A Year of Stories

Monsters on the Stairwell

The worst part is that I can hear them.

I can hear their footsteps above me – the clicking – that hard, sharp sound, the one that means they're searching.

It won't be long now, but I knew that from the beginning.

I keep telling myself that I'm brave, that I'm not hiding here in the cold and damp, that I'm steeling myself for battle. That five, ten, twenty minutes is all the time I need to be ready to face them.

It has been an hour, and I haven't moved.

It's not that I'm afraid, what can they do to me that hasn't already been done? What can they take that hasn't already been taken?

No. I'm not afraid of pain, I'm not afraid of words – what scares me – what keeps me in this concrete pit, are the looks.

You know the ones – those animal expressions they give – pity and that dull, packaged sadness. You stand there and stare into their eyes, and all you can see staring back at you is a carnival mirror reflecting grief you no longer feel.

...

They're banging on the door.

It's locked but they'll find the key soon enough.

Why can't they just leave me alone?

Are they already done with my wife?

When I left, I told myself that she can deal with them. She has always been the stronger one, the one to face down the monsters and turn them away.

I want to believe that's why I left her up there, alone.

I want to believe that she isn't terrified.

I want to believe that somehow, some way, she will overcome, even as I wallow here next to a water heater and rat-chewed mattress – praying that they don't find me and drag me back upstairs.

I would tell you that I feel shame, but that would require me to feel anything at all.

All I can "feel," is the animal need to survive, that clawing drive to get through the day.

I know that if I can just do that, then maybe I have a chance, maybe I really can make it.

If I can survive the day, then perhaps I can survive a week, a month, a lifetime. Perhaps I can find the light on the other side of this Hell.

But first, the day....

...

Who am I kidding?

I am afraid.

I'm afraid, and not just because of their looks.

I'm afraid because I know that if I go up there, if I open the door and face them, then all of this will become real.

This nightmare, the devils that are circling my soul will become real, and I'll have to accept that my life will never again be free of them.

...

A noise.

The door opens.

There is only one set of footsteps coming down the stairs.

It's dark though, maybe they won't see...

Stupid, of course they will.

Her eyes find me, curling up in the corner of the basement, trying my best to blend with the shadows.

In the dim light streaming in from the doorway, I can see tears on her face but no hate.

She has always been the strong one.

She steps towards me and I stand, she wraps her arms around my shoulders and I begin to cry.

I can feel her heart beating against mine.

She steps back, handing me a sheet of paper with his name on it.

In Memory.

"It's time," she says, "come upstairs, your son needs you."