James Van Pelt - Summer of the Apocalypse

The pews were hard and after a few minutes Eric wanted to squirm to find a comfortable position. Once, he remembered believing that the Devil made him feel this way—it was temptation. The rope dug deeper. I’ll last longer if I don’t move, he thought.

If he could just stay perfectly still, then God would recognize his virtue, but the longer Eric remained motionless, the harder the pew became. After a few more minutes, he began to itch. First behind his knees, then the middle of his back.

Odd, I don’t hurt, he thought.

Finally, even his eyeballs. In agony, he prayed for strength to resist the itching, his fingers pressed together. “Oh, God, come to me now and stand between me and the Devil.” He concentrated, strained to hear the voice of God, waited for some sign to show that God appreciated his efforts. A sweat bead dribbled down his forehead and into his right eye. He resisted the urge to wipe the stinging away. He imagined himself like a nun, down on his knees in some bare cell, a plank and a plain blanket for a bed, a severe Christ bleeding from deep wounds hanging from the wall, the only decoration. The Devil comes for the righteous. The Devil wrestles in the privacy of the mind, in the hollow spaces between faith and fear. Speak to me, God, he thought.

Dad leaned over and whispered in Eric’s ear, “It’s not the prayer part of the service, son,” and then Eric knew his Dad and the Devil worked together.

Eric felt his spin slowing, or maybe it was a trick of the inner ear. He remembered a short story title, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.”

He thought, I should pray. Now I lay me down to sleep… Yea, though I walk through the valley… I pledge allegiance to the flag…

Eric thought, it’s the prayer part now, Dad. He could feel himself losing consciousness. His legs numbed. Even if he could touch the stool, he wouldn’t be able to control his limbs. He couldn’t save himself. But I don’t hurt. The rope gripped his neck like a strong hand, and he realized, strangely, that he was happy. I hope the dark-haired woman is okay. Maybe she isn’t, but I tried. I’m not a kid. I did something. He began to rise, pressure dropped from the rope, and he thought, I’m ascending! and he wished he’d prayed more in the last few years. His pastor used to preach about being “ill prepared to meet your maker.” Since he was ten, he had thought of himself as an atheist, or at least an agnostic.

“Breathe, damn it,” said the dark-haired woman, her voice coming from the black below. Her hands gripped his thighs, and he felt her head between his legs pushing him toward the ceiling piggyback. He sucked in air down his burning throat, then began coughing.

“That’s it,” she said. “Open that airway.”

His head knocked against a rafter, and spider web covered his face, but he was breathing. He filled his lungs and coughed again, then inhaled deeply.

“Thank you,” he tried to say, but it came out a croak. He swallowed and said it again, a bit more clearly, though still rough.

“I haven’t got you down yet,” she said. “I can’t hold you forever.” Eric felt her quiver.

In another part of the house, voices shouted. Inarticulate. All rage. Loud thuds. A gunshot. Silence. Eric strained to hear more.

The woman spoke urgent and low, “I’m going to move to the wall and untie your rope.” Eric ducked his head out of the rafters. She turned and stepped to the wall. His head bumped the concrete.

“Sorry,” she said. “Now stay balanced.” She let go of his legs. He gripped her ribs with his feet, and he felt her respiration, quick and even. As she fumbled with the rope, she said, “We got to ambush them when they come down. It’s our best chance. You stand on one side of the stairwell, and I’ll stand on the other.”

His pulley rattled and he knew the rope was free.

“There,” she said. She bent and Eric slid down the wall until his feet touched the floor. Her hands steadied him for a second, then untied his neck. “You’re lucky the knot didn’t slip. The noose should have tightened, and I might not have been able to get it off.” She bent to his wrists. “When your hands are loose, grab a stool. We’ll nail the first one down.”

“What was the shot?” Eric whispered.

He sensed her shrug. The darkness in the basement was complete. “Lover’s quarrel, maybe. But it was only one and whoever is left won’t be pleasant, assuming either one of them is shot.” Eric said, “That would be a blessing.” His hands wouldn’t work. They were wood. And it was all he could do not to fall over. He felt blindly for the stool, and when he found it, he had to hook his wrists under the seat to lift it. Fiery tingles rushed into his fingertips. He grimaced but said nothing, then slid along the wall until he reached the stairwell.

He said, “How’d you get free?”

She whispered huskily across the space between them, “Small wrists and hands. I almost hoped he’d try something like that. All I needed was to be let down.” Her stool scraped the cement, loud in the dark room. “Of course, it was a stupid plan.”

Eric set his stool down and rubbed his palms together. “Why?”

“Jared’s big. Girls my size who think they can do anything physical to stop a determined guy his size are just fooling themselves. You need a gun.”

He remembered the almost out of body feeling he had when she was being attacked, like he had been in her mind. Jared pressed down, an inexorable force, hot gusts of breath in her ear, on her neck. He offered weakly, “Maybe if you threw your knee, you know.”

She snickered, not unkindly. “Yeah, sure.”

Black silence stretched between them. He set the stool down, rubbed his hands together. They almost felt normal. “They might both be dead.”

“Doubt it.” Cloth scraped against cement. Eric guessed she was sidling along the wall. “I’m going to get that bat,” she said. “We’ll see how he likes his toy when somebody else is playing with it.”

“Are we going upstairs?”

She whispered back, “Only thing we got is surprise. They don’t know we’re free. Jared let me down, but he’s got to figure my wrists are tied and that I’m leashed to the wall. I couldn’t have undone the rope with my teeth, so he won’t necessarily be in a hurry to come back. If Meg shot him, then she probably has no idea at all. Ha! Got it.”

Now that they had the bat, Eric relaxed. Not that it means much, he thought. They’ve got at least one gun, and they could come in blazing. I’ll look pretty dumb holding this stool above me when I get shot.

“Don’t try for the head,” she said, returning to the stairwell. “Hit low. A sharp thwack on a knee or shin will hurt enough so we can get a second swing in. You miss the head and you’re dead.” Eric snickered.

“’Scuse me?” she said.

“You rhymed.” He thought, I’m not going to die on that rope. I’m still alive. A breath that seemed long and pent up whooshed out of him and he giggled again. “Dead head.” She said nothing for a second, then giggled too. “I saw them once, the Grateful Dead. Used to be my favorite t-shirt.”

“I’m more into AC/DC,” said Eric.

“So you go both ways?” They laughed. Eric covered his mouth to muffle it.

“Led Zepplin too. When the levee breaks…”

“You got no place to go.” She said, “My name’s Leda.”

“Eric,” he said.

“Nice meeting you, Eric.”

They whispered secrets about rock-n-roll for a long time until, despite his best efforts, he drifted off. Eric shook himself awake. Soft, gray light filled the basement. Leda sat with her back to the wall, her legs flat in a “V” on the floor, the bat resting on her thigh. She snored softly. He rolled onto his side, moving the stool.