David Silva: The Disappeared

“Good girl.”

Upstairs, the echo of footsteps had fallen silent. It was like a small death, not knowing what had happened up there, praying the boy was all right. Teri held onto a long breath. The sound of her heartbeat pounded against her eardrums. The man, who had been standing next to her all this time, moved to the base of the stairs, and gazed up into the darkness. The uneasy silence apparently preyed heavily on both their nerves.

“Hey, Jimmy! Hurry it up, will you?”

No response.

Behind them, the man from the other side of the sliding glass door came dragging into the room. His face was an ashen mask, eyes dull, a thin sheen of perspiration across his forehead, and a sick, twisted grimace that cut so deep into his cheeks he looked as if he were a comic book character. He held his hand out in front of him, making certain to keep it elevated. The pain had to have been something awful.

Too bad, Teri thought guiltlessly.

“You gonna be all right?” his partner asked.

The man shook his head, naked fear looking out from behind his eyes. “I don’t know, man. I think they’re worse than broke. I just don’t know.”

“Christ.”

“I gotta get back.”

“We aren’t finished here, yet.”

“I’m gonna lose my fingers, man.”

Teri caught a clear, unmistakable flash of anger pass across the other man’s face. He scowled, until he couldn’t seem to stand it any longer, then he reached out and clamped his hand around his injured partner’s wrist.

The man screamed. “Jesus, Mitch!”

“Hurts that bad, huh?”

“Like a fucking hot iron!”

“Go wait in the car, then. We’ll get there when we get there.”

“All right. All right.” The man turned away, and it was evident that whenever he dropped his hand below the height of his elbow, the blood did a mad dash for his fingertips. Apparently, an excruciating explosion of pain followed shortly thereafter, because the one time that Teri noticed this little movement, the man’s face went instantly pale. Still, he managed to drag himself out of the kitchen and disappear from sight with little more than a whimper or two. She was glad to see him go.

“Goddamn idiot,” Mitch said. His face was tight, the scar above his eye stretched taut and wide, looking as if it had been even larger at one time, maybe as thick as a shoelace. “How in the hell did you—”

Teri turned away from him. She glanced toward the upstairs darkness where she had heard something stir. Actually, she had heard more than that. They had both heard more than that. It had sounded a little like a bat against a baseball, only slightly muffled. Following that—in perfect progression, she imagined—came the sound of a weight collapsing against the wall. It made a hollow thud and rattled the china in the cupboards behind her. Then everything fell silent again.

Somewhere in the distance a dog barked.

Mitch, who was still standing at the foot of the stairs, called out anxiously: “Jimmy? What the hell’s going on up there, Jimmy? You got him or not?”

Outside, a car backfired, the shot echoing down the street and back again. Teri shuddered and felt her heart skip a beat. The dog stopped barking. The car turned the corner and disappeared into the eerie blanket of nightfall.

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay put,” Mitch said, pointing across the room at her. “You hear me? Because if I come back down here and find you’ve moved a goddamn muscle…”

“I know,” Teri said. “You’ll still have the boy.”

“On the money, Mrs. Knight. On the money.” He took two or three steps up the stairway, then paused and turned back. Mistrust was suddenly alive and etched into his face, replacing that somber, all-business cast that she had nearly come to expect by now. “On second thought, you’d better come with me.”

“Jimmy?”

The top of the stairway was cast in gray shadow. It was as if the fog had moved inside and was creeping across the upper floor to greet them. Mitch stopped halfway up and wiped the back of his hand across his face.

“Christ, where’s the damn light switch?”

“At the top, on the left,” Teri said. It was the truth, though it wasn’t the whole truth. There was another switch near the bottom landing that was easy to miss if you weren’t looking closely. The man had walked right passed it.

“Keep it slow,” he said, guiding her. Teri stood one step up from him. He had the tail of her blouse wrapped in his fist, making the effort to keep her close at hand. “One step at a time. Nice and easy. You got it?”

She didn’t answer.

Behind them, the last of the kitchen light quietly fell away.

A thick darkness lay ahead.

“Jimmy?”

No response.

“That jackass,” Mitch mumbled grumpily.

They neared the top landing. Only two more steps and they would be standing at the head of a short hallway, with a door to the left and another door straight ahead. Teri took a step up, her legs weak and unsteady.

A near perfect darkness shadowed the back end of the hall. Someone had left the door on this end open, though. It was the bathroom door. A faint, grayish cast of light spilled into the hall. She thought it was probably coming from the small window over the tub.

“Where’s the damn switch?”

“On the left,” she said.

Something moved, and as she leaned toward the light switch, intending to turn it on, she thought she saw a shadow slip furtively across the gray cast.

“Hold it. I’ll get it—” the man started to say.

But if he got that far, he certainly got no further than that. Teri thought she might have heard him say the word, bitch , but she wasn’t sure, because the door on the left swung open at that moment and the boy stepped out. He brought the cane down full-force across the man’s outstretched arm.

Mitch let out a sharp, immediate yelp and pulled his arm back. “Jesus Christ!”

Even in the moment, with his free arm in apparent agony, he managed to hold onto Teri with his other hand. The boy brought the cane down a second time, striking at a ninety degree angle across the man’s forearm.

Mitch yelped again.

He stepped back, his face suddenly ashen, his eyes wide and no longer penetrating. Teri’s blouse slipped out of his hand. That was all that remained for him to hold onto and he teetered there a moment, grasping at thin air, trying to maintain some semblance of balance. Teri wasn’t going to help. She stepped out of his reach and watched the terror cross his face as he tumbled backwards down the stairs. At the bottom, he spilled bonelessly out across the linoleum and lay there without moving.

“Is he dead?” the boy asked, stepping out of the shadows. He stood beside her, his hands trembling. The cane slipped out of his grip and dropped to the floor. It made a lonely, hollow sound that Teri didn’t think she would ever forget.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “Are you all right?”

He nodded, shaken. He had stepped out of the shadows, fearlessly, with the courage and strength of a man. But suddenly he was a little boy again, frightened by what he had done, and by the significance of the man lying so motionless at the bottom of the stairs.

Teri picked up the cane, and swept the boy up in her arms. She kissed him on the cheek. “Whoever you are, you did great, honey. I know it was scary, but believe me, you did great. You did everything exactly right.”

He stared over her shoulder at the man he had hit and he said nothing, and Teri couldn’t afford to stop and discuss it. She had no idea how much time they had bought. Maybe minutes. Maybe only seconds. There was no way to tell how much time would pass before the man would sit up again and clear his head, then start up the stairs. For the moment, though, she suddenly became aware of the dark outline of the other man, the one called Jimmy. He was lying on the floor off to the right, apparently another victim of the boy’s cane. She stepped over his outstretched arm.