Written for the Stephen King On Writing challenge
After having dropped Nellie off at the kinder garden, Dick drove straight home. He took the time, however, to appreciate the sun shining though the trees, the freshness of the autumn air and the sounds of the children playing, before getting into the car.
He was a quiet man, a dreamer. His body had always been thin, and after the divorce it had gotten downright skinny. The jacket hung on his shoulders, as if it was on a rack at the store.
If you had asked anyone of his friends prior to the divorce, they would all have agreed, that there was no way in hell Richard Devon could have gone though such an ordeal and came out on top. But he had.
He had met Jane at a reception 5 years ago. His brother Mark had made him attend had even made him wear a tie. He expected to hate every minute of it. Except a tall brunette with deep brown eyes had approached him 5 minutes after he arrived, when he stood aside a potted plant and looked slightly uncomfortable.
"Hey there!"
He looked up, saw the woman and smiled.
"Hey yourself."
She looked at him with her head tilted slightly.
"You a friend of Mark?"
"Actually, I'm his brother."
She smiled again. Her teeth were white and beautiful.
"I'm just here in tow. My friend Greg was invited...but he hates to go alone. I just thought: "free drinks!""
He laughed. She laughed with him. He had never seen anything as beautiful as her face, while
She laughed.
"In that case, let me get you a drink."
"Thanks. I'm Jane. What's your name?"
"Richard. Richard Devon."
She stuck her arm under his, and let him escort her to the bar.
"Nice to meet you, Richard Devon. Mind if I call you Dick?"
He smiled, as he turned the corner to his own street. That had been the beginning of the good times. And the bad times had followed so shortly thereafter.
He waved to one of his neighbours, as he passed him. The neighbour waved back. It was the most perfect picture of a provincial life he had ever seen.
He felt sleepy. He would take a nap on the couch when he got home, and then get to work on the novel. He had written more than five hundred pages. He never even tried - it simply flowed out of him like water. Or maybe blood.
The marriage had been good for almost a year. He loved Jane with all his heart, and he was sure she loved him back.
And then the problem with Jane's drinking became more evident.
He would find bottles all sorts of places. Under the clothes in the hamper, hidden under the bed. Even in the back of the cleaning cabinet.
When he confronted her, she always told him that he was crazy. She did not have a problem. You could tell just by looking at her, for Christ's sake.
But that was just the thing. You COULD tell by looking at her. Her eyes would get small red dots in them Her speech would be drowsy, and she tended to drift of in mid-conversation, as if she just thought of something far more important than what he was saying.
Slowly she began deteriorating before his eyes.
Her face became pale, and she gained more than 20 pounds. She said she had always felt she was to thin. Her eyes got a new look, more unfocused than ever.
He had not known what to do, and then something had happened. Nellie had happened.
When Jane had found out she was pregnant, she had been ecstatic. She began knitting baby clothes and repainting the little guest bedroom upstairs in their house.
When they were married, he had been a struggling writer. She had been an assistant photographer with a fashion magazine, but her salary was not enough to meet their everyday needs. Neither had the small fees, he had earned from selling his short stories to various magazines and newspapers. She had made him "get a REAL job", to support their life together (support her boozing up, more likely). And since he loved her so much, he decided to take an accounting job with a local firm.
The pay was not great, but it was enough to by the small house on Maple Street, with 2 loans (one from the bank, and another (and larger) from Mark).
Nellie was born on a summer afternoon where the sun shined from a cloudless sky. Jane and Dick had been standing in a ray of sunlight, holding hands and staring at their child lying in the cradle.
At that moment, Dick was sure that everything would be fine. She had almost completely stopped drinking while she was pregnant, and when she could focus on her child, she would continue sober. He was sure of it.
Until Nellie contracted a disease in her stomach, and cried every night for 8 months.
They hardly slept themselves in that time, carrying the crying child in their arms all night until they could get one or two hours of sleep before work.
Jane began drinking again. Almost like old friends who had been gone for a while, the bottles began appearing again.
This time, the drinking and the postal-birth-depressions created a dangerous cocktail. He came home from work one night to find Nellie lying in the tub, bleeding from several cuts and bruises. Jane lay on the bed, drunk to the point of unconsciousness.
He had lifted Nellie up, carried her to her cradle and then he had tried to wake his wife. It took him almost an hour, and she was not in a talking mood.
"I hate her!" she hissed at him, " I want her dead! She's sick. She'll not survive long anyway. Why don't we just kill her and be done with it!"
He was terrified. He felt as if a stranger had possessed his wife's body, speaking though her mouth, looking out of her eyes.
He applied for divorce two weeks later.
He pulled up to the garage, and parked the car. He remembered to pull the handbrake - the driveway went in a downward angle, and the car would slowly roll out to the street if he did not. They had tried that once before.
He got out of the car, and pulled of his sunglasses.
He loved looking at the house. It was not much, but it was his. It was built in what is usually called "Cape Cod style", white with black linings and a small decorative tower. He had wanted a house like this all his life.
He walked to the front door and unlocked it. He stepped in, and stopped for a moment, his hand still on the doorknob.
He felt something was wrong. Something had changed. It was, as if the air was different. Like something had subtly altered the composition of all the air in the house.
But that was ridiculous. He was just tired.
He threw his keys in the key basket next to the door. That had been Jane's idea.
He paused again in the doorway to the kitchen, listening to the silence of the house.
He felt tense. He would make a cup of tea, and drink it in front of the TV. That would make him relax.
Dick had won the custody over Nellie, since Jane was made out to be both A: an alcoholic, and B: dangerous to the child. Jane had at first been glad not to get the burden of single parenthood, but after a few weeks she had begun calling him five or six times a day, demanding to see her daughter. At first, Dick had obliged, because that was what he did when it came to Jane: He obliged.
But when she continued, he would tell her to stop harassing him, to wait for the days the court had granted her. She would hear nothing of it.
"Nellie is my child, not yours!" she had said in a threatening voice, "you can't know what it's like to carry a child within you. To feel it grow. I want my child, Dick!"
Determined, but also a little scared, he had gotten her a restraining order. That was almost as effective as telling the tide please not to come in.
One day, when he arrived at the kinder garden, he was almost an hour early. He had planned to take Nellie down to the pier, and buy a couple of ice cream cones. They could sit on the pier and watch the ships in the harbour - Nellie loved ships.
If he had come 5 minutes later, all he would have seen was the back of Jane's car. Now, what he saw was Nellie, being carried kicking and screaming down the steps from the front door of the kinder garden, while one of the teachers was standing in the door, looking confused.
Of course, the teacher had heard of the restraining order, she had told him later, but she would not deny a mother to see her child. She was just not that kind of person.
Dick jumped out of the car, almost before it had come to a stop. Jane heard the brakes from the car, looked up and realized she had been caught in the act. She tried to run for her car, but Dick blocked the way. Nellie, who was still screaming, now saw him and cried "DADDY!"
Jane looked around, saw there was no way of escaping with the child and decided to give up.
She put Nellie down, and let her run to her father. She stared at Dick with a tired smile. Her eyes were almost completely red from drinking.
In her glove compartment, the police later found 2 plane tickets to France. She had simply planned to leave the country with her child, she told them, and go someplace where Dick could never find them. She was smiling, when she said it, an insane smile.
She was accused of attempted kidnapping and breaking of a restraining order. She was sentenced to 3 years of prison, but since she was obviously in dire need of help, she was to spend them in a secure hospital facility instead.
Dick had breathed a sigh of relief, when the guards had led Jane out of the courtroom. But then he caught a glimpse of her face. She was still smiling that terrible smile.
He poured water into the kettle (it was the old whistling kind), and put it on the stove. He lifted the fresh bag of tea to his nose and inhaled deeply. He loved that smell.
While the water was heating, he went into the living room. He turned on the TV, and sat down on the couch.
The news had already begun, and the speakers voice had that nasal electric sound, the TV always makes for the first two or three seconds.
"..and should continue to do so in the following years. On a local note, three prisoners escaped today from the prison hospital of St. Joseph. During the escape they attacked and killed a guard."
The TV showed the exterior of the hospital, with a reporter standing in front of it. He raised a microphone to his mouth.
"The 3 prisoners, who escaped today, came across the wall right behind me. It appears, that they fashioned a rope out of sheets from the laundry", he smiled, "the oldest trick in the book. Fortunately, two of the escapees were caught less than 20 minutes after they had climbed the wall. The third one, however is still unaccounted for. We should advise, that the prisoner is extremely dangerous, and quite possibly armed. If you..."
Dick had stopped listening. He sat like a marble statue on the couch, unable to move. Only one thing seemed to work - his nose.
It had finally detected, what was wrong with the air in the house. It had the scent of perfume in it.
Perfume, in a house, where the only woman was less than three years old. He could also recognise the perfume...it was called...what was it called? Something French?
"L'envoi, it was called L'envoi or something like that...only Jane would make sure she had perfume, even in jail!"
And suddenly his ears began to function again. They heard the slow, rhythmic footsteps coming down the stairs from the first floor.
"My god, she's here, she's been here all the time, and I can't get up, I should go but I can't move..."
His thoughts were interrupted when the steps reached the bottom of the stairs. He heard the door to the living room began to open behind him. He again tried to get up, to move...but he couldn't.
"Hey, there!"
His throat was closed up in a knot. He could not speak. Except...he could.
"Hey, yourself."
"I want my child, Dick. You can't stop me."
"She's not here."
"I know. She's in kinder garden this time a day, unless you took her out of it. I just wanted to make sure you would not be there to prevent my escape this time!"
He still could not find the strength to turn around and look at her. That was probably a good thing. He would like to remember her the way she had looked in the beginning, not the way she looked now.
"What are you going to do?"
"Kill you, of course. You see, I learned some things in jail. To express my anger, for one thing - and to show my feelings. And I'm very angry with you, Dick. So now, I'm going to express it!"
He caught the flash in the knife's blade out of the corner of his eye. He suddenly lurched forward in the couch, and the knife only grazed the side of his head. The pain was sharp and instant.
He fell to the floor, and rolled on his side. Behind him, Jane screamed a triumphant noise without words and threw herself after him.
He rolled under the coffee table, barely missing the next stab from the knife. He caught a glimpse of it. It was the large butcher knife from the kitchen. Jane had often used it to cut meat to a casserole.
"There is no escape, Dick!", she howled at him and crawled in after him. He was already out, however, and making a break for the door. If he could only close the door between them, he would have a chance.
She screamed again, this time in frustration, but she was still only getting past the coffee table. He had the lead.
He grabbed the door and slammed it shut. He caught a glimpse of a mess of brown hair that came rushing at him, and then the door was closed. He held on to the handle, and waited for the next move.
It came instantly. The knife shot through the thin door and came within an inch of his hands.
He screamed, and let go of the door. She knew immediately.
He started running towards the kitchen, vaguely aware of a loud, high-pitched scream in his ears. For a moment, he thought it was Jane, and then he realized it was the water boiling in the kettle.
He stumbled, and behind him the door opened. She was still in the game.
"I'm coming for you, Dick!", she cried, and he felt her right behind him.
He ran into the kitchen. It was full of the afternoon sunlight he liked so much. The golden colour was reflected in the chrome and metal all over the kitchen, and he realized that this was the place he would die. Surrounded by light in a place he loved.
Behind him, he heard Jane panting for breath. Maybe she was not in as good shape as she had been before.
Suddenly, an idea flashed though his head. He turned around, and looked at his ex-wife, while backing up towards the stove.
The creature, stepping into the kitchen had only a superficial similarity to the woman, he had lived with for 5 years. The hair had the same colour, but was a mess of loose ends and untamed curls.
She walked with a crouch, as if she had carried an incredibly heavy burden on her shoulders, and her hands were bloody and scratched. Her feet were bare.
"Now...Dick...". She was panting, her lungs making wheezing noises.
"Yes, now!", he replied, and grabbed the kettle on the stove behind his back.
She came at him full force, no finesses, and he swung the kettle in a wide swing against her with all the strength he could muster.
It struck her in her left temple with a sound like thin ice breaking on a pool of water.
She tumbled to her side, like had a cannonball hit her. Her scream went from triumph to pain in a heartbeat.
The nose of the kettle fell off when it impacted, and boiling hot water spilled over his hand. He flinched, but did not let go. In stead, he readied the kettle again.
She struggled to her feet, blood poring out the side of her head.
"You can...go to hell, Dick!", she whispered. She began moving in on him again.
"You first!", he said, and made a throwing gesture without letting the kettle go.
The boiling water poured over Jane's face and torso. She once again screamed, but this time Dick did not lose his courage. He came a step closer, once again pouring water on her. She fell to the floor, and he kicked her hand. The knife skidded across the floor.
She did not move. The screams had stopped.
"My God, I've killed her.", he thought with a mixture of fear and amusement.
He took a step towards her, and then decided otherwise. Instead, he moved for the phone on the wall. He had to move to the other end to reach it, but that was all right. A little distance did not hurt.
He lifted the receiver, and dialled 911.
He heard nothing. No tone, no voice. Nothing.
"She must have cut the cables. All right, I'll go next door and make the call."
He walked quickly through the kitchen, and then stopped. He let his eyes rest on the knifeboard on the wall. The butcher knife was gone, of course. But so was the bread knife.
At the next moment, the body on floor exploded into a living tornado of movement. With incredible speed, Jane jumped through the kitchen, now wielding the bread knife like a sword. He ducked, grabbed her arm and got hold of the knife.
She snarled in his ear, inhuman sounds. Almost like a dog.
He was able to turn the knife away from himself, and suddenly he felt something warm on his hands.
Jane made a gurgling sound, like one trying to talk through a mouth full of water, and her body became limp in his hands.
Slowly he lowered her to the floor. The knife had entered directly into the heart. She had died instantly.
He placed her on the back. He started to get up, but stopped. He put his hands to her face and brushed the hair away.
Her face was still the same. Sometimes, when he came home and found her asleep on the couch, she had looked much the same way. He brushed her face gently.
Then he went next door, and called the police.