by Isla Morley
Whatever he registers in my face makes him start to plead. “I tried to save him, Blythe. I know what this must look like to you, but it wasn’t like that. I sat with him, for hours. Wait, I’ll show you. I kept notes—they’re somewhere in this stack—” Dobbs starts shuffling through piles of papers because he has run out of lies.
“You didn’t try to save him. You’re lying. Just like you’ve been lying about taking us out of here!”
“You’re not listening to me; I am trying to tell you—”
“What about the baby? Did you keep her down here, too?”
Dobbs is shaking his head. He keeps rummaging through papers, knocking entire columns of notebooks to the floor. “No, look, you’ve gotten the wrong idea about all of this. I told you I buried her. If I can just find—”
He stops when I ask, “Where did you put Charlie?”
Dobbs won’t answer. Instead, he starts to snivel. I realize that there can be only one place. The silo. Adam must have broken in and gone down that shaft to get his notebooks and found Charlie’s remains instead. And all at once, I know that Adam is in grave danger—not from his injury but of winding up like Charlie.
In all the many years I have spent hating this man, I cannot deny the times I have felt sorry for him—isn’t this precisely how the devil gets away with murder? But what I feel for him now is nothing akin to hate. You could fire up hell’s furnaces with what I feel for this man. You could drill down to the earth’s cauldron and find nothing near as fiery.
We are in the kitchen. Dobbs is trying to get me to listen. I am trying to still the hundred voices screaming in my head, not least of which is Charlie’s.
Dobbs is not crying anymore; he’s gone on the offense. “I get it; I’m the beast. Is that what you want? You want me to be the bad guy, fine. I’ll be the bad guy.
“You should thank me, instead of looking at me that way. The lengths I went to to keep you happy—getting the child, then trying to keep him alive for you, even though you near done him in yourself. Unfit is what you were back then. Don’t you remember that?”
It’s welcome, the sting of his words. It’s acid eating through maggoty flesh.
Dobbs sits at the table, more sure of himself now that he doesn’t have to bear both his weight and the weight of his lies. Doing us all a favor is what he’s going on about, and I can’t see straight for the picture of Charlie.
Turning my back to him, I battle for breath. The silence is screeching now. I go to turn the kettle off, but there is no kettle. The screeching is coming from someplace else. It is so loud I have to force myself not to press my hands over my ears. And then I notice the bottle of chloroform has not been put away. I pick up the washrag. I pretend to wipe the counter.
Dobbs is still talking when I quietly open the bottle and empty it into the rag. I turn around. He is still talking when I rush at him and knock back his chair. With every bit of strength I clamp that rag against his nose.
He bucks. I latch on even tighter. Adam is not going to end up like Charlie.
Dobbs wheels onto his side. My grip slips. I go for his face again. He claws me, gets ahold of my shirt and pulls. In the process of wrestling, I strike him in the head. It’s the first time I’ve ever hit him good and proper, and it’s as if I’ve reached in a fire and picked up burning coals. It feels that good. Dobbs strikes me back, and something in my mouth gives way, which feels even better. This is what I should have done years ago, instead of all the arguments and the raging silent protests, the hunger strikes and bargaining, the whoring and hoping. I spit out the tooth and make another go for his jaw, this time knuckles first. My swing is knocked off its trajectory by his hand. Somehow, I still manage to get a handful of hair. His neck is seamed by the knotty, purple vein. I bite it, hard as I can. He grabs my hair, rips my head back. His other hand lashes out and catches me in the windpipe. I keel over.
Dobbs rights me, then twists my arm behind my back and knees me forward, past the doorway and down the stairs. “You want me to show you what I did? I’ll show you!”
He aims to lock me up. The silo!
We get to the utility tunnel. I jut my leg against the doorjamb and propel myself backward. He lunges against me with his shoulder, as though I’m a gate he is determined to bust through. I stumble forward and quickly do an about-turn. I grab his shin and sink my teeth into it. As Dobbs screams, I scramble out of the tunnel and fly up the stairs. I make it all the way to the living room before he tackles me from behind. He cinches his arms around my narrow waist and tries jostling me upright. My hands clamor for something to hold on to—a table leg, a chair. The only thing within my reach is my crochet work.
Somehow, Dobbs manages to sling me over his shoulder. He stumbles toward the exit.
I can see where Dobbs is balding, see the scabs between his hair follicles. He has a wet-dog smell. He grunts as he tries to get me through the doorway.
I free the crochet needle from its stitching. I raise my hand. Before he steps across the threshold, I slam it into his neck as hard as I can.
The hook plunges in with little resistance, kind of like driving a screwdriver into a bag of seed corn. It’s the sound that’s off-putting—the emptying of a pail of slop. I drive it in even farther. His grip around my thighs tightens. I wonder if I am going to have to pull the darn thing out and stab him again. But his arms loosen and then become slack, and next, we are making a graceful arc toward the floor.
DOBBS LIES WHERE he fell, on his chest, his knees folded up beneath him, his arms beside him, palms up. He hasn’t moved. Around his head is a bloody halo. His eyes are fixed on some distant horizon. I intend to rob him of it. No gazing into a soft-bellied twilight. The truth at hand is what he must face: blood, guts, death.
After checking on Adam, I unlatch the keys from Dobbs’s belt. They jingle when I shake them. The sound seems to distress Dobbs. It is less of a groan, more of a gurgle as he tries to speak. I bend down. His fingers beckon me closer. I put my ear right up next to his mouth.
“Don’t,” he manages.
“Don’t what?”
The darkness is edging in, the walls are stooping forward, the ceiling is lowering itself. Something of the hell I’ve lived with comes for him now.
A shudder runs through him. “Don’t . . . leave me.”
Ah, yes.
I make sure he sees me put the keys in my pocket before taking his head in my hands. His eyes close slowly, mistaking the gesture for a caress perhaps, then flick open when I pivot his head to the other side. He now has nothing to obstruct the view of me walking about, able for the first time in years to do as I please. I step over him and follow the stairs down. Not something I please, but something I must. As much as I want to grab Adam and dash outside, I cannot leave Charlie at the bottom of the pit.
At the entrance to the utility tunnel, I take a deep breath. I unlatch the flashlight from its mount on the wall and take determined steps to the silo door. The padlock and chain are lying on the floor.
Penetrating the rank darkness of the silo takes every bit as much will as stabbing Dobbs. There are no lights in here. A beam not much wider than my index finger is all the flashlight can muster against the immensity of the darkness. Dobbs used to frighten Adam about this place with tales of demons, just as he did with Scalpers Above. “The ladder goes all the way down to hell,” he’d say. I believe it. I tell myself it is the air finding release, but the sounds coming up from the depths are like the dead calling out a warning.
A narrow platform of rusty metal grates runs alongside the perimeter of the outer wall. Separating me from the yawning void is nothing but a puny rail. I aim the flashlight above. Somewhere up there are two massive doors that used to open for a rocket. I have to take Dobbs’s word for it because it seems nothing like being in the earth. Deep space is what it feels like. I shift to the right. Huge metal contraptions are attached to the wall. What I see bears no resemblance to those old blueprints. To me, this looks like the decaying innards of
a beast.
With the flashlight trained to the platform and my steps ringing out across the hollowness, I concentrate on not falling. Some of the platform’s grates wobble like loose rocks. In several places, the going is slow, especially near the rickety landing of the freight elevator, which seems in danger of coming unbolted from the wall.
I know from Dobbs that the shaft is 174 feet deep. This information is of no use. I take out the glow sticks, snap them, and throw them over the rails. I count to time their descent. They make no sound when they land. Might as well be no bottom.
I come to the creaky, spiral staircase. Armed with the sliver of light, I take a deep breath, tighten the straps of Charlie’s backpack, and test my foot on the first rung.
The wall beside me is pitted and pocked and stained with brown streaks, as though the place has been weeping for all time. Best put aside such thoughts. I lower myself to the next rung and then the next. With my left hand, I grip the rail. I count the rungs as I go.
If this is a skyscraper, I am scaling it with a fraying rope.
It’s just a building, I keep telling myself. Yes, but what building is large enough to create its own weather? The air was dry where I started; now I am descending into something dewy. I can smell it too—coppery. Like thunderstorms.
I can hear my breath running too fast and too shallow. I am beginning to feel light-headed. I am very grateful for the handrails and the rungs. Until all of a sudden there isn’t a rung. My foot dangles in the air. I wave the beam of light until it catches the place where the ladder picks up again. To continue going, I have to breach a gap almost the length of me.
It is a tricky feat, maneuvering the dead space. My arms ache and my hands are sore from gripping, but I make it. The rungs, if not entirely stable, are again evenly spaced. My breath becomes more regular, and with the repetitiveness of putting down one foot after the next, my mind begins to drift. I wonder if I haven’t gone to sleep, haven’t entered the dream of landing on the moon, when my foot finally finds solid ground. I put a second foot down and even then do not trust what I am standing on.
Turning from the ladder, I sweep the light in front of me. In the green fog is a reeking heap. Burst garbage bags, a tangle of hoses, aluminum tiles, old consoles, an upholstered chair with the springs poking out. Most of the stuff appears to be fixtures from when the place was operational, but there is a lot of Dobbs’s trash, too. In an old toolbox is a bolt cutter. I put it in the backpack. I come upon a couple of Adam’s notebooks. They go in the backpack, too.
I scramble among the rubble until I find the tiny clothes—a blue shirt, a gray pair of pants. I scoop up the bundle and wrap it in my sweater. Even if I live to be a hundred, there will never be enough ways to atone. “I’m taking you home, Charlie.”
* * *
According to Dobbs’s watch, I have been gone thirty-three minutes. How is it there is still a trickle of life left in him?
“See this?”
Dobbs parts his eyes slowly. A gargle comes from his throat.
“No, don’t say anything. I want you just to look.” I show him Charlie.
More gurgles.
“When you’re burning in hell, I don’t want you to think about me. I want you to see this child. I want you to picture Adam, too. Picture them in a meadow. Picture them free.”
His mouth moves into a “What?” shape, and then a “Why?” shape, and finally it is the shape of a dark, deep well. From it seeps the last that’s left inside him, spit and blood. If there are regrets in his last breath, they’re lost on me.
* * *
Groggy, Adam moans and holds his side. I help him sit up and give him half a painkiller and a cup of water. He scratches the rash around his mouth and nose.
“It’s from the chloroform. It’ll go away soon,” I tell him.
His face looks blotchy, his lips are cracked, and his shirt is damp from sweat. He folds a corner of the bandage to look at the wound.
“Does it hurt real bad?”
He shrugs. “It’s okay.” He notices the suitcase. I’ve packed what we can carry: a change of clothes; the knitted stuffed toys I made him; the family of orphaned sock monkeys; Grandpa’s watch; the notebooks. “Maybe we can get someone to come back for the rest of your stuff.”
“We’re leaving?” He struggles to his feet and notices the body in the doorway. “Is he . . . ?”
“Yes.”
There comes no how or why or when. Just that same wounded look of someone who’s been lied to his whole life. “We weren’t here because of the Disaster,” Adam says.
“No.”
“Because there was no disaster.”
“That’s right.”
Adam starts shaking his head. “I don’t understand. Why are we here?”
“He stole me when I was a girl, two years before you were born.”
“And Charlie?”
“He stole him, too.”
“And that was him down in the silo?”
“Yes. I have him now. We’re going to give him back to his family.”
“Did Mister . . . ?”
“Yes, he did.” And I played my part in that tragedy, too.
“He was never going to let us go, was he?”
“No, he wasn’t.”
I pick up the suitcase. “I’m going to do my best to answer all your questions.” I lay my hand on his arm. “But first, we must get you to a doctor.”
I look around the place one last time. It seems different. Not the blood or the smell of death—like sorghum. Everything is exactly as it’s always been. And yet, it’s all changed. You can’t see change; you can only feel it.
I bend down and pull the notepad from Dobbs’s top pocket. We step over his body and pass through the entrapment vestibule. I give Adam the notepad. He flips it open to the codes. He punches in the numbers. We look at each other, listening to the locks slide. Adam seems to pay no mind to the pain. Both of us are fixed on one thing, and one thing only—the door at the top of the stairs. Over the years, my mind turned it into the size of a ceiling, and here it is, no bigger than a closet door.
When we get to it, Adam turns around with his eyebrows raised, expecting me to say something.
What is there to say?
My keeper is dead. All that’s left of him is the secret. And what a pitiful little secret I have turned out to be. A secret, even a long-held one, can turn out to be such a liar. My son is about to know the extent of this. If only there was one thing I could say, one thing that could explain everything. And if not to explain it, then perhaps to prime the pump for the forgiveness that is his to withhold. And if not to explain it, or have it forgiven, then to prepare him before the lies come at him like starved wolves.
“There are others,” I finally manage. “They are not all like him. There are so many who are good, who will be kind to you. Let them.”
“Okay.”
As for the whole truth—it can’t be told; it can only be shown.
I nod. “Go on, then.”
He turns the handle and gives it a shove. I can barely utter the words. “We’re free.”
Part Two
ABOVE
V
IT IS NIGHTTIME, not Lights Out. It is Above. It is earth. Kansas. Home. The terrible ordeal is over. I want to tell Adam this, but I have to put my hands on my knees and wait first for the dizziness to pass. It’s so loud out here. A pulsing drone is spliced with sudden rustling and retreating whispers. In three-four time, something trills. A chirp close enough to tap me on the shoulder rings out, then takes off. Around us swirls an endless shushing.
My skin crawls. I dust my arms and check to see whether I’ve stepped in an ant nest. Nothing other than goose bumps. Nothing other than thrill. I straighten up, take another couple of steps, and stumble again. Easy, easy, I tell myself. No need to run. I cover my ears to see if it will improve my balance. Even with black-and-white spots popping in my eyes, I can tell there is something wrong with this darkness. It isn’t th
e impermeable darkness of Below. This is a tricky entity, a space that differentiates itself into varying degrees of densities. It is a space that needs navigating. I no longer trust a darkness I can see through.
I reach for Adam as a blind person might. He takes my arm and we both stand teetering as though on tippy-toes at the edge of a cliff.
“What is that?” Adam buries his nose and mouth in the crook of his arm.
The smell is overpowering, alarming, like a gas leak. Vegetation. The smell of growing things. “Plants,” I tell him. “It’s okay.”
His reply is muffled and I catch only one word: stings.
I can’t argue. Every inhalation is an assault. Each breath sears the inside of my nose. A memory from light-years ago: Gerhard pushing me into a swimming pool, getting water up my nose. That’s what it’s like to breathe fresh air. Reflexively, I open my mouth, and just as quickly, find the air has a taste to it. Soapy. “Let’s just take it slow.”
Two wobbly steps forward, and Adam drops to the ground. I crouch beside him. Is he faint? I feel sick to my stomach, but what I’ve got is more like stage fright. What Adam has is a knife wound that may have caused damage to his insides. God help me if he succumbs now. Somehow, I have to hurry this process along. In response to my offer to help him to his feet, he makes a sound I have never heard before. A guttural sound, something a dog might make if pelted with a stone. “Adam! What is it?”
He shakes free of my embrace. He lifts up something with both hands. It falls through his fingers. “Earth,” he cries. “It’s earth!” The stinging air, my ears popping as though from a sudden change in altitude, and still, I can barely believe it. I, too, kneel. It is an act of worship.
Adam runs his hands over the ground. He scratches it, rubs it, scoops it up. Because he insists, I draw my initials in the dirt, too. Soon, the wind will blow it away and there will be nothing of me in this place.