The Laughterhouse

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Caleb puts the girl into the front seat of the car and climbs into the driver’s seat. His stomach feels like it’s grown a finger and is flicking at the back of his throat. His shirt is covered in blood and he got some on his face, and it’s all over the front of the girl’s dress. His hands are shaking so hard that when he tries to start the car he keeps missing the ignition with the keys. He looks over at the girl, at her hand, at the stump of the finger. He can see Tate standing in the doorway. He can feel the vomit coming.

“Hold on,” he tells himself, and he gets the car started. He gets it into gear and turns around, and before he reaches the end of the street his stomach forces the bile upward. He doesn’t have time to pull over and open the door-instead it gushes from his mouth and around the hand that he’s put up to try and hold it, it sprays sideways, it’s forced between his fingers, it covers his lap and the steering wheel, it hits the door and the girl, small chunks of it splatter the windshield. It burns his mouth and his throat and for a few seconds he can’t breathe. He keeps driving, forcing himself to get around the corner before pulling over, not wanting Tate to get any indication of weakness.

“Christ,” he says, and all the humanity that left him over the years is coming back. Everybody was right-he’s hurting these children. The inside of the car stinks and he winds down the window. He looks over at Katy and he wipes the vomit off his chin and he shakes his head and starts to cry. “I’m sorry,” he tells her, and he leans over and picks up her hand. The cut is neat, he can see bone, but it splintered on the edges. He looks around the car for something he can tie around it and can’t see anything. He tries the glove compartment. Nothing. In the end he uses the knife to cut some of his shirt away, and he ties it as tight as he can around the rest of her finger and hand.

He doesn’t want to keep hurting her. He doesn’t have the stomach for it, but with no choice, well, what does he have with no other choice? She’s lost her finger and she may lose a few more so an evil woman can be taken out of this world, and it’s not a huge price to pay.

He drives another minute before he has to be sick again, and this time he’s able to pull over. He opens the door and leans out. When he’s done, he climbs out of the car and takes off his shirt. He wads it up and tosses it onto the street. He looks at his watch. It’s been five minutes.

It takes him another ten to drive back to the house with its showroom furniture and tied up doctor. He parks in the driveway and carries Katy inside.

“Just so you know, this isn’t a nightmare you’re going to wake from,” he tells Stanton, holding up the girl so Stanton can see his daughter’s hand. Stanton almost retches into the duct tape. Sounds that are supposed to be words get caught in there somewhere.

“This is all your fault,” Caleb says, “every bit of it, all your Goddamn fault,” he says, and it’s true. So very true. He steps back out of the room and carries Katy into another of the bedrooms. He lays her down carefully and rests her head on a pillow and drapes a blanket over her. Her hand has stopped bleeding. He’s glad. When she wakes up she’ll probably hum her fucked-up version of her ABCs for a few weeks while people smile at her and say what a shame, but she’ll move on.

In ten minutes Theodore Tate will either kill Mrs. Whitby or he won’t, and if he doesn’t, he’s going to cut more of Katy’s fingers off, and he’s going to keep cutting them until that evil old bitch is dead. He has to. He doesn’t want to, but he has to-it’s the only way. Mrs. Whitby has to be punished. And then it will end. It has to, because the only thing left is to finish this.