The Dark Stairs R/I

by Byars, Betsy

  Meat regarded the money. “So, what are you going to do?”

  “I guess I’ll go get the stupid binoculars and glasses,” she said.

  “I thought you wanted them?”

  “I did. Oh, I guess I do. But it bugs me when my mom won’t tell me things, because if she won’t tell me, then it’s something I really want to know.”

  “I’ll walk to the store with you if that’s all right,” Meat said. “I don’t want to be alone just now.”

  “Come on.”

  “If we see the Moloch, though, I’m splitting.”

  Herculeah and Meat walked side by side toward Antique Row. Herculeah was silent, bent forward, her hands stuffed in her pockets. Meat was the one to speak first.

  “I get the feeling I’ve seen that man before.”

  “The Moloch?”

  “Yes.”

  “You would have remembered.”

  “If I’d seen him in person, yes. But maybe I saw him on a television show.”

  “Animal Kingdom?” Herculeah asked.

  Meat smiled. “Actually I was thinking of Most Wanted—you know, where they show pictures of criminals. If all I saw was his face, I might not have been so—well, horrified.”

  “Here. This is the shop.” She turned in and Meat followed.

  “I’m back,” she said to the clerk.

  “Well, that was quick. I haven’t even had time to put your glasses and binoculars away. They’re right here.”

  “Can I borrow the binoculars?” Meat asked Herculeah.

  “Sure.”

  As Herculeah paid the clerk, Meat moved to the front of the store. He lifted the binoculars to his face. He adjusted the lenses until Dead Oaks came into focus. He felt a shiver of dread.

  “See anything?”

  “I don’t know.” Meat refocused the binoculars. “There was something in the upstairs window, but it’s gone now.”

  “What? A face? A ...” She couldn’t think of anything else. “A what?”

  “I don’t know. More like a shadow. Maybe I imagined it. Anyway, it’s gone now.”

  Herculeah and Meat went outside the store and stood for a moment under the awning.

  “I think it’s time for me to try my glasses. I don’t know whether I told you or not, but these glasses help me think.”

  “Think?”

  “Yes, I put on these glasses and the world becomes a blur and I think better. I fog out. It’s like being in a think cocoon. I feel like I could write masterpieces and paint pictures—”

  “You’d have to be able to see to paint pictures, I believe.”

  “Well, I would conceive of them.” She took out the glasses and put them on, hooking the wires behind each ear. She was still for a moment.

  “Meat!” she said.

  “What? What? Where?” Meat said. He thought the Moloch was upon them. He would have dropped the binoculars if the strap hadn’t been around his neck.

  “They worked.”

  “What?”

  “The eyeglasses.”

  “What?”

  “I put them on,” Herculeah said patiently, “and they made me think. They made me remember that you said you know how to get in the house.”

  Meat stepped backward as if alarmed by her intensity. “I didn’t say house. I said gate. I said I knew how to get in the yard, but I don’t want to go back in there.”

  “You don’t have to. You just have to show me. My dad locked the gate behind him.”

  Meat shook his head. “I don’t think I ought to.”

  “Well, I’ll find it myself. It’ll just take me longer. Give me the binoculars and go on home if you’re going to be like that.”

  She tried to take the binoculars, and Meat was pulled forward by the strap that was still around his neck. “Give me the binoculars.”

  “There.”

  Herculeah made an elaborate display of putting the strap around her own neck. “You make such a big thing out of helping people. And now, you won’t even show me how to get in a simple yard.”

  They glanced across the street where Dead Oaks seemed to glare back in the lengthening shadows.

  “That is not a simple yard.” He hesitated. Herculeah was taking a long time getting the binoculars around her neck. He said, “Anyway, how would going in that yard help people?”

  “My dad said people had seen someone sneaking around the house. Maybe it was a burglar. Or a kidnapper. You were the one who saw a face in the window.”

  “I didn’t say face!”

  “Well, what else could it have been.”

  “Shouldn’t we get the police then?”

  “And look like fools if there’s nobody there?”

  Meat paused to choose his words. “I’d rather look like a fool than look ... dead.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “I never have liked deserted houses. When I’m watching TV and a person goes in an old, vacant house, I have to turn the sound off. Any little sound means there’s someone in there with you.” Involuntarily he shivered.

  “I’m not asking you to go in the house. I’m just asking you to walk across the street and show me how to get in the yard.”

  Meat hesitated.

  “Meat, if you’re scared, then just say so.”

  Again Meat hesitated.

  “What if there’s a child in there?”

  “There’s not.”

  “There could be. And, Meat, you know how I am about children. When I’m grown I’m going to be a lawyer, and my clients are going to be children—any child that needs me.” She looked at Meat. “If you were a child, held prisoner in that old house, wouldn’t you want us to come get you?”

  “No, I’d want the police to come get me,” he said stubbornly. He squinted at her. “We could call your dad, and get him to come back.”

  “No. My dad—I’m sure I told you this—disapproves of my mom’s work. That’s one of the reasons they’re divorced. My dad thinks that private investigators should mind their own business and leave the law enforcement to the police. He would just belittle me, say I’m playing detective. I hate it when he says that. ‘Quit playing detective.’ This is not playing.”

  “No,” Meat agreed.

  “Look,” Herculeah said, “do you want to go or not?”

  “I definitely do not want to go. It’s one of the last things in the world I want to do.” He gave a deep sigh of regret. “But, as usual, I will.”

  “You won’t regret it,” Herculeah said.

  “I already do.”

  7

  BEHIND DEAD OAKS

  At dusk, Dead Oaks was even more threatening. The lengthening shadows seemed to shroud it in gloom. The dead limbs of the trees began to crackle in the breeze.

  Herculeah and Meat crossed the street slowly. Meat did not dare look at the house, because his heart had started to pound in his chest the way it had two Halloweens ago.

  He had not told Herculeah how terrible that night had been.

  And Howie Turner had made things worse. “They say he’s still in there,” he had said in the low, ghost-story voice he used to terrify boys at Camp Okeechobie around the campfire.

  “He can’t be. He’s dead,” Richie had answered. “Isn’t he?”

  “Nobody saw him leave.”

  “He’s dead. My dad said.”

  “Then if he’s dead and he didn’t leave—he’s still in there—somewhere—waiting!” This was said in the same spine-chilling voice. Meat had thought Howie Turner could be the host of Chiller Theater.

  In the dark Meat had bumped into Richie, causing Richie to scream in fright.

  “Cut it out, will you?” Howie said. “What do you think this is—Halloween?” Even though it was Halloween, no one said a word of rebuttal.

  When he had recovered somewhat, Richie went on in a slightly higher voice, “My daddy told me that one time they got the police to go through the house.”

  “And you know what they found, don’t you?” Howie interrupted
.

  The boys waited, their Halloween disguises making them feel more vulnerable than frightening.

  “They found that his clothes were in the closet. They found that his food was on the table. They found that his money was in his wallet. They found that his books were on the shelf. They found everything but one thing.”

  They waited, breathless.

  “Him!”

  The details had made Meat shiver two years ago, and they had the same effect on him now. He tried to zip up his jacket and found it was already zipped.

  Meat cleared his throat as he led Herculeah down the alley to the back of the house. He felt there was something in his throat that didn’t want to go down.

  “They say that they don’t know what happened to him,” Meat said.

  “Right,” Herculeah answered. “He just disappeared. They wanted to sell the house or do something with it, my mom said, only they found they couldn’t. I don’t know the exact details.”

  Again Meat attempted to swallow. He paused at the old gate where he and his friends had slipped through two years ago.

  Back then, Meat had been hopeful that because of his size he wouldn’t be able to slip through, but the efforts of all the boys had finally moved the back gate, and he had to go inside.

  “This is it?” Herculeah said.

  “Right. I might not be able to squeeze through because—you know—because of my size. I could hardly squeeze through two years ago, and I was smaller then.”

  Herculeah reached out and pulled the gate open easily. He should have known she would have the strength of at least three boys.

  “No problem,” she said.

  They paused. The only sound was Meat zipping his jacket up and down.

  “Houses like this give me the creeps,” he said.

  “Well, I don’t exactly love them.”

  “Yes, you do. You know there’s not a child in there. You know there is not one reason for you to go in except that you want to.”

  Herculeah shrugged.

  They looked up at the house together. The windows were dark, the sandstone walls black with age.

  “Oh, I wish I’d brought my mom’s keys,” Herculeah said.

  “What?”

  “My mom has keys that can get her in anywhere.”

  “You said you just wanted to go in the yard. You didn’t say anything about going inside.”

  “I’m talking about the next time we come. I’ll bring them next time. Come on.”

  Herculeah slipped through the gate and into the overgrown yard. Meat hesitated, as he had two years ago.

  Despite the years, he again heard Howie’s cruel words ring through the deserted yard. “Blubber’s scared.”

  “I am not!” he cried.

  Herculeah turned to look at him. “You are not what?”

  “Oh, nothing.”

  He followed her across the yard, picking his way through the overgrowth and garbage.

  “Nobody’s been through here in years.”

  “That’s the way it looks,” Herculeah admitted.

  “So there couldn’t be anybody inside. We ought to go. We shouldn’t be doing this. We—”

  Herculeah ran forward. “Oh, look, Meat, here’s the cellar door—and it’s wood. It’s rotten around the hinges. I bet if we pulled ...”

  “No.”

  “Meat, come on. Help me!”

  “No! This is breaking and entering! This is a criminal act.”

  “Then stand back.”

  Meat retreated a few steps. His three friends had worked on this old door for a long time and had gotten nowhere, so perhaps Herculeah wouldn’t have any success either.

  She managed to open it on her second try. “There,” she said.

  Slowly she pulled open the door. It creaked, and behind her Meat shuddered at the sound. The smell of musty air came from the inside.

  Meat stepped back. “I don’t feel good. Just the smell of an old house like this ... I’m very sensitive to smells. If they ever put smells on TV, I won’t be able to watch anymore. Like on the Discovery Channel when they’re showing bears eating fish? The smell would make me faint. Unless, of course, there would be some way to turn the smell down the way you can turn the sound down. Or, say, someone was in the dentist’s chair and you know how scary dentists’ offices smell, well, I wouldn’t—”

  “Meat, stop babbling.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t help it.”

  Herculeah peered at him through the dusk. “You do look sort of pale.”

  Meat nodded.

  “All right, you better stay out here.”

  “You mean I don’t have to go in?” He sagged with relief. “I can go home?”

  “No, you can’t go home. You have to stand out here and be the lookout.”

  “Oh.”

  “Let’s see.” Herculeah glanced around the backyard.

  “Stand over there on the other side of the fence by the back of the hardware store, and if you see anybody, give me a signal.”

  “I’ll give one of my whistles.” Meat was proud of his whistles. They could be heard blocks away. It was the only thing he could do better than Herculeah.

  “No, that’s too obvious. I know, knock one of those garbage cans over—and really knock it over, Meat, because I might not hear it inside. Make a lot of racket.”

  “I will. You’ll hear it.”

  Herculeah watched Meat slip through the gate, cross the alley, and stand like a sentry beside the garbage cans. She signaled him to get down lower, out of sight.

  Slowly Meat sank down in the shadows and leaned his head back against the hardware store. The relief of not having to go inside Dead Oaks made him suddenly drowsy.

  If he didn’t have to be on the lookout for Herculeah, he thought he might even fall asleep.

  Herculeah gave him a wave. He peered around the garbage can to watch.

  Herculeah turned to the basement doorway. She stared into the dim interior and there was something about the way she stood ... It was as if she were going into a place of entertainment.

  Meat saw her take a deep breath. The thought of the terrible air she was breathing made Meat lean back against the store. This time his eyes closed.

  At the cellar door of Dead Oaks, Herculeah squared her shoulders. She slipped inside and disappeared into the gloom.

  8

  SOMEONE AT THE GATE

  Herculeah paused just inside the basement door, and the dark room seemed to close in around her. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. She wished for a flashlight. The next time she came, she would bring one.

  She started a mental list:Keys

  Flashlight

  From the glow of the street lights by the hardware store she could see that she was in a sort of workshop area. But it was an artificial light that gave the room an eery, misty look.

  Around her were old gardening tools: a wheelbarrow, rakes and shovels, an old hand lawn mower. There was a worktable to the right.

  Herculeah was not interested in the contents of the basement. What she wanted to find was an entrance into the upstairs of the house. She knew the door to the upstairs would be locked, but that was what keys were for. She could come back with her mother’s keys.

  From the moment she had stood in front of Dead Oaks and felt her hair rise, she had been drawn here. It wasn’t just that an old man’s body had never been found. She had been aware of that for years. But the events of today had somehow made her a part of the mystery. There was something about this house that she had to know.

  “You never give up,” her mother had said to her once, and she had answered, “Well, I got that from you and Dad.” Both statements were true.

  I have to know, she said silently. I can’t stand not to know things. A man doesn’t just disappear. There has to be a reason.

  Herculeah heard a sound in the corner. She paused.

  Something small scurried out of the way, deeper into the debris. Herculeah hesitated. She was not afr
aid of mice, and yet she listened for a moment. Had there been another noise ... outside?

  She shook her head. Her mind was playing tricks. At least, she hadn’t heard a garbage can being overturned.

  She continued deeper into the basement.

  Outside, by the hardware store, Meat’s eyes were so heavy he couldn’t hold them open.

  He sighed. His eyes closed in sleep just as the dark figure of a man came out of the shadows and stopped at the gate of Dead Oaks.

  9

  FOOTSTEPS

  In the basement Herculeah moved past a stone deer that had once, she imagined, graced the lawn. She rested one hand on the fawn’s head. Again she paused to listen. She heard nothing.

  Slowly working a path around the tools and boxes, she made her way to the end of the room and stopped at the wall. She lifted her hands and laid them flat against the cool concrete.

  She moved sideways, feeling for an opening. The cellar was darkest here. Her fingers felt cobwebs, and she brushed her hands together. Herculeah wasn’t afraid of spiders either.

  She moved the length of the wall, but she found no door. This was just one room—a toolshed, a work area—separate from the rest of the house.

  Disappointed, Herculeah turned. The doorway was lit from the hardware store, but the rest of the basement was completely dark now. There was nothing more to do here. She started forward.

  At that moment she heard footsteps outside. The footsteps were coming toward the house.

  Fear stabbed at her.

  Herculeah ducked quickly behind the stone deer. She held her breath. Her heart began to pound.

  She knew her hair must be going wild, and this was not the time for it. She drew her expanding hair against her head like a cap.

  For a brief moment, she thought it might be Meat. She hoped it was Meat. She desperately longed to see his round silhouette in the doorway, to hear him say, “Herculeah, aren’t you finished yet? I’m tired of waiting. I want to go home.”

  She wanted to call Meat’s name, but something about the heaviness of the steps held her back. Meat was large but he walked lightly. It was not Meat who was coming toward her with those slow, threatening steps.

  She waited. She thought about that old ghost story that had scared her as a child: “I’m on the first step.... I’m on the second step.... I’m on the third step....”