Seventeen
When I heard Possum’s footsteps on the floorboards overhead and the basement door slammed shut, I let out the breath I had been holding. I could hear Bee also sucking in fresh air. The two of us sounded like we had just run a couple miles. I touched her arm and felt her shaking like a leaf.
“That was way too close,” I whispered.
“You can say that again.”
It took me a minute to calm down and start thinking again, but I finally remembered the things Possum had muttered and how much he’d hated being down here in the dark. It gave me a glimmer of hope. “I’m thinking our plan might work,” I whispered.
Bee let out a long sigh, and I knew I wasn’t going to like what she was about to say next. “So here’s what I’ve been thinking,” she said. “We need to get some help.”
“From who? There isn’t anybody who can help us. That’s why we’re down here, right?”
“But we’re overlooking something. We don’t know exactly who’s up there. Don’t you think Lenny probably kept all his prisoners together? If he did, that means Mr. LaBelle and his wife and Donna are up there, too.”
“So?” I asked.
“We could see if we can get Donna to help us.”
“Donna!” I said in a loud whisper. “Are you crazy? She’s an idiot!”
“She’s also just a kid. It would be easier for her to help us than anyone else up there. Lenny and Possum won’t expect it.”
I let out a low groan. “You can’t be serious. What can she do for us?”
“She can be a distraction.”
I gritted my teeth, but Bee was probably right. If Donna was up there, and we could get her to make some noise and be a distraction, it might make all the difference. If we could figure out a way to frighten her, we could pretty much count on the distraction part.
“Actually,” Bee added, “she could be more than just a distraction. If we could find a way to communicate with her, maybe she could do more.”
“No way. That means we’d have to depend on her to think and have some self-control.”
“Maybe I could get through to her.”
I thumped my head against the side of the bin a couple times.
“Abbey,” Bee said, “Donna is a human being.”
Maybe, I thought. “Okay, if she’s up there, we’ll try to get her to help.”
“It sounds to me like everyone’s in the kitchen. I bet Donna’s there, too.”
I closed my eyes and tried to picture the square room with the big island in the middle, the stove and refrigerator on one side and the kitchen table on the other. Bee and I had heard the same sounds, the scuff of feet shifting and chairs moving. “You think they’re all sitting around the kitchen table?”
“Yes.”
“Turn on your flashlight, but keep your hand over the beam,” I said as I started to climb out of the bin. “We need to make sure the coast is clear.”
She clicked on her light and let just a little bit of light leak through her fingers. Once I was out of the bin, I turned on my flashlight while Bee climbed out. Together we crept into the main basement room and looked up the stairs to make sure the door at the top was shut tight. It was.
“We need a ladder,” I whispered, and we went over to the pegboard wall, where Daddy used to hang some of his tools. Grandma Em had hung a stepladder there, just the way Daddy used to. I took the ladder down, and Bee helped me carry it over to a spot we thought was just beneath the kitchen table.
We spread the ladder’s legs and clicked the locks into place. We hardly made a sound, but suddenly a set of heavy footsteps thumped across the floor overhead, heading toward the back hallway and the basement door. I turned to look at Bee and tried to think fast, wondering whether we had time to fold up the ladder and race back to the coal bin. We didn’t.
I grabbed Bee’s arm and started to drag her toward the nearest dark corner when the footsteps halted, turned, and started back in the opposite direction. The turn was followed by a curse, not loud enough for me to make out the words over the screaming of the storm, but enough to recognize Lenny’s voice.
He sounded angry and frustrated and maybe even a little nervous. As long as he thought we were alive, though, he wouldn’t hurt his prisoners; at least that’s what he’d told Possum. I was holding on to that belief like a life preserver, but I knew the more time went by without us showing up, the more likely he’d start thinking we were dead. That meant Bee and I needed to hurry.
Thinking about time brought Judge Gator to mind. Would he come back to his house once the wind started to back off, or would he spend the night in a hotel and come back tomorrow? There was no way to know when he would see our note, which meant Bee and I had to assume we were completely on our own.
We listened to Lenny pace for a few more seconds until finally he skidded out a chair and sat. Bee and I both let out the breaths we’d been holding.
I waited a second to stop my hands from shaking, then pulled the ice pick out of the day pack, climbed the ladder, and began working the pick into the joint between two of the floorboards. Right away dust and bits of wood began falling onto my face, getting into my eyes and nose. I felt a sneeze coming on and clamped my throat shut to keep it from happening.
The kitchen floor was just a few inches above me, and from this close I could hear sounds from the kitchen much more clearly. Someone moved the leg of a chair, and another person cleared their throat. Then came a sound that I never thought I would have wanted to hear: Donna, saying something in a whiny, frightened voice.
I bent down toward Bee and whispered. “It’s her! It’s Donna.”
From the location of the sound, Donna was almost directly overhead. I scratched harder, working the pick farther and farther into the space between the boards. The house was nearly three hundred years old, and the kitchen floorboards, like the ones everywhere else in the house, were originals. Over the years the wood had shrunk and shifted slightly, and in many places there were separations between boards even though almost three centuries’ worth of junk had fallen into the spaces and sort of filled them in. The stuff was soft and very crumbly, because it wasn’t exactly wood as much as compacted dust and dirt and kitchen sweeping that had been packed deep enough into the joints to almost become part of the floor.
There was now a long slash of light coming through the separation that had opened up when the last chunk fell out. I tried to look through the opening, but it was too narrow for me to make out much more than shadows. The light was yellow and wavy, and I realized Lenny and Possum must have had a bunch of Grandma Em’s candles burning around the kitchen.
I kept scratching, digging even harder, and then at one point a chair scraped against the floorboards and someone said, “What’s that sound?”
I stopped scratching and backed down the steps, getting ready to fold the ladder, hang it back on the wall, then run and hide. Before I could do any of that, Bee grabbed the ice pick from my hand and climbed the ladder. She started to make random scratching sounds on the boards.
“What are you doing?” I whispered. “They heard me!”
Bee looked down and nodded. I could see her dim outline in the light that came through the floor and made the basement just a half shade lighter than pure dark. “If you stop scratching, they’ll think it’s something besides a mouse, maybe a person.”
She was absolutely right, and I felt a wash of gratitude. Bee scratched, then stopped and then started again, sounding just like a real mouse, but also making the opening bigger.
Suddenly we heard Possum’s voice. He was louder than the others, as if he was down on his hands and knees looking at the floorboards up close. “It’s rats,” he said. “Same one that knocked that can on the floor earlier. I ain’t goin’ down there.”
“You are if I say you are,” Lenny shot back.
I held my breath, and Bee climbed off the ladder as we waited to see if Lenny would order Possum to the basement. Seconds ticked by, then a minute.
Finally I breathed another huge sigh of relief. Bee went back up. The crack was even bigger now, and she put her eye to it and held it there.
“I can see Donna’s leg,” she whispered. “Right above us.”
“Close?” I asked.
Bee nodded.
I felt for the wire I’d wound around my wrist, and I started to straighten it.
“You really think we should do this? I thought we were going to get her to help us.”
“We are,” I said, “but we have to follow our plan, so first I’m gonna poke her.”
Bee shook her head. “It’s like sticking a pin in a mule’s butt. We have no idea what will happen.”
“Sure we do. A mule would kick, and Donna will scream her head off. We just have to have everything else ready.”
Bee came down the ladder looking as scared as I felt. Our plan had made sense when we made it back at the judge’s house. Only now, thinking about all the things we had to do and how perfectly we had to do them, it seemed pretty much impossible. I gritted my teeth, refusing to think about failure, because there are times when a person just has to stop worrying and get the job done. We would get ready; then we would stick the pin in the mule’s butt and see what happened.
Bee must have decided the same thing, because she stepped over to the coal bin and pulled out the skull from our day pack. She laid it carefully at her feet, then took out the fishing-rod case, the candle, the chain, the lighter, and the glue.
She looked at the stuff on the ground and shook her head. “How did we ever decide this was going to work? Are we crazy?”
We carried the items to Daddy’s old workbench and, taking care to be quiet, we searched through a pile of old scrap lumber for a small piece of board. We found one about five inches long and maybe four inches across. It was perfect.
Doing everything the way we’d planned at the judge’s, we measured the candle, then used the X-acto knife to cut it to the right length. I put a big dab of glue on the bottom of the candle, and we glued it onto one end of the board. It dried fast, and a second later we glued the skull on the board so the candle stuck up inside it.
Bee looked at the skull and sighed. “I hope this isn’t wrong.”
“You’re the one who said they would want this.”
“I know. But this used to be a person. This could have been one of my great-great-great-great-grandparents.”
“People give their livers and kidneys away all the time when they die,” I said. “Don’t you think your great-great-whatever-grandparents would want their old bones to save your grandma’s life?”
That seemed to make things easier. Bee nodded. “You’re right.”
Next I took the fishing rod out of its case and put it together. Then I attached the reel, pulled out a bunch of fishing line, and ran it through the guides. The end of the fly line was about six feet of thin, clear leader that was nearly invisible.
While Bee put one more dab of epoxy on the top of the skull, I lowered the end of the leader and made sure a good bit of it landed in the glue and stayed put.
While we waited for the glue to dry, we started looking for the last thing we needed. It didn’t take long. In one corner we found a baseball bat that must have belonged to Bee’s little brother. It was one of those things people can’t bring themselves to throw away and end up putting in some dark corner and forgetting. I felt kind of weird taking it, but just like the skull, we had no other choice. I was pretty sure that if Bee’s little brother was watching us now from Heaven, he’d want us to use his Louisville Slugger.
Everything was in place. We went back over to the workbench and checked the glue. It had only a moment to go, so to keep my nerves from getting too frazzled, I pulled Bee over to the basement stairs and pointed at the third and seventh step. “Careful of them,” I whispered. “They squeak.”
She nodded.
“Ready?” I whispered, knowing we were both totally petrified about what would come next.
Bee nodded again. “Where should I hide?”
I pointed Bee toward the canning room. “In there,” I whispered as I handed her the bat. “Leave the door open a crack so you’ll be able to see.”
Coming from the canning room would give her the best chance to do what she needed to do. But everything, absolutely everything, was going to depend on Lenny being a consistently lazy boss and sending Possum down here alone. I couldn’t even let myself think about what would happen if I was wrong about that.
Bee tiptoed over to the closed door of the canning room. She opened it very slowly, taking care to make no noise. The knob squeaked a little bit, and we both tensed. After a few seconds, when we heard nothing from upstairs, Bee stepped inside and pulled the door closed, leaving it open a crack so she could see what was going on outside. I took a huge breath and went back to the stepladder.
I climbed back up on the ladder and looked up through the opening we had scratched in the joint between the floorboards. It was wide enough now so that right above me I could make out several pairs of legs. All of them were facing inward, which meant that the prisoners were seated at the kitchen table, all facing one another.
One set of legs had pants and heavy shoes, and since I didn’t recognize the shoes, I was pretty sure they belonged to Mr. LaBelle. Another pair of legs had high heels, and since I’d never seen Grandma Em in high heels, I knew they were Mrs. LaBelle’s. Farther away, at the other end of the table, were another pair of men’s shoes and pants, and that must have been Daddy. Beside him were legs with slacks and darker ankles that had to be Grandma Em.
Almost right above me, in the most perfect position, were the legs I was looking for: Nikes and a pair of blue jeans that stopped a few inches above a pair of pale ankles. It was Donna, and the way she was positioned, she was plenty close enough.
I climbed back down off the ladder, stepped over to the workbench, and checked the glue one last time. Then I used the fly line to pick up the skull and made sure the leader held tight. I took the lighter from my pocket and lit the candle. With that done I climbed back on the ladder, took the wire I had straightened out, and put it up through the hole in the floor.
I glanced in Bee’s direction. “Ready?”
“Yes,” came back a choked whisper.
I closed one eye, aimed my wire upward, and jabbed hard.
Up above came an ear-shattering shriek, then “OhmyGod! OhmyGod! I’ve been stung! Owww, owww!” Next came a bunch of kicking and stomping and scraping as Donna’s legs spazzed and jerked, and she tried to figure out what kind of horrible insect or spider had just stung the bejesus out of her.
In spite of how totally terror-stricken I felt at that moment, I couldn’t help but smile as I jumped down off the ladder.
Eighteen
What I did next wasn’t exactly silent, but the screaming in the kitchen right above me covered any noise I made. I folded up the ladder and hung it back on the pegboard. Over by the workbench, I looped the chain over my arm, careful not to let it clank, and picked up the fly rod, bringing the tip around until the skull was almost, but not quite, visible to someone standing at the bottom of the basement stairs. Then I waited.
My heart was pounding so hard, I could barely stand. Even with the racket upstairs and the wind howling outside, the thundering of my heart in my chest seemed to echo like jungle drums.
Donna was still screaming and crying and kicking. My little poke had clearly hurt and also scared the pants off of her.
“Calm down, kid,” Lenny snarled for the fifth or sixth time, but Donna just ignored him. Finally I heard him snap at Possum.
“Go down there and find out whatever bit her. Kill the freakin’ thing.”
“What’re you talkin’ about?” Possum grumbled. “Nothin’ bit her from down there.”
“Well, somethin’ bit her, and she says it’s down there. Go kill it, so she shuts up. She’s drivin’ me nuts with all the screaming.”
Heavy steps came toward the basement stairs. “Leaper!” Possu
m called.
He turned and went toward the dining room. “Leaper, get up, you lazy piece of garbage.”
I heard a soft thump, and then the dog whined. “What’s wrong with you, dog?” Possum said.
Finally he came toward the basement steps again. The door at the top of the stairs opened, and a second later the overhead light came on. I squinted against the unaccustomed brightness and instinctively took a half step back. The skull bounced a little on the end of the line, but I steadied the rod and brought the skull back so it was just outside the spill of light coming through the doorway. I knew Possum couldn’t see me, but logic didn’t matter, because I was scared half out of my mind.
I counted the steps as he came down, hearing the two squeaky stairs. He reached the bottom, and his feet scuffed on the cement floor. I took a breath and held it and forced myself to wait.
“I hate rats,” he muttered under his breath. “Just leave ’em alone down here and they won’t bother nobody. But no, stupid Lenny can’t let ’em be.”
He took a couple of deep breaths, sounding almost as frightened as I was; then he came a step toward me. He stopped again, and I worried suddenly that he had spotted shadows thrown by the flickering candlelight showing through the skull’s eyeholes. If that happened, he might panic and go back—or worse, call Lenny to come down.
I squeezed my eyes closed and beamed thoughts at him, telling him to take a couple more steps. He stood there forever. I didn’t dare breathe. The air grew stale in my lungs and began to burn. I was desperate to exhale, but I couldn’t risk that much noise.
Finally Possum took another step. Then he cursed under his breath and took another step, then a third. Three steps had been my signal. I pushed the rod forward a couple inches so the skull with the evil light showing through its eyeholes floated out and seemed to hang in the air, staring right at him. At the same time, I dropped the chain and then kicked it to make it clank, and I made a low moaning sound.
Possum did exactly what I hoped. He let out a scream that was a lot more girlie-sounding than I would have thought possible for such a big man. He also started to turn to run back up the basement stairs, but that was when Bee stepped out of the canning room and bashed him over the head with the Louisville Slugger.
Disappearance at Hangman's Bluff Page 16
