"Oh, man. The sinkhole!"
Doug heard a muffled rustling sound from somewhere beneath his feet. He jumped out of the chair and sprang for the hatch door. The sound grew louder. Closer. A small hole appeared in the center of the floor, and the soil began tumbling into it, like sand through a sieve. Eyes bulging, Doug fumbled with the door ' s pullrope. His fingers were slicked with sweat and chocolate, and the rope slipped out of his grasp. Behind him, the card table toppled over, spilling the lantern and the map. The light went out, plunging him into darkness. Terrified, Doug began to cry.
He smelled the now all too familiar stench. It burned his nostrils. He heard more dirt falling into the hole. The entire floor was caving in.
"Please," he prayed aloud, "I don't want to die. I really don't." The darkness was replaced by a faint, eerie luminescence. Not enough to really see by, but still noticeable. The glow was coming from the hole. The foul odor grew stronger. Something hissed.
This wasn't some underground crevice opening up. Something was alive down there, beneath the Dugout, and it was tunneling up from below.
Desperate, Doug reached for the trapdoor again. Behind him, the hissing was replaced with cruel, wicked laughter. Crying now, he closed his eyes. When he' d been little, Doug used to lie in bed at night, fearful of the monster he was convinced lived in his closet. When he thought the monster was near, he ' d close his eyes. He was pretty sure that if he couldn 't see the monster, then it couldn't see him.
"Daddy," he whispered. "Come back now. Please? Come back and save me from the monster."
He opened his eyes.
The floor exploded upward, showering him with dirt and rocks. The card table and a stack of comics and porno magazines tumbled into the crevice. A long pair of pale, sinewy arms thrust toward him, barely visible in the gloom. Hands grasped his legs, just as his mother had done earlier in the evening. Doug beat at the clawed hands, but they held firm. The monster pulled him into the hole. He didn 't even get a chance to scream. Plunging downward into darkness, Doug thought about his father, and wondered if he still loved him.
Just like before, his father hadn't shown up to save him from the monster.
Chapter Thirteen
Barry waited until his mother was asleep before he got up. His alarm clock showed that it was 2:23 in the morning. He reached above him and turned on the small lamp sitting precariously on his headboard. Just this simple movement caused new agony, and the light hurt his eyes. He groaned, and that hurt his mouth.
His body was sore and battered. It hurt just to breathe. If he moved too quickly, he felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his side. His father' s fury had left no part of his body untouched. His bottom lip was split wide open in the middle, and simply touching it brought tears to his eyes. One eye was swollen, the other blackened, and Dane Graco 's Freemason ringwhich had somehow ended up on his father's handhad left ugly, purple indentations on Barry' s cheek and forehead. The ring had gouged a ragged furrow in his other cheek. The deep cut would leave a permanent scar; just one more scar to add to all of those left by his father. His shoulders and kidneys ached, and his stomach, back, and sides were covered with welts and bruises. Portions of Barry' s scalp were raw and bleeding, where his father had pulled his hair out. His left forearm had five fingershaped bruises on it. The other had been burned with a cigarette, and the open wound wept. He dimly remembered that it had been the burn that brought him back to consciousness. Even his groin throbbed.
His father' s last act had been to kick him there, after he was already down and about to pass out a second time. Barry was covered in dried blood, all of it his. He eased himself off the bed, went to the door, and listened. The house was quiet. His father had left many hours before, stomping out into the night without a word. His mother had either cried or drank herself to sleep. Probably a combination of both. After his father was gone, she ' d tried to help Barry, wept over him and tried to soothe his pain, but Barry had pushed her away. Now he felt guilty about that. He ' d shouted at her, told her he hated her. The look in her eyes had been the same one she gave his father, when the old man was hitting her. Feeling a savage twist of vindication, Barry had said it again. But it wasn ' t true. He didn ' t hate his mother. He just no longer cared. Not about her or his father or anything else. Not after tonight. His physical pain was immense, but inside, Barry felt emotionally numb.
His mother had taken a beating as well, after Clark was finished with Barry. At one point, Rhonda had scrambled for the phone, threatening to call the police. Clark ripped it out of the wall, and then did the same with the one in the bedroom. He 'd put his foot through both jacks, so that the phones couldn' t be plugged back in. Then he 'd laughed, hands on hips, defiantly daring them to run for help.
Slowly, Barry opened his bedroom door and peered out into the hallway. The house was still silent. He crept into the bathroom, turned on the light, and shut the door behind him. Bending over to lift the toilet seat caused fresh pain. He whimpered while he relieved himself. The act made his kidneys and groin ache even worse. Alarmed, he saw that his urine was dark in color. He wondered if that meant there was blood in it, and if so, what he should do about it. He realized there wasn ' t really anything he could do. If he went to the doctor, there would be questions.
He might get placed in foster care. That would be just as bad as this. It would interfere with what he 'd decided to do.
Finished, he left the seat up and didn' t flush, afraid that the sound would wake his mother. Then he opened the medicine cabinet. The door squeaked, but his mother slept on. He dry swallowed two Tylenol caplets to help ease his pain. Then Barry doctored his wounds as best he could, wincing when the hydrogen peroxide hit his cuts, and nearly screaming when he put it on his split lip. The disinfectant bubbled and fizzed like acid. Pain coursed through him like liquid fire. But this pain was different. Good, somehow. Better. Because this was the last time he ' d ever allow himself to feel pain like this, and knowing that strengthened his resolve for what was to come. Several months ago, Pat Kemp and some of the other older kids had gone to see Quiet Riot and Slade opening for Loverboy at the York Fairgrounds. They' d been there for the opening acts and left when Loverboy took the stage. A few days later, Pat had told Barry, Doug, and Timmy all about it when they ran into him at Genova ' s Pizza. As a result, Barry had picked up a Slade cassette. Experience had taught him that if Pat Kemp liked a band, he probably would, too. Slade had been no exception. Now, as he bandaged his cuts, his favorite song by them ran through his head. He sang it softly, whispering the chorus. It hurt his mouth, but he did it anyway.
"See the chameleon lying there in the sun… Run, run away. Run, run away…" He'd overheard the cops when they' d come to the door and questioned his father earlier. He knew what had happened to Pat. Barry had always looked up to him wanted to be him. The whole thing sucked.
"Run, run away."
He grinned, and doing so reopened the gash in his bottom lip. Fresh blood dribbled down his chin. Despite the searing pain, his smile didn' t fade. He liked the way it looked.
"Run, run away… Run, run awayyyyy…"
That was what he was doing. Running away. He' d made up his mind. Never again would he allow this to happen. Never again would his father lay a hand on him. Because if he stayed around, and it did happen, Barry was sure he ' d kill the son of a bitch. His fateful punch earlier in the evening had missed. Next time, he wouldn 't. He could get a gun, easily. He knew where his father kept his pistol. Timmy' s father had a gun cabinet full of hunting rifles, and the boys could get access to the key. If he stuck around, next time his father came after him, he ' d squeeze a trigger rather than his fist. And that would be murder, and they put people in jail for that. Put people to death for it, too. Barry did not want to die, especially now. He felt reborn. He wasn't sure where he'd go next, or what he' d do, but it felt like the whole wide world was open before him. Anywhere was better than here. He never wanted to see this house or his parents or the cemetery and church again.