The Girl on the Stairs

by V. J. Chambers

  “No,” said Lola. “He had that gun. The one I gave you. Because that’s the one I gave him after he escaped from jail. And I got it back from him before he tied me up. He said it would be more fun without a gun, anyway.”

  “More fun?” Sam dragged his hands over his face.

  “So, where is he?” said Lola.

  “I don’t know,” said Sam. “I thought he was chasing me, but when I looked back… he was gone.”

  Lola went into the living room. She peered out the window. “Sure is getting dark out there, isn’t it?”

  Sam stood in the doorway. “He’s here somewhere.”

  “Did you lock the front door?” she asked.

  “Do you think I’m an idiot?”

  She glared at him. “Well, shit, Sam. How the fuck are you supposed to kill him now?”

  He stalked over to her. “You shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up.”

  Lola sat down on the loveseat. She folded her arms over her chest. “What are you so pissed about?”

  He laughed in disbelief. “Oh, I don’t know. What could you possibly have done that would piss me off?”

  “You mad because I was in your sister’s room? Your sister who you were incestuously passionate about, but yet let die?”

  “I was not—” Sam clenched his jaw. He took a deep breath. “It wasn’t like that, okay? Nothing ever happened between me and Hannah. And if she did things… if she sometimes was inappropriate, it wasn’t her fault, you know? Because when your father starts fucking you when you’re a little girl, it tends to screw you up a whole bunch. Just shut up about her. You don’t understand anything.”

  Lola smiled. “Oh come on, Sam. Admit it. You wanted her.”

  He walked to the other end of the room. He looked down at the knife in his hand and thought about sticking it in Lola’s neck.

  “I mean, that’s what’s so fucked up about you. You’re always trying to find these girls who are just like your sister. I read all about it. The news clippings. When she first disappeared, she was reported kidnapped. And then, days later, when your garage burned down, it turned out your own father had kidnapped her—but not very far, just to the rooms above the garage. She was right next to you, Sam, and you had no idea where she was. That must have made you crazy.”

  He didn’t turn around. He imagined sticking Lola with the knife and twisting it, watching blood spurt out. That would shut her up.

  “If you’d figured it out earlier, maybe you could have saved her. Maybe you could have stopped your father from burning her to death.”

  Sam drew in a rasping breath.

  “So now, every girl you hook up with, she’s been captured or kidnapped. Because you wish that Hannah had gotten away. You wish that you could be with her.”

  “No,” Sam whispered. “That’s not…”

  “Well, lucky you, this is your chance,” said Lola. “Here we are, back in this house. And I’m in trouble, Sam. Lots and lots of trouble. So, save me, Sam. Save me the way you couldn’t save Hannah. And then you and I can be together.”

  He turned slowly. “Lola, I don’t want to be with you.”

  She cocked her head. “Don’t you?”

  “No.”

  She crossed the room to him. She put her hand on his chest.

  “Stop that.”

  She dragged her hand downward.

  He caught her wrist.

  She drew her eyebrows together. “Sam, are you hurt?”

  His jaw twitched.

  She tugged her hand away to lift his shirt. “Oh my God. What happened?”

  “He stabbed me.”

  “I don’t believe this. You had a gun. He had a knife. And yet somehow, he managed to stab you, and you didn’t even hurt him?”

  He smiled tightly at her. “Sorry I’m such a disappointment to you, Lola. Maybe you should reconsider using other people as ‘finely tuned instruments’ for murder.”

  She dropped the edge of his shirt. “Oh, fine, be sarcastic about it.” She thrust her hands into her hair and wandered into the middle of the room. “This is a nightmare.”

  “You think?”

  She sighed. “Look, Sam, where’s the fucking gun?”

  “It ran out of bullets, and I dropped it in the snow.”

  Her jaw dropped. “You did what?”

  He shrugged.

  “You are the most incompetent, idiotic—”

  The basement door burst open.

  The basement. Sam hadn’t checked the motherfucking basement. How could he have been so stupid?

  Todd lumbered into the room. His nose looked broken. It was crooked and swollen in the middle of his face. There was dried blood all over his chin and lips. He grinned at both of them.

  Sam raised the steak knife.

  Todd laughed. He wasn’t even armed. “Lola always makes up the best games, doesn’t she?”

  Lola put her hands on her hips. “Nick, what the fuck?”

  Nick crossed to her, still smiling. “Hey, baby.”

  She stared him down. “You’re not playing the game right.”

  “That’s because you keep changing the rules. I could hear you down in the basement, you know. You want Sam to kill me? Sam?”

  Lola patted him on the cheek. “It’s nothing personal, Nick. You know, we had fun together, but you’re just really boring. And your poetry—”

  Todd grabbed Lola by the neck.

  She choked, startled.

  Todd squeezed harder.

  Lola’s face started to turn red.

  Todd’s smile widened. “This is really the perfect way for things to end, Lola. All of this started with you. This is what you deserve.” He turned to Sam. “Wanna help?”

  Sam thought about having his hands around someone’s neck. Tightening and tightening…

  *

  It was blistering hot above the garage. The fire raged everywhere, hot orange flames licking their hungry tongues over every surface.

  Sam stood just inside the door.

  His father was holding Hannah, pinning her against his body, her back to his front. Hannah’s head was hanging limply in front of her. She wasn’t even conscious.

  Sam reached out. “Dad, give her to me. Let me take her.”

  “No,” said his father. “No, Hannah and I must burn. If we burn in this life, we will be purged and clean for the hereafter.”

  Sam shook his head. He took an unsteady step towards his father and Hannah. “No, Dad, that isn’t true. You just made that up. You’re killing her for no reason.”

  “She is a sinner. A scarlet woman. A temptress.”

  “No.” Sam took another step towards his dad. The floor didn’t feel quite solid under his feet. And there was smoke everywhere. In his eyes, his nose, going down his throat. “Give her to me.”

  His father shook his head. “I have sinned, Sammy. Hannah and I have sinned together. We must—”

  “You did it,” said Sam. “She didn’t want it. You made her do it.” His father used religion as an excuse for his abusive tendencies. He forced his family to obey him, but he claimed that they were obeying God, not him. He blamed it all on God, and Sam’s family was the most restricted one in the entire church. They had no television. They didn’t listen to popular music. Hannah and his mother never wore pants, only dresses. They never cut their hair. And whenever any of them complained about their lack of luxuries or freedoms, that meant Sam’s father had an excuse to punish them.

  No matter how often he punished Hannah, she wouldn’t stop complaining. She wouldn’t stop rebelling.

  But Sam hadn’t known why.

  He’d known his sister was strange, that she did things that made him uncomfortable and confused, like teasing him half naked, like making suggestive comments. He knew she snuck out to see boys some nights. He knew she was wild.

  But he’d never understood that it was his father making her that way.

  Until he’d seen.

  Two days before Hannah went missing, Sam found them to
gether in the garage. He saw what his father was doing to Hannah. She saw Sam. He remembered the way she’d winked at him, the way she’d turned her body to face him, like she’d wanted him to see.

  Sam rushed forward. He tore Hannah out of his father’s arms, dropping her lifeless form to the floor.

  Sam’s father was surprised. “Stop it, son. You don’t understand.”

  Sam took his father by the shoulders. “You did it to her. You made her crazy.”

  “No, son,” said his father, his eyes filling with tears. “She tempted me. She wouldn’t stop. She pushed and pushed until I gave in. You know what kind of girl she was.”

  “NO!” Sam took his father by the neck, wrapping his hands tight and constricting them. “You can’t blame her. She was a child. She was just a little girl. She didn’t know what she was doing. She couldn’t have known.”

  And Sam squeezed and squeezed.

  His father was crying. His face was turning red—or maybe that was the reflection of the flames.

  Sam was crying too. It was so hot. There were flames everywhere, all over the room. They were closing in on him, but he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t take his hands off his father’s neck, because this was all the man deserved. This was his punishment.

  For ruining Hannah. For twisting and destroying his sweet sister.

  And for doing it right in front of Sam’s nose, for doing it so well that Sam had never even known.

  He kept crushing his father’s neck.

  His father never struggled, but eventually, he stopped crying. His eyes stared forward in a empty stare and his body seemed to weigh more.

  But Sam kept squeezing. Kept squeezing and coughing up the smoke, sweat pouring down his face, getting in his eyes…

  Hannah was on fire.

  That was when he saw that his sister was burning.

  He threw his body on top of hers, smothering the flames.

  He tried to pick her up.

  Her skin was black. It fell away in his fingers.

  But he managed to get her up anyway.

  And he carried her out of the garage. He carried her out and laid her down on the grass.

  She was ruined.

  She was dead.

  Sam knew it was his fault. How long had he stayed in there, his hands wrapped around his father’s neck?

  His father was already trying to kill himself.

  Why had Sam needed to…?

  And now, Hannah was…

  *

  Lola’s face had gone purple. She was trying to stop Todd, slapping at him, but her efforts were weak and ineffectual.

  Todd’s face was grim. He was concentrating. He was staring right into Lola’s eyes.

  Sam was only watching.

  He stared, transfixed, as if he’d never seen anything quite so riveting in his life. The shades of color in her face. The way her body twitched.

  It was a revelation.

  And Sam didn’t care what happened to her. Lola was sick and twisted.

  Twisted? Like Hannah?

  No, they weren’t the same, not like he’d thought. They weren’t. His sister was a victim. She’d been abused and raped. She’d done everything else she’d done to cope. She hadn’t meant it when she told Sam that it wasn’t so bad. She hadn’t meant it when she told Sam that she liked it.

  That had been her way of coping, of framing the story so that she wasn’t a victim. In order not to be a victim, Hannah had to make herself a monster.

  Suddenly, Sam lurched across the room, bringing up the steak knife.

  He stabbed down, right between Todd’s shoulder blades.

  Todd let go of Lola. He yelled.

  Sam backed away.

  Lola fell to the floor like a rag doll.

  Todd reached back for the knife. He yanked it out. “Why do that, Sam? Why, when I was taking care of her? She’s the problem here. She’s the one who needs to die. She’s only using us.”

  Sam was shaking all over. “You don’t get to blame her. You’re the one who killed those people, Todd. Lola didn’t stab anyone. She didn’t bash anyone’s head in with a baseball bat.”

  Todd pointed the knife at Sam. “It was all her idea, man.”

  “Was it?” said Sam. “Was it, really? Was she really serious when she asked you to murder her parents? Or were you just a tad bit on the wrong side of sick, and you heard something in her that wasn’t actually there?”

  “She wanted it,” said Todd, looking down at Lola’s motionless form. “Of course she wanted it. She told you she did, didn’t you?”

  “I heard what she said. But she lies a lot, you know. Can’t believe a word out of her fucking mouth.” Sam looked at Todd. “You’re a killer. You killed Rachel. For no reason. You had no right to—”

  Todd advanced on Sam.

  Sam went for the door outside. He wasn’t wearing a coat, but screw it. He unlocked the door, and he hurled himself outside.

  But this time he didn’t head for the driveway. He headed for the remains of the garage.

  The frigid air made him gasp, but he went there anyway. And the snow was cold, but he pushed through it to uncover the wood below. He seized one of the charred pieces of wood. Yanked it free.

  Todd was coming, huge and shadowed, still with the steak knife.

  Sam’s charred piece of wood had nails sticking out of it. Rusty, twisted, sharp nails.

  Todd came closer.

  Sam swung the piece of wood around.

  The nails punctured Todd’s cheek. He screamed.

  Sam pulled the nails out. They slid from Todd’s flesh with a wet pop.

  Todd stabbed at Sam.

  Sam knocked the knife out of his hand.

  He brought the nails down on Todd.

  Again.

  And again.

  And again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Nicholas Todd was dead. Sam was sure of it. He was holding the man’s wrist in his hand, and there was no pulse. Not that Sam was surprised, considering that Todd was nothing more than a tangle of bloody body parts.

  Sam panted. He dropped Todd’s wrist. He looked down at his body. He was spattered with blood. It was on his face. On his clothes. Everywhere.

  He took a step back. He began to use the snow to wash off his skin.

  “You’ve killed before.”

  Sam looked up.

  Lola was standing in the doorway. She was rubbing her neck.

  Sam raised an eyebrow. “You’re not dead.”

  “You saved me.”

  He picked up the piece of wood that he’d used on Todd. Dragging it through the snow with him, he went over to her.

  “Sam?”

  He climbed up the steps.

  “Sam, wait,” she whispered.

  He lifted the piece of wood.

  She let out a small whimper.

  Sam weighed the wood in his hands. Blood and hair clung to the rusty nails.

  Lola backed away from him. “You weren’t supposed to have killed anyone before. I was supposed to convince you to do it. If you killed someone, then it’s not as good. Then I didn’t—”

  “Stop.” He advanced on her.

  Her glance darted from the bloody weapon to his face. She licked her lips.

  He took another step closer.

  “You weren’t supposed to have killed anyone.”

  He reached for her.

  She tried to evade him.

  But he was faster. He snatched hold of her shirt. He tugged her close.

  Her eyes were wide. “It’s going to be the same, isn’t it? You’re like Nick. Deep down, you like it, and now you’re going to—”

  “Stop.” He dropped the nail-studded wood. He pushed Lola back through the doorway, back into the house.

  “Sam, listen—”

  “Shut your mouth.” He slammed her into the wall.

  She looked up at him with wide eyes.

  He touched her face. His fingers were still bloody. They left red streaks on her skin. He
didn’t care. He pressed his body against hers. Roughly, he kissed her.

  She struggled. She closed her mouth against him.

  He pulled back. He was trembling.

  Lola was shaking too. She touched the blood on her face and looked at her fingers. Her voice came out in a squeak. “Sam?”

  He took her by the hand.

  She looked down at their clasped fingers.

  He led her back the hall.

  She didn’t resist.

  He pulled her into Hannah’s room. He shut the door.

  She wrapped her arms around her own body, gazing at him. She looked afraid.

  He shook his head. He went to her. He touched her again. Her face. Her neck. He was gentle. “Close your eyes,” he whispered.

  She swallowed.

  “Lola,” he said in his soothing voice. His Rachel voice.

  Obediently, she closed her eyes.

  He put his lips on her again, but this time, he was soft, prodding her slowly and easily.

  She opened her mouth to him. She slid her hands around his neck.

  He sighed against her. He eased his hands under her shirt, skimming over the soft flatness of her belly, then moving higher. He pushed his fingers under the band of her bra, brushed the underside of her breasts.

  She gasped.

  He reached around, undoing the clasp of her bra. Then when he moved his hands back around, they were unbound—springy, soft, and wondrous. He cupped them, lightly squeezed them, ran his thumbs over her nipples until they were stiff.

  Her breath quickened.

  He tugged her shirt over her head, pulled her bra away. Stared at her. She was beautiful.

  “Sam,” she breathed.

  He put his mouth on her nipples, fumbling with the button of her pants. He whispered into her white flesh. “You don’t have to be this, Lola. He’s gone. You don’t have to let him keep hurting you.”

  She threw her head back. She ran her hands over his shoulders, over his back. “What are you talking about?”

  He opened her pants. He unzipped them. He pushed them over her hips. He put his hands between her legs, slow strokes against her pussy. She was wet.

  She moaned. “Sam, what the hell is—”

  He kissed her to cut her off. He gently lowered her to the floor. He stripped off her pants, kissed her inside her thighs. Kissed her between her thighs.