Sabbath's Gift

Chapter Four

They were still dead.

She grimaced slightly at the memory of a sick joke: Pretending he hadn't known that her mother had died some weeks before, Randy Kincaid had sneered, "How's your mother, Wilma?"

"Still dead," another Kincaid said solemnly, and then they all collapsed with laughter. Wilma had wanted to shriek at them, tell them to leave her alone, but she remembered their threats, she remembered Wanda, so she just ran from their taunts.

Frank Foulkes continued to live, continued to abuse his only remaining child – his victim, Wilma had begun calling herself – for another two years, when, thank God, on his way home from one of the bars on the outskirts of town, he tripped on the banks of the Pedernales River, which happened to be full for the first time in many years, fell in, and drowned. His body surfaced five miles downstream three days later.

Wilma didn’t even pretend to mourn his loss. Now she was free.
Except for Wanda’s legacy of shame.

Now she looked with distaste at the bodies frozen in death, then reached over them, flipping the oval braided rug aside, searching for the trap door to the cellar.

Every old house in this part of the country had a root cellar, she knew. It was generally under the kitchen or porch, and this –"sunroom," she supposed you would call it – was once the porch. The cellar must be under here.

On the second time groping around the area, her fingers caught on the large metal ring. Tugging firmly, she pulled the trap door up and laid it over to the side.

A damp, raw odor assaulted her. She peered into the dark space; large enough to hold both bodies.

But was it deep enough? She frowned. She would have to dig a shallow grave and cover the bodies with enough dirt so varmints wouldn't get to them; carry their bones where they could be found.
Surely there would be a shovel around here... She looked out the window at what appeared to be a storage shed at the side of the house. She strode out the back door to the shed, assured that she would be able to go about her business uninterrupted.

Today was Sunday. Nobody would be out this early on a Sunday morning, not even close neighbors or stray relatives.

As was the custom in the country, the shed was unlocked. Wilma surveyed gardening equipment in excellent condition. Wanda certainly hadn't been in charge of the tools, Wilma reflected; Her husband must have been the meticulous one. She felt a slight pang of regret that this man – his name was Ralph Spencer, she reminded herself – had had to die. Wilma thought she would have liked him, under other circumstances, at another time.

She selected a shovel from its niche on the wall.

The sun grew stronger as she lowered herself into the root cellar.
She would have to hurry before it got too hot to work....
Digging the shallow grave took longer than she thought. Wilma emerged, drenched with perspiration and covered with dirt, to find the room stifling. Huge, iridescent blowflies already buzzed around the bodies.

She had no time to stop for rest. She did allow herself a drink of water, straight out of the kitchen faucet, being careful to wipe her fingerprints off anything she touched.

She looked down at Wanda and – Ralph –Ralph; His name, somehow seemed important, now.

She decided to bury Ralph first.

A nice looking man, who once could have been called handsome, she thought as she pulled him by his ankles to the opening in the floor. Big. Healthy, too. It's too bad I hadn't known him earlier....
Well, too bad for him.

Turning him parallel to the half-dozen wooden steps, she gathered her strength and began the task of rolling him into the trench below. No good. Heavier than I thought, she panted.

She tensed as she heard a car’s wheels thumping rapidly down the highway.

If that car turns in here, what can I do? Be ready to run – where? She thought wildly. Where would she go? She would be seen, at any rate. She would have to trust to luck that no one would come anywhere near the house...and she heard the vehicle pass by and she exhaled with relief.

Wanda came next. She grabbed her sister –her sister, for God's sakes! – Her friend, her confidante, the one she shared girlish secrets with, her protector from their father's drunken rages; she would be tossing as casually into a shallow grave as she would throw away a worn-out rag.

Wilma released her hand from her sister's body, sat down, hard, on the floor and wept. She rocked back and forth, she moaned, she keened, she sobbed, as instinct dictated, until she could cry no more.

Moments later, relieved that she could feel bad about the whole thing, truly regret it, after all, she dried her tears and washed her face.

So I'm really not heartless, she thought. I'm truly sorry I had to do it. She embraced her sister one last time before she sent Wanda’s body tumbling into the cellar.

By the time Wilma finished covering the bodies with a firm pack of dirt and rocks hauled in from what appeared to be an attempted, then aborted, vegetable garden, the sun was beginning its descent into the western horizon. Using the outside hose, she rinsed off the shovel, and returned it to its proper place in the shed. Then she straightened the rug over the trap door. Then at last, she collapsed on the settee, more tired than she had ever been in her life.
And she was hungry. She looked at the clock on the desk. No wonder. She had had no dinner the night before. No breakfast or lunch, just sips of water in this heat – she dabbed at the perspiration on her brow – now it was close to dinnertime. Hunger won over caution, as Wilma went to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and freezer doors, and took stock of its contents.
Not bad. The Spencers ate well, she thought. She set the kettle to boil for iced tea. Soon she was humming Shall We Gather at the River under her breath while she warmed her supper.

Wilma fell asleep over the remnants of her dinner – pork chops, spinach and leftover cornbread. She dreamed. Somewhere in the distance, an animal wailed.

Waking with a start, she knocked over her glass of iced tea.
It was dark.

She yearned for more sleep, but she could not rest, not just yet.
She had to move her car away from the driveway, where it could easily be seen from the highway. She went out the back door, smelling the damp evening air, mentally calculating the hours before an approaching thunderstorm.


She turned the key in the ignition.

No response. No sounds of the engine starting. She checked to see if she had forgotten to put the gearshift in Park… yes, it was in Park. She hadn’t left any lights on, so the battery wasn’t run down, she reasoned.

She leaned against the seat, whimpering. No! I have to hide the car...

A thought struck her. What about Wanda’s car?

She suddenly remembered her plan, formulated so long ago, it seemed, of making it look as though Wanda and her husband must've gone away on an extended road trip.

But their car wasn't anywhere in sight. A garage stood at the back of the property. Ah, Wanda’s neat and cautious husband most certainly would have put the car away.

Wilma trudged to the garage. A gleaming late model green Cadillac stood inside. Well, if her own car wouldn't start, then she would just have to use theirs.

The keys were in the ignition – trusting souls that they were, Wilma sniffed. Happy to hear the engine purr to life, she maneuvered the Cadillac into position behind her own dead car. (Another dead thing around here, she thought giddily) Pushing it behind the house, both cars now out of sight.

She returned to the house, trudged upstairs to the master bedroom. Its double bed beckoned to her. She lay down, covered herself with a hand-made quilt, promising herself that she would take care of everything else tomorrow. She fell into a dreamless sleep.

The next morning, Wilma woke to the sounds of birds calling from the treetops around the house. Somewhere, a cow begged to be milked. No wonder Wanda chose to live out here, Wilma thought wistfully. Her serenity was soon shattered, however, when she realized there was more to be done than just burying the bodies and getting rid of the car.

The sunroom glowed with dots of blood and bits of flesh, shreds of pink, fluffy material.... Wanda’s flimsy gown. Wilma found that, despite her best efforts, the bloodstains on the white wicker furniture would not come off. The braided oval rug, too, refused to give up its blood.

Wilma pondered the situation briefly. She would haul the furniture and rug out to the storage shed, where, if anyone bothered to look, it would appear that they had been stored because of rust stains.
The wicker chair and settee were lightweight, but the rug proved to be very heavy. She expended considerable time and energy pulling it across the yard where she heaved it into the shed.

She sagged against the side of house, looking in at the bare room.
Bare except for the television set.

She groaned. It would certainly look odd to have a television set in a room with no furniture, she thought. Well, she would just have to move the television set into another room.... the living room, or even the kitchen.

Were Wanda and her husband the kind of people who would have had a TV set in the kitchen? She wondered. Judging from the man's fastidiousness, Wilma decided they would not. Television and eating would not go together, in his mind.

So she would have to put the television set in the living room. By pulling and tugging at the large, wooden console, she moved it across two rooms and put it in place. Now she was aching all over.
And angry. She should be gone by now.

It’s Monday, for God's sakes. People might be coming around.... Wilma scolded herself. And I still have to get rid of the Cadillac.
I might enjoy driving this fancy car, she thought idly as she steered it toward the stock pond at the far north end of the property.

But that was out of the question, of course. And she shouldn't be so full of pride and envy, either. She felt a pang of regret as she watched the Cadillac glide into the water, bubble and hesitate, before it plunged into the murky depths.

This is a scene straight out of "Psycho", she thought wildly.
She giggled, wondering if she were as insane as Norman Bates. No, this wasn’t a crazy killing. This was an execution. There’s a difference.

Before leaving, Wilma took one last tour of the house, shed and garage, carefully wiping with a dishtowel anything she might have touched. She tucked the dishtowel into the glove box of her own car. Nobody will miss one dishtowel.

Well, she grinned, maybe Mr. Wanda-Ralph Spencer would. She wished she had known him. She was certain she would have liked him, under different circumstances.

Of course, it was the same old thing... How come Wanda got all the men?

Her car started on the first try. Why had it balked before? She wondered. It really didn’t matter. Relieved beyond words, she guided her car up the gravel roadway, praying that she could enter the main highway unobserved. Just a little more...she could see the highway, now...

And her heart stopped. She heard the approaching car before she saw it. And if she could see it, they could see her. She could do nothing but wait. Holding her breath, she watched the car approach, then hurtle by.

The car bore tags from another state; not sure which state, but in the brief moment she had seen the vehicle, she had noted it was not a “local” tag.

So, even if they saw me, she thought, what would it matter? Not being locals, they couldn’t possibly think a car headed for the highway would be significant.

A thought struck her with such force that she slammed on the brakes, sweat pouring off her forehead. The shotgun blasts! She had been so afraid that someone would see her that she forgot that someone might have heard the shotgun blasts and then, upon questioning the neighbors, they would have remembered hearing shots sometime in the night. She would have to risk discharging the gun again; even if someone might hear it today, they would dismiss it as a hunter, poaching on the Spencer property.

Wilma sighed, parked the car slightly off the roadway. Taking the shotgun with her into the brush close to the property line, she pumped two shells into the field.

Now, hunters had been here, she thought grimly.

Returning to the car, she eased onto the highway, then gradually increased her speed. Safe. It’s over. Nobody will ever know.
But she had a strange feeling that something – some Thing was watching her. Staring at her from the tall grass alongside the highway.

The black cat crouched in the tall weeds, tail twitching, yellow-gold eyes narrowing as if in deep thought – watching as the gray Chevrolet moved past, down the highway into the distance.
She waited until she could no longer hear the noise from the car before she moved, silently, stealthily, from her hiding place.
Only then did the cat turn, eyes focused on the roadway leading to the farmhouse, to her Home and her People. As she approached the house, a sense of disquiet came over her. A restlessness, a vague sense that something had happened there.

She stopped to consider this strange new feeling searching her primal instincts for an explanation.

Yes. A strange Person had entered the House, suddenly, and then there was –A loud, and violent, noise. She had instinctively fled into the countryside, far away from the Something happening at her House.

That had been quite some time ago; she had missed a couple of dinners, and instinct had led her to scavenge at least twice for field mice.

Now, the cat approached the sunroom door and paused cautiously.
Her Mistress and the Man were here, after all – she smelled their presence. But where? She entered the house through one of the myriad gaps in the foundation, into the former porch turned sunroom. She prowled, circled the room, until she was certain. They were here. Beneath the Room – She pawed at the floor, crying softly.

But if they were beneath the house – They were No More. The cat ceased her frantic pawing, sat back and stared at the spot.

She lifted her small face to the gentle breeze, and her keen sense of smell detected Something – something that her primitive instinct registered as Death.

Yes, I remembered the Evil thing that had been here; the Evil thing had taken her People away.

She crouched, pulling herself into a ball, narrowing her green-gold eyes as she processed the information assaulting her senses.
A stranger. Loud noise. Escape.

What had happened here was not good. That much she knew. Her People were No More.

Was this her Gift?

She must go.

The black cat turned away from the House, her Place of Comfort, and emitted a long cry of anguish before she fled once more into the sanctuary of the underbrush.