Penance

by Rick R. Reed

  The house was plunged into darkness. The sound of the furnace humming died down, leaving in its wake a silence as dead as the darkness.

  Dwight waited a few minutes, giving his eyes a chance to adjust, as much as they would, to the darkness. The high windows in the basement would let in a little silvery light, reflective from the snow.

  He hoped the light would be enough for him to see. He had the advantage of knowing the layout of the basement. The little monsters didn’t.

  And they’re idiots. Dwight moved to the top step leading to the basement. They wouldn’t be in the predicament they were in right now if they were smart, good kids.

  They brought this all upon themselves. Dwight began moving down the stairs, thinking again of how he was helping them. Aunt Adele had always impressed on him the value of punishment and how it must fit the crime and, more importantly, how it worked to cleanse sin’s dark stain from one’s soul.

  Dwight crept down the stairs, walking sideways, staying close to the cinder-block walls, testing every step he took, making sure that there were no creaks to alert them.

  He made it to the bottom step. As he stepped onto the concrete floor, Dwight sensed the quiet all around him. He hadn’t noticed it before; when he’d come down here in the past, to clean or feed them, there had always been some kind of noise: whimpering maybe, or rustling as the things tried to maintain some sort of movement in their little enclosures.

  Now there was nothing. Only darkness and silence. The moonlight, silver, slid in through rectangular windows near the ceiling, spilling onto the near walls and floor. Angular shadows stood out: the boxes. But the far corners were shrouded in darkness so thick it had become a palpable shape.

  And he could see no one.

  Perhaps the boys had not come down here, after all.

  Perhaps they were right now, across the street, at Alice Martin’s house, waiting for the police to show up. He could just see the look on that old busybody’s face as those pieces of trash spilled out their story.

  She could never understand that Dwight was trying to do her, and everybody else, a favor. The favor was especially for the kids, if only they would let him give it.

  And then there was a sound: a quick movement, footsteps, someone running through the darkness.

  Then, all at once: a click, followed by a flash and the loud report of a gun being fired. The smell of gunpowder rose up, acrid and burning.

  Dwight didn’t have time to think. Instinct made him drop to the floor in the fraction of a second it took for the gun to be fired. He crawled to the security the boxes afforded.

  The shot came from the back of the basement. If he could snake his way around the boxes to the other side of the row, he would be close to where the shot had come from.

  And if he was close, he could stop the little maniacs from what they were doing and regain control.

  There was a second shot. Someone whispered (it had to be Jimmy), “Shit.”

  The silence returned. Dwight crawled, on his hands and knees, toward the back of the basement, his ears attuned to the sound of any movement.

  It wasn’t long before his fingers reached what he knew to be the end of the row of boxes. Dwight groped along, feeling the damp floor with his fingers, the rough concrete of the floor cutting into his knees.

  Somewhere, just ahead of him in the darkness, they were there. He thought he could hear them breathing.

  And then he saw them, two shadowy forms, standing close to each other in the darkness. The bigger shape was farther away from him, and Jimmy was almost within his grasp. Their faces and skin looked pale but identifiable in the gloom.

  Dwight could see they weren’t looking down, weren’t looking in his direction.

  They didn’t know he was there, within inches of reaching out and grabbing them…the little bastards.

  Dwight pushed himself forward.

  Now, it was just a matter of wrapping his fingers around Jimmy’s ankle; the dirty white high top almost seemed to glow in the darkness.

  But Dwight could also see his gun hanging down from Jimmy’s right hand, the hand closer to Dwight.

  It seemed like hours were passing, when Dwight knew they were only seconds. The gun was a revolver and had six rounds. Dwight knew that three had already been fired. If there were only a way to get them to spit out the other three, I’d be home free.

  With as much silence and stealth as possible, Dwight groped around on the floor. His hand connected with something: a piece of dirt, or maybe it was plywood, chipped off one of the boxes. Gradually, he wrapped his fingers around it and whipped it to the other side of the room where it hit something sounding hollow and wooden, perhaps one of the boxes.

  Dwight heard Avery then. “Don’t shoot, Jimmy. It’s a trick.” He looked up and saw Jimmy, the gun poised to fire in his hand.

  Dwight tried to breathe lightly, but his breathing came heavier and heavier the more he tried to quiet it. It seemed as if he wanted to suck up all the air in the basement in a huge lungful.

  There was nothing to do now but try. Hoping the element of surprise would work for him, Dwight lunged forward and wrapped his hand around Jimmy’s ankle.

  The boy screamed and dropped the gun to the floor, its metal making a very satisfying clatter. Dwight propelled himself forward, clinging to the boy’s kicking ankle, and groped with his other hand in the darkness for the gun.

  His hand met another and Dwight realized that the fat boy was doing the same thing. It would be a race to find the gun.

  Dwight grunted as someone kicked his face. But the pain couldn’t be matched by the satisfaction he felt as his hand finally connected with the smooth metal of the gun. He picked it up, feeling grateful for its heft, and stood.

  “All right, young men,” he said, “playtime is over.” Dwight pointed the gun at the two boys, who had flattened themselves against the back wall of the basement. “I have the gun. We both know—or maybe we don’t because you’re so stupid—that there’s only three rounds left. Plenty enough to kill both of you. Try anything funny and you may find yourself dead or responsible for the death of a friend.” Dwight found it hard to slow down his heartbeat. “C’mon.” Dwight motioned with the gun. “You two get yourselves in front of me, where I can keep an eye on you.

  The boys moved with shuffling steps in front of him, heading toward the stairs. Dwight kept the gun leveled on them. “We’re going back upstairs for a minute, now, to get the lights back on.” The three made their way back up the stairs.

  It took Dwight only a second to flip the circuit breaker. Lights came on, so did the heat. The house seemed to hum with the flow of electricity.

  He grabbed a box of bullets from a shelf and put a handful into the pocket of his sweatpants.

  He hurried back to the stairs, the boys in front of him.

  Halfway down, Dwight saw that the boys had managed to get something done before he joined them in the basement. One of the boxes had been opened! A dark-haired girl (what was her name? Julie?) was sitting up in her box, dazed and disoriented as she looked around the basement, rubbing her eyes.

  “Help me,” she said weakly, blinking from the light.

  *

  Avery felt she was looking right at him. Her brown eyes were the only thing that looked alive about her. Her skin bordered on yellow and a line of drool ran from her mouth. She needed help and Avery had never given anyone help, not anyone in his whole life, it seemed.

  Until now. He could see that the girl was dizzy; she was beginning to sway back and forth. Any second now she would faint, falling back into the box and maybe hurting herself.

  He’d done so little to help anyone out of this mess. Maybe he could at least hold her so she didn’t fall back, let her know someone was there for her…

  Suddenly Avery jumped the bottom two stairs and rushed toward her. He squatted down beside the girl.

  “What did I tell you?” Dwight shrieked.

 
He pointed the gun at Avery, who got to his feet amazingly fast for someone so heavy and began to run to the other side of the basement.

  Jimmy shouted, “Don’t!” as Dwight cocked the hammer. Avery took one look back, over his shoulder, at the sound of the gun being fired.

  There was a single scream from the fat boy, short and pierced, as the bullet slammed into him.

  Chapter 32

  The shot rang out just as her dishwasher ended its cycle. Alice Martin lifted her head.

  What was it? The muffled sound was loud enough to startle her. Was it really a gunshot? Or was it just a car backfiring? Alice walked to the front of the house and looked out of her window. Pulling aside the curtains, she looked across the street at Dwight Morris’s house.

  The house was dark, its blackened windows keeping a silent vigil on the moonlit street outside. But Alice had seen Morris pull into his garage earlier.

  She picked up the phone and called her son, Frank. Without preamble, she said, “I just heard what sounded like gunfire. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if it came from that weirdo’s house across the street.” Alice shivered. “That Dwight Morris gives me the creeps.”

  “A gunshot?” Her son’s voice rose up at the end of his query, sounding surprised.

  “Yes, yes! Lord knows what goes on in that house.”

  Frank asked, “Are you sure it was a gun and not just a car backfiring?”

  “Well, of course I’m not sure, Frankie. But maybe I should telephone the police…just to be on the safe side.”

  “Now, Mother, remember what happened the last time you called about Mr. Morris. It was a dead-end street.”

  Alice twisted the phone cord around her index finger, let it go, twisted it again. “I don’t know. What if somebody’s been hurt? I wouldn’t trust that Morris person further than I can throw a piano.”

  “I think you should give it some time, Mother. See if anything else happens. And then you could call the cops.”

  “Maybe I should just take a run over there,” Alice said. “For my peace of mind, anyway.”

  “And maybe you shouldn’t,” Frank said quickly, the alarm plain in his voice.

  “Well, I have to do something. I’m not one of these folks that just sits around doing nothing.”

  “I know, Mother.” Frank sighed. “I’d just as soon see you call the police as go over there.”

  “That’s just what I’m going to do,” Alice Martin said and she pushed down the button on the phone to hang up on her son. Why did she have to seek his approval for every thought that came into her head anyway?

  *

  Avery stumbled and dropped to his knees all at once. It can’t be me, it can’t be me. It seemed that the report of the gun and the sensation of being hit in the shoulder were simultaneous. When did the bullet have a chance to travel to him?

  He closed his eyes and curled into a tight ball. His right shoulder felt wet and Avery wondered if it was shock that was preventing him from feeling more pain. Other than the sticky dampness and a burning sensation, the pain wasn’t that bad.

  What was bad was waiting for the second bullet to come. The acrid smell of gunpowder filled the air. The basement room had come alive all at once: light, whimperings and rustlings from the boxes, gunfire.

  Jimmy was screaming. “What’s wrong with you, man? You didn’t have to shoot him.”

  Jimmy was squatting down beside him. “Let me see.” Jimmy turned Avery over to look at his back.

  His silence was terrifying. But Avery couldn’t seem to get his mouth to form the words to ask how he was.

  “It ain’t gonna be that bad,” Jimmy at last said. “Does it hurt a lot?”

  Avery shook his head, though as time passed it felt more and more as if his shoulder had been hit with a spiked sledgehammer.

  Then Morris was standing above him, the gun resting casually in his hand, its barrel pointing to the floor, inches from where he lay. “Get away from him.”

  “You’re a real asshole, you know,” Jimmy spat. “You didn’t have to shoot him; he couldn’t hurt you. Are you so fuckin’ weak you’re afraid of someone like Avery?”

  “That’s right and you can be next if you don’t get away from him. Now!” The loud bass of the man’s voice made Avery jump…and then the trembling started.

  He felt cold, so cold, all of a sudden.

  “Look at him, man. He’s gonna go into shock or somethin’.”

  Dwight pulled back the hammer of the gun once more.

  “His lips are turnin’ blue,” Jimmy said, but all the fight had gone out of his voice; his statement came out as a whisper.

  Dwight said calmly, with all the simplicity of a comment about the weather, “I’ll kill you.”

  Jimmy stood up and backed away from Avery. “It’s gonna be okay, Avery. You just hang in there, man.”

  Morris gestured to Jimmy with the gun. “That last box over there. Get yourself over there and crawl in, lie down and keep quiet.”

  Morris was shaking. He seemed to be listening to someone who wasn’t there: he cocked his head every so often, as if he didn’t understand or he were trying to hear better. He whispered to himself, “I’m doing it now, Aunt. I’m doing it right.”

  And then, when Avery turned, he noticed that the girl with the long dark hair, the one in the box he had just opened before Morris got down here, was climbing out. Avery wanted to yell to her, tell her to run while Morris was watching Jimmy, go get help.

  But once she got in an upright position, she fell over, as if her legs couldn’t support her.

  How long had she lain here in this basement? Avery wondered.

  The noise of her fall alerted Morris, who hurried back to her, waving the gun in her face. “Slut!” he shrieked. “Get back in there where you belong!” He grabbed her by the hair and slammed her back in the box. Avery heard the sound of her head hitting the plywood, her grunt and whimper of pain.

  But she didn’t reemerge.

  “I’ll start things right now, Aunt,” Morris said. Avery rolled over to see the man pulling a big cardboard box out from under the stairwell. He took out an armload of rags…old socks, underwear, sheets torn into strips. He went back to the box the girl was in and threw in the rags, covering her with them.

  Morris got a can of gasoline.

  “No,” Avery managed to say, but there was no force behind his word and it came out as a croak, barely audible.

  Morris poured the gasoline into the box, which caused the girl to cry out, a soft fluttering cry, born of pain and terror. Avery cringed.

  Morris was swift in sliding the top of the box into place.

  The smell of the gasoline was already filling the basement with choking, caustic fumes.

  Even though it hurt, Avery turned and started inching toward the stairs. He had to get out of here. Nothing propelled him now but blind terror: an instinct to survive, to avoid the flames he knew would consume him.

  “Wrong way, young man.”

  Avery stopped, feeling freezing cold, faint and dizzy all at once.

  *

  Alice Martin knew that the smart thing to do would have been to call the police. She hurried across the street, pulling her blue wool muffler up over her nose. Her son was probably right.

  But where was the harm in just checking out the Morris house before she phoned? Where was the harm in just making sure there was someone in there before she called?

  The police were busy this time of year. Alice stepped up on the curb and hurried toward the Morris house, wondering what her neighbors would think if they saw her out here in the dark, snooping around a neighbor’s house.

  She could see into the living room. The moonlight stabbed into the shadows, illuminating the room with silver-grey light. Alice took in the emptiness: the shape of a recliner and a floor lamp the only items in the room.

  But what was that in the corner, hidden by the shadow the chair cast? Alice pressed her
face close to the cold glass, trying to get a better view.

  Was someone lying on the floor? A man maybe?

  Alice swallowed hard. Was it Morris lying there? Why?

  Alice raised a hand to her mouth. She wanted very much to turn and run back to the safety of her house as quickly as she could. She wanted to lock the door behind her, climb into bed, and pull the covers up over her head.

  But there might be more. Alice moved to the side of the house and noticed the yellow light spilling out from the narrow windows at the house’s foundation.

  Alice hurried to the window, gathering her coat and dress toward her as she stooped to look inside.

  What she saw made the pain vanish from her joints as the sight filled her eyes, filled her being.

  Could this be real?

  *

  Where was the air? He kept trying to breathe, but it was as if nothing could get through.

  Richard Grebb rolled over. He reached up with weak hands and touched his neck. It hurt so bad, as if it were swollen shut.

  What was it he had heard earlier? Gunshots? Or just a fragment of a dream as he drifted in and out of consciousness?

  Light and darkness. It seemed that was all he’d known…for how long? His gaze wandered the dusty floorboards, the white-painted baseboard, and the stacks of refuse here and there.

  Had Dwight Morris really tried to strangle him? Richard wished he could shake this feeling of unreality that had swept over him. Wished he could shake the throbbing pain in his throat, constricting all but a minute flow of air to his lungs.

  He wished he could find the strength, or the energy, to rouse himself from this floor and find out what was going on, find out what the gunfire he’d heard (or imagined?) was all about.

  But for now, it seemed to take every ounce of will and energy to just take air in and out, to swallow the saliva gathering in his mouth, and hold on to the pain.

  *

  “You’ve got this whole damn thing shot to hell!”

  Dwight’s aunt wore a black and green plaid flannel shirt and baggy jeans rolled up to reveal her white athletic socks. Her features were contorted with rage. He backed away.