The Coffin (Nightmare Hall) Read online

  If she had to, she could take the door off the hinges. She’d seen her mother do it more than once when one of her younger brothers or sisters had locked themselves in the bathroom. All she needed was a screwdriver or putty knife and a hammer.

  She glanced around the small, knotty pine-paneled porch for some sign of tools, murmuring, “I’m going to get you out of there, I promise!”

  And a voice from behind her said lightly, “Guess again.”

  Chapter 16

  IN THE MUSIC ROOM, still lying with her face pressed up against the door, Tanner called anxiously, “Jodie? Jodie? Are you still there?”

  Something was wrong.

  Something had happened. Something bad. Jodie had been gone too long. She would have been back by now if something hadn’t happened.

  Tanner, her eyes filled with dread, pushed herself to a sitting position beside the door. No, no, no! She’d been so close! So close to getting out. What had happened? Was he back? Had he found Jodie going through the house, searching for the key?

  What had he done to Jodie?

  In despair, Tanner opened her mouth and screamed Jodie’s name repeatedly until her throat was raw. She didn’t care if he heard. What did it matter? He wasn’t going to let her go, anyway, no matter how cooperative she was. He had never intended to let her go, she knew that now. The mask was just a way of tormenting her, letting her think she’d be alive to identify him.

  The sound of her anguished screams for Jodie rocked the music room.

  When she was too drained to make another sound, she sat up. She had to do something. If he was in the house, he’d be here, any second now. He’d toss her into that coffin, bar the door, and she’d be helpless again.

  No! She wasn’t going to be helpless again, not this time.

  She jumped up and ran to the desk. There had to be something there that would be useful. Something, anything.

  The key turned in the lock.

  Tanner grabbed the heavy metal ruler and the heavier tape dispenser and tossed them hastily into a dark corner of the coffin. She had no idea what she would do with them, but she wasn’t going in there empty-handed again. Then she threw herself onto the couch. Suddenly, the door flew open and he stood there, still wearing the mask. Not Jodie, come to save her. Him.

  Angry. He was angry. He slammed the door behind him and turned to face her, hands on his jeaned hips. “How did you do it?” he shouted, glaring down at her. “How did you contact that girl? How did you get her over here?”

  “I … I didn’t,” Tanner protested. “How could I? You took the telephone. She just didn’t believe the note you made me write, that’s all. She came on her own to check out the house. Where is she? What have you done with her?”

  “None of your business.” He reached down and grabbed Tanner’s shoulder. “Get up! You know the rules. No visitors until you’ve been here six weeks! Who do you think you are, Queen Elizabeth? You will follow the rules like everyone else in this establishment or I’ll know the reason why, young lady.”

  Before she could jump to her feet as ordered, he began dragging her across the floor toward The Booth. “I didn’t have visitors,” she shouted, arms and legs flailing in an effort to slow him down. “I told you, she came on her own.”

  “That’s right, blame someone else. You’re all alike, all of you. Unwilling to accept responsibility for your own actions. That’s what got you into this place to begin with. When are you going to learn that there is a consequence for every action? And learn to think before you act? Well, that’s what we’re here to teach you, miss.”

  He was quoting again, she could tell, Someone else had said those same things to him, sometime, somewhere. The words had made him angry. And now she was paying for that anger.

  Her fear for Jodie’s safety and her own terror of The Booth sent her babbling, “Please, please, no, no, not in there, don’t put me in there, don’t!” And then, when he ignored her, continuing to drag her ever closer to the hated box, anger took over and she shouted, “Get your hands off me, you creep! I’m not going in there, I’m not!” She was still shouting, “I’m not!” and kicking wildly when he grabbed her up off the floor by the neck of her sweatshirt and tossed her into The Booth. The bare sole of her left foot, in mid-kick, slammed into the rough wooden door as it closed, reopening the cuts made earlier by the fragments of glass.

  Tanner cried out in pain and despair and frustration, and would have pounded against the door if her hands hadn’t been so sore.

  “You’re spending the night in there!” Sigmund shouted as the latch twisted into place. “We’ll see if that doesn’t teach you to obey the rules.”

  “Don’t leave me in here!” Tanner cried, her face pressed against the door, “don’t! I can’t stand it, not all night, please, let me out!”

  But the next sound she heard was the music room door closing, the key turning with an angry click.

  She was alone again.

  Chapter 17

  FOR LONG MINUTES AFTER the key turned in the music room door, Tanner sat on the floor of the coffin, her head in her hands. To come so close to being released only to find herself back in the box again was more than she could bear.

  And she was heartsick about Jodie. What had Sigmund done to her? Where was she? Was she still alive?

  Tanner had never felt so helpless. If Jodie was still alive, somewhere in the house, she had to need help. And Tanner couldn’t give it to her. She couldn’t even help herself.

  The thought of spending the whole night in the dark, suffocating box made her hands shake with terror. Hours and hours and hours … it would be like being buried alive. She would never make it through the night without losing her sanity.

  Something on the floor was jutting into Tanner’s hip, as if she were carrying something unwieldy in her sweatpants pocket. The tape dispenser. She shifted uncomfortably, remembering then that she had tossed the metal ruler and the dispenser into a corner. Now, lost in her fear for Jodie’s safety and her dread of the long hours ahead, she couldn’t imagine why she’d done it. What good were they?

  Tanner shook her head to clear it. She tried to concentrate. Jodie would have said, “No good sitting on the floor thinking life stinks. Deal with it, Tanner!”

  Maybe … maybe she could use the ruler as a pry bar, inserting it into those small gaps at the corners of The Booth. If it worked, she might be able to separate the back wall from the sides. It was worth a try. And the tape dispenser, heavy as it was, could substitute for a hammer.

  She pulled herself to her feet. She wasn’t doing Jodie or herself any good by crouching on the floor of this horrid booth feeling sorry for herself. Even if her idea didn’t work, the night would pass more quickly if she had something to occupy her time.

  Ruler in hand, Tanner hesitated. If Sigmund came in and caught her ripping away at the nails he’d hammered in, he’d be even angrier than he was now.

  She laughed at herself for the thought. The guy was planning to kill her! So what difference did it make how much angrier he got? What did she have to lose?

  Biting her lower lip in fierce concentration, she inserted the metal ruler into one of the gaps along a corner where the back wall met the left side wall. Sliding the ruler down until it was midway between two nails, she pushed against the heavy measuring stick, trying to force the back section away from the side wall.

  The gap opened slightly.

  But as soon as she pulled the ruler out, the gap closed again.

  She understood then, with sinking heart, that her only hope was to somehow remove the nails. She had to use the ruler as a pry bar to pull the nails out of the wood.

  That would take her years.

  She didn’t have years. She only had tonight. And maybe not even the entire night. He could come back at any time, without warning.

  The soles of her feet, bare on the rough wooden floor, were hurting terribly, as if she were standing on a bed of Sigmund’s nails. Her head ached from lack of fresh air, and
she had to use her sore, swollen hands to feel in the dark for the exact location of the nails.

  Grimacing in pain as her bruised hand gripped the sharp edge of the metal ruler, she inserted it again into a gap, this time sliding it down until it was directly beside a nail. Then she pried the back wall away from the side wall, refusing to ease the pressure until she felt the nail give a little. When it finally did, she forced the edge of the ruler further into the gap, continuing to apply pressure to the ruler. Then she pushed with her shoulder against the back wall, praying the box wouldn’t tip over, sending her crashing to the ground.

  Slowly, so slowly she thought she would scream with frustration, the nail eased out of its hole in the side wall. It remained fixed in the back wall, pointing toward Tanner, which she decided might be useful. If Sigmund should return unexpectedly, having the nails in place would make it easier for her to close the gaps again temporarily. As long as he didn’t inspect it, it might fool the eye.

  While she worked, feeling in the dark for the next nail, and the next, she tried to listen for the cuckoo clock’s chirp. She ought to keep track of the time. Wishing she’d brought a pen or pencil into the booth with her to scratch the number of passing hours on the wall, she decided instead to use her toes to count. Each time the cuckoo clock chirped the hour, she would snap a piece of transparent tape off the dispenser and wind it around one toe. Ten toes, ten hours. Sigmund probably wouldn’t be gone much longer than that. If he was, she’d remove the pieces of tape and start all over again, adding those numbers to the ten she’d already counted.

  By the time she had wrapped two of her toes with tape, she had only managed to free two nails. The realization was depressing. One an hour? There had to be at least twenty nails going up one side of the back wall and twenty more down the other side. Forty hours worth of work? She wasn’t going to get out of this booth tonight.

  Panic flooded her. “I want out of here!” she screamed into the deathly silence, slapping the ruler against the back wall and pounding one foot on the floor. Pain like hot lava seared her from the sole of her foot all the way up to her hip, and this time when she screamed, it was agony, not panic, that filled the air.

  She couldn’t stand on the foot another second. Giving up, she sank to the floor of The Booth, wrapped the bottom of her sweatpants around the throbbing foot, and rested her head against a side wall.

  Pain and fear and exhaustion took over then, and within minutes, against her will, Tanner was asleep.

  At the infirmary, Charlie Cochran was not asleep. He was wide awake in his bed, a telephone pressed to his ear. “I don’t care about the time difference,” he said urgently. “This is an emergency. I need to get in touch with Dr. Leo now. Why can’t you give me a number where he can be reached? Inaccessible? What does that mean? If one of his patients was threatening to commit suicide, I bet he’d be accessible, wouldn’t he? Well, this is even worse than that. His daughter is missing.”

  Charlie listened for a minute, then said, “No, I’m not the police. But this is urgent!” Another minute passed, then Charlie said in desperation, “Well, can you tell me how to reach his wife? Ex-wife? Mrs. Leo? Only that’s not her name anymore.” Charlie searched his memory frantically. What was Tanner’s mother’s last name? It wasn’t Leo. “You’re telling me it doesn’t make any difference what her name is because you still wouldn’t know how to get in touch with her? Great! Thanks for nothing!”

  He slammed the phone down angrily.

  A nurse came bustling in, carrying a small plastic package from which she removed an object. “What’s all the ruckus in here? It’s late and you’re supposed to be sleeping. You’re suffering from trauma, young man. Rest and quiet, that’s what the doctor ordered.”

  The telephone at Charlie’s elbow rang. While the nurse busied herself with the package and looked on in disapproval, Charlie grabbed the receiver.

  “Charlie?” Sandy’s voice. “I didn’t wake you up, did I? Is Jodie there?”

  “No, I wasn’t asleep. How can I sleep when I don’t know where Tanner is? I haven’t been able to get in touch with her father, and I don’t have any idea where her mother is. And no, Jodie isn’t here. Why?”

  Sandy sounded uncertain. “Well, she wanted to go back to Tanner’s, and we all said no, that wasn’t a good idea. I mean, what’s the point? And we were afraid she’d get into trouble, so we talked her out of it. None of us has seen her since then. I had a newspaper meeting, and then I had a date, so I just got back a little while ago. She’s not here. It’s pretty late for her to be out. I mean, it’s not like she had a date or anything. So I just wondered if she was with you.”

  “No, she’s not.” Charlie’s voice hardened. “And if I were you, I’d find her. If there’s anything we don’t need, it’s another person missing. Maybe she’s with Vince or Philip.”

  “Uh-uh. Philip checked the library for me, said she wasn’t there. Vince wasn’t home, even though I’m sure he told me he wasn’t going out tonight, but he called me back later and said he hadn’t seen her. Sloane hasn’t called me back yet, but I’m sure she’s not with him. Why would she be? She doesn’t like Sloane.”

  Charlie’s bruised face turned grim. “I’m coming over there. They can’t keep me here against my will,” he said, glowering at the nurse. “I’m going crazy in here not knowing where Tanner is, anyway. We can look for both of them at the same time.”

  But before he could reach for his clothes, the nurse said, “Oh, I don’t think you’re going anywhere just now,” and Charlie felt a pinprick in his left arm. “Doctor’s orders,” the nurse repeated cheerfully. “Whatever problem you were about to solve, it’ll still be there in the morning. They don’t disappear overnight, I’m afraid.”

  Still holding the telephone, Charlie shouted at her, “You had no right to do that without my permission!”

  “I don’t need your permission,” she said matter-of-factly. “Only the doctor’s, and I had that. That shot will put you to sleep and in the morning you’ll be good as new.”

  Ignoring Charlie’s obvious fury, she left, turning off the light in his cubicle as she closed the door.

  “Oh, God, Sandy, she gave me a shot,” Charlie groaned. “I didn’t even see it coming. Now I can’t leave. Even if I made it over there, I’d be so groggy by the time I got there, I’d be no help at all. I think you should call the police.”

  “Charlie. You know what they said. Seventy-two hours.”

  “I don’t care what they said! I’m stuck in here, and now you tell me Jodie isn’t where she’s supposed to be, either. Something is very wrong, Sandy. And I have this really lousy feeling that Jodie did go back to the house, after all. You know her. She’s like Tanner that way. If Jodie was determined to check that place out again, you guys couldn’t keep her away.” Charlie could feel the medication beginning to kick in. He struggled to remain alert. “I think you should get the guys and go back over there.”

  Sandy’s voice took on a petulant note. “Charlie, it’s late, and it’s raining. I got soaked so many times today, I feel like a duck. Anyway, I don’t think Jodie would go over there all by herself. She would have bullied all of us into going with her.”

  “Well, then, where is she?” Charlie demanded.

  “Maybe she stayed with a friend tonight,” Sandy said, forcing false brightness into her voice. “Yeah, I’ll bet she did. She’s just having a sleepover with someone. I haven’t seen her, so she couldn’t tell me about it, that’s all.

  Charlie’s lids felt heavy. But he was so afraid, so afraid for both Tanner and Jodie. He knew Jodie. Going back to the Leo house was exactly the kind of thing she would do. He was convinced that something bad had happened to Tanner in that house, convinced that she had never left it. And now Jodie …

  “Call around,” he said, his words beginning to slur slightly. “Call every friend of Jodie’s that you know. And … and if she isn’t with any of them … Sandy … you have … to call the police. You have to. Don’t
pretend nothing’s wrong here, because something is.”

  “Okay, Charlie, okay. I’m really beat, and I think I’m coming down with a cold. My throat feels all scratchy. But if you’re going to worry, I’ll make the calls, even though I, personally, am absolutely sure that Jodie is just staying with a friend.”

  “And if she’s not … if she’s not,” Charlie murmured drowsily, as his head filled up with wet wool, “you’ll call … you’ll call …” Who was it he wanted Sandy to call? The police. “You’ll call the police, right, if she’s not with a friend? Sandy?”

  “If you say so, Charlie. Go to sleep now. I’ll handle it.”

  When she had hung up, Charlie struggled valiantly to stay awake. But the medication was strong and he was helpless against it.

  The worst part was, he knew that he was going to slide into sleep knowing that both Tanner and Jodie were in trouble, and that no one, certainly not Sandy Trotter, was going to do anything about it.

  His last thought before he admitted defeat was, Tanner, I’m sorry.

  Chapter 18

  WHEN TANNER AWOKE, EVERY muscle in her body ached. She had slumped sideways on the floor of The Booth in her sleep, and her neck felt as if someone had been stabbing it repeatedly with a sharp knife.

  But what upset her most was that she had lost track of time. The two pieces of transparent tape on her toes were of no help at all. She had no way of knowing how many times the cuckoo clock had chirped the hour while she was asleep. She was very angry with herself.

  Groggily, painfully, she pulled herself to her feet. She peered through the gap she’d created for some hint of what the time might be, but couldn’t tell if the light she saw was daylight or artificial light.

  Tanner leaned her face against the cool, rough wood. Was Sigmund even now on his way to the house? Where did he go when he left her? “Places to go, people to see.” That meant that he had a life apart from the horrible torture he was putting her through. If he had friends, they couldn’t possibly have a clue that he could do this kind of thing. It was hard to believe that there were people out there who smiled and waved at Sigmund, made plans with him, sat across from him at a table. If only they knew what he was capable of.