by Shining in the Dark- Celebrating 20 Years of Lilja's Library (retail) (epub)
Eventually, he looked up, blocking his nose and mouth, and saw Bobby laughing, too, his body shaking in the dark light. Take that LaRue, he thought, the laughs finally tapering off. You didn’t get us all the way.
Bobby removed his hand from his mouth. “Stand to the side,” he said, smiling a little. Johnny did and Bobby reached forward and pulled the door open.
“Huh?” Johnny asked. What the hell…?
Bobby stood by his side, gripping the rake in both hands. “What is it?”
The door stood open, the boys peering in, confused. The doorframe had been divided down the middle by what looked like a thin plaster wall. The black lighting behind them didn’t extend very far into the dual rooms, but Johnny guessed the wall went all the way from the raised jamb to the very back wall. Johnny opened his mouth to answer Bobby, when the terribly familiar voice of Etienne LaRue boomed over
their heads.
“Time to choose, my dear young boys!
left or right, it’s quite a choice
you’re safe from harm if you pick correct
but choosing wrong means certain death!”
“I hate him,” Bobby said.
“Me too,” Johnny agreed, and then the two large spotlights slammed on above them. Slowly, the boys turned. The moths, which had been annoying but not really a threat, now made a beeline to the lights … and the boys underneath.
Or a mothline, Johnny thought and an insane urge to start laughing again gripped him. He fought it back, turning from the moths and screaming, “Come on!” to Bobby. On instinct, he bolted through the left side of the door, grabbing the doorknob behind him with the hand not holding his shovel. The glow from both the black lights and the spotlight cut off immediately. The bottom of the door stood snug up against the jamb, making the darkness complete.
A moth or two battered against the back of his head, and he brushed them away. “Bobby?” he asked, and there was no response. He called it louder: “Bobby!”
Then, muffled, he heard the reply. “Johnny!” Quietly, Johnny moved through the dark toward the plaster wall. “Bobby? You over there?”
“Yes! It doesn’t go far back—there’s like a brick wall all around me.”
Shit, Johnny thought. Divide us and trap him. Kind of dried up the giggles, LaRue.
“Okay, no problem,” Johnny called over. “I’ll just open up the door and you can slide over, okay?”
Johnny felt his way along the wall, feeling it along with the palm of one hand, gripping the shovel with his other. Within a moment, he reached the door, and felt around until he found the doorknob. He twisted it. His wet palm slicked over it, but it stayed still. Frowning, looking down in the dark at where his hand was, he turned the knob the other way. It gave slightly, then stopped.
“Oh no,” Johnny muttered. “Oh no no no.” Please tell me it doesn’t lock from the other side, he thought. Please God.
He turned it again, back, forth. Suddenly frantic, he dropped the shovel and threw his shoulder against the door. Bright, electric pain sizzled in Johnny’s arm, but the door didn’t budge.
“Bobby,” he said, “We have a little problem.”
“Oh God!” he heard Bobby bark from the other side of
the wall.
Johnny told him, “No, no, don’t worry, let me think about this for a second.”
“Johnny, help me!” Bobby cried from the other side of the wall.
“Don’t panic yet,” Johnny called distractedly. “I’ll get you out of there.” He was about to think of how he could do just that when Bobby called back in a high, squeaky shriek.
“He turned on hoses somewhere!”
Hoses? “Hoses?”
“They’re coming from the ceiling! It’s filling up with water, Johnny!” Bobby cried. “I’m in a box and it’s filling up with water!”
“Oh my God,” Bobby said in a hushed, amazed voice. From somewhere above, Johnny could hear the low, scuttery giggle of Etienne LaRue, and all the blood inside him turned to ice.
He’s going to drown, here, Johnny thought, inside this house. First Chip, now Bobby, and I’ll be here all alone in this dark house.
“No!” Johnny screamed, dropping his shovel. “No, it’s not fair!” Howling, he battered the wall in front of him with his angry fists, punctuating each pound with an increasingly
desperate “No!”
From the other side of the wall, Bobby started to scream, as if the sound of Johnny’s wails was infectious. “It’s getting higher!” Bobby wailed, sounding more terrified than ever. “Oh God, help me!”
In frustration, Johnny slammed his fist one last time against the wall. Something jumped out at his face and he screamed, terrified that the moths in the kitchen had found a way in here. But it wasn’t moths. Johnny rubbed two fingers down his hot, sweaty cheek, a surprised awe dawning in his mind. Not moths. Plaster-dust.
“Johnny!” Bobby yelled.
“Use your rake!” Johnny called, feeling around for his shovel. “The wall’s plaster! You can break through!”
“What?” Bobby called back. He sounded out of breath. Was he treading water? “Shit,” Johnny muttered, his hand finally landing on the shovel’s handle. Grunting, he picked it up, holding like a bayonet.
“Stand back!” he called, and thrust the shovel forward. The blade sunk into the plaster wall with surprising ease. Smiling maniacally, Johnny wrenched it out of the wall and thrust forward again. When he pulled it out this time, he yanked it up, pulling a large hunk of plaster out with it. When it fell away, Johnny felt the wall where he had cut through. There was a large, gaping hole in the center, and when he ran his finger along the rim, more plaster-dust sifted down.
Why isn’t water coming through? he wondered frantically. It should be coming through, I busted through the wall. He lifted the shovel and threaded it experimentally through his hole. It went in a few inches, then stopped, the blade hitting resistance. It’s not a solid wall, he thought, reading the shovel again,
it’s hollow.
“Look out, Bobby!” he called, but there was no answer. He paused. “Bobby?” Nothing.
“Oh God,” he said, slamming the shovel through the hole and into the wall on the other side. It was like putting a knife through semi-hard butter. Water squirted out of the new hole and onto Johnny’s legs. He moved back a little, trying to avoid the flow and pushed the shovel through again. Now, the other side of the wall burst open, water gushing out onto the floor and soaking his sneakers. He heard a meaty thump against that side of the wall. Bobby.
“Bobby!” he called out, trying to climb through the hole. The gushing water prevented him, and he stood back, wanting to bang his fists against something else. Soon, the sound of the water splashing against the floor lessened, and Johnny lurched forward, climbing into the hole and through to the other room.
“Bobby?” he asked, and his knee encountered something soft and wet. Bobby’s leg? To his left, he heard a small “Ow.”
“Bobby?” he asked again.
“I hit my head against the wall,” Bobby said, sounding tired and very young. It seemed like he would say something else, but then let out a series of waterlogged coughs.
“You okay, man?” Johnny asked, reaching out and slapping Bobby on the back. He had a fleeting memory of his Mom doing that to him when he had almost drowned in Grandma’s pool when he was five. His insides clenched at the thought of his Mom. All at once, he desperately wanted to see her again.
“I’m wet,” he said simply. “And I want to go home.”
“Okay,” Johnny said, then surprised himself by grabbing Bobby, and pulling him into a hug. Bobby stiffened for a moment, then hugged Johnny back. Fresh tears sprung up in Johnny’s eyes. “I thought you were gonna die,” Johnny said.
“I thought so, too,” Bobby said, and it sounded like he was crying, too.
They stayed like that for a full minute, cold and wet in the dark, but feeling better than they had since they first stepped into this bad,
bad house.
They were standing at the end of the empty room opposite the plaster-wall, feeling husked out and tired, but otherwise all right. There was another set of stairs here, reaching up into that unknown darkness.
“You wanna go up?” Johnny asked.
“Do we have a choice?” Bobby answered. He sounded old now. Johnny didn’t need to answer him. He began climbing, Bobby following close behind. When they reached the top, Johnny wasn’t surprised to find another door. He sighed.
“Same drill?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
Johnny backed up against the banister on his side, and heard Bobby scoot up against the wall on his. “On three: one, two, three.” He twisted the doorknob and flung the door open, squinting his eyes against whatever might come at them.
Nothing came at them. Johnny opened his eyes and wasn’t very surprised to see that they had come back to the second-story hallway, the one that led to the room where Chip was killed. Dim light came from the other end of the hallway, where the other set of stairs had nearly killed them him. For a second, he wondered if he should just give up. They were only going around and around in circles, and LaRue would get them when they were too worn out to fight back anymore.
Then he looked up, and saw something from this vantage point he hadn’t seen before. A trap door set into the ceiling. A trap door that led into the attic.
Snapshots of memory flashed through his mind: the bags of moths dropping from the ceiling, the hoses coming from above. Excitement leapt into Johnny’s heart, but it was of a dark sort. He leaned close to Bobby, aware that if LaRue could track their movements, he might also be able to hear them.
He whispered, “LaRue is up there, in the attic.” Bobby looked up, then looked back at Johnny, nodding. “He’s probably got the keys to this place.”
“How are we supposed to get up there?” he asked. “And won’t he see us?”
Johnny glanced up at the trap door again, noticing the small pull-rope with a large knot at the end of it. “We can get up,” he said, turning back to his friend. “As for him seeing us, I don’t know. You said it. We don’t really have a choice.”
Bobby nodded again. “Okay,” he said. “How do we get up there?”
“Give me your rake.” They traded tools and stepped out of the doorway, Johnny looking up. Stretching, holding the rake by the end of the handle, he was able to get the knot between two of the tines. As he was about to pull, a bright, blinding light slammed on over one of the doors. Almost immediately, moths that had been fluttering around the hallway aimlessly went for the light. LaRue’s voice came from somewhere up above.
“For all the things you’ve seen and feared
Nothing’s worse than what’s up here!”
“Whatever,” Johnny muttered.
His eyes became accustomed to the light, and he looked in that direction. Behind the light he saw what looked like a small speaker. A foot away from that, a small black object hummed like a fat electronic bee. Its one large glass eye stared at Johnny, humming as it focused. A video camera.
Bobby had followed Johnny’s gaze. Now, he smiled and stuck his middle finger up at the camera’s unblinking eye. Johnny grunted, pulling the rake down. The trap door creaked open a little. Johnny yanked down, harder this time, and it opened more. Bobby stepped forward, standing on his tiptoes and grasping the rake higher up. On three, they heaved the rake down together, and the door came swinging open, a segmented stepladder on tracks sliding down and connecting with the floor. The boys looked up. LaRue was up there, staring down at them.
He looked as if he were about to speak, but then reached behind him and brought out a small canvas sack. Johnny knew what was in the bag, but found he wasn’t much scared anymore. In a world of moths, a canvas bag full of them doesn’t much have the power to frighten after a while. He turned to Bobby, switching tools back, and looked up again.
LaRue hurled the sack down at him. It landed on his head, sending moths flying everywhere. Johnny flung the bag away, then mounted the steps. Above, LaRue issued a small grunt of surprise and reached behind him for another bag. Johnny peeled back his lips and gritted his teeth, so the moths couldn’t get in. A few flew at his teeth, but deflected off. Holding the shovel in one hand, he began to climb. Another bag landed on his head and slid off. More moths fluttered out, but Johnny didn’t care. If LaRue had the key out of this spookhouse, he was going to get it.
“No!” LaRue said, throwing down another bag. Couldn’t think of a rhyme for that, LaRue? Johnny thought darkly, and continued to climb. When he looked up next, his teeth together in a wide Cheshire smile, LaRue was gone.
Johnny poked his head up through the hole, looking around, very wary of LaRue. The attic was very well lit. In the corner, four large generators stood like those rocks from Stonehenge, looking alien in this decrepit place. A wooden wall cut the attic in half, a doorless doorway standing in the center of it. Johnny climbed up the rest of the stairs, shaking his shovel back and forth to clear the scourge of moths. One plugged up his nose and twittered there. Revulsion turned his stomach, but he didn’t panic. He stood to the side of the hole in the floor, pressed the other side of his nose shut, and exhaled sharply. The moth flew out drunkenly, falling to the floor.
Bobby’s head came into view, his right hand holding his rake straight out, his arm blocking his nose and mouth. He joined Johnny at the top. Johnny pointed to the door, and Bobby nodded. Johnny stepped closer to the door, only slightly afraid, and peeked in. Etienne LaRue was in there, all right. And he was trying to climb out a window.
Johnny bellowed. A sudden, furious burst of rage overtook him, and he rushed forward. “No way!” he yelled, traversing the attic room past the bank of small black and white TV screens. LaRue’s large top hat stood atop one of the screens like a cast-off from the Mad Hatter. Johnny leapt forward, reaching out, and grabbed LaRue’s hair before his head could disappear from sight. The man cried out.
“Get back in here,” Johnny said, knowing that he sounded more grown up than ever. This man had made his voice that way. This man had done a lot worse than that tonight.
“No!” LaRue whined. Johnny hoisted LaRue’s head up, dropping his shovel, and slapping the man across the face. One of the window’s gauzy white curtains fluttered toward him and he moved it back with his head.
“Get back in here,” he repeated, growling his words. Bobby came toward them and placed the heavy steel tines of the rake against the top of LaRue’s skull.
“Want me to dig it in?” Bobby asked.
“Okay, okay!” LaRue said, sounding terrified. Johnny watched him clamber back in, bending down to grab the shovel again. Bobby held the rake points to the man’s neck, staring at him with wide, hateful eyes. When LaRue was back in, Johnny stood before him, smaller than LaRue but feeling much older.
“You killed Chip,” he said. “You tried to kill all of us.”
LaRue’s eyes darted frantically from left to right, as if LaRue was trying to find a way to escape. Johnny didn’t like that look. They couldn’t escape. Why should he?
Bobby asked from beside him, “Are all those bags filled with moths?” He indicated a large pile in the corner of this room, stacked high with slightly shifting canvas sacks.
“Yes, they…,” LaRue began, and then made a mad dash toward Johnny. Working on reflex alone, Johnny lifted his shovel and swung it, connecting the back of the scoop with LaRue’s head. The man crumpled to the floor immediately.
“Is he dead?” Bobby asked, standing over him.
“No, he’s still breathing.” Johnny responded, looking down at LaRue, the author of all this night’s horror, and feeling that now-familiar crawling revulsion.
“What should we do?” Bobby asked. Johnny looked down at LaRue, back at the bags of moths, and back at LaRue.
“I have an idea.”
LaRue opened his eyes a short time later. Johnny looked down at him and smiled a little when LaRue discovered he couldn’t move.
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br /> “The hoses,” Johnny said, bending closer to the man. “The hoses you tried to drown Bobby with.” He smiled again, watching as LaRue tried to break free from the hoses tied around his body. Both he and Bobby had been in the Scouts for two years, and they knew how to tie knots.
“When we were looking through your pockets for the keys, we found this,” Bobby said, coming up behind Johnny. Bobby was also smiling. He held up a silver Zippo lighter, and handed it to Johnny.
“What’s the name of this place again?” Johnny said,
pretending to think hard.
Bobby answered,
“It’s not a game,
It’s Drawn to the Flame.”
Johnny laughed, a little shakily. “Oh yeah, let’s do that!
“Poor LaRue is stuck here, too.”
Bobby laughed with him.
“We tied him tight, he can’t even fight.”
“How does it feel, LaRue?” Johnny asked, and then the man began to scream. Bobby reached behind him and lifted a bag full of fluttering moths above LaRue’s face. When he upended it, the moths flew out everywhere, at least a dozen flying into LaRue’s mouth, cutting off his scream.
The man began to convulse on the floor, and the boys turned away from him. They reached the window and climbed out onto the ladder LaRue had used to reach up at the very beginning of the night. Before he climbed below the bottom of the window, Johnny reached out, flicked on the lighter, and set the thin white curtain ablaze.
Two young boys ran across a dark field toward a carnival that was shut down for the night. There were no more lights ahead of them, but the dead rides and dark booths still meant freedom. They made their way around the perimeter of the park, and by the time they got to the parking lot, they were sobbing.
Behind the park, on a dark hill across a field, an abandoned old house burned. Windows shattered open and old, dry wood charred to the ground below. Swarms of gray insects burst into the night sky, blotting out the stars. The ones who weren’t drawn back to the flame flew off in search of better things.