Brian Keene - Urban Gothic

“Damn it. I wish Markus’s sledgehammer hadn’t been broken in that fight. Too bad none of us could lift the freak’s big-ass hammer, or we could just smash the door down with it. Leo, come over here and help me with this.”

Perry heard snuffling behind him. He looked over his shoulder and noticed that Leo was staring at the floor. Tears ran down the teen’s cheeks.

“Leo?”

The young man glanced up at him and wiped his nose with his hand. “Sorry. What’s up?”

Perry’s voice softened. “Give me hand. I’m going to push on the door. You see if you can wedge the crowbar underneath it.”

Nodding, Leo took the crowbar back from him. Perry stood up, glanced down the hallways to make sure they were still alone, and then pushed on the door. His sweaty palms slid against the cool metal surface. Spreading his feet apart, Perry pushed again, trying to simultaneously shove the door backward and lift it, even just a crack. He grunted and strained, but it refused to budge. Frustrated, Perry balled his fists and punched the door with both hands. The noise rang out, vibrating through the foyer. Perry grimaced as pain shot through his hands.

“Damn it!”

“Did you break them?” Dookie asked.

“No.” He turned to the teens. “Okay, we need to look around. Remember when we came in and it slid shut behind us? We all heard that sound, right? There has to be some kind of switch or mechanism around here that controls it. All we have to do is find that.”

“Before they find us,” Jamal added.

Perry nodded. “Right. We’re not gonna split up. That would be stupid. I don’t want any of you going off by yourselves. I’m guessing it’s nearby, either here in the foyer or the hallways. Dookie and Jamal, you guys search the foyer. Leo and I will search the hall. If you see or hear anything , call out. Got it?”

They nodded. Perry and Leo stepped into the corridor, searching both sides from floor to ceiling, while Dookie and Jamal combed the foyer. Perry’s nose wrinkled as he inhaled dust. He eyed the dry, yellowed wallpaper curling back from the cracked plaster. Despite the persistent dampness in the air, this house was a firetrap waiting to happen.

All it would take is one single match.

Maybe that would be for the best, he thought. Rid the neighborhood of this thing once and for all. It’s like a scab that never heals. Just sits here at the end of the block, all ugly and infected.

“You see anything?”

“No,” Leo whispered, his tone maudlin. “Just spider webs, rat shit, and mold. It would help if I knew what we were looking for. Know what I’m saying?”

“I don’t know what we’re looking for. A switch of some kind. Could be hidden, or it could be something simple. There has to be some kind of trigger mechanism to raise and lower the trapdoor. We’ll know it when we see it.”

“Mr. Watkins?”

“Hmmm?”

“Those white kids are probably dead, aren’t they?”

Perry paused before answering. “I don’t know, Leo. It’s certainly not looking good for them, though.”

“We’re gonna die in here, too, aren’t we? Just like Markus and Chris.”

“You just stop that kind of talk right now. I’m gonna get us out of here. Believe it.”

“Yeah,” Leo replied.

Perry heard the doubt and resignation in the teen’s voice, and it broke his heart. His thoughts turned to Lawanda and the kids they’d never had. And then a series of sharp, high-pitched screams echoed down the corridor.

“Shit . . .”

Leo turned ashen. “That’s Jamal and Dookie!”

“Come on!”

Perry charged down the hall, his footsteps thundering. Leo ran along behind him. They barged into the foyer, but it was empty. Leo began opening doors, frantically looking in the vacant rooms.

“Dookie,” Perry hollered. “Jamal! Where are you?”

More screams drifted down from upstairs.

“Oh Jesus . . . what the hell are they doing up there?”

He leaped up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Leo ran along right behind him. The stairs creaked and cracked beneath their feet and the worm-eaten banister trembled at their passage, but neither Perry nor Leo slowed. As they reached the second floor, they heard Dookie shriek again. Jamal was strangely silent. Another long hallway stretched out before them. Both sides were lined with doors—some open and others closed. The floor was covered with a frayed, mildew-stained, burgundy carpet. Dookie’s flashlight beam winked at them from the end of the hall. They ran toward it and found him standing outside an open door. Dookie was pulling his own hair with one hand. His other hand waved the flashlight around in wide, excited arcs. His eyes bulged and his mouth was open in shock. He gasped for breath, preparing to scream again when Perry and Leo reached him. Perry grabbed his flailing arm and Dookie, shrieked, clubbing him repeatedly on the head and shoulders with the flashlight.

“Ow! Stop it. Dookie, it’s us. It’s Mr. Watkins and Leo! What’s wrong? Where’s Jamal?”

Dookie wrapped his arms around the older man and squeezed tight, burying his face in Perry’s chest. When he tried to speak, all that came out was a muffled sob. He shuddered against Perry.

“Dookie,” Perry tried again, “where’s Jamal?”

Still not looking up, Dookie pointed through the open door with the flashlight. Perry and Leo glanced at each other. Then Leo peeked through the open door. He didn’t speak. Didn’t move. He suddenly seemed frozen in place. Perry could tell by his stance that something was terribly wrong. Gently disentangling himself from Dookie, he crept up behind Leo and looked inside the room.

At first, Perry didn’t understand what he was seeing. It came to him in bits and pieces. Jamal was levitating several feet off the floor with his back against the wall. There was a large sheet of plywood holding him in place. A length of thick rope had been attached to the plywood, suspending it from the ceiling. Perry followed the rope to the point where it disappeared into the darkness above. Then he glanced back down at Jamal. The teen hung there, pinned against the wall, silent and still. There was blood on the edges of the plywood. Blood on the wall behind Jamal. Blood pooling on the floor at his feet.

“Oh,” Perry whispered. “Oh . . . Jesus.”

He crept closer, and with slowly dawning horror, Perry realized what had happened. Someone had driven an assortment of kitchen knives, broken pipes, jagged shards of hard plastic, and rusty iron spikes into the plywood. Then they had winched it up in the ceiling. Somehow, Jamal had triggered the device when he entered the room. And, Perry assumed, since they’d heard both Jamal and Dookie screaming originally, the trap hadn’t killed Jamal immediately.

“Those motherfuckers,” he muttered. “Those sick motherfuckers.”

Not holding much hope, he stumbled over to Jamal, reached up, and checked the unmoving teen’s pulse. It was as still as the house.

“Is he?” Leo asked.

Perry nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

“I tried to stop him,” Dookie sobbed. “I told him to stay downstairs, but he figured there might be a light switch up here. Then he decided that maybe we could try one of the windows.”

“They’re bricked up,” Perry choked. “Why would he—”

“But they’re not, Mr. Watkins.” Dookie pointed with the flashlight. “Look.”

Perry swiveled his head, following the beam of light across the room. There were two windows in the wall. Both were barricaded with thick sheets of moldering plywood, but unlike the downstairs windows, they hadn’t been bricked over. He glanced down at the floor. The half-rotten floorboards were covered with a thick layer of dust and dead insects. The only signs of disturbance were their own footprints and Jamal’s blood, spreading out in a pool. Obviously, the room hadn’t been entered in a long time. With the pervasive dampness in the air, it was possible that the plywood had weakened somewhat, and if so, whoever had boarded up the windows in the first place hadn’t checked them lately.