it was becoming. Nobody answered the phones.
She bribed the twins to silence with a half gallon of chocolate ice cream
and a spoon for each and knelt before Leslie. "I've got to go find Amy
and Karen. Tiger, I really need you now. You're the only man I've got to
back me up. Are you big enough to baby-sit the twins for another hour or
so?"
Leslie sniffled back tears. "I thought you ran away,
too!"
She hugged him fiercely. "I'll be back as soon as I
can. Keep the door locked."
Lori turned back into the storm. She slipped through
the darkness to the back of Carl Adler's grocery store. The door to
Ronnie's room hung open. Rain and wind blew in and send countless
pictures flapping against the back wall. They were just innocent busts,
but unmistakable likenesses of both Wendy and Gloria Radcliff. Their
smiling faces beamed from every wall as the lightning flashed and the
thunder rattled the windows.
The violence of the storm made it impossible to think
clearly, but what Karen believed was the only reality that mattered. Lori
wandered helplessly back through the alley and out to a side street that
would have overlooked the empty countryside on a clear day. The rainy
night was impenetrable. She could see nothing but a distant spot of
light, the headlamp of another locomotive rumbling in the distance,
pulling its enormous load through the stormy night.
Where could they all have gone? Lori leaned into the
rain and wind and made her way to the railroad tracks. The storm drowned
out her conscious level of reasoning, but the approaching train associated
with her horrible forebodings. She couldn't see her way in the darkness
and tripped on the steel rail, falling painfully to her hands and knees on
the coarse gravel. A glimmer of light from the approaching train
reflected from the polished tracks and illuminated the open sides of the
deserted sale barn.
She sensed their presence there. They had taken
shelter from the storm, and they were waiting for the train. She had
known Karen long enough to form a rapport with the kinds of perverse thoughts and
ideas entertained by that anguished mind. She didn't think Karen capable
of cold-blooded murder, but Ronnie was subhuman in her eyes. If
occasional deaths occurred along the tracks passing through town, who
would take note of still another child wandering into harm's way, a
handicapped one at that?
"Karen! I know you're here! I know what you're
going to do!"
The storm swallowed the sound of her voice. Lori
scanned the face of the dark sale barn, glimpsed movement, and turned to
face the trio moving into the open. Having been discovered, Karen climbed
onto the tracks, dragging Ronnie Bates with her. She stood with her
stocky legs spread wide, her grotesque expression of hatred illuminated by
the stark light from the train's headlight. She held Ronnie pinned
against her with one massive arm clamped about his throat. The boy hung
limp, dazed and confused.
"You have nothing left but trickery to protect him,"
Karen bellowed. “Nothing but lies!"
Lori gasped for breath in the downpour. "Karen,
don't do this! Help me find Wendy!"
"You're not going to find her!" Karen screamed.
"She's gone, just like Gloria is gone! I warned you, but you wouldn't
listen! But it's never going to happen again, Lori Malcolm! Neither one
of us has anything to lose now!"
The light at Lori's back was stronger now, casting
her shadow before her. The rain pounded so hard that Lori could not hear
the sound of her voice. The ground quivered. Ronnie Bates lifted his
face to the glare.
Karen brought up a hand to shield her eyes. "Lori,
get off the tracks!"
Lori took another step forward, focused entirely upon
the need to free the boy from Karen's murderous rage. The thunder bearing
down from behind her could wait for a free moment.
"Lori, watch out!"
Karen threw Ronnie bodily aside and lunged forward
with outstretched hands. Fingers of steel caught Lori by the arms and
flung her off the tracks with neck-wrenching violence.
Lori struck ground, rolled, and looked up to see
Karen transfixed between the rails, dwarfed by something black and massive
bearing down upon her. But Amy was in motion in that moment as well, a
frantic blur in the glare and the thunder, colliding against the larger
woman with enough momentum to send them both reeling off balance.
The night exploded. Wind tore at Lori's clothing.
The ground shook, and the rain swirled mercilessly about her face. The
quieter rumbling of the swaying boxcars and their rhythmic clicking and
screeching wheels commenced and seemed to last forever.
In time, the train was gone and the silence left in
its wake intensified. Street lights seeped through the diminishing rain
to illuminate her surroundings to greater distances than before. Karen
sat on the other side of the tracks like some monstrous, overgrown child.
Amy lay curled on the ground before her, weeping hysterically.
Lori looked around frantically for Ronnie Bates. In
another moment, she would have lost sight of him in the mist and darkness,
walking down the tracks toward the abandoned farmhouse a half mile away.
She scrambled to her feet and followed. She brushed
gravel from her bleeding hands and knees and concentrated on keeping pace
with the boy on the slippery cross-ties.
Somewhere during the long walk, the rain slowed to a
drizzle. The moon broke through banks of silver-edged clouds in the west
to reveal endless miles of gleaming rails. Feeble lights glowed from
downstairs windows of the farmhouse as they approached. Ronnie finally
turned off the railroad tracks and slid down the steep embankment to a
ditch filled with rain water. Lori followed doggedly, braving the
waist-deep water and snagging her clothing on unseen barbed-wire.
Ahead, Ronnie climbed onto an access road overgrown
with weeds and began the final walk up the drive to the house. Lori
followed him around the side of the house. Smoke curled from the metal
chimney of a wood burning stove. The lights were coming from the kitchen.
Ronnie climbed the wooden stairs of the back porch
and went inside. Lori entered a dark, creaking hallway behind him. The
air smelled of kerosene lanterns. She heard the sizzle of a grill and
smell of barbecued meat, and passed through the hallway to the kitchen.
She stopped in the shadows before she was seen.
Ronnie sat at the kitchen table. He rested his
forehead on the bare wood and wept quietly. He was not alone. Lori
expected to see Wendy with the boy. Wendy was no surprise, but there
were two young girls hurrying to his side to comfort him. Lori didn't
recognize the blonde girl, not at first.
And then Wendy looked up, startled by the intruder
standing in the doorway. She smiled guiltily. "Oh, hi, Mom."
Outside, a lull fell as the rain diminished.
"Told you we'd get caught," Gloria Radcliff said in
the hushed quiet of the night.
