RATTLEMAN: Praise for 18 Seconds 'Excellent! Stephen King Read online

  “How old was she?” Judy asked.

  “Fifteen,” he said, kneading the book with both hands. “She hid it for … don’t know … maybe a couple of months, maybe less, before her mother realized what had happened. It was only months after her husband had left, so no one can be sure what she was thinking.”

  “You mean she thought it was her husband’s?” Judy said.

  Holland shrugged. “Whatever she was thinking, she was so enraged she called the Naggy sisters to get rid of it. We are not what you would call a very sophisticated people. And looking back we don’t always do the right thing. Anyhow, three weeks later the girl was dead.”

  “What happened?” Judy asked, leaning forward with her cast resting on top of her knees. Holland held the Bible tight in his hands, fixing his eyes on the flaking gold lettering.

  “They gave her a poison and tried to expel it with a hooked metal rod. His mother forced young Rolfe to watch. Maybe it was the poison or maybe it was infection, but the baby wouldn’t pass from her body and rotted away inside her.”

  “Oh my God,” Judy said. “Didn’t her mother get help?”

  “Rolfe fetched a doctor from Quills Landing, but the man didn’t take a minute to tell her Kate needed to be in a hospital. That he couldn’t help her.”

  “What happened then?”

  “Nothing. Her mother would not permit her to be treated.”

  He pulled the handkerchief out with one hand and snorted into it. “She was here in church the night Kate died.”

  He set down the Bible and leaned against the doorframe.

  “Now this part I’m telling you is what no one’s ever heard before.” He took a deep breath.

  “Her mother came home that night after church to find her lying on the kitchen table. Her belly was cut open and her insides were in a pile between her legs. The tiny fetus was lying there in all that blood. It had been born with webbed hands and feet that looked like hooves.”

  Judy shuddered. “And Rolfe?” she asked.

  “Was gone. Had run off into the mountain in heavy snow. After seven days everyone figured him for dead. Not many grown men could have survived the mountain in winter, let alone a fourteen-year-old boy. Five or six years later he was seen back and hanging around the Ledder cabin. Then every summer he would return, sleep under the porch for a time and head back up into the mountains again.

  Holland coughed and fingered the watch in his pocket.

  “Whose baby was it?” Marty asked.

  Holland shrugged. “I guess we’ll never really know for sure.”

  He looked out across the rows of chairs and wiped his brow with a sleeve. “Either way it must have eaten him alive, seeing what they’d done to her. Seeing the fetus like that. I can’t imagine what he was thinking.” He tapped the side of his head. “Too much for anyone to comprehend, let alone a young boy.”

  “Post-Traumatic Stress,” Judy said quickly, thinking about the irony: she and Rolfe had shared a childhood tragedy, a loss and an act too horrible to remember, and those memories had become the fragile foundation of their lives.

  “No one ever called the police?” she asked.

  Holland stopped and turned to face them. “Kate was terminal when the doctor came by. He told the police without surgery she would have died within hours. No one knows what happened in that cabin and Rolfe was but a fourteen-year-old boy. Anyhow, they documented it as a suicide and we just buried her up there quiet, like hill folk do.”

  Judy’s thoughts traveled to the night on the mountain when Rolfe’s fingers traced the line of her cesarean scar. Indeed, what must he have been thinking?

  She stood and looked around the church; the metal chairs, the wooden podium, the white pine box beneath it with red crosses painted on the sides. “And his brother? Clem?”

  Holland watched a pile of leaves scatter across the gravel lot. “Clem was God’s punishment for me.”

  Chapter 36

  Marion, West Virginia

  Kate seemed to understand something more about their mother and the church than Rolfe ever grasped. “Don’t you see what’s happening?” she would yell at him. “Don’t you know why father left?”

  He had been afraid for what they did at first, but later came to realize they were in it alone. There were no other friends, no relatives, no parents to watch over them. No church, no God, no threats of heaven and hell. To him there was only Kate and she was all he ever needed. All he would ever need.

  She stopped bleeding in August and by late September she was getting sick. Her belly and breasts began to swell. Kate had no one to ask, no way of knowing if she was pregnant or ill. But she had seen young mothers in the church before and began to suspect that if God was punishing them, it was going to be with a baby.

  She tried to hide it, knowing that babies took about a year to be born. By spring the snows would be melting and she and Rolfe could run away. Go south where their father said that oranges grew on trees and the days were all warm like summer.

  She ate less each day and bound her stomach with strips of cloth. When she worked, Rolfe would see her drenched in sweat and doubled over with pain.

  By December her mother suspected and tore the bindings from her body. Face contorted with rage, she beat her bloody with a stick. Then she harnessed the horse and drove off into the night.

  Rolfe had wrapped his sister in a blanket and held her in his arms until they heard the wagon return. When their mother came through the door, she was not alone. The Naggy sisters walked in wearing their black bonnets, carrying their leather bag. Rolfe was made to sit in a corner and watch.

  He endured Kate’s screams that night, wanting to help her, but frightened of his mother and the stalwart women in black. Hours passed before they washed their filthy tools and took out a pair of shears. The price of their services was Kate’s beautiful long hair.

  She couldn’t climb to the loft that night. She rolled tightly in a ball, arms wrapped around her stomach, her face white, lips blue and eyes wild. He could see the blood smears all over her thighs and the calves of her legs.

  She spent that night on the floor under a coat by the door where she could run outside when she needed to. Rolfe lay in the loft, awake, scared and wanting to talk to someone. Anyone.

  She was pale the next day and went silently about her chores. By the end of the week she was feverish. By the following Monday she was convulsing.

  Rolfe begged his mother to find help, to summon the sisters back or to get a doctor, but his mother said Kate needed to pray.

  Nonetheless Rolfe ran the trail to Quills Landing and found a doctor. His mother sent the man away. She said it was sin that was rotting in Kate’s belly and that if he wanted to help he best pray along with her.

  Rolfe did pray, but in the end he figured the Lord must have chosen not to listen.

  Friday night his mother took the wagon to church. Kate began to shudder violently, slipping in and out of consciousness. She was racked by pain. She screamed for help and Rolfe could feel the heat when he was close to her stinking body. Her head, once covered with beautiful hair, was nearly bald. Her eyes were milky and her breath was foul. It ached for him to look at her.

  Rolfe knelt and prayed once more, knowing it was the only remedy in the house, wishing with all his might that Kate would expel whatever was inside of her and become well again. That she would run away with him in the spring and go south.

  “Out ...” she had whispered, her voice weak and trailing off.

  He leaned close and stroked her forehead, squeezing her hand and looking at the crucifix on the door.

  Her eyes opened suddenly.

  “Get it out of me!” she screamed. “Rolfe, get it out of me! Get it out of me!”

  She clawed between her legs and he backed away terrified.

  “If you don’t get it out of me, I’ll die!” she cried, her face contorted by pain.

  “Get the knife, get the knife, get the knife!” she panted.

  A lump dev
eloped in his throat.

  She kicked the last of the blankets from her naked body and seized her belly with angry hands. “Get the knife. Cut it out of me, you son of a bitch!” she screamed. “Cut it out of me, God damn you. Cut it out, you bastard!”

  Her spit was thick and her lips were caked white. He staggered away, seeing the dark fluid leaking between her legs.

  He picked up the old skinning knife from the counter and brought it toward her. She looked up at him with her teeth bared, lips grinning obscenely, hissing ... “Yesss, yesss, cut it out, you bastard. Yesss, yesss, yesss … cut it out of me, God damn you!”

  He stood there, tears in his eyes, hands shaking and wanting someone to save him, to stop him, but there was no one there but Kate.

  “Yesss, yesss, yesss, do it, Rolfe, do it now!”

  Rolfe put the blade against her stomach, tears flowing and hand trembling as he looked down at her.

  She grabbed his fist with both hands and plunged the knife into her belly and then yanked it toward her chest and her mouth fell wide open. Her eyes locked on his as he pulled it from her body.

  “Get it out of me,” she pleaded and her eyes looked into his soul.

  He reached inside of her and began pulling everything out. Putrid gasses filled the room as he dragged it all between her legs and she gasped once more then emitted a long dismal sigh. Her head rolled to one side, facing him. It was the last she ever moved.

  The stench was overwhelming. Rolfe looked at the mess in his bloody hands and in them he saw a tiny red creature with hooves and screamed.

  Chapter 37

  Marion, West Virginia

  The windows of the conference room on the top floor of County General overlooked the Silver River’s course to the east. Coffee cups were strewn around the room, empty soda cans and pastry boxes. There had been people in and out most of the afternoon.

  In the distance Judy could see the hazy blue line of the mountains. The sky was pale and dominated by an orange moon.

  She touched the glass with the tips of her fingers, eyes fixed on a star. The people behind her were taking their seats. Agent Fielding stood and walked to the podium.

  Judy didn’t turn around, but a smile formed as Marty came up behind her. She was beginning to sense whenever he was in a room.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for what you did. Times like these pass by too quickly. We move on and forget to reflect on the sacrifices that make it possible.”

  “I’m not here to attempt to add to what the Governor so eloquently expressed at the service.” He turned to look at every face in the room. “We are saddened by the loss of so many lives over the years and in this tragedy of enormous proportion. However, I want you to reflect on two names. A Forest Ranger named Jane Cameron and a man named Lance Phillips of Rainfield Kennels. Their blood was spilled so that others might not die.” He rapped the podium with his knuckles. “And that is not some self-serving platitude that we public servants use in self-praise. It is a literal statement with a very literal meaning. Someone spilled their blood to save others. How profound.”

  He put his hands flat on the podium. “There are times, no matter how much knowledge or science we possess, when we find ourselves blinded by our beliefs. Sometimes we fail to see what we cannot understand, nor fathom what exists outside our experience. I found myself in such a predicament this summer.” He turned and looked at Marty and Judy. “If it weren’t for the courage of people in this room, the individual talents and instincts, things might not have ended as they did.” He folded his hands and lowered them before him. “There will be a lot of letter-writing when all is said and done, some well-deserved citations and more media attention than anyone should ever be subjected to. But nothing and I mean nothing, will come to you more sincerely than my thanks.”

  He stepped away from the podium and edged through the small crowd to where Judy was seated, bending to give her a hug. Then he went around the room shaking hands.

  Judy reached for Marty’s hand. “You know, I was just thinking how much your father would have been proud of you.”

  “And yours as well,” he said.

  She nodded thoughtfully.

  “So what’s next?” he whispered.

  “Well, the doctors won’t make a pronouncement for another month or two, but we both know I won’t be going back to the streets again. I think I’d like to spend some outdoor time with my new friend. She leaned to rub the little Bluetick’s ears, its pale belly rising and falling as it slept between her feet. Maybe I’ll study for the Bar while I’m waiting.”

  “Really?” he said, looking down at the dog. Mrs. Phillips had asked if Judy would like to have the dog when she came back from the Hospital Center in Washington DC. She had said she loved the animal, but couldn’t bear the memories it would always bring. Besides, it had searched for and found Judy on that mountain. Perhaps they should be together now.

  “Maybe I’ll go someplace quiet by the water. Some place where you can have a pet and see the stars.”

  Marty grinned and closed his eyes, “Ahh,” he sighed. “I know of such a place. You might like it.”

  All the muscles in her face began to relax. She took his hand again and looked into his eyes. “I was hoping you’d say that, Sheriff.”

  “Did they ever find out what killed him?” one of the state policemen asked.

  Fielding shrugged. “I talked to the chief of Pathology on the way over. She said that Rolfe was a walking medical time bomb."

  “Autopsy?”

  “Nah.” He shook his head. “Not even going through the formality. Doc said they performed forty-plus micro-procedures from the 300 Winchester Magnum round alone. The Sheriff’s big game bullet splintered the spine and lacerated every blood vessel and artery in the area. Then Judy fired the Glock into his chest. You know what Hydra-Shok ammunition does to soft tissue.”

  “Hard to believe he made it as long as he did.”

  Fielding nodded. “Any one of their procedures could have failed. Any one could have released a blood clot to the brain. I have to say, though, I'm just as happy it was now rather than later."

  “Body will be turned over to family then.”

  “Or cremated ..."

  “How many women did he kill in all?” he asked softly.

  “Officially, eleven,” the agent said. “Unofficially we’re scared to know. One can only guess at the number of caves out there.”

  Chapter 38

  Marion, West Virginia

  Rolfe’s belongings, all packed into his knapsack, were turned over to Clem at the desk of County General Hospital.

  Clem had come to claim the wristwatch Rolfe was wearing when he was brought to the hospital. He was disappointed when it wasn’t in his knapsack. Which meant it was still on his wrist.

  When he asked to see his brother the lady at the counter informed him he would have to have his brother’s remains removed to a funeral home or have the hospital arrange a small ceremony in their chapel.

  Clem told the woman he was the only relative Rolfe had and there would be no viewing or money for a funeral. If he could just see him now, he could sign whatever she needed and there would be no need for him to come back after the cremation.

  It was late, only minutes until closing, but the woman allowed Clem to sign the document authorizing West Virginia to cremate Rolfe’s body. Then she called down to the morgue and whispered in the phone.

  “Mr. Ledder,” she said finally, pointing over his shoulder. “Take those stairs to the basement and follow the blue line around the walls until you come to the morgue. The attendant will be closing in five minutes, so I suggest you make haste.”

  Clem said that he would.

  The attendant was wearing tiny headphones attached to a MP3 player and eating a slice of cold pizza. Clem followed him to the back room. He pointed to a metal cart pulled from one of a dozen steel doors in the wall. There was a sheet over the body and a manila folder
lying across the legs.

  Clem looked around. The room was cool and bright and reeked of caustic chemicals. A polished table edged with gutters and drains occupied one corner, and a large white clock loomed on the wall, long black hands snapping up the minutes.

  “Look,” the attendant said, “I’ve got to punch the clock before I go into overtime, so close the door if you leave before I get back.”

  Clem nodded and the attendant left.

  He approached the gurney slowly, hearing the echo of his boots on the tile floor, feeling the hair rise on the back of his neck. He reached down and pulled back the sheet.

  Rolfe was draped in a blue paper hospital gown. There were bruises on the backs of his hands and a blood stained Band-Aid still stuck to the inside of one forearm. There was the stub of knuckle that had once been a thumb, but Clem was annoyed that there was no wristwatch.

  He was surprised at how much weight his brother had lost in the hospital. Limbs not quite so thick, face not quite so full. But it was the color of Rolfe’s face that surprised him most. He had expected to see someone pale in death. Instead Rolfe's cheeks were flushed, lips pink instead of blue. He looked no worse than that morning in the cabin when he had shot the two policemen.

  Generators hummed in the deep recesses of the building, circulating chilled dry air, but Clem could still feel the sweat gathering on his neck.

  Suddenly he turned and looked behind him, feeling a presence in the room. But no one was there. No one was watching him.

  The long minute hand on the big wall clock snapped to twelve and his heart jumped. He started to pull the sheet back toward Rolfe’s face and for a paralyzing moment saw movement beneath the linen. Then a cold hand emerged encircling Clem’s wrist.

  The attendant returned to an empty room, body covered with sheet, records lying across the legs. He snatched the last slice of pizza from the box and shoved the gurney back into the wall with the toe of his sneaker.