The Lightning Rule

by Brett Ellen Block

  Mine Hill, where Eli Meers was in charge of the day labor, was an open-pit mine west of the Wallkill River. The soft ores on the surface had been shaved clear, and shafts were dug into the main crater, rail laid for cars to cart the ore up from below. The earth looked ruined, raped, and the air was smoggy with grit. Stripped of grass and trees, the stone gorges and mounds of rock created a forbidding landscape, but it didn’t frighten Lazlo. Like his first hunting trip, their visit to the mine shaft was another tutorial on manhood. This time, instead of handing Lazlo a rifle, his father gave him a lantern and led him into the darkness.

  The rumble of the ore cars on the tracks made the ground tremble underfoot. It was as though the earth was shifting with them inside. Underground, the sun ceased to exist. To Lazlo’s amazement, the cavern walls twinkled when the lamplight hit them, turning the mine shaft into a hidden galaxy.

  “We got geologists from fancy universities coming here and poking around every other week,” his father had grumbled, affecting annoyance. Lazlo sensed his inner satisfaction. “They say there are more mineral species here than anywhere else in the world. They say this place is special.”

  For Lazlo, it was special. The mines were a realm all his own. He was hundreds of feet beneath the ground, yet it felt as if he was aloft in the sky with the stars.

  He envisioned those sparkling stars while he dragged Detective Emmett through the library using his harnesses. The man’s body glided across the slick floors. Meers slid him onto the elevator and pulled him through a back corridor to the Cadillac, parked at the rear entrance.

  Getting Emmett into the trunk would have been impossible. Meers didn’t have the strength for it. His only alternative was a risky gambit: putting the detective in the front seat. Meers used all his might to hoist the heavy man into the car. Once inside, he removed the harness as well as Emmett’s gun and badge, which he tucked in his pockets. As he hopped in behind the steering wheel beside his new companion, Meers daubed perspiration from his face with the handkerchief he had used to sedate Emmett.

  “Pardon me, Detective. That was impolite. Alas, this is the only handkerchief I have. You understand.”

  Shortly after leaving the library, a state trooper stopped him at a roadblock. Meers was ready. He had been practicing his speech in his head.

  “Officer, can you help me? My business associate, he’s sick. I need to take him to the hospital right away. Which is the quickest route?”

  The trooper gave Emmett the once-over. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He’s a salesmen from out of town. One minute he was making a joke about balance sheets, the next he was on the floor. I don’t know. Maybe it was the heat. I pray it wasn’t a heart attack.” Meers bunched his brow with feigned worry. He wished he hadn’t blotted his face. His sweat would have embellished his performance.

  “I’d radio in for you, except all of the ambulances are busy.” The trooper was genuinely concerned. “Don’t take Central Ave. It’s got five checkpoints. Take James to Sussex. I’ll call ahead and tell the others to watch out for you, let you through fast.”

  “Thank you, Officer. I’d appreciate that.”

  “Hope your friend’s gonna be all right.”

  “Me too.”

  Meers sped off, wondering how groggy Emmett would be from the ether. He would also have burns from the cattle prod. That could compromise his fitness. Meers would minister to him that night and dress his wounds. With the riot rocking the city, a missing detective might go unnoticed for days. It gave Meers time.

  The officers at the following barricades ushered him through as though clearing the way for a visiting dignitary. “Isn’t that nice,” he commented to the slumbering Emmett. “You policemen are quite gentlemanly.”

  He arrived at the zinc works, parked the Eldorado indoors, and tumbled Emmett out of the passenger seat onto the sled. “Much better,” Meers cooed as soon as he harnessed up again and could tug Emmett’s body smoothly across the concrete floor.

  The unforeseen pleasure of having two pets to hunt did create a logistical problem. He couldn’t put Emmett in the cage with Calvin. They would gang up on him, and Meers couldn’t have that.

  “Where to put you, where to put you….” He tapped his lip, debating.

  Meers settled on chaining Emmett to one of the warehouse’s steel pylons and taping his mouth shut.

  “Not to be ungrateful, but you are tiring me out, Detective.”

  Normally in the hours leading up to a hunt, Meers would have a light meal, take a nap, then go to the refinery to prepare the final dinner. Once his pet had eaten, he would give him three hours to digest the food. Detective Emmett put a kink in Meers’s plans. He would do without his ritual. The anticipation was too tantalizing.

  From the peephole, he could see Calvin in the cage, sleeping on the mattress. He was amazed the boy had slept through the commotion he made securing the detective. The lunch Meers cooked for him was gone. The bedpan was full. To rouse him, Meers stomped around the storeroom floor and banged the pan he fried the steaks in against the hot plate. When he returned to the peephole, Calvin hadn’t stirred.

  “This is vexing. Very vexing indeed, John. What if he’s sick? What then?” Meers sought counsel from the mounted head. “He can’t be sick. Not this one. He can’t. This should wake him.”

  Meers took a leftover iron rod from his early construction attempts, cut the light in the pen, and crept down to the cage. He threaded the rod between the bars, inching it inward until he gently poked Calvin’s thigh. The rod abruptly jerked from Meers’s grip. Calvin had grabbed it and was pulling Meers toward him, scrambling to his feet for leverage.

  “Come ’ere, you damn gimp. Come here where I can reach you.” Calvin’s fingertips grazed Meers’s arm. “You ’a chicken. I seen you. You ain’t nothing. You a cripple. I’m gonna get you. And when I do, I’m gonna hurt you.”

  Startled, Meers stumbled backward, then fled.

  “Run away, chicken,” Calvin squawked. “Run away or I’ll get you.”

  Fury pumped through Meers’s entire being. He clenched his teeth and stalked around the storeroom. Calvin had tricked him. Caged, the boy’s sole weapon was his intellect, and he had deceived Meers handily.

  “How could I be so stupid, John? How?”

  Meers’s wrath simmered into rapture. A grin brimmed on his lips. This would be an unparalleled hunt.

  “Do you think it’s time?”

  The wizened head stared at him, apathetic as always.

  “I do.”

  He changed from his work shoes into hunting boots and removed his dress shirt. The white cotton undershirt below barely veiled the concavity of Meers’s chest and scrawny ribs.

  “No flashlight for this one,” he said. As punishment, Calvin would be deprived of the benefit of light in the sewer tunnels. Meers switched the bulb in the pen back on, not out of compassion but because the total darkness would stop the hunt before it started.

  “You comin’ down for a real fight?” Calvin jeered.

  “Did you know, John, that a stab to the lower intestine is said to be the most painful death imaginable? Well, it is. Consider the samurai committing hara-kiri. It would take them hours to die of their self-inflicted wounds. The feces would leak into the gut cavity and leach into the bloodstream, a slow poisoning. Too cruel?”

  The head’s glass eyes stared past Meers.

  “No? I don’t think so either.”

  Meers grasped the rope that raised the cage’s trapdoor and cranked the winch. Iron clanged as the door lifted open. He would allot Calvin five minutes. After that, the game would begin.

  “Soon, John. Soon,” he assured the head.

  To pass the time, Meers swept his bowie over a pale pink Arkansas sharpening stone, polishing the edge to a mirror shine. Once the five minutes were up, he put his Case XX knife in his pocket, strapped on the miner’s helmet, and sheathed the bowie knife.

  “After I’m done, we’ll eat his dinner. We’ll
celebrate. Would you enjoy that, John? I thought you would.”

  When he went into the pen, the cage was empty. Calvin was gone. The iron rod was too. Meers cursed himself for leaving it. He had been fooled once. He wouldn’t be fooled again. Calvin could have been standing just inside the access door, prepared to clobber him with the rod. Meers hurried back up to the storeroom and shut off the pen’s light to prevent it from radiating into the tunnels. He could see well in the dark. Calvin couldn’t. An iron rod was harmless if the boy didn’t know where to swing it.

  Meers unlocked the cage door and stepped inside. He peered through the access hatch: no Calvin. Switching on his carbine lamp, light burst into the tunnel. The brown brick walls stretched endlessly in both directions. The drought had dried the dirt accumulated on the tunnel floor, creating a canvas for Calvin’s footprints. They led to the left. Meers listened to see if he could hear anything. The sewer was silent.

  In spite of his limp, he was limber in the tunnels. He loped along at a fast clip, scanning the ground for tracks. The sewers were ideal for his hunting because the prints of his previous kills were usually washed clean in time for the next. Even so, Meers could distinguish the old from the new. Those he saw were widely spaced, indicating that Calvin was walking briskly and had tripped often. At every tunnel intersection, Meers took caution. Calvin might have been perched behind any corner. Meers took out his knife. He would be ready for the boy when they finally met up.

  Dry dirt gave way to mud as he moved into a larger tunnel in pursuit of the footprints. The lamplight swelled, filling the space. Beams danced over the brick walls, reflected off the gurgling sewer water. There was no sign of Calvin. Meers studied the tracks. They were closer, deeper, the edges messy. Eventually, they stopped altogether, as though Calvin had dematerialized.

  “I’m impressed.”

  This was another hoax. Calvin had forged into the tunnel, then backtracked, approximating his own footsteps in the dark.

  “But I’m not dumb.”

  As Meers turned to recommence with the real trail, the iron bar came swooshing by his ear.

  “Yes you is,” Calvin said. He had sneaked up on him.

  Meers dodged the blow and swung at Calvin with his knife. Calvin ran, using the lamplight to see by. Since Meers couldn’t keep pace with him, he let Calvin get the lead, driving him into the darkness. But Calvin got wise and stopped sprinting. Meers saw him fifty yards in the distance. He had one arm outstretched, feeling the wall, and he was tapping the rod to and fro like a blind person with a cane.

  Calvin spun to face him, squinting and holding the rod as a baseball bat. “Come and get me, asshole.”

  The invitation was another trap. Hand to hand, Calvin would have the advantage, so Meers stood still. Calvin couldn’t see him because of the scorching lamplight.

  “Come on,” Calvin challenged. “Come and get me.”

  Meers snuffed the lamp on his helmet, and the tunnel went black. He could hear Calvin’s heavy breathing over the trickling sewer water. His pupils took a second to focus. Once they did, he saw Calvin swaying the rod in front of him as an antenna. Meers tapped the helmet, pretending it was a mechanical failure. Calvin fell for the ruse and rushed at him, a lion charging a wounded animal.

  Iron rod flailing, Calvin closed in. Meers got low and started toward him, shortening the gap between them. When they collided, Meers rammed the bowie knife into Calvin’s stomach. The blade dug in to the hilt. Calvin cried out and the rod crash down on Meers’s left shoulder, dropping him to the ground beside Calvin.

  “Damn you,” Meers spat. Injured, he scuttled away, sloshing through the mud. He put the lamp back on. He wanted to see every nuance of Calvin’s pain.

  The boy was crumpled on the tunnel floor, his clothes sopped in blood and muck. The rod lay at his side, a relinquished sword. He was holding his abdomen and contorting his face in agony.

  “See what you made me do?” Meers yelled, tears in his eyes. His voice echoed through the sewers. It hurt for him to stand. His clavicle was shattered. He could tell. The skin was broken too. Blood seeped onto his undershirt. “See?”

  Calvin’s wound was so excruciating he couldn’t speak. His mouth formed words, yet they wouldn’t come out. His body had gone limp.

  Pain triggered Meers’s impatience. He resented having to wait for Calvin to expire, but rage prevented Meers from sparing him. He sheathed his knife, collecting himself.

  “Good-bye, Calvin,” he said. “It’s been a pleasure.”

  With those final words, Meers abandoned the boy to die alone in the tunnel in the dark.

  FORTY-FIVE

  Rain marched on the corrugated roof of the zinc refinery, awakening Emmett. The drought had broken with a sudden deluge. He felt like he was inside a huge drum someone was beating on. Woozy, he struggled to keep his eyes open, then the pain in his wrists and the pungent odor of sulfur roused him into full consciousness. To his horror, he realized there was tape across his lips.

  Emmett didn’t know where he was, only that he had been bound to a steel girder. Bolts nudged into his spine. He bucked to see if he could loosen the chains wrapped around his chest. They were too tight. The padlock securing them brushed against his palm.

  The last thing he could remember was being at the library. Gradually, the hazy bits and pieces gelled together. The librarian had faked an asthma attack and hit him in the thigh with something that burned. His badge and gun were gone. Their absence stung him as badly as the burns.

  As far as Emmett could tell, he was in some sort of defunct factory. Rivet holes dotted the floor where machinery had formerly been affixed. Broken windows along the roofline let in the remaining daylight. The sun was setting. He had to get his bearings before he lost the light entirely.

  Waning rays shimmered off a cherry red Cadillac parked inside the cavernous factory. The car had come in through a rolling garage door, which was closed. Other than the Cadillac, the place was empty. On either side of him, concrete spanned for yards, smudging into darkness. Emmett couldn’t move or call for help, and the windows were too high to see any landmarks. All he could do was concentrate and commit what he could see of the layout to memory.

  Pins and needles were fizzing in his forearms, the result of having them strapped tightly behind him for too long. He wiggled his fingers to get the blood moving. Once he regained feeling, he would attempt to stand. If he could shimmy to his feet, the chains might loosen and fall, then he could step right out of them.

  Flexing his muscles gave him a head rush. Whatever Meers doped him with hadn’t fully worn off, and it induced waves of nausea. Emmett took deep breaths through his nose, willing himself not to throw up. With the tape covering his mouth, he could suffocate if he did. As soon as the queasiness had abated, he began rocking his shoulders back and forth, gaining momentum by pushing his feet against the ground. Slowly, he inched up the girder, muscles quaking as he held a low, leg-searing squat. He had risen a foot off the floor when a lightbulb popped on in a room at the opposite end of the factory. Sacrificing his progress, Emmett slid down to the concrete and lowered his eyelids so it would appear, from a distance, that he was still knocked out.

  Meers staggered into the light and collapsed into a chair, shouting, “Goddamn him, John. Do you see what he did to me?”

  Nobody else was in the room from what Emmett could see, leaving him to wonder who John was and whether or not Meers was alone.

  “He’s sorry now,” Meers claimed, trying to convince himself of triumph. “He’s the one who’s sorry.”

  Blood stained Meers’s undershirt, but not rain. That told Emmett he hadn’t come in from outside.

  “This is bad, John. It’s serious. I need to go to the hospital. Give me a lie, a lie to tell the doctors.”

  Meers was hurt, an edge for Emmett. If he left for the hospital, that would give Emmett the opportunity to get free of the chains.

  “I’ll say I fell. They’ll believe that, won’t they, John? Won’t the
y?” he whimpered. “That’s what I’ll do. I’ll put the detective in the cage, then I’ll go and tell the doctors at the hospital that I fell.”

  The cage, Emmett thought as he closed his eyes. Rain was pounding on the roof like an oncoming locomotive. He could hear Meers limping toward him.

  “Are you awake, Detective?” He lifted Emmett’s chin from his chest and ripped the tape from his mouth. “Are you? Don’t play opossum with me. I’m in no mood for that.”

  Meers pinched Emmett’s ear, digging his nail into the soft cartilage and twisting hard. Compared to wearing a chain around his leg for three hours a day at the monastery, the wire tines boring into his flesh, this pain was insignificant and momentary. Emmett didn’t flinch.

  “I apologize for that, Detective. I had to be sure.” Meers was contrite.

  The timber of his footsteps told Emmett that Meers had gone in the direction of the Cadillac. The car’s trunk creaked, and after some indistinguishable clatter, something was being drawn toward Emmett. Wheels were rolling over the concrete floor. Not being able to open his eyes was more agonizing than Meers wrenching his ear.

  Exertion from ascending the girder had warmed Emmett’s muscles, though he couldn’t account for his reflexes. Eyes closed, it was impossible to tell if Meers had a weapon. Emmett wasn’t certain his body would cooperate for a fight. His plan was to lull Meers into complacency, then he might become careless.

  Meers undid the padlock and began the meandrous process of untying the chains. Emmett’s nerves were jangling. He couldn’t allow himself to get too worked up or else he would start to sweat, and a sleeping person wouldn’t perspire. Loosed from his bonds, he slumped forward, pretending to be passed out.

  “Here we go. One arm. Then the next,” Meers said, as if dressing a baby. “Upsy daisy.”

  Some kind of vest was saddled over Emmett’s shoulders and fastened tight at the waist, then he felt himself being wrangled onto a rolling dolly and heard a clamp snap onto the vest. He sensed the tautness of being connected to Meers and the tug of being conveyed across the concrete. Every fiber of his being yearned to jump up and throttle Meers, except now they were conjoined. If Emmett tried to run, he wouldn’t get far.