The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares by Joyce Carol Oates Page A
Authors: Joyce Carol Oates
Tags: Short Fiction, Fiction.Horror, Collection.Single Author, Fiction.Thriller/Suspense, Acclaimed.Bram Stoker Award
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“Y-You? Mikal? You’re arrested—?”
“No. I am not arrested, Joshua.”
He believes I might be guilty. My own cousin believes I might be a sexual predator.
Still, within ninety minutes, after a flurry of increasingly desperate phone calls, Zallman had retained a Manhattan criminal lawyer named Neuberger who didn’t blithely assure him, as Zallman halfway expected he would, that there was nothing to worry about.
TARRYTOWN RESIDENT QUESTIONED
IN ABDUCTION OF 11-YEAR-OLD
SEARCH FOR MARISSA CONTINUES
SKATSKILL DAY INSTRUCTOR IN POLICE CUSTODY
6TH GRADER STILL MISSING
SKATSKILL DAY INSTRUCTOR QUESTIONED BY POLICE
TENTATIVE IDENTIFICATION OF MINIVAN
BELIEVED USED IN ABDUCTION
MIKAL ZALLMAN, 31, COMPUTER CONSULTANT
QUESTIONED BY POLICE IN CHILD ABDUCTION
ZALLMAN: “I AM INNOCENT”
TARRYTOWN RESIDENT QUESTIONED BY POLICE
IN CHILD ABDUCTION CASE
Luridly spread across the front pages of the newspapers were photographs of the missing girl, the missing girl’s mother, and “alleged suspect Mikal Zallman.”
It was a local TV news magazine. Neuberger had warned him not to watch TV, just as he should not REPEAT SHOULD NOT answer the telephone if he didn’t have caller ID, and for sure he should not answer his door unless he knew exactly who was there. Still, Zallman was watching TV fortified by a half dozen double-strength Tylenols that left him just conscious enough to stare at the screen disbelieving what he saw and heard.
Skatskill Day students, their faces blurred to disguise their identities, voices eerily slurred, telling a sympathetic female broadcaster their opinions of Mikal Zallman.
Mr Zallman, he’s cool. I liked him okay.
Mr Zallman is kind of sarcastic I guess. He’s okay with the smart kids but the rest of us it’s like he’s trying real hard and wants us to know.
I was so surprised! Mr. Zallman never acted like that, you know—weird. Not in computer lab.
Mr. Zallman has, like, these laser eyes? I always knew he was scary.
Mr. Zallman looks at us sometimes! It makes you shiver.
Some kids are saying he had, like, a hairbrush? To brush the girls’ hair? I never saw it.
This hairbrush Mr. Zallman had, it was so weird! He never used it on me, guess I’m not pretty-pretty enough for him.
He’d help you in the lab after school if you asked. He was real nice to me. All this stuff about Marissa, I don’t know. It makes me want to cry.
And there was Dr. Adrienne Cory, principal of Skatskill Day, grimly explaining to a skeptical interviewer that Mikal Zallman whom she had hired two and a half years previously had excellent credentials, had come highly recommended, was a conscientious and reliable staff member of whom there had been no complaints.
No complaints! What of the students who’d just been on the program?
Dr. Cory said, twisting her mouth in a semblance of a placating smile, “Well. We never knew.”
And would Zallman continue to teach at Skatskill Day?
“Mr. Zallman has been suspended with pay for the time being.”
His first, furious thought was I will sue .
His second, more reasonable thought was I must plead my case .
He had friends at Skatskill Day, he believed. The young woman who thought herself less-than-happily married, and who’d several times invited Zallman to dinner; a male math teacher, whom he often met at the gym; the school psychologist, whose sense of humor dovetailed with his own; and Dr. Cory herself, who was quite an intelligent woman, and a kindly woman, who had always seemed to like Zallman.
He would appeal to them. They must believe him!
Zallman insisted upon a meeting with Dr. Cory, face-to-face. He insisted upon being allowed to present his side of the case. He was informed that his presence at the school was “out ofthe question” at the present time; a mere glimpse of Zallman, and faculty members as well as students would be “distracted.”
If he tried to enter the school building on Monday morning, Zallman was warned, security
“No. I am not arrested, Joshua.”
He believes I might be guilty. My own cousin believes I might be a sexual predator.
Still, within ninety minutes, after a flurry of increasingly desperate phone calls, Zallman had retained a Manhattan criminal lawyer named Neuberger who didn’t blithely assure him, as Zallman halfway expected he would, that there was nothing to worry about.
TARRYTOWN RESIDENT QUESTIONED
IN ABDUCTION OF 11-YEAR-OLD
SEARCH FOR MARISSA CONTINUES
SKATSKILL DAY INSTRUCTOR IN POLICE CUSTODY
6TH GRADER STILL MISSING
SKATSKILL DAY INSTRUCTOR QUESTIONED BY POLICE
TENTATIVE IDENTIFICATION OF MINIVAN
BELIEVED USED IN ABDUCTION
MIKAL ZALLMAN, 31, COMPUTER CONSULTANT
QUESTIONED BY POLICE IN CHILD ABDUCTION
ZALLMAN: “I AM INNOCENT”
TARRYTOWN RESIDENT QUESTIONED BY POLICE
IN CHILD ABDUCTION CASE
Luridly spread across the front pages of the newspapers were photographs of the missing girl, the missing girl’s mother, and “alleged suspect Mikal Zallman.”
It was a local TV news magazine. Neuberger had warned him not to watch TV, just as he should not REPEAT SHOULD NOT answer the telephone if he didn’t have caller ID, and for sure he should not answer his door unless he knew exactly who was there. Still, Zallman was watching TV fortified by a half dozen double-strength Tylenols that left him just conscious enough to stare at the screen disbelieving what he saw and heard.
Skatskill Day students, their faces blurred to disguise their identities, voices eerily slurred, telling a sympathetic female broadcaster their opinions of Mikal Zallman.
Mr Zallman, he’s cool. I liked him okay.
Mr Zallman is kind of sarcastic I guess. He’s okay with the smart kids but the rest of us it’s like he’s trying real hard and wants us to know.
I was so surprised! Mr. Zallman never acted like that, you know—weird. Not in computer lab.
Mr. Zallman has, like, these laser eyes? I always knew he was scary.
Mr. Zallman looks at us sometimes! It makes you shiver.
Some kids are saying he had, like, a hairbrush? To brush the girls’ hair? I never saw it.
This hairbrush Mr. Zallman had, it was so weird! He never used it on me, guess I’m not pretty-pretty enough for him.
He’d help you in the lab after school if you asked. He was real nice to me. All this stuff about Marissa, I don’t know. It makes me want to cry.
And there was Dr. Adrienne Cory, principal of Skatskill Day, grimly explaining to a skeptical interviewer that Mikal Zallman whom she had hired two and a half years previously had excellent credentials, had come highly recommended, was a conscientious and reliable staff member of whom there had been no complaints.
No complaints! What of the students who’d just been on the program?
Dr. Cory said, twisting her mouth in a semblance of a placating smile, “Well. We never knew.”
And would Zallman continue to teach at Skatskill Day?
“Mr. Zallman has been suspended with pay for the time being.”
His first, furious thought was I will sue .
His second, more reasonable thought was I must plead my case .
He had friends at Skatskill Day, he believed. The young woman who thought herself less-than-happily married, and who’d several times invited Zallman to dinner; a male math teacher, whom he often met at the gym; the school psychologist, whose sense of humor dovetailed with his own; and Dr. Cory herself, who was quite an intelligent woman, and a kindly woman, who had always seemed to like Zallman.
He would appeal to them. They must believe him!
Zallman insisted upon a meeting with Dr. Cory, face-to-face. He insisted upon being allowed to present his side of the case. He was informed that his presence at the school was “out ofthe question” at the present time; a mere glimpse of Zallman, and faculty members as well as students would be “distracted.”
If he tried to enter the school building on Monday morning, Zallman was warned, security
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