Bradbury, Ray - SSC 13 (27 page)

 
          
We
ran for the corner store telephone.

 
          
The
police knocked on Mr. Kelly’s door five minutes later. Dippy and I were hiding
in the bushes, listening.

 
          
“Mr.
Kelly?” said the police officer.

 
          
“Yes,
sir, what can I do for you?”

 
          
“Is
Mrs. Kelly at home?”

 
          
“Yes,
sir.”

 
          
“May
we see her, sir?”

 
          
“Of
course. Hey, Anna!”

 
          
Mrs.
Kelly came to the door and looked out. “Yes, sir?”

 
          
“I
beg your pardon,” apologized the officer. “We had a report that you were buried
out in an empty lot, Mrs. Kelly. It sounded like a child made the call, but we
had to be certain. Sorry to have troubled you.”

 
          
“It’s
those blasted kids,” cried Mr. Kelly, angrily. “If I ever catch them, I’ll rip
’em limb from limb!”

 
          
“Cheezit!”
said Dippy, and we both ran.

 
          
“What’ll
we do now?” I said.

 
          
“I
got to go home,” said Dippy. “Boy, we’re really in trouble. We’ll get a licking
for this.”

 
          
“But
what about the Screaming Woman?”

 
          
“To
heck with her,” said Dippy. “We don’t dare go near that empty lot again. Old
man Kelly’ll be waitin’ around with his
razor
strap and lambast heck out’n us. An’ I just happened to remember, Maggie. Ain’t
old man Kelly sort of deaf, hard-of-hearing?”

 
          
“Oh,
my gosh,” I said. “No
wonder
he
didn’t hear the screams.”

 
          
“So
long,” said Dippy. “We sure got in trouble over your darn old ventriloquist
voice. I’ll be seeing you.”

 
          
I
was left all alone in the world, no one to help me, no one to believe me at
all. I just wanted to crawl down in that box with the Screaming Woman and die.
The police were after me now, for lying to them, only I didn’t know it was a
lie, and my father was probably looking for me, too, or would be once he found
my bed empty. There was only one last thing to do, and I did it.

 
          
I
went from house to house, all down the street, near the empty lot. And I rang
every bell and when the door opened I said: “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Griswold,
but is anyone missing from your house?” or “Hello, Mrs. Pikes, you’re looking
fine today. Glad to see you
home
.”
And once I saw that the lady of the house was home I just chatted a while to be
polite, and went on down the street.

 
          
The
hours were rolling along. It was getting late. I kept thinking, oh, there’s only
so much air in that box with that woman under the earth, and if I don’t hurry,
she’ll suffocate, and I got to rush! So I rang bells and knocked on doors, and
it got later, and I was just about to give up and go home, when I knocked on
the
last
door, which was the door of
Mr. Charlie Nesbitt, who lives next to us. I kept knocking and knocking.

 
          
Instead
of Mrs. Nesbitt, or Helen as my father calls her, coming to the door, why it
was Mr. Nesbitt, Charlie,
himself
.

 
          
“Oh,”
he said. “It’s you, Margaret.”

 
          
“Yes,”
I said. “Good afternoon.”

 
          
“What
can I do for you, kid?” he said.

 
          
“Well,
I thought I’d like to see your wife, Mrs. Nesbitt,” I said.

 
          
“Oh,”
he said.

 
          
“May
I?”

 
          
“Well,
she’s gone out to the store,” he said.

 
          
“I’ll
wait,” I said, and slipped in past him.

 
          
“Hey,”
he said.

 
          
I
sat down in a chair. “My, it’s a hot day,” I said, trying to be calm, thinking
about the empty lot and air going out of the box, and the screams getting
weaker and weaker.

 
          
“Say,
listen, kid,” said Charlie, coming over to me, “I don’t think you better wait.”

 
          
“Oh,
sure,” I said. “Why not?”

 
          
“Well,
my wife won’t be back,” he said.

 
          
“Oh?”

 
          
“Not
today, that is. She’s gone to the store, like I said, but, but, she’s going on
from there to visit her mother. Yeah. She’s going to visit her mother, in
Schenectady. She’ll be back, two or three days, maybe a week.”

 
          
“That’s
a shame,” I said.

 
          
“Why?”

 
          
“I
wanted to tell her something.”

 
          
“What?”

 
          
“I
just wanted to tell her there’s a woman buried over in the empty lot, screaming
under tons and tons of dirt.”

 
          
Mr.
Nesbitt dropped his cigarette.

 
          
“You
dropped your cigarette, Mr. Nesbitt,” I pointed out, with my shoe.

 
          
“Oh,
did I? Sure. So I did,” he mumbled. “Well, I’ll tell Helen when she comes home,
your story. She’ll be glad to hear it.”

 
          
“Thanks.
It’s a real woman.”

 
          
“How
do you know it is?”

 
          
“I
heard her.”

 
          
“How,
how you know it isn’t, well, a
mandrake
root.”

 
          
“What’s
that?”

 
          
“You
know. A mandrake. It’s a kind of a plant, kid. They scream. I know, I read it
once. How you know it ain’t a mandrake?”

 
          
“I
never thought of that.”

 
          
“You
better start thinking,” he said, lighting another cigarette. He tried to be
casual. “Say, kid, you, eh, you
say
anything about this to anyone?”

 
          
“Sure,
I told lots of people.”

 
          
Mr.
Nesbitt burned his hand on his match.

 
          
“Anybody
doing anything about it?” he asked.

 
          
“No,”
I said. “They won’t believe me.”

 
          
He
smiled. “Of course. Naturally. You’re nothing but a kid. Why should they listen
to you?”

 
          
“I’m
going back now and dig her out with a spade,” I said.

 
          
“Wait.”

 
          
“I
got to go,” I said.

 
          
“Stick
around,” he insisted.

 
          
“Thanks,
but no,” I said, frantically.

 
          
He
took my arm. “Know how to play cards, kid? Black jack?”

 
          
“Yes,
sir.”

 
          
He
took out a deck of cards from a desk. “We’ll have a game.”

 
          
“I
got to go dig.”

 
          
“Plenty
of time for that,” he said, quiet. “Anyway, maybe my wife’ll be home. Sure.
That’s it. You wait for her. Wait a while.”

 
          
“You
think she will be?”

 
          
“Sure,
kid. Say, about that voice; is it very strong?”

 
          
“It
gets weaker all the time.”

 
          
Mr.
Nesbitt sighed and smiled. “You and your kid games. Here now, let’s play that
game of black jack, it’s more fun than Screaming Women.”

 
          
“I
got to go. It’s late.”

 
          
“Stick
around, you got nothing to do.”

 
          
I
knew what he was trying to do. He was trying to keep me in his house until the
screaming died down and was gone. He was trying to keep me from helping her.
“My wife’ll be home in ten minutes,” he said. “Sure. Ten minutes. You wait. You
sit right there.”

 
          
We
played cards. The clock ticked. The sun went down the sky. It was getting late.
The screaming got fainter and fainter in my mind. “I got to go,” I said.

 
          
“Another
game,” said Mr. Nesbitt. “Wait another hour, kid. My wife’ll come yet. Wait.”

 
          
In
another hour he looked at his watch. “Well, kid, I guess you can go now.” And I
know what his plan was. He’d sneak down in the middle of the night and dig up
his wife, still alive, and take her somewhere else and bury her, good. “So
long, kid. So long.” He let me go, because he thought that by now the air must
all be gone from the box.

 
          
The
door shut in my face.

 
          
I
went back near the empty lot and hid in some bushes. What could I do? Tell my
folks? But they hadn’t believed me. Call the police on Mr. Charlie Nesbitt? But
he said his wife was away visiting. Nobody would believe me!

 
          
I
watched Mr. Kelly’s house. He wasn’t in sight. I ran over to the place where
the screaming had been and just stood there.

 
          
The
screaming had stopped. It was so quiet I thought I would never hear a scream
again. It was all over. I was too late I thought.

 
          
I
bent down and put my ear against the ground.

 
          
And
then I heard it, way down, way deep, and so faint I could hardly hear it.

 
          
The
woman wasn’t screaming any more. She was singing.

 
          
Something
about, “I loved you fair, I loved you well.”

 
          
It
was sort of a sad song. Very faint. And sort of broken. All of those hours down
under the ground in that box must have sort of made her crazy. All she needed
was some air and food and she’d be all right. But she just kept singing, not
wanting to scream any more, not caring, just singing.

 
          
I
listened to the song.

 
          
And
then I turned and walked straight across the lot and up the steps to my house
and I opened the front door.

 
          
“Father,”
I said.

 
          
“So
there you are!” he cried.

 
          
“Father,”
I said.

 
          
“You’re
going to get a licking,” he said.

 
          
“She’s
not screaming any more.”

 
          
“Don’t
talk about her!”