P. Parrish - South Of Hell

He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted as loudly as he could. “Amy!”

Joe’s eyes shot to him from her position by a coil of barbed wire.

“Joe, call to her,” he said.

Joe hesitated, then called Amy’s name. She called again and again, her voice growing hoarse.

Louis strained to hear anything, any response. But there was nothing but the empty echo of Joe’s voice floating on the wind.

Amy…

Brandt spun around, his ears perked at the sound of the voice. He raised a hand to shield his eyes from the sun, trying to see who was back there calling to the girl.

“It’s Miss Joe,” Amy whispered.

Brandt’s hand shot out and clipped her by the ear. “Shut up.”

He grabbed the sleeve of her parka and manhandled her the rest of the way up the slope and into the cemetery. She tripped on a headstone and fell to the grass.

Brandt yanked her by the collar to her feet. “Keep walking,” he said. “We got a long way to the car.”

“You’re going the wrong way,” Amy said.

“What?”

“She’s back there.” Amy pointed south.

“No one’s coming to get you, girl.”

“She’s back there. If you leave now, you’ll never find her.”

Brandt stopped and stared at her.

“Momma’s back there,” Amy whispered.

Brandt twisted to look over his shoulder. But he saw nothing. What the hell had he expected to see? Jean standing there and looking back at him?

The bitch is lying to me. Like they all lie.

He jerked her arm so hard she cried out. “Don’t you lie to me, girl,” he said. “Don’t you ever lie to me about your god damn momma, you hear me?”

The girl’s eyes welled with tears, but for the first time, he didn’t see any fear in them. Suddenly, she didn’t seem to be afraid of him at all.

Damn it, he’d make her afraid.

He hit her in the side of the head. The blow knocked her to her knees. He yanked her back up and pressed the broken blade of the knife to her cheek. But still, he saw no fear.

He smacked her again. This time, the blade glanced off her chin, ripping skin and drawing blood. She started to cry, hands at her face.

“Where is she, then?” he asked, leaning into her. “Where is your momma?”

“In the hiding place.”

“What fucking hiding place?”

“The root cellar.”

The root cellar?

No. He’d been in the root cellar. Been there for two days. There had been no one else in there with him.

Suddenly, the girl twisted away from him. He groped for her sleeve, but she was gone, stumbling down the hill, arms flailing, trying to keep her balance.

He broke into a run after her, letting his momentum propel him down the slope. He caught her on the muddy bank of Lethe Creek, but she spun away from him and plunged into the water.

He trudged into the stream, clawing at her parka. But she was fast, flying through the water. He couldn’t keep up, slowed by the icy rush against his thighs and the sucking of mud at his shoes.

“Stop, you little bitch!”

She stumbled onto the rocks on the other side, gasping and trying to get her balance. He lunged at her. All he could catch was her ankle. With a jerk, he pulled her backward. She slammed face-first to the bank, her screams smothered in the mud.

He flipped her over so he could see her face. Now he could see the terror burning in her eyes, feel the hot pulse of panicked air from her lips. This was the way it was supposed to be.

He plunged the knife into the soft flesh of her belly.

Her small hands flew up, groping for something to grab, but he ripped them off his shirt and shoved her away from him.

She fell back into the water.

He was going to go after her and cut her up good, but it didn’t look like he had to. The bitch was motionless. One arm wedged between the muddy rocks, the other floating limply in the rippling water that rocked her thin body.

Her eyes were open, looking at him. But there was nothing in them now.

Brandt sucked in some cold air to steady himself. His knees felt like rubber.

She’s back there.

He turned slowly to the south, toward the farm.

The bitch had been lying to him. They all lied.

But he couldn’t stop himself.

He slogged back through the stream and up the rise on the other side. When he got to the cemetery, he paused. There to the south, through the bare black trees, he could see the barn.

He started toward it.

“Joe, wait.”

“I’m going to look in the barn again,” she yelled back.

“We’ve been over it twice, Joe. She’s not in there.”

Joe stopped. She was about twenty feet from the barn door, hair whipping around her face, the tip of her nose raw from the wind.

Louis trotted over to her. She was just standing there, staring out at the cornfields. They had already been back through the house, searching it from attic to cellar. They had scoured the barn from the loft to the stalls. The only buildings left to search were a pump shed and the outhouse.

“I’ve never been this worried about anyone,” Joe said softly.

“I know.”

Joe pushed her hair from her face. “Maybe she didn’t make it this far, Louis,” she said. “I keep thinking maybe somebody picked her up on the highway, and we’re wasting valuable time here, and…” Her voice trailed off as she shook her head slowly.

Louis reached out and zipped up her jacket. His hand lingered on her cold cheek. “She’s here somewhere,” he said.

She ran a shaky hand under her nose. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll take the shed. Will you…?”

She motioned toward the outhouse. Louis nodded and headed off in that direction. He didn’t think Amy would be in either building, but they had to look. He was coming to believe there was another possibility that neither he nor certainly not Joe wanted to consider. Had Amy regressed to the same childlike state she’d been in when they first found her in the cupboard? That was the only logical explanation for the fact that she hadn’t responded to their calls.

Because she was here. He hadn’t said that to Joe just to calm her down. He believed it.

He stopped outside the outhouse to grab a breath, then pulled open the door. Hand to his nose, he fished the flashlight from his back pocket, stepped inside, and looked down into the dark hole. Nothing.

He let out a breath of relief and backed out into the cold air. Joe was coming out of the shed, and he walked toward her, taking time again to scan the horizon. His step slowed as his mind tripped with an idea. There was a place they hadn’t thought of yet.

The cemetery.

But why would Amy go there? She had no reason to think Jean would be there, buried or unburied.

Joe suddenly disappeared behind a low, grassy hill out toward the cornfields. He didn’t like the idea of her being out of view, and he hurried to her. He found her digging through a tangle of heavy brush on a west-facing slope of the hill. He could see a peeling white board behind the branches.

He stepped closer. “What did you find?”

“I don’t know,” Joe said. Her hands were bleeding from pulling at the thorn bushes, but she didn’t stop. She yanked away the last of the bushes.

They stood silently, staring at a rotted old door hanging by one hinge, embedded in the side of the hill.

He hadn’t seen this door on his other visits. But he realized now that it had been easy to overlook. The small hill was just one of several on the gently undulating ground surrounding the farmhouse and barn. All of the rises were dense with brush hidden by garbage and rusting machines. Maybe the deputies had found this door and already searched what was behind it. If there was nothing inside, there was no reason for the deputies to mention it.