The Cellar

by Peter Fugazzotto

  "Run!" said Tug flinging the door open.

  I sucked in air impossibly fresh and ran, ran as fast as I could for the cover of the trees again.

  36

  I thought that there was no way we would get away.

  I burst out of that door at a full run, feet pounding, legs pumping, tearing across the gravel drive and around the broken down Camaro. Jay was no longer there, so I kept running.

  I expected something to stop me. A shot ringing out sharply, a crack against the calm morning, flowering pain in my shoulder before I suddenly fell. Or the heavy breath of my pursuer, the growing sound of his footsteps, a misstep and my tumbling to the earth. Or god knows a giant tentacle rising out of the cesspool of that house, slimy, acidic, pulling me into hell.

  "Don't look back. Keep running," grunted Tug.

  I did what I was told. I trusted Tug. He was the soldier. He was the survivor. He was the one who had lived through several tours of duty in the most dangerous places on earth. He was the one who should have been dead a half dozen times over from all the stories he told me.

  The stories.

  The IED that sprayed him with the blood and guts of his sergeant. The sniper bullet that cracked open the head of the interpreter. The little weeping girl who blew herself up in the market, hands trembling, tears streaming down her cheeks, not close enough to do anything other than push a warm breath of air over the stunned soldiers.

  Stories that Tug lived to tell.

  Tug had survived. He would be the one to get me out of this mess.

  We paused back up the hillside, catching our breaths, behind the burnt out stump. I panted hard, but all that CrossFit had kept me in good shape, and my breath evened out quickly, as if running from some crazed killer's den was just another workout of the day. Tug, on the other hand, bent over, palms on knees, sucking hard. His lips sprayed saliva. I could see that he was not in as good a condition as I had thought. That unsettled me. I wanted him to be the strongest. The one to have the reserves to pull us out of the darkest places. That was who he was supposed to be. That was his role. The unflinching hero. The shining light.

  He still could not catch his breath. "Damned hill." His upper body rose and fell, bellows pumping. "We gotta keep going."

  I stared back down the hill towards the decrepit house. The axe in my hand felt suddenly useless. "You think he's coming after us?"

  Then I saw him, the hulking shambling shape of the Sandman bursting out of the front door, an assault rifle in his arms, and a pair of dogs exploding around his feet, racing across the drive, howling with the scent of us.

  "Run!"

  37

  We cleared the top of the trees, and then descended back to the drive, charging along the gravel for a moment before Tug urged me to the forest and the side of the road.

  Now I was losing my breath. My thighs ached. Several times my feet had turned beneath me, catching rocks and stumps, each time almost twisting my ankle. I could break my ankle. I didn't care. I would keep running. Because to stop was to die.

  "Stop, stop," said Tug. He posted a hand against an aspen, his whole body shaking, making the leaves of the tree shimmer. He breathed so hard that his lips drew into a circle with each inhalation.

  I nodded. "Rest for a second. Then we keep going." I tilted my head to listen. The barking pursuit of the dogs was closing. I wondered if it would be safer to climb up a tree but then I thought about just sitting there in the crotch of a tree, feet dangling above the foaming jaws of the hounds, the Sandman leveling his rifle and squeezing the trigger with a pop. Better to keep running.

  "We can't keep running," said Tug. "I can't keep running. Out of shape."

  "He's got dogs. He's got a gun. Not sure what our other options are."

  "I've got a gun."

  "A pistol. He's got an assault rifle. That's no match. And how are you going to deal with the dogs? They'll all be coming at once."

  "I can't keep running." His lips were coated with thick white saliva. I swear I could see tears in the corners of his eyes. It was probably from the pain of running.

  I dragged his arm. "At least, keep walking. Keep putting some distance between us." I pointed to where the hillside dropped into a dark ravine. "We can hide there."

  "Dogs'll smell us. Track us right down."

  "We'll be out of sight. At least that."

  Tug came along willingly, but his whole posture changed. He hunched over as he walked, and he moved forward with a limp, as if some old injury that he had been bravely hiding for years had suddenly resurfaced. I wonder how much trauma – physical and mental – he had buried beneath his gruff exterior.

  A small creek ran through the bottom of the ravine. We slipped over the side, knocking loose clumps of dirt and sending down a cascade of pine needles. The ravine hid us. We could no longer see the side of the hill and that meant the Sandman could not see us. Tug was right that it would do nothing for the dogs but at least it would be harder to be shot from a distance, picked off like a carnie target at the county fair.

  I scooped cold water to my lips. It felt like ice needles penetrated my teeth.

  "Give you the shits," said Tug. "Giardia or some such stuff."

  "Getting the shits later today is the least of my worries." I descended further down the ravine, following the creek as it dropped towards the lake. I wondered how long we really had. Maybe we would get lucky. And that's all we really needed.

  Tug limped behind me, wincing with each step.

  "Hurt yourself?" I asked.

  He shrugged.

  "What the hell was that back there?" I asked. "How the hell could this be happening?"

  "We made a mistake running. It would have been better to engage with him at close quarters. The distance puts my weapon at a disadvantage."

  "We get back to the car, and then we can create some real distance."

  "Never have been a fan of running. Better to turn and face your demons."

  "In my eyes, better to live to fight another day."

  "The coward's way."

  "We getting into this right now?" I asked. "Some deep philosophical discussion while some maniac is hunting us down with dogs."

  "Not everything in life happens in leather chairs with snifters of brandy."

  We reached a section of the ravine that was overgrown with bushes. This would provide good cover. I pushed through. Small thorns tore at my clothing. I raised my arms to shield my face and pressed forward with big, lumbering steps that thrust one side of my body forward and then the next.

  We stopped to listen. The dogs were no longer barking. I didn't like that. I had no sense of how close they were. I could only hope that we had somehow thrown them off our scent. Maybe when we crossed the road, we lost them.

  It was simple what we needed to do. Track the ravine down to the lake, follow the road back to our car, and hopefully with Jay and Lipsky there, race back to the house or the bridge, and just keep driving on the road until we found someone. There had to be someone else here at the lake. It couldn't just be us and the Sandman.

  I paused in my bushwhacking. Tug shrugged his shoulders.

  Tug opened his mouth. A bark erupted, and then another, until a chorus of howling and yips filled the air, and behind Tug branches snapped and leaves rustled.

  "Run!" he yelled.

  38

  I outran the dogs. I outran the Sandman. I outran Tug.

  All those early mornings in the gym doing burpees, sprinting down the sidewalk, and doing box jumps paid off. I reached a point where the ravine narrowed, walls high, water draining through into a metal culvert.

  I clutched roots, dug my feet into soft earth, and lunged, finally pulling myself over the top onto a flat rise thick with pine needles. The air smelled of menthol. It smelled of victory. I stood and raised the wood axe overhead. I laughed.

  Bastard wouldn't catch me.

  The sharp pop of a gunshot cracked through the trees. I dove back to the ground, pressing my face to the c
old earth, the menthol suddenly overwhelmed by the underlying stench of rot and decay, decades of needles and leaves and branches and bugs and even animals, rotting and moldering, disintegrating in this untouched stretch of forest.

  I crawled to the edge of the ravine and looked over.

  I caught a glimpse of Tug, being dragged away by his feet, on his back, a bloody gash along the side of his head where the bullet had grazed him. The Sandman, a hulking shape, really just a shadow disintegrating into the thick undergrowth, took him. He took Tug, the two slavering dogs yowling and nipping at the body of my unconscious friend.

  I wanted to scream but the sound hid in my throat and all that came out was a pathetic whimper.

  39

  I am not sure how long I stood there staring at those bushes where I had seen Tug dragged away by the Sandman. It was long enough for the rain to return to hard pellets against my face. I shivered suddenly. My raincoat was gone, handed off to Amanda before I entered the house. I needed to start moving. Otherwise I was going to freeze to death.

  But I could not move my feet. It was as if the mud clenched the bottoms of my shoes, holding them tightly, not letting me out of this spot.

  I knew what it was though. I was waiting. I was watching. I was holding on to the shred of hope that the bushes would suddenly shake and Tug, eyes wide and wild, would step out of the shimmering leaves, a crooked smile on his face.

  That's what I was waiting for.

  I shivered again, this time more of a quaking.

  He was not coming out.

  I turned to stare through the trees in the direction of the lake. If I could orient to the water, I could find my way back to the cabin. Then I would find the others. Lipsky and Jay. Together we would be stronger. We could hide out. Help would eventually come. It had to.

  I looked again at the bushes where I had last seen Tug.

  What would he do?

  I cursed. I knew what he would do. He would not run.

  So I knew what I needed to do.

  I slid over the edge of the cliff and descended back into the ravine retracing the way I had just come. The creek trickled through the culvert. Hidden in the mossy walls beneath ferns, crickets chirped, stopping as I turned to look for them.

  I could smell dog, a wet animal smell. I could not seen any dogs but they had been here, their footprints making shallow impressions along the creek bed. That was not the only thing I saw there. I saw a dark patch of mud, flies already descending, buzzing, and I knew I did not need to press my fingers on that mark to know that it was Tug's blood.

  I almost thought that he could not bleed. He was Tug. The strongest out of all of us. The real hero.

  I glanced back at the cliff, the way out of the ravine, took a deep breath, and then plunged into the bushes.

  Every step I took snapped impossibly loud twigs beneath my feet. I stank, my body reeking with a deep stench of ammonia, and I could only imagine that it was an overwhelming scent that the dogs had already caught in the wind and had set them to a low growl at the feet of their master. Despite my turning and slithering I could not avoid the bushes and the branches and I felt like all the foliage shook wildly as I moved forward, giving away the slow progress that I made.

  I have no idea how far I had gone or how close I might have been to Tug.

  Then I heard the shot of a gun, so loud that it could have been fired from my own hands, and I tell you I swear I felt the wind of something passing right close to my cheek, though it could have been nothing more than a hard rain drop or the swishing of a branch sprung back.

  That's all I needed to realize that I was no hero.

  That was all I needed to understand that I had to run away back in the direction of the lake, away from the house and abandoning Tug to the killer.

  And that's what I did.

  40

  As I look back on that day, I've asked myself where does evil come from?

  The Sandman, by all accounts, was evil. What he did to the others. What he did to us. What he planned to do.

  Pure evil.

  All those notebooks, those detailed plans, those fantasies that should have been suppressed, buried, never to have taken form at the tip of those pencils. Imagine if you let all your dark dreams slip out of the suppressed corners of your mind? Imagine if you gave life to them?

  I also wondered why they had never just burned it all, his house, the hell he created, any trace of his thoughts.

  Would burning have cleansed it or would it just have given it another form to float into the air, settle into ground, grow through a plant, and soak into another's mouth?

  Where did his evil come from? Is it all handed down?

  Is evil just part of the human record? A thread running through from the beginning of time.

  Since the time of the Sandman, I've thought about heroes and monsters. In particular, I've returned to contemplate Beowulf and Grendel.

  For some reason the cruelty of Beowulf always stuck with me. He was the hero. The ancestor to Western civilization. A man doing God's work. Yet he was cruel.

  But he baited Grendel, waiting in that mead hall, tore the poor creature's arm off, and, not content with merely that, he nailed the arm to a wall.

  Yes, I know Grendel terrorized the Danes, killing and slaughtering but I always thought that there was a reason for it. Grendel represented an older tradition that Christianity was wiping out and the so-called monster in many ways was simply fighting for his life, backed into a corner by the great hall that had been built, enemies encroaching, and he pushed back. What choice did Grendel really have but to fight for his life with tooth and nail?

  The Danes consumed his world. He fought to contain them and preserve what he had known and hoped to carry on.

  I shouldn't be sympathizing with the evil character in the story. We are supposed to root for the heroes, right?

  Later in the tale, Beowulf hunts down and kills Grendel's mother. He slaughters her in her own home, the same trespass that Grendel had committed. And then our hero cuts their heads off. Why the hell did he need to do that? He killed the grieving mother and her son yet he chopped their heads off for no other purpose than he wanted to. This is the hero myth on which our culture is based.

  Then we think the story of the hero is over, as if it ever really began. Fifty years later, a slave steals a goblet from a dragon, which evokes the beast's rage, and Beowulf sets out to slay this creature, not looking to right the original wrong. He never really considers simply returning the cup, and making amends.

  The song of Beowulf was meant to be instructive, a guide.

  But I've always wondered about it. It is a story set in pagan times but told through a Christian lens. Was the story different when seen only through pagan eyes? Was it a story of how to live? How to be a hero? Or was it a warning about pride, anger, and revenge?

  In the end, everyone is dead: Grendel, his mother, the dragon, Beowulf.

  In the end, a trail of blood.

  In the end, only someone left to tell the story, and for others to turn it into what they need it to be.

  41

  I ran through the forest, out of the ravine, and down the slope away from the house, my ankles threatening to snap with one misstep. The sour stench of my fear overpowered the pine needles and the choking decay of spore. The rain washed nothing away.

  I was done with all this. I needed to get out of here. I would take my chances with trying to cross the river. I would get the car across the flooded bridge or die trying. It was better than staying here. It was better than dying.

  Because that's what would happen if I stayed here. The Sandman would track me down and club me over the head, his dogs would tear the skin off my face and hands, and I would be dragged half-conscious into the bushes. God only knows what he would do. I remembered the eyes and body parts in the jars in the kitchen. What did he have I store for me?

  I didn't want to know. Who would?

  So I ran.

  I would risk my li
fe to get to the police. Let them come in with a SWAT team. Let swarms of police cars skid into the gravel driveway. Let their sirens and flashing blue lights cut through the rain.

  They'd rescue Tug.

  I flew down that hill with reckless abandon. Finally my feet hit the road. Maybe it would have been safer to track alongside the road, hiding in the bushes, but it would have slowed me down and the only thing I wanted to do was to put distance between me and the Sandman and get into the safety of my car.

  If he suddenly popped out onto the road, I'd run him down.

  Finally I came to the downed tree and beyond it my car shimmered, a metal fortress, waiting for me. I touched the keys in my jacket pocket. Solid, sharp, ringing with hope.

  I let out a burble of laughter. I glanced over my shoulders quickly scanning the forest behind me. The Sandman was nowhere in sight. No dogs howled.

  I turned back to the car. I was close enough. He would never catch up to me, not before I was safely inside.

  I pulled myself up and over the fallen tree and raced to my car.

  The keys fell out of my hands.

  The windows had been shattered. The front windshield spider-webbed into a cloudy mist. The car sunk on flattened tires.

  I looked left and right, and then approached the open hood. The battery was gone. Cables and tubes had been severed.

  I could not swallow. I put my back to the car and stared into the forest. He could not be watching me. He had taken Tug. He must have done this before returning to the house. He must have found our car while we were marching towards his house. Had we heard a car rumbling through the forest while we followed Tug through the woods? Had we made a huge mistake?

  I glanced through the broken passenger window. Something bloody, mangled, lay on the driver's seat. Was it a human part? Whose?

  I backed away from the car until I was in the forest again. I made myself small, pressing myself into the leaves and branches, wishing I could just vanish, wishing I could fade away.