Phobic (9 page)

“Piper, I’m not leaving till you tell me.”

“Don’t say that,” I plead, but it’s too late. A scraping sound comes from somewhere behind me, like someone dragging an ice pick across the wooden floor. Shivers tack down my spine, and a few books plunge from the shelf of their own accord.
Slam! Slam!

More books slide out, each one hitting the floor in succession, their unnerving crashes seeming to slap my skin. Loose pages fly into the air, and books pile as they commit suicide from their shelves.

Crunching sounds come from below, racking the house with a terrifying noise like a cross between a groan and a scream. The noise escalates with dynamo effect, until it rumbles the floor beneath my feet. I shriek. The floorboards behind Todd break away like pieces of an ice cream cone and leave a jagged hole, as if an invisible wrecking ball has dropped from the ceiling and torn a chunk of the rug away with it.

“What was that?” Todd asks, stepping back. “Piper, seriously, what’s going on?”

“Wait!” I yell, but it’s too late. He loses his footing and falls through the crater in the floor with a yelp.

“T
odd!” I cry, squinting down through a haze of dust and the gaping hole in my floor. It’s dark; I can hardly see his outline on the ground at least fifteen feet in the basement below. Arms quivering, I gape around the once-again calm room.

The floor
opened up.
Bared its jaws and swallowed him. Beads of sweat slick beneath my clothes.

“Ugh,” he grunts in response. I jerk to my feet. A grunt—that means he’s alive. Oh my gosh, I just had that thought. At least he’s
alive
?

I dart past the hole, nearly tripping on the pile of capsized books, and make my way through the landing. I pause at Joel’s door, half expecting him to open it. He had to have heard
something
. I should go to him, get his help. But the last thing I want is to admit Todd snuck in—or that he’s now in one of the places we’ve been forbidden to go.

I’ll just get Todd and boot him out. Joel will never need to know.

I round past the entryway and Dad’s library just down from it, through the archway into the kitchen, until I make it to the door across from the china hutch. To the stairs leading to the basement.

Designs etch and swirl on the door’s surface, mocking my thoughts, taunting me. I take in waves of ragged breaths while Dad’s rules spin in my brain, along with that confusing apology he’d given me just after shoving me against the wall.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” Dad had said, pushing his glasses up. “I’d like to show you what’s down here, just once. That way you’ll never have the desire to come down and see for yourself.” He knelt again. “I meant what I said, Piper. After today, don’t ever go down here. Ever.”

I nodded and took his hand. Together we climbed down the steps. We stayed along the walls, never venturing into the rooms, though he took me to each mostly empty space, flipping on lights. His palm slicked mine with sweat, and though his grip pinched my fingers, I sensed his unease and held tight, as if the second I let go I’d be swallowed up in whatever he feared down there.

Wiping my palms on my jeans now, I stare at the narrow, carved door, at the low brass knob that reaches the level of my hip instead of the easy level of modern doorknobs. The idea of Dad’s rules dumps cold all over me, especially because I’m about to break the first one.

No going into the basement.

But I have to help Todd.

The door gives off a lazy whine. I stand at the brink, staring down the wooden flight of steps. While the rest of my house looks as perfectly preserved as the day it was built, the basement is dusted with cobwebs and has a musty smell. The air chills instantly, and I place my foot on that first stair. It gives a little under my weight.

I can’t do this. I
have
to do this.

“Todd?” I call. Each step I take only hitches my lungs higher in my throat. We never dug for a basement when we moved the house. One day it was just there.

The large room is exactly how I remember it. Bare, except for the old iron stove. Dark and dank, the concrete floor riddled with cracks like lines on a map. My fingers make a slow journey down the banister. I wait for the house to do something else, to ward me away. But my heart flapping in my chest is the only thing moving right now.

I reach for the metal chain and click the naked light bulb on. It swings, shifting a dull, yellow glow around the low-ceilinged, damp space. A single set of wooden shelves resides at the far end, supporting nothing but an old pair of metal roller skates, the kind people used to tie to their shoes. The kettle-black, wrought iron stove looms in the corner, and my chest seizes. Like I’m afraid it will come to life.

Aside from mold covering the walls, a black shaft peeks in the opposite corner. The space surrounding it is stained black as well, and I realize what it is. An old coal chute.

The simple room branches off and leads to more darkness in the right-hand section of my house, completely shadowed like a cave. It’s the segment that would be beneath my bedroom. A soft crinkling noise comes from its direction.
Dang it, Todd, why do you have to be in the dark part?

I move through the dingy light toward the murky area, taking deep breaths. Faint fingernails trickle down the center of my back with each step, tethering my skin. One foot in front of the other across the open space, keep my glance straight. In and out. Breathe. Get Todd and get out. Get Todd and get—oof!

My hips collide against something I can’t see. Several clanging noises join the impact, like knives being clinked together. My hands shoot forward on impulse and hit a definite, icy surface. Chills spear up my arms. My eyes see nothing in the grimy light besides the bare cement floor, but there’s something
there.

A wet surface. My fingers are red.

“This is how things are,” says a female voice, and I stumble backward.

“Who’s there?” I say in panic. “Who said that?”

A cold giggle rides on the air, hitching up the hairs on my arms. “Todd? Where, please Todd, where are you?”

A grunt answers with almost physical force. I bust out a wail, turn and dash up the stairs in a mess of flesh and clumsy steps. I’ll get Joel. Call the police maybe. But I stop halfway up, panting in the cool musty air. Todd is down here—I won’t just leave him.

Holding down bile, I wipe what can only be blood on my pants and stick close to the walls just like I’d done when Dad took me down here years ago. I wind my way through the narrow room, trying to peer through the shadows lingering from the single bulb, until a slim beam of light from the hole in my bedroom above illuminates Todd’s body. He landed on several squishy sacks and two huge stacks of folded-up cardboard boxes. Propped up on his elbows, he coughs a few times.

“Oh man. Todd!” My body feels numb, but I force myself to his side.

“What was that?” he asks, running a hand through his hair. It tumbles back into his eyes and the light casts shadows on his body. The garbage bags beneath him crinkle with his movements.

I decide to play dumb, like before. “Your foot slipped. Are you okay?”

His brows rut and he looks all around like he sees something that isn’t there. “That!” he says, pointing at me. “That’s what I mean. Stop this, stop making stuff up.”

“I’m—”

“Want to tell me how we ended up in your basement?”

The memory of that girl’s voice haunts me, along with that invisible, bloody table. I push it down and try to think fast. “What are you talking about? You wanted to look for a flashlight down here.”

“Stop it. Just stop. I’m not stupid, Pipes.” He raises a hand to the back of his head. “I could have sworn things started…and the floor just…but it’s not possible.”

“That’s your problem,” I say. “You won’t believe me even if I tell you.”

Thank goodness he didn’t break his leg. He’s lucky he didn’t directly hit the concrete. I try to force myself to move slowly, but it’s similar to walking away from a snarling pit bull instead of running for your life.

I peer behind my shoulder. Any second whoever that voice belonged to is going to appear, all gaunt-eyed and haggard, and slit our throats or something.
Come on, let’s go, let’s go!

As if he has all the time in the world, Todd looks to the exposed piping above him, and sure enough the floor has repaired itself so there’s no hole at all. The auto-repair is nothing new to me; my house does random stuff like that all the time. I wish he’d hurry.

“Can you walk? We should—”

I yank his arm, frantically scanning the darkness but taking in nothing. Feeling anything but reassured, I tug harder until Todd stumbles into me.

“What the heck?”

“Let’s just get out of here,” I say, pushing his bulk. He veers to the center, but I ram him into the concrete wall, nerves sparking like they’ve been plugged into an electric outlet.

“Geez,” he mutters. “You know, you never told me you had a trap door in your bedroom too, Pipes. That’s the only thing I can think of that would make this make sense right now.”

“Todd—”

“You seriously need to get that thing hammered shut. Talk about a safety hazard.”

“Shh.” I shove him along the wall to the creaky stairs. Panic infuses my lungs, propelling my feet, but Todd seems to feel the need to lug along like a rowboat. Our slow progress is torture. Any second the basement will grow hands and snatch us back, trapping us forever.

I bully Todd into the kitchen. My palms clam over with sweat against the wood, and I take a few shallow breaths and slam the door, blocking the basement just as Joel steps into the kitchen.

Aw crap.

He stops, and the fury on his face is so distinctly like my father’s I recoil. I expect him to yell, but his voice is deadly soft. “Mind telling me what you think you’re doing down there?”

I open my mouth, only to close it again. I know what this looks like. Todd and me sneaking off in the middle of the night.

“Go home, Dawes,” Joel barks, though his eyes stay right on me.

Todd ducks his head down and glances over his shoulder before shuffling toward the back door. He has a slight limp and keeps a hand to his back.

Aside from those kids who’d followed me home, the house has never hurt anyone before. I’m stunned it took the floor right from under Todd. Figures that he would think it was just a hidden hatch or something, although why he’d think I have one in my bedroom floor is beyond me. And Joel, I should have just gone to him. I should have gotten his help, because now this looks like I’ve gone behind his back.

Joel’s nostrils flare like fish gills, and I follow him into the dining room. He clicks on the light and pushes aside a stack of depositions on the table beside the pile with the newspaper article on top. He must be in the middle of a big case.

I wonder if Joel knows more than he lets on, if Dad told him more than he told me. Or maybe Joel is just as in the dark about things as I am. I rub my hand on my pants, feeling the sticky residue of blood. Gick. I have no idea where it came from, but I’m not sure I want to know.

He doesn’t say a word. Just glares at me. I’m not about to wait for the lecture.

“Why don’t we ever go in the basement?” I ask.

“So you
were
down there.”

He only saw us come up out of it. “Dad took me down once, but he had to like,
lead
me. And then when I was down there just now—”

Joel exhales loudly through his nose and tilts his head back. “You know better than that. Dammit, Piper. Dad had strict rules.” He holds up his fingers and tacks them off with his other hand one at a time. “No going in the basement. No opening the door behind his desk.”

“Yeah, but Dad was just anal. He didn’t really care about us. And Todd—well, Todd…” I know Joel will believe me. I still have a hard time forming the words. “The house like, made a hole, and—”

“I don’t care if he’s dead now, Piper. You stick to those rules, or so help me…” Joel is panting, and his finger is a sausage in my face. I smack his hand away. I suddenly want to smash my fist in his beak.

“You think just because you’re my
guardian
now that you can tell me what to do? This is my house too, Joel.
My house.
”