by E. Z. Rinsky
I push the cart, he pulls the cart, but the wheels are caught in the carpeting.
“Might have to put your weight into it,” Courtney says. “One, two three!”
I put my shoulder into the saw like a linebacker bringing down a running back, and the saw rolls out of its cart. It tips over, teeters on the lip of the trunk for a moment, then crashes out onto the dirt, landing on its side as Courtney jumps backwards to avoid being crushed beneath it.
He looks up at me, face a mask of horror.
“Is it okay?” I ask, breathing hard. “It’s not broken, is it?”
Courtney kneels and runs his hands over the saw’s midsection, like it’s an injured soldier. I hop out of the trunk and squat beside him.
“Is it broken? If it’s broken . . .” he gasps.
Courtney wordlessly gestures for me to help him lift the behemoth upright, which we do in silence, save heavy breathing.
“It can’t be broken,” he says, staring at the neon-orange barrel.
I snap on a pair of hard plastic goggles and unroll the tube coiled around the tank. Just looks like a hose with a shiny metal nozzle at the end. Then I unwrap the power cord and plug it into the running generator.
“Shit,” I say.
Courtney’s face distends in disbelief. He’s on the cusp of an aneurism, when I grin and point to a little black button on the side.
“That’s the power switch,” I say.
I flip it, and when a green light comes on and it makes a sound like a vacuum starting up, Courtney’s shoulders relax.
“This thing looks pretty durable,” I say. “Honestly, I was more worried about getting enough amperage from that engine. Okay, I’m gonna start. Tank can hold two liters of water at a time, so when you see it getting low, you just pour more in, alright?”
“Roger,” he says, pulling one of the water tanks out of the trunk. He sets it on the cold ground beside the whirring saw and sits on it. The saw is working on pressurizing a tank of water so densely that it will cut through cement. I put a protective hand over my nuts.
“Gotta give it a few minutes to get warmed up,” I explain, crossing my arms and staring intently at the tank as if willing it into action. Courtney’s face is shrouded in dramatic shadows from the floodlight over his shoulder.
“You want a cigarette?” I ask.
“No.”
“C’mon, I bought a pack of Camel unfiltereds at the last gas station,” I say, pulling the squished pack out of the back pocket of my jeans and offering him one. “We might be about to crack a five-year-old murder case, Court. That’s cause for celebration.”
“And if we don’t?”
I lick my chapped lips. “If this all goes to shit, cardiovascular health will be the least of our concerns.”
He sighs. “You’re just a regular connoisseur of all things vice, aren’t you?” He carefully selects a Camel with his thin fingers and sticks it between his teeth, dangling it from the side of his mouth as I’m sure he’s seen people do in movies. I light his for him, then light my own. Savor the rich smoke crawling down my throat.
“Thanks for helping with this,” I say. “If you’d turned down this job—”
“Maybe Sadie would have never been kidnapped?”
I grimace. Don’t respond. Picture her little face in my cloud of smoke. I see her brown eyes, her tiny hands . . .
We puff on our cigarettes. The generator’s steady purring and the tank’s pressurizing hum provide a little comfort out here in the woods. I stare up at the night sky. Still can’t see any stars, and the fog makes the moon look like it’s covered in Saran wrap. I still feel that third presence here with us, but I’m starting to wonder if it isn’t a friendly presence. A guide of some kind.
Savannah?
The saw stops buzzing. I toss the half-smoked Camel onto the wet earth and stamp out the smoldering embers. Tighten the goggles over my eyes and wordlessly adjust the tip of the hose.
IT TAKES LONGER than I thought it would. I was kind of imagining the cement just instantly dissolving under the pressure of the saw. But turns out the stream is extremely fine, so you have to be patient to carve out a hole big enough for a man to fit through. Plus the cement is about eighteen inches thick, far more than I’d estimated. This thing was built to survive World War III. Whoever is down here really valued their privacy.
After my twenty-minute shift, I lie down in the back of the van and fade in and out of a restless half sleep while the water chips away at cement, whining like those electric toothbrushes they use at the dentist, a pitch you can feel in your bones.
Courtney burns through four liters of water in twenty minutes, and then he needs to wake me up. He’s panting, sweat dripping off his pale forehead. “Your turn.”
We keep swapping shifts. Finally a little after midnight, when I’m back on water tank duty and nodding off a little, Courtney turns off the saw and rouses me from an empty dream.
“Done,” he says.
I stand up, crack my neck and approach the black crevice we’ve bored out of the cement. The hole is about the same diameter as Courtney. I’m only optimistic about the feasibility of squeezing through because I haven’t really eaten in a few days. I light up another cigarette and shine my flashlight in the hole. A wooden plank below—must be a stair—is all that’s visible through the foot and a half of cement. I stare down into the darkness. My heart feels weak and heavy.
“Let’s go,” I say.
Courtney sucks his teeth. Doesn’t budge.
“I’m not going,” he says quietly.
I turn to him. “What?”
He’s staring at the ground. “I don’t like confined spaces. I didn’t really think it would be a problem, but now that I’m looking at it, I can’t go down there. I just can’t.”
I throw my head back, stare at the sky, exasperated. “Jesus Christ. You think I’m crazy about going down there? You think I wouldn’t rather be in a hot tub in Hawaii right now?”
“I’m really sorry Frank, truly.” He shakes his head. “I just can’t do it. You gotta go alone.”
I suck down the rest of my Camel and flick it off into the darkness.
“You’re such a fucker,” I say, mad mostly because I know I really have no right to complain.
He peels off his goggles—he’s got a red raccoon ring around his eyes—and rubs some bleariness out of his face.
“I’m really sor—” he starts.
“It’s fine, really.” I sigh and step into the hole. “About time I carried my weight.” I sit down on the edge of the hole and lower my legs until I’m in up to my waist. Try not to think about rats or something nibbling at my defenseless, dangling feet. Before I can protest, Courtney pushes down on my shoulders, and I slide down a few more inches. My feet find purchase. I look up at him, cement around my midriff like an inner tube. “Really makes sense for the preternaturally skinny guy to stay up top to keep guard, eh?”
Courtney’s face falls. “Frank, if there was any way—”
“I’m kidding, it’s fine,” I say. “I’m just a little worried about getting out.”
“I could keep drilling while you’re down there,” he offers.
“No, no,” I say, adamant. “Then I won’t be able to talk to you while I’m inside. No, that’s no good.”
“Scared?” He frowns.
“Of course I’m fucking scared,” I growl. “Give me another push.”
Another few inches, and I can just let myself slide through completely, landing on my ass. I flip on my flashlight. I’m leaning back, cramped, on a cold wooden staircase, the cement just inches over my head. Courtney’s peering at me through the hole like I’m at the bottom of a well.
“What do you see?” he says, unable to contain his giddiness.
“Holy shit, fucking amazing,” I s
ay, scanning nothing but a narrow wooden staircase leading down into darkness. The scent of mildew is overpowering, but it’s tinged with something else, a chemical smell I recognize but can’t quite place.
“Don’t joke around,” Courtney says.
“It’s stairs, man,” I say, sliding a few down until I have room to stand up if I crouch. “Just stairs.”
“Go slowly,” Courtney’s voice echoes down behind me. “Be careful.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I shout back.
Shine the light above me, more alloyed concrete lining the ceiling and walls. This place is reinforced like a nuclear bunker. Why?
I climb down fifteen stairs, the ceiling getting lower and lower. By the bottom I’m basically squatting to avoid hitting my head on grey cement. The staircase ends in a door. I rap a knuckle on it. Thick, cold, shiny steel. I flatten my palm against the door and shiver. It’s like ice. Impossibly, supernaturally cold. I know what’s on the other side. I saw it in the crime-scene photos. Dirt floor, flimsy wood chair where Savannah was bound. Maybe a metalworking table if nobody confiscated it for evidence.
But there wasn’t cement overhead—or this door—in the pictures. These are new. They’ve been installed since the murder. And not by the cops.
There’s a large handle on the door where a knob would be. I’ve seen doors like this before. When I was a bartender at a restaurant. This is the same kind of door they had for their walk-in freezer.
“What do you see?” Courtney’s voice is distant, coming from another world.
“There’s a door,” I reply, mostly to myself. My fingers tremble as I grip the handle and try to twist. Doesn’t move. No surprises there; this thing can’t have been opened since that cement was poured. I stick the light between my teeth, Courtney-style, and curl both hands around the thick handle. Brace myself against a cement wall and jerk.
Three things happen at once: the door slides open, the flashlight falls out of my mouth and switches off as it clatters to the floor, and I’m suddenly blasted with a freezing mass of sterile air.
It’s like being shot in the face with a snowblower. I drop to my knees and grope around for my flashlight, too scared to curse.
“Frank?” I hear Courtney’s voice so quiet, so far away. I don’t respond.
Where’s the goddamn flashlight? I feel around on the cement floor. Nothing. Realize it must have rolled into the room. I crawl through what I think is the doorway, the darkness thickening to the point of being a tangible thing I’m swimming through. The floor isn’t dirt, as I realized I’d been expecting. It’s also cement. Freezing cement. I’m shivering horribly. It’s much, much colder than it was outside. The air smells different too. It’s harsh and chemical.
I’m breathing hard, I realize. Way too hard. Throbbing in my bruised ribs. My chest is pounding.
I stop crawling. For a moment I rest on my knees, still, just listening. There’s my own raspy breathing, but there’s something else, a few feet in front of me. A muffled, but unequivocal, buzzing sound. There’s something down here with me. Christ.
I’m not alone in this room.
Is it my imagination, or is something forming in front of my eyes? Something emerging from the darkness. An animal? A black hole of endless, roaring emptiness, teeth of ice, steady rumbling as it closes in on me.
I look away and comb my hands desperately over the cement floor. Blood roars in my ears. I need the light to make sure I’m imagining all of this. There can’t be something down here.It’s been sealed for years. Nothing could survive in here.
My heart jackhammers in my chest. Oh god. I think I might be having a heart attack. Getting light-headed. I’m not imagining it: There’s definitely a sound, a humming. Coming from a point a few feet ahead of me. I grope around the uneven floor for the flashlight, cold wind rushing up behind me, carrying me toward this hole in front of me.
“Please,” I whisper. “Please don’t hurt me.”
I plant my forehead into the cold floor. Wind swirling around me, constant buzzing or humming just a few feet in front of me.
“Please . . .”
My fingers are so numb that it takes me a moment to realize that the flashlight has just rolled into my right hand. I’m shaking so bad that I have to turn on the switch with my teeth. I switch it on as quickly, desperately, as I’ve ever done anything. And the darkness is pierced by the faint beam of my lamp.
The humming was real. It’s being produced by a refrigeration unit that’s pumping icy air into the space. This is a walk-in freezer. Still on my knees, I scan up and down the fridge with my light. I stop halfway up the height of the fridge, keeping the beam trained on what looks like permanent marker on the side of the buzzing refrigeration unit.
In my shaking circle of red light, I read the same words we saw in the attic:
Better to have never been born.
I slowly rise to my feet, knees quaking. Move my flashlight beam off the fridge to scan the walls. It’s not a huge room, big enough to fit maybe two minivans. The walls are the same grey, alloyed concrete. I take a step toward the wall to the left of the fridge, shift my light toward the floor, and involuntarily cry out, my voice echoing against the hard walls.
“Courtney!” I scream. “Courtney!”
I was right: I’m not alone in the room.
Sitting against the wall is a naked dead body.
And there’s another beside it.
I twirl around the perimeter of the room and see that there are bodies stacked all around me. Some with hands crossed over their chests, some curled into fetal positions. All are bearded men, and all died looking very, very cold.
“COURTNEY!!” I scream. No response.
I keep turning, mouth dry, fingers numb. I count the forms. Eleven. Eleven men with blue faces, blue lips, frost around their eyes, mouths, fingers, genitals. I slowly approach one of the frozen corpses.
White flakes of frost in his beard, empty eyes frozen open, like he died staring at something that surprised him. He looks freezer burned, like a year-old pint of opened ice cream. He’s sitting with his butt against the wall, legs sprawled, palms facing the ceiling. Totally naked. His penis looks like it almost completely retracted into his body as he died.
I tap one of his hands with the butt of my flashlight. Rock hard.
“Fuck, fuck,” I whisper to myself, scampering back into the center of the room. I scan each of the men’s faces. All died with unkempt beards. Some eyes are mercifully closed, but most pairs are wide and knowing, accompanied by open mouths. Probably they were gasping for breath or something, but I can’t help imagining that they were protesting something as their blood froze and their hearts stopped, like they were trying to say something important as the icy shadow of death washed over them.
I count again. Eleven. No question. I stagger again around the perimeter of the room, triple checking. What a miserable way to die.
Unless . . .
A shiver of horror shoots up my spine. What if they aren’t dead? What if they’re waiting to be thawed out?
“Oh god.” I’m crying, desperately wanting to leave but compelled to stay by some feeling of duty. Must do due diligence. Sadie. Sadie.
But there’s nothing in here besides the bodies and the refrigeration unit, which I realize must be running from the generator outside. I scan the room three more times. Eleven naked, frozen men and an AC unit.
And finally the idea of being up above ground—warm and away from this place—is too much to resist. I rush to the door and am about to slam it shut when I turn and force myself to take one last look at the place. For Sadie. Don’t want to have to come back down here again tonight. Or ever.
I shine the light on the ceiling for the first time. It’s only about seven feet high, also coated in grey cement. The whole room has been converted into a heavily insulated freezer.
/> Carved into the cement ceiling is another picture of the black snake consuming his own tail, and in the same writing as in the attic, it says:
Nrob neeb reven evah ot retteb
And dangling from a piece of ribbon, which is bolted into the ceiling, rotating slowly in the draft produced by the AC unit, is a cassette tape inside a plastic case.
I SQUEEZE OUT of the hole in a daze and stumble to the passenger seat of the minivan, sitting numbly.
“Frank, what was it? What’s down there? Did you take pictures?”
I can only shake my head slightly, gesture for him to start driving, rub a finger over the cold plastic case in my jacket pocket.
“Frank, I’m not trying to be a bitch here, but you gotta go back down there and take pictures. We gotta document this. What was it? Are they down there? Like you said?”
I barely even hear Courtney. I feel like the cold from down there followed me back to the surface. It latched onto me as I stood on the AC unit to cut the ribbon, then followed me through the doorway as I dashed up those stairs like a startled cat fleeing a gunshot. I wish Courtney would go down there himself, just to verify what I saw so I know I’m not completely mad and didn’t imagine the whole thing. But there’s this hard little rectangle in my pocket. That’s real, right?
“Are you alright, bud?” he asks.
“D-d-d . . . drive.”
My hands are shaking in my pockets, lips trembling and purple. I’m so cold. I just need to be far away from this place. I can’t even turn to look at Courtney. There’s no fear left, because I’ve seen all there is to see down there. Fear is when you don’t know what’s coming. Afterwards there’s only this: a feeling like there’s a poisonous worm eating its way through your brain. Some things can’t be unseen.
“Alright, I’m just gonna cover up the hole with a tarp, okay?” Courtney says. “We’ll come back for photos later. I’ll get you to a motel now, maybe you can take a hot bath or something and tell me all about it. How does that sound?”
I manage the slightest of shrugs, an automatic gesture. He can’t hide his curiosity—or his disappointment at what he must assume was an empty trip.