She and Nancy set out to test this hypothesis.
It turned out that Dr. Fell was not quite the ignorant dupe they’d hoped. He had boarded up the broken kitchen window, nailed shut the loose board in the side of the house that had marked the opening to the secret passage through the walls into the living room, and at some point managed to fill the basement air vent with cement. He had even, in what Nancy admitted was a stroke of inspiration, found and sealed the tiny crawl space that ran from under the back porch into the basement’s unused water heater.
“Huh,” said Nancy.
“Huh,” said Gail.
Refusing to give up, the girls quickly scaled the central pillar on the east side of the porch up to one of the many second-floor balconies to try their luck above the ground floor.
They struck pay dirt.
Not only were the rusty hinges on the window leading to one of the upstairs bathrooms still completely unattached to the wall, so the entire window could be easily pulled away, but the lock on the door leading from the master bedroom to the balcony was still nonexistent, the window air conditioner in one of the other upstairs bedrooms could still be simply shoved back inside the room, creating an opening, and the massive hole in the broken-down wall on the west side of the house had yet to be fixed.
“It’s like he’s never even been upstairs,” commented Gail.
“Maybe he hasn’t,” said Nancy.
After some discussion, the two friends chose to enter the house through the huge open hole in the wall, mostly because doing so required little more than bending down and stepping through. They found themselves exactly where they expected to find themselves and exactly where they’d found themselves after stepping through that very same hole hundreds of times before—in a big closet. The closet door having long since broken off, Nancy and Gail peered cautiously into the long-deserted hallway.
Nothing had changed. The broken closet door still lay on the floor in front of them, the broken light fixture still dangled from the ceiling, a broken clock on the wall still said 4:37. The only differences between when they had regularly roamed this hallway and now were the extra layers of dust over everything and the larger number of cobwebs strewn about the place.
“You know, I really don’t think he’s been up here at all,” said Gail.
“Which means your brother isn’t up here either,” agreed Nancy.
She inched out of the closet and started down the hallway, with Gail right behind her. Sunlight filtered through the crumbling brickwork of the house, causing the girls to cast a faint grid of shadows along the wall as they crept forward past empty rooms that had in times past housed secret, international spy organizations, Greek heroes, comic-book characters, zoo animals, and more.
They were just approaching the head of the infamous Stairway of Death when Gail suddenly grabbed Nancy’s arm, stopping her.
“Watch out!” she cried in a strong whisper.
“What? What are—” began Nancy before remembering. “Oh, right.”
And she carefully stepped over the two squeaky floorboards that every child on Hardscrabble Street, Vexington Avenue, Von Burden Lane, and Turnabout Road knew to avoid.
“Can’t believe I almost forgot that,” said Nancy. “Thanks.”
What neither one of them mentioned was just how nervous Nancy would have to be to forget about the squeaky floorboards in the second-floor hallway.
Stepping over the boards in question, they reached the top of the Stairway of Death and peered down into darkness. The Stairway of Death had been so named not because any child had tumbled down to an unnatural end (though the stairs were certainly steep enough and rickety enough and awkwardly spaced enough to cause such an unfortunate outcome), but rather because so many children had for so many years shoved their cars, trucks, dolls, action figures (which were, to be honest, dolls for boys), stuffed animals, and—on one memorable occasion—a large, dusty bookcase down them in fits of glee. These episodes of youthful destruction had more often than not resulted in broken toys, ripped seams, shattered glass, and—on one miraculous occasion—a shockingly undamaged bookcase.
In short, the Stairway of Death was where unwanted treasures were sent to die.
Gail and Nancy stared down the dangerous stairway feeling something very much like fear. They should have been looking into the brightly lit main parlor of the house, which included a large number of windows as well as the front door. Instead, they looked down into a pitch-black nothing, which most definitely should not have been there.
“Shouldn’t the big purple room be down there?” asked Gail.
“Yes…,” began Nancy, “but now that I think about it, I don’t recall seeing this stairway when I visited Dr. Fell.”
“Now that you mention it, neither do I,” said Gail, frowning. “But the front door should be right there.”
A moment of silence assaulted them as they tried to understand this latest mystery.
“Huh,” said Gail.
“Huh,” said Nancy.
Confronted with their first truly unexpected find, the girls felt the confidence that had lured them into the house drip away from them.
“Is there any other way down to the first floor?” asked Gail, who knew perfectly well there wasn’t.
“No,” answered Nancy anyway.
“All right then,” breathed Gail. “Come on. Jerry’s down there.”
She gingerly placed her left foot on the first step and hesitated a moment, waiting for something truly awful to happen. When it didn’t, she shifted her weight and placed her right foot on the second step. Again, nothing happened. After a quick look back up at Nancy and the filtered sunlight of the second floor, Gail swallowed her fear and walked down, step by step, into the waiting void.
After five steps of what every child knew was a nineteen-step stairway, Gail couldn’t see her feet. So she held on to the railing and carefully slid her feet forward until she reached the edge, then probed downward until her foot found the next step. After ten steps she could no longer see the railing to which she clung. After fifteen steps she literally couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. After eighteen steps she just closed her eyes—the darkness somehow more manageable when it was by choice. After twenty steps, however, she fell into full panic mode, because she knew as well as any child on Hardscrabble Street, Vexington Avenue, Von Burden Lane, or Turnabout Road that the Stairway of Death had only nineteen steps.
“Nancy!” she whispered. “Where are you?”
“Like I have any idea!” whispered Nancy right back. “I can’t see a thing!”
“Nancy! I’m on step number twenty!”
“That’s…that’s impossible!” Nancy’s voice shook with fear and, in so doing, sent Gail over the edge into terror. Nancy was her rock, the one person who wasn’t scared of anything. To hear Nancy tremble with horror froze Gail in her steps.
“What do I do?” she pleaded. “Nancy, do I keep going?”
“There are only nineteen steps on these stairs!”
“I’m on step number twenty! And it keeps going!”
By now, both girls stood motionless on their respective steps, surrounded by a darkness that almost felt material. Their eyes strained to pick up any faint glimmer, any single speck of light.
“Nancy?” pleaded Gail once again, leaning on her rock.
But her rock had no good answer.
“I don’t…I don’t know, Gail. I’m…I’m scared.”
Gail could hear Nancy deflate a few steps above her and drop to her knees. She imagined her brave friend clutching the handrail in desperation, her whole body shaking.
Just like that, Gail knew it was her turn to be the rock.
“Nancy! Nancy, listen. I’m going to…I’m going to keep going,” she said, trying to sound confident. “Jerry’s somewhere down there, and it’s up to us to save him.”
Nancy nodded her agreement, unable to vocalize. Of course, as they were both smothered in darkness, her nodding went u
nseen. Still, Gail understood her friend’s response all the same.
Standing straight and holding tightly to the handrail, Gail gingerly let her feet sink down, first to step number twenty-one, then step number twenty-two, and then step number twenty-three. Three more steps that should not have been there, that should not have existed. As she descended, Gail fell into a rhythm of sliding one foot to the edge of the step, sliding her hand forward on the railing, then clenching her jaw and lowering her other foot to the next step. Again and again she did this, each time expecting it would be the last. Yet the steps continued to creep by. Twenty-eight…thirty-four…forty-one.
Her body jerked to a stop on step forty-six, and she leaned forward, straining her eyes. There was something at the edge of her vision. A soft, green, ominous glow.
“I see light!” she hissed back at Nancy, who—still huddled more than thirty steps above—could just barely hear her.
“Light? Are you sure?”
Gail crept down two more impossible steps to be sure, and the glow deepened, becoming more distinct, more real.
“Yes! There’s something down here!”
Emboldened by the possibility of reaching the end of the stairwell, she quickened her pace. Each step brought the quivering green glow more into focus, until finally, at step number sixty-five, Gail’s foot landed on a rough, moist dirt floor bathed in a sickly pale-green light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once.
“I’m at the bottom!” she called back up the stairs, although whether or not Nancy could hear her was uncertain. Nevertheless, Gail inched her way forward into the chamber, taking in the rock walls from which ugly tree roots protruded like gnarled fingers reaching out for her. The underground world was moist and humid, yet chillingly cold, and her slightly squishy steps echoed back at her as she advanced forward.
Every nerve in her body begged for Gail to turn and flee back up the stairs, but something else—something unidentifiable—pulled her forward. After a few feet, she discovered what that unidentifiable magnet was.
Her brother.
“JERRY?” WHISPERED GAIL.
Her brother did not reply.
At first she thought he was simply standing up against the back wall, but as she came closer, she noticed first that his feet were not touching the ground, second that his eyes were closed, and third that he was wrapped up in hundreds of thin white threads as if he were a fly trussed up by a spider to be saved for a future meal.
“Jerry!” She raced to her brother’s side, eyes wide with horror. The strings wrapped around his body, binding him tight, were incredibly thin and disturbingly sticky. Gail quickly began pulling them apart in a frantic rush. “Hold on, Jerry. Hold on!”
The vague suggestion of movement behind her froze Gail to the spot. She twisted around for a look but saw only blackness.
“Nancy?” she whispered. There was no reply. Yet someone was there, she was sure of it.
Or something.
Holding her breath, Gail shuffled half a step toward whoever—or whatever—was hiding in the dark void just out of sight. Suddenly another sound, much closer and much more identifiable, caught her attention—the solid thud of heavy footsteps marching down wooden stairs.
Except they weren’t marching down the impossibly long Stairway of Death. Instead, they were approaching what she now saw was a stout oak door not far from where Jerry hung immobilized. Gail fought down a rising panic as the sound of the footsteps arrived at the door and was replaced by the sound of a key fumbling in a lock. At first glance, she had nowhere to hide. The Stairway of Death lay somewhere in the darkness behind her—but so did whatever was back there moving around. As she heard the key twisting in the lock, she took a desperate chance and ran toward her brother, ducking behind him and pressing herself as far back against the wall as possible just as the door swung open.
Dr. Fell bounced through the doorway with a happy little skip, the sour green glow of the room casting him in its putrid light. Ducking down, he deftly removed his purple top hat with a vaudevillian flourish and spread his arms wide.
“A supremely pleasant good evening to you, my dear,” he announced seemingly to the room at large. “My sincerest apologies for barging in on you in such an impolite manner, but it simply could not be helped. I give you my sincere word, however, that our appointment will take but a moment, and then I shall leave you here so that you may continue to wallow in darkness to your heart’s content.”
He twirled his top hat around his fingers as he spoke, ever the performer.
Doing her best to melt into a tiny crevice in the rock wall behind her brother, Gail momentarily wondered if Dr. Fell was talking to her. She wasn’t sure how he could have known she was down here, but with everything else she’d seen and heard in the past few weeks, she couldn’t discount the possibility. However, a few more moments and it became apparent that the good doctor was talking to someone else—someone hiding in the darkness.
“Oh, come now.” Dr. Fell pouted. “Let us not be difficult. I know you tire of this chore, but I assure you we near our errand’s end. Soon, very soon indeed, our task will be complete and I shall return you to the nightmares from whence you came. You have my solemn word. Now, if you don’t mind…”
And Dr. Fell held his hand out toward the darkness, clutching something that even in the unnatural, mystical gloom of the basement caught Gail by surprise. A glass.
Now she was seriously confused.
Her confusion grew to terror when the something that had been slinking around in the darkness moved into the light—bringing the darkness along with it. Exactly what it was—arm, tentacle, shadow—Gail would never know. It reached out tentatively, as if afraid of the light, until the very tip hovered just above Dr. Fell’s outstretched glass. Then, slowly, a pulsing goop oozed down into the receptacle. Though she was too far away and the room was too dim to see clearly, Gail knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was the source of the odd yellow liquid Dr. Fell never seemed to be without.
After releasing only a few small drops, the appendage withdrew into the black of the nether regions of the chamber. Dr. Fell frowned as he peered down into his glass.
“This is hardly an adequate amount for my habitual needs,” he said. “Have you fallen ill or forgotten to properly nourish yourself?”
He turned and spied Jerry, hanging helpless in the threads. “Have you begun healing this one? I gave him very specific injuries upon which I assumed you would administer your talent.”
He walked over to Jerry with a patient ease, and Gail held her breath, praying she could remain hidden. Reaching the boy, Dr. Fell examined him with a practiced eye, spinning him around where he hung. As he spun, Gail had to stifle a gasp upon seeing her brother’s knees bruised and scraped.
“He is still injured!” growled Dr. Fell, turning once again to face the darkness. “You have barely touched him!”
The horror coursing through Gail’s veins at the thought of whatever was out there touching her brother became magnified as a heavy, raspy voice sounding like two large stones sliding over one another came from the void.
“Tastes…funny.”
“Indeed. I warned you that would be the case,” chastised Dr. Fell. “This one belongs to that cursed trio of cherubs to whom I made the mistake of introducing myself before releasing you from your cocoon. Like the two girls you found so distasteful earlier, his first impression of me was made without the benefit of your particular charms, which as we’ve learned over the years make them less palatable to you. Nevertheless, you must feed on him.”
“Not…hungry.” The voice was softer now, as if slinking away into farther recesses of its underground lair.
“You must feed! This”—Dr. Fell waved the nearly empty glass at the darkness—“is not acceptable! The boy’s injuries would take three weeks to fully heal. I want those three weeks! Take them from him!”
“So…tired.” The hoarse voice was almost a whisper now.
�
�I know how exhaustion plagues your very existence in this realm, but we are so close, my friend!” Dr. Fell again hopped to Jerry’s side, gesturing toward him as if the boy were on display in a department store. “I promise you, suck out three measly weeks from this boy, and combined with what I have stored upstairs, I shall have enough to fully recapture my youth. Then we can leave this wretched town once and for all.”
In the silence that followed, Gail felt certain the thumping of her heart would give her away. Yet Dr. Fell remained rigid, staring into the darkness. Awaiting a response.
Finally, the entity gave a weary sigh. “Not…hungry,” it repeated. “Must…digest.”
Dr. Fell took in a breath and stood straight, coming to a decision.
“So be it,” he said. “As it happens, there are preparations I must oversee before our departure. I shall return within the hour.”
He spun on his heels and exited through the stout oak door. Gail remained frozen as she listened to the key rattle in the lock, followed by the heavy footsteps of Dr. Fell bounding up the stairs. Once she could no more hear the doctor’s steps, Gail slowly eased out of her nook and peered past her trussed-up brother into the darkness.
What sort of horrific monster was tucked away back there in the darkness?
“I just about peed my pants there; how about you?”
Gail jumped, startled, as Nancy appeared out of the sickly green shadows along the wall opposite the door through which Dr. Fell had just disappeared.
“Whoa!” cried Nancy, hands out in the universal sign for “calm down.” “Relax, it’s me.”
“Relax?” asked Gail, shaking violently. “Relax?”
“OK, good point,” agreed Nancy. “Panic. But do it quietly. I don’t want to disturb that whatever-the-heck-it-is back there.”
Gail fought the urge to scream. “I thought you were on the Stairway of Death.”
“I followed you down. I was about to come over and help you unwrap poor Jerry here when Dr. Fell showed up. So I ducked back behind that pile of—”
She turned to point and suddenly stopped, which made it painfully obvious that Nancy had not realized exactly what it was she had been hiding behind.
Dr. Fell and the Playground of Doom Page 11
