by Rick Hautala
“He’s running!” a voice shrilled, breaking out with wild laughter. “Come on! Let’s get him!”
Mikie was nearly blind with panic as he swung his legs up and rolled across the floor, unmindful of any splinters he might get. Shrill laughter and stomping feet filled the air all around him. He was frantic with fear as he looked toward the front doorway. He knew it meant safety but was afraid that his body wouldn’t respond to his mental command to run. He screamed—a long, warbling hoot—as he leaped to his feet, doubled over with his fists clenched tightly, and rushed toward the door. The clear, bright light of day seemed hopelessly, impossibly distant, but he was just beginning to think he could make it out of here alive when a shadow as dark as ink, its arms high above its head, suddenly filled the doorway.
“I’ve got him!” shouted a shrill voice.
Wheeling around in terror, Mikie staggered and stumbled, regained his feet, then ran away from the doorway for all he was worth, hoping against hope that he could make it to the door at the far end of the building and avoid … whoever was after him. As he ran, sunlight flickered like a blinding strobe light through gaps in the siding. In every corner, inky shadows twisted and writhed.
They’re everywhere … they’ve been waiting … all around me… just waiting to get me!
Glancing to his left, Mikie saw another shadow fill the doorway at the front of the building. He knew—he could sense—that there were more—dozens, maybe hundreds of shadows closing in on him from all sides. Voices howled and laughed as dim figures climbed through broken windows and reached up through cracks in the floor to get at him.
They’re mad at me … for what I was doing!
Mikie ran for all he was worth as footsteps thumped heavily behind him. The floorboards shook as whoever—whatever it was—closed the gap. Tears blurred his vision, and chills danced up the back of his neck. He held his breath as he ran, waiting to feel the cold, dead hands snag him from behind.
Straight ahead, past the remnants of the sawing frame, was the only other exit—his last chance to escape. Beyond the thin stand of trees, sunlight sparkled on the river with a distant, dreamy unreality. Mikie knew there was a long drop to the rocky ground outside that opening, but it was his only hope. The dark, awful presence behind him was closing the gap, getting closer … closer. He could hear heavy breathing as hands reached out for him.
“Stop or else I’ll kill you!” the voice shouted, seemingly inches from his ear.
Terror exploded in Mikie’s mind like a sheet of lightning. He heard but didn’t understand the words as they reverberated all around him. All he knew was that he was close to freedom; he had to get out into the daylight where—hopefully!—he would be safe. He only heard the voices outside of the mill late at night, so he knew he would be safe once he was out there.
Brightness suddenly exploded across his vision when he reached the opening. Bracing both hands against the rough wood frame, he coiled himself up, preparing to jump, when from behind him he heard a sharp crack followed by a wild scream that quickly diminished and then cut off. It echoed in his ears with an odd distortion that made it sound far away … as if it had come from across the river.
Nearly fainting with fear, Mikie turned around to see what had happened. There was no one there!
For a tense moment, an uncanny silence filled the abandoned mill, broken only by the distant thumping of footsteps outside. Mikie ran one hand over his sweat-slick face. Sucking in a deep breath, he took a few cautious steps forward. Dust glittered in the slanting rays of the sun like gold as it rose up from the opening of the cutting bed. Mikie could see a thin spray of blood along the edge of the toothed blade. His panic spiked even higher when he became aware of a high-pitched squeaking sound that crazily reminded him of his mother’s whistling teapot. His pulse pounded heavily against the sides of his head as he approached the edge of the opening and looked down.
“Oh, Jesus! Oh, no!” he whispered when he saw the boy lying facedown in the pile of rotting sawdust. It was dark down there, and he was still weak and numb with terror, so it took him the space of several heartbeats to recognize Ray Saunders. When he finally did, he couldn’t help but snicker with laughter. While most of Eddie’s friends teased him on occasion, Ray was the meanest of the lot and was responsible for some of the cruelest torments Mikie had suffered over the years.
“Serves you right,” Mikie whispered with a snorting laugh as he stared down at the motionless form. Then he stood up straight and, shaking his fists, shouted, “It goddamn serves you right!”
He suddenly tensed and, looking around the deserted mill, whispered to himself, “So it wasn’t you after all, huh? Here I was, thinking it was you, and all along it was just Sandy—” He snorted with laughter again as his fear gradually began to subside. “—Just Sandy and his idiotic friends.”
But Ray was silent now, motionless as the dust slowly settled like snow around him. His left leg was cocked back so that his heel almost touched the small of his back. His hips were twisted around so far it looked as if he had put his jeans on backwards this morning.
No wonder he tripped and fell, Mikie thought, trying to contain a burst of laughter. No one can run when they have their pants on backwards!
A deep, red gash cut across the right side of Sandy’s face. Fresh, dark blood was running like spilled ink onto the sawdust. Mikie watched with a mixed sense of horror and amusement as several rats, which had scattered as they fled their burrow, now approached the motionless boy and began sniffing at him and licking at his wound.
“Boy-oh-boy, but they’re gonna be angry now!” Mikie said, cringing as he scanned the mill, coiled and waiting for the voices to start in again, shouting at him to leave. His gaze was drawn up to the darkened rafters where he expected to see the deepest shadows take on form and substance. Suddenly a chorus of faint voices hissed inside his head, but they spoke so softly and all at once that Mikie couldn’t understand a single word. Then, in a flash, he knew what he had to do. Unsnapping his trusty camera from his belt, he opened the case and focused on the motionless body below.
“Come on, now, Sandy,” he whispered. “Smile for the camera.”
His hands were trembling as he steadily applied pressure on the button until the shutter clicked. With a winding sound, the exposed sheet of film slid out of the camera’s side. Just as he was tearing it off, a shrill voice behind him filled the mill, startling Mikie as if a firecracker had gone off next to his head.
“He pushed him! I saw him do it! The retard pushed Sandy down into the cellar!”
A solitary figure—nothing more than a hazy blur against the bright opening of the doorway—appeared at the far end of the building and started moving toward him. Footsteps sounded heavily on the floor.
“No, no, I didn’t,” Mikie cried out. “It wasn’t like that! Not at all!”
He clutched his camera in one hand, the picture in the other as he moved away from the cutting bed. He backed up until he was at the edge of the opening. The hissing river sounded behind him like tearing paper as it frothed over the rocks. “I was just … was just—”
A vagrant breeze blew over his back, sending a wave of shivers racing through him. He watched with rising apprehension as Fish-eyes Costello cautiously approached him, his thin fists clenched and raised, ready to fight if he had to.
“Don’t you be lying to us!” Charlie shouted, his voice wound up so high it almost broke. “I saw you! I saw you do it!”
Charlie was shaking as he knelt at the opening and looked down at the crumpled form below. From this high up, Ray’s body looked twisted and pitifully small, like a broken, castaway doll. Charlie cupped his hands to his mouth, tilted his head back, and shouted, “Eddie! Hey, Eddie! Com’ere! Com’ere! Your retard brother just killed Sandy!”
He looked back at Mikie, his lower lip trembling as he said, “Someone’s gotta go down there and check on him.” Then he tilted his head back and shouted again. “Com’on, Eddie! Get your ass in here!”
“I s-s-swear I didn’t d-d-do it!” Mikie stammered. The sun was hot on his back as he glanced behind him at the foaming water and the rocks below.
“Ahh, Jesus! Ahh, shit! Look!” Charlie said, pointing down. “His head’s bleeding!”
Mikie’s eyes bulged from their sockets and his throat closed off as he shook his head in furious denial. While Charlie was staring down at his injured friend, obviously trying to work up enough courage to jump down there, Eddie appeared out of the shadows from the side of the building.
“What the hell happened,” he asked, his voice flat and emotionless as he slowly approached them.
“Your friggin’ retard brother pushed Sandy down into the cellar!” Charlie wailed. “I think he’s dead!”
“Sandy was chasing him, right?”
Mikie grunted and nodded vigorous, silent agreement.
“So maybe Sandy just tripped and fell,” Eddie said. He locked eyes with his brother and stared at him as he moved slowly toward the opening and glanced down. The widening puddle of blood beneath Sandy’s face looked like a quart or two of spilled oil on the rotting sawdust.
“Jesus, I think he’s dead,” Charlie repeated in a high, trembling voice that caught with a repressed sob. “Shit, man, he—he ain’t moving!”
“See? There’s blood there on the saw blade and here,” Eddie said, fighting for calm as he pointed to the wide, red splotch on the side of the cutting bed. “He must’ve cut his head on the blade when he fell.”
“When he was pushed!” Charlie shouted. “I was back there, and I saw the whole thing! I saw it! He pushed him, Eddie!”
“Cut it out. You don’t know what you saw!” Eddie snapped, glaring at Charlie.
“His whole face is ripped wide open! I bet his brains are all over the floor!”
“Seriously, I’ll bet you ten bucks Sandy just tripped and fell,” Eddie said. His voice was soft yet demanding. He still didn’t dare to look down into the cellar for very long because he was having trouble processing the thought that Sandy—his best friend—might really be dead down there.
“No way!” Charlie said. “I saw Mikie push him! He was hiding over there on the side—” He hiked his thumb to a dark corner of the building. “When Sandy’s back was turned, he rushed out at him and pushed him down.”
“I did not!” Mikie said heatedly. “It couldn’t have been me! I was—was way over here, by the door. I was just gonna jump! I didn’t know who it was! I was just trying to get away from him!” He cut himself off suddenly and looked up at the dark ceiling again. “You know, I—I’ll bet it was—it might have been one of them!”
“One of who?”Charlie cried.
“Them! I … I think they’re angry … you know, about us being out here.”
“Who’s angry?” Charlie shouted. “What the fuck are you talking about?” He seemed not to care as fat teardrops rolled down his cheeks.
Mikie shrugged helplessly, aware of the burning wash of sunshine on his back. Suddenly he remembered his camera and the developing photo still clutched in his hand.
It must have been more than a minute by now, he thought in a sudden rush of panic. Too long! He probably ruined it!
He ignored the other boys as he clutched his camera under his arm and quickly peeled away the photograph’s protective covering to see the picture he’d taken. The lighting in the cellar had been poor to begin with, and the grainy black and white photograph was indeed overexposed, but it clearly revealed Ray’s twisted body, lying in the pile of rotting sawdust as well as several rats, which had long since scurried away to safety. As Mikie studied the picture more closely, though, he saw something else … something that sent a white bolt of panic racing through him. In the surrounding darkness along the edges of the pictures were three—no, four—maybe more faces. Pale and thin, indistinct, they glared upwards, staring into the camera lens with dazed eyes that were totally devoid of expression.
Mikie’s breath caught in his throat. His first panicked thought was that the sawdust pile had been hiding several dead bodies, and the impact of Sandy’s fall had uncovered them. Then he realized that he could see the rippled texture of the sawdust right through the faces … as if they had somehow been superimposed over the image of Sandy’s body.
“Oh, Jesus!—Look!—oh, Jesus!” he said, his voice nothing more than a strangled whimper.
“Yeah, you better start praying!” Charlie said, looking at him with an angry glare. Fat teardrops rolled out from under his thick glasses, staining his cheek like glycerin. “If he’s dead, you’re gonna pay for it! You’re gonna fry in the electric chair!”
“No, I didn’t do it! … Honest, I didn’t! It was them! It must have been them! They pushed him because they were scared or … or mad at him! See? Right here!”
Charlie watched Mikie as he backed away. Eddie remained to one side, his eyes dancing back and forth between his brother, Charlie, and the gaping hole in the floor.
“I couldn’t do something like that,” Mikie said. “Even for all the times Sandy’s been mean to me. I just couldn’t!”
“Oh, yeah—?” Charlie asked archly. “You expect me to believe that? I saw you do it!”
“I did not!”
Without another word, Charlie jumped down into the cellar. To Mikie’s view, it looked as if the opening was a cavernous mouth that had swallowed him whole. He heard Charlie grunt softly when he hit the ground; then his voice boomed from down below, “He’s still breathing, but—Jesus! he’s bleeding real bad. We gotta get help, fast! Eddie! Your house is closest! Go get help!”
Eddie remained where he was, silent as he frowned and stared earnestly at his younger brother. All the while, Mikie stood in the doorway, shaking his head slowly from side to side in earnest denial and muttering senselessly to himself.
“Eddie! Hurry up, for Christ’s sake! He’ll die if we don’t get help!”
“Yeah,” Eddie said, but still he didn’t move; he just stood there, staring at his brother as though waiting for him to say or do something.
“You gotta believe me, Eddie,” Mikie said, his voice broken as tears poured from his eyes. “I wouldn’t do anything like that—even to Sandy. I was just trying to get away from him! Honest!”
Eddie opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out—only a long, low groan.
“Don’t you believe me?” Mikie asked. His eyes shifted back and forth between his brother and the grainy photograph in his hand. “I was over here … ready to jump out the door. I couldn’t have pushed him from behind if I was over here, now, could I?”
With that, he spun around on one heel and, without looking down, propelled himself out of the doorway. For an instant he hung suspended in the air, his arms and legs flapping wildly, like an ostrich trying to fly. Then the rocky ground rushed up to meet him. First his feet, then his knees slammed hard against the rocks. Screaming out loud, he pitched forward. He twisted to his left side, and his shoulder slammed against the rocks. A hot bolt of pain shot through him. The impact sent his treasured camera flying out of his grip. It smashed into a dozen pieces on the rocks at the water’s edge.
Mikie barely registered either his pain or his loss as he staggered to his feet. Nearly blind with terror and tears, he looked up at the mill. His brother was framed in the doorway, a huge, looming figure that threatened to come crashing down on him.
“They did it!” Mikie wailed, raising his hand holding the photograph up high and shaking it wildly. “Not me! I didn’t do it! They did!” Hot tears flooded from his eyes, blurring his vision.
From inside the mill came a rising cacophony of voices—faint mutterings, low groaning sounds, and distant but piercing screams. Mikie glanced one last time at the photograph of the fallen boy and the four or more faces, staring up at the camera—staring at him!
“It was you! I know it was you!” he screamed.
His hands trembled wildly as he tore the picture to pieces and flung it into the river. The pieces were swept aw
ay and disappeared almost instantly in the raging white foam.
“I swear to God I didn’t do it!” Mikie shouted one last time; then he started running … running for home as fast as he could because he knew the voices inside the mill would only get louder if he stayed here any longer; and he knew that he wouldn’t be safe, even out here in the bright light of day.
They might even follow him all the way home!
“Mikie … Oh, Mikie … Where are you?”
“No! Not here! Not in here!” Mikie whispered as he crouched, trembling in the dusty heat of his narrow bedroom closet. He had lost track of the time, but the lessening of light that leaked underneath the closed door told him it must be approaching evening.
“Come on out, Mikie,” the voice called, resonating in the darkness like a deep-throated bell. “Come on out, honey. No one’s gonna hurt you.”
Go away! Please! Just go away! he thought, squeezing his eyes so tightly shut the darkness behind his eyelids vibrated with flashing, spiraling colors. He pushed his back hard against the plaster wall, wishing to heaven he could fall through the closet wall into another world, like those kids in that story about a big lion his mother had read to him so many years ago.
“Everything’s fine now.… You can come out now, honey.”
Please, just go away!
Through the wall, he heard the soft scuff-scuff of footsteps coming up the stairs. They sounded like the heavy rasp of a saw blade cutting through wood.
“You must be getting hungry by now. Aren’t you?”
Hot tears flowed down Mikie’s cheeks, burning like a wash of acid. The stale, dry air of the closet choked him, and for a paralyzing instant, he imagined that he was already dead—that he was lying in his coffin, buried six feet underground. That voice—trying so hard to sound just like his mother—was calling to him, trying to tempt him out of the safe darkness of his coffin into the eternal pain of hell.
But I didn’t do it! he thought as he pounded his fists frantically against his ears, trying to block out the sound of approaching footsteps. I didn’t do it! Or … or if I did, I didn’t mean to!