Shed

by Jason McIntyre

  He went on and on about how he should have realized what had been happening and should have done something. Quietly, Simon told him that now was his chance to make up for it.

  His contemplation ended quickly then, when he realized that it wasn’t too late to do something about the mess of Everett and the mess of that swarm tormenting my brother. Looking back, I see that he agreed to help us rather quickly—with whatever we needed him to do. The first thing he did was go and buy a fresh bottle of Black before the liquor store closed—out of his own pocket, even. He cautioned that the story Simon was going to tell his step-daddy would be more believable if the bottle was unopened, not half empty already. The second thing he did was go to the Walsh’s where Mama was having dinner. He was to make like he had no idea she was there, that he was just popping in for a spur-of-the-moment visit. He was then to take Mrs. Walsh aside when he could find a chance and insist that she keep our mama there for as long as she could, well past midnight if at all possible. He was to tell Mrs. Walsh that Everett had been drinking and that it would be best if Mama returned long after he’d gone to bed for he feared that our step-daddy might get “up to no good.” Apparently, Mr. Parson told us, although every detail about our household was not common knowledge, Everett’s drinking habits were not a secret on the island, by any means.

  That was where we left it with Mr. Parson. He was to instruct Mrs. Walsh not to tell Mama any of this, only to keep her there well past midnight. Then he was to return to our house across the creek near the end of the ballgame and lock the basement door when he heard the pump motor finish running. Then he was to throw the main breaker when Simon shouted up at him. If everything went afoul, he was standing near both the breaker box and the telephone in the kitchen to call the Sheriff. When I went down to the cellar to wait for it all to begin, I had no idea if the man would follow through on his end. Simon didn’t know either and when we left the hardware store that hot afternoon, I could tell by his silence that he had his doubts. He had entrusted a crucial portion of his plan to Mr. Parson and had no idea whether he could count on him or whether he’d just go directly to the sheriff and rat us out for stealing. By the time Everett’s hand reached into the cupboard above the stove and pulled out the bottle of Black Label, it was far too late to even question whether Parson would be there for us. The plan had begun by then and there would be no turning back.

  7.

  My body was tense, like a thick old rubber band pulled taut but not allowed to snap. I realized that my head was throbbing in the back where it met my neck. My shoulders were bunched up and my fingers were tightly clenched over the edge of the cellar bin, dipping into the cold water inside the bunched up sheet of plastic. I was cold, shivering. I hadn’t eaten anything in hours and I felt completely exhausted. It was immediately dark at the moment when Simon called out to Mr. Parson. The light over the bench had gone out in that instant and I felt the swimmy blue and purple sensation crawl into my blackened vision. I wanted so much for this all to be over. Crazy as it was, in that instant, it almost felt like Everett finding me there in the cellar and giving me the beating of my life, ten times worse than anything he’d dished out to Simon, would be better than this—just because I would know it was coming and then it would be done.

  That morning, when Simon and I had set out for the hardware store, felt like it had been a year ago. This had already been the longest night of my life, beating out the last time I’d spent a night down here in Simon’s bed with him. And now, all this time later, after straining to remain silent in the cellar so as not to be discovered, I was nearing all that I could handle. The waiting and the watching had been terrible but this silence, this blackness, this inability to see where Everett was in the darkness around me, it was horrendous.

  The silence was interrupted by a low rumble of thunder off in the distance and then another soon after. Earlier, I had heard what I thought was thunder but it was so low that I dismissed it as my imagination. This time it was assuredly thunder and I was immediately struck with the worry that a storm would sweep across the island. Rain would begin to fall in a few moments, cooling the temperature enough to ruin things. What would happen then? What if it was suddenly too cool to finish this. Only moments earlier I was prepared to have Everett do his worst to me, just so this would be over, but now I was terrified that we wouldn’t be able to see this to its end. I was going mad down there in the dark.

  In the silence between rumbles, I finally heard Everett’s sock-feet brushing against the concrete floor. “Parson...” I heard him mutter, “What the hell is that drunk ass doing here?” Then he raised his voice to holler, “Come ‘ere, boy. I know you’re down here somewhere. I didn’t hear you on the stairs and that door’s still locked. Parson! If that’s you up there, you better unlock that goddamned door, or you’ll have hell to pay! I’m sure the sheriff would love to hear about all this.” After a moment of quiet and another, louder strike of thunder, I was caught off guard when the voice of my step-daddy was incredibly close, “I’m tired, Simon. I think you’ve learned your lesson, I won’t even hurt you tonight. If you just come out I’ll—-” I heard something brush against the cellar door and my heart began thumping wildly, realizing that he must be directly in front of me, the two of us separated by only the few flimsy boards that made up the cellar door. Almost without realizing it, I grabbed the gate latch and pulled the door shut. It clinked down into place, audibly, locking the door from the inside. The relief was overwhelming, until I heard Everett’s voice in the distance. It sounded like he was closer to the furnace than to me then. “Ahhh ...the cellar,” Everett said in a mock tone. I heard Simon let out a quick puffy breath on the other side of the door. Oh no. And before I knew it there was a bigger bang against the cellar door. I shrunk back from it. “You’re in the cellar, you little maggot! I got you now!” Everett fumbled for where the gate latch had been removed, expecting it to be there. His body weight fell against the little door and I moved away from it. My heart was pounding, he was right there in front of me.

  Then I heard Simon, “I’m not in the cellar, Everett. I’m over here.” His voice was now distant and I realized that he’d moved away in the instant that I’d pulled the cellar door shut. Good God, what had I done? Simon was supposed to be in here with me. Now what was he going to do? He was trapped out there now, on the other side of the basement and it was all my fault. I was so scared, thinking that it was Everett, but it had been my brother, gently looking for the cracked doorway so he could slip inside with me and latch the door behind us, safe. I had ruined it. The sickness of the realization welled up inside me.

  It seemed like an eternity was passing with each breath I took. I couldn’t calm my heart and I couldn’t strain any harder to hear where the two of them were. Should I open the door again? I couldn’t hear Everett right outside the cellar but what if it was a trick? What if he knew I was in there?

  “Yer a quick bugger ain’t ya?” He said aloud, this time a little further out towards Simon’s voice. “I’m gettin’ real tired o’ this game...I’m gonna beat on you for a month o’ Sundy’s… when I grab hold o’ ya.”

  “Everett,” Simon responded, from a different location, “I’ve spent three years down here in the dark, locked up like this. I know every step of this place, blindfolded. You won’t catch me tonight.”

  A flash of lightning lit the basement followed closely by a thunder strike. They were getting closer but there was still no rain. Would there be rain? Even I saw the flash of light through the crack of the door jamb. It must have lit up the rest of the space enough for them to see each other.

  Everett’s voice broke in again, “— lil prick! There y’are!” I heard more feet scuffling quickly across the cold floor and then I heard someone bang into Everett’s lawn chair. The tin frame scuffed across the cement floor and Everett swore as it clattered to a halt. Had Simon seen him coming and thrown it at him? I was swimming again in a silence that I couldn’t interpret. What was happening? Had he cau
ght my brother?

  The silence was finally broken, but this time it was not thunder that I could hear and it was not Simon or Everett. It was a growing hiss coming from beneath the stairway beside me. In the darkness, I looked in that direction, realizing what it was and I was instantly terrified of what was to happen. Simon was supposed to be in here with me. It began growing louder and into a warble as I had remembered it from the only other time I’d heard it. I hoped that Simon heard it too and I remembered that he was holding the torch light in his hand. It was time.

  As gently and as quietly as I could, I lowered myself into the cellar bin, filled with water. I sat down in the water, my knees pulled up under my chin. Only my nose and eyes and the top of my head were above the surface. It was cold, so cold. I could barely hold off my shivers. With my right hand, I reached out in the blackness to the gate latch, straining to touch it. I eased the metal rod up with my first finger and pushed open the door of the cellar with the tips of my fingers. Could Everett hear the slight creak of the door? It was a risk I had to take. That door needed to be open if there was any way that Simon could make it here before that hissing grew into a its full warble.

  A loud crack of thunder occurred simultaneously with a brilliant flash of light. I saw Simon there, between the furnace and the bench. But where was Everett? The space faded back to blackness from the sudden light.

  I heard Everett from somewhere near the bedroom door, “I can see you now. I’m gonna give you the whoopin’ of yer life.” His voice was pleased, that much I could tell. In that moment, when the stroboscopic light flared, instantaneously betraying my brother’s position, Everett surely felt he’d won.

  It was the warble now, no doubt about it. There was no mistaking the sound from under the stairs. And I could hear it rapidly growing. There were a few sock-footed and unsure steps towards Simon and the torch, but they paused. Another bolt of lightning combined with the angle of the cellar door finally allowed me to see Everett’s figure suddenly and briefly, “What is that?” He was turned around then, towards Simon’s bedroom door, ignoring him for a moment to concentrate on the sound. It must have sounded like nothing he’d ever heard before. “You been buggerin’ with that sump again, Simon? I warned you about that...”

  His voice trailed off as the sound became much louder. It turned into a thousand different pitches all swarming at once. I smelled the first telltale hints of propane gas.

  “Yeah,” said Simon, “I’ve been ‘buggerin’ with it again. Me and Rupe, both. But I must have messed it up pretty good. . .”

  With that, I heard Everett’s torch spurting to life. I looked through the crack across the room where Simon stood in a new faint glow of blue from it. During the silence and the darkness between the lightning, he’d found it in the dark and propped it against the stack of metal scraps and machine parts under the television set. He’d suspended Everett’s spare welding mask by the straps from the toolbox over the flame and the parts of the metal that were beginning to glow orange. The light was nearly hidden, just a dull glow of orange and blue. Almost all the light from that low flame was dampened. “Must have messed it up real good. Because we Everett, you and me Everett, got a bit of situation here.”

  The horrible thought that came to me next was almost overwhelming: there was no way Simon could cross the distance from near the furnace all the way to the cellar and seal himself up here with me in time. There was just no way.

  “I’m a boy, Everett,” he finally finished, “and boys are stupid.” Through the crack I saw Simon’s blue hazed form step out of the space in front of the bench and into the shadows. There, he undoubtedly pressed his almost naked body against the cold brick wall, doing his best to hold off the shivers, remain calm and still. I couldn’t see my brother’s face but I knew what he was thinking.

  Only a moment after I comprehended all this, the warbling extended itself out of the sump hole. I was concentrating so hard, on it and where Everett was standing, but I didn’t hear anything from him—-only that noise of the wave, pulsing over the walls, washing through the space as it had done on so many other nights.

  “God! What the—” I saw Everett’s form again, illuminated by a series of light pulses. During the short burst of light I saw him take several steps from the doorway towards the blue light of the propane torch which was hooded by his own mask. But the creatures, the oily black skinned things with all the legs, headed for it too. They’d bled out of the sump hole under the stairs and into Simon’s bedroom searching for the warmth of a body. Instead of finding my brother there, their little blind eyes sensed a pinprick hole of heat on the far side of the basement. They headed for that point of heat, the propane torch with its blue flame shielded by the welding mask, the growing heat of the melting scraps beneath it—and in their path stood Everett. His body was warm from his anger, from the fried chicken in his stomach, from the half-bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label he’d downed. And he didn’t know enough to keep still. I saw that wave overtake him in those moments of flashing light. I crouched, nearly shivering in the cold water, safe from harm while my step-daddy writhed and hollered under that wave as it crawled across him, amongst the crashes. The swarm completely covered him, not an inch of his body was visible—just a form in the flashes, thrashing about. My body was tense, my fingers poked above the surface and gripped the edges of the cellar bin ...and I listened to his muffled screams against the thunder and the rain that had finally begun to come down. The basement fell into blackness and my mind fell away to silence.

  8.

  Mr. Parson never spoke of that night. And neither did Simon.

  Simon told me that Parson didn’t come downstairs at all, not even after switching the main breaker back on. He only looked down from the top of the stairs, to make sure we were alright. He didn’t say anything about the hollering or the fact that Everett was nowhere to be found. Everett was gone. Only a pile of tattered rags that once were the clothes he wore remained, in scattered piles strewn across the cold cement floor. Other than that, there was no sign whatsoever that he’d even been down there, no sign that he’d even been alive and walking around like a real person. If Mr. Parson fully understood what had happened and the implications of his involvement, he never said a word about it—to me or Simon or any one else. Nor did I want him to.

  I must have fainted. I remembered the swirling colours in my eyes atop the blackness that had swallowed Everett, but that was it. I didn’t question it, or push myself to recollect any more of it, because I simply didn’t want to.

  As the storm raged outside, I helped Simon clean up the basement. There wasn’t much to do, really. The scattered pan of chicken was empty, likewise was the last of the alcohol in the glass bottle. We doused the flame of the torch and let the metal scraps cool. We put the black and white set upstairs and ran through the rain to put the lawn chair out in the shed where it belonged. The cellar bin was emptied of water and the sump cable was reattached properly. All the reminders of what had happened were gone.

  When Mama returned from the Walsh’s she was a bit tipsy from a few glasses of wine. I think it had been one of the most enjoyable evenings she’d had in a good long while. She’d spent it laughing and listening to stories and I was glad for her. She was startled and confused when Simon told her that Everett had gone out and wouldn’t be coming back, but I don’t think that she was scared. Not even for a moment.

  She waited for him. Waited for him for days and days, fully expecting that he’d come back from wherever he’d went in a mood more foul than she’d ever seen.

  But he didn’t.

  Months passed.

  And still he stayed away.

  When Mama finally came to terms with the fact that he wouldn’t be coming back she positively wasn’t scared. Especially not after Simon went and got Everett’s bank passbook from out of the locked silver toolkit in the basement. Everett had protected that silver box more than anything else and I finally understood why. He’d been holding out on our ma
ma. The balance of that passbook added up to his wages for the last fourteen and a half years, plus there were regular deposits for the last three years, minus the monthly house payments, the cost of several cases of beer, and the few twenties he’d given her. All of it had been compounding interest in an account at the First Savings and Loan on Main Street the whole time that he’d been telling her we couldn’t afford any luxuries. It was a substantial lump of money and long after the night of the big storm, Mama took us to the court house for a hearing to get that money.

  The needy wife of a man who’d been declared a missing person, Mama was granted the money by the town’s judge, who happened to be a good friend of Mr. Parson’s. On occasion, the two of them, the judge and Mr. Parson, would be seen in the afternoons, each of them enjoying a shot of Black Label in the shade of Parson’s shop doorway, watching the people go by in the heat.

  In the World Series, the New York Yankees beat the L.A. Dodgers that year, four games to two. Reggie stepped up in the sixth game and knocked a two-run homer off Burt Hooton in the fourth, and another two run shot off Sosa in the sixth. Finally, he got a solo clout off Charlie Hough in the eighth propelling his team to victory and taking the series. Reggie Jackson was named MVP that year and his new moniker, “Mr. October” was born.

  Soon after collecting Everett’s hefty bank balance, Mama sold our little lathe and plaster bungalow north of the creek, just this side of the old power station. Surprisingly, she got a substantial amount for it. It turns out that Old Man Predis had left nearly all of his land, not just Daddy’s old work shed, to us and a mainland company was apparently eager to begin construction on a new power plant, even bigger than the last—one that would solve energy problems up and down the coast for years to come. Our little island was soon going to be swimming in jobs, income and prosperity. Or so the locals said. I guessed life would pretty much go on the same as it had before. Except we wouldn’t be there to see it.