By the Light of His Lantern

by Abe Moss

  Her mind stood still for an instant. When it dawned on her, she moved from the kitchen into the living room. The basement door was open. Shit, shit, shit. She crossed the room slowly, peered down the dark basement steps. It was quiet. She studied the door and saw at once the lock was broken. Forced out from the doorjamb. Someone had either aggressively pulled it open, or someone down below had kicked it from the inside.

  Holding her breath, she flipped on the light below. Nothing stirred. She made her way down, step by step, chest aching. The cold floor revealed itself as she descended, the fear of reaching the bottom and finding it bare increasing each stair. It couldn’t be possible, she thought. He hadn’t moved at all the past two weeks. To have woken up for no reason, well… there was no reason why that should happen. Three-quarters of the way down she ducked on the stairs to take a look and saw him there, sleeping as always. Though, his blanket wrappings were no longer rolled tight…

  A voice startled a shout from her cotton-dry mouth.

  “You’re home.”

  At the top of the stairs in the doorway, Lara stood. Her dark face, intentions hidden, watched as Catherine tried to make sense of the situation.

  “What are you doing here? How did you get in?”

  “Window over the kitchen sink was unlocked.”

  “I lock all the windows.”

  “I left it unlocked.”

  All Catherine could hear was her own breath and the boom boom boom of her heart. Lightheaded, she leaned against the wall. Probably should have eaten more for lunch…

  “What is that down there?” Lara asked.

  “What?”

  There wasn’t a way out of it now. She couldn’t know the why, or even the how, but Lara knew the what, and that was enough. The answers to the other two couldn’t be anything good. Her mother had an unconscious man in her basement. She could probably tell by the smell that he’d been there a while.

  “You know what. That boy.”

  “Can we sit and talk?”

  “I don’t want to talk. I’m not here for that.”

  “What are you here for, then?”

  Her face was too dark to see, but she could hear it in her voice, the tightness in her throat. Lara passed her hands over her wet eyes.

  “You know why I’m here.”

  “You don’t have to do this. How many times do I have to tell you, anything you need, just—”

  “I said I don’t want to talk.”

  Someone else was there. They pushed Lara aside, joined her standing in the doorway above. A narrow man, a stranger to Catherine—though the afternoon light at their backs made it difficult to see them well.

  “No, we should talk,” he said. “Come up here and we’ll do that.”

  “Don’t,” Lara said, but she was ignored.

  “Let’s talk about our situations,” he said. His voice was pitchy and nervous.

  “Who is this?” Catherine said. “Are you Rob?”

  The man gave Lara a look which she didn’t return. “I am.”

  “Look, I’m sure you’re here because… what, you need money? Is that right?” He was silent. “Well I don’t have any. Truly, if that’s what you’re here for—”

  “Bullshit.” He reached behind his back and produced what Catherine recognized as the silhouette of a pistol. Her heart lurched. “Come up here.”

  “Rob,” Lara said.

  “Be quiet.”

  Catherine was nailed to the planks on which she stood.

  “Get up here,” he demanded.

  Catherine started up, feet aimless, struggling to take each step under the weight of her tingling body. They watched, Lara’s and his face shadows of themselves, and Catherine found it difficult to meet their gazes, so she looked at her feet instead which made the climb a bit easier. She was nearly at the top when she glanced up and they stepped back to make room for her. Lara wouldn’t look at her.

  “Sit down.”

  Catherine did as she was told and sat on the sofa. Rob stood nearer than Lara, who remained by the basement door, unable to watch. There were two large backpacks leaned against the wall next to her.

  “We both know you have money,” Rob said. “How much is the question.”

  “I really don’t,” Catherine said. She looked to her daughter. “Lara, is this really what you want to be a part of?”

  “She said she doesn’t want to talk. So you’ll talk to me. All right?” Catherine nodded. “Good. So how much are you gonna give us?”

  He was an idiot, that much was certain. The cadence of his voice was enough to tell by, if you wanted to be judgmental about it—his words like the quivering legs of a newborn foal, shaking and clumsy. His methods of negotiating or making demands were a clear indicator as well. She wondered if she took out her purse and gave him the twenty-six dollars or so she had inside if he’d accept that as ‘all she had.’ However, dumb as he was, it almost made the gun that much more dangerous. Would Lara really let him use that on her?

  “Why should I give you anything?”

  “Because,” he said, “if you don’t, we’ll go to the police.”

  Catherine saw very quickly the direction he hoped to take this negotiation. He might have had a full hour or more to think it up in that thick skull of his. Maybe he’d forgotten that he himself was also a criminal. Catherine felt disappointed that her own daughter might have helped come up with it. As she sat there thinking it over, an idea occurred to her. She wasn’t sure if it would pay off—she didn’t have time to think that far ahead—but maybe it’d confuse them.

  “Go to them for what?”

  Rob’s eyes narrowed. “For whatever shitshow it is you’ve got going on…” He paused. “… down there!” He pointed the gun to the basement door.

  “And tell them what?”

  “You’ve got some guy tied up in your basement—”

  “First of all, I’m not sure he’s tied up. And secondly…” She hesitated. His eyes flashed to the side as he listened. “Do you have a criminal record, Rob?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “I’m sure the police would be interested in that, especially seeing as it was you who put that man in my basement.”

  There was a deafening silence in the living room as all involved turned the conversation over in their minds, gauging each other’s reactions and trying to understand where she was steering them. Catherine watched Lara, and saw that her gears likely turned quicker than Rob’s. But she didn’t say anything. Still it was Rob who did the talking. And maybe that was both smart and deliberate on Lara’s part.

  “You think you could blame it on us?” Rob asked.

  “I certainly have no idea where that man came from. Do you?”

  “Mom, stop.”

  “Be quiet,” Rob said. He was smiling now, as if he admired Catherine’s game, and his admiration was enough to make her wish she hadn’t started it because it must not have been a very good one. “And how would they figure we know anything about him? We actually don’t know anything, so we couldn’t tell them, right?”

  “Well,” Catherine started, and she picked herself up a little, straightened her back and steadied her nerves. “According to Lara, that man down there is the murderer of her little sister and my youngest daughter.”

  Lara gasped. Rob gave her a fleeting glance but ultimately didn’t consider her. “And why would you say that?”

  “Because I imagine that’s who he is,” Catherine said.

  “Is it?” Lara asked.

  Rob paid her no mind. “You have the same motive, don’t you?”

  “I suppose I do. But clearly I wasn’t able to subdue a full-grown man and carry him into my basement, was I? I’m not even the type of person who might do that. That’s more fitting for someone with a criminal record, I’d think.”

  “Possession, bitch. That’s it.”

  Lara shook her head—a telling gesture.

  He thought for a while, stared unblinkingly at Catherine wh
ile he did. She looked away, curious and fearful of what he might be considering. She hadn’t forgotten the gun he held rested on his leg.

  “Well, how about if…” He paused, thinking again. The look of confoundment he wore told Catherine he wasn’t a creative type.

  “We want twenty thousand in cash by tomorrow,” Lara said, stepping in. “We’ll be back tomorrow afternoon. If you don’t have it, I’ll go to the police alone and I’ll report you for what you’ve done.”

  “I’ll tell them about what you’re doing to me—”

  “I’ll tell them you’re lying, that you threatened to report us for some bogus robbery if we went to them about the kidnapping. I’m sure kidnapping and… whatever it is you’re doing down there is a bigger deal than that.”

  “We don’t know about this shit, Lara,” Rob said.

  “We’ll find out one way or another if it comes to that. Maybe we’ll all go to jail. None of this matters if you just get the money.”

  “Why are you doing this to me?” Catherine looked at her daughter like she’d never met her before. She was thin, she thought. Too thin. Her eyes were dark and deep. She looked like someone who hadn’t slept for days. Surely, Catherine thought, she didn’t look this way overnight. How didn’t she notice before…

  “Tomorrow afternoon,” she repeated. She turned and picked up one of the two backpacks. She nodded to Rob. “Let’s go.”

  “It’s funny,” Rob said, heaving his pack over his shoulders. “If we hadn’t found him downstairs, we wouldn’t have had the idea to stick around and get more. You should have kept your nose clean.”

  “Let’s goo.”

  They left. Catherine stayed where she was, on the couch, and watched through the window as they walked down the street out of sight, seemingly having parked a distance away.

  She felt too angry to cry.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  The first thing she did was call Beth, who didn’t answer. So she left a voicemail, which Beth returned the second she probably listened to it when she was off work that evening.

  “What do I do?” Catherine said. “I don’t have that money. I… well, I have most of it, but that’s everything I have. And would they believe me if I told them it’s all I have?”

  “Catherine, calm down.” Beth blew low into the phone on the other end. “Even if you had twenty thousand… there’s a chance they’d want to know how much more you’re good for.”

  “And if I just… give them nothing, they’ll go to the police. And if I go to the police… I can’t go to the police.”

  “No, you can’t go to the police.”

  The line was silent, both thinking.

  “Does Ned know about all this?” Catherine asked.

  “No. God, no. I mean…”

  “Okay…”

  “What if…” Beth paused. Catherine perked up, pacing the living room. “What if we moved him… if when they came for the money, he wasn’t there?”

  “Moved him where?”

  “If we hid him, or moved him, they wouldn’t have that leverage anymore. Right?”

  “I guess, but where? And if they go to the police anyway… they might come and search. I don’t know…”

  “I don’t either, Cathy.”

  Any hope Catherine had gained in reversing the curse and putting things right again was dashed upon the rocks. Crazy, she thought, how quickly everything could feel like such a mess again.

  “Will you come over tomorrow? To help me?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And maybe we can think of something better together. What time are they coming, did you say?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon was all she said.”

  “I’ll come over in the morning as soon as I can.”

  “Okay.”

  When they ended their call, Catherine stopped her incessant pacing and fell onto the sofa.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  She lay awake all night. Once she looked at the clock and it read 3:24am and she screamed into her pillow. Her worries got her nowhere. No better ideas. She wondered if she asked for more time to get them more money, if she and Beth could devise a plan to get the antidote and set him loose before Lara and Rob came the second time. She wondered what might happen if she just locked all the doors and windows and didn’t answer when they came. She wondered how dangerous Rob really was.

  She wondered how her daughter came to want someone like him.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  It was sometime between nine and ten the next morning. Catherine and Beth stood side by side in the cool basement, hands on their hips, quietly brainstorming what to do with the might-as-well-be-dead man.

  “What do I tell them when he’s not here?”

  “Tell them you killed him yourself. He’s gone and buried.”

  That hadn’t occurred to her. She considered it.

  “You really think that would work?”

  “I thought about it last night,” Beth said. At those words, Catherine felt undeservedly lucky to have such a friend. “I think it would work. But it depends…”

  “On what?”

  “How far we think they’re willing to go to get your money. They could kidnap you, take you to an ATM. Or, if this boyfriend of hers feels cornered without any leverage against you…” She paused. “Do you think he would hurt you? Or worse?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t think your daughter would let that happen.”

  “I don’t know,” she repeated.

  Terrible, terrible, terrible.

  “All we know is, you don’t have the money. Not all of it, at least. There’s nothing you can do about that. Aside from, you know… asking a friend.”

  “I’m not asking you or anyone else. This is my mess.” Catherine looked at Beth in such a way as to get her attention. “I’m in disbelief that you’re even here helping me right now.”

  “Of course I am.”

  “When your friend tells you they’ve got someone tied up in their basement, that’s typically when you stop calling that person your friend.”

  “Except I understand you. Even without kids, I get it.”

  The man on the floor was milky, his lips outstandingly rouge by contrast. The bowls of his eyes were hollowed, a yellowish-brown. If either of them got much closer they would step back in offense of his scent. While Catherine had handled his digestive hygiene fairly well, she hadn’t exactly been giving him sponge baths.

  “So where do you want to put him?” Beth asked.

  “Definitely upstairs somewhere. But… it has to be somewhere obscure.”

  They checked around the ground level, through the kitchen and living room. They looked in the garage. Beth thought perhaps they could shimmy him under the worktable where Catherine kept her neglected hardware and pile some boxes in front of him. It might work, Catherine thought. Then they checked upstairs, in the guest bedroom and in Catherine’s room. Under a bed would be too obvious, they agreed. Even worse in a closet. Beth reminded Catherine of the worktable in the garage, but somehow Catherine felt it wasn’t obscure enough. She had an idea.

  They emptied the cupboard under the sink in the guest bathroom. Cleaner and extra toilet paper and a forgotten shower caddy that never saw any use. They crammed it into the master bathroom.

  “We can lay him there. It’ll be uncomfortable, but he’s not awake for it. If we can position him balled up somehow…”

  “Fetal position.”

  “Right.”

  Secretly they both hoped to find someplace better on the ground floor to avoid carrying his dead weight up two flights of stairs. They stood on either end of him, still wrapped in his blanket. Catherine unwrapped him. Beth winced at the odor.

  “Sure he’s still alive?”

  Catherine took him under the arms and Beth took his feet. Together they hoisted him up, ass low and dusting the concrete, and carried him at a spider’s pace toward the stairs. Not five feet covered and Catherine doubted the
ir ability to carry him up. Well, uninjured, at least.

  They dropped him twice on the first flight. Once Catherine felt his weight pulling from her hands, and so she thought she’d set him down for a second. Beth thought that was a good idea. Upon setting him down his body skipped and bobbed down the wooden steps until Beth managed to tangle his legs around her own to stop him. Catherine grabbed him under the arms once more and they finished the first flight quickly with puffed cheeks and trembling thighs. They laid him next to the coffee table and took a moment to recover on the sofa.

  “I don’t know how I got myself into this,” Catherine said. “I know how, I just… don’t know how I got this far.”

  “You were filled with a lot of things, I’m sure. And what better object to direct them toward than the one who filled you with them…”

  The second flight of stairs to the upstairs hallway was easier than the basement stairs. For one, it was carpeted. It was easier on their feet, and the fear of dropping him was lessened. Their lungs, however, were still out of air, their arms out of strength, when they reached the top. They laid him just outside the bathroom door.

  “This is starting to seem less and less like a good idea,” Catherine said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “What if they don’t believe us and they search the entire house? They already ransacked it once. They searched everything. Lara knows where things are. If they look for him, if she looks under the bathroom sink—”

  “She won’t think to look there.”

  “But if she does, she’ll notice right away that it’s not like it was before, no matter how much we bury him with toilet paper and whatever else.”

  “Let’s be honest.” Beth shifted her tired weight from leg to leg, leaned in the bathroom doorway. “We’re putting him here because we expect it’s a spot they won’t look. If they look most places, they’d find him. Unless you have a room filled with long, human-shaped boxes to lose him in.”

  When their hearts quieted, they pulled him into the bathroom in front of the cupboard. Placing him into the cupboard wasn’t what someone would call graceful, or even gentle, though they tried to be. There were two doors, with a thin wooden beam between them, dividing the opening beneath the cabinet into two. They lifted and pushed him headfirst into one side, until his head bumped the back of the cupboard. Then they bent him at the waist, turned him onto his side, and folded his legs in behind him, knocking his knees against the dividing beam. They took another quick breather once he was in. When they closed the doors, they were only a half-inch shy of actually closing. Catherine pushed it shut against his weight, only to watch it open the moment she let go. It was good enough, she decided. Maybe.