by Jack Kilborn
The funky smell grew stronger. The stairs ended at a living room, and Tom saw a large desk with three computer monitors set up on it. Flat screens, up-to-date. All were off. But underneath the desk, in a large snarl of cords, there were blinking router and modem lights. The computer tower’s cooling fan hummed softly.
Besides the desk, there was a well-worn sofa, an older model TV from the era before flatscreen, and a blanket hanging up on the wall. Tom guessed it was covering the window. He walked in the direction of the front door, and was reaching for the handle when an abrupt knock startled him.
“You in there, Tom?”
Tom let out a small, nervous laugh—stress relief—and tried to open the door to let his partner in.
The door didn’t budge.
“Deadbolt on this side needs a key,” Tom said, flashing his light at it. “Key’s not here.”
“You find anyone?”
“Not yet. You didn’t tell me there were kids here.”
“I didn’t know. You found kids?”
“Their bedrooms. Boy and a girl. Teens or younger.”
“Cissick is twenty-one. Couldn’t have children that old.”
“Maybe a brother and sister?” Tom asked. “Did Walter have more kids?”
“Not that I know. Dennis was an only child.”
Tom’s imagination took him for another unpleasant ride. Deformed siblings, hidden from the public, raised behind closed doors. Inbred and homicidal. Probably cannibals. The stuff of B-movies, but reality as well. Tom had known real life instances like that. He knew a couple named Deb and Mal who had gone through it.
“I’ll go around back,” Roy said. “Meet me there. And don’t shoot any kids. Maybe they’re the ones made the noise.”
It was possible. Kids home alone, playing in the basement. Roy had called to them, and they yelled back as a joke. And now a cop had broken into the house and they were freaked out and hiding. Though Tom still could cite probable cause as his reason for entering, if an angry homeowner called Tom’s boss—or worse, some reporter—it could cause a lot of trouble.
But that cry for help hadn’t sounded like kids goofing around. It had sounded genuine.
Tom walked back through the living room, into the kitchen. The smell had gotten worse. Like someone was keeping a large animal in the house and not cleaning up after it. Tom went through the kitchen, into a utility room with a washer and dryer, and to the back door.
Another deadbolt without a key.
Now the only way to let Roy in was to break down a door or window. And if it was only children…
POW POW POW!
“Tommy, you there?”
Tom flinched. It was just Roy, pounding on the door.
“Door is locked here, too,” Tom said.
“Shit. Team will be here in a minute. But if those are kids in there, and we break down the door…”
“I had the same thought.”
“You check the basement yet? That’s where the sounds came from.”
“I’m doing that now.”
“Well, move your ass. It’s about to turn into a circus out here. You want Fox news to show up?”
“I had the same thought,” Tom said again.
“Stop thinking, start searching.”
Tom played the flashlight around the utility room area, saw a heavy door with a steel security bar going across it. That eliminated the children playing around theory; there was no way they could lock themselves into the basement and then drop the bar back down.
He went to the door, lifting up the metal barricade, setting it next to the jamb, wondering who would lock a basement in such a way, and why.
Tom reached for the knob slowly, like it would give him an electric shock when he touched it. More videos from his misspent youth clouded his thoughts. Beyond the Door. The People Under the Stairs. Don’t Look in the Basement.
Just dumb movies. Tom was overreacting. He grabbed the knob, and just as he was ready to turn it—
POW POW POW!
—his partner banged on the door again, making Tom jump a few inches.
“Team is here.”
“Hold up. I found the basement.”
“What you waiting on?”
“It’s spooky.”
“Spooky? You serious?”
“There was a big metal bar over the door.”
Roy didn’t answer.
“Roy? You still there?”
“How about you get out of there, let the team go in.”
A few years ago, Roy wouldn’t have said that. Their ongoing bromance insisted they pick on each other’s weaknesses, and in the past Roy would have mercilessly teased Tom for being a coward. But after what they’d gone through in South Carolina, and the PTSD that followed, neither man played the action hero anymore. If things got scary, they both knew to wait for back-up.
Except back-up was already here. And even if this was getting scary, what did Tom have to fear from something locked in the basement?
“I’ll just do a quick check,” Tom said. Though the words felt weak coming out of his mouth.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Put your cell on speaker phone, so I can hear what’s going on. Say the word and the cavalry will rush in.”
“Got it.” Tom slipped his cell phone out of his jacket, speed dialed Roy, and hit the speaker button.
“You hear me?” Tom asked.
“Loud and clear, partner. Be careful.”
“Roger that.”
Tom held his iPhone in the same hand as his penlight, and with his other he turned the knob and pulled. The door swung open with an obligatory, creepy creak.
The smell that wafted up was awful; garbage and sewage and rot surrounding him like a foul breeze. Tom put a sleeve over his mouth and coughed.
“You okay?” Roy, through the phone.
“Bad smell. Going down now.”
“Maybe announce yourself first?”
“Good idea.” He cleared his throat and yelled, “This is Detective Tom Mankowski, Chicago Police. Is anyone down there?”
Silence.
Followed by silence.
The seconds ticked by, and Tom could feel every single one of them. He searched for a light switch on the wall, didn’t find one, and shined his light on the staircase.
Here goes nothing.
“I’m going down,” Tom told Roy.
The stairs were wooden, old. They curved to the left, so Tom couldn’t see the bottom. He went down a step, letting it take his weight, then paused to listen.
There was a tinkling sound, coming from below. Like a chain being dragged along the concrete floor.
“Hello?”
More silence.
“I’m here to help,” Tom said. Though he felt as if he was the one who needed help.
Then came a response. Of sorts. A soft, high-pitched, protracted yipping sound rose up from the darkness below.
Tom shivered, his arms mottling with gooseflesh. The appropriately-sounding technical term was horripilation; hair standing on end from fear. Tom knew the word because it had been a question on a game show he’d just seen.
“What the hell was that?” Roy said.
“Hello?” Tom called again.
The ghostly voice got louder. It resembled a sound effect straight out of a haunted house; off-kilter and manic and insane. It might have been a sob. It might have been a giggle. Either way, it was scary enough to make Tom tug out his Glock. He held it with one hand, his flashlight and cell phone with the other, his arms outstretched like he was warding off vampires with a wooden cross and a wreath of garlic.
While Tom did not believe in the supernatural, he had total faith in the depravity of human nature. Whatever was in the basement may not have been paranormal, but it was still damn far from normal.
He went down another step, every muscle tense, finger on the trigger, his breathing matching his increased heart rate. Tom forced himself to take deeper breaths; it wasn�
�t a good time to pass out from hyperventilation. But this was the first truly scary thing to happen to him in a while, and the fear was asserting its dominance over him.
“I’m here to help,” Tom said to the darkness.
Another step. He could see the concrete floor.
“I’m a cop. I’m armed.”
The acrid smell seemed to double with every stair he descended. Piss. Shit. Blood. Body odor. The stench became so thick Tom was tempted to fan his hand in front of his face, like he might waft away smoke. But he kept both arms fully extended. Gun. Light. Phone. All of them potential life-savers.
While fear of the unknown was common to most of humanity, Tom’s fear was more primal. He was afraid of pain and death. The fight-or-flight response activated in his reptile brain had historical precedent in his life. Tom remembered all-too-well what it was like to be hurt. To almost be killed. Even worse was helplessly waiting to be hurt and killed. Being restrained, to be vivisected like a lab rat. No mercy. No hope. Tom knew that feeling, intimately, and it was the same feeling that crushed him now.
But this time, Tom wasn’t bound. He was free to get the hell out of there. Which is what every cell in his body ached to do.
I’m safe. I have a gun. I have back-up outside. I can get away if I need to.
He tried to take another step.
His feet didn’t listen.
From the darkness came another giggle.
“I’m frozen,” Tom told Roy. His ears reddened in shame.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“In danger?”
“No.”
“I feel you, brother. Been there. We can come in. Just say the word.”
Tom thought of the engagement ring in his pocket. He thought about Joan. About the many happy years ahead. Was his job worth risking all of that? He was willingly marching into a bad situation to prove…
What exactly am I trying to prove?
“We’re coming in,” Roy told him.
“Gimme a second.”
“Tom—”
“A second, Roy.”
Whenever a police officer shot someone, professional counselling was mandatory. If you didn’t get a pass from the district shrink, you didn’t get to return to the streets. Tom had been through the process before, and he understood its purpose. The point wasn’t to make the cop feel better. The point was to make sure the cop could still shoot someone if the situation warranted it. A version of getting back on the horse that threw you.
Tom knew, if he called for help, he’d never be able to get back on the horse. He either had to face the fear now, or hang up the badge.
A soft giggle wafted up the stairs.
Hanging up the badge seemed like a pretty good idea.
He was about to tell Roy to send in the cavalry when the voice in the basement spoke to him.
“Is… heeeee…. dead?”
The voice was hoarse, a high tenor. Tom couldn’t tell if it was male or female.
“Holy shit that is some eerie shit,” Roy said.
Tom told his partner to be quiet. “Is who dead?” he asked the person in the basement.
“Erin… eeeees…”
“Who are you?”
“Erin… eeeeeeeeeeeees.”
“I’m here to help you,” Tom said. Letting the urgency of the moment fill his courage reserves, Tom made it to the bottom of the stairs. Then he played the light around.
Concrete floor and walls. Posts with I-beams supporting the bare first floor joists. Various pipes snaking through the exposed ceiling. And in the corner—
A horribly stained blanket. Spread out in front of a large, wooden box.
The box had a hole cut in the front. Like a dog house.
Attached to the side of it was a heavy chain. It led into the box’s opening.
“We’re going to need an ambulance,” Tom said. He noted the bowls on the floor, water and dry kibble. “There’s someone down here chained up like an animal.”
Tom tried to shine his light inside the box, but whoever was inside hid in the shadows.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, taking a step closer.
“I… hurt…”
“Can you move?”
“I… hurt… so…. much….”
Tom adjusted the angle of his approach, and caught the sight of a bare leg, mottled with filth and dried blood. It quickly retracted out of the light.
The person in the box began to giggle again.
Tom hesitated. His natural desire to help and protect wrestled with primal, deeply-ingrained terror.
There is a human being inside that box, Tom told himself. One who needs medical attention.
So why do I think it’s going to spring out and attack me?
Yet another artifact from many an old horror film; the creature locked up in the basement, too dangerous to unleash upon an unsuspecting world.
I’m never watching another freaking horror film ever again.
“Help is coming,” Tom said, less to reassure the person in the box, and more to reassure himself. “We’re going to get you out of here.”
“Erin—eeeeees… won’t… like… that.”
“Erinyes isn’t here.”
Tom stepped to the left, trying to get a better angle to see inside the box. His beam still failed to illuminate the corner where the person was hiding.
“Erin—eeeees sees everything.”
“That’s impossible,” Tom said, though he did a quick sweep of the basement to make sure no one else was there.
“Erin—eeeeees sees all. Knows all. Punishes sinners.”
Tom moved closer. All the clichés about fear were holding true. His mouth was dry. His legs were rubbery. His heart was hammering. He’d never gone sky diving, but he imagined this is what it felt like right before you jumped out of the plane.
“Do you sin… Tom?”
Tom flinched at hearing his own name. How did this person know it? Then he remembered announcing himself at the top of the stairs. Tom swallowed, then adjusted the grip on his Glock because his hands were sweating.
I’m overreacting. I have a gun. This poor bastard is chained up in a doghouse. I have nothing to be afraid of.
“We’re trying to get in,” Roy said, his voice on the phone surprising Tom and making him flinch. “This door is a mutha.”
“Roger that.”
Tom took another step toward the box.
“We all sin. We all need Penance.”
“Come out of there,” Tom said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“I deserve to be hurt.”
“No one deserves this.”
“I do, Tom.”
“No, you don’t.” Tom stepped over the dog bowls and crouched down. He was only a meter away from the box.
“I’m… wicked. I’m a sinner.”
“Sins can be forgiven. God forgives sins.”
“God does.” There was another wicked giggle. “Erin—eeees… does not.”
Tom finally got the correct angle to shine his light on the person in the box.
He wished he hadn’t.
It was a naked man, but he was so emaciated the only way to tell he was male was by his patchy beard, which was bare in spots like he had mange. The chain attached to a collar around his ankle. Beneath all of the grime and dried blood, the man’s skin was covered with a crisscrossing network of wounds and scars. He sat with his back to the rear wall of the box, his legs pressed to his chest, rocking back and forth. It was horrible to look at, and impossible to look away from.
“You’re okay now,” Tom said. It was one of the biggest lies he’d ever told. Even with fifty years of intense mental therapy and physical rehabilitation, this man would never be okay.
“What year is it?” the man asked in his scratchy, high voice.
Tom told him.
The man giggled again. The laugh morphed into a keening wail—
—and then he pounced.
Tom squeezed the Glock�
��s trigger out of fright, but managed to pull the shot so he didn’t hit the guy.
That proved to be a mistake.
The man rushed at Tom, pushing him off-balance with surprising strength. Tom fell backward, his gun skittering off in one direction, his cell phone flying off in another, as the man straddled him and locked his hands around Tom’s neck.
Tom felt jagged, dirty fingernails dig into his skin. He’d managed to retain his hold on the Fenix, and aimed the flashlight into the man’s eyes. The close up look at his face was horrifying; half of his nose had been cut off, and so had most of his ears, making him resemble a living skull. His mouth was a red, infected cavern of missing and rotten teeth. He snarled, his breath causing Tom to gag, and he tried to push the guy off but the thin man wouldn’t budge.
But he did bite.
The few teeth he had left locked onto Tom’s forearm, breaking the flesh, digging in.
As the pressure increased on Tom’s neck, the lack of oxygen brought the stars out; motes of light that swam across Tom’s vision. Tom changed tactics, going the streetfighter route and reaching between the man’s legs.
But there was nothing to squeeze. Just scar tissue and a small nub that felt like a plastic tube.
Tom almost threw up, which would have killed him since he was presently being strangled. He managed to fight both revulsion and unconsciousness, and drew back the tactical flashlight and then struck, hard, at the man’s temple. It was enough for him to release his jaw, but not his hands. He screamed, blood and spit spraying from his lips.
“ALL SHALL BE JUDGED!”
Tom hit him again. Blood flowed freely down the side of the man’s face.
“ALL SHALL BE PUNISHED!”
Tom hit him once more, and there was a loud CRACK! like a walnut shell being crushed. The man’s terrible grip relaxed, and Tom sucked in a breath as his attacker slumped onto the floor.
“Erinyes will get us all…” the man whispered, his eyelids fluttering as urine arced out of his catheter and all over Tom’s legs.
That’s when Roy and the rest of the team came running down the stairs, and Tom finally deemed it safe enough to throw up.
CHAPTER 28
Though she had too many people in her cell phone address book to ever possibly remember—so many that her assistant needed an entire day to send out holiday cards—Joan didn’t really have any close friends. Joan’s criteria for being close was crying on their shoulder, and the only person she ever did that with was Tom, and it was only after something truly horrible happened.