The Cellar Read Free Page A

you.”
    “Hurry.”
    “Just a minute.” She stepped off the path, pushingbetween damp limbs that tried to hold her back. “Where are you, darling?”
    “Here.”
    “Where?”
    “Here!”
    “Where?” Before the girl could answer, Donna shoved through a barrier of branches and saw her.
    “Mom!”
    She was clutching the pink box of Kleenex to her chest as if it would somehow keep her from harm.
    “I got turned around,” she explained.
    Donna hugged her. “That’s all right, honey. It’s all right. Did you take care of business?”
    She nodded.
    “Okay, let’s go back to the car.”
    If we can find it, she thought.
    But she found the path without difficulty, and the path took them to the opening above the ditch. Donna kept her eyes down as she stepped past the pine sapling she had mistaken for Sandy. Silly, she knew, but the thought of seeing it frightened her; what if it looked like Sandy again, or like someone else—a stranger, or him?
    “Don’t be mad,” Sandy said.
    “Me? I’m not mad.”
    “You look mad.”
    “Do I?” She smiled. Then the two of them climbed down the slope of the ditch. “I was just thinking,” Donna said.
    “About Dad?”
    She forced herself not to react. She didn’t gasp,didn’t suddenly squeeze her daughter’s hand, didn’t let her head snap toward the girl in shock. In a voice that sounded very calm, she said, “Why would I be thinking about Dad?”
    The girl shrugged.
    “Come on. Out with it.”
    Ahead of them, the dark bulk of the car appeared through the fog.
    “I was just thinking about him,” Sandy told her.
    “Why?”
    “It was scary back there.”
    “Is that the only reason?”
    “It was cold, like that time. And I had my pants down.”
    “Oh God.”
    “I got afraid he might be watching.”
    “I bet that was plenty scary.”
    “Yeah.”
    They stopped at the side of the car. Sandy looked up at Donna. In a very small voice Sandy said, “What if he gets us here? All by ourselves?”
    “Impossible.”
    “He’d kill us, wouldn’t he?”
    “No, of course not. Besides, it can’t happen.”
    “It might, if he escaped. Or if they let him out.”
    “Even if they did, he’d never find us here.”
    “Oh yes he would. He told me so. He said he’d find us wherever we went. He said, ‘I’ll sniff you down.’”
    “Shhhh.”
    “What?” Sandy whispered.
    For a moment, Donna held to the hope that it was only the sound of the ocean surf beating the rocky shore. But the surf was across the road, and far down the cliff. Besides, why hadn’t she heard it before now? The sound grew.
    “A car’s coming,” she muttered.
    The girl’s face went pale. “It’s him! ”
    “No, it’s not. Get in the car.”
    “It’s him. He escaped! It’s him!”
    “No! Get in the car. Quick!”
3.
    She first saw the man in the rearview mirror, hunched over the back of the car, turning his head slowly as he looked in at her. His tiny eyes, his nose, his grinning mouth, all seemed far too small, as if they belonged to a head half the size of this one.
    A gloved fist knocked on the rear window.
    “Mom!”
    She looked down at her daughter crouched on the floor below the dashboard. “It’s okay, honey.”
    “Who is it?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Is it him?”
    “No.”
    The car rocked as the stranger’s hand tugged the door handle. He knocked on the window. Donna turned to him. He looked about forty, in spite of the deep lines carved in his face. He seemed less interested in Donna than in the plastichead of the lock button. He pointed a gloved finger at it, pecking the window glass.
    Donna shook her head.
    “I’ll come in,” he called.
    Donna shook her head. “No!”
    The man smiled as if it were a game. “I’ll come in.” He let go of the door handle and leaped to the bottom of the ditch. When he hit the ground, he almost fell. Steadying himself, he glanced over his shoulder as if to see whether Donna had appreciated his jump. He grinned. Then he started