Frantic

by Mike Dellosso

  Karl cursed again and lunged. Marny clawed at the banister and got his feet under him enough to pull himself up the staircase-turned-sliding board to the second floor. At the bottom of the stairs Karl was acting the part of a raving lunatic—cursing, waving his arms; his face turned shades of red darker and darker. Finally he turned and punched the wall, then dropped to his knees.

  Mom’s voice came from around the corner. “Marny, come here. I need to talk to you.”

  The hallway extended both to the right and left, just like their old home. He moved cautiously down the hallway to the left, past the bathroom, past a closet, and into her room, not knowing what to expect. She was sitting on the bed folding laundry. She smiled at him as she had done a million times when she was alive.

  Marny’s mouth formed the word Mom, but no sound came out. Tears blurred his vision until he dashed them away.

  Janie patted the bed beside her. “Sit, Marny.”

  He didn’t, though. He couldn’t. He knew she wasn’t real. She looked like his mom, sounded like her, and if he went to her and held her, she’d feel and smell like his mom too, but it wasn’t really her. It was his mind, this dream, deceiving him. He stayed where he was.

  Janie’s eyes turned sad, and she put down the shirt she was folding. It was one of Karl’s work shirts. “Why couldn’t you just leave well enough alone, Marny?”

  Marny knew she was talking about that day five years ago. The day he’d had enough and decided to do what he should have done sooner, the day he’d stood up to Karl Gunnison.

  “You had to interfere, and look where it got us.”

  He wanted to tell her to stop, please stop, but the signal wasn’t making it from his brain to his mouth.

  “Sometimes”—she looked at her hands and twisted them nervously—“sometimes I wish I’d never had you.”

  Please, he couldn’t take anymore. He’d wondered if she ever felt that way, ever wished he’d never been born that stormy night. Her life would not have taken so many wrong turns. Hearing her say it, though, was almost too much for him to bear. His legs went weak and nearly buckled.

  “Your father would still be here. Your grandfather. Little Billy Tillman. Sarah Williamson. Adam Bitfield.” She put a fist to her mouth as if fighting back tears. “I never would have wound up with Karl.” Then she looked Marny dead in the eyes, and what he found there was not love or sympathy or forgiveness—any of which he would have gladly welcomed—but accusation and blame. “And I’d still be here.”

  He started to cry then, couldn’t hold back the tears. They streamed from his eyes and down his cheeks. He tried to say something, to apologize, to beg her to love him still, but his mouth was not cooperating. All that came forth was a weak moan. He couldn’t take any more and turned to leave the room. Her voice followed him.

  “It’s your fault, Marny. All your fault.”

  Chapter 5

  THE DEEPEST DARKNESS has a substance all its own.

  For Esther, there was nothing about the darkness that was comforting or inviting, yet it was familiar—the overwhelming emptiness of the room, the smell of mildew and soil, the dampness in the air. She’d spent some time in this cellar, this dungeon.

  She felt her way through the blackness, arms extended in front. Her foot bumped against something hard, and the tinny sound of metal echoed off the stone walls. She bent and felt along the ground. There, a paint can. The one she’d used for a makeshift chair the last time she was here. It had kept her from sitting on the damp floor. That time she’d only been locked in the cellar for half a day.

  Moving along the wall, one hand following the rough foundation, the other extended in front of her, Esther crept with shortened strides until she came to the workbench. There were no tools on it, of course; they’d all been removed years ago.

  Her hand felt along the top surface. The wood was coarse, but not enough to produce splinters. It had been worn to a glossy, creviced landscape by some long-dead carpenter who had once owned the home. She found a square wooden leg and ran her hand down it until she nudged something human, alive.

  A head. His head. So it was him. A quick exhale escaped her lungs, and she almost laughed.

  Esther dropped to her knees and caressed the man’s face with both hands. Yes, it was him; there was no mistaking it. She knew he would come. He had a face that said he would.

  The man turned his head slowly and moaned.

  Esther combed her fingers through his hair. “Shh. It’s okay. It’s okay to wake up.”

  This was the man who would prove himself to be a hero. She’d seen it in his eyes back at the station. She had a knack for reading people, and as soon as she saw him, she knew he was the one.

  His heart was bigger than he realized, and he had courage he knew nothing of.

  Marny came to in fits and starts, clawing his way to consciousness like a drowning swimmer trying to make it to the surface only to be pulled under again by the riptide. He opened his eyes in a flutter but saw nothing, only darkness, felt a hand on his shoulder, his head, then blacked out again, tugged back to the depths of nothingness, the tentacles of unnatural sleep wrapped firmly around his ankles.

  Again his eyelids stuttered open, and this time he heard a voice, a woman. Not his mother. He couldn’t make out what she was saying; her words garbled together like someone speaking under water. He tried to move but felt like he’d gained at least a hundred pounds. Then the tentacles were there again and under he went, back into the noiseless depths of the black sea of nescience.

  Immediately the voice came again, accompanied by the hand on his head, then his face. It was soft and warm and reminded him of his mother’s hand. Could it be? The voice didn’t match. He tried to talk, to say her name—Mom—but his throat felt like sandpaper and wouldn’t work.

  The woman’s voice again. This time her words were clear and lovely. Her voice was like that of an angel.

  “Hey, wake up. You have to wake up.”

  Marny opened his eyes fully, a task that proved much more difficult than it should have been, but still saw nothing. Was he blind? He remembered the blow to the back of his head and panicked at the thought of it having knocked out his eyesight.

  The woman must have sensed his fear. Her hands found his face. “Shh. It’s okay. We’re in the cellar. It’s dark.”

  It was her, the girl from the car. It had to be.

  Pulling himself to a sitting position, Marny felt his ankles and found they were shackled.

  “I have the key.” She groped in the dark, then the clink of metal and the sound of a lock dropping open.

  Marny swallowed hard, lubricating his dry mouth and throat. “What time is it?” He was disoriented, lost in a vacuum. He had no idea how much time had elapsed since he was knocked on the head. It could be minutes, hours, even days.

  “Eleven.”

  “In the morning?” Had he slept almost an entire day?

  “At night.”

  He rubbed his ankles. “I thought I was supposed to rescue you.”

  “Everyone needs a savior.” He could hear the smile in her voice.

  “Thanks.” He had never been anyone’s savior, not even a hero.

  Her next words caught him by surprise.

  “We need to get my brother.”

  Brother? There was someone else in this house with her and the gorilla? But the note said HE’S GOING TO KILL ME. Me. Not us.

  “Your brother.”

  “He’s upstairs, on the second floor. I can’t leave without him. He’s eleven.”

  She sounded very confident. Like this whole botched rescue attempt was all part of some grand plan that was already worked out and it was a certainty that they’d all make it out alive and safe. All three of them.

  Marny stood and stretched the tightness from his back and hips. She took his hand in hers, and it almost made him shiver. He’d never held a girl’s hand before, never wanted to get that close to someone he would eventually in some way disappoint, hurt, or worse.


  “This way.” She tugged on his hand.

  They took a couple strides before she stopped suddenly. “Wait.”

  “What?”

  She tightened her grip just a little. “I’m Esther.”

  “Okay.”

  There was a pause, long enough that he thought something was wrong.

  “Do you have a name?”

  “Oh, yeah. Marnin. Everyone calls me Marny.”

  “Good enough.” She pulled on his hand again and led him through the darkness.

  He wondered how she knew her way around in the dark so well, but then figured she must have spent time in this cellar too, enough to be able to get around blind. The thought angered him.

  “Here are the steps to the first floor.”

  Another pause. They didn’t move, didn’t advance up the stairs.

  “What’s wrong?” Marny said.

  “The house … ” There was a slight quiver to her voice, enough that it made him swallow, and this time he firmed his hand around hers. “It’s not like other houses. He–he has it rigged.”

  “Rigged?”

  “Rigged to keep us in.”

  Marny didn’t like the sound of that. “What do you mean?”

  Esther hesitated, and he could hear her struggling to find her breath. “It’s not like other houses. You’ll see. Just stay with me, and we’ll find our way out.”

  Slowly they began to take the stairs, one step at a time, their shoes making muffled scrapes against the boards. Sweat beaded on Marny’s forehead and chin again, and he could feel his palms growing wetter by the second. His heart thumped so loudly in his chest he swore Esther could hear it, but she said nothing.

  At the top of the stairs he felt the door against his shoulder.

  “This is it,” Esther said, her voice just above a whisper. “Remember, stay with me. I know the way. I know where William is.”

  “William?”

  “My brother. The house was built to keep him in and others out.”

  “I probably don’t want to know why.”

  “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  “Wait.”

  “What?”

  “There’s something you need to know.”

  “Okay.”

  “Look, I’m not a hero, not a savior, not anything. I’m just a guy who followed a note from a girl who needed help. I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

  “Then why did you come?”

  Good question. Great question, in fact. “I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t have.”

  Her free hand found his face and rested on his cheek. “Marny, you are a hero. You don’t know it yet, but you are.”

  Marny wasn’t comfortable with her high expectations. He’d disappoint her, he knew. The stage was all set. “Just don’t expect too much. I’ll do what I can.”

  “I believe in you,” Esther whispered.

  Marny couldn’t tell if she was speaking to him or trying to convince herself.

  With that she turned the doorknob, the mechanism clicked, and the cellar door opened on quiet hinges.

  Chapter 6

  MYSTERIES AND PORTALS to other worlds often lurk behind closed doors.

  The door opened all the way, and they found the first story illuminated by the soft light of a floor lamp. Esther looked exactly as Marny remembered her from the Gas ’n Go. Her eyes still penetrated him, as if looking through the orbs in his head and peering directly into his soul. He felt naked and vulnerable in front of her and let go of her hand.

  “Stay with me, Marny,” she said. He loved the way her lips moved when she said his name.

  They rounded a corner and found themselves in the living room. Esther had said the place was rigged, but other than being sparsely furnished and in desperate need of a good dusting and vacuuming, nothing here looked out of the ordinary. Marny took quick note of the walls and flooring, expecting to find tiny holes out of which darts tipped with exotic poison would fly, but found nothing. The floor had no hinges signifying a trap door. He scanned the ceiling. No battle-axes dangled from pendulums.

  Esther took his hand again and tugged on it. “William is this way. We have to hurry.”

  Marny followed her through the living room and to the staircase leading to the second floor. She started up, but he hesitated.

  “What’s the matter?”

  He had an image of the stairs collapsing into a sliding board like the ones in his dream and of the floor at the bottom opening up and swallowing them whole. “The stairs. Are they rigged?”

  “No.”

  “Then what is?”

  Esther relaxed her grip on his hand. “The doors. The windows. The house is secure.”

  The front door. He hadn’t even noticed it. He glanced quickly at the windows but noticed nothing odd about them. They weren’t barred, and they appeared to have standard locks on them. Nothing that couldn’t be unlocked.

  “We have to hurry,” she said. “Before he wakes up.”

  “William?”

  “Gary.”

  The gorilla. If he was unpleasant fully awake, Marny didn’t want to find out what he was like upon being wakened from a deep sleep.

  Halfway up the stairs Marny had the urge to break free of her grip, dash to the first floor, and throw himself out a window. But he resisted and climbed the rest of the way to the second floor. At the top of the stairs was a hallway. A bathroom was directly ahead, and to both the right and left were closed doors.

  Esther let go of his hand. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  She went left and was back in a minute with a young boy dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. He had short brown hair, the largest coffee-colored eyes Marny had ever seen, and a left arm that was withered and deformed, bent at the elbow with a small, twisted hand on the end. It was smaller than the other hand and had only four fingers. The boy smiled at Marny, and in his eyes Marny found the sympathy and love he had longed to see in his mother’s.

  “You must be William.”

  The boy said nothing.

  “I’m Marnin. People call me Marny.”

  Esther took William by his withered hand and pulled him. “C’mon, we have to move quickly.” She turned to Marny. “Focus on me, Marny, nothing else. I can get us out, but we have to move quickly before he wakes up. Hold William’s hand.”

  William smiled at Marny again and offered him his good hand.

  At the bottom of the stairs they were back in the living room of the gorilla’s house. It was dark outside, and that put a lump of dread in Marny’s stomach.

  They crossed the living room with large, quick strides, Esther first, then William, then Marny. Halfway across, a loud bang came from the second floor. Esther stopped, her eyes wide.

  The gorilla was awake.

  Esther gave William’s hand a quick tug, and they dashed to the front door.

  That’s when Marny noticed the locks. Ten of them, dead bolts, from the top of the door to the knob.

  “They’re set up so you don’t know which is locked and which is unlocked,” Esther said. “You think you’re unlocking one, and you’re really locking it.”

  “Can you open it?”

  “I think so.”

  Upstairs, floorboards creaked and a door slammed open.

  Esther went to work on the locks, flipping some to the right, some to the left.

  Marny noticed how badly her hands shook and touched her shoulder. “Steady,” he whispered, “but hurry.”

  Heavy footsteps pounded across the floor above them, and another door clunked against the wall. Gary must be in William’s room, discovering that his ward was not there.

  Esther let out a tight whimper, brushed hair from her face, and tried the doorknob. Nothing.

  The gorilla pounded the wall and grunted. He hollered something unintelligible that sounded like “don’t dance with the chocolate car,” though Marny doubted he was the dancing type, and he hadn’t seen any chocolate car parked outside.

  Est
her and Marny locked eyes, and there was no mistaking the fear in hers. William still gripped Marny’s hand. He looked to be the calmest of the trio.

  Gary was at the top of the stairs now, breathing hard and grunting like a silverback ready to charge.

  Esther grabbed the doorknob again with both hands, shook it violently, turned it, but nothing happened.

  Marny let go of William’s hand and lifted the table lamp. Bringing it to shoulder level and holding it like a battering stick, he lunged at the window. The cord pulled away from the socket, instantly bathing the room in darkness, but the lamp merely bounced off the glass. By the filtered light of the moon he tried again, but again the base of the lamp rebounded off the glass and nearly knocked him off-balance. Safety glass, probably bulletproof too. He eyed one of the ladder-back chairs; it was worth a try.

  They were out of time. Gary stomped down the stairs, shouting “Nooo!” all the way.

  Esther shrieked and moved to the side. William was there, his small form in front of the door. What a contrast it was; in the midst of such chaos, such confusion and nonsensical horror, the child remained so calm, so poised. His good hand was busily switching the dead bolts.

  The gorilla came into view, roaring and clenching his fists. He wore baggy jeans and a white V-neck T-shirt that was too small for his thick frame. Coarse black hair covered what was exposed of his chest.

  Two things happened simultaneously then. Marny picked up the lamp and threw it at his attacker, catching him along the side of his head and shoulder, and the front door swung open with only a slight creak.

  The lamp succeeded in slowing Gary, but only momentarily. It was enough time, though, for Marny to shout “Get outside!” and all three of them to exit the strange fortress designed to keep an eleven-year-old boy captive.