Hobbled

by John Inman

  He and Granger both flinched when a really close crash of lightning scared the bejesus out of them.

  “Come on, Luke. Come on, come on, come on.”

  Danny closed his eyes, suffered the rain, barely tolerated the lightning, and waited, glad Granger was there beside him. But wishing it was Luke instead.

  And praying to God that Luke was still safe.

  LUKE and the two boys cowered on the concrete steps with the big old trapdoor looming over their heads. The trapdoor shut out some of the racket from the storm pummeling the world outside, but not all of it. They could still hear the water gushing from the broken rain gutter two stories up at the top of the house, and they still cringed at the occasional boom of thunder rattling across the heavens. At least they were out of the rain and wind. Or most of it. A few drops of ice-cold drizzle still dribbled through the cracks in the door, landing on their heads. Luke decided Dinkens’s house needed a hell of a lot more than weather stripping to get it up to snuff. It needed some major renovation. The place was a wreck.

  Luke shook himself off as best he could and looked around.

  A few steps down was a doorway, which presumably led into the basement. And it was exactly that. A doorway. An opening. There was no door in it. There was a glow of ambient light coming from somewhere inside. It illuminated a carpet of dirt and leaves and twigs which coated the stairs going down, all the detritus that had sifted through the ratty trapdoors over the years and come to rest on the concrete steps beneath.

  Luke held his finger to his lips to let everyone know to be quiet, as if that was really necessary. He slowly descended the steps with DeVon and Bradley scrunched up behind him, trying to see over his shoulders. They both had hold of his shirttail now. Luke felt like a mother possum lugging her offspring around on her back.

  Before stepping through the doorway, Luke peeked around in both directions. Satisfied there were no murderers waiting to jump him just inside, he stepped on through. He was so tense he had to remind himself to breathe.

  There was just enough light to navigate by.

  The basement looked like a million other basements. Concrete floor, unfinished brick walls, little rectangular windows high on the walls, unglassed but screened over, letting the cold air inside. Crap was stacked everywhere. Boxes, furniture, old bicycles, trunks, cedar chests, clothing simply thrown in jumbled, mildewy piles. There were enough cobwebs hanging from the ceiling to knit a couple of sweaters.

  The place smelled musty and fetid, like damp soil and mouse droppings and food left out to rot. It was an unwholesome reek that made Luke’s toes curl. A stench, really. Luke found himself breathing through his mouth so he wouldn’t have to smell it. The air was cold too. Those little open windows high in the wall, and the concrete floor and brick walls, made the place feel like a dungeon in some old Errol Flynn movie: a place where screams might be heard at all times of the day and night, and tortured souls were offered up to Jesus on a regular basis. A bad place. A place where nobody in their right mind would ever want to spend any time.

  In one corner of the dank, dim basement, an ancient furnace stood guard. It was silent and dead. A mute, looming presence, like a stone stele in a forgotten Mayan temple, unseen by man for hundreds of years but still spooky as hell. Luke got the impression the furnace had been turned off a long time ago and the pilot light never relit. He wondered what Dinkens used for heat. Space heaters, he supposed. He also wondered how many rats were using the furnace for a condo. Dozens, probably.

  The area around the furnace was the only floor space that wasn’t buried in trash and piled high with junk. It looked as if someone had tried to keep the area clear. Looking closer, Luke saw the dust on the floor had been disturbed, as if a thousand footsteps had wandered through it in the very same spot. It reminded him of a path. Or a game trail. And the moment Luke thought those words, another shiver shot up his spine.

  Game trail.

  The light that dimly illuminated the broad, sprawling basement was shining from somewhere behind the ancient furnace. And the moment Luke realized that, he also heard the moan.

  That, too, came from behind the furnace. He suddenly found his heart stuck up in his throat like a rag in a tailpipe. He could barely breathe. And oddly enough, there was also a tiny tingle of exhilaration strumming away at his nerve endings. My God, he thought, maybe we’ve really done it. Maybe we’ve really found the poor blond guy who was snatched from a supermarket parking lot and never seen again by anyone who meant to do him any good. My God. Maybe they were actually going to succeed in saving the life of a young man named Charles Strickland. They’d be heroes.

  If they survived.

  “Wait here,” Luke whispered to the boys, his voice little more than a croak.

  “Fuck that,” both boys whispered right back.

  So the three of them headed for the furnace on stealthy feet, not sure what they would find on the other side, but each and every one of them had an idea of what they might find. And they were not looking forward to the discovery. Or maybe they were.

  Halfway there, Bradley tugged on Luke’s shirt to make him stop. When he did, Luke saw what Bradley was pointing at. There was a staircase climbing the wall to the right, way off in the shadows at the other end of the basement. It was obviously the way to the upper part of the house. If Dinkens were to catch them down here, that was the way he would have to come.

  “Keep your eyes on it,” Luke whispered.

  The boys nodded. Words unnecessary.

  Again, they approached the old furnace. The closer they came to it, the brighter grew the ambient light behind it. And the stronger the stench of rot and filth grew as well.

  Whatever they were about to discover behind that damn furnace, it wouldn’t be good. They all knew that as well as they knew their own names.

  They took another step forward. Luke was just about to reach out and steady himself on the side of the cold furnace before walking around to see what was behind it, when DeVon gave a gasp that almost scared Luke to death. Bradley suddenly flung his arms around Luke’s waist and held on for dear life. Whatever had startled DeVon had startled the crap out of Bradley too.

  Luke turned. “What is it?” His voice was a mere breath of sound in the dusty old basement. He couldn’t have spoken any louder if he wanted to. Fear seemed to be holding his vocal cords in a tight little fist, letting nothing out of his mouth but an occasional squeak. “What is it?” he hissed again.

  DeVon and Bradley both pointed to something huddled by the wall off to their left. Whatever it was, it was dumped inside an old metal bathtub, the oblong kind. There was a frayed and mildewed bath towel, filled with holes, flung over the top of the pile, but it seemed to have slipped to the side, exposing what was underneath.

  It took Luke about two seconds to realize this was where the majority of the stench emanated from.

  Without his glasses on, Luke had to step closer to see what it was.

  He fumbled for his glasses in his pocket, and no sooner had he slipped them over his nose than Bradley went apeshit.

  His voice was more high-pitched than Luke had ever heard it. The kid sounded like a rat squealing in terror. “Holy shit, it’s her! It’s her! Mrs. Dinkens! It’s her!”

  The kid was trying to run back the way they had just come, but Luke held onto him. He was more afraid of what might happen to Bradley off on his own in this creepy damn house than he was afraid of whatever it was that was staring him in the face from that rusty old washtub.

  DeVon was strangely quiet. Luke looked down at him. The kid was gripping Luke’s arm and his eyeballs were as big as dinner plates. He was staring at whatever was piled up under that bath towel like he had locked eyes with Medusa. He couldn’t have looked away if he wanted to.

  Luke decided since both kids seemed to know what this pile of mysterious crap was, or who it was, then maybe he should figure it out too. So he leaned in close. When his eyes focused, he sucked in a great gulp of air and stumbled backward.


  It was a woman. An obese woman. She was sitting nude in rolls of fat, squeezed into that old tub like three pounds of butter in a one-pound container. She had a sprinkling of snow or sugar or flour sprinkled all over her that looked kind of silly at first. Then Luke realized what it was. And it wasn’t a raggedy bath towel over her head and shoulders.

  It was lime. A coating of lime.

  She was being decomposed. Set there to rot and disappear forever.

  DeVon’s words seemed to come crawling out of his mouth unbidden. Luke had never seen a more stunned look on a human face before in his life.

  “It is Mrs. Dinkens. She used to make us cookies.” And after a moment of silence when Luke could hear nothing but his own heart clamoring around inside his chest, DeVon added softly, “He’s killed her too.”

  Luke felt bile crawl up into his throat, and now it was his turn to fight the urge to run, but before he could form a rational enough thought to battle the urge, a trembling voice spoke out from behind the furnace. The voice was barely audible. A male voice. It was how Luke imagined a voice would sound if it had screamed the very vocal cords out of its throat after hours, days, weeks, of torture and pain.

  The voice spoke two simple words.

  “Help me.”

  Now Luke had to grab the side of the furnace just to prevent himself from toppling over. His legs were jelly. The power of gravity seemed to have suddenly increased because the two boys had such a grip on him it felt like they were dragging him down through a hole in the floor, never to be seen again.

  When Luke was just beginning to think maybe it was a good idea for the three of them to run after all, a rattling cough stayed Luke’s feet. It came from behind the furnace. The cough was so filled with pain, so infused with horror, that it made Luke’s eyes water in sympathy just to hear it. It also rooted him to the floor where he stood.

  It took Luke a minute to get a grip on his fear, but when he did, he put his arms around both boys and pulled them close. That gave him courage. And it gave the boys courage too. Together they stepped determinedly around the rusty old furnace. And then, together, they drew in a collective gasp.

  There was a little room back there. New concrete blocks had been laid to the ceiling in a square about ten feet by ten feet. There was a door into this tiny room, but it was flung wide at the moment.

  The room was a cage.

  Charles Strickland lay naked, handcuffed by one hand to a large iron ring buried in the concrete wall. He was filthy and looked nothing like the handsome young man Luke had seen on the news that night in his cap and gown, with the sparkle of a bright future glimmering in his eyes. This guy wasn’t anything like that guy. This guy had been through hell. Clearly. He had a filthy, bloody bandage loosely wrapped around one hand, and he cradled that hand close to his chest. The pain of his missing finger, his mutilated hand, was etched across his face.

  Luke could see the ribs poking through the skin of his chest. He looked like he hadn’t eaten anything in a month. But that was impossible. He had only disappeared a few days ago.

  The young man sat on the cold stone floor, his bare buttocks resting in a smear of blood.

  As Luke stared at him, speechless, Charles Strickland stretched out a filthy hand and said, “Water. Please. I’m so thirsty.”

  Then Strickland stared at the two boys still clinging to Luke like they were hanging from a cliff. Strickland seemed to have never seen such interesting creatures in his life. Luke found himself wondering if the young man was still sane.

  “I was expecting a SWAT team,” Strickland croaked in his pain-addled voice, “not a fourth grade field trip.” The sound of his voice was almost lost beneath the raging of the storm.

  “Hey!” DeVon countered, offended to the core. “We’re in the fifth grade.”

  “Hush,” Luke said. He dropped to his knees in front of Strickland and the young man turned his wide, emotionless eyes to him as Luke tried to figure out how to extract his hand from the manacle.

  “Where’s the key?” Luke gently asked, cupping Strickland’s chin in his fingers, trying to keep him focused, trying to make him understand. “If you tell me where the key is, I can get you out of here.”

  And behind them, at the base of the stairs, a voice echoed loud and strong through the fetid air of the musty old basement.

  “I assume you’re talking about this key.”

  And amid a jangle of metal, Luke and the two boys spun to face the voice.

  And the man who had uttered the words.

  EVEN being cold and miserable and aching and hungry and worried to death about Luke’s safety, Danny somehow still managed to doze off as he sat there under the hedge. The storm raged around him; the ice-cold rain continually pelted his head; and Granger was spread out across his lap like a wet carpet, but none of it mattered. Danny was sound asleep. Only when his subconscious mind thought of Luke, out there somewhere, maybe facing danger, did Danny snap to attention and wake the hell up.

  The minute he did, he peeked through the slats of the picket fence into Dinkens’s yard, and saw a shadow flitting along in front of the tumbledown garage in the back. And it was only because of a lucky flash of lightning at exactly the right moment he saw even that.

  Granger woke up when he sensed Danny grow tense beneath him. He crawled off Danny’s lap and Danny groaned as the blood shot back into his cramped legs.

  “Holy shit, Granger! You’ve crippled me!”

  He rubbed his legs and looked once again through the picket fence.

  The shadow was gone.

  Danny looked around to make sure no one was watching, and with another groan, he grabbed the fence and pulled himself to his feet. As the blood dribbled down into his blood-starved arteries, Danny thought he had never felt such pain in his life. Even breaking his leg didn’t compare to it.

  Finally, after a couple of minutes, the pain turned to relief and he was able to stand it. The pins and needles went away a couple of minutes after that.

  He gazed around. First at his yard, then at Dinkens’s yard, then toward the street out front. He saw no one. Not a soul.

  He awkwardly flung his broken leg across the picket fence first, then he followed it with his good leg. Then he reached back over the fence and scooped his arms under Granger and lifted him over to set him at his feet.

  “Stay!” Danny commanded, and Granger stood by his side, although he was trembling in his eagerness to run. Danny had never realized until that moment just how well trained Luke’s dog really was. Well, good. It would make things easier.

  “Heel, boy,” Danny whispered, and together they moved as quietly as they could through the storm, hugging the fence, staying low, heading for Dinkens’s backyard.

  Danny was really limping now. He couldn’t help wondering if he had done permanent damage to his broken leg. Not to mention the fact his bare feet were killing him too. Christ, sometimes he had no sense at all, coming out here barefoot and all.

  He stuck his head around the corner of Dinkens’s house and saw the back porch. He headed for it without even thinking, wanting to get out of the rain. At least for a couple of minutes. The lightning was still flashing and the thunder was still banging around up in the sky, but Danny thought maybe the storm was beginning to taper off.

  He stepped up onto the porch with a grunt and Granger hopped up beside him, limber as a fox.

  Granger immediately crossed the porch and stood staring off the other side.

  Danny tilted his head and listened. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he could hear someone banging around over there in the shadows. He wondered how close he could get to them before he was spotted and all hell broke loose.

  The thing was, that shadow he had seen crossing in front of Dinkens’s garage earlier, well, that wasn’t Luke. No way. And it wasn’t either of the kids either. Danny was sure it wasn’t.

  But the funny thing was—it was too short to be Dinkens too.

  So just who the hell was it stumbling arou
nd in the dark out here with the rest of them?

  And why did Danny have a really bad feeling gnawing away at his guts about the way this whole damn night was turning out?

  He carefully stepped off the far side of the porch, with Granger following, and approached the sounds he could still hear in the shadows ahead. He bent and picked up a goodly sized rock that struck his poor toe when his toe wasn’t looking. He didn’t know who the enemy was up ahead, but at least now he had a weapon to defend himself with.

  And then it hit him. Almost like a bolt of lightning.

  He looked down. His ankle monitor was flashing red!

  MR. DINKENS didn’t look anything like he had the first time Luke saw him. He wasn’t properly dressed for one thing. He was wrapped up in a ratty old plaid bathrobe, his bare feet, under white hairless ankles, were stuffed in an old pair of house slippers that had most certainly seen better days. There was a towel draped around his shoulders, and his hair was wet. He had obviously just been outside not more than a few minutes earlier, and everyone in the room knew what he had been doing.

  There were scratches up and down Dinkens’s shins like he’d been savaged by a dog. He saw Luke staring at them.

  “Fucker likes to kick,” Dinkens said, tilting his head at Strickland.

  “Water,” Strickland said.

  And Dinkens smiled a nasty little smile.

  To Luke’s surprise it was Bradley who seemed really pissed about the whole thing. “You killed your wife.”

  Dinkens looked down at the kid as he stepped off the stairs and moved closer. “And your point is—?”

  “She made us cookies. She was nice.”

  “She was a pig, kid. She looks like four hundred pounds of bread dough in that damn tub. Didn’t you see her? Besides she was getting suspicious about my little hobby. Had to get rid of her. Not to mention the fact that it was costing a fortune to feed her. That woman could eat.”

  DeVon took a crack at the bastard. “You killed the cat too. Why’d you kill the cat?”