Trapdoor
by Paul Mannering
Please note this story is written in New Zealand English, spelling will differ from US English.
The Holden died in the middle of
nowhere. Charlene moaned and twisted in the back seat, fending of some dark
figure in her dreams. The engine, ticking and cooling made the only other
sound.
Johno
stared through the windscreen, hands resting on the steering
wheel, his attention focused on the silhouette the blood spattered headlight
made. It looked like a grinning skull. “Fuck,” Riley said from the passenger’s
side. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
Baby Lise, with all the wisdom of her
seven years, piped up from her spot between them on the bench seat, “Shoulda
bought a Ford Johno.”
“Now what the fuck are we supposed to
do?” Riley asked. “Now, we walk,” Johno’s voice was flat and distant as if, somehow,
he wasn’t part of this, but dialing in from somewhere else.
They climbed out of the car, stretching and feeling the sweat cool on their backs. Stars smeared across the summer sky like
strewn diamonds, Johno stared upwards, turning in a slow circle, following the
Milky Way with his eyes.
“Where are we?” Charlene had woken up and pulled herself
up to the back window.
“We are fucked, that is where we
are,” Riley said. “Johno?” Charlene climbed out of the car, splashing the ground with yellow
light from the torch she carried.
“Mum, I wanna go home,” Lise
announced. “Shut up,” Riley replied.
“Hey, you leave her alone!” Charlene
put an arm around the girl and stared at Johno, who was still looking upwards
as if seeing the sky for the first time.
“Johno?” Charlene repeated. “Dave’s
hurt real bad, we have to get him to a hospital.”
Riley pulled the heavy bag out of the car. He set it on
the hood of the car and unzipped it. The wads of banknotes inside nearly took
his breath away.
“We scored Johno, the big one. The fucking jackpot.”
Riley pushed his
hands into the bag and lifted the neatly stacked blocks of money. Even in the
starlight they appeared stained and discoloured.
“We can clean it right? We can clean
this crap off it?” Riley’s voice cracked. He dropped the money back in the bag
and smeared his palms across his shirt. The bright orange paint streaking on
the fabric.
“Leave the money,” Johno said.
“What?” Riley turned around.
“I said, leave the money. It’s
burned. We can’t spend any of it. It’s marked,” Johno spoke without tearing his
gaze away from the starscape.
“Fuck,” Riley said, staring at the
open bag and its ruined contents.
Charlene pulled herself away from
Lise’s embrace and touched Johno on the shoulder. “We can’t stay here. Dave
needs to get to hospital. What if someone comes past, sees the car, we’re
fucked enough as it is eh?”
“Johno?” Lise joined the pair, tugging on Johno’s sleeve.
“Yeah kid?” Johno didn’t look down.
“Whatchu doing?”
“Looking at the stars. There’s the
Southern Cross, and that’s Orion’s Belt.”
Lise dutifully stared upwards, seeing
only stars.
“Let’s go,” Charlene said and went back to the car. She
retrieved a small girl’s back pack and pink puffer jacket. She knelt down and
dressed Lise, helping her into the backpack and tightening the straps. “We’re
gonna walk now honey, okay?” Lise nodded. Charlene took the girl’s hand, “Johno, you and
Riley you have to help Dave.” She started walking in the direction of
the still car’s fading headlight beams.
“Fuck,” Riley said in farewell to the
car. He hefted the bag of cash onto his shoulder and opened the back door. Dave
lay across half the backseat, still and pale. The rag tied around his thigh had
turned black and the air around him tasted of copper and pain.
Riley dragged Dave out of the car and
got the barely conscious man on his feet. With Riley holding him up, they
started after the girls, leaving Johno staring up at the sky.
The farmhouse stood on the cusp of
rolling hills looking out over well-tended paddocks and backing on to dense
bush. It was a sullen building, constructed at least a century ago, with a squat shape and a
low roof, like the eye-ridges of a primitive man. The shadowed windows
added to the sense of dereliction and where the panes of some houses gave the
impression of eyes in a watchful face, these were dull as those of a dead fish.
“I’m cold,” Lise reported. “It’s meant to be summer,” she
added.
“We can see if they have a phone?”
Charlene suggested. “And who the fuck are we going to call? The AA? Maybe the cops?
I’m sure they would be come out here straight away and help us with getting a
stolen car back on the road.” Riley waved his arms and walked in a slow circle
around the group.
“Place looks abandoned,” Johno said. “We can hang out there, get some sleep. Start again tomorrow.”
The others nodded and started walking
again, they juggled open a twisted gate and made their way up an overgrown and
rutted track. They passed under an avenue of tall pine trees that whispered in
the lightest breeze. Lise pressed close against Charlene’s side, the shadows in
the trees taking forms she did not understand. A couple of cars rusted on slowly petrifying
flat tires.
The front of the house had been
stained by creeping mould and the windblown dust of years of neglect. Johno
mounted steps that creaked like the bones of an old man the marrow already
half- gone to dust.
The front door looked like it was holding on by force of will alone. Strange tendrils of wrought iron crawled over the
surface.
“Doesn’t look like anyone is home,”
Riley whispered, looking around and seeing only darkness.
Johno twisted the lever door handle, it moved smoothly
enough and with a firm shove the door popped open.
“I don’t like it,” Lise said in a stage-whisper.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,”
Riley muttered.
“Come on, I think the place is
empty,” Johno beckoned for the torch from Charlene. She waved the long beam of
light so it cut through the darkness beyond the door.
“I can’t hear anything,” she
whispered.
“I need to pee,” Lise announced.
“Yeah, me too,” Charlene said.
Johno pushed the door open wide enough for the others to step inside.
“Come on then.” Grasping the edge of
the door, Johno held it open, “Riley, find a piece of wood or something that I
can wedge this open with.”
Riley
followed Charlene and Lise inside, Dave moaned as he bumped against the door
jamb.
Moving around the door, Johno’s fingers slipped on the
door’s rough edge, he jerked his hand back with a yelp. The door slammed shut
with a dull boom.
“The fuck man?!” Riley cried out.
“Fucking thing is on springs,” Johno
shook his injured fingers and winced at the blood welling from the tips.
Flicking the torch up they could see dusty lengths of cord that went from the
top of the door to a patch on the wall.
“Open it man,” Riley was whispering
again.
“The torch, give it,” Johno snatched
the light from Charlene and played it over the inside of the door. There was no
handle, no visible latch and no way to open it. The door sat snugly in a
recessed frame.
“Fuck,” Riley said, lowering Dave to
the floor where he stared at the opposite wall with glassy eyes.
“I need to pee,” Lise reminded them.
“Come with me baby, we’ll find a
bathroom,” Charlene took Lise’s hand and reached for the torch. Johno casually
pulled it back against his chest and gave her a look that dared her to try and
take it from him. Charlene sighed and started down the hallway, with Lise in
tow, using the fading light of the torch behind them as a guide.
“Now what the fuck do we do?” Riley whispered.
“If anyone was here, that noise would
have brought them out. We check the place out. Let the girls and Dave get some
sleep. We work out what to do in the morning,” Johno waved the torch around the
hall, sending shadows scampering up the walls.
Charlene and Lise moved closer
together, both silently shying away from the walls. Ancient yellow paint had
bubbled and peeled away from the walls in ragged strips of damp decay. The bare
wooden floors had a soft bounce to them.
“Mind your step,” Charlene warned,
“Floors are rotten, could give way if you’re not careful.”
The first two rooms the girls passed were empty, the doorof
one hung from a single twisted hinge. The second room had no door at all. The
bathroom was behind the third door. Charlene flicked the light-switch, it
clicked and somewhere she heard a muffled clank, but the room remained dark.
“Mum, it’s dark,” Lise said.
“I know,” Charlene stared hard,
willing her eyes to adjust and see if the floor was safe, if the room had a
toilet. “Your eyes will adjust, just move carefully. I’m here with you babe.”
Lise started singing, her small voice
trembling and breathless as she carefully shuffled forward into the dark
bathroom. Grey shapes, like rocks emerging from mist, came into view. “The
toilet’s in the corner sweetie. I can see it in front of you.”
“What if there’s no paper?” Lise’s
voice quavered.
“If it’s just pee, that’s okay,” Charlene
said.
“Eww, gross,” Charlene could almost
see the scowl of disgust on her princess’s face. She heard the rustle of the girl’s jacket and the
creak of the old toilet seat settling under her slight weight, followed
a moment later by a delicate tinkle.
“There’s no paper,” Lise said with an
accusing tone.
“Pants up, mum needs to go too,”
Charlene felt her eyes widening, the slight reflected light from the torch
moving out in the hall helped her find the way to where Lise was studiously
tucking her shirt back into her jeans.
The bathroom stank like a dried up
riverbed where the mud hadn’t quite withered into rock and living things still
lay buried, waiting for rain in the damp muck beneath the crust. Charlene glanced into
the toilet and her throat went dry.
The only water in the bowl had come
from Lise, it glistened like dew in the spider webs that criss-crossed the
bottom of the toilet. In the dim light Charlene couldn’t tell if there were things
moving down there. Long-legged, hairy things that were even now climbing out of
the pitch-black hole behind the webs, tasting the salt and life that had rained
down on them.
The urge to go clenched Charlene’s
abdomen, she took a shallow breath through gritted teeth, imagining, for a
moment, breathing too deep and inhaling a dangling spider. She shucked her
pants down and hovered over the cracked wooden seat. The need for relief
burned, but everything had clammed up. All Charlene could see in her mind’s eye
were large spiders delicately climbing up their silken threads until they could
touch her bared skin with their long hooked legs.
Johno and Riley laid Dave out flat, his breath passing in
rapid faint wisps. Untying the cloth tied around Dave’s
thigh they both saw the wound blush with fresh, oozing blood.
“Is he gonna make it?” Riley asked.
“Dunno,” Johno tied the rag tight
again, ignoring the quiet whimper that came from Dave. “We wait till morning,
see how he is then.”
They stood up, the girls were still
in the bathroom, Johno scanned the walls with the torch. No signs of anyone
living here. Just dust turned to grime by trapped damp.
“Stupid place to build a house, on
the southern side of a hill like that. It must get bugger all sunlight,” Johno
had worked as a builders labourer; he fancied himself an architect, engineer,
and master builder.
“They shoulda put those windows in the roof,” Riley said.
“Yeah, skylights. And open the place
up a bit during the day. Let the air circulate.” Johno led Riley down the hall,
the third door was half closed, and he could hear Charlene talking softly to
Lise, who sounded like she was singing that way she did when scared.
“Wonder if there’s any food in here?”
Riley pushed on a closed door, twisting the handle he shoved it a couple of
times until the door popped open and he stumbled into the room. Riley screamed,
he screamed like the pigs on Johno’s uncle’s farm screamed when ten year old
Johno jabbed them with the electric prod.
Riley kept screaming, his arms
flailing, blood began to drip and splatter across the floor. Johno stared into
the room, the torchlight illuminating a forest of dangling threads, as thick as
rain drops, hanging from the ceiling. At the end of each line, all at different
heights was a fish hook. Riley had stumbled into the thick of it and was snagged in a dozen
places. Every second he thrashed and struggled caught more of the
shining barbs in his face and arms.
“The fuck…” Johno managed. “Riley! Stop moving! For Chrissakes!” Riley subsided into blubbering whimpers. Johno hissed as
he crept forward, the swinging fishing line and hooks catching his skin. In the
torchlight he could see that Riley was caught bad. Hooks were buried deep in
his face, neck, hands and arms. One had pierced his nostril and another had his
eyelid stretched out into a tiny pink tent. Blood dripped everywhere. Riley’s
exposed eye darted around the room in terror. He couldn’t blink, the other eye
was screwed tightly shut. Johno lowered the torch beam and reached out a hand.
“Easy mate… Some sicko’s idea of a
joke eh? Just hold still.” The hooks were in past the barb. Johno had never
been fishing; he eased a hook back through the reddening skin on the back of
Riley’s hand. It slid out easily enough, until the barb caught and Riley
shrieked through his clenched teeth.
“Hold still for fucks sake!” Johno
grabbed Riley’s hand and felt the curved talons of metal slide under the flesh.
The barb caught every time Johno tried to twist and slide the hook free. In
frustration he squeezed Riley’s hand tighter and tugged. The skin ripped, blood
welling up as the hook popped out.
“That’s one. Maybe a dozen more to
go,” Johno said grimly. Riley started crying.
*
Something touched Charlene, she
sprang up from the toilet, jerking her jeans up and dancing in a tight circle
at the same time. The light from the hallway went out with a scream. The plunge
into total darkness felt like dropping through sun-rotted ice on a frozen pond.
“Lise? Lisa? Where are you baby?”
Charlene stumbled forward, her hands outstretched, eyes wide and blind in the
dark. She could hear the girl’s soft voice singing, rising and falling on a
whisper of melody. Something touched her hand, and Charlene instinctively
reached, spreading her fingers. Instead of Lise’s hand curling around hers she
felt the touch of hooked feet and the sudden scurrying of a nightmare running up her hand and
into the cover of her sleeve.
Charlene screamed. A door closed.
Lise’s song faded with a sigh.
*
“Hold still man!” Johno’s fingers slipped as the steadily
flowing blood made it difficult to grip the small
hooks. Riley kept jerking and every time he did another hook buried itself in
his skin. His lip had been caught and now dragged out like he was pulling a
freak-face. A single hook swung free from Riley’s scalp, a strip of dripping
skin still attached.
The lines waved as thick as grass, the hooks seemed to
curl towards Riley, catching him in ever greater numbers. The blood kept coming,
flowing out of a hundred piercings and pooling on the floor. Johno slipped
again, pushing a hook deeper into the tight meat of Riley’s arm. His friend
moaned in a high-pitched whine and jerked away. A hook dropped onto Riley’s eye
and lay there. The pupil under it contracted and widened, trying to focus on
the curve of gleaming steel.
“Don’t fucking move,” Johno
whispered, his bloodied hands shaking he reached up and touched the line above
the reclining hook. It quivered. Not daring to breathe, Johno slowly pulled the
line away from Riley, the hook sliding across the pulsing eyeball. Tears welled
and surged around the shaft, engulfing the slender metal. Johno raised
his arm, and the hook began to rise until it stood vertical, the bottom of its
curve resting on the darkest spot of Riley’s eye. Under his hand, Johno felt the line jerk, as
if a fish had
taken the bait and was running with the line. Riley
shrieked and tore himself away in a twisting frenzy. Blood sprayed and Johno
stood mesmerized as the soft, dripping globe of Riley’s eyeball swung in front
of him, neatly caught on the hook. Riley howled and twirled blindly. Hook after
hook caught him, the nylon lines curling around him. It was as if a thousand
giant spiders had caught him in their web and were now cocooning him for later
consumption. Johno
stumbled backwards out of the room, Riley came charging towards him. The
torchlight glowed red with the sheen of blood now smeared across the lens and
reflecting the wash that poured from
Riley’s disfigured face. The door slammed shut, blocking Riley from view. Johno
heard a last bubbling scream and then silence.
“Charlene!” Johno screamed. Not hearing a response, he tried the door she had disappeared through. It wouldn’t open but he
could hear the scratching sound of nails or
hooks clawing at the wood from the other side. The walls closed in, Johno
felt the air wheeze out of his lungs, staggering down the hallway he blinked in
surprise. Where Dave had lain there was now a wide swath of red, a Dave sized
paintbrush, dipped in blood and dragged along the floor. The torchlight
followed the trail up the wall where it ended at eye level. It looked as though
the wall had swallowed Dave whole.
The money bag lay where Riley had
dropped it just inside the front door. Close to panic, Johno howled and punched
the nearest wall. The plaster didn’t crack or flake. Instead it felt like he
punched a hard mattress. His fist sunk in slightly and when he pulled his hand
back, the indentation slowly swelled out of existence.
“What the fuck is going on!” Johno yelled at the ceiling. He jabbed at the wall again,
burrowing his fingers into the soft material, pulling and plucking at it until
tufts of it came away with a soft ripping sound. Under the surface the wall was
matted fibres; soft, white, and sticky. Tearing at it he pulled enough of the
strange stuff away to shine the torch into the dark cavity behind the wall. There was little to
see, another wall of what looked like rock, or bones, all draped in
thick blankets of cobwebs. Normal enough for an old house, he supposed. Though what
a spider found to eat in the wall space of a building like this was anyone’s
guess. Johno tugged on the fibrous matting, it felt slick as silk under his
hands. He had to put the torch down to get a good grip on it and try to pull it
away from the wall. The stuff was denser than fibreboard, he wondered if it
might be some kind of homemade plaster, with coconut matting behind it, or hessian? That shit
could be a real hassle on a demo job. And
what about asbestos?
Determined to get a decent piece for
a closer look Johno slid his hands into the dark hole, reaching for a grip on
the back of the plaster. Something pricked against the back of his hands, then
came a sensation like tugging on his fingers. The biggest spider Johno had ever
seen walked up out of the hole and stood on the backs of his wrists. His
instinctive reaction was to jerk backwards, to shake the damn thing off. But
his hands couldn’t move. The spider’s eyes glittered in the off cast
torchlight. Johno strained backwards putting as much distance between his face
and the thing now casually strolling up his arms as possible.
“Get the fuck off-a-me!” he yelled.
The spider tilted forward, its hind legs wringing against each other, softness
like cold candy-floss settled on Johno’s wrists. Within moments the tickling feeling
spread as the spider moved around his arms, in its wake a trail of white
webbing cinched tighter against
Johno’s skin.
Now it was his turn to whimper, Johno
had seen smaller dogs than this thing that was now industriously binding his
arms. As the feeling faded from his hands and fingers, still trapped somewhere
inside the wall, Johno heard a faint rustling. Twisting his head he leered,
wide-eyed in terror as
the
walls opened up and cat sized eight-legged monsters appeared through the walls, popping out from behind webbing disguised as
panels and doors along the hallway. Johno started screaming as the first of the
spiders reached him and started climbing his jeans.
