9
SEAN SAT ON the floor, his back to the wall, knees up to his chin. A blanket wrapped tight around his shoulders. Louise lay on the mattress in the center of the room, her eyelids rising and falling in a sleepy rhythm, a candy wrapper still in her hand. The deputy had left them a bag of candy bars, a few bags of potato chips, along with a case of water bottles. She said she’d be back later with some sandwiches. Sean didn’t think she was coming back at all.
Cold in the basement, the air damp in his lungs. A smell of mold and moss and rotten leaves. Both the floor and the walls were lined with wooden boards, the packed earth visible between the slats. Sean wondered how it didn’t all cave in on them, bury him and his sister alive.
The cabin had looked old, from the little he’d seen of it as they approached the clearing. Collins had let him and Louise out of the van on a trail deep in the forest and made them march through the trees. He had been glad of the walk after the time spent in the van, but Louise mewled for the duration of the trek, coughing as she walked. She had wet her pants, and now she complained her jeans were cold and stinging. Sean had barely managed to hold on himself, as he sat in the dark.
It had seemed to grow cooler as they drove. Shade had kept the van from becoming an oven while it was parked by that shack, but it had warmed as they traveled, making the air thick and heavy. Sean could feel the rise and fall of the road, more up than down, and after some time he began to feel pressure grow in his ears, like in an airplane. They were going somewhere higher up, maybe into those mountains that had seemed to haunt the horizon as Mom drove across Arizona. He didn’t know much geography, but a vague recollection told him Arizona’s desert gave way to forests in the north, rising thousands of feet above sea level. That would explain why the temperature had dropped so fast, he and his sister sweating one minute, shivering the next.
Louise had cried hard when she wet herself, desperate, shameful tears, punctuated by the coughs and rattles from her chest, even as Sean said it was all right, he’d never tell anyone. He felt bad now for edging away from the wet spot on the van’s plywood flooring when he should have held his sister in his arms. However ashamed Louise might have been for not holding on, he was more so for not comforting her.
He remembered quite distinctly the feeling of the van leaving the road, and the judder and rattle as it crossed rough ground. Not long after, the sound of branches against the outside, scraping and clanging. What kind of trees did they have in Arizona? High ground, cooler weather. Sean guessed pines. He was proven right when the van stopped and Deputy Collins opened the rear doors.
Sean and Louise both shielded their eyes, even though by that time the sun had sunk well below the trees, making the light beneath the canopy a milky blue.
‘Out,’ Collins said.
Sean and Louise stayed where they were.
Collins reached out a hand. ‘Come on, now. You’re going to be all right. There’s nothing to be scared of.’
Sean wanted to tell her she was a liar, but he kept his mouth shut.
‘I had an accident,’ Louise said. ‘I’m all wet.’
Collins looked confused for a moment, then she nodded in understanding. ‘It’s okay, honey, I’ve got clean clothes for you. Come on.’
Louise crawled to the rear lip of the van, allowed Collins to help her down. The deputy turned back to Sean, keeping hold of Louise’s hand.
‘Sean, it’s okay, really. Everything’s going to be all right. You just need to come with me.’
Sean weighed his choices and realized he had none. He couldn’t stay in the van forever. If he ran, he had no doubt both he and his sister would be shot. So he got to his feet, walked to the back of the van. He ignored Collins’ hand, her offer of help, and jumped down. The ground was soft beneath his sneakers, carpeted by years of shed pine needles, skeletal cones here and there. A freshness to the air after the stuffiness of the van.
He turned in a circle as he looked around. A narrow trail in a forest, nothing but trees in every direction and as high up as he could crane his neck to see.
‘Where are we?’ Louise asked.
Collins opened her mouth to answer, but Sean said, ‘Somewhere safe?’
The deputy gave him a look, flint in her eyes, her free hand on the grip of her pistol. ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘Somewhere safe. Let’s take a walk.’
She led Louise by the hand, and Sean had no choice but to follow.
An age later, they arrived at the log cabin, its windows and door boarded up, parts of the roof beginning to sag with neglect. Collins climbed up onto the porch, sidestepping broken boards, and opened the unlocked door. Darkness inside. Louise stopped at the threshold.
‘I don’t want to go in,’ she said.
‘It’s okay, nothing to be scared of.’ Collins looked back to Sean, that hard look in her eyes again, her hand returning to the butt of her pistol. ‘Tell her there’s nothing to be scared of.’
Sean stepped onto the porch, took Louise’s other hand in his. ‘Yeah, there’s nothing scary in here. It’s just dark. I’ll be right behind you.’
Collins gave him a nod, then spoke to Louise. ‘You hear that? Your brother’s not scared. Come on.’
Weak light crept into the cabin, enough to reveal the old furniture piled up at one side, and the trapdoor in the middle of the floor. About three feet square, with a sliding bolt, a new-looking padlock hooked into it. Collins released Louise’s hand, crouched down, and undid the lock. She put her hand to the bolt and looked up at Sean.
‘You’re going to be a good boy, right? You’re going to help me. ‘Cause if you don’t, if things go bad …’
She let the threat hang in the cold air between them.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Sean said.
‘Good,’ she said, then slid the bolt back, grunted as she hoisted open the trapdoor.
A pair of taut chains prevented the door from swinging back onto the floor, held it upright over the opening. Louise stopped, planted her feet firm on the wooden boards.
‘It’s too dark,’ she said.
Collins pulled her a step closer. ‘There’s a light. I’ll switch it on. There’s a big battery to run it. You can keep it on all the time, if you want.’
‘No, I want my mommy.’ Louise tried to tug her hand away, but Collins held firm.
‘Sean, tell her.’
He watched Collins’ fingers circle the pistol grip, saw the hardness to her features and a panicky fear in her eyes. Like this could all go terribly wrong. Even as bad as things were, even if she didn’t want them to, they could get so much worse.
‘We’ll see Mom soon,’ Sean said, guiding Louise toward the door. ‘I promise.’
Louise began to cry again, and Sean had to fight back his own tears. Collins took the flashlight from her belt and shone the beam into the trapdoor’s mouth, revealing the steep wooden stairs down into the dark. He could feel Louise’s tremors through his fingers. He put an arm around her shoulder, and Collins released her other hand, allowing him to help his sister down the steps. One at a time, slow and easy, the deputy’s heavier feet a couple of steps behind them.
The basement floor was lined with wood that creaked and flexed under their feet. Collins went to the far wall and an old bookcase that leaned there. On top was an electric lamp wired to a large battery, just as she’d said. She flipped a switch, and pale yellow light washed across the room. Sean saw the items that had been left here – a mattress, a pair of buckets and toilet paper, water, candy bars, some books and comics – and felt a new dread, colder and heavier than before.
This had been planned for. These things had been here for weeks, maybe months, waiting for children like them.
‘Eat something,’ Collins said, tossing a few candy bars from the bag onto the mattress. She took two bottles of water from the case, set them on the floor. ‘Drink.’
She went to another bag, rummaged inside. She removed items of clothing, pants, underwear, checked labels before pushing them back in. Eventually she found a pair of faded jeans and underpants that looked about Louise’s size. She beckoned to Louise.
‘Let’s get those wet things off you.’
‘No,’ Louise said. ‘Mommy said I can’t let anyone take my clothes off but her, or my teacher in school.’
‘Your mommy’s right to tell you that, but you see, I’m a police officer, so it’s okay. You can’t stay in those wet things.’
Once again, Collins looked to Sean for help, and he nudged Louise, said, ‘It’s okay. Go on.’
Sean watched as Collins undressed his sister, cleaned her with a wet wipe, and put the fresh clothes on. What was he watching for? He wasn’t sure. He knew there were some bad adults who wanted to do things to kids, to touch them in bad ways. If he saw anything wrong, any bad touching, what would he do? He had no idea, but he watched anyway until it was done.
Collins stood and said, ‘Now eat. And drink some water. I’ll be back later tonight with some sandwiches.’
She said nothing more as she climbed the stairs up to the trapdoor. The door slammed shut, and Sean felt the pressure in his ears, and a coldness like never before. He wanted to cry so badly it caused an ache behind his eyes, but he knew if he did, if he let his terror show, then Louise’s fragile mind would crack. So instead they sat beside each other on the mattress and ate candy and potato chips until Louise announced that she was tired. She lay down and Sean pulled a blanket over her, and he tried to remember one of her favorite stories, the one about the mouse and the deep, dark wood, and the monster who turned out to be real after all.
Hours passed. Sean wished he had his watch, so he could tell how many. His father had given him one for his last birthday, said a man should have a good watch, but Sean could never get used to the feel of it on his wrist. The clingy leather, the fiddly clasp, the cold of the metal. Always either too tight or too loose. He stopped wearing it after a few weeks, and Mom hadn’t said anything, even though it was an expensive watch. It cost more than the watches most grownup men wear, his father had said, because his father cared about such things.
Sean’s right hand went to his left wrist, the memory of the watch still on his skin there. He sometimes dreamed about his father. Angry, frightening dreams from which he awoke breathless and confused. He supposed he should hate Patrick Kinney, though that was a big emotion for a man he’d seen so little of in his life. Breakfast, usually, sometimes dinner, they had shared a table, but there hadn’t been much conversation. Now and again his father might ask about his grades, his friends, his teachers. One or two questions met by Sean’s stumbling answers, and that was that.
Mostly when he thought of his father he felt a hollow space inside, as if he had never had a father at all. Not in a real way.
Didn’t matter now. The watch was in one of the boxes in the back of Mom’s car.
Louise moaned and stirred, neither awake nor fully asleep, and hacked out a series of phlegmy coughs. Sean resisted the urge to lie down beside her, close his eyes, and—
What was that? A buzzing noise through the basement walls, getting louder.
Then it stopped somewhere overhead, and Sean heard a metallic clank. He wondered if it was Collins coming back, like she said she would.
Part of him sparked with the hope that she might take them both away from here, take them back to Mom. But the grownup part of Sean’s mind – the part that Mom called the Wise Old Man – told him no, they weren’t going anywhere. Nowhere good, at any rate.
Footsteps across the floorboards above, and Louise gasped as she bolted upright on the mattress, wild eyes staring as the lock rattled.
‘It’s okay,’ Sean said.
He couldn’t help but flinch at the bolt sliding open, like a rifle shot above their heads. Then the creak of the trapdoor, and Collins grunting again as she pulled it up and over. She peered inside, and once satisfied, climbed down the stairs, a brown paper bag in her right hand. She no longer wore her uniform. Now she was dressed in jeans and a jacket, and motorcycle boots. Sean understood what the buzzing noise from above had been.
Collins looked at him and pointed to the empty spot on the mattress beside Louise. He got to his feet, kept the blanket around him, crossed the floor, and lowered himself to the mattress beside his sister. He felt heat where their shoulders touched. Collins dropped the paper bag on the floor, knelt down, and opened it. The dark smell of cigarettes tainted her breath. She reached inside the bag and produced two sandwiches.
‘Peanut butter and jelly,’ she said. ‘Okay?’
Hunger pangs blotted out Sean’s caution, and he reached for one, took a bite. His stomach growled as he tasted the sweetness and the salt. He gave a sigh in spite of himself.
After he swallowed, he said, ‘You look tired. What time is it?’
‘I am tired,’ Collins said, reaching a sandwich out to Louise. ‘It’s a little before midnight, I think.’
Louise shook her head. ‘I don’t like the crusts.’
Collins pushed the sandwich at her. ‘Just eat it.’
‘Mom cuts them off,’ Louise said.
Collins gave her a hard look, then sighed, spreading the paper bag flat on the floor and putting the sandwich on top of it. She reached into her back pocket and pulled out what looked like a short metal bar. With her free hand, she pulled a vicious-looking blade from the bar, then snapped it into place. Sean had never seen a lock knife before, but he’d heard of them, and he guessed this was one. Collins proceeded to hack at the edges of the sandwich until the crusts were gone. She lifted the bread and held it out to Louise once more.
‘Now eat,’ she said.
Louise took the sandwich and bit into it once, before shoving more and more into her mouth, barely chewing. Collins’ expression softened as she put the lock knife away.
‘I know you’re both scared,’ she said. ‘But you don’t need to be. You’re going to be fine, and so is your mom. Everything’s going to be straightened out, maybe not tomorrow, but the day after, or the day after that at the latest. And here’s what’ll happen: you’re going to go on a trip.’
‘Like a vacation?’ Louise asked.
Collins smiled. ‘Yes, like a vacation.’
‘Where to?’ Sean asked.
‘You’re going to stay with a very nice man.’
‘Our father?’
Collins hesitated, then said, ‘A nice man.’
‘Where?’ Sean asked again.
‘In his house. It’s a nice house, a big house.’
‘Who is he? Where’s his house?’
Collins’ smile faltered. ‘He’s a nice man, and it’s a nice house. He’s going to take good care of you.’ She leaned forward and looked Louise in the eye. ‘And you know what?’
Louise blinked. ‘What?’
‘Your mom’s going to be there too.’
‘I think that’s a lie,’ Sean said.
Collins turned her gaze on him, and he wanted to back away. ‘Don’t call me a liar, Sean.’
Sean looked down at his hands.
‘I’ll be back in the morning,’ Collins said, standing. ‘Both of you get some sleep. And try not to worry.’
As she climbed the creaking stairs, Sean took Louise’s hand in his. The trapdoor closed, wood on wood, the bolt snapped, the padlock rattled. Sean lay down on the mattress, pulled Louise in close, and wrapped the blanket around them, trying not to wonder about the nice man and his nice house.