The Twelve Secrets of Lucy Atkins
Some secrets should not stay buried.
This was written for the 30 Days of Fright Writing Challenge, prompt 5: whispers in the walls.
*This story does contain mention of abuse and severe harm to girls, not something I normally like to write or read about. However, I do like it when extreme evil doers get what they deserve.
The Twelve Secrets of Lucy Atkins
Sheriff Higgins
She was bedraggled, emaciated when we found her. A skeletal girl in a dirty ragged shift.
She hobbled into Mrs. Atkins’ yard at the edge of town, dragging a ball and chain from her left ankle like a stubborn child that wouldn’t let go.
That’s how I got involved, you see. Mrs. Atkins sent for the sheriff and the sheriff brought me along, a young deputy barely more than a child myself.
Lucy—that’s what we called her because that’s what she wrote on a piece of paper given to her by the sheriff—wasn’t more than fifteen. It became clear pretty quick that she was deaf, and mute, too. Either couldn’t or wouldn’t talk.
She didn’t write anything else. We weren’t sure she knew how.
***
Lucy
You’ve heard about the case, I imagine, Father, even though you weren’t in our parish back then. It’s gone thirty years now.
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I killed a man.
But that’s not the sin I’m repenting for.
I never told the truth about what happened. I’ve kept secrets, and I let others bear false witness, too. That’s a sin, isn’t it?
See, Clyde Jenkins (excuse me, Father, while I spit after I say his name and I won’t be saying that name again), wasn’t killed by some passing robber, who happened to set me free, as the sheriff and the deputy led you all to believe. I’m the one who killed that bastard. Reveled in his sticky, warm, rotten blood.
I apologize Father, if you haven’t the stomach to hear about that.
But I assure you, he deserved it, if any man on this earth ever did.
***
Sheriff Higgins
Mrs. Atkins, a rather young widow, took to Lucy immediately (adopted her, in the end). That day, she got the girl a bath and a dress that was too big, but clean. The doctor was called and the girl’s many wounds attended to. Dr. Kinsey spoke in whispers, despite the fact that he confirmed the girl was stone-deaf (he suspected a disease in childhood). No, he whispered because what he had to say was too awful to be said out loud.
It was clear that she had been held for some time, bound more often than not, abused most foully, practically starved. She was weak, dehydrated, anaemic—and likely mentally damaged by what she had experienced.
The sheriff tried writing questions on paper, but Lucy seemed not to be able to read much either. Through a series of gestures and pantomimes, we made it clear that we needed to know where Lucy had escaped from, who had held her. If there were more girls.
I tried for simplicity. I wrote: Man? Pointed to myself.
The girl nodded solemnly.
I held up one finger and made a shrug like I was asking a question. Then, two fingers.
She held up one, dirt still caked under and around her ragged fingernail, despite her bath. So, only one man.
I wrote: Other girls? She cocked her head at me. I pointed at her, and then at the word “girls.” I made the question gesture. Held up one finger, two fingers, three… Raised my eyebrows.
Understanding flashed across her face. She flashed both hands and then two more fingers. Twelve? Twelve more girls?
I wrote: Where? but she didn’t understand.
I drew a rudimentary picture of a house, like a child might. Where?
She jumped up and grabbed my forearm, began pulling me toward the door.
***
Lucy
I led them there. Walking back to that decrepit shack in the woods, on the outside of town, was like slogging through a swamp. Every step wanted to drag me down, you know what I mean, Father? But I needed to see his blood again, I admit it. I wanted to see him dead one more time.
And I had to go back. For them.
In the shack, I couldn’t hear what the men were saying, of course, but I saw the looks on the sheriff’s and the deputy’s faces when they saw the body lying there. A monster, in a pool of his own congealed blood. Their mouths were moving. They looked at me. I nodded and smiled. I hadn’t smiled in a long, long time.
They took me with them to the hunting shed at the back of the house, where he processed the animals he hunted. Where he took the girls he wasn’t going to keep around any longer, too. Processed them, I suppose you could say.
That’s the first thing they told me, when I got there and was chained to the wall. You’re lucky you’re in the main house. That means he wants to keep you a while. If he takes you to the shed, you’re done for. That’s what the walls whispered in my deaf ears.
As it turns out, I never did get taken into the shed. Not until that day I returned with the police.
***
Sheriff Higgins
We knew of the peddler who lived in the shack and hunted those woods. Clyde Jenkins. Kept to himself. Hunted his own meat. Sold or traded for goods in the towns. Traveled a lot, or so we thought. Never caused any trouble.
The shed was dim, had a table for processing kills, tools and knives hanging on hooks. Blood staining the dirt floor and the stone foundation. It smelled like you’d expect. I’ll always remember that smell.
And Lucy’s wide eyes as she stood in the doorway, backlit.
I held up the pad of paper with my words Other girls? scrawled on it. She spread out her hands and looked around as if to say, “Here.” Then she made a motion like a knife slitting her throat. My stomach rolled and I was afraid I would vomit right then and there.
***
Lucy
The whispers were louder in the shed that day, louder than they’d ever been in the house, but also disjointed, overlapping, talking all at once.
When I lived, or rather survived, in the house, the whispers came one at a time. Different voices. Helpful. Do what he says. Seem meek. He likes that. He’ll unchain you.
And they were right. Soon, I only had the heavy ball and chain to drag around, but I was no longer attached to the wall.
After a while, he made me do chores. Sent me out to the spring to get pails of water, made me cook the venison. He had me make his coffee. Hit me until I got it right. He liked it dark and strong.
He likes you because you don’t scream, one voice said. It’s safer for him.
***
Sheriff Higgins
Now this is the part I’m not expecting everyone to believe, but I’m writing it down regardless, because it’s God’s honest truth.
Lucy—deaf and mute, you’ll recall—she stepped into that infernal shed then, with fire in her eyes. She crouched down to the floor and rested with her hands against the stone foundation.
I could’ve sworn for all the world that she was… listening.
The sheriff and I said nothing.
Then a voice came, so quiet you wouldn’t know if you really heard it at first. Lucy’s lips were moving. “Out the door. Eighteen steps forward. Turn left. Straight ahead twelve steps. Stop. Dig.” She turned her head up and looked right into my eyes.
“What–?” the sheriff started to ask, but I just nodded.
“I saw a shovel outside,” I said.
The spot was in the woods on the overgrown edges of the property. We had to hack away some of the growth and then I started to dig. “Have you lost your mind?” the sheriff said. “What do you expect to find?”
But I knew. I knew what we’d find.
It wasn’t a deep grave, and the earth had settled. A small hand appeared first, mostly bone. One of the twelve.
“Holy God have mercy!” the sheriff swore, but I was already racing back to the shed.
Lucy looked up at me, her hands on the stones. The moving lips. The whispery voice, “Turn left in the doorway. Thirty steps out back. Turn right. Three steps. Dig.” She closed her eyes.
It went on like that all afternoon into evening. The sheriff sent for reinforcements. I dug until I was sweaty and exhausted and sick. Twelve bodies revealed in all.
And by the end of it, Lucy wasn’t whispering anymore. She was crying out the directions, hoarse and loud. She had found her voice.
***
Lucy
Each one of those girls before me had a secret resting place. And I told their secrets—or rather they told their secrets through me—til each and every one of them was found. Twelve secrets. Twelve bodies.
You wonder, Father, how I escaped, when all the others didn’t? By the grace of God, you think?
No. I survived because those girls, those twelve dead girls, whispered their other secrets to me while I was in that hell.
Those berries by the spring where you get water, a voice whispered one night, as I huddled on my mat in the corner of the peddler’s shack, my silent tears long since dried up, they’re poison, you know.
But you can’t use too much, another voice chimed in, or he’ll taste it, even in coffee. Just enough to make him sleepy.
The whispers, they told me what to do.
I did everything they told me, those dead girls. But when he was finally lying there, dazed and drugged, and it came time to plunge the hunting knife into his throat, they didn’t need to tell me. I knew exactly what to do.
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I can see through Lucy's eyes here. Great job!
Horrifying, tragic, and in the end so satisfying. Lucy got him. They all did. Great story!