The Year of the Storm (20 page)

A
fter Tina came out of the cellar, it all happened very quickly. “Your mother is awake,” she said, and then she was gone.

Anna giggled. “Houston, Texas,” she said.

I went down.

—

I
'm not here,” Mom said. “You're not here.”

“Mom, I don't know what has happened to you, but I'm going to help you.” I reached for her hands. She clutched mine, limply.

“It's so dark.”

“I know.”

“He won't let me leave.”

“Who won't let you?”

She didn't answer, but I knew. “He can't keep you, Mom. He's a liar. When you slip, you just have to get up again.”

She smiled just a little then and put her hand in my hair. I closed my eyes, savoring the moment, which was wise because it didn't last long. She pulled her hand away and said, “I'm scared, Danny. Scared like I've never been scared in my life.”

“He can't hurt you, Mom. Being afraid is the only power he has.”

“It's not him I'm afraid of,” she said.

I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her up, much as I had pulled Pike up from the mud. She was in a kind of mud too. Finally, I saw that she had slipped in more ways than one.

—

D
wight came back to this point time and time again during our talks. At first, I couldn't figure out why.

He'd always say, “Let's go back to that moment with your mother. The part where she said she wasn't afraid of Sykes. You said you wrapped your arms around her. Talk about that.”

And I'd always tell it over again, not sure what he was driving at. After about the third or fourth day he did this, I finally asked him, “What do you want me to talk about? Why this part?”

He shrugged and peered at me over his bifocals. “It seems important.”

I shook my head.

“How?”

“Let me see if I can be more specific. Your mother said it wasn't Sykes she was afraid of . . .”

“And?”

“It seems like her statement raises a question.”

“You're saying I should have asked her what she was afraid of?”

“No, I'm not saying you should have asked her. I'm suggesting you consider the question. Maybe even contemplate the answer.”

“No.”

“No?”

“I don't need to.”

He shifted in his chair and marked something in his notebook. He did this a lot. I think it was just for show, a way to create the long pauses that encouraged his patients to keep talking. I wasn't biting.

He cleared his throat. “Why don't you need to, Dan?”

“I already know.”

“You know?”

“Yes.”

“And what was she afraid of?”

“Herself. She was afraid of herself. She was afraid she might slip again. To get up, to pull yourself out of something, that takes courage, all right? Because you might fall again.”

“So how did she ‘slip,' Dan? How did it happen?”

“What do you mean?”

“It seems like an important question. You said she was afraid to slip again. Define
slipping
, because it doesn't sound like you're talking about the same kind of slipping Walter Pike told you about, the same kind of slipping you are claiming that you did when you were in the storm shelter.”

Here, I was forced to hesitate. I realized he was right.

“I think . . .” I began, but then trailed off. What did I think? Either she climbed into the storm shelter that day and slipped to the swamp or she ran off on her own. It was hard to imagine my mother going into the storm shelter for any reason . . .

It was almost as if Dwight read my mind. “Isn't the storm shelter the only way in? I mean, I've not heard you mention any other way . . .” He shifted in his chair and peered at me hard over his glasses.

“That's true, but maybe Anna went in first. Maybe she went in after Anna,” I said, pleased at finding an explanation that actually made sense.

Dwight wasn't buying it, though. “Maybe,” he said. “But it sounds like a stretch.”

I said nothing.

Dwight bit his pen cap. “Maybe this is a good place to stop for the day. Maybe you need some time to process all this.”

“Sure,” I said. “I'll process.”

—

I
t wasn't easy getting her up the ladder. I had to stay behind her and keep her from falling back. Once I got her up, I sent her and Anna to the back room and shut the door.

My plan was forming. What Tina had done was crucial. It made me understand that nothing could keep them here. Nothing, really, could keep my mom and sister here either, except free will. If a person doesn't want to climb out of the morass, then you can't make them. You can only help a person so much, but Mom was coming around. She was awake now. That was a big step.

I left them and headed back to the front room, to the window to look for him. I knew I'd have to face Sykes, and only time would tell whether I believed my own rhetoric about there being nothing to fear. I was just pressing my face to the window when I heard it.

A knock on the front door.

I
suppose it could have been Rachel or Tina, but I can honestly say I never really believed it was. Besides the fact that it didn't seem like something the girls would do—knock—there was also something in the sound, something cold and removed. Something foreign in that knock, a lack of rhythm that still chills me to think about it. It was as if Sykes were announcing his presence, reminding us he was still out there. The nightmare was not yet over. Indeed, it might have just begun.

I sprinted back down the hallway and pushed the bedroom door open. “Don't come out until I come to get you.” Mom, sitting on the bed, looked at me groggily.

“It's him, isn't it?”

“Yeah.”

“He wants me.”

“He's not going to get you. Just stay here until I come back.” I looked at Anna. She was singing quietly, oblivious as always.

I paused, a thought I had not considered flitting through my mind: What if I didn't come back? What if Sykes got me before I ever had a chance?

I dismissed the thought. It wasn't a thought I could really afford to dismiss, but I couldn't afford to dwell on it either. It was time to act.

Closing the door, I walked carefully past the trapdoor that led to the cellar. It was still propped open against the wall like it had been since Tina came out. Once past the cellar opening, I moved quickly to the door. Timing would be key. I'd have to make sure I had enough time to get in position before he came in.
And what then?
a voice said. It was the voice of doubt, something I'd managed to keep at bay pretty well until now. But now . . . this was uncharted territory. This was a madman. No, the ghost of a madman, and I was running on pure instinct.

I tiptoed over to the window to look for him. If he'd stepped off the porch, I would be able to see him. Pressing my face against the glass, I scanned the swamp. He was out of sight, which probably meant he was still on the porch. I took a deep breath. There was still time to back out. I'd done nothing so far that couldn't be repaired, but once I opened that door . . .

My thoughts were interrupted as I saw Sykes step off the porch and back toward the water.
Like a snake
, I thought,
slithering back into the murk
.

You could catch a snake. It was hard and you had to be extremely careful because not only was their strike quick, it was often fatal. I'd escaped his grasp one time before. I knew this time I might not be so lucky. I walked over to the couch. This was important. I gripped the old thing on one armrest and slid it across the sawdust floor. Once I made it to the hallway, I stopped. Would the couch fit through the hall? Definitely not like this. I flipped it up on one side and pushed it through. It went with an inch or so to spare on each side. I pulled it back out and wondered if I should risk leaving it turned over. It would certainly save me some time, but I had to consider if seeing it overturned would give Sykes pause. In the end, I decided to leave it as it was. One way or another, Sykes was going to come past the cellar door. He had to do it if he wanted to find anybody.

Once I opened that front door, there would be no turning back. I'd have to make it to the cellar before he saw me or it wouldn't work. I checked the window again. Sykes was farther out in the swamp, his eyes turned toward the last streaks of red in what must have been the west. Those streaks never changed here, and more than anything else that was what made me do it. See, I had Mom and Anna, but staying here would mean I'd lose myself. I needed for this to end. I needed to rejoin the real world because that was the way real life worked. Even then, I sensed that one day this would all recede like a bad dream.

I strode quickly to the door. Purposefully. My hand fell on the door handle. I drew a sharp breath and let it out. Then I turned the handle and pulled the door back.

I didn't wait to see if he noticed. Instead, I bolted for the hall, for the ladder leading down to the cellar. I stopped halfway down the ladder, so that I was completely inside, hidden from view unless Sykes were to stand right over the opening and peer directly down at me. Still, I was close enough to the top that I'd be able to reach for him when he went past me. I meant to grab his ankle, his foot, and pull him inside the cellar. If things went perfectly, he'd fall to the ground while I stayed on the ladder, leaving me plenty of time to get out and shut the door before he could make it back up. Then I had to get the couch and shove it down the short hall and over the hatch.

It would be near impossible.

So I made myself think of something else. I thought of Dad, the look on his face when Mom and Anna came back. When I showed up at the jail with both of them. Sheriff Martin—providing he'd survived the storm—would piss himself. The papers, the news channels, they'd all have to write new stories about Mom and Anna and where they'd been. Scientists would want to investigate the storm shelter, the woods around our house. They'd want to see the painting, and I'd tell the whole story about Seth, and . . .

Who was I kidding? Even at fourteen, I had enough sense to know nobody would believe any of that.

So what would it be like? No idea.
One thing at a time, Danny. One thing at a—

I heard a footstep near the front door. He'd be on the porch by now, stunned into a deep suspicion by the door being flung open wide. But the suspicion would not be enough to override his hunger (
He wants me
, Mom had said), and he would come down the hall anyway.

Something—likely the door—creaked and I heard his footsteps again. He was moving slowly, checking things out, surely wary of a trap.

I waited, my hands growing sweaty and weary around the ladder rungs.

He came closer, one slow footstep at a time.

Then I heard him stop. For a long time, the house was still. I pictured him beside the couch now, trying to puzzle out why it had been left there, turned over like it was. Time passed, and after a while, I began to count in my head to mark time. I made it to nearly three hundred before I lost track and gave up. My heart thudded in my chest. I heard Anna's voice, very faintly, from somewhere above me. She was saying one of her words, happy and carefree, and I allowed myself a brief moment of envy. At that moment, I might have traded my so-called normalcy for Anna's ability to be oblivious.

If Sykes heard the noise, he gave no indication. The cabin was quiet. Mom shushed Anna. There were other murmurs from the back. Surely he'd hear this and be unable to resist.

I removed my hands one at a time from the sweat-dampened ladder and wiped them on my shorts. Below me, the darkness seemed to simmer, and I thought I heard noises from there too.

I turned away from the cellar, choosing to focus on the dim light above me. Total focus. No distractions.

But Sykes was being still. Silent. Was it possible he'd abandoned the house, sensing a trap? No, he was still there, probably just a few feet from the ladder, waiting, trying to draw me out. Hadn't he done Pike the same way, so many years ago? I tightened my sweaty palms on the ladder rung. I wouldn't be tricked. I'd stay here as long as I needed to stay.

Time is a nonentity in the swamp. You wait and wait, and nothing changes, so you begin to question how long you've been waiting at all. When it doesn't get darker, when it's always dusk, this makes time seem slow, stuck, so to speak. So I waited as patiently as I could, long enough to become frustrated, to almost give up. I waited long enough that my feet hurt from standing on the ladder rung, long enough that my arms grew stiff and sore and I wanted to stretch them out, so I leaned back, extending them as far as they would go.

Even though the standoff seemed to last for an eternity, it shouldn't have mattered. I should have played it smart and waited as long as it took, but I began to believe no man could stay silent as long as he had. I truly believed he was gone.

I climbed slowly, peeking my head out over the lip of the cellar just enough to look down the hallway.

Do you know how it feels to realize you've made a critical mistake and it's too late to fix it? There's usually a rush of shock, an initial reaction to try to take it back, and then the realization that you can't. I've felt a similar phenomenon while driving. I once pulled out in front of a truck that I didn't see. Time slowed down. I wanted to throw the car in reverse and go back to where I was, but time wasn't that slow. All I could do was cope. I floored the car, trying to buy myself some time before impact. But the impact came. I'd guaranteed that by pulling out in front of the truck.

That's how I felt when I eased up out of the cellar and looked down the hallway. Sykes was standing there, his body perfectly still, a wicked, expectant grin plastered across his face. He saw me immediately and his smile grew larger, but otherwise he made no move, instead waiting to see what mine would be.

And I almost blew it. I'd already begun stepping down the ladder to retreat inside the cellar when I realized he'd only close the door on me and go take full advantage of Mom and Anna.

So I did the only other thing I could think of—I scrambled out of the cellar and up to the ground level to face him.

At least I was smart enough to position myself on the other side of the cellar from him. That still meant he'd have to cross the opening in order to reach me or anyone else.

He laughed when he saw me face him, my fists at my sides, ready.

“This is my house,” he said, and took a step forward.

I tensed, readying my body to leap. A half-formed plan had wedged itself in my brain. I hadn't considered the consequences, which was just fine.

“Those two girls? Mine.”

Another step.

“A man doesn't get much in this godforsaken world, and what's his is his. Your mama? Mine too. I've got plans for her. Plans for you too, although I wouldn't exactly call those plans long-term.”

He was close to the edge now, and he had to look down at his feet to avoid falling in.

“This cellar? Mine too.”

He stepped across the cellar opening.

Had I been thinking, there was no way I would have done what I did, but instead of thinking, I acted, launching myself toward him with an earsplitting scream. For a moment, the whole world slipped inside that scream. It was a battle cry, a call of ecstasy, a prayer. It was all of these things, and I felt it coursing through my veins and my veins pumping blood to my arms and legs and those arms and legs flying into action. I jumped from several feet away, laying my body out like a wide receiver lays out when he's trying to catch a pass. Halfway there, I realized I was going to go down with him. It wasn't a regret. Just a realization.

I hit him with a tackle my middle school football coach would be proud of. Lead with the shoulder, head up, arms out. I knocked him back and into the cellar.

I tried to grab the side, the ladder, something to avoid going down with him, but Sykes held on to me and together we tumbled inside.