The Year of the Storm

by John Mantooth

  I left them and headed back to the front room, to the window to look for him. I knew I’d have to face Sykes, and only time would tell whether I believed my own rhetoric about there being nothing to fear. I was just pressing my face to the window when I heard it.

  A knock on the front door.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  I suppose it could have been Rachel or Tina, but I can honestly say I never really believed it was. Besides the fact that it didn’t seem like something the girls would do—knock—there was also something in the sound, something cold and removed. Something foreign in that knock, a lack of rhythm that still chills me to think about it. It was as if Sykes were announcing his presence, reminding us he was still out there. The nightmare was not yet over. Indeed, it might have just begun.

  I sprinted back down the hallway and pushed the bedroom door open. “Don’t come out until I come to get you.” Mom, sitting on the bed, looked at me groggily.

  “It’s him, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He wants me.”

  “He’s not going to get you. Just stay here until I come back.” I looked at Anna. She was singing quietly, oblivious as always.

  I paused, a thought I had not considered flitting through my mind: What if I didn’t come back? What if Sykes got me before I ever had a chance?

  I dismissed the thought. It wasn’t a thought I could really afford to dismiss, but I couldn’t afford to dwell on it either. It was time to act.

  Closing the door, I walked carefully past the trapdoor that led to the cellar. It was still propped open against the wall like it had been since Tina came out. Once past the cellar opening, I moved quickly to the door. Timing would be key. I’d have to make sure I had enough time to get in position before he came in. And what then? a voice said. It was the voice of doubt, something I’d managed to keep at bay pretty well until now. But now . . . this was uncharted territory. This was a madman. No, the ghost of a madman, and I was running on pure instinct.

  I tiptoed over to the window to look for him. If he’d stepped off the porch, I would be able to see him. Pressing my face against the glass, I scanned the swamp. He was out of sight, which probably meant he was still on the porch. I took a deep breath. There was still time to back out. I’d done nothing so far that couldn’t be repaired, but once I opened that door . . .

  My thoughts were interrupted as I saw Sykes step off the porch and back toward the water. Like a snake, I thought, slithering back into the murk.

  You could catch a snake. It was hard and you had to be extremely careful because not only was their strike quick, it was often fatal. I’d escaped his grasp one time before. I knew this time I might not be so lucky. I walked over to the couch. This was important. I gripped the old thing on one armrest and slid it across the sawdust floor. Once I made it to the hallway, I stopped. Would the couch fit through the hall? Definitely not like this. I flipped it up on one side and pushed it through. It went with an inch or so to spare on each side. I pulled it back out and wondered if I should risk leaving it turned over. It would certainly save me some time, but I had to consider if seeing it overturned would give Sykes pause. In the end, I decided to leave it as it was. One way or another, Sykes was going to come past the cellar door. He had to do it if he wanted to find anybody.

  Once I opened that front door, there would be no turning back. I’d have to make it to the cellar before he saw me or it wouldn’t work. I checked the window again. Sykes was farther out in the swamp, his eyes turned toward the last streaks of red in what must have been the west. Those streaks never changed here, and more than anything else that was what made me do it. See, I had Mom and Anna, but staying here would mean I’d lose myself. I needed for this to end. I needed to rejoin the real world because that was the way real life worked. Even then, I sensed that one day this would all recede like a bad dream.

  I strode quickly to the door. Purposefully. My hand fell on the door handle. I drew a sharp breath and let it out. Then I turned the handle and pulled the door back.

  I didn’t wait to see if he noticed. Instead, I bolted for the hall, for the ladder leading down to the cellar. I stopped halfway down the ladder, so that I was completely inside, hidden from view unless Sykes were to stand right over the opening and peer directly down at me. Still, I was close enough to the top that I’d be able to reach for him when he went past me. I meant to grab his ankle, his foot, and pull him inside the cellar. If things went perfectly, he’d fall to the ground while I stayed on the ladder, leaving me plenty of time to get out and shut the door before he could make it back up. Then I had to get the couch and shove it down the short hall and over the hatch.

  It would be near impossible.

  So I made myself think of something else. I thought of Dad, the look on his face when Mom and Anna came back. When I showed up at the jail with both of them. Sheriff Martin—providing he’d survived the storm—would piss himself. The papers, the news channels, they’d all have to write new stories about Mom and Anna and where they’d been. Scientists would want to investigate the storm shelter, the woods around our house. They’d want to see the painting, and I’d tell the whole story about Seth, and . . .

  Who was I kidding? Even at fourteen, I had enough sense to know nobody would believe any of that.

  So what would it be like? No idea. One thing at a time, Danny. One thing at a—

  I heard a footstep near the front door. He’d be on the porch by now, stunned into a deep suspicion by the door being flung open wide. But the suspicion would not be enough to override his hunger (He wants me, Mom had said), and he would come down the hall anyway.

  Something—likely the door—creaked and I heard his footsteps again. He was moving slowly, checking things out, surely wary of a trap.

  I waited, my hands growing sweaty and weary around the ladder rungs.

  He came closer, one slow footstep at a time.

  Then I heard him stop. For a long time, the house was still. I pictured him beside the couch now, trying to puzzle out why it had been left there, turned over like it was. Time passed, and after a while, I began to count in my head to mark time. I made it to nearly three hundred before I lost track and gave up. My heart thudded in my chest. I heard Anna’s voice, very faintly, from somewhere above me. She was saying one of her words, happy and carefree, and I allowed myself a brief moment of envy. At that moment, I might have traded my so-called normalcy for Anna’s ability to be oblivious.

  If Sykes heard the noise, he gave no indication. The cabin was quiet. Mom shushed Anna. There were other murmurs from the back. Surely he’d hear this and be unable to resist.

  I removed my hands one at a time from the sweat-dampened ladder and wiped them on my shorts. Below me, the darkness seemed to simmer, and I thought I heard noises from there too.

  I turned away from the cellar, choosing to focus on the dim light above me. Total focus. No distractions.

  But Sykes was being still. Silent. Was it possible he’d abandoned the house, sensing a trap? No, he was still there, probably just a few feet from the ladder, waiting, trying to draw me out. Hadn’t he done Pike the same way, so many years ago? I tightened my sweaty palms on the ladder rung. I wouldn’t be tricked. I’d stay here as long as I needed to stay.

  Time is a nonentity in the swamp. You wait and wait, and nothing changes, so you begin to question how long you’ve been waiting at all. When it doesn’t get darker, when it’s always dusk, this makes time seem slow, stuck, so to speak. So I waited as patiently as I could, long enough to become frustrated, to almost give up. I waited long enough that my feet hurt from standing on the ladder rung, long enough that my arms grew stiff and sore and I wanted to stretch them out, so I leaned back, extending them as far as they would go.

  Even though the standoff seemed to last for an eternity, it shouldn’t have mattered. I should have played it smart and waited as long as it took, but I b
egan to believe no man could stay silent as long as he had. I truly believed he was gone.

  I climbed slowly, peeking my head out over the lip of the cellar just enough to look down the hallway.

  Do you know how it feels to realize you’ve made a critical mistake and it’s too late to fix it? There’s usually a rush of shock, an initial reaction to try to take it back, and then the realization that you can’t. I’ve felt a similar phenomenon while driving. I once pulled out in front of a truck that I didn’t see. Time slowed down. I wanted to throw the car in reverse and go back to where I was, but time wasn’t that slow. All I could do was cope. I floored the car, trying to buy myself some time before impact. But the impact came. I’d guaranteed that by pulling out in front of the truck.

  That’s how I felt when I eased up out of the cellar and looked down the hallway. Sykes was standing there, his body perfectly still, a wicked, expectant grin plastered across his face. He saw me immediately and his smile grew larger, but otherwise he made no move, instead waiting to see what mine would be.

  And I almost blew it. I’d already begun stepping down the ladder to retreat inside the cellar when I realized he’d only close the door on me and go take full advantage of Mom and Anna.

  So I did the only other thing I could think of—I scrambled out of the cellar and up to the ground level to face him.

  At least I was smart enough to position myself on the other side of the cellar from him. That still meant he’d have to cross the opening in order to reach me or anyone else.

  He laughed when he saw me face him, my fists at my sides, ready.

  “This is my house,” he said, and took a step forward.

  I tensed, readying my body to leap. A half-formed plan had wedged itself in my brain. I hadn’t considered the consequences, which was just fine.

  “Those two girls? Mine.”

  Another step.

  “A man doesn’t get much in this godforsaken world, and what’s his is his. Your mama? Mine too. I’ve got plans for her. Plans for you too, although I wouldn’t exactly call those plans long-term.”

  He was close to the edge now, and he had to look down at his feet to avoid falling in.

  “This cellar? Mine too.”

  He stepped across the cellar opening.

  Had I been thinking, there was no way I would have done what I did, but instead of thinking, I acted, launching myself toward him with an earsplitting scream. For a moment, the whole world slipped inside that scream. It was a battle cry, a call of ecstasy, a prayer. It was all of these things, and I felt it coursing through my veins and my veins pumping blood to my arms and legs and those arms and legs flying into action. I jumped from several feet away, laying my body out like a wide receiver lays out when he’s trying to catch a pass. Halfway there, I realized I was going to go down with him. It wasn’t a regret. Just a realization.

  I hit him with a tackle my middle school football coach would be proud of. Lead with the shoulder, head up, arms out. I knocked him back and into the cellar.

  I tried to grab the side, the ladder, something to avoid going down with him, but Sykes held on to me and together we tumbled inside.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  There are parts of the journey that are so indelibly etched in my mind that I can go there in an instant, turn back the clock to the moment as if experiencing it again for the first time.

  Going into the cellar with Sykes was one of those moments. Losing the dusk, the half-light of the cabin, my grip—however tenuous—on reality and disappearing into the full dark of the cellar. Slipping, actually. Slipping right into darkness.

  The darkness was first. Second was the inability to breathe. He was squeezing my midsection, his two fists tight under my rib cage like some terrible version of the Heimlich. I smelled him. That was the third thing. His body reeked of the swamp, and all the dead, decomposing things—mildewed leaves, fish, the rotten corpses of a thousand dead animals.

  I flailed my hands around in desperation, trying to beat at his shoulders and arms, but since he was under me and he held me so tight, there was little damage I could do to him. I reached for his face, only to have him bite my hand savagely. I felt the sickening crunch of his tooth grinding against my knuckle.

  I still couldn’t breathe.

  My lungs squeezed shut. I had to cough. There was a moment when I became Seth drowning in quicksand, Jake reaching out to shove him under, except now it was Sykes, his iron grip around my midsection. I flailed and sputtered and felt like I was being burned slowly, from the inside out, like a bomb that was ticking toward detonation.

  Then—and this is the part that is most clear—I heard a voice, calm and soothing. It was a voice that loosened the knot that I had frantically been cinching ever tighter in my desperation.

  “Reach out for my hand.”

  The voice belonged to Pike. I had no doubt of it then or now. With my free hand, I reached blindly. I grazed his fingers and strained my back trying to touch them again. Finally, his hand enveloped mine. His grip was strong and firm, and I felt him pulling me away from Sykes. I flew through the air. My eyes were still shut, but images flashed before them like one of those time-lapse movies when the director speeds everything up really fast to show the passing of time. I saw a glimpse of Pike sitting in his cabin, the oxygen tubes in his nostrils; I saw him in the dark woods standing on the edge of a bright clearing, taking in the view; I saw him leaning over the counter, Cap’s shirt bunched inside his fist; I saw this and more until they became a fluttering of images so fast that I couldn’t make out a single one except the last: Pike smiling at me on a cloudy day in the woods—the real woods I’d grown up playing in—a fresh rain covering everything with a shiny polish. I didn’t know it then, but this last image was one I would see again, and one I would always remember.

  After the images stopped, I hit the cellar ground hard enough to force the breath out of me. I lay there for a second, trying to breathe normally. I couldn’t see anything other than the top of the ladder above me but decided that would work both ways. Sykes wouldn’t be able to see anything either.

  I scrambled to my feet and lunged toward the ladder. I grabbed it and started going up. I was a rung from the top when I felt his hand on my ankle. He yanked hard, and both feet lost contact with the steps. Somehow, I managed to keep my hands on the ladder. I kicked backward with the foot he wasn’t holding and landed a blow to what must have been his face. He gasped and let go of my ankle. I made it to the top and tried to pull my way out onto the plank floor.

  Mom was there, staring at me, her mouth gaping.

  I got my elbows up. And then my midsection. “Go,” I gasped at Mom. “Go back to the room.”

  She shook her head and ran to me, kneeling beside the cellar opening, reaching for my arms, pulling me up.

  Without her help, I probably wouldn’t have made it because Sykes grabbed me again, this time around the thighs. Both of her arms wrapped around me and for a moment I was stretched between the darkness below and my mother. She pulled on me hard, but her hands were slipping, she was losing her grip on me.

  When I realized she wasn’t going to overpower him, I met her eyes. Let go, I mouthed.

  She stared at me.

  I nodded at her, and I hoped she could see my confidence in my face. She shook her head.

  Trust me, I mouthed.

  She let go.

  I knew what would happen—or at least I thought I did. Turns out, I was right. Sykes had been pulling hard. When Mom let go, he pulled us both back in. This time, though, I landed on top of him as he hit his head on the dirt floor. His arms flailed up and I was free. I scrambled toward the ladder and made it up in seconds. Once clear of the hole, I slammed down the lid and leaned back against the hallway wall, trying to catch my breath.

  Mom came over to me and hugged me hard. I buried my face against her shoulder and hugged her
back.

  I don’t know how long I would have stood there with her if I hadn’t heard the thunk of his feet and hands on the metal ladder below us.

  “The couch,” I said.

  “What?” Mom let go of me.

  “We’ve got to get the couch.”

  His fingers were on the underside of the door now. I could hear them, touching, probing, looking for the latch.

  “Come on!” I sprinted down the hallway and jumped over the couch. Mom was right behind me, but I had to wait for her to get out of the way before I could slide it to the top of the door. She got on one side and together we pushed. As we pushed the couch closer, I saw the handle turn and the door begin to lift . . .

  We shoved harder, forcing the couch over the door, and the weight of the couch made the door slam shut.

  I heard a moan and then a thunk as he hit the bottom again.

  Out of breath, I plopped down on top of the couch and felt the absurd desire to say that line from The Wizard of Oz. So I did.

  “Ding dong,” I whispered. “The witch is dead.”

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Except he wasn’t. As far as I knew, he couldn’t die. He could be hurt, maybe trapped (as I hoped I had done), but something told me he couldn’t be killed. Pike had already done that once, and as far as killing went, I suspected once was enough.

  He needs to move on, I thought. Just like the girls. Just like us.

  No, not just like us. We would all be going different places. Or so I hoped.

  “What now?” Mom said.

  I pulled myself up. “Now, we need to go for a walk. Through the swamp. But we have to hurry.”