Alex

by Adam J Nicolai

  Ian used his gloved hand to brush the broken glass from the threshold, then climbed inside, being careful not to drop Mowsalot. He wished he had brought a flashlight. He didn't want to turn the lights on, to alert Kelton to his presence should he happen to return. But even with all the windows covered as they were, there was still enough light to make out the little dining area he was standing in, the galley kitchen ahead of him that exited in a circle back to the front door, the tattered couch and old T.V. sitting in the living space to his right.

  There was still enough light to make out the rolled-back rug, and the trapdoor set into the floor of the dining room.

  "Jesus," Ian breathed. He remembered Alex in the basement at home, whimpering and sobbing inside the cellar pantry. "God."

  I should put the bookcase back, try to make it look normal, hide in the kitchen and jump him when he comes in. There's no time to check the door. I don't want to be down there when he comes back. And that was true, all of it, of course it was, but he was heading into the kitchen anyway, hunting for something that would let him get the padlock off that trapdoor since he didn't have the key. He was sure that Alex had been here, now, and he had to see it - he couldn't come so close to the place where Alex had felt such pain and not do what he could to share that burden. He had to see it.

  In the kitchen he found two boxes of breakfast cereal - the sugary kind with the cartoon characters on the front - and a carton of fruit snacks. Each of these turned his stomach, made him want to scream or vomit, but he kept rummaging through until he found what he needed: a claw hammer, hanging from two hooks beneath the sink, and a flashlight.

  He snatched them up, set Mowsalot down, and went to work against the trapdoor's padlock. But he was a nerd who worked in a tech support phone bank, for Christ's sake, and he didn't have the strength to break the lock.

  "Dammit," he hissed. He resettled himself on the floor, threw his shoulder into it - and his hands slipped, cracking into the floor and bouncing the hammer out of the lock with a clatter. "Fuck!"

  The lock was marred, though. Starting to bend. So he grabbed the hammer again, jammed it into place, and stood up to lean into it with his foot, with all his weight. He imagined his foot slipping just like his hands had, the hammer leaping upward and smashing into his face, and stole a glance at Mowsalot to reassure himself. Don't worry, the cat's brazen grin seemed to say. Eston's here, but I won't let him try anything.

  In the end, the whole plate came off the trapdoor, tearing loose with a squeal. He kicked it aside, the padlock still hanging off it, and yanked the door open. Inside was a cement staircase - so steep it was nearly a ladder - plunging into blackness.

  Again, he noted that going down those stairs would be a terrible idea while Kelton was still gone. The basement wasn't going anywhere; he could check it out later, after his business with Kelton was finished.

  But this warning was never more than a passing curiosity. He felt closer to Alex than he had since the boy died, and it suddenly occurred to him that maybe this was what the boy wanted, what he had been trying to show him for weeks. He had died alone. Maybe he just wanted someone to share what he had gone through. If that would buy him peace, then it was important - more important than anything else.

  "I'm coming, Alex," he muttered, and began to lower himself down the steps. He was swallowed by darkness immediately, alone with it save for the erratic beam from his bouncing flashlight. The steps were cold cement, old and uneven. He counted sixteen of them as the walls seemed to close in around him and the silence grew total. At the bottom he saw a hanging pull chain, and when he clicked it, a naked bulb flared.

  He was standing at the end of a long, narrow passage made of bare cement. A heavy door stood in the wall on the right, this one locked with a deadbolt. He approached it slowly, his enthusiasm dying now that he was so close, curdling into dread. The bolt didn't fit well, and took several attempts to crank open, but finally it gave way.

  When he opened the door the stench of stale shit and piss assailed him. A nearly unrecognizable stock pot sat in one corner of a squalid, little room, overflowing with human waste. The walls were festooned with posters of SpongeBob and Mickey Mouse. A smattering of naked or headless Barbie dolls lay scattered across the cement floor, and there was a bare mattress crammed against one wall.

  Sitting on the mattress, her gaunt face stained with resigned horror, was Silvia Kalen.

  137

  She scrabbled backwards, her eyes wide, shaking her head. She ducked over the far edge of the filthy bed, and disappeared.

  "Oh, my god," Ian said. "Silvia? Silvia, is that you?"

  The room was silent. Ian took a tentative step into it, and his foot kicked something on the floor. It skittered a few feet across the cement, then came to a stop. Ian stared at it, his mind churning, for several seconds before he finally recognized Alex's backpack.

  He couldn't process this. He looked up. "Silvia?"

  There was no answer. The room might have been empty. A horrible thought flitted through his mind: that she wasn't real, that he was imagining her.

  "Are you Silvia Kalen?"

  She didn't answer, but he heard her: breathing, whimpering.

  She thinks I'm here to rape her.

  He clenched his eyes shut, put his hand to his temple. "No. Honey. Sweetheart. I'm gonna get you out of here. Okay?" He walked carefully around the bed, his palms up as if trying to calm a wild animal. "I'm not gonna hurt you. Okay? I swear. I swear to god."

  He saw her then, and the sight tore the air from his lungs.

  She was hugging her knees, her back to the cement wall, rocking back and forth in a tight ball. Her dress was filthy, torn; her face was criss-crossed with bruises, caked with grime.

  She couldn't have been more than five years old.

  "Oh, kiddo," he breathed. "Oh, I'm so sorry."

  She flinched from his words, turned her face away; seemed, impossibly, to draw further against the wall.

  "Silvia," he said, "I'm going to get you out of here. Okay? We're going to leave. Your dad is looking for you, and I'm gonna bring you to him. I won't hurt you, and I won't let anyone else hurt you." These last words sparked on his tongue, ignited something in his chest that caught and blazed, roaring, and he said them again. "I won't let anyone hurt you."

  She wouldn't look at him, still. He imagined what she might be thinking; how many times she had heard these promises or something like them before. Eston told Alex he'd bring him home too.

  He stole a glance toward the door. The flickering light from the bulb in the hallway danced around its edges. There was no one there. Yet.

  "Just take my hand, and we can go. All right?" He held out his hand and she recoiled from him, trembling with raw panic. His voice went up an octave. "Oh, hey, no, no, no... it's okay, I swear I won't hurt you. I swear, okay? Please, sweetheart, we need to get out of here. Don't stay here. I'm here to get you out. I'm gonna take you to your daddy, okay? We're gonna -"

  But at the mention of her father she started shaking her head, furiously, disbelieving. She's heard that before. She's heard it too many times. She pushed herself to the floor, to worm underneath the bed.

  "Silvia, please," he begged. "I'm Alex's daddy."

  She froze. Even her breathing stopped.

  "Yes. Okay? He told me where you were, and I came." As he said it, he knew it had to be true.

  I'll just call for you.

  His sight went blurry, brimming with tears. Oh, Alex.

  "I'm sorry I didn't get here sooner. I didn't understand. I wanted to, but I just didn't. I just didn't. I'm so sorry. But I figured it out now. Okay? He sent me here to help you, and I'm here." He blinked hard, pushed the tears from his eyes. The feeling in his chest had grown to an inferno.

  And finally, she looked at him. Her voice, when it came, was fragile as glass.

  "He said you would come."

  138

  She stood, and he took her hand. It was fragile, and little, and warm - it made
memories of his son burst in his thoughts like suns - and for an instant, it struck him dumb. He clenched his eyes closed, fighting with himself.

  Get her out.

  Get her safe.

  "Okay," he said as they started toward the door, "Okay, good. Stay close to me, all right? Even when we get outside. You stay close, and we'll get you somewhere safe. We'll get you -" He started to say, To your daddy, but bit it off. "We'll get you safe."

  He reached the door and peered around the corner; held his breath, and listened. Nothing. They hurried up the hellish corridor to the narrow steps, and he pressed her ahead of him. "You go first," he said. "Can you do it?"

  She looked at the steps, nodded fervently.

  "Go ahead. Be careful."

  But she stopped, staring at him, eyes wide.

  "I'll be right here. I promise. No one's gonna hurt you. He's not home. Okay? Go now. Quick!"

  When she still hesitated, her lip trembling, he took her hand and set it on the second step. "Climb it like a ladder. Can you do that?"

  After a heartbeat, she nodded again. Then she started up. He watched tensely, ready to catch her if she fell. She was wearing a dress. He saw that she had no underwear, and had to swallow a surge of bile.

  As she reached the top and began to climb out, he followed. The shadows in the dining room had grown longer; the light outside was a strip of red, burning beyond the western tree line. In the dimness she was just a silhouette. "Okay," he said. He tried to smile at her, but there was nothing inside him capable of it. "You did great. I'm gonna carry you for this part now, okay?"

  He held out his arms, and she came to him. He scooped her up, careful to keep her dress smoothed so his hand wouldn't touch her bare bottom. As he straightened up he waited for the familiar, dependent weight of her legs latching on to his belly and hip, but she wouldn't do it. Her legs jutted stiffly from her body, and he would not ask her to do otherwise.

  "Okay," he breathed. "I'm going to lean you back to carry you." He set the crook of his arm against the back of her neck, his other arm behind her knees, and rested her backwards, carrying her like a baby. Like he had carried Alex, even when the boy was older and giving him that silly, contented grin. "Okay." For a mad instant he tried to figure out how he would get through the window with her; then he realized he could just go out the front door. "Okay," he breathed again, and turned to cut through the kitchen.

  As he rounded the corner he saw Tim Kelton in the front door, a plain, brown grocery bag on the floor at his feet. He had a handgun aimed at Ian's chest. "Drop her," he said.

  Silvia's head whipped around at the sound of Kelton's voice; her entire body stiffened.

  "I said drop her," Kelton repeated.

  "Fuck you," Ian rasped, and Kelton shot him.

  139

  The muzzle flared, coughing sparks. A concussive blast thundered in Ian's ears, as if he'd just been smacked in the side of the head with a cinder block. He wanted to turn, to grab his gun, to dodge or run, but in the instant these notions flashed through his mind, his leg gave out.

  Silvia spilled from his arms. He toppled sideways, clutched at the door jamb, and smashed face first to the kitchen floor. The stink of gunpowder was everywhere. The world filled with a long, scraping buzz.

  His ears throbbed with pain; they had to be bleeding.

  Kelton was behind him, shouting, but the words were a thousand miles away. He couldn't make them out. Ian scrabbled at the gun in his waistband, yanked it free, turned painfully on to his back. When Kelton rounded the corner he hoisted it and pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. He'd forgotten the safety.

  Kelton flinched out of sight when he saw the weapon anyway. Fuck, Ian thought. Oh, fuck. He fumbled at the safety switch, got it off. The floor was slick with blood. It was coming from his leg.

  Silvia, Ian said. He couldn't hear his own words. He craned his head back to find her, trying to keep one eye on the corner in case Kelton came around again. She had run into the dining room, curled herself into the corner. Come here, he said. It felt like he was talking into a gag; he could feel his words pushing against his jaw, but not hear them. Come to me.

  Kelton darted back around the kitchen corner and fired twice, the sound like twin sledgehammers to Ian's eardrums. The fridge handle blew loose, ricocheted to the floor; a chunk of wooden counter exploded. Ian screamed, twisted back, and squeezed off three shots of his own, but Kelton was already gone.

  Compared to Kelton's weapon, the .22 was lobbing little firecrackers.

  God dammit, Ian whined or thought, the words swallowed in the onslaught of rushing wind in his ears. He kept his eyes glued to the corner where Kelton was taking cover, but the corner led to the living room, which joined around to the dining room behind him. Kelton could appear at either side of the kitchen any time.

  Ian felt curses dribbling from his lips. He clenched his teeth, snorting, and pushed his back to the cabinets, trying to gain his feet while keeping watch. As he maneuvered, he felt a weird tugging sensation within his thigh. As he put pressure on the leg, the tugging bloomed into a fiery pain.

  Silvia screamed from the dining room, loud enough to be heard through the mountain of cotton jammed in his ears. Ian twisted to look that way, but the sudden motion cost him his balance. He slammed into the floor, his teeth biting hard into his tongue.

  Kelton shoved the dining room table over, forming a makeshift barricade so Ian couldn't shoot him. Then he darted behind it, grabbed Silvia, and pelted for the front door as she shrieked.

  No! He felt the word tear from his throat, but it was impotent, silent. Again he forced himself to his feet as his leg threatened to buckle beneath him. He staggered around the corner, saw the screen door banging closed behind Kelton as he hauled the girl toward his van. Ian heaved his .22 up and fired at the fleeing man's back, missing twice.

  Fuck!

  Ian limped to the front door, pushing through a dizzying sea of whining static. He reached it just as Kelton pushed Silvia into the back seat of the minivan. The vehicle was parked facing down the long driveway, giving Kelton cover. As he slammed the rear door closed, Silvia hurled herself against the back window, banging and screaming.

  Ian shoved through the screen door, dragged himself to the porch rail, and emptied his clip at the van. Its front window erupted in spiderwebs; the front right tire blew and sagged to nothing. Then it was driving.

  Get the plate, something in Ian urged. Call the cops.

  But it was drowned out by the deafening horror of Silvia in the back window, her mouth moving silently, her fists pounding at the window. She had believed him. She'd thought she was safe. He couldn't save Alex, and he couldn't save her; the incredible weight of his failure struck him dumb.

  The van lurched forward, kicking plumes of snow and dirt behind it, and hurtled off the driveway and into the ditch. Silvia jerked and fell out of sight.

  Curses, silent nonsense, flicked from Ian's tongue. He started for the porch steps, but his leg screamed a protest. He stumbled, then fell, toppling to the frozen ground. He wanted to stay there, to cry and moan and beg for help. Instead he levered himself upward through a heavy fog of pain, and dragged his wounded leg to the van.

  Silvia! he felt himself screaming. Silvia!

  Kelton leapt from the van, hurled the rear door open. Before she could scream again, he smashed his fist into her nose. "Shut up!" he roared, so loudly Ian could actually make it out. She tried to pull away, and he grabbed her by the back of the dress, yanked her forward, and hit her again. "Shut up! I fucking told you!"

  Silvia! Ian bellowed, the sound echoing from the bottom of a well, and Kelton snapped his head toward him. Let her go! The cops are coming! Let her go!

  Kelton snarled and yanked his gun out.

  Ian was in the middle of the driveway, wide open, still thirty feet or more from the van. On instinct, he dove to the ground, covering his head. Bullets whined past him like mosquitoes. Pockets of snow erupted everywhere.

 
Something punched into his ribs, something that weighed a thousand pounds. His mouth gave a long, squeaking gasp. Blinding pain shot through his body.

  At the van, Kelton's pistol went empty. He cursed and grabbed another clip from his pocket. As he loaded it, Silvia jumped from the van and ran for the tree line.

  He snapped something inaudible, stole a glance back at Ian, stuffed the gun in his waistband, and ran after her.

  Ian couldn't get up. He was done. It was over.

  He got up anyway.

  He dragged himself toward the ditch, wincing and hissing. He clutched one hand to his side, but it did nothing. Every inch of movement evoked shrieks of pain from his body. It felt like a shattered rib bone was grinding into his lung.

  Just beyond the tree line, Kelton tripped Silvia, sent her sprawling to the snow, fell on her like a mountain. She twisted, snarled.

  Bite him, Ian tried to cry. His laboring lungs could barely muster a whimper. Get his... his eyes.

  She couldn't have heard him, but she still fought like a devil: a storm of flailing limbs, gnashing teeth. She must have struck him in the nose with her skull - he recoiled, grabbing at his face, but when she scrambled to her feet he dove forward and tripped her. Her face smacked into a rock as she fell.

  Ian was at the ditch. He dropped on to his butt and scooted painfully down. His vision was swimming, his ears clamoring with phantoms.

  She tried to crawl away, but Kelton had her foot. He dragged her back to him as she clawed at the ground, his fists climbing her leg while she screamed. As he grabbed her waist, Ian finally reached him, and gouged his fingers into Kelton's eyes from behind.

  Kelton shrieked, flailed - he pulled his gun and squeezed off a shot over his shoulder, another blast of thunder that made Ian's vision swim and his tortured ears sob. The shot went wide. The kickback bounced the weapon out of Kelton's awkward grip and into the snow.

  Ian bore him to the ground, one arm locked around his neck. He squeezed. Kelton kicked impotently, locked his hands onto Ian's arm, and started prying him loose. Then he hurled his weight to the side, and Ian landed on his wounded leg. His grip on Kelton's neck evaporated in a scream. He toppled sideways, crashed to the ground, a rock digging into the small of his back.