Make Willing the Prey (Dreams by Streetlight) (9 page)

“The spiders!”

“It’s ok now, Jean.”

“Did they bite me?  Is that why I
passed out?”

“No, I think you
hyperventilated.  I almost did, too.  Listen, I’d feel a lot better if we found
the stairs.  Can you walk?”

“Yes.”

“Come on.  I looked in the room
we came from, and we missed a door on the far side.  Let’s look through there. 
I don’t think S.A. will be coming around for a while.”

“Yeah, let’s get out of here,”
Jina shuddered.

They went back one room, where
Sandy had looked out the window and where they’d first met S.A. 

“You’re right Sandy. How did we
miss that door before?”

“Not sure.  Let’s check it out.”

The first thing they noticed when
they stepped through was the dark wooden railing at the other end of the room.

“Stairs!”  Jina ran toward them. 
She stopped abruptly, grabbing onto the banister to keep from falling into the
room below.

The steps were missing.  Only a
hole remained, along with part of the railing.  A decaying gold and crystal
chandelier swayed gently over the emptiness.

“Damn!” Jina hissed.

Sandy let out a sigh as she stood
next to Jina and peered down.  She couldn’t see much in the room below, just
some debris.  The 10 foot ceilings in the house made it too far to safely jump.

“So now what?  We go back?”

“I’m starting to think these
rooms don’t always stay where we left them.  If we’ve found stairs, maybe we
should stay put for a while.  Maybe we can find a way down.”

“What if S.A. comes back?  What
if bugs start crawling out of our ears?”

“Something happened in that last
room, after you passed out.  I’m not certain, but S.A. might have a
weaknesses.  Let’s sit and think things through.  Do you have any snacks in
that oversized bag of yours?  I’m starving.”

Jina pulled out an arsenal of
perfect munchies foods: Twinkies, potato chips, soda, and granola bars.  They
leaned up against the opposite wall, near the empty stair area.

“I got a good look at him when I
was pinned to the wall with the webs.  I’m not entirely sure he’s... human.”

“You mean he’s like a ghost?”

“No.  More like, a devil?  A
demon?  He
looked
human, but... not.  It’s hard to explain.  Anyway, I
decided to close my eyes and pretend I was someplace else, like you do in the
doctor’s office.  Just when I started to calm down, I could tell he was in the
room.  But I pretended he wasn’t.  When I told myself it wasn’t real, S.A.
seemed… weaker somehow.  I think I made him, and our bonds, and the spiders,
all of it, disappear.”

“You mean, like through
willpower?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

As she told her story, the ring
felt cold and heavy on her finger.  Sandy used the break in the conversation to
look down at it.  The gold was flaking off.  She helped it along by prying a
flake off.  Under the gilt was a dark metal, black, like wrought iron.  Even though
this might have freaked her out, she took comfort in it.  While it was a symbol
of her unwilling commitment to a monster, it somehow made her feel safe.

“Hey.  We’re on the third floor. 
Why don’t you try your cellphone?”

“Still no signal.  Not even up
here.  I’ve been checking.  We’re right in the middle of town, so I don’t
understand.  Sandy, are you seriously thinking this is all some kind of magic?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m
thinking.  Your hallucination theory just isn’t fitting any more.  You have
more experience with hallucinogens than I do.  What do you think?”

“You’re right.  This isn’t like
psychotropics at all.  Ok what about hypnotism?”

“Maybe.  I don’t know anything
about hypnotism.  It might as well be magic.  You’ve played a few video games. 
What do you know about magic?”

“Hmm, well you have to have mana,
or some kind of energy.  Then you use a staff or wand to shoot lightening at
monsters.”

“That’s not very helpful.  I was
hoping you’d know what kind of magic is stopped by someone trying hard to
believe it isn’t real.”

“I have no idea.”

“That’s ok, Jina.  We’ll figure
something out.  Hey, that door over there, it’s smaller than the others.  I’ll
bet it’s a closet.  Maybe we can find something useful.  Don’t worry, I’ll kill
any spiders I find.” 

Sandy stood and threw open the
closet door and dug through the musty overcoats and rotting boxes.  A white
moth flew out from its previous home and lighted on the window, ruffling its
wings.

She tossed out a baseball mitt,
plastic flowers, a box of Christmas tree decorations, and then found a
cardboard box containing some badminton gear.  Sandy flung the net into a pile
she mentally marked as “useful”.  She also put a couple of wire hangers, a
small roll of twine, and a glass coke bottle into that pile.  A few other
things were interesting but useless:  A large, faded painting of a hill with a
house and a few trees, a bowl of wax fruit, a can of golf balls, and a music
box that played Fur Elise. 

The closest thing she found
resembling a weapon was a rusty railroad spike.  It made her feel comfortable,
so she put it into the keeper pile.  If she had to, she could stab something
with it.

“I feel almost normal now that I
have a bit of caffeine in me,” Jina said.

Sandy began untangling the
badminton net.  “Yeah.  Things have been going smoothly.  Maybe S.A. is gone
for good.  And I think this net is long enough—”

“Shhh...” she interrupted, “Do
you hear that?”

Sandy listened.  At first she
heard nothing, then, faintly a sound like short, slow, rhythmic scraping on
wood arose from the floor below them.

“What do you think it is?” she
whispered.

“I don’t like it.  Maybe—”

“Shhh...  Listen.”

Between the scratching, there was
a nearly inaudible sound of whimpering.  Scratch, whine, scratch, whine. 

It left the distinct impression
of a neglected human child clawing at a coffin lid.  Sandy shivered.  Why had
that image come to mind?  Slowly, it grew a little louder, more despairing. 
The weary child had been crying for a long time.

“Sandy, we have to help whoever
that is.”

“How do you know that’s not an
animal?”

Jina shrugged.  “I think we
should at least look down there.”

“Just— be careful.”

Jina walked softly to the
landing.  She knelt and peered into the room beneath.  Only the first few feet
were visible, so she lay on her stomach and stuck her head down below the edge
of the floor.

The dim room was partially
furnished with couches, chairs, and a small table.  A cloth covered the window,
blocking the setting sun. 

Another whine brought her eyes
away from the window and to a shadow-shrouded corner.  In the darkness she
thought she could make out a human figure.  It didn’t move, that she could
tell, but it was whimpering, almost to the point of moaning.  The scratching
sound continued steadily.

Sandy had scooted up beside her
and was peering into the same corner.

“What do you think?” Sandy
whispered.

“I think we should find some way
to get down there and help him.”

“Him?”

“Yes, it’s definitely a man.”

Sandy found herself wondering how
Jina always knew so much about men.  She gave Jina a questioning look.

“A woman wouldn’t whimper like
that,” she stated bluntly.

“I wonder why he doesn’t seem to
notice us.  We’re whispering, but he should still be able to hear us up here.”

“Let’s try something.”  Jina
cupped one hand to her mouth and called, “Hey you!”

The scratching and whining
stopped simultaneously, but the figure remained motionless.  They waited for
him to do something.  Nothing happened.  After a few minutes, the scratching
began again.  The whining filled the silent gaps as before.

“So that’s not going to work.  I’m
going to find a way to get down there.”  Jina stood.

“What if it’s a trap?”

“Don’t be silly.  S.A. doesn’t
need to trap us.  We’re already trapped.  Besides, we were planning on going
that way anyhow.”

Sandy stood and walked over to
her treasure pile.  “I think this will get us down there,” Sandy said, tugging
on the badminton net between both hands.

“And then what?  If he’s been
there a long time, it may be because the door is locked.”

Jina smiled.  “Don’t worry.  I
can get us out.”  She began pushing on the remains of the railing to be sure it
was sturdy.  “Give me that.”  She secured an end of the net to one of the
wooden posts.

“I’ll go down first.  Throw my
bag down, and then follow me.”

“I’m going to kill myself on that
thing, you know,” Sandy said as she loaded the bag with the supplies from the
closet.  “In gym class I never made it five feet up one of those ropes.”

“Well, this ain’t gym, and this
isn’t a rope.  You’re going down, not up.  The worst that can happen…  Well,
just be sure you hold on tight with both your hands and feet.”

“You always were the more
adventurous one.”

In reply to that statement, Jina
tossed down the other end of the net.  Sandy heard it hit below.

“See you at the bottom!” Jina
exclaimed as she grabbed the net and leaned back.  She lowered herself hand
over hand.  Sandy did as she had been told and tossed down the gym bag.  Jina
caught it and then coaxed Sandy to pick up the net.  When Jina’s coaxing neared
coercion, Sandy wiped the sweat from her fingers and began to lower herself as
Jina had.  The fact that it was a net and not a slippery rope helped somewhat,
but she had to be careful not to get her fingers tangled in the webbing.  Near
the bottom, she let go.

The scratching stopped again with
the clatter of Sandy’s jump.  By the time Jina helped Sandy to her feet, it had
resumed, as though nothing had happened.  They paused, and Sandy started
dusting herself off in slow motion, staring into the corner.

From this angle, they could see
him much better.  He was a young man with a dark complexion — not bad looking
considering the circumstances — dressed in a pale blue buttoned shirt that was
open at the collar, and torn black pants.  His curly black hair hung in front
of his eyes.  The hemp choker around his neck identified him as Jina’s type. 

A curled-up pathetic mess, he had
pressed himself into the corner near the room’s only door, and was indeed the
source of the soft whimpering.  A shallow indentation had been worn into the
surface of the wall by his fingernails.  His eyes unblinkingly stared past his
fingers and into space.  He breathed shallowly through his open mouth.

“Poor thing,” Jina whispered. 
She moved to his side and put her arms around him.  She began to stroke his
face.  “It’s ok.  I’m here.  We’ll take care of you.”  Sandy felt as comforted
by Jina’s soothing words as the young man should have been.

But he continued to stare,
unblinking, at the hole he was carving in the wall.  As they watched, a
splinter of wood broke away with one of the scrapes.  The tone of the sound
changed as his fingernails rubbed against the back side of wallpaper.

“He’s through!” Sandy shouted in
whisper, feeling the excitement that he didn’t appear to have.

He continued, motionless except
for his fingers.  He reacted only when he broke through the tiny patch of
wallpaper and a beam of light from the outside room shone down onto his hand. 
He leapt to his knees, throwing Jina off, and clawed at the torn wall with
agitation.  Sandy ran to him.  His frantic fingers began leaving their marks as
streaks of blood.

“Stop it!  You’re hurting
yourself!” she shouted as Jina helped her to pull him away from his attack on
the wall. 

He fought them, struggling,
pushing against them, screaming, “No!  I’m almost out!  Let me go!”

Jina continued, “It’s ok now.  We’ll
help you get out.”

Immediately, he relaxed into Jina’s
arms, quivering and sobbing.  His whole body shook as he released emotions that
were as pent-up as he was.  He began mumbling, incoherently at first, but soon
the two women could make out a few phrases.

“Gotta get me outta here. 
Maniac.  Driving me crazy.  Gotta leave.  Crazed psycho loose.  Gotta get
police.  Tell them I’m Lewis.  Trapped.  No more… “

Jina held him and put her hand to
his head.  She cradled him until he quieted.

“It’s him,” Jina whispered to
Sandy.  “That guy who went missing.”

Sandy nodded solemnly, fighting
down a sense of dread.  “He fell asleep,” she whispered.

Jina moved him slightly so she
could see him better.  It was then that Sandy noticed strange scars on his
face, neck, and hands.  Most were like normal scars, though there were more
than she usually saw on people.  It was like he had been in a bad accident, but
on closer inspection, they were not from a single source.