Running Out of Time
Adrian MacMillan was at a turning point in his life. His eight-year marriage had ended in a bitter divorce, and since he worked for his father-in-law, he decided it best to make a career change as well. It was no great sacrifice since selling plumbing supplies had never been too exciting.
After giving and fulfilling his two-week notice, Adrian decided to take a vacation before joining the growing number of job hunters. Rather than soak up the sun on some Caribbean beach, he chose to get away from the cares and stress of the world and commune with nature. He packed a few clothes, some nonperishable food items and a sleeping bag into an oversized backpack, left the city behind and set out for the woods of western Maine. Three days after embarking on his trek, Adrian realized he was hopelessly lost.
"I feel like one of those kids in The Blair Witch Project," he said aloud as he followed the path of a small stream, hoping it would lead him back to civilization.
As the noon hour approached, he reached into his backpack for a plastic container of Dinty Moore beef stew and realized his food supply was nearly gone.
"Guess I'll have to play Ewell Gibbons from now on," he laughed humorlessly. "Although being born and raised in Boston, I doubt I could tell hickory nuts from squirrel droppings."
He bent down, picked up a small pine cone and smelled it.
"I wonder if these are edible."
He touched it to his tongue, nearly gagged at the taste and tossed it aside.
"Ugh! What the hell was I thinking, going off on this half-assed camping trip? Just because I watched Survivor, what made me think I could exist in a world far from diners, motels, bottled water and my gas-guzzling SUV?"
Adrian walked for hours, cursing his own stupidity.
"You were so anxious to get away from your troubles," he berated himself, "you didn't even think to bring a cell phone. Well, congratulations! You got what you wanted. You're a million miles away from the cares of the world."
For four more days, Adrian wandered through the woods in the darkness of night, falling temperatures and drenching rain. Half-starved, feverish and certain of his imminent death, he eventually came to the top of a cliff where, looking down, he saw among the acres of pine trees an exquisite Victorian mansion.
Am I hallucinating? he wondered as he stared at the house tucked away in the deep, desolate woods.
Many of the houses Adrian had seen from that era bore the scars of age: chipped paint, sagging porches, crooked shutters and missing roof shingles. The pink house nestled in the trees below, trimmed in elaborate white gingerbread, reminded him of a tiered birthday cake decorated with intricate piping and sugary flourishes. All it lacked to make it a Thomas Kinkade painting come to life was the yellow glow of lights emanating from the windows.
If I don't find food soon, I'll die out here, he reasoned. I'll have to take my chances that the house is real and that someone is living there.
Adrian carefully made his way down the high, rocky slope toward the house. He walked over the finely manicured lawn, up the stairs, past the rose bushes laden with a profusion of aromatic blooms and across the veranda; then he knocked on the massive oaken front door.
An elderly woman, wearing an outdated maid's uniform reminiscent of Downton Abbey, answered. To say the servant was surprised to see him was an understatement. Her shock was understandable, given the remote area in which the house stood.
"Please forgive my appearance, but I'm lost," Adrian said helplessly. "I've been wandering through the woods for a week now."
The maid looked at him with sympathy.
"Come in and sit down. I'll fetch you a cup of coffee and a sandwich."
"Bless you," he replied as he gratefully sank down into one of the kitchen chairs.
Ten minutes later, Adrian was enjoying a cup of coffee, a roast beef sandwich and a bowl of homemade vegetable soup.
"Forgive me for saying so," the maid commented as she watched him eat, "but you don't look well."
"I think I have a fever, and I haven't gotten a good night's sleep in over a week. Would you mind if I used your telephone to call for help?"
An uneasy look crossed the old woman's face.
"We don't have a telephone here, sir."
"Perhaps you have a short-wave radio?"
She shook her head.
"Do you have any means at all of communication with ...."
He had to watch what he said. He did not want to offend the woman.
"... more populated areas?"
"No, we don't. The owner likes his privacy." The woman slipped into silence for several moments and then added in a barely audible whisper, "There's an extra bedroom in the servants' wing. I can take you up there, and you can get some sleep. When you've had a chance to rest, I'll give you some food and provide you with directions to find your way back to those more populated areas."
"You are an angel of mercy, my dear lady."
True to her word, the maid showed him upstairs to a small, Spartan, utterly cheerless room. To Adrian, however, sick and exhausted, it looked as warm and welcoming as a suite at the Ritz.
* * *
When Adrian awoke, the room was dark. He tried to sit up, but, too weak, he fell back on the bed, his body sweating and his muscles aching. Suddenly, he started to cough—not a tickle-in-your-throat cough but a harsh cough of an elderly man who had smoked three packs of cigarettes a day since he was twelve.
The bedroom door opened and a woman carrying a candle walked toward him. When his eyes adjusted to the dim light, Adrian, expecting the maid who had provided him with lunch, was surprised to see a beautiful young woman instead. He stared at her, wondering if she was a figment of his imagination, created by his feverish mind. Pale red hair, commonly referred to as strawberry blond, was piled atop her head in a Gibson Girl chignon; and tiny, soft curls framed a perfect face with classic cheekbones, full lips, an up-tilted nose and a complexion like fresh buttermilk.
"You're awake," she said with an angelic smile that complimented the friendly twinkle in her green eyes.
"Is this your house?" he asked and began coughing again.
"We'll talk later when you're feeling better."
She held a cup of hot tea to his lips.
"Drink this. It has some herbs in it that will help clear up your congestion and get rid of your fever."
Not long after he drained the cup, Adrian felt a heavy weight descend upon his brain, and his eyes began to close.
Before he fell into a deep sleep, he wondered, Is someone trying to drug me?
A few days later the cough and fever were gone. Adrian felt his strength returning and with it dozens of questions about the house hidden in the deep pinelands of Maine. While he was convalescing, he learned that the old woman was the family housekeeper, Mrs. MacLeod. Although he had never seen them, he knew there were other domestic staff members as well. He could hear them talking in the hallway as they went to and from their rooms. As for the beautiful young woman who looked in on him from time to time, Adrian had no clue as to her identity or her position in the household, but he doubted very much that she was a servant.
Is she the owner of this house? If so, does she have a husband?
It was several days before the young woman returned to his room.
"I see you're feeling better," she declared with her usual sunny disposition.
"Yes, I am. Thanks to you and Mrs. MacLeod, I'll be able to leave soon."
The young woman's smile faded.
"I was hoping you would stay awhile."
Uh oh, Adrian thought, sensing trouble.
The beautiful woman was obviously lonely, and he was probably the only man within a hundred miles. While he was tempted to stay, he did not want an angry husband, especially a wealthy one, ready to wreak vengeance on a man who had dared to step into his private paradise like a serpent in Eden.
"I don't think your husband would want me to stay," he replied.
"Husband? Oh, but I'm not married."
"Do you mean you live in this great big house with just the servants?"
"And my father. He is ill, so he stays in his room downstairs most of the time. He rarely comes up here."
"I'm sorry to hear your father isn't well. I hope it's nothing too serious," he said politely.
"I'm afraid it is. He's been confined to a wheelchair for the past several years, and he's been getting steadily weaker as each year passes."
"What do the doctors say?"
The young woman looked troubled.
"Father hasn't seen a doctor. He never leaves the house."
"And what about you? When was the last time you got away from here?"
"I've never been away from my home. Why should I leave?"
Adrian was astonished. This woman was probably in her mid to late twenties, and yet she had never left this desolate fortress.
"What about school?"
"My father taught me to read and write, and there's a wonderful library here. Father was a writer, you see."
A writer? That explains it! Adrian thought. All writers are a bit odd. This one must be worse than most. Perhaps he suffers from agoraphobia.
"May I ask you a question?" he said. "Two actually."
"Certainly."
"Well, first, what's your name?"
"Felicity Bosworth."
"You're not any relation to Forrest Bosworth are you?"
"That's my father. So, you've heard of him?"
"Heard of him? His book Coming of Age was required reading in my high school."
A puzzled frown appeared on her face.
"I don't believe my father wrote a book by that title."
"Perhaps it's a different writer by the same name," Adrian said, deciding the man in the wheelchair somewhere on the floor beneath him could not possibly be Forrest Bosworth.
He was probably delusional like those poor souls who believed they were Napoleon, Anastasia or Charles Lindbergh, Jr.
"Anyway," he continued, "I believe that Forrest Bosworth is dead. He disappeared about twenty-five years ...."
Adrian stopped midsentence. No one had heard from the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer in all that time. Could it be because he had retreated to a private paradise in Maine, far from the over-publicized and hectic life he had led in New York and Hollywood?
"What is your other question?" Felicity prompted him.
He smiled and blushed shyly, hoping she would not take offense at his next comment.
"Why do you always wear those clothes?"
Now it was Felicity's turn to blush.
"And what am I to do? Walk around without them?"
"Don't you have anything more ... modern?"
Felicity looked down at her long skirt and her high-necked, long-sleeved, tailored blouse—an outfit that went out of fashion not long after the Titanic went down.
"I don't understand."
"Well—forgive me for saying so—that particular outfit as well as your hairstyle belongs to another century."
Felicity stared at him blankly, utterly confused by his words.
"But I've always dressed like this. So have Mrs. MacLeod and the other women in the house."
It was true. Although Mrs. MacLeod wore a maid's uniform, it was one from a bygone era.
"What else am I to wear?"
Was she serious, or was he being made the butt of a practical joke?
"Well, jeans for one thing."
"What are jeans?"
"Blue jeans, dungarees. Pants made from denim."
"Pants?" she echoed, taken aback. "Good lord! Women don't wear pants."
"Pants have been an acceptable part of a woman's wardrobe since the Second World War."
The perplexed look on Felicity's face turned to a vacant expression.
"I don't believe you're fully recovered from your fever," she declared, as much as telling him that she considered him the crazy one.
Adrian had an idea.
"You said there was a library in the house."
"Yes. A very good one."
"Take me there, please."
"Are you sure you're up to it?"
"I feel fine, and I believe a little light reading will do wonders for me."
As Felicity led him back down the servants' staircase, she turned to him and cautioned, "We have to go through the kitchen, into the foyer and up the main staircase. You mustn't say a word. My father doesn't know you're here."
While following his lovely hostess, Adrian got a good look at the kitchen. He had been too sick, too tired and too hungry when he had arrived to pay any attention to the furnishings and appliances. Now he noticed how much the kitchen looked like one of those old homes ladies' preservation groups worked so diligently to maintain. Not only was there no microwave or Cuisinart but there was also no refrigerator. There was not a single modern appliance to be seen.
As they walked upstairs to the third-floor library, Adrian got a glimpse of some of the other rooms they passed. They were all furnished with either beautiful antiques or excellent reproductions—no IKEA or Pier 1 Imports in this house.
"Here we are," Felicity announced proudly as she walked into the high-ceilinged library.
It was indeed impressive. Thousands of hardcover books filled the shelves, which were nearly twenty feet high.
"If you can't find a book down here," Felicity said, indicating the volumes within arm's reach. "We have a rolling ladder to get to the ones on the top shelves."
Adrian began browsing through the selection of fiction: Jane Austen, William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Homer and Mark Twain.
"I see someone likes the classics."
He crossed the room to the shelves on the opposite wall, which consisted of nonfiction books.
"Ah, this is what I wanted."
He thumbed through the pages and deduced from the old photographs that the book had been printed sometime prior to the beginning of the twentieth century. He chose another book and another. Both were also quite old.
"This must be a valuable collection," he noted. "But don't you have any books written during the past fifty years?"
"I don't know," she said, clearly unnerved by his question. "I never thought about when they were written. These are timeless works of art."
"Did your father tell you that?"
"Yes."
"What else did he tell you?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"What did he tell you about living in this house, hours away from the nearest town?"
"I think you'd better return to your room now, Mr. MacMillan."
"Why? Because I question your father's reason for keeping a healthy young woman locked away from the world?"
"I don't care to discuss this with you any further."
"I'm sorry," he said, backing down. "It's really none of my business."
* * *
The following morning Adrian bathed, put on a freshly laundered sweat suit and joined Mrs. MacLeod in the kitchen for a cup of coffee.
"You seem like a reasonable woman," he said. "What do you think about this place?"
"I'm quite happy here, sir."
"That wasn't what I asked. I want to know what you think about the owner and his daughter. What's really going on here?"
"I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to say."
Adrian put down his cup.
"I'm disappointed in you, Mrs. MacLeod. Is your salary so high that you'll turn your back on that poor young woman?"
"You don't understand the situation, sir."
"Well, I figure it's one of two things. Either your employer is an insanely possessive father who thinks he's protecting his daughter by shutting her away from the world, or, even worse, he's a sick monster who wants to keep that beautiful young woman all to himself."
"Please don't jump to conclusions, Mr. MacMillan. You have no idea what you're talking about."
"You're right, Mrs. MacLeod. None of this has anything to do with me."
He rose and headed toward the stairs.
"I'll get my things and be on my way if you wouldn't mind giving me just a few scraps of food to take with me."
"I'm afraid that's impossible, sir."
The old woman looked at him through eyes filled with compassion.
"You can't leave now," she explained. "You'd be bound to tell someone that we're here. We can't take that risk."
"You can't keep me here against my will," he argued, but already he could feel the drug sapping his strength. "The coffee ...."
"No need to fear. It's only a sleeping drought, sir. It won't hurt you."
Adrian never made it to the door. He collapsed and fell into a drug-induced sleep on the kitchen floor.
* * *
When Adrian woke, he was in a large, four-poster bed, a massive piece of furniture fit for a king. It took only a few seconds for him to realize his hands and feet were tied to the bedposts.
"Let me out of here," he yelled, but he doubted it would do any good.
Felicity opened the door and walked into the room.
"What is all this hollering about?" she asked, once again smiling sweetly.
"Untie me, please."
It was more a command than a polite request.
"I can't do that. You're not well. You might hurt yourself or someone else."
"Is that what your father told you? That I might hurt you? There's nothing wrong with me. I swear it. I don't want to hurt you, Felicity. I want to help you. Untie me, and we can both escape this madhouse."
"Escape?"
"Yes. I'll take you to Boston. There are plenty of people there, and you can make lots of friends. You might even find a young man, fall in love and get married someday. You won't have to be a prisoner in this house anymore."
"I'm not a prisoner," she argued, her serene composure turning to anger. "I don't want to go to this Boston or any other place with you. I don't need other people. I have my father, Mrs. MacLeod and the rest of the servants, and now I have you."
"Do you think you can keep me tied up here forever?"
"You can't leave," she said, heading toward the door. "None of us can leave here."
* * *
Mrs. MacLeod brought his meals three times a day, and rather than untie him, she fed him herself. At first, like a troublesome toddler, he refused to eat, but then he realized he would need his strength if he hoped to escape. Several times a day, Enoch, a strong and mentally defective bear of a man—probably some sort of handyman—came into Adrian's room, untied him, allowed him to go to the water closet and then bound his arms and legs to the bedposts again.
Adrian briefly considered trying to overpower the Goliath and make a run for it, but he surmised his chances were not good. The man looked like he would hold his own against any professional wrestler Vince McMahon could pit against him.
Then one day, Felicity brought in his lunch.
"Where's Mrs. MacLeod?" he asked.
"She's gone shopping."
"Shopping? Where? We must be hours away from the nearest store."
"Enoch drives her to town in a wagon. They'll be back tomorrow with enough supplies to last a few months."
"Tomorrow? With Enoch gone, who's going to take me to the bathroom?"
Felicity blushed.
"I'll untie you so that you can go to the water closet, but you have to promise me that you won't try to escape."
"I promise," he lied, smiling falsely.
She untied his hands and feet, and then he got off the bed and went to the bathroom.
"Get back on the bed now so that I can retie you."
"Sure thing."
Adrian moved swiftly, easily overpowering the one-hundred-ten-pound woman.
Hoping to quiet the girl's screams before any of the servants heard her, he made a fist and punched her, knocking her unconscious with one blow.
"I'm sorry, Felicity. I've never hit a woman before, but I had no choice."
When Adrian ran out of the room, he found himself in an unfamiliar part of the house. He walked down a long hallway to a narrow staircase leading down. If he could only find the kitchen, he would be able to get out.
I'd much rather take my chances with the Maine woods than with the lunatics in this asylum.
At the foot of the stairs was a small foyer with three doors opening off of it. One of them had to be the way to freedom. But the first one he opened led to a storage room, full of old dusty furniture and cardboard boxes, and the second led to an old playroom. The toys—porcelain dolls, stuffed animals, a doll's house and many more items that looked like they ought to be on display in the Smithsonian—must have belonged to Felicity when she was younger.
"Okay, Monte Hall, I'll take what's behind door number three."
He opened it and was surprised to see an old man sitting in a wheelchair, staring out the window. Adrian's first instinct was to shut the door quietly, go back up the stairs and search for another way out. But then he chided himself for his cowardice. Besides, he was more than able to handle a sick, old man.
He walked into the room, almost eager to confront the owner of the house, a man who would rather lock his daughter up in this Victorian safety deposit box than share her with the world.
"Mr. Bosworth," he said sternly.
The old man continued to stare out the window, his back toward Adrian.
"Mr. Bosworth," he repeated louder. "Or isn't that your real name?"
Still no response. Perhaps the old man was deaf.
"I'm leaving now," he said, louder yet. "You can have your daughter all to yourself again."
Bravely, he walked up behind the old man, grabbed the handles of the wheelchair and pushed it out of the way of the window. He had expected to hear the old man protest, perhaps call for help, but Forrest Bosworth did not even move. Human compassion and a natural curiosity battled with Adrian's sense of self-preservation. Before he ran out the window, he had to be sure the old man was all right.
"Are you feeling ...?" he started to ask as he turned the chair around.
Adrian did not finish the question. There was no need to; he would never receive a response, for it was no man in the wheelchair. It was a mannequin, a crude one at that, one you would not find in any of Boston's better stores.
Adrian had been so shocked by the discovery that he did not hear Felicity tiptoe across the floor behind him. Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain on the back of his head, followed by another. He turned just in time to avoid being hit a third time by the heavy candlestick.
"What have you done to my father?" Felicity screamed as she brought the candlestick down again.
Adrian twisted, and the blow landed on his shoulder.
"I didn't do anything to him," he said, trying to grab her arm. "I don't even know where he is."
"Daddy!" she sobbed as she ran to the wheelchair, dropped to her knees and placed her head on the mannequin's lap. "You never should have been left here alone with that madman in the house."
Her hand reached up and lovingly touched the poorly made synthetic wig on the mannequin's head.
Just then a middle-aged woman wearing a Victorian-era nurse's uniform walked into the room.
"Johanna," Felicity scolded, "why did you leave my father here unattended?"
"I'm sorry, miss. It won't happen again. I had to get some medicine."
Johanna shot a threatening glance at Adrian.
"I'm taking Father up to his room," Felicity announced, grabbing the handles of the wheelchair and steering it toward a small mechanical elevator in the corner of the room.
Adrian turned to the nurse.
"What happened to her father?" he asked.
"He's been dead several years now."
"Has she always been like this?"
"As long as I've known her she has, and I've been here since she was a small child, three or four years old. Her father brought her to live here when he left Hollywood."
"In heaven's name, why?"
"Mr. Bosworth was always a bit peculiar. Perhaps that was what made him such a talented writer. He left New York and moved to Hollywood to work on a screen adaptation of one of his early novels. While he was there, he met Inga Swenson, a very attractive young starlet. I don't know if Inga loved Forrest or if she simply thought having a Pulitzer Prize-winning author for a husband would advance her career. Regardless of the reason, she agreed to marry him. A year later Felicity was born.
"After the birth, Inga turned her attention back to her career and to other men. Forrest couldn't compete with the handsome young actors who vied for his wife's attention, so he had this house built and brought Inga and their daughter here on vacation one summer. But it was his intention that none of them ever leave. He assembled a team of loyal staff—Mrs. MacLeod, Enoch, me and several others—who would never betray his secret."
"And what did his wife do when she discovered his plans?"
"It was necessary to keep her restrained at first, but eventually she was more than willing to remain here."
"Let me guess. She was drugged, right?"
"It was necessary, Mr. MacMillan."
"What happened to her?"
"She died of an overdose about three years after moving here—an accidental one."
"Are you so sure? Maybe she wasn't content to live here after all?"
"Perhaps not."
"Were all these Victorian furnishings and clothing Bosworth's idea?"
"Yes, he didn't want Felicity to grow up like her mother. He wanted her to develop old-fashioned values."
"And you and the servants went along with his insane ideas? He must have paid you all very well for your silence."
The nurse nodded.
"And when Bosworth died, why didn't any of you leave?"
"We had our reasons," Johanna said, not bothering to go into detail.
Another servant, a tall, gaunt, man entered the room.
"There you are," he said to Adrian. "When I noticed your room was empty, I was afraid you'd gotten away."
"What do you think we should do with him, Clem?" the nurse asked the tall man.
"It's too risky to keep him here any longer. He'll eventually find a means of escape."
"Felicity won't be happy if we get rid of him," Johanna declared as though Adrian were not even in the room.
"She'll get over it. If not, Enoch will just have to make another mannequin."
The nurse took a hypodermic needle out of her uniform pocket. Adrian tried to run, but Clem, who was much stronger than he appeared, grabbed him and held him steady while she gave him a shot. Adrian's muscles immediately began to relax. Within a few moments, his legs were unable to support his weight, and he fell to the floor. Although he could not move or even talk, his mind was as alert as ever.
Once the captive visitor was rendered harmless, Clem disappeared into the elevator, returning several minutes later with the wheelchair. Then he and the nurse hoisted Adrian up and unceremoniously plopped him in the chair. They rolled him back to the elevator and headed down. When they reached the bottom, Johanna opened the door, revealing the dark, cold, cavernous cellar of the house.
Adrian's mind screamed the questions his speech center could not form.
Clem lit a kerosene lantern that cast a murky glow into the darkness. Adrian did not like what he saw. The walls were nothing more than rock, and the floor was hard-packed earth.
They wheeled him a little farther. Then Johanna put the brake on the chair and the two servants grabbed Adrian by the arms and legs and literally dumped his helpless body on the cold ground.
Adrian's eyes spotted a skeleton on the cellar floor next to him. Its skull had been crushed in. The poor man—judging from the ragged remnants of its clothes, the remains had been male in life—had apparently been murdered.
"Look, Mr. Bosworth," Clem laughed. "We brought you some company, you old scoundrel."
"Hush," Johanna scolded. "That's no way to talk about the master. If it weren't for him we'd all still be in jail—or executed in some cases."
The nurse turned to Adrian.
"I know you can hear me," the nurse said. "Mr. Bosworth was a very smart man, a true genius. He knew even large sums of money wouldn't necessarily guarantee the loyalty of his household staff, so he went shopping for domestic servants in the penal system. A few well-placed bribes and we were all able to escape our prisons and come here. Oh, we were always treated very well, but we couldn't leave even if we wanted to; we all had a price on our heads. The housekeeper, Mrs. MacLeod, poisoned her abusive husband, Enoch strangled his wife and her lover, Clem here shot a cop over a speeding ticket and I—well, let's just say a few of the patients in my care had the misfortune to die."
"Under very mysterious circumstances," Clem added with a maniacal laugh.
"Even though Mr. Bosworth is gone, none of us wants to leave the comfortable, privileged life we have here and return to the world where we will run the risk of being caught and returned to prison. And as for Felicity—you needn't worry about her. We take care of her every need. We can't very well turn her over to the authorities for murdering her father, now, can we?"
"Let's have done with this," Clem urged. "I have to do my chores and Enoch's as well."
The nurse reached into her pocket once again and took out a small bottle. She bent down, opened Adrian's mouth and poured the bitter liquid down his throat.
By the time the elevator doors closed behind Johanna and Clem, Adrian MacMillan had already taken his last breath.
Salem and I miss those bygone days of our youth. In fact, we cast a Geritol spell and return to them every chance we get.
