The Secret Garden of Martha Grim
By Richard A. Lopez
(c) 1992
Page 27



Willie pulled his truck right up to the front steps of Martha's house, and turned off the engine. Before getting out, he took the .45 caliber pistol out of its velvet bag, checked the clip and racked a bullet into the chamber. Getting out of the truck, he tucked the gun into his waistband, pulling his shirt over it to hide it from view.
Walking over to the passenger side, he opened the door and lifted Tommy out. Wasting no time, he walked up the porch steps and to the front door. Before he could knock on the exterior screen door, a tinny voice came over a small exterior speaker..
"Come in Mr. Cole, you don't have to stand on ceremony. Place the boy in the room to your left, and then proceed to the parlor. It is the the very next room through the curtains."
The speaker clicked off, and a buzzer sounded, undoing the latch and opening the front door.
Willie, ever the cautious one, opening the outer door, he pushed the front door open with the toe of his boot, holding Tommy over his shoulder with one hand, his other staying very close to the gun in his waistband, and looked inside.
The house was dimly lit if barely that. Willie stepped inside, and carried Tommy to the room off to the left as instructed by the houses owner. The screen door closed behind him with barely an audible click. The front door closing just as Ann reached the front porch.

Running up the steps, she banged on the screen door just as it closed. Pulling on the handle, she screamed at Willie to open the door, to bring back Tommy. The latch held, and her only answer was the wind rustling the vines on the porch. She stepped back, looking for something to use to help break through the door, a brick, a chair, anything. The porch was devoid of anything that could be used as a tool or weapon, just those damned vines. She ran down to Willie's truck, quickly looked in the back where his tools were, he had to have an axe, or a pick, something, anything, to use on the door, the window. There, in the bed of the truck was machete. Grabbing it she ran up the steps, ready to rip open the screen door, when a voice came through over the small speaker just to the left of the door,stopping her in her tracks.

"Now, now Mrs.Hawkins, we can't have you doing that, now can we?" the tinny voice, almost melodic, spoke to Ann.

"I want my son you bitch!" Ann shouted, not caring if she was heard or not.

" Stand back and I'll open the door," came the voice, "Harm my house, and you will not see your son, let alone live to see out the day."
the melody was replaced my menace.

Ann took two steps back, and waited for the door to open, still clutching the machete in her right hand. She heard a buzzer, and then a loud "Click!" and a the door opened, or so she thought. It was just the wrong door. Suddenly the whole world seemed to slide away, and she was falling through space. The porch opened and swallowed her, sending her down to the basement below the Grim house.
She landed on several bags that were stacked in the corner, underneath, and tumbled to the floor. The machete banged of her leg and across the floor. She came to rest against the side wall, unconscious.

A door opened at the top of the stairs about twenty feet above her. Martha Grim looked down at the latest unwelcome arrival to her home, and smiled. "You'll be with your son, soon enough Mrs. Hawkins. Soon enough" She stepped back out of the room, leaving the door
slightly ajar..