Their world went blacker still.
The front door to the house opened, spilling a parallelogram of light across the porch and onto the ground. Two shadows filled the space almost immediately. Both were maybe six feet tall and athletic looking, though Ryan categorized the one on the right as football-athletic, and the one on the left as soccer-athletic. Neither appeared older than twenty. They each carried an old-fashioned oil lamp, the kind with a hurricane globe around the wick and handle on the top-Ryan associated them with movies about old-time railroads-and pistols in holsters on their belts. As they approached, Colleen opened the sliding door, introducing a blast of frigid air.
“Everybody out,” she said. “And please don’t give us reason to hurt you.”
Ryan did as he was told, pausing to grab his coat from the floor and put it on.
“Good idea,” Colleen said. “You’ll want to have your coats with you. It can get chilly at night.”
The one who looked like a football player looked even bigger up close.
“The mission went perfectly,” Colleen announced. “This is the Nasbe family.”
Football held his lamp high and peered through its shadow for better view. He looked each of them in the eye, and smiled. He exchanged nods with the other lamp bearer. “Perfect indeed,” he said. “I am Brother Stephen. This is Brother Zebediah, and you have already met Sister Colleen. Gather closer together.” He made a gathering motion with his hands, sort of like a stiff-armed clap, but without actually clapping.
Ryan sidestepped closer to his mom’s right.
“I have always believed that honesty is the best policy,” Brother Stephen said. He continued to hold the lantern high, and as he spoke, clouds of condensed breath occasionally obscured his face. “You should know that you are prisoners, and that Brother Zebediah and Sister Colleen and I are your jailers.”
Christyne’s hand gripped Ryan’s arm.
“If you behave and do as you are told, your life will be tolerable. If you cause trouble, your life will be hellish, and perhaps unnecessarily short.” He paused for effect. “I know you have questions-you’d be foolish not to-but I won’t be answering any of them. Consider yourselves fortunate that on a night when so many others died in their cars, you are still alive. Follow me inside now.”
Christyne hesitated. Ryan saw tears on her cheeks.
That seemed to please Brother Stephen. “What’s your name again?” he asked.
“C-Christyne.”
“Do I scare you, C-Christyne?” he reproduced her stammer perfectly.
She nodded.
He gave a little smile and cocked his head. “Good,” he said. “It’s good to be scared of me. The idea of hurting a pretty lady like you actually turns me on, know what I mean?” He rubbed his crotch.
“That’s enough, Brother Stephen,” Sister Colleen snapped.
He ignored the rebuke and maintained his eye contact with Christyne. “Be very, very afraid of me.” He stood, and turned his attention to Ryan. “I’ll even let you watch.”
Ryan lunged without thinking, and Brother Stephen stopped him with a punch to the center of his chest. Just like that, his breath was driven from his lungs, and he found himself struggling to get it back.
“You a tough guy, little man?” Brother Stephen asked with a grin.
Christyne moved instantly to intervene, pulling Ryan behind her to shelter him with her body. “He didn’t mean anything,” she said. “We’re just both very tired. We’re not thinking straight.”
“Got your mommy to hide behind, eh, little man?” Brother Stephen mocked.
Ryan had never felt this way. He didn’t know what to do. Anger, humiliation, and terror together drove his heart rate to something beyond anything he ever felt on an athletic field.
“Don’t say a word, Ryan,” Mom said.
“Smartest advice you’ll ever hear,” said Brother Stephen. “You just do what she says, do what I say, and I won’t have to cripple you.”
“For crying out loud,” Sister Colleen said.
Brother Stephen leaned in closer to the boy, silently emphasizing the five inches in height and eighty pounds in weight that separated them. “But any time you want to go a round with me, you just let me know.”
Ryan struggled to find words to say, something cool that might help him resurrect some measure of honor. But he was simply too terrified to make his voice work.
“Inside now,” Brother Stephen instructed. “Both of you.”
Sister Colleen led the way. The front door opened into the middle of the house, in the center of what appeared in the dim light to be one big room constructed of hewn timbers-like a log cabin, but without the mud crap between the logs. The inside dimensions were smaller than the outside dimensions, though, leading Ryan to believe that there must be additional wings on the sides, accessible, he supposed, through doors that hid in the shadows beyond the lamp light.
An army-style cot, made up with a sleeping bag and pillows, sat along the back wall of the main room, just barely visible along the edge of the flickering light. Ryan thought he saw a sink of sorts, positioned under an old-style hand pump. The remnants of a fire glowed in the bottom of a stone fireplace, just behind and to the right of the cot.
In a flash of understanding, Ryan realized that he’d just reentered the nineteenth century. No electricity, no running water, no heat to speak of. The lack of running water, in fact, explained the vague smell of shit that hung in the air. He wondered if maybe they were in Pennsylvania Dutch country-the Amish, he remembered, from some Harrison Ford movie that his mom had made him watch-but then he remembered that the Amish were all about peace. Whatever these creeps were about, it definitely was not peace.
The center of the room was unremarkable, especially in this light, except for a dark rectangle that at first looked like a shadow cast onto the floor, but revealed itself to be an open hatch leading to a stairway to a lower level. Brother Stephen gestured to the stairs with an open hand. Brother Zebediah led the way with his lantern held high. Ryan started to follow, but Brother Stephen’s heavy hand around his biceps pulled him to a stop. “You stay back with me, little man.”
“Please don’t hurt him,” Christyne said.
“I’m okay, Mom.” Ryan refused to flinch as Brother Stephen’s fingers dug deeply into his arm muscle. He watched as his mother disappeared into the space below. Then, when it was his turn, Ryan half expected Brother Stephen to heave him down like a human bowling ball.
The stairway ended at what felt like a concrete floor covered with slime-green carpeting. A worn sofa dominated the back wall, upholstered in a fabric that resembled a moldy chocolate chip cookie. To the left of the sofa, a rectangle of mismatched brick marked the spot where Ryan figured there had once been a door.
“Keep going,” Brother Stephen barked.
“To where?” Christyne asked. There in fact seemed to be no place to go.
Brother Zebediah said, “Just follow me.”
He led the way across the room to the far wall, the one perpendicular to the back wall, where he stopped and lifted a heavy padlock on its hasp and inserted a key in the bottom. He removed the lock and pulled on the hasp to reveal a doorway that would have been all but invisible to anyone who was not looking for it. Handing his lantern to Christyne, Brother Zebediah said, “You first.”
Brother Stephen’s grip closed even tighter around Ryan’s arm. “You’re last,” he said.
As Christyne stepped across the threshold, the yellow light of her lantern revealed a squatty room with a ceiling that maybe rose six feet. From outside, Ryan could see furniture, but he couldn’t make out what it was.
“There are candles and another lamp in the room,” Brother Zebediah said. “But be judicious in their use. They’re the only ones you have. When they’re gone, the nights will get especially dark for you.”
Ryan’s stomach flipped. He’d never been a big fan of enclosed spaces.
“Don’t be scared,” Christyne said, her voice trembling a little. “It’s not so bad. There are beds and a sofa. They even have books to read.”
“Your turn,” Brother Stephen said to Ryan. He gave him a last shove as he crossed the threshold. The door slammed shut immediately. The lock slid into place with a heavy thock, and then the Nasbes were alone. It was cold in here-beyond cold, actually-and the stink of an old toilet bloomed strong in the air.