Girl in the Walls

by A. J. Gnuse

  “Where the fuck are my tools?” Mr. Traust cried. “I need my hammer! I need my—” He turned back to Eddie, tossing the broken clock to the floor. Then he wrenched his hand inside the hole, his forearm disappearing, the plaster chipping away as he forced his upper arm farther into the dark. He groped through the inside of the wall by feel. His eyes flat, motionless in their sockets, staring emptily at a place just above Eddie’s forehead. Nothing, finding nothing, then he was grinning—eyes huge, oversized, even startled—his fingers found her. His whole body quivered as he grabbed hold and yanked.

  Thumping in the walls. She shrieked again, but the sound was cut short by her coughing. Mr. Traust’s neck had gone blotched with red so deep it might be purple. He contorted his body while his arm pivoted in the hole, like the minute hand of a clock become insane. Feet, small ones, were slapping against the house’s insides.

  “Got her! By her hair!”

  He had grabbed hold. Seized the filament-thin fibers of a net that had been spread all over the house, that they’d walked on every day, that no one had been able to see. Each of those moments now held in the man’s hand. In this room, there’d been the exhale of a breath from behind the overstuffed armchair. Or when, in the middle of the night, just outside, someone had stepped out of Eddie’s way in the hallway. In the morning, when he turned the water of the shower on and adjusted the temperature, the rustle in the attic above him, like some bird turning in its nest. Recollected sounds, her sounds. A sudden flash through Eddie’s mind: just beyond Mr. Traust, through the wall, the image of a face—compact, outlined in half-light—being pulled, scraped raw against the wood beams. Being yanked by the hair, out through the small hole. The man would press the tips of his fingers into her eye sockets, taking hold like he would the holes of a bowling ball.

  Eddie ran across the room and was on him. Gripped the man by the shirt and pulled, trying to get him off the desk. Mr. Traust cursed. He kicked at Eddie with the heel of his boot. “Stop it!” he said, but Eddie kept on, yanking at the pockets of his jeans, bracing his knees against the desk drawers, trying to unhinge Mr. Traust for a moment away from the wall and the girl inside.

  “What the hell are you doing?” the man yelled. “She’s pulling away!”

  Mr. Traust thrust his boot down on the bridge of Eddie’s nose, and set the boy’s face searing. Eddie fell back to the floor with the world weightless around him. The smell of something familiar—flowers or dust—and his brother leaping across him. Eddie on the carpet, seeing Marshall’s fist thrown into the back of the big man’s knee, forcing him to buckle, bending as if he were stuck with a hot poker. He came unhooked from the wall and dropped to all fours on the desk. Marshall’s hands were under Eddie’s armpits, tugging him harshly across the carpet to the door.

  Mr. Traust was agape at them. “What the fuck!”

  “Stay away from my brother,” Marshall said, firm.

  Mr. Traust turned to look back up toward the wall, and they all heard her: that thumping in the wall, scratching—she’d found her grip now, was climbing out of their reach.

  “Dumbasses!” the man said, stuffing his arm back in the hole, grabbing at nothing.

  “You kicked my brother!” Marshall said. “The fuck is wrong with you?”

  Eddie’s fingers found his face and brought back blood from his nostrils. He looked at it, two drops sliding across the back of his hand. The room around him wobbled.

  “I had them by the hair!” Mr. Traust said. “I had one in my hand!”

  Marshall bent Eddie and looked him over. “Are you all right?”

  Eddie shrugged, and Marshall pulled him to his feet.

  “You and the little retard made me lose them,” Mr. Traust said.

  “Fuck you, man,” Marshall said.

  “Y’all are just in my way now.”

  “You kicked my brother in the face, asshole!”

  Mr. Traust stepped down from the desk. His face gone dark. Thick arms rising up from his sides. His hand bleeding, and the arm cut from the wall, too—the meaty forearm trailing a red, seeping line.

  “It’s a little kid in there,” Eddie said. He didn’t know what else to say.

  “Stupid little shits.” Spit fell to the floor with the words.

  “Get behind me, Eddie,” Marshall said.

  Mr. Traust took a step forward. Sweat speckled the man’s shirt. Without looking back, Marshall turned halfway and reached behind him. His hand found Eddie’s shoulder and pushed him in the direction of the doorway.

  “That won’t happen again,” Mr. Traust said. “It’s your house, and I’ve tried to respect that. But you boys are going away. I’m putting you boys away.”

  “Go, Eddie,” Marshall said. “Go. Get out of here. Call 911.”

  “That isn’t going to help,” Mr. Traust said.

  Eddie backed into the hallway, watched as his brother floundered at the pants pocket where he kept his knife. The boy’s hands shaking too much; the blade clattered to the floor. Mr. Traust came up to Marshall and slapped the boy’s fists away like they belonged to a doll. The man grabbed him by the wrist and wrenched his arm around his back.

  Eddie fled into the office. The cordless phone was mounted on the desk. He slammed the door shut and twisted the small lock on the handle. Eddie crossed the room and grabbed the phone with both hands and typed the buttons. He held the receiver so tight to his face it hurt. He shouted so the man would hear, “I’m calling them!”

  Calling would be enough to make him leave. Would have to be. The man couldn’t stay if the police were coming. Eddie didn’t know what he would say to the operator when the call went through. The receiver was still silent in his ear, and Eddie waited. He wouldn’t know what he’d say, but he’d shout and cry if he had to. “Just come,” he’d tell the operator, “and help us.”

  “I’m calling!”

  “Hey,” Mr. Traust said. He was standing right outside the door. “How do you think that’ll happen?” He grunted, and there was the sound of a body struggling against another. The man was holding Marshall tight against him. “Little boy, unlock the door, and come on out. I cut that phone line some time back.”

  The Girl in the Walls

  ELISE PULLED HERSELF THROUGH THE CRAWL SPACE IN THE ATTIC and pushed free the plywood floor. She sucked in the warm, fresh air. Coughed again. Her eyes and nostrils scalded. Whatever the man had released into her house felt like broken glass down her throat. Elise needed to spit, but it hurt to spit. She reached down into her nook and took out one of her water bottles and doused her face, letting it run over her open eyes. Beehive buzzing in her head. Dizzy. She swirled the warm water in her mouth, letting it leak out on its own, dribbling down her chin to the floor. A puddle left there for anyone to see. Didn’t matter.

  The Eater of the Dead had come for her. Nidhogg, who ate the roots of the World Tree. All the names from her books. Hel. The Jabberwock. Satan. He’d come for her, and he wanted to hurt her. He’d come to take her. He’d sent a pillar of smog through her walls to choke and find her.

  What was she to do?

  He had poisoned her home. When he first punched the wall, the impact had come into her thigh—she’d buckled and come loose from her footholds, dangled by her hands like a spider in a broken web. He had come to take her, as he had her parents. His black smoke rising to the sky. Elise needed another place to hide.

  Elise rinsed her face with the remaining water. The attic wouldn’t keep her safe. If she hid here, he would tear the room apart and find her.

  Breathe. The memory of her dad’s voice: Let’s think.

  Without the walls, only one way down, through the attic door. But it would lead her right to Traust. Waiting for her, arms stretched out wide, an owl’s wings. Could she barricade the door?

  Raised voices downstairs, heavy footsteps pounding through the hallway—but they were leading away. They had to know this was where she’d gone. But they weren’t yet coming up for her. She had time. Elise went to the cra
wl space and grabbed a wide plywood board next to the loose one she had used as a cover for her bed. Unlike the other, this one was nailed down, one skinny column of metal in each corner. She planted her feet down in the crawl space, curled her fingers around the lip of the board and pulled. Her back burned, fingers ached until the skinny nail on either side came half free. She knelt in her nook and pushed with her palms up from the other side, wrenched the rest of the board free. It flipped over and dropped loudly on the floor. Elise went to another board beside it and began again.

  None of the nails were deep—she remembered the quick job her mom and dad had done on the floor. When they’d moved in, most of the attic had been unusable, a bare rib cage of crossbeams stitching out from the stairs. Her parents let Elise put some of the thin boards down herself, her dad’s hands wrapped around hers on the warm nail gun.

  But Elise was young, still. She’d grown strong from climbing in the walls, yet her bones were small. The joints of her fingers burned. Her thighs and calves burned. Finally, the second board came up.

  Beneath her, something big was being dragged across the floor. She tossed the second board to the side, and the dark crevice leading into the house’s walls was massive now, like a deep-sea trench bisecting the house. From the light of the dormer, Elise thought she saw faint smoke rising, pulled by the spinning overhead vent. Allow it a way out. This would have to be enough.

  All of her things were now revealed—the coats she used as a bed, her snacks and pencils and drawings, her parents’ things, her clothing and books, and all of Brody’s gifts. Elise grabbed Brody’s old swimming goggles and wrapped a small hand towel around her mouth, tucked its ends into the collar of her shirt. The footsteps were coming back down the hallway toward the attic door.

  Elise determined her path, mapping it out below her. Then she sank down into the crevice again, her feet finding their grips. She descended, the sting of the smoke against her cheeks, back into the walls.

  Boys

  A CLATTERING ABOVE THEM, LIKE SHE WAS RENDING THE HOUSE AT its seams. Mr. Traust’s hands were nervous. His hot palms were wet, and the brothers felt the twitch in them as he squeezed the back of their necks, leading them to their parents’ bathroom. He thrust them inside, one after the other, and shut the door. They heard him grunting, the bed being pushed, carpet catching and tearing beneath its legs, and the brass foot of the bed clanking against the frame, barricading the door. From the other side: “Stay here.” And he left.

  Once his footsteps faded back out to the hall, Marshall turned the knob and thrust his hip against the door. “Help me push!” he told Eddie, who came alongside him, thrusting his shoulder against the heavy oak door, again and again until his entire side throbbed. The wood only clapped against the metal doorframe. Nothing moved. Marshall exhaled. He grimaced at his brother.

  “Eddie, what were you doing? What were you even trying to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “No,” Marshall said. “No. What were you thinking? I saw you. You attacked him. You were just wild, all over the guy. I mean, the man’s huge. And he’s fucking psycho. And there was a woman in there, actually right fucking in there, and he had her . . . Eddie, what happened?”

  “It’s a kid,” Eddie said. “She sounds like—it’s a little girl in there.”

  “A girl?” Marshall said. He looked at the ceiling above them. The look on his face didn’t seem like he thought that was any better.

  “He was trying to hurt her.”

  Marshall stared at Eddie, incredulous. For a second, Eddie thought Marshall would stand up, come press his thumbs against his throat and throttle him out of exasperation. But his brother did nothing, only stood there, staring at him as if Eddie had changed into someone else, something else entirely.

  Marshall cupped a hand across his face. “I’ve fucked this up,” he said. “Bad. We’re in real danger. You’re already hurt.”

  Not far off, Mr. Traust’s footsteps. He was climbing the attic staircase. He was speaking; the low rumble of his voice. They couldn’t make out what he said.

  “What’s he going to do to her?” Eddie said.

  “Eddie,” Marshall said, staring at him. His head jerked in short movements. “I don’t care.”

  The footsteps above them seemed so colossal. Too big for just one man, but they were measured and steady. Whatever the girl had been doing above them, she’d stopped. She was hiding. The bathroom’s overhead vent hummed. Marshall walked across the room, with his hand at his mouth, chewing on his nails. His eyes were wide, beginning to redden at their rims.

  “Once he finds her,” Eddie asked him, “what’s he going to do to her? And us?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The walls stirred. Mr. Traust had already given up in the attic, and had begun descending the staircase. And if they were alone, Eddie didn’t feel it. He felt eyes on each side of him, heard them moving in their sockets. His nose throbbed in pain from the man’s boot. Each of Eddie’s thoughts felt stretched out and stomped on. Soon, Mr. Traust would find her and pull every hair from that girl’s head. The feeling was overwhelming. Eddie raised his fists against the side of his temples and squeezed.

  “Eddie,” Marshall said. “Put your hands down. You’re hurting yourself.”

  The muscles in Eddie’s jaw tightened; pressure building in his temples and working its way down his neck and shoulders. He dug his knuckles deeper.

  Marshall grabbed Eddie’s wrists and jerked his fists away. He held them as he spoke. “Stop it, for Christ’s sake. You’re hurt enough as is.”

  His older brother’s hands on him, the sweat of Marshall’s hot palms on his wrists, the spaces between his fingers—he felt a sense of relief when Marshall finally let go. But the thoughts seemed to release. It’d been like ice water thrown over a rash of poison ivy blisters. Marshall pulled a handful of toilet paper from the roll and wadded it. He brought it to Eddie’s face and held it to his nose.

  “Broken?” Eddie asked.

  “No.” Marshall pressed a thumb to Eddie’s forehead to tilt his head back.

  “What do we do?”

  Marshall’s nostrils flared with each breath. Red prints were forming on the side of his neck from where Mr. Traust had gripped him. On his arms, too. This close, Eddie could see the tremble of his chin, the one place he hadn’t forced his body to go tight to keep from shaking.

  Marshall said, “We’re getting out of this house.”

  Searching, Finding

  THE MAN MOVED THROUGH EACH OF THE ROOMS, LISTENING. ELISE could hear him listening. Her body cried out at her, throat swollen and aching, her thighs throbbing, her calves and toes trembling from the weight. The smoke was still strong down here. It pulled at her, sapping her, ten thousand incorporeal, grabbing hands.

  Outside, tree branches scratched against the house’s siding. The sounds of him, and the boys, were coming from all over. The bandana had helped, for a short time, keeping the smoke from her mouth. But now she tasted the spray; it was almost a powder clinging to the washcloth’s insides. Hard to understand what was happening, where she was exactly in the dark. Was she on the first floor? No, not yet. Her mind was part of a body that was giving out.

  Inside, the footsteps faded. They rose again. Then stopped, abruptly, as if Traust had halted mid-stride, one foot dangling in the air. They changed direction.

  Deep in her belly, the muscles of her diaphragm spasmed as if she were hiccupping. She clenched her neck, tongue tight against the top of her mouth, suppressing the urge to cough. If she didn’t breathe, she wouldn’t have to cough.

  “I found you once.” Traust’s voice through the hallway. “I can find you again.”

  Dizzy, now. A building nausea. Elise lowered herself to a knee on the floor between the walls, and then lay, one arm beneath her. The circulation in the limb would be lost, but let it be lost. Her lungs seemed filled with fire. Her brain swelled against every sharp corner of her skull.

  Elise could stay he
re and sleep. If she could find sleep, she might wake after he’d given up. After the man had given up on looking for her and left. The home would all be cleaned, and the Masons tucked into their separate rooms, books or newspapers in front of them, blinding them, drowsy and unconscious to everything else.

  “Sounds like those boys ran off,” Traust told her. He walked up and down the hall, tapping on the walls again. “So how many of us are left here? Is it just you? How many of you are there?”

  Elise saw nothing in the walls, but she sensed that her eyes had begun to swirl in their sockets. They were swimming. Somewhere else, birds were calling—were they outside? or coming from inside the clock? One small exhale, then inhale. Elise would have to give in to coughing soon. Her body was scratching away at her choice. Finally, she did—she tried to muffle the sound. Lips closed tight, cheeks bulging. Her stomach contracted. Elise thought she might vomit. The bitter taste of the lingering smoke on her tongue. She retched, dry-heaving. She was loud enough to hear.

  And there, beside her, on the other side of the wall. Elise heard him clear his throat. How long had he been waiting, just there? Her pulling free from his grip, the trip up into the attic, the floorboards removed, the descent back into the walls. It was as though none of it had happened. As though she’d been here, and he’d been lying right beside her the whole time.

  Window

  THE BATHROOM WINDOW—UNOPENED FOR YEARS, PAINTED SHUT. Two sets of hands on the window rail, thrusting up to the dimming afternoon sky. The wood came loose from the frame like a gunshot. Marshall wriggled himself out first, dropping down on his hands to the narrow ledge below, swinging both his legs out to drop behind him. His palms slipped on the shingles, sliding forward toward the ledge, but he caught himself on the sharp edge of the rain gutter. Eddie behind him in the window, like in a frame of a mirror. “What about her?” the younger brother said.