The Punished Page 9

  Curt rolled his eyes, perplexed and it was only then that he noted that the two girls had disappeared at some point, during the very brief fight, leaving behind empty plates. Staring at the plates, he felt defeated and deflated. His tremendous need to be heard, which had come from nowhere, left him completely, and at that point, he didn't care whether he ever spoke again or not. Glumly, he tried to eat and though he was able to force the rice and spam down, the carrots stuck in his throat.

  He even gagged a little and seeing this, Paul, with the sigh of a martyr, ate the carrots for him.

  With the end of dinner, the evening took on a miserable sameness. He was to clean again everything that he had just cleaned the day before. This should have been a breeze for him since he now knew what to do, but a will sapping lethargy came over him and he moved lead footed through his chores.

  But being slow did have one perk. When he went up to the bathroom, he again got to see that sweet shimmy of Amber's and it perked him up just a touch, but the note that he read from Paul a moment later had him straying deep into the black waters of depression.

  6

  Hi Curt,

  First, don't nap during the day. It'l make you go crazy, i mean it will mess up your sleep scedule and you will feel weird all the time. Second, Some how Miss F. fakes the doctors reports and reelly everything else. She has a computer and i guess she knows how to do that sort of stuff. The social workers don't care. As long as they get the right paperwork from her, they are happy. i've never been in the atic, its always locked, and ive never been to the basement, trust me, you don't want to go down there. i think Beth went there once and now look at her. i've never seen a garag door opener, i don't think we have one.

  Curt stared long at the paper and forgot about Amber's little shimmy. After a while, he noticed the knob of the bathroom turning back and forth and he guessed he had been in there too long. Not wanting to upset Paul, he flushed the note without writing a new one and left.

  Paul was right about the social workers not caring. Not that he blamed them in any way. Their job seemed like the worst thing in the world to Curt. It was a wonder they didn't drown in the endless lines of broken families, the cases of abuse, drugs, alcoholism, sexual molestation, prison terms... on and on, they had to deal with the whole index of human misery. And any small triumph most certainly had to be swallowed up by the next ten cases of frightful human behavior. It was no wonder they didn't bother Miss Feanor, as long as her paperwork was turned in on time and no one complained about her, Miss Gladys and the other case workers had hundreds of other problems to deal with. Because of this, Curt couldn't expect any help from the outside world.

  After leaving the bathroom, he went to his shuttered window, hoping to see someone on the lawn but the part of it that he could see, lay in deepening shadows and was deserted. He sighed. The sigh with its lack of energy and stale wind would've sounded more fitting coming from a hundred year old man on his deathbed than a twelve-year-old boy, but it was all Curt could muster.

  With a casual glance about his room to see if it was in order, he shut his door the proper amount and climbed in bed covering himself as he had done the previous night and promptly fell asleep. He foolishly thought that he was too tired and too depressed to be afraid.

  Chapter 6

  His Insane Day

  1

  His door swung inward in complete silence and Curt went from deep sleep to instantly awake in a heartbeat. The house, at night was so perfectly still and silent that the tiny movement of air from the door's opening struck his blanket like a weighted breeze. His eyes shot open, but it was so dark beneath the covers that they might as well not have been, however they still flicked about in a vain attempt to catch some light, while his ears strained for the smallest sound. Though it turned out that they needn't have strained at all.

  "You were very close to losing it tonight."

  The voice came from just above him and he jumped under the blanket, his skin flaring in goose bumps. It was Miss Feanor, and with her voice pitched as low as it was, he knew that she couldn't have been more than an inch from the blanket that stretched across his face. When she spoke again, he could feel her breath through the light material.

  "I thought you were going to be punished right there in the kitchen, and the way you talked to me, I hoped that you would," she said still quietly. Now he felt her weight on the bed and he knew that she had put her hands palm down on either side of his skinny shoulders. The covers stretched with her weight and he suddenly realized she had effectively pinned him there.

  "You think I don't care about you and the others?" she asked in a dangerous tone. "Fuck you Curtis. I do care. I told you the rules; it's not my fault you wouldn't listen." She paused then, and though he didn't hear it, he felt her breathing heavily in anger. The heated air of her breath turned the covers warm over his face and he pictured her teeth, white in the dark and overly large. Curt's fear of her became a huge thing and with the constricting blankets, he felt trapped and he knew he was only moments from panicking.

  "The teeth may still come for you tonight and if they do, I want you think about how rude you were to me and maybe tomorrow you will tell me if it was worth it."

  The mattress creaked audibly then, the blankets relaxed, unpinning him and he felt her weight leave the bed. In a second, the air in his room shifted again and he knew that he was alone.

  In a flash, self-pitying tears came in a noiseless rush and he cried beneath his blanket, never feeling so small in his life. The words, 'The teeth may still come for you tonight,' began to replay themselves in his head and his silent tears became an audible blubber.

  He was being stupid and loud again and he forced the blanket into his mouth to shut himself up, which helped, but after a while, he began to suck on the blanket as a baby would. On a certain level he knew how pathetic he must have looked, however he was still only a boy, and no matter how self aware or composed he could be, there were times when he needed to be babied.

  It took him a few minutes, and eventually he settled down, his chest slowly stopping its little kid hitching as he breathed. But still he lay curled in a ball, sucking the blanket, it felt good to him. It soothed him. He deeply regretted having said anything to Miss Feanor and he wondered how he could make it up to her, perhaps by doing some extra chores around the house. He could wash the down stairs windows or...

  Crreik

  His heart stopped at the dread noise. It was the sound of Miss Feanor and her horrible teeth heading back up the stairs for him.

  Crreik, crreik

  Just as the night before the sounds were sly. They were insidious and with each slow step up, he felt more and more like throwing down his covers and begging Miss Feanor for forgiveness. She was coming for him...in the dark of the house.

  Crreik, crrreik, crreik

  It's not my fault! I didn't mean it! He wanted to scream this, but even more, he wanted to suck on his blanket and never hear those horrid steps again.

  Crreik, crreik, crreik, crreik

  The soft sound of approaching pain worked on Curt's mind so that soon he no longer thought about begging for forgiveness. Now he hoped a terrible hope. An unspeakable hope. He hoped the teeth would go and rip in to somebody else, and amazingly, the first person he thought of was Paul.

  Crreik, crreik... Wwhhhhhh

  This last noise wasn't a noise at all. It was the movement of air as his door swung open.

  Bite Paul, please, he wished with all his heart.

  Paul had been in a fight. Paul had written notes. Paul hates you! He thinks you're crazy. These insipid rationalizations came to Curt and he clung to them, needing a reason why the teeth should go and chew on the older boy. If she were to lift off his blankets and come at him with her teeth he'd tell Miss Feanor everything and not only would he tell her the truth, his mind quickly began to make up lies about Paul.

  Miss Feanor walked slowly to his bed. She no longer slid silently, but instead walked in a poor attempt at
being quiet, and now she stood over him.

  Curt's mind no longer worked at making up lies about Paul. It seemed to shut down in terror. His breath caught in his throat and stuck there, and he froze in place with the blanket balled into his mouth. He became so still, that he felt as though he were becoming part of the bed itself, sinking into it.

  For a very long time, he felt the presence of Miss Feanor hovering over him and then like magic, wwhhhhhh.

  She left.

  He thought he had gone limp with relief the night before, but it was nothing compared to how he felt then. It was as if he had no strength whatsoever and he didn't think that he could lift his arms, even if he tried.

  After a moment, he spat out the blanket and listened as the near silent footsteps made their way down the right hand side of the hallway towards Amber's room. There they paused as they had the previous night, before continuing on, going around the U formed by the railing over the staircase, to what Curt thought likely to be the doorway to the attic. The same pause and then Miss Feanor went to Paul's room.

  Here she didn't wait, but slipped into the room and Curt no longer heard the footsteps. His shameful wish for Paul to be attacked, seemed about to occur and he knew that if it were to happen, he'd do nothing about it. He would only lay there, a disgraceful weakling. His fear of her was just too great.

  Despite his exhaustion, he found he could still move his arms and he shoved the blanket back into his mouth and sucked on it like the baby he was.

  A few seconds later, Miss Feanor left Paul's room and the sound of her steps disappeared, heading down the hallway toward the mouse's room.

  And sometime after that, 12-year-old Curtis Regis fell asleep still sucking on his blanket.

  2

  For the third day in a row, Miss Feanor woke him up with a gentle shake. The diffused light making its bleary way through his covers told him that it was morning and that it was safer, but not altogether safe.

  Though she was likely wearing her less evil personality, Curt still pulled the covers of his bed back timidly and only so far as to peek from beneath them. She eyed him briefly with a cold expression and then she reached out and pulled the covers further revealing his chest.

  Oddly, she then lifted up his shirt. He allowed it. After his fear of the night, he worried that he would allow her to do anything to him. And if she were to bite him just then, he didn't think he'd be able to fight back. In fact, he knew that he would only lay there screaming as quietly as possible, perhaps begging her to stop, perhaps telling her how he'd be good from then on.

  No longer was it his life's wish to be a great thief. Now his only wish was not to be bitten and he trembled as she looked on his splotchy blue, green and yellowed bruised skin. She gave him a strange smile as if she were surprised at what she had seen and then told him it was time to eat.

  With her right there, he dared not move, and it was only when she left did he slowly get up. How quickly he had been cowed into submission surprised him. A few stressful days of painful silence and a couple of nights of intense fear had been all it took. As he dressed for breakfast, he felt a great deal of embarrassment at this.

  Egotistically, he had always thought of himself as smarter, better and definitely more courageous than any kid he had ever known. But clearly he wasn't and at his current rate of mental decline, he would be a complete freak, just like the mouse, in month's perhaps even weeks, instead of years.

  That thought...the very idea of ending up like the mouse, sent such a chill through him that he quite literally began to shake, and worrying that his shaking legs would collapse, he sat back down on the bed. It was some minutes before he was able to get a hold of himself enough to dress and it took even longer to summon the courage to go downstairs to face Miss Feanor and the other children.

  As he entered the kitchen, he did not experience the same feeling of déjà vu as the night before. This was simply because he had taken so long to make it downstairs that four empty chairs sat before four empty bowls and just Miss Feanor was there to greet him. She didn't however; she only sat staring mindlessly at her coffee mug. He suddenly wanted very badly to skip breakfast that morning, but he didn't know if this was allowed so he made his way to his chair, giving Miss Feanor a wide birth.

  Feeling an urgent need to be well away from her, he ate as quick as possible, however oatmeal, cold and thick wasn't easily swallowed and at one point he made a loud gulping noise. In his effort to get through the tense meal hurriedly, Curt didn't notice the sound and he took another larger bite, but movement caught his attention. Miss Feanor had pulled her eyes from the mug and looked at him coldly. They stared at each other and Curt was afraid to move a muscle but after a while, the thick glop of oatmeal that lay trapped in his mouth began to form a huge pool of saliva around it.

  He had to swallow and when he did, the sound was even louder than the first. Her eyebrows went up at this for a moment, but then she turned from him, looking back at her mug. Curt was so afraid of her, that his need to apologize, his need to make her happy overwhelmed his common sense and before he knew what he was doing he spoke.

  "Sor..."

  Too late did he remember that he wasn't supposed to speak and he sucked in his breath as if he could suck the word back into his mouth.

  But he couldn't. The word had escaped from him and lolled about the still air of the kitchen.

  It had an odd effect on Miss Feanor. He expected her to be angry, instead she leaned back from him, looking uneasy and a little sick. A moment later, she motioned for him to continue eating, but as he ate, she eyed him closely. This only caused his throat to tighten, making the sound of swallowing more and more audible and with each successive swallow, his blue eyes went wider in fear.

  The oatmeal had the consistency of slow drying cement, but finally he scraped the last of it from the bottom of his plastic bowl and presented it to Miss Feanor for inspection. At this, she seemed relieved and pointed at the door for his dismissal. He was relieved as well and practically ran from the room in his desire to get away from her stare. All during his meal, he had relived the night before and he kept picturing her leaning over him in the dark gloom of his room, her teeth glinting as if lit from within.

  When he pushed his way through the well-oiled kitchen door and stepped into the hallway, he felt another sudden rush of relief. He had fully expected Matt to be standing in the guard position he had made for himself the day before, but the older boy was nowhere in sight.

  Curt let out a loud sigh.

  In alarm, he clamped his hand over his mouth. Just like the part of the word sorry that he had accidently let slip front of Miss Feanor, this had simply popped out, without him even thinking about it.

  How much it took to be punished, he didn't know but he had already made two stupid errors and it was only just after breakfast, there was still the whole day left to deal with. And worse, there was a need within him that was beginning to emerge.

  It was a need to talk, to sing, and even to burp. The need was very similar to what he experienced the day before at dinner, however that had been a sudden thing, while this grew in him slowly. The silence of the house wasn't just oppressive, it was constricting in an unrelenting manner and it felt like an invisible, but physical force that surrounded him, stunting his life. Holding him back from validating his own existence, not only with the sound of his own voice, but with all the normal sounds that accompanied a person's life.

  It was as if he were being forced to become a ghost even before he had died. Both his mind and body rebelled against this, but that rebellion was for the moment, balanced by his fear of the horrific torture that would come if he were ever to succumb to the growing pressure to speak. That pressure was as physical as the silence. It was like a balloon swelling inside him and if his attention wandered for even a moment, as it had already twice that morning, it would slip out on its own.

  Forming these concepts in his immature mind had the unfortunate consequence of bringing his awaren
ess of the need to speak to the forefront of his thinking. It seemed to make the pressure greater and fearing that he would burst out screaming, he hurried to the family room, hoping to take his mind off his need.

  The sight within the room and the alien feeling of déjà vu that accompanied it, nearly uncorked a loud exclamation from him. Luckily, he had slid down the hall still with his hand covering his mouth and only a quiet, "Mmff," trickled from between his fingers.

  The family room seemed a part of a picture or a scene in a play that he kept walking in on. The four teenagers sat in the same poses, doing the same things that they had done the two previous days. The boys read from hard cover books, Amber fiddled with an etch-o-sketch and the mouse worked on a puzzle.

  As if he had arrived in the scene on cue, they all looked up at him at the same time, just as they had done before, and as before, they all wore the same expressions. Curt's mind boggled at what he saw before him and he questioned whether he was dead already and this was the house that he was doomed to haunt for an eternity.

  He began blinking hard to clear away the feeling of déjà vu, but it wouldn't leave. It was like he had stepped into another day and he knew for certain how thing were going to progress. In a second, they would all get up and walk out of the room in silence, leaving him standing there alone. First, he'd cry, he could already feel the tears building in his eyes, and then he would go to the front door where he'd contemplate the knob and think just how easy it would be to turn it and escape.