The Garden of Darkness

Jem opened cupboards looking for food.

Cans. Huge bags of pasta. Flour, sugar, tea.

“I don’t believe it,” said Jem.

“Real food,” said Clare.

Upstairs, in one of the bedrooms, they found a corpse lying with its arms crossed over its chest as if it had been posed. The other bedrooms were empty. Once downstairs again, Jem opened the door to the basement, and Clare used her flashlight to illuminate the steep stairs. A packed dirt floor was just visible at the bottom. The air was rank with decomposition, mildew, and a smell like rust.

“Something’s dead down here,” said Clare.

“I hope it’s an animal. I don’t think I’m up to another dead body right now.”

Clare’s flashlight lit up a corner of the cellar that was separated from the rest by a partition. Bear barked once.

Clare and Jem edged around the partition, and when they saw what was hanging there, they both stepped back quickly. Clare stumbled, and Jem caught her arm. She didn’t want to look at the small heavy forms dangling from the ceiling. She remembered the bodies they had found swinging from the beams at the dairy farm.

Then Clare recognized what she was seeing.

Hams.

The hams hung in a row, eight of them, solemn and still as the corpses of infants. Clare touched the nearest one and it bumped its neighbor, and soon all of them were swaying back and forth.

Jem put his nose right up to one of the hams.

“They smell delicious,” he said. Bear sat and looked up, his tongue lolling out. He looked as if he were grinning.

“Jem, look at this,” said Clare.

The light from the flashlight had washed over an area of the cellar where the earth seemed to have been recently turned. The plot looked like a small grave.

Above them, they heard footsteps coming towards the cellar door. And then the slow creaking of floorboards stopped. The door began to close. Bear gave a low growl and leapt for the stairs, but Clare was there ahead of him. She took the steep steps two at a time, but she was still too late. The door grazed her outstretched fingers as it closed. On the other side, she heard someone fumbling with the lock.

It wasn’t a time to speak or discuss or weigh options. Clare gathered herself together and crashed into the door.

When Clare hit, the door opened just enough for her to slip her hand into the gap before it slammed back onto her fingers. The pain was excruciating. Even so, she shut it out as she crashed into the door again. This time she heard the sound of wood splintering and the door flew open.

She found herself face to face with a Cured. He was a big man.

They stood there for a moment, neither one of them moving. And then he grabbed her, slammed the basement door behind her and bolted it, shutting in Jem and Bear. He dragged Clare to the kitchen, kicked her legs out from under her and pushed her to the floor. In a moment, he was on top of her. He was breathing heavily into her face, and his breath stank of the grave.

“I’m going to kill you,” he said.

He started tearing at her clothes, ripping open her jacket and her shirt, revealing the Pest rash on her chest. She tried to push his hands away, but it was no good. As he fumbled with her clothes, Clare punched him with her good hand, hard. Her fist sank into his face as if into a sponge. She flipped the Cured over until his back was to the floor, and she was on top of him with a knee on his sternum.

She realized she was stronger than he was.

Go figure.

She stood up and kicked him in the side. Then Sarai and Mirri were in the house. Mirri ran to Clare, but Clare pushed her firmly away as the Cured slowly got to his feet. Clare kneed him in the groin. He curled into a ball and began to cry.

“What we need to do is tie him up,” Clare said. “Mirri, get some cord. Sarai, get Jem and Bear out of the cellar.”

For a brief second, Clare wished Michael were there to handle things, then she knelt down and twisted the Cured’s arm behind his back before he could get back up. His hair fell back away from his face, and she saw an orange-colored patch behind his ear.

“Hurry, Mirri,” she said. Then Sarai appeared at the top of the basement stairs with Jem. Bear was behind them.

Clare suddenly became aware that her blouse was torn open, but there was nothing she could do about it while holding down the Cured.

At that moment, Mirri appeared with a large ball of yellow nylon cord.

“Sarai, Mirri,” said Clare, “tie him up. Can you help me, Jem?”

“I’ll do the knots,” said Mirri. “I got a badge in knots when I was a Brownie.”

“I thought you told me you flunked out of Brownies,” said Sarai.

“That was after.”

“Will you hurry?” Clare shouted.

As soon as they had the man secured, Jem checked the bindings. Clare saw him looking at her, and then he hurriedly looked away. She quickly pulled her shirt closed.

“Did he hurt you?” asked Jem quietly.