Do Not Answer #8
“You don’t follow me.”
“I’m going with you.”
Mercer glanced at Ethan.
“And him?”
Ethan looked at Lena.
She shook her head before he spoke.
He remained inside.
Mason took the plastic paddle.
Keller picked up a flashlight and joined them.
Mercer laughed.
“Now everyone wants to go.”
Keller said, “You don’t know the path.”
“There isn’t a path.”
“Exactly.”
The three men disappeared among the trees.
Ethan shut the door.
The light beyond the window had vanished.
Lena sat near the stove with the blanket around her. Danny’s sweatshirt hung in the bunk room. She could see one blue sleeve through the open doorway.
Ruth stared at the telephone.
Ethan noticed.
“Don’t answer it again.”
“I don’t plan to.”
“What did she say?”
Ruth looked at him.
“I told you.”
“You said she asked about shoes.”
“She did.”
“After that.”
Ruth turned toward the stove.
“Nothing.”
“You were answering questions.”
“She wanted to know where I was.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That I was here.”
“Here where?”
Ruth’s mouth tightened.
“I said the station.”
Lena looked toward the telephone.
Ethan said, “Did you say the island’s name?”
“No.”
“Did she?”
Ruth did not answer.
The telephone remained silent.
A branch brushed the roof.
Lena tried to tell herself it was a branch. The wind had almost stopped, but upper branches could still move.
Ruth stood.
“I need the bathroom.”
“There isn’t one,” Ethan said.
“There was a kitchen sink.”
“That isn’t what she meant,” Lena said.
Ruth smiled weakly.
“I saw a washroom beside the kitchen.”
Ethan picked up the flashlight.
“I’ll check it.”
“I can check a bathroom.”
“We stay together.”
Ruth looked annoyed but allowed him to lead.
Lena followed because remaining alone in the main room seemed worse.
The washroom was narrow and smelled of rust. Ethan checked behind the door and inside a shallow cupboard.
“There.”
He gave Ruth the flashlight.
Lena and her father waited in the hall.
“You believe her?” Lena whispered.
“About the phone?”
“About Anna.”
He looked toward the main room.
“I heard a girl.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“I don’t know what I believe.”
It was the first useful answer he had given all day.
Lena pulled the blanket around her shoulders.
“Did you hear Danny under the bed?”
“No.”
“You believed me.”
“I believe you heard something.”
“That’s different.”
“Yes.”
Ruth opened the washroom door.
She had not used it.
Her face had gone pale.
“What?” Ethan asked.
Ruth pointed toward the kitchen.
A woman stood beside the sink.
At first Lena thought Mason or Keller had returned and brought someone with them. The woman wore a yellow dress that hung below her knees. Her dark hair was cut straight across her forehead.
She faced the sink.
Ruth whispered, “Anna.”
The woman turned.
She was not a woman.
The body was tall enough to be one, but the face belonged to a child of eight or nine. The skin around the mouth sagged loosely, as though the smaller face had been fitted onto a larger head.
Water ran from its hair.
Its feet were bare.
The thing smiled at Ruth.
“I found them.”
It lifted one foot.
A red shoe covered it, far too small. The heel had split, and pale toes pressed through the front.
Ruth took a step.
Ethan raised the flashlight as though it were a weapon.
The beam crossed the thing’s face.
Its eyes reflected white.
Lena grabbed Ruth’s arm.
“That isn’t her.”
Ruth did not pull away, but she did not look at Lena.
The child-faced thing leaned toward the sink.
“Come see.”
Its voice sounded different outside the telephone. Older beneath the child’s pitch. A second voice seemed to repeat each word a fraction of a second late.
Ethan said, “Get back.”
The thing looked at him.
Its face changed slightly.
The cheeks narrowed. The forehead widened.
For one terrible instant Lena thought it was trying to become Danny.
Then the kitchen light went out.
Ruth screamed.
Something struck the sink.
Ethan shoved Lena backward into the hallway.
The light returned.
The kitchen was empty.
Black water moved inside the sink basin.
Ruth ran forward.
“Anna?”
Lena caught the back of her dress.
Ruth was stronger than she looked. She dragged Lena two steps into the kitchen.
The water in the sink bulged upward.
A small hand broke the surface.
Ruth reached for it.
Ethan wrapped both arms around her and pulled.
The hand seized Ruth’s wrist.
Its fingers closed all the way around the bone.
Ruth screamed.
Ethan pulled harder.
The sink basin cracked.
Water spilled across the counter, but the level inside did not fall.
Another hand emerged.
It caught Ruth beneath the elbow.
Lena grabbed Ruth around the waist.
The skin of the hands was pale and swollen. Their nails were painted red.
Ruth cried her daughter’s name.
The black water rose to the rim.
Something beneath it pulled.
Ruth’s shoulder struck the sink. Her forehead hit the faucet with a hollow sound.
Ethan braced one foot against the cabinet and hauled backward.
For a moment Ruth came free as far as her hand.
Then the fingers around her wrist tightened.
The bones shifted beneath her skin.
Ruth screamed once more.
The cabinet doors burst open.
Water poured out across the floor.
The smell was not from a sink.
It was mud, medicine, sweat, and the sweet sourness of a sickroom.
Lena’s bare foot slid.
She lost her grip on Ruth.
Ethan fell against the opposite counter.
Ruth struck the edge of the sink and disappeared forward.
There was nowhere for her body to go.
The basin was less than a foot deep.
Still, her head and shoulders passed into the black water.
Her legs kicked against the cabinets.
Ethan grabbed one ankle.
Lena caught the other.
Ruth’s body bent at the waist farther than it should have.
A cracking sound came from inside the sink.
The water pulled again.
Ethan shouted.
Ruth’s shoe came off in his hand.
Her legs vanished over the counter.
The black water collapsed after her.
The sink was empty.
Dry rust covered the drain.
Ruth’s missing shoe lay on the floor.
Lena continued holding the other one.
It took her several seconds to understand that Ruth was gone.
Her father stared into the basin.
He turned on the faucet.
Nothing came out.
“Ruth?”
His voice broke.
He opened the cabinet beneath the sink.
Pipes ran into the wall. There was no space behind them.
Lena stepped backward.
A drop of black water landed on her shoulder.
She looked up.
Wet footprints crossed the kitchen ceiling.
Small bare feet.
They began above the sink and continued into the hallway.
Ethan saw them.
Neither of them spoke.
The footprints stopped directly over Lena.
Something knocked from inside the ceiling.
Three times.
Ethan pulled her against him.
The front door slammed open.
Lena screamed.
Mason entered, followed by Keller.
Both men were wet and breathing hard.
“Where’s Mercer?” Ethan asked.
Mason looked past him into the kitchen.
“What happened?”
“Where is he?”
“We lost him.”
Keller closed the door.
“He ran toward the light.”
Ethan held up Ruth’s shoe.
“She’s gone.”
Mason stared at it.
“What do you mean?”
The telephone began ringing.
Nobody moved.
The ceiling light flickered.
From the porch, Mercer shouted, “Open the door.”
Mason turned.
The door had already closed behind him.
Mercer struck it with both hands.
“Open it.”
Keller moved toward the chair.
Mason caught him.
“We didn’t see him come back.”
Mercer pounded again.
“Come on. I found the boat.”
Ethan whispered, “He left with you.”
“He ran ahead,” Mason said. “We followed his flare. It went out near the cliff.”
Mercer hit the door hard enough to shake it.
“You left me.”
Lena looked through the narrow window beside the entrance.
Mercer stood on the porch.
His green raincoat hung open. Blood covered one side of his face.
He saw Lena.
“There you are.”
She stepped back.
Mason called through the door.
“What boat?”
“The rescue boat.”
“Where?”
“Downhill.”
“There are cliffs downhill.”
“Not where I went.”
“What happened to your face?”
Mercer touched the wrong side.
“This?”
Mason looked at Lena.
She shook her head.
Mercer’s blood was on his left temple. His hand rested against the right.
He smiled through the glass.
“I fell.”
Keller whispered, “Don’t open it.”
Mercer heard him.
“Your father opened it.”
Keller went still.
Mercer leaned closer to the glass.
“He waited a long time.”
His face pressed against the pane.
The skin around his mouth shifted.
Not much. Enough for Lena to see that his lips moved before his teeth did.
Mason backed away.
Mercer’s voice changed.
An older man said, “Tommy.”
Keller made a sound Lena had not heard from an adult before.
The thing outside smiled.
Then Danny’s voice said, “Dad?”
Ethan moved.
Lena caught his hand.
He stopped after one step.
The thing at the window turned its head toward him.
Mercer’s face softened. The cheeks became younger. The hair darkened against the glass.
It did not become Danny all at once.
It searched.
Lena watched pieces of her brother appear and disappear: his eyebrows at ten, his crooked front tooth before it was repaired, the round chin he had lost by twelve.
The eyes remained Mercer’s.
Ethan squeezed Lena’s hand hard enough to hurt.
“Danny?”
The thing smiled.
Lena said, “Don’t talk to it.”
Its eyes moved toward her.
“Len.”
She felt the word in her stomach.
Ethan reached for the lock.
Lena planted both feet.
“No.”
“He’s out there.”
“That isn’t him.”
“You see him.”
“I see something trying.”
The face at the window twitched.
Danny had never held still when he smiled. One corner of his mouth always rose first, as though he had thought of something mean and was deciding whether to say it.
This smile arrived evenly.
The thing lifted one hand.
It waved with all five fingers moving together.
Danny had waved that way when he was little. Later he had stopped waving and made a loose salute because he thought ordinary waving looked stupid.
Lena said, “He didn’t do that anymore.”
Ethan looked at her.
“What?”
“The wave.”
The thing lowered its hand.
Its smile disappeared.
Mercer’s face returned in pieces.
He began striking the door again.
“Open it.”
The blows came faster.
The telephone rang behind them.
A girl cried from the kitchen.