“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.
“What… what?” she said, frantically grabbing the bat and rising to her knees.
“Shhh… sorry. I made a noise.”
Dropping onto her hands, her hair covered her face. “God, I thought I was dreaming.” She looked around. “We’ll have to go up after all.”
Tension gripped him, tightening his stomach. They were upstairs: bloated Jared and hard-hitting Meg. And a gun. Eric sucked air between his teeth. “I’ll lead.”
Mercifully, the stairs didn’t creak. Eric, holding the bat now, slowly tested each step before putting his weight on it. They climbed higher. Looking back, he saw her smile grimly, and beyond her, just visible, the feet of the still dangling dead man.
On the kitchen counter, foul dishes were piled precariously. Eric crept past them, quietly opened a door next to the counter to reveal a washer and dryer, and a back door.
“We can get away,” he hissed.
She shook her head. “No, I have to know what happened. I won’t ever feel safe.” Her eyes were round and deep and intense. “Okay.”
He peeked around the corner into the small living room where maroon curtains cut most of the morning light. Dust motes swirled lazily in a narrow shaft that slipped through a gap between them. A shadow of a couch crouched under the window, and a pair of recliners faced a television. He couldn’t imagine Jared and Meg sitting in them, watching a show. But the room seemed so suburban. The light beam ended on a pleasant landscape on the opposite wall.
“The bedroom,” she said. “Could be they’re sleeping.” Her voice quavered. She’s scared too, he thought, but she’s going on. It made him feel braver.
“Smells bad,” he said. Holding the bat in front of him like a probe, he moved into a hallway, past a bathroom, then past a bedroom with boxes of canned goods piled to the ceiling. Blotches spotted the carpet. He bent down, touched one. It was wet. The door to the last room was partly closed. He pushed it with the end of the bat and it creaked as it opened. Bad air wafted around him, menthol, alcohol and the distinctive smell of vomit. Eric wrinkled his nose.
Micro-inch by micro-inch, he edged his eyes by the doorway. A dresser covered with empty blood bags spilled from a carton, then the end of a bed, someone under the covers, someone with bare feet on top. Then, jeans. A red flannel shirt. Meg lay motionless on her side on top the covers, back to the door, her arm across Jared’s chest who faced the ceiling, the blanket pulled up neatly under his chin. An almost black stain soaked the blanket above Jared’s midsection. Clearly, he was dead, his face rigid and held in a grimace that wasn’t quite human. Eric couldn’t see a gun.
Leda crowded behind him, pushing him into the room. She held his arm against her. A sheer curtain covered the window, but through. it Eric saw a tree, and a car parked on the street. Everything felt surreal. How could he be here? How could he be in danger? The sun is rising. Wind is blowing in the leaves.
Taking the bat from him, Leda eased herself to the edge of the bed and reached out to touch Meg. Without moving, Meg said, “He was a bad, man.”
Leda gasped and jumped back, banging into the closet door, Eric almost ran out of the room. He gripped the doorsill, panting like he’d run a race.
Meg pulled Jared close and pressed her forehead to his cheek. “He was a bad, bad man.” Gently, she kissed him. “And he died too soon.” The bed shook and Eric thought, she’s crying, but the shaking went on and Meg convulsed into a fetal position, never releasing Jared, and Eric realized she was silently coughing. He watched for a minute, then the coughing stopped and she relaxed, painfully straightening her legs until once again she lay full length beside him.