When She Was Bad

6

Max wasn’t just being a wise guy when he’d made his earlier crack about God no longer being around. Even in co-consciousness, he had always enjoyed attending the nondenominational services held in the little chapel next to the dining hall every Sunday morning-after all, nothing supports the contention that the Creator has indeed abandoned His creation quite so powerfully as a sparsely attended service in a madhouse.

But if additional proof had been required, the tableau of a helpless girl sobbing at her father’s feet while Max held a knife to her mother’s throat would surely have supplied it, he thought, as Lilith raced around the house locking doors, drawing blinds, ripping the telephones from their sockets.

She returned carrying a length of clothesline from the laundry room, with a hunting knife in a sheath stuck in the waistband of her low-rider jeans-unfortunately, she reported, there were no firearms to be found. Max switched hostages, tossing the mother to the floor, then dragging the girl to her feet and holding the steak knife to her throat while Lilith tied the parents together back-to-back with coil upon coil of polyester clothesline.

“My Swiss Army knife’s in my front pocket,” Corder whispered to his wife as Lilith and Maxwell conferred across the room. His plan, such as it was, was four-fold. One, get the little knife out-it wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was all he had. Two, get Max close enough to drop a little bomb in his ear. Three: take advantage of subsequent confusion by inserting knife into Maxwell. And four: repeat step three as necessary.

“Hey, you two-no talking,” ordered Max, quickly slipping the steak knife back into his pocket-Kinch was stirring again in the darkness. “I don’t want to have to gag you-I’d much rather hear you moan while I do your little girl-but I will if I have to.”

Do your little girl-hearing the words, Alison went limp. Max lowered her sagging body to the carpet. “You a virgin, honey?” he asked pleasantly.

Alison moaned; Cheryl slumped backward against her husband.

“Please, Max, you’re making a terrible mistake,” said Corder, desperately trying to buy time; in the guise of collapsing against him, Cheryl had worked her hand into his pocket. “Even if you escape, how long before they, ah, they recapture you? And what kind of a life will you have out there on the run?”

As he spoke, he and Cheryl inched their bodies around so that he was facing Max; shielded by his back, Cheryl had withdrawn the knife from his pocket, opened the longer blade (not an easy trick one-handed), and was trying to saw through the coils of rope one at a time without being too obvious about it. Not that Max or Lilith were paying much attention to them. Max was kneeling beside the apparently unconscious Alison, trying to bring her around by fanning her with a magazine from the coffee table, while Lilith snatched up a pillow from the sofa and slipped it under the younger girl’s head.

Cheryl kept sawing, Corder kept talking. He felt the last coils slackening; any second now, he’d be able to free his hands. “Enough to make it worth your while spending the rest of your life in some maximum security prison? Because that’s what’s going to happen. All these years, I’ve been the only one standing between you and the penitentiary-possibly even a death sentence. But if you lay a finger on my daughter, I won’t protect you anymore. Do you understand me?”

Max glanced toward them; his eyes widened in alarm. “Goddamn-it!” he shouted, taking out the steak knife again and limping across the room. He looked over Corder’s shoulder, saw the knife in Cheryl’s hand, the cut coils. “Naughty, naughty,” he said.

Their faces were only inches apart; though his hands weren’t free yet, Corder realized he had to make his move now. “Lyssy is a goood boy,” he said, firmly but soothingly, then repeated the code phrase: “Lyssy is a goood boy.”

Whoa shit, thought Max-he hadn’t seen that coming. Kinch roared in his ears; his consciousness seemed to be flowing downward, toward the knife in his hand. There’s going to be hell to pay, he told himself as he rushed toward darkness. Absolute hell.

Wssh-wssh, wssh-wssh…

A soft, whisking sound. Lyssy glanced down and discovered he was making the noise himself, brushing the back of his hand against the thigh of his chinos. Grounding behavior, he thought-one of the alters has been paying a visit. Uh-oh-don’t let Dr. Al find out.

He looked around, found himself sitting on the bottom of the front stairs at the director’s residence. No idea how he’d gotten here, or how much time had passed since…since when? He vaguely remembered a voice like dried corn husks whispering in his ear, then flames, then cool, cool darkness-but all that had to have been a dream, it just had to.

Lyssy took inventory. His right shoulder was so sore he could scarcely lift his arm, and his clothes were spattered with ketchup or food coloring or something.

Suddenly the silence in the room was broken by a beeping noise coming from the Corder’s living room. A hospital pager-he would have recognized the sound anywhere. But before he could get up, he heard footsteps behind him. He turned, saw his beautiful new friend Lily coming down the stairs wearing a brown sweater and tight-fitting jeans, holding one hand behind her back as if to hide something.

By now, Lyssy had concluded only that this had to have been the birthday party he’d been waiting for. But he was utterly clueless as to how long he’d been out of it, which alter had surfaced and done what to whom, or why his clothes were all stained and spattered. In any event, the usual imperative was in play: fake it as long as you can, hope nobody noticed anything out of what passed for the ordinary around here. “Oh, hi,” he said. “Been upstairs, hunh?”

She came closer, peered deeply into Lyssy’s eyes as though she were looking for something-or someone. “You’re fucking with my head, right? To get even for before, in the arboretum.”

“If you say so,” said Lyssy with a weak chuckle.

Her dark eyes narrowed, then widened again in recognition. “Lyssy?”

“Who else?”

“Oh, swell.” In the living room, the beeping started up again. The girl sheathed the hunting knife she was holding behind her back, took a key ring from her pocket. Dr. Al’s key ring-something else Lyssy would have recognized anywhere. “C’mon, let’s get outta here.”

“I–I can’t. I’m not supposed to leave the premises.”

“Fine by me,” said the girl contemptuously. “Stay here and rot, see if I care.”