Under the Beetle's Cellar
Read Under the Beetle's Cellar Online
Authors: Mary Willis Walker
by the same author
ZERO AT THE BONE
THE RED SCREAM
PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY
a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.
1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036
DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are trademarks of Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.
Though this novel was inspired by certain actual incidents, it is a work of fiction and references to real people and organizations are included only to lend a sense of authenticity. All of the characters, whether central or peripheral, are wholly the product of the author’s imagination, as are their actions, motivations, thoughts and conversations, and neither the characters nor the situations which were invented for them are intended to depict real people or real events. In particular, the Hearth Jezreelites are not meant to portray any real religious sect or cult and any resemblance to an actual religion or religious group is purely coincidental.
ISBN 0-385-46859-8
eBook ISBN: 978-0-8041-5404-8
Copyright © 1995 by Mary Willis Walker
All Rights Reserved
v3.1
To the memory of my mother,
who would have enjoyed
all this making
of books.
Oh for a disc to the distance.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Because I seem incapable of writing a single page without stopping to ask someone for information, I am deeply grateful to those who routinely share their knowledge with me. They make research fun and writing less lonely.
Debbie Lauderdale and her fourth grade at Forest Trail Elementary School brainstormed what kids would do trapped in a bus for fifty days. Fred Askew and Glen Alyn shared their experiences in Vietnam. Joshua “JM” Logan told me the procedure for making body casts. Becky Levy consulted on art. John Hellerstedt, M.D., Norman Chenven, M.D., and Susan Wade informed me about the realities of childhood asthma.
Special Agents Nancy Houston and James Echols told me FBI stories. Gerald Adams told me more FBI stories and sparked off some wonderful ideas about a female agent. Ann Hutchison, APD Victim Services, and APD Sr. Sgt. Jack Kelley gave me information on hostage negotiating. Janice Brown at the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services and Chris Douglas at Adoption Affiliates of Reproductive Services educated me on adoption procedures.
Ralph Willis offered his eighty-six years of accumulated general knowledge on all subjects. Tim Wendel gave some practical info about the world and TJ reminded me what fourth graders are like. My “muscle
class” at the Hills helped on all manner of things. Susie Devening and Rebecca Bingham dredged up the worm ditty from the distant past. Amanda Walker gave unflagging Emily Dickinson consultation.
The Trashy Paperback Writers—Fred Askew, Jodi Berls, Dinah Chenven, and Susan Wade—were there helping through the whole messy process.
And Kate Miciak believed in me and edited me with enthusiasm and nit-picking attention to detail.
Thank you, all.
CHAPTER
ONE
“The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as late figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind.”
R
EVELATION
6:12
Walter Demming hadn’t cried since September 2, 1968, but he sure enough felt like crying now. The lightbulb at the back had gone out while he slept, burned out most likely, leaving them with just the sixty-watt bulb that hung in the pit outside the open front door. So meager was the illumination from that one pathetic bulb, so cold and scant, it could barely be called light. Here in the middle of the bus, as Walter did his morning count, it provided just enough light to discern shapes by.
Maybe this was the way the world ended, not with the fireworks Samuel Mordecai kept ranting about, but with a simple, gradual fading of the light, a blurring of detail until everything vanished.
It would end not with a bang but a whimper.
And whimpering was exactly what Walter felt like doing. Especially when he thought about what it would feel like when that last bulb burned out, too, and cast them into utter darkness. They’d had a taste of that the day it happened. Forty-six days ago.
The Jezreelites had herded them into the dark barn, Walter and eleven sobbing, terrified children.
Two of the Jezreelites had put their rifles down and dragged the wooden slab to the side, revealing a raw hole in the earth. One of them walked to the barn door and flipped a switch. From inside the hole, a light glowed up. Walter stared at it. It was just an illuminated hole in the ground. He couldn’t imagine that it had anything to do with him or the children he’d been driving to school.
The gunmen formed a circle around the twelve of them.
“Down you go,” said one of the gunmen, pointing to the hole.
Walter had stood there uncomprehending. The children huddled around him, whining and crying.
“Bus Driver,” the man said, “you go down first and help them others.”
Walter had continued to stand there.
A gunman approached him; he jabbed his rifle into Walter’s spine. “Do it.”
So Walter had done it. He walked to the edge and looked down into the hole. He knelt and backed himself down, wondering in a distant way if he were climbing into his grave. He landed and looked around. He was standing in a rough dirt pit about four feet in diameter and six feet high. A lightbulb hung from a cord at the side of the hole.
An open bus door was the only place to go. He stepped in. The buried bus was older and more decrepit than the one they had just gotten out of, but bigger. Half of the seats had been removed, leaving an open space in the back. A hole was cut in the middle of the open floor. A second dim lightbulb hung down in the back.
It was cooler by about ten degrees than it had been aboveground. And damp, like an old summerhouse after weeks of rain. The smell was musty and heavy.
But the strangest part, the worst of it, was the windows. They were black with the earth pressing in on them. Since his glasses had got broken and left behind on the road, Walter had to walk closer to look at the dirt outside the window. A thick white grub worm wiggled against the glass and a dark beetle was inching its way through a tiny burrow.
A voice from above said, “Help the others down.”
Walter stood in the pit and lifted the children down, one by one. He didn’t even know all their names then, but he lifted them down, one after another, delivering them to the underworld. Lucy came first, red-nosed and sobbing. Bucky dropped into his arms light as a feather, his eyes squeezed shut, his freckles vivid against blanched skin. Josh, wheezing violently, was so heavy Walter stumbled as he lifted him down. Heather clung to him like a baby monkey, wrapped her legs around him; when an impatient voice called from above, Walter had to peel her off. Sue Ellen and Sandra came clutching on to each other, whimpering. Conrad was moving his lips in silent prayer. Philip was shaking violently and he had wet his pants. Brandon’s face was dark red with rage. Kim was looking around, wide-eyed and stunned. Hector was the last one. Walter knew Hector’s name well because he tended to get into trouble on the bus. He was struggling against the hands pushing him from above. He pushed
Walter away with his foot and jumped down, landing hard. “Ow. Shit.” His lip was bleeding. At least someone had fought back.
The kids wandered into the cavity of the gutted bus and stood looking around in stunned silence.
Above them, the wood cover was slid into place over the opening. The space they stood in seemed to shrink. They were, the twelve of them, sealed into a pit with the smell of damp rotting earth. Buried alive. Walter thought it would be hard to think up something much worse.
Then it had happened: The lights had gone off.
The darkness had been so complete it had made Walter gasp. Total, absolute, end-of-the-world blackness. The darkness of the grave.
He hadn’t cried then, but now, forty-six days later, he felt like making up for it. He could sit down and let it all go. Like the kids did, when it got to be too much for them. They would just sit down and sob their hearts out and afterward they’d feel all mellow for a while, their eyes red and their cheeks glowing. But if Walter did that, the kids might think he’d given up hope and then they might get more scared than they were already, which was pretty goddamned scared.
No, he wouldn’t cry today. Anyway, he needed to get on with the count. Crying could wait, but the count
had
to be done—every morning, before 6
A
.
M
. It had turned into a ritual, this counting business, but he felt that if he kept on doing it just like he had been, maybe they’d all keep on being alive, just like they had been.
He squinted down at the small blurry shape curled up on the third seat from the back. In the gloom and without his glasses, all he could see from where he was standing was the silhouette of the small pale body against the torn brown vinyl seat. It was Bucky, of course—the smallest, six years old, legs skinny as a water bug’s. The third seat had been Bucky’s spot from the start, where he kept his white Mighty Morphin Power Ranger and the jacket he had with him that day. It was where he hummed himself to sleep at night. Lately, he had been humming himself to sleep during the day, too—or what they thought was the day, what Walter Demming’s watch told him was the day, what he believed to be the day, what he told the kids was the day.
Bucky’s escaping into sleep all the time was probably a sane response to a nightmare situation. Actually it was a tantalizing idea—just go to sleep and stay asleep until whatever was going to happen happened—a life that didn’t actually require your presence.