The Protectors (Night Fall ™)

by Val Karlsson

  As I walked down the stairs, I passed the framed photographs of my mother in her wedding gown and Sal in his tuxedo. Suddenly, Sal’s photo fell to the floor. The glass in the frame shattered. Dammit, I thought. I’m probably gonna get blamed for this! As I picked up the glass, a piece sliced across my hand. My blood spilled onto the photograph. I tried wiping it off, but it seeped into the matte paper, leaving the image of my stepfather covered in blood.

  I bandaged my hand, then swept up the mess. Not knowing what else to do, I went to put the ruined photograph in the trash. When I lifted the lid, I saw my uncle’s card in the heap.

  The cold breeze passed by again. I could see the hairs rising on my arms.

  I pressed my uninjured hand over my forehead. This is insane, I kept thinking. Am I actually going crazy? I have to get outta here. I headed for the front door. I put on my headphones. But then I took them off and pulled out my cell phone. I needed to talk to someone. I dialed Lincoln. He didn’t pick up. I dialed again. It rang and rang. I dialed again, but this time the call went straight to voicemail. He doesn’t want to talk to me, I thought. I sent him a text, though I didn’t think he would answer me. Call me. I need to talk 2 u.

  Suddenly my phone started ringing. It was Aisha. “Want to go for a walk?” she asked.

  Aisha was at my house in fifteen minutes. She crossed her arms tightly across her chest as she stood in the doorway. I knew she was worried that my stepfather would emerge from somewhere. I quickly grabbed my coat, and we rushed out the door.

  It was a misty morning. It seemed like the whole neighborhood was still sleeping. Aisha pulled her coat tightly around her body and shivered a little. We hadn’t seen each other in a week. I’d missed her.

  “I’m really worried about you,” Aisha said after a while of walking in silence.

  I’m really worried about me too, I thought. But instead I said, “Yeah, don’t be worried. I’ll be fine.”

  Aisha shook her head. “You shouldn’t be living with that guy. Your stepdad is a jerk.”

  “I agree. But where else am I going to go?”

  “Luke, he could be dangerous or something. He has so much rage.”

  Suddenly I thought of Uncle Bert’s letter. “My Uncle Bert sent me a letter. He’s my stepdad’s brother. But I haven’t met him.”

  Aisha stopped on the sidewalk and looked right at me. “I really think you should call him.”

  I nodded. One more thing to think about.

  We talked for almost an hour before I reluctantly said good-bye to Aisha and headed home. My stepfather would be waking up soon. He would be angry if I wasn’t there.

  12

  When I went through the front door into my house, I was greeted by a sharp smack across the face. It sent me staggering to the side.

  “What is the meaning of this?” shouted Sal. He was holding his bloodstained photo in the hand that hadn’t smacked me.

  “I didn’t do it. It just fell.” I winced as I felt my face, making sure nothing was too badly damaged.

  “It just fell? It just fell?! Sure it did! It’s been hanging there for fifteen years, and today it just fell.”

  “Well, yes. . . .” I backed away.

  He pushed me toward his office. “I’ve had enough of this. You’ve always been against me. Always!”

  I looked at him, not knowing what to say. I was against him?

  We reached his office, and he grabbed me gruffly by the arm. He opened the closet. I held my breath, remembering the night he locked me in the casket room. I struggled, but he was stronger. He was going to lock me in there, and this time there was no one to come home and help me.

  But he let go of my arm and pointed up to a shelf at the top of the closet.

  “You go through those boxes,” he said, “and you find that negative. You are going to replace that photo, exactly as it was, or you will be very, very sorry.” Then he went outside, slamming the door behind him. I heard him drive away in the hearse.

  I set to going through the boxes. It was weird. I found photo after photo of the wedding, but there were only photos of my mother and Sal. There weren’t any wedding guests. It took almost an hour for me to find the negative I was looking for. I had to hold each strip up to the light and examine each little square image.

  I did find a few old pictures showing Sal as a little kid, including one of him with his parents and baby Bert. My mother had shown me this photo before. I’d never noticed before that no one was smiling. Sal is looking directly at the camera, as though he is angry with it. He looks a lot like his father, who is also scowling. His mother is looking off into the distance somewhere. Bert is crying.

  I stared at Bert for a long time, wondering whether to follow Aisha’s advice and call him. What did I have to lose?

  I put everything away. Then I ran upstairs and pulled out the envelope I had saved in my pocket the day before. Without hesitation, I dialed Uncle Bert’s number. After several rings, I heard a man’s voice on the other end.

  “This is Dr. Signorelli,” he said. The voice of a busy man without a lot of time to spare for a phone call.

  It took me several seconds to be able to say, “Alberto . . . ?”

  “Yes, who is this?”

  “This is . . . your nephew. Luke. Luca.”

  There was a pause. “Luke!” said Bert, his voice friendlier now. “So . . . you got my card.”

  “Yes, I read it. Thank you.”

  “It’s good to hear from you, Luke. How is everything? How is my brother?”

  “Sal? He’s . . . not doing so well, actually.”

  “Oh,” said Bert. He sounded concerned but not surprised. “I’m sorry to hear that. . . . Are you okay?”

  I hesitated. This was my first conversation with Bert. I didn’t know how much I should tell him. But I was feeling desperate. “I don’t know, actually. Things are a little strange right now.”

  “Strange, how? What’s going on?”

  I was silent for a second. “Umm . . .”

  “You know what, Luke? How about I stop by Bridgewater for lunch tomorrow afternoon? Say around noon? Is there a place I can meet you?”

  “Um, sure,” I said. ”Let’s meet at Chowder Hut, by the marina.”

  “I’ll see you there,” Burt said cheerfully. “Oh, and don’t bring Sal.”

  “Okay,” I said, although I didn’t know how I was going to explain my absence to my stepfather.

  13

  As it turned out, Sal had plans to be out on Sunday until late afternoon. I didn’t know where he was going, but I didn’t really want to know. For a change, I felt lucky. I could easily meet Bert without worrying about Sal the whole time.

  At noon I arrived at the diner. I hadn’t seen a recent photograph of Bert, but I knew him immediately. He looked a lot like Sal, only he had more hair and he was smiling. Bert picked me out too.

  “I can’t believe you are sixteen!” he exclaimed, pulling me into a bear hug. “You’re growing up fast.”

  We took a seat at a table near the window. “So,” Bert said after we had ordered some food. “How bad is it?”

  I was surprised that he jumped right to the point. I guess he knew Sal better than I did. I told him all about how Sal was acting.

  “I’m sorry, Luke,” Bert began, “but I must say, I am not all that surprised.”

  “No?” I asked.

  “No. Let me tell you something, Luke. Your stepfather and I never got along, even as kids. Things were tough. Our parents were not very giving people, emotionally. I realize now that they both were probably mentally ill, but when you’re a kid you don’t understand those things. You think if your parents are behaving strangely, it must be because of something you did.”

  I nodded. I used to think that way about Sal. I thought it was my fault he got angry. Luckily, I know better now.

  “Anyway,” Bert continued. “Sal was always trying really hard to get the approval of Mama and Papa. He was three years older than me. I think when I ca
me along, he saw me as competition for their attention. So he was always trying to put me down in front of them.

  “Then, when I was around seven and Sal was ten, Mama left us. Just like that, without a word. We never saw or heard from her again. I was pretty upset, as you might imagine, but Sal, he took it really badly. After that, he was even meaner to me than he had been before, as though it were my fault that she had left. He even said to me once, ‘You drove her away!’ Our father took it badly too. He become more short-tempered. He didn’t spend much time with us except to teach us the family business.”

  “What about my mother?” I asked. “When did Sal meet her?”

  “When Sal was nineteen, your mother got a job with us, doing the hair and makeup for the deceased. You were just a baby then. Penny was a very interesting girl—very spiritual. Sal fell for her hard, and he was very possessive of her. Couldn’t stand it if I talked to her or even looked at her. One time he locked me in the supply closet for three hours just because he had caught me alone with her in the embalming room.”

  I flashed to my own night in the casket room.

  “Now Penny, she was a kindhearted girl, and I think she saw Sal as a troubled soul who needed her help. More so after our father took his own life the following year. With both our parents gone, and Sal in charge, I started feeling pushed out. Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore. I left when I was only eighteen. When I had a new address, I sent it to my brother, but he never wrote me. He didn’t even invite me to his wedding. I don’t know who he did invite.”

  “Not too many people,” I replied, thinking of the wedding photos I’d seen yesterday. “Bert?” I began.

  “Yes?”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Do you think Sal is . . . dangerous?”

  Bert looked down at his coffee cup. “I don’t know, Luke. There were times when I did worry. And when I left, I worried about you and your mother. Over the years, I tried to make contact with her, and even with you. But Sal always stood in the way.”

  The words hung in the air between us. My head was reeling. Sal’s own brother thought he might be capable of hurting someone. My mind went back to the night of my mother’s death. It was all so strange the way it happened. He had been angry with her that day, hadn’t he? And he was so cold and unfeeling at her funeral. And then there was my nightmare with my mother screaming and him with the ax.

  “Bert, do you think Sal could have hurt my mother?” I blurted out. “I mean, the accident she died in, could it have not been an accident?”

  Bert sighed and glanced around the diner. “He loved her so very much. I don’t think he could have . . . killed her,” he said.

  But I wasn’t so sure. He had become so violent. They had always been arguing.

  The waitress came over with our food. When she set my pancakes in front of me, I nearly gasped. Someone had poured maple syrup over them already. The amber lines of syrup clearly spelled closet.

  “Bert . . .” I mumbled. I looked up at him, but he didn’t seem to notice anything unusual. “I’ve got to go.”

  14

  As I ran home, I kept thinking, I never saw her body. I remembered Mrs. Antonino, who had also died that night. I never saw her body, either.

  And now, closet had been written on my pancakes. Either I really was going crazy, or someone was trying to tell me something. I didn’t care anymore. I had to follow the clues, whatever they meant.

  I ran all the way home and to the supply closet in the prep room. I found what I had missed before. The wall at the back of the closet had obviously been boarded over. I banged on the wood and heard a hollow echo behind it. I remembered seeing a similar panel in the kitchen a long time ago. An old opening had been boarded over, and the pantry had been put in front of it.

  Now that I thought about it, the kitchen was directly over the prep room. I ran upstairs and searched behind the pantry. There it was—the same kind of board in the wall. The two must be connected somehow. I wondered if there was another on the third floor. That would be in my stepfather’s room. Just the thought of going in there made beads of sweat prickle on my forehead. But I knew I had to act, and now was my only chance.

  I ran up the stairs and turned down the hallway. I hadn’t gone into that room in years, even when my mother was still alive. That was Sal’s territory, and I instinctively knew it was not my place to enter. Even now, I could barely force myself to open the door. I imagined him sitting in there, waiting. Maybe he hadn’t gone out after all. Maybe it was all just a trap. I turned the knob and pushed the door slowly open, half expecting him to jump out at me.

  But the room was empty. I turned to the wall directly above the pantry. A large mirror hung in the center. I went over and pushed it aside. And there it was—an opening. Only this one wasn’t boarded up. It had a wooden door on it, with iron hinges. I carefully took the mirror down, my curiosity burning.

  Inside the door hung a wooden platform suspended on ropes, with two extra ropes hanging down on one side. I tugged on one of these. It was attached to some kind of pulley system that made the platform go up and down. I realized it was a dumbwaiter. I’d seen those in old movies. People used to use them for transporting things around the house. This one looked ancient. It must have been part of the original house.

  I grabbed the rope again and tugged on it. An all-too familiar creaking sound echoed inside the wall. I remembered seeing Sal’s silhouette hunched over something when I’d looked up at his lit window. He must have been climbing onto the small platform. He was using the dumbwaiter to transport himself! But where? The other openings in the kitchen and the prep room were both boarded up.

  There must be another level, I thought. Go down. In my mind, I heard the voice on the wind. Go down.

  I climbed inside the little elevator and began pulling at the rope. It eased me down, down, down the dark shaft. I wished I had thought to bring a flashlight. It was pitch black. The walls felt like they were closing in on me. I started to panic, then— thunk—I had reached the bottom.

  15

  I shoved the door, and it swung open. Before me was a pitch-black expanse that smelled of mildew and ancient dust. I couldn’t see a thing. All I could hear was the sound of water dripping and echoing throughout the silent space.

  A hand pushed me forward. I spun around and thrashed my arms, but no one was there. I thought of the hand that had grabbed my mother the day she’d died. Were the Protectors here? And if so, what danger did I face?

  Whispers and murmurs swirled around my head. Voices were speaking, but I couldn’t make out words. I walked forward slowly. I noticed a faint sliver of light along the floor in the far corner to my left.

  I stumbled toward it. Then I heard another familiar sound—chains rattling. I groped my way toward the light until my hands were touching what felt like an unfinished plywood wall.

  I heard a low moan, and I jumped. There was someone behind it!

  “Wh-who’s in there?” I whispered.

  I heard a woman’s voice, but it was so weak that I couldn’t hear any words.

  I felt all along the wooden wall. I came to a corner, turned, and felt along the other side. This was some kind of wooden enclosure. And there was a door. I found a handle and tried to turn it. It was locked. I kicked at the door, pushed it with my shoulder, but it would not budge. The voice whimpered on the other side.

  Who was there? With all my strength, I threw my entire body against the door again and again. Finally, the plywood cracked at the lock, and I pushed the door in.

  I froze at the sight in front of me. A thin and sickly woman was crumpled on the floor in chains. Her long hair was tangled, and her clothes were dirty rags. A small lamp in one corner of the enclosure threw enough light on her that I could see her face when she looked up at me.

  “Mom?”

  Her face was so thin and pale, I could barely recognize her. But it was definitely her. She smiled weakly at me.
r />   “Luke!” she said in almost a whisper. “I knew you would come! They told me you would come!”

  “Who told you, Mom?” I ran to her and threw my arms around her. I could feel her whole body shaking as she hugged me back with her frail, thin arms. I was sobbing too. My mother was alive! But just barely.

  “My Protectors,” she said. “They’ve been speaking to you, Luke. But not many people are willing to listen to them. Most people never get their messages.”

  “Your Protectors!” I said. Of course! Now that I knew she was alive, it made perfect sense.

  A creaking echoed across the basement, and we looked at each other in fear. Sal was pulling up the dumbwaiter.

  “Luke!” my mother cried. “Listen to me. You’ve got to get out of here before he comes down. You’ve got to hide!”

  “Where? It’s so dark I can’t see anything! Isn’t there another way out of this basement?

  “Not anymore, I don’t think,” she whispered.

  “Mom, I need to get you out of here!” I said. Then I noticed a shackle around her left ankle. She was chained to the wall.

  Frantic, I left the enclosure and started feeling around the basement’s damp cement walls for another door or a staircase—anywhere to hide. There couldn’t be a door directly to the outside, since we were far underground. Even the level above, where we did the embalming, was below ground. Still, there had to be a staircase, somewhere.

  The creaking in the wall stopped. The dumbwaiter had reached my stepfather’s room. I kept feeling around the walls, walking through old cobwebs. Once or twice I brushed against some multi-legged creature that scurried away at the touch of my fingers.

  Creeeeak . . .

  Then I reached it—a staircase, not much more than a stepladder. I tried going up, but it just went straight to a trapdoor in the ceiling. I pushed and pulled and slammed it with my shoulder, but nothing happened.