Hush (7 page)

She changed his wet, milk-soaked clothes, put
a blanket over her own saturated top, and cuddled and hummed to him
until he fell asleep. Then, very carefully so she wouldn't wake
him, she put him down in the bassinet.

She was changing her top when she heard a
sound, like something falling. Like something getting knocked over
and falling, hitting the floor.

Her sleep-deprived mind immediately tried to
make sense of the sound. She at first dismissed it, then decided
that perhaps some of the boxes she'd stacked in the closet had
tipped over. Maybe her own footfall, or maybe someone in the
apartment upstairs, had caused the floor to tremble just enough. As
soon as she thought of the apartment above her head, she
immediately dismissed the noise, at last finding a logical place to
put it. The sound hadn't come from her apartment at all. It had
come from upstairs.

So convinced was she that she didn't even
open the closet door to look inside. So convinced was she that she
crawled into bed, knowing she had to grab what little sleep she
could, glad she'd been able to handle the milk crisis in a calm,
non-hysterical manner. She could do this. She could be a mother.
She could give her baby what he needed.

Even though sleep deprivation had made all of
the muscles in Claudia's body ache, made her eyes bloodshot, she
had a feeling of semi consciousness even after her breathing became
rhythmic, even after the bed seemed to swallow her, welcome her.
That deep, deep sleep was forever elusive. She was a mother
now.

Somehow, a corner of her mind had to remain
ever watchful, ever listening for a cry, a whimper that would
indicate her baby needed her.

As Claudia slept, the sentinel heard a sound
that didn't fit the sounds that a baby would make. The sentinel
listened again, wondering if Claudia needed to be alerted.

There it was again.

Something sliding across a wooden floor. A
dragging footstep?

The sentinel ran through possibilities.
Someone in the hallway, going to another apartment. Someone
upstairs. Someone downstairs.

There.

Again.

In the apartment. In the apartment

Claudia came awake with a start. A sound
played back in her mind. A scraping. Like a hard-soled shoe sliding
across a gritty wooden floor.

Had she dreamed the sound?

But it had seemed so real, as if she'd really
heard it.

She lay in the darkness, eyes wide, breathing
shallow, not daring to move, ears keen, waiting, waiting, waiting,
for a sound that was real, a sound that wasn't part of a dream.

As she lay there, she thought about the
Madonna Murderer.

And remembered that her door had been open
when she came home from getting the baby formula.

And suddenly she knew there were three people
in her apartment, not two.

She reached out and turned on the light next
to her bed, hoping it would silence her fears, hoping she would
laugh when she realized how foolish she'd been—hoping that the
sound had been nothing but a vivid dream after all.

But there in the dim light of a
twenty-five-watt bulb was the form of a dark-hooded man leaning
over her baby's white wicker bassinet, a form as terrifying as
Death.

She screamed loudly, shrilly, her lungs and
throat burning with the effort. While she screamed, she lunged at
the figure standing above her baby.

He dropped something and it hit the floor,
shattering.

Later police would find that it was the snow
globe that was his signature, a gift left for the infants.

Unmindful of the glass shards cutting into
the soles of her bare feet, Claudia threw the weight of her 120
pounds at the dark figure, continuing to scream as loudly as she
could. Footsteps sounded from above.

The man shoved her backward on the bed, one
of his arms sweeping the white lamp with its ceramic teddy bear to
the floor, shattering the bulb, drenching the room in darkness.

He put a hand to her throat, to stop her
screaming, to stop her breathing.

She struggled for air and he spoke to her,
his voice high and excited.

"You mustn't raise your hand to me. Have you
no respect? You whore. Whore, whore, whore. Pretending a virgin
birth. But I know you. I know you're a whore."

Through the lightshow behind her eyes, she
was aware that someone was pounding on her apartment door.

"What's going on in there?"

Chicago, she thought fleetingly. Who would
have thought someone would come to the aid of a stranger in
Chicago?

She fought to pull the fingers from her neck,
but the man was strong, his hands locked to her like talons, all
muscles and trembling tendons.

The light in her head flashed one more time,
then came darkness, a deep, black darkness that swallowed her, that
was beyond dreaming, beyond the deepest sleep. Before she lost
consciousness completely, she felt something hot and wet and sticky
on her chest, and she smelled the metallic scent of blood.

Ivy shut the Madonna Murders case file. She
put a hand to her face and realized she was shaking. Her skin was
cold and clammy even though it had to be above eighty degrees in
the apartment.

What was she doing here?

Pretending that she had come back to catch
the murdering bastard? People spent entire lives fooling
themselves. Talking about the things they were going to do,
discussing their Big Plans. When all they were really doing was
trying to get by day to day. Because the truth was, people had to
have something to dream about, to hold as sacred, even if it was
something they would never accomplish.

It was 2:00 A.M. in Shady Oaks. Fake antique
street- lamps followed the curve of the sidewalk in perfect
symmetry. The sprinkler systems were going, and if Ethan Irving
stood in the right spot, lining things up just so, he could see a
small rainbow that would never reach the sky. Beneath the
rolled-out lawns that had come from a sod farm a hundred miles away
lay cornfields that had once been timberland where Indians had
roamed and hunted.

People talked bad about the suburbs, but
Ethan liked the comforting murmur of life just beyond his bedroom
window, liked where he'd grown up, mostly because it was the only
thing he'd ever known, at least the only thing he could really
remember. But every once in a while he hated it for its lack of
personality. Genericville. He sometimes felt that if he had the
guts to get out of there, he'd never come back. Not once he saw the
rest of the world. But Genericville was safe. He'd hung around with
the same bunch of kids most of his life. Problem was you always had
to be the person they expected you to be. And the older you all
got, the more you fell into old roles when you were together. Ethan
had long suspected that when friends were with other people they
were different. They showed growth—an expanded, wiser version of
their former selves.

With his headphones on and Walkman turned up,
filling his head with the sound of the Smiths, Ethan moved down the
middle of the street, the soles of his sneakers slapping against
asphalt that still held the heat of the sun. He slowed when he got
to the Carter house. John and Lily Carter. A couple in their mid-
twenties. They'd moved in two years ago, and Ethan had had a little
crush on Lily ever since. He talked to her sometimes. She must have
been lonely, because she always seemed glad to see him. She was
supporting her husband while he went to school and brought women
home when Lily was at work.

Lily wanted to have a baby someday. She'd
even planted an apple tree in the front yard for the kid.

"Everybody needs an apple tree to climb,"
she'd explained.

Ethan had helped her plant it. She'd dug deep
so the roots wouldn't have to work as hard to take hold, and as she
dug, she found a perfect arrowhead. She'd tried to give it to
Ethan, but he wouldn't let her. She should save it for the kid—if
she had one.

Here she was, planning for the future, while
her husband went behind her back, ruining all her plans. She just
didn't know it yet. Was that the kind of crap that happened to
everybody? Lily was nice. Beautiful. Why wasn't her husband happy?
Was anybody ever happy? Really?

Ethan thought too much. That was his problem.
Words, ideas, eating away at him. He didn't like it, this thinking.
He envied his friends who didn't seem to think at all. Or were they
faking it too, just like him?

As he approached his house, Ethan turned off
his Walkman and removed it. Earlier that day, he'd left his bedroom
window unlocked. Now he slid it open, then, after dropping the
Walkman inside, he pulled himself up, his belly pressed against the
window frame, his head inside the pitch-black room. Headfirst, he
wormed his way in, finally rolling to the carpeted floor. He lay
there a minute, catching his breath, listening, hoping Max, who had
hearing like a wild animal's, didn't wake up. He was thinking he'd
gotten away with it when a voice came out of the darkness.

"Four hours past curfew," Max said.

There was no anger there, just a low, smooth
tone that sent Ethan's heart racing, that made his stomach
tighten.

"But then I guess I should be honored that
you came home at all."

Never try to fool a cop. Ethan should have
learned that by now.

He didn't know where the idea came from, but
Ethan said, "I'm not staying."

He stood up and jerked open the curtain.
Light from the street poured into his room. He began grabbing
clothes, anything, stuffing them into his backpack, not really
thinking, just wanting out of there, away from Max. He'd figure the
rest out later. He stuck his Walkman between some clothes, then
zipped the pack.

There was enough light for Ethan to see Max
sitting in the corner on the floor. He unfolded himself and got to
his feet. "You can't leave. You're on probation."

Ethan's heart continued to hammer. He could
feel it in his throat, in his head. To hell with Max, Ethan tried
to tell himself. Ethan didn't give a shit what he thought. The guy
was nothing to him. Nothing.

So why did he have this awful gnawing feeling
in his gut?

To hell with Max.

The window was still open. Ethan briefly
thought of diving out, but he was afraid Max might grab his legs
before he could get away. And if he dove out the window, Max would
know what a panic he was in. No, it would be better to walk past
him and out the front door, as if he didn't give a shit. There was
nothing cool about diving out a window.

He grabbed his backpack and walked.

Past Max.

Down the hallway.

Unlocked the front door.

Out the door.

Down the sidewalk.

He heard a sound behind him.

Ethan dropped his backpack and cut to the
right, through the yard, through the sprinklers. He wasn't fast
enough. Hands, arms wrapped around his waist as Max tackled him,
bringing him to the ground. For a second, Ethan saw black dots. He
blinked them away. Water sprayed in his face. His head was shoved
against the wet grass.

That pissed him off. That really pissed him
off. He let himself go limp. Max released him and was moving away
when Ethan rolled over. With a roar of rage, he jumped to his feet
and attacked, the top of his head meeting Max's stomach, propelling
the man to the ground.

Victory!

Oh, shit. He'd knocked down his old man. And
now they were rolling through the grass, water from the sprinklers
blasting Ethan in the face. Ethan let go of Max and was ready to
haul ass out of there.

"Ethan!" Max's hand lashed out, grabbing him
by the ankle, pulling him down. Max had shouted his name, but it
now occurred to Ethan that he hadn't sounded mad.

Max's grip on Ethan's ankle relaxed. Ethan
scrambled to his feet while Max rolled to his back, one foot on the
grass, leg bent, arms spread out. The guy was laughing. Trying to
catch his breath, but laughing all the same. Lying there on the
grass, water soaking him, laughing. And then Ethan became aware of
his own clothes, soaked, wet and cold, heavy, aware of a jet of
water hitting him in the face, and he began to laugh too. He didn't
want to. Didn't want to be sharing a joke with Max, but damn, he
couldn't help it. And once he started laughing, he couldn't stop.
He laughed until his knees went weak and he had to drop to the
ground. He laughed until his stomach burned, until tears ran down
his cheeks along with the water.

Somebody called the cops on them.

The cops didn't get there until after Max had
extended a hand to help Ethan to his feet. They didn't get there
until the two men had gone sloshing into the house, until Ethan had
slipped into a pair of gray jogging pants, Max some plaid boxer
shorts.

Two cops came to the door. From his room,
Ethan could hear Max talking to them in a low voice. Then they
left.

This round had turned out okay, but that
didn't mean Ethan was going to cut Max any slack. And he knew it
didn't mean their problems were over. Things would cool down for a
day or two, but then they'd reach a flash point again. They always
did.

Max knocked on the bedroom door and silently
handed Ethan his backpack.

After he left, Ethan lit a couple of candles,
cut the lights, and threw himself on his bed. Then he grabbed his
Walkman from the backpack, put on the headphones, and cranked up
the music all the way, so loud it should blow out his eardrums. But
he didn't care. The music. He didn't know what he'd do if he didn't
have music. Go crazy, maybe. But he did have it. Not the crap his
friends listened to, but the good stuff, stuff that was too deep,
too meaningful for radio, stuff that kind of tore a hole in your
soul and left you aching for more.

Ethan was sixteen years old and he didn't
have a clue what he wanted to do with his life. Shit. In two more
years he would be out of high school. What then? What then? He
couldn't see past graduation day. He couldn't see himself doing
anything but hanging out, playing video games, riding his
skateboard, listening to music.