Even looking at it now, neither girl was able to accurately describe it. It appeared to be, for all the world, nothing less than a pile of childhood pain. There were scabs, yes, but also bruises, scrapes, and lacerations. Broken bones and twisted ankles. Sprained fingers and skinned knees. All the injuries of childhood lay clumped together, tossed into a single pile. There were worse things tucked away in there as well. Shattered elbows. Punctured eyes. Cracked skulls.
The agony of Death.
Seeing this unimaginable collection of misery brought tears to the girls’ eyes. Gail wiped her face clear and turned back to her brother, even more motivated than before to set him free.
“Not Jerry,” she said simply, rushing to his side and tearing threads off his body. Nancy soon joined her, and together the two made short work of his bindings. At length, he dropped to the floor, and Gail knelt beside him while Nancy removed the final strands of his bondage.
“Jerry? Jerry, wake up. Wake up!”
Gail gently slapped his cheeks and shook his arms. After a moment, a low moan escaped his lips and his eyelids began to flutter.
“Jerry!” Gail helped her brother to sit up.
“Wha…wher…whurumeye? Where—?”
“Don’t try to talk,” said Gail. “We’re here. Nancy and I are here. You’re in Dr. Fell’s house, but we’re going to get you home. Can you stand?”
Nancy and Gail lifted the wobbly Jerry to his feet. The young boy leaned on his sister and friend a moment before he found his footing. He opened his eyes and blinked away the exhaustion.
“It’s dark,” he said.
“We’re in the unfinished basement,” offered Nancy. “You know. Where Hannah Festerworth has always said the previous owners kept their young boy locked away.”
“Oh,” said Jerry, who didn’t recall ever talking to Hannah Festerworth before in his life. In fact, as far as Jerry knew, the house’s unfinished basement was where the previous owners had held dark cult meetings worshipping a big dirt god named Goor. Or at least that’s what Zachary Fallowmold had said.
“How do you feel? Are you hurt?” asked Gail. “Are you OK?”
“I’m…I’m fine,” answered Jerry. “Well, no. I’m not fine. I feel dizzy. And very tired. And…sticky?” He gingerly felt all over his body, around which the thin webbing had been wrapped. “Why am I sticky?”
“Long story,” said Nancy. “We need to leave. Before that…that thing comes back for you.”
“What thing?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“How do we get out of here?” asked Gail.
“We climb right back up the…,” began Nancy, before stopping herself. “No. No, we don’t.”
Climbing down the Stairway of Death in complete darkness had been hard enough, but now that they knew something…evil…brooded in the shadows, there was no way either girl would set foot back in the void of darkness on the other side of the chamber.
Gail quickly ran to the door used by Dr. Fell, only to find it locked. “We can’t get out this way either,” she said.
“We’re trapped?” asked Nancy.
Gail peered into the darkness in the direction of the Stairway of Death, then shuddered at the memory of the creepy limb that had thrust its way into the light. She turned to her friend and brother and nodded, face contorted with anxiety.
“Wait. Wait a sec. Hold on,” mumbled Jerry as the cloud fogging his brain slowly lifted. “You said we’re in the unfinished basement, right?”
The girls nodded.
“Then what about the laundry chute?”
GAIL’S AND NANCY’S FACES lit up.
“The laundry chute!” cried Gail.
“Duh!” agreed Nancy. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Because you’re a dorknose,” teased Jerry.
“OK. If that’s the basement stairs,” said Gail, pointing to the door used by Dr. Fell, “then the laundry chute should be…” She swung her arm around and pointed to a spot on the wall not far from where she’d hidden from Dr. Fell.
Nancy ran over, waving the few remaining strands of webbing hanging from the ceiling out of her face. It took a moment in the dim, greenish light, but she soon found the old chute, which hundreds of kids had slid down from the second-floor master bedroom. She quickly lifted the rusty metal flap—wincing as it protested with a loud squeak—and stuck her head inside.
“It’s clear,” she informed them. “I can see a sliver of light at the top.”
“OK, OK,” said Gail. “You go up first, Nancy. Then Jerry, you go. I’ll follow.”
The order decided, Nancy pulled herself up into the chute to begin her climb. The chute was just wide enough for a child to shimmy through as long as they didn’t have a problem with tight spaces.
Nancy wasn’t about to admit it, but she had a problem with tight spaces. To this point in her life it had not proven to be much of an inconvenience, and it had certainly added an extra element to her desire to stay away from Dr. Fell’s play structure, but suddenly finding herself compressed into the rather tiny dimensions of the laundry chute allowed this long-dormant fear to rear its ugly head. That being said, she responded as best she could.
Which is to say she froze.
“Nancy?” asked Gail, waiting to shove her brother into the chute behind her best friend.
Nancy’s body was ready to receive the signals from the brain that would make it climb, but the brain was otherwise occupied. From her vantage point of being crammed into the passage, all she was able to do was emit a very high-pitched whine.
“Nancy? What’s going on? Are you all right?”
Nancy was pretty sure that she was not all right. The fear slinking through her veins was of a kind she had rarely before known, matching or surpassing the fear she had felt earlier both while descending the ink-black Stairway of Death and while hearing the raspy wheeze of the…thing…that called this unfinished basement home.
Today had been a scary day.
“Nancy, please! Go!”
Facing a childhood fear can be tremendously difficult, particularly if you are a child. Luckily, Nancy had spent enough time laughing danger and trouble in the face that she was able to momentarily separate herself from the instinctual fear that kept her frozen in place.
Move it, Nancy, she ordered herself. You can do this.
No, I cannot do this, answered Nancy’s claustrophobia. I’m sort of frozen in fear right now.
Snap out of it! cried Nancy. You’ve been in this chute a dozen times before.
Dropping down into the basement, reminded the claustrophobia. That lasts all of three seconds and doesn’t require us to do anything but scream.
Good point, admitted Nancy.
The internal conversation stalled, Nancy might have remained packed into the bottom of the laundry chute for another hour or two had not a raspy, wheezy, and altogether evil voice suddenly echoed through the chamber.
“Ready…to eat….”
Gail gasped at the unwelcome reminder of the fourth individual currently down in the unfinished basement of Dr. Fell’s home. “Nancy!” she cried. “It’s awake!”
That was all Nancy needed. Shoving her phobia to the side, she squirmed and squeezed her way up, using the walls of the chute as leverage. Inch by inch she climbed, determined to get out of this house of horrors.
When Nancy’s feet dangled a few feet above the opening of the chute, Gail helped Jerry climb in. Though still groggy from his captivity, he made quick work of the climb (having actually done it a number of times before) and was soon pushing up against Nancy’s feet, urging her on.
Back in the chamber, Gail found herself biting her fingernails to the nub as she waited for the bottleneck in the laundry chute to open up. Behind her she heard a sickly flapping sound coming from the darkness, as if something very wet was slapping the ground and pulling itself forward.
“Hungry…”
“Hurry!” shouted Gail, too overcome with fear to worry
about keeping her voice down.
In the chute, Nancy was painstakingly forcing herself upward. She could see the top of the chute directly ahead, could reach out with one hand and just scrape the bottom of the poorly sealed laundry lid with her fingernails. Beneath her, Jerry did what he could to help, letting the girl who not long ago had been his archnemesis literally step on his head when she needed to.
“Meal…leaving…?”
The change in the creature’s tone caused Gail to swivel her head around and look behind her.
She would spend the rest of her life wishing she hadn’t.
What she saw was darkness itself. Some unformed thing had slithered out into the dim green glow, bringing the shadows with it. Though she could not see the creature, she was able to make out the horrible outline of its shape. Lumpy and drooping. Multiple arms or legs or tentacles. A pulsating mass that might or might not be a head. Just the shape of the thing was enough to haunt her nightmares, but what hit her in that single terrifying moment was how the blackness of night seemed to be sucked toward the being, as if lovingly covering a child from the chill.
Gail’s scream gave Nancy a final burst of adrenaline, and the claustrophobic girl rocketed up the final few inches until she was able to grab hold of the top of the chute and pull herself out. She flopped to the dusty, splintered floor of the second-story master bedroom, curled into a ball, and wept. An instant later, Jerry climbed out of the chute, then immediately turned back and shouted down to his sister.
“We’re clear, Gail! Get out of there!”
Gail leaped into the chute and made her way up. Her going was slower than her brother’s, as she’d never shimmied up the chute before, yet faster than Nancy’s, as she did not suffer from claustrophobia. Focusing on the encouraging face of her brother at the top, she was making good time until Jerry’s face of encouragement turned into a face of fear.
“Behind you!” he shouted.
Suddenly Gail felt something grab her ankle. She screamed, assuming it was the creature of darkness. The next words she heard, however, both relieved her fear and replaced it with one far worse.
“And just where do you think you are going, my dear young urchin?”
Dr. Fell’s icy fingers stabbed into Gail’s ankle, pulling her down. She thrust out her arms to jimmy herself inside the chute and slow her descent, but her reprieve wouldn’t last long.
“My, but you have been a naughty one,” droned Dr. Fell. “I do believe that steps shall need to be taken to ensure your rather prominent nose remains vacant from the affairs of others in the foreseeable future!”
Clutching Gail’s ankle in his viselike grip, he pulled her slowly but surely down the shaft.
“What I mean to say is…it is time for you to be silenced.”
He tugged hard, and Gail closed her eyes, screaming as her arms lost their grip. But just when she was certain the old man had pulled her to her doom, two strong, callused hands grabbed her arms from above, holding her in place.
“Kick him!” yelled an unrecognizable voice.
Gail did as ordered, kicking down with her free leg and getting a moment’s satisfaction when she landed a solid blow on the top of the head of Dr. Fell.
“Ow!” bellowed Dr. Fell, losing his grip on Gail’s ankle. The strong, callused hands immediately yanked her up and out of the laundry chute, placing her gently but firmly on her feet.
“Run, child! Run!”
Gail’s heart beat in overdrive as she quickly turned to look at her savior.
It nearly stopped when she found herself looking into the eyes of a very serious, very determined, and very bothered Old Lady Witherton.
“OLD LADY WITHERTON!” SHOUTED Gail.
“Go, child!” shouted Old Lady Witherton right back at her, pointing a gnarled, spotted, and surprisingly meaty finger toward the window, where Gail could see the top of Nancy’s head dropping out of sight. “Skedaddle already!”
Gail ran to the window and poked her head outside, to find a large wooden ladder leaning against the side of the house. Nancy was halfway down and Jerry stood at the bottom waving her on.
“It’s Old Lady Witherton!” shouted Gail, her mind refusing to accept this surprising turn of events.
“We know!” called Jerry from below. “Hurry!”
“But what’s she doing here?” asked Gail.
“Saving our butts!” answered Nancy, dropping the final few feet to the ground.
“I thought she couldn’t be bothered,” said Gail.
Suddenly the same gnarled, spotted, and surprisingly meaty fingers grabbed Gail firmly by the shoulders, shoving her through the window and out onto the ladder. “Get the lead out, girl! Evil’s a-coming!”
At Old Lady Witherton’s urging, Gail quickly climbed down and joined Jerry and Nancy at the foot of the ladder.
“Where did she come from?” she asked.
“No idea!” admitted Jerry. “She’s like a ghost!”
The ghost in question dropped to the ground beside them and quickly shooed her young charges away. “Don’t stand there dawdling,” she fired at them. “Run!”
With a sudden, horrific roar of rage coming from deep within the basement providing an extra adrenaline boost, the three terrified children and the little old lady fled from the lair of Dr. Fell faster than they had ever known themselves capable of fleeing.
Behind them, the intermittent animal-like cries were momentarily joined by angry flashes of an eerie, dim green light that seemed to seep up through the very ground itself as if struggling for freedom.
—
Gail, Nancy, and Jerry sat sipping hot chocolate in a brightly lit living room crammed full with puffy chairs, frilly lampshades, big dusty books, and cats. Doilies were everywhere, and there didn’t seem to be an inch of fabric in the entire room that didn’t end in some form of fancy old-lady lace.
Old Lady Witherton stood in the center of the room, arms crossed, waiting patiently for the three children to regain their senses.
Each of the children had questions. Each of the children was desperate for explanations. Each of the children sat quietly on the same couch sipping their hot chocolate and letting their eyes wander about the room.
Finally, Nancy took an unnecessarily loud sip and set her cup and saucer down on a lace coaster. “All right,” she announced. “Lay it on us, lady.”
“Nancy!” snapped Gail. “Don’t be rude.”
“I just been waiting for y’all to finish yer cocoa,” said Old Lady Witherton. “Come with me. We got a lot to talk about.”
She led the children out of the Room of the Doilies, through a very cluttered kitchen, and down a narrow corridor ending at a wooden door. Opening the door revealed a rickety wooden stairway leading down into darkness.
“Not another basement,” complained Gail.
“Oh, hush,” said Old Lady Witherton, flipping a light switch outside the door and bathing the stairs with light. “I promise there ain’t no monsters lurking down there waiting to suck out your soul. Not in my house.”
She tramped down the steps and stopped at the bottom, hitting another light switch. The children followed her down to find an ordinary, medium-sized, finished basement filled with power tools and badminton sets, beach chairs and luggage, a water heater, and a washer and dryer. In fact, had it not been for the worktable piled high with knives, swords, axes, flails, morning stars, and other assorted instruments of medieval combat, it could have been any other basement in any other home on Hardscrabble Street, Vexington Avenue, Von Burden Lane, or Turnabout Road.
“Now then,” said Old Lady Witherton, welcoming the children into her basement. “I’m sure you have questions.”
“You bet we do,” said Nancy. “Like, who are you? Why do you have all these weapons down here? How did you know we were at Dr. Fell’s? How did you know we were in danger? Why’d you come and save us?”
“What was that thing in his basement?” added Gail, joining in. “What’s Dr. Fell been doin
g to all the kids? Why did Dr. Fell come here? How come everybody is in love with him?”
“How come you’re not in love with him?” continued Nancy. “What does Dr. Fell want? Where did he come from? What was that creepy light down there?”
“Who is Dr. Fell?” asked Jerry.
The girls turned to look back at the youngest member of their trio.
“That, my poor little dovelings, may be the most important question of them all.” Old Lady Witherton crossed the room to the worktable and reached up to a long shelf, hanging on the wall above it. She grabbed the shelf’s lone occupant—a large, dusty, hardback book—and pulled it out.
Then she coughed from the eruption of dust that followed the book from the shelf.
“Are you all right?” asked Gail, who hoped their sudden savior was not about to hack up a lung.
After a couple more coughs, Old Lady Witherton pounded herself on the chest and turned back to face the children. “Sorry about that. I ain’t big on housekeeping down here.”
She handed the book to the children. Nancy took it, then started to drop it once Old Lady Witherton let go. Gail quickly helped her, and the two of them held the ridiculously heavy book together.
“You’ll find your answer in there,” said Old Lady Witherton.
“Which one?” asked Nancy.
“His,” responded Old Lady Witherton, jabbing a finger at Jerry, who peeked over his sister’s shoulder at the large volume.
The children looked around for a place to sit. Seeing none, and with the surface of the worktable overflowing with sharp instruments of maiming that hailed from the Middle Ages, they struggled with the weighty book and ultimately came up with a system where the two girls held the book in their arms while Jerry turned the massive pages one by one. The cover seemed to creak as it yawned wide in Gail’s arms.
“You kids are lucky I been keepin’ an eye on that house,” stated Old Lady Witherton, watching them. “When I saw you girls breakin’ in like that, I knew trouble was a-brewing.”
Dr. Fell and the Playground of Doom Page 12
