by Lori M. Myers
The man slouched against the attic wall. He balanced the 1941 pin-up calendar atop his bony thighs, and crossed off each date just like he had been doing for the past eleven years, ten months, six days. Miss January was his favorite, her once rosy skin now a dingy memory on frayed paper. Other starlets, who had years ago fallen through the cracks of obscurity, followed on the decades-old pages – February, March, and so on. He always knew to flip back to January upon hearing the drunken cheers of revelers.
“Brian, you’re grounded.”
“Why are you doing this? You’re always on my case!
The man placed his chewed-up pencil on the sill and listened to the voices several floors below.
“You heard me, young man!”
“I don’t hear nothin’!”
Eleven years, ten months, and six days ago the man had escaped from the black cloaked prison guards who beat him until his eyes bled and his knuckles were raw. That day he noticed the brownstone shrouded in moss and vines and claimed it as his home. He grabbed a fragile branch, and made his way up to a rain gutter half off its hinges. He climbed through the attic window, clutching a plastic bag stuffed with Lava soap, two pairs of boxers, holed-up jeans, his “I was smokin’ with the Grateful Dead in Berkeley” T-shirt, and a mirror with one side that made him look almost normal and another side that exaggerated his pocked complexion. Amid tattered rags and dusty almanacs he found an old quilt, a mattress, a pillow. There he made his bed in a corner behind some boxes. A dummy torso in a yellowed flapper dress, and a steamer trunk filled with old 78’s marked his walls. He unrolled an antique rug to warm the cold floor, and watched as five cockroaches scurried through the wall cracks. He discovered the calendar stuffed in a mouse hole and began keeping time.
The argument downstairs interrupted the man’s thoughts. “Don’t forget who pays the bills, Brian. You’re in my house. Take off those clothes and wear something decent for a change. You’re not going out tonight with those scum.”
“You know nothin’ about them or me.”
“Brian, go to your room. Now!”
The arguments were now more frequent, but still the attic was a haven from the prison walls the man had known. Sometimes he had nightmares about the chains dangling from his tormentors’ waists, their grins as they cut him, small tiny cuts. At times the ping of hailstones against the window would force his heart to race so fast it was as if his chest would tear away from his bones.
“Alice, what the hell is going on with this kid?”
“Must be hormones or something.”
The man picked up his mirror, blew a thin layer of dust from the glass, and stared at his reflection. His hair, matted with grease, was as long as the tufts of beard covering his pock-marked face. Hollow eyes poked above gaunt cheekbones. Yellowed teeth, some black with rot, skirted his lips. At least he wouldn’t be recognizable to the guards if they found him. But before he escaped, they’d promised to hunt him down like an animal.
“I’m at my wit’s end.” That was Brian’s father’s talking.
The man got to know the family who lived below his feet. The vibrations from beneath the attic floorboards told the man where they were in the house – the bedrooms right below where he could hear every word; the kitchen and the rest of the first floor where he could make out most of what was being said; the basement where there was silence unless voices were clear and loud.
The outside door opened and slammed shut. “Mom, where are you? I need to go to cheerleading practice. Cindy’s mom can’t take us.” Katy’s voice now.
Life happened down there. Family fights, forgiveness, tears. Applause when Brian had won first prize at skeet shooting, the clinking of wineglasses to celebrate Edward’s promotion, the barking of Katy’s puppy. He heard Alice’s screams when her water broke and baby Katy emerged in the middle of the living room floor. Over the years he delighted in their chatter, the phone conversations between Katy and her girlfriends about the “hot” boy of the week, the moans of lovemaking, giggles, snores. There was the time Alice, the mother, forgot to remove the giblets from the turkey and all the family, including Aunt Anne and Uncle Harvey from Poughkeepsie, couldn’t stop laughing. Another time Brian cried for hours after a spanking and he ran away forcing his frantic parents to call the police. The man remembered quivering in a corner, gripped with fear while the police questioned Ed downstairs, held his breath until Brian was brought home by a neighbor, not moved until he’d heard the police car drive away.
“Mom, where are you?”
“Alice, he seems so…different…”
“Mom, I gotta go. I can’t be late.”
“…ever since he started hanging around with those hoodlums.”
“Just going through a phase, Ed.”
The man would sometimes close his eyes, imagine he was down there sitting cross-legged on the floor watching TV, reciting grace at the dinner table, opening gifts under the Christmas tree.
“Mom, c’mon!”
“I hear you, Katy. Go bring up the wash, will you?”
Suddenly, music resounded so loud it was as if fists punched the floorboards. Drawers opened, slammed, something heavy plunged to the floor. His attic home vibrated.
Footsteps going down.
Last year Brian had gone through a rebellious stage. He hung around with bad company since starting high school. Drugs, mischief, petty theft, back talk. He seemed to be mesmerized by these kids, a gang of them maybe, talking on the phone for hours in conversations filled with curse words and dares.
“Brian, wha…what did I tell you?”
That had been about the time he started smoking cigarettes and weed and ingesting who knows what.
“I told you to go to your room. I won’t discuss anything with you right now.”
Ten years ago, at the age of six, Brian had strayed upstairs. The man marked it on the calendar as a special day – special because it was the only time he had come into contact with a family member. How the little blue-eyed boy lowered the ladder from the attic door was a mystery. The man hid behind some crates and watched the child wander amid boxes of old clothing, books, and faded Persian rugs. The young boy’s smile was framed in dimples and his tousled blond hair nudged the nape of his neck.
“Stop! Brian, son. Let’s talk. We can work this out.”
“There’s nothin’ to work out. You can’t tell me what to do anymore, who to hang with.”
“Son, it can’t be this bad. Please!”
The man had smelled the scent of soap and powder, heard the childish giggles, the padding of tiny feet.
“Put that away…”
Peeking above his manmade barricade, the man had watched the young boy inspect some old felt hats in a box, trace the silk band and feather with his fingers, then place it on his head. Then he poked his head in the boxes stacked near the entrance, pulling out the vinyl records.
“Tommee Door-see,” little Brian had said, reading the label.
Suddenly, the calendar sitting on the crate had fallen to the floor. Young Brian jerked his head toward the sound. The boy and the man stared at each other. Young Brian let out a high-pitched cry, the records slipping from his grasp. Seconds later, Alice’s footsteps were heard traipsing upstairs toward the attic’s ceiling door. The small child ran, the woman’s hat flying off his head as he rushed down the ladder. For several years afterwards, the man would peak out the window and catch Brian looking up towards the attic.
“Brian, no. Nnnn…NOOOOOOO!”
The roar of a blast shook the attic, toppled the dummy torso, and sent the calendar flying in the air.
“There ya’ are, DAD!.”
Footsteps, Alice’s, running.
“Mommy!”
“Ground me now, DADDIO!”
“Brian. What…happened? God…”
“MOMMY! DAAAAD!”
Another blast. Dust and dirt bounced through the attic air. A gurgle. Then another explosion like a vicious thunderclap.
“MOM? BRIAN?!! PLEEEZE!”
Oh my God, Brian. What have you done?
Footsteps, entering the kitchen, silent, stopping, then heading towards the basement door.
“MOM. DAD. WHAT’S HAPPENING? I’M SCARED.”
The man crawled around the attic, spinning like a cockroach jolted from its nest. This young teenager with tousled hair and dimples decided to end the lives of those setting limits to his freedom. Ed and Alice were probably dead. It sounded like Brian made sure, shooting again when he detected any sign of life. A living room soaked in blood – but this time from death, not birth.
Footsteps. Same. Heading downstairs to the basement.
The man hugged a broken chair to keep himself from trembling. Katy was in the basement. He stared at the attic door, yearning to open it, talk sense to Brian, save Katy. For eleven years, ten months, six days, he’d been hiding from his tormentors. If he left his attic refuge, they would find him, take him back, kill him.
But Katy. Dear sweet little Katy.
“BRIAN! WHAT ARE………?”
She was probably wearing her cheerleading outfit with “GSHS” on the front. She was so proud when she made the squad, calling all her friends, Aunt Anne.
“PLEASE…PLEASE, DON’T!”
Maybe she’s holding onto those big pom-poms she’d practiced with in the backyard or maybe she was in the middle of getting wash out of the dryer. Perhaps checking to see if the science project she glued together on Ed’s workshop table had dried, then hearing screams and gunshots upstairs, frozen with fear, yelling for mommy and daddy.
Then just silence. The horror of silence. The man sat stone-still, hanging his head. Seconds passed and he pressed his ear to the floor to try and hear. Perhaps she was pleading softly to her brother, to spare her life, to try and calm the little boy with tousled hair and dimples. Have him come to his senses.
Then a bang, quieter, not as earsplitting as the others.
Footsteps, again, heard at the top of the basement stairway. Into the kitchen, the living room. Shuffling up the staircase to the second floor.
Where’s he going? Usually he holed up in his room, shut the door, and didn’t see the light of day until the sun came up.
Metal, perhaps the gun barrel, dragged across the wooden floors; the two, metal and steps, crooning a sick duet.
Suddenly, the phone rang. Metal and steps stopped, turned, went into the parents’ bedroom. The click of the receiver lifted off its base. A moment. Then a disembodied voice.
“Yeah. Sure.” Another click.
More steps. Down the hallway. Closer. To the attic door.
The man released his grip on the chair as terror flooded his body already weak from time. He crawled backwards, never taking his eyes off the door leading to his secret retreat. He slithered in a corner, in the dark, behind a shaft of moonlight from his little attic window.
A creak. The ladder extended, angled to the second floor. Lamplight burst like fireworks through the opening. Footsteps climbing, climbing. Metal slapped against the ladder’s rungs.
Nowhere to run. Not for eleven years, ten months, and six days. And not now. A slender shadow moved silently up the ladder then appeared at the attic’s opening.
The man shivered in the corner, his nails digging into the wall.
The figure moved into the moonlight. It was Brian, no longer the blond-haired child who years ago had wandered up to the attic and placed a woman’s hat on his head. Instead, his hair was dyed black, blood and tissue splattered on his face and shirt, a gun drooping by his side, chains dangling from his waist.
“Found ya’.” Brian grinned. He adjusted his black cloak, and lifted the gun. “Now come downstairs and let’s watch TV.”
About the Author
Lori M. Myers is an award-winning writer of fiction, creative nonfiction, and playscript. Her fiction has appeared in PHASE, Holy Cuspidor, and Innsmouth Press. She recently obtained her masters degree in creative writing from Wilkes University.
©2009 Lori M. Myers
