The Cellar

by Peter Fugazzotto

  "Why you gotta be this way?" asked Lipsky. "Why you gotta be on him all the time?"

  "Just because he cut your eyes free doesn't mean he still isn't a selfish prick. Some things never change."

  "Like your jealousy."

  "And you being the biggest loser out of the bunch of us."

  Suddenly a shadow loomed in the doorway.

  "He's coming," whispered Jay. "On my god..."

  "I go away for five minutes and you're fighting already?" Tug stumbled against the doorway. He had found a metal crutch and his stump was tightly bound in silver duct tape.

  "What took you so long?" I asked.

  "Between passing out and all the blood in the other room, it took me a while to find this." He opened up his palm. In it sat an iron key. "You ready, boys? Oh, and I brought duct tape."

  65

  We were a bloody mess, all of us, dragging ourselves out of the cellar. Tug with his crutch led the way, a hand axe found in the torture room in his hand. Jay stuck close to him, so close that when Tug stopped to listen at our doorway Jay bumped right into him. I followed, hobbling on my duct tape-bandaged feet, with the saw blade clutched in my fist and behind me came Lipsky whimpering, choking back sobs.

  "Don't worry," I said over my shoulder to him.

  "Yeah, right."

  I hated his cynicism but deep down I felt the same way. We would never be safe, not with weapons in hand, not even outnumbering the Sandman by four to one.

  In fact, when Tug had come around inserting the key into the locks of the shackles around our necks, I had seized his hand in both of mine for a moment, not letting him turn the key, fearful, almost wondering if it would be safer or at least less of a worse death if we did like we were supposed to, play the part in the Sandman's twisted story, and cower and piss ourselves in our prison cell. Tug, one eye swollen shut, had stared back at me for a moment as if he knew exactly what it was that I was thinking, and I waited for him to say something but he said nothing. He simply held his position until I removed my hands, let them drop to my side, and then with a click that made me jump, he unlocked the shackle around my neck.

  Now we all filed out of our cell towards freedom.

  But first we passed the torture chamber. Tug had been right there was a lot of blood. And what remained of Amanda.

  I don't even really want to describe the room but I was reminded of weeks before when I had been driving out towards the coast, one early Saturday morning, wired on coffee, music blasting, and there it was, a misshapen lump on the side of the road, smeared across a school crosswalk, torn in half, its bright glistening red guts spilling out, exposed for all to see. A death with no dignity. Sudden, sharp, revolting.

  We stopped in the torture chamber only to get better weapons. I swapped out my saw blade for the wood axe that I had brought all the way from the house. The cabin. Remembering its mildew smell and the dank rooms made me feel as if it inhabited a different world, a level of hell just one step above where we were now.

  Jay found a crowbar and Lipsky a two-by-four with a few nails poking out of it.

  "We should burn this place," said Lipsky. "Clean it with fire."

  "We need to get out of here," answered Jay.

  "Save the evidence. So we can send him away for life," I said.

  Tug chortled. "Life? I see that mother and he dies. No justice. Just revenge. He dies."

  "Let's go," urged Jay. "Wasting time."

  "I still think that we should burn this place," muttered Lipsky.

  "Enough, Lipshit."

  I was the last one out of the torture chamber. I felt my knees weaken and I grabbed the doorframe for support. I turned one last time. Tears filled my eyes. I had failed Amanda. I should have done more somehow.

  I stared back towards the other dark rooms that branched off the torture chamber. Somewhere in one of those rooms Amanda's friends had died. Eaten by the Sandman. I wondered how many others he had held in this hell. How many more had been tortured and eaten? How many more had he falsely promised freedom only to crush the life of out of them?

  Maybe we should have burned this place to the ground so even the memories of it would have no grounding. But how would we clear the Sandman from our minds?

  I followed the others up the steps towards the main part of the house. The wooden planks sagged beneath each heavy step. I kept waiting for the boards to crumble and for me to plummet through the wood and back into the cellar. But they held and with each step higher up I inhaled fresher air. The scent of pine and decay from the forest, and the clean wash of the rain, cut through the chokingly thick smell of copper and piss that had clouded the basement. We were rising towards freedom.

  We were leaving the horror behind us.

  We reached the top of the steps, filed through the hall and crowded around the front door. Tug pulled at the doorknob. It was locked with a keyed deadbolt. We had tried to be so quiet but now we knew that we would need to make noise to get out.

  Jay thrust the crowbar into the doorframe near the bolt. The wood splintered loudly.

  "We should have just gone out a window," said Lipsky.

  "Too late for that now," said Tug. He and Lipsky had turned to face down the hallway.

  I swung my axe at the door trying to tear the wood apart.

  Jay got the iron wedged aand tore out a chunk of wall. "Try it now."

  I yanked at the door and pulled so hard that when it flew open I fell back against the wall. Cool mountain air rushed in over us, bathing us, and for a moment I felt as if I were cleansed, that all the blood, all the horror, washed away from us. I pushed away from the wall and stepped out onto the porch, stumbled a few steps, and then fell on my hands and knees on the ground of the yard. Bright sunlight fell on the back of my neck and hands. A golden electric ribbon fringed the dark clouds as they retreated behind the mountains. The storm had passed. Waters would go down. We would be able to cross the river. We could escape. We could find help.

  Jay hooked his hand beneath my arm and lifted me to my feet. His face had broken into the widest smile I had ever remembered seeing on his face. In that moment, he reminded me of the Jay I had once known, the dreamer, the historian, the boy who recited Homer and shared quotes of Marcus Aurelius, my one-time best friend.

  "Run," he said amidst his laughter.

  Despite the pain knifing through my feet with each step, I joined him and we ran across the yard, up the slope, and towards the safety of the forest.

  We weren't halfway there when the first shot rang out, a loud crack that echoed around the whole lake. It was such a sharp sound that at first I had thought that a giant pine tree had snapped in half. But when the second shot range out, I knew what it was.

  I fell to the ground, covering my head. Jay jerked me back to my feet. "No! Keep running!"

  He dragged me back up and I continued running, only this time, I was barely moving, my legs lead-like, my thighs burning in protest, my lungs cramped and unable to draw in enough air. The forest trees so close, tilted and bent.

  Another shot. A wailing scream.

  We reached a line of bushes and tumbled into them. Gasping, desperate for breath, I turned to the scene behind us. Tug lay on the front porch in a pool of widening blood, a dark wound pulsing from his thigh. A dozen yards further towards us, Lipsky was on the ground, the dogs clamped on his arms. He screamed like a child. But at the same time, he struck repeatedly at one of the dogs, a shower of blood falling around him. Beyond him, the Sandman stood, a paper bag over his head, eye and mouth holes cut out, staring at us. He leveled his rifle at us and shot.

  The serpentine stone next to us exploded, fragments of sharp stones tearing across my back as I turned away.

  I did not need to wait for Jay's screams this time. I got up on my own and ran.

  66

  We hid in the woods, almost afraid to breathe, fearful that the slightest sound would give away where we were and that the Sandman and his dogs would find us.

  "We're not goin
g back," said Jay. "God, you look like shit. Your face."

  "Your ear. It's gone."

  "Probably in one of those jars."

  We both huddled naked, bloody, and dirty in the shadows of the trees. Where the sun burst through the clouds and lit up the forest floor, it was almost too painful to look at. But then again everything caused pain. The ground against my feet, any movement of my body, even the wind across the wounds marring my skin. Flies had found us, drawn by the blood.

  "The river should be low enough," Jay said. "Enough that we can risk getting across." He stared down through the break in the trees at the house. Wood smoke lifted in wisps out of the chimney. "We need to get moving before he gets his dogs and comes after us."

  "He's not coming after us," I said. It would be hard to leave the warm sun and the fresh air. I had never realized just how cleansing the smell of pine needles was. I strained to draw in a deep breath. I think my nose had been broken.

  "Of course, he's coming after us. He did before. He's a hunter. That's what he does. You think he's just going to let us walk away from all this. He's gotta know that we're going to get the cops. End all of this."

  "He knows we're coming back," I said.

  "Oh, shut the hell up, Skip. Are you fucking crazy?" Jay's face smeared in anger. I smelled the rot coming from his head where his ear had been torn off. The flesh was repulsive looking, a green pus seeping from the side of his skull.

  "What else would we do?" I asked.

  "How about keep running? Get across the river. Call the police."

  "Tug and Lipsky will be dead by then."

  "We'll be dead if we go back in there. We won't get out another time. We can't push our luck."

  "I almost wish that it would start raining again," I said. "Clean us off one last time before we go back in there."

  "I'm not going back."

  "We have to."

  "Look, Skip, snap out of it. Be smart about this. We have lots of options. You act like we have no choice. Our best chance is to make for the river and wade across it. There's gotta be other people trying to cross it at this point. We can find help. Get back home."

  "Jay, you and I have to do this. We have to make amends. You have to make amends for what you did."

  "I had no choice."

  "We can't return home leaving Tug and Lipsky behind."

  "We won't be leaving them behind. We'll be getting help."

  "He'll kill them. He'll vanish into the dark. We'll never truly be free of him. Not unless we go in there, rescue them, and kill him. Then we can end the nightmare."

  "You are batshit crazy."

  "Thermopylae. The Three Hundred. You're the one who taught me about them. You're the one who filled my head with the idea that we can be heroes."

  "We're not them. We have a choice."

  "They had a choice. They could have turned and fled. They did not have to stand there."

  "They died," Jay said. "Don't you get that? They died that day."

  "We already died, Jay. We died down there. You and me. What you did to Amanda, I saw that. I did not stop you. I should have done more. And if we return home now, we'll be dead men walking. Forever. We'll return to our lives but we will be haunted. We will be dead forever. We will never truly have escaped those shackles, that room, the Sandman, what we did. The evil we committed. Not if we leave the others behind. I can't return to my life like this. It will be worse than when I left. I'll go back broken and defeated. Lose everything. We need to go back into the house. We need to rescue Tug and Jay. It's our only chance to be born again. Born in blood."

  "We won't survive."

  "We'll be dead if we don't return, and that'll be worse."

  I thought he would turn towards the river, walk away with the stain of what he had done on his soul forever. He closed his eyes. I barely recognized him anymore. His disfigurement. What he had become. Then he nodded and I turned back towards that little piece of hell on earth.

  67

  I crouched at the front door of the maniac's house, the axe perched on my shoulder, ready to swing at the slightest movement. I wanted to go inside. After all that was what I had told Jay that we would do. But I could not move. It was as if my muscles had frozen.

  I could not clear my head of the thought that all this was just another trap being set by the Sandman, that he had allowed me to escape, only to lure me back, knowing deep down that I would find that well of courage finally and return for my friends.

  Because that was exactly what I was doing. I was returning to where I had just escaped. It was as if my life followed the path of a skipping record repeating the same musical refrain of returning to this house to rescue someone, getting caught and tortured, and escaping again, a horrific loop.

  "What are you waiting for?" whispered Jay. He shivered beside me.

  "We're going in." But still I could not move. It was as if my limbs would not obey my weak desire, as if my muscles had frozen in place. Then suddenly my body starting trembling uncontrollably, so violently that I could feel the rough scabs beginning to tear themselves open again.

  Jay slapped me hard across the side of the head, a sharp blow, and the shock of the pain made me return to my body. I nodded a thanks to him and pushed the screen door open.

  That's when the dogs attacked. They raced down the hall, all slavering teeth, bloodshot eyes, and angry claws. I leapt back, bumped into Jay, and then planted my feet on the porch a few steps back from the door. No time to run. They were on us.

  The door crashed open with the weight of the first dog and I swung the axe. I timed the blow right. I felt the blade bite into muscle and then crack through bone. I hit the dog so hard that I lost my feet and fell to my side, and lucky that I did as the next one burst through the air where I had been standing a moment prior. I did not have time to turn to him as a third dog seemed to materialize from the depths of hell, and before I could yank the axe off out of the quivering body of his brother, he was on me.

  I let go to the axe and raised my hands in defense. His teeth sunk into my forearm, and despite my screams and the shearing pain racing up my arm, I knew I was lucky. Only my sacrificed arm had prevented this beast from tearing my throat out.

  But even so, mouth clamped around my arm, he tore at me, back claws kicking off my stomach. I punched my free hand against belly, ribs, and head. My blows had little effect. He whipped his head left and right as if trying to rip my arm from its socket while his horrible claws furrowed the exposed flesh of my chest and belly.

  I climbed to my feet, and still he hung on. He stared at me with bloodshot eyes in a way I could only think of as a deep hatred for me, even though I knew that was impossible. I grabbed the thick fur of his throat and with a sudden snapping motion lifted him off the ground and ran as hard as I could into the wall of the house, driving my body into him, balling my left fist as I made impact.

  He yelped and I felt bones snap beneath my weight. He loosened his jaws for a moment and I tore my arm free, rolling towards the axe. I grabbed it and pulled. It was stuck, its metal blade buried deep through the body of the other dog and into the wood of the porch.

  The dog gathered its feet and sprung towards my throat.

  That should have been the end of it. The demon dog leaping towards me, mouth impossibly wide open, the rotten meat stench of his breath burning my face and upraised arm, but instead a black shape blurred from the corner of my eyes across my vision, followed by a crack like a gunshot, and the dog fell straight to the ground.

  I turned. Jay stood with the crowbar in both hands like a baseball bat, the iron ringing with the impact from the blow. Behind him, the third dog lay dead on the ground.

  I nodded a thank you to him, dragged myself to standing, and with both feet firmly planted levered the axe out of the porch floor.

  "Thanks."

  His eyes filled with tears. "Let's do this. Let's kill this son of a bitch."

  68

  "Where is he?" I whispered to Jay.

 
; "I think we made a mistake. We should turn back."

  We had searched the house, the hallway, the front room, the kitchen, the study and now peered down the hall at the open cellar door. The Sandman was nowhere to be seen. Neither we Tug or Lipsky. The Sandman would have heard the dogs attacking and our fight with them. He would have heard our footsteps on the creaking floorboards as we entered the house again. He knew we were here and yet he hid. He did not come out.

  The air pulsing from the cellar was cold and coppery. I envisioned worms digging their way out of the earth, and scuttling beetles running along the decaying walls, drawn out by the smell of blood and flesh in the rooms at the bottom of those stairs.

  "I'm not going back down there," said Jay. Tears stained his cheeks. "It's going to be a trap. How many times are we going to be stupid enough to return to this house and continue getting caught? I'm getting tired of this."

  "What else are we supposed to do? You got any great plans for how we would suddenly rescue Tug and Lipsky without going down there? Are they just supposed to magically appear?"

  "Why would I go down there again knowing what I know? Why would I walk back into the Sandman's lair at this point? We're free. We can run. We can get away, and here you are, almost like an idiot, asking me to go back in there."

  "And here we are arguing again about what we are supposed to do," I said.

  "Almost worse than the Sandman, it's like we're stuck in this revolving door that gets us nowhere and keeps returning us to the same spot."

  "We gotta end this somehow."

  "I'd rather end it running back towards the woods," said Jay. "I'd rather die under the open sky than in this moldering house."

  "But then we are cowards, running away."

  "So what?"

  "We're supposed to be heroes."

  "Says who?" he asked.

  "Haven't we lived our wholes lives like cowards? The trip that we never took. You not having the courage to walk away from your bad marriages. You and the student. What you did to Amanda? And me going down the easy money path instead of the right one. Me ignoring my wife and daughter. Me not tearing my daughter away from the drugs. And what about Dave? This all started with him. We both knew he drank too much. We both knew he had a problem. We both turned the other way and he drank himself to death. How could someone do that to themselves? And worse how could we pretend it was not happening and let him put his lips to the bottle every day? How could we be such cowards as not to live the lives we should have lived? That's what this is all about. That's what started us down this slippery slope and that's why we're here right now. Because we've lived as cowards our whole lives, and now it's all coming to a head. We're being asked the same question over and over again. Different, I guess, but really the same question. How are you going to live your life? Everything is falling apart around you and you have a choice. How are you going to live your life? Are we going to be cowards or are we going to be heroes?"