The Meridians(102)

But she cast that thought out of her mind. Pushed it to the back, to the dark spaces in her brain where misty mountains and bone-cracking cards cast long shadows in the dim and threatened to become monsters in the basement of her own heart.

She flicked on the basement light. She moved urgently, quickly, as though speed of limb would cast out unease of mind.

"Look," she said, and gently drew the nearly struggling Sean with her partway into the basement.

Light flooded the place. Laundry. Food storage. Tools hanging neatly from racks.

And Sean's marble, clearly visible in the dead center of the clean basement floor.

Dead center, she thought, and shuddered within herself. The monsters in the dim parts of her mind rasped and writhed.

Again, however, she pushed them out of her thoughts, feeling a bit silly about the irrational fear that was suddenly beleaguering her. There was no place to hide in the basement. No shadows, nothing remotely creepy about the place.

She pulled her son back with her into the kitchen, feeling him relax, until....

Click. She turned off the light again, then gestured for her son to try. "Now you," she said. Sean tensed immediately, his small muscles going rigid under the lightweight cotton of his T-shirt. "Go ahead," she urged. "There's nothing down there, honey."

He looked at her, and she was dismayed to again see tears shimmering at the corners of his eyes. But she steeled herself and continued. No son of hers would be driven by fear the way she had been for so much of her adult life. No boy of hers was going to have to be beholden to his own terrors, was going to walk in the shadow of anguish, unable to break into the sunlight that came once you exhibited courage in the face of fear.

She guided his hand forward, forward, forward. She let go, and was relieved to see that, though his lip trembled and his arm shook, he kept reaching, reaching, reaching for the light switch.

She could see him feeling along the wall. She was proud of him.

The monster must be asleep.

She pushed the thought down, where it joined with the other unbidden and unwelcome thoughts in her mind.

Sean looked at her for encouragement.

She smiled.

And then screamed as her son fell

(no pulled, he was pulled, oh God and Jesus something pulled him)

into the basement.

Amy-Lynn reacted instinctively, barreling into the doorway before the first scream came, but as fast as she was the door was faster, moving on well-oiled hinges and slamming shut in front of her.

She heard her son, screaming on the other side of the suddenly closed door. She heard the click of a latch engaging, and shook the door handle even though she knew it would be a futile gesture. When it was locked, as she had somehow known it would be, she barreled into the door, pounding at it maniacally with all the force she could muster, listening to her baby boy screaming on the other side.

She attacked the door, clawing at it like a feral beast. Screaming sounded on both sides of the door now: the panicked shrieks of a boy in terror, and the blood-curdling mews of a mother trying to get to her child.

Mother-screams, child-screams, and the door was buckling and shaking, incredible violence causing it to quiver on its hinges, and Amy-Lynn could not be sure if the shaking was because of her or because of some other terrifying, unknown force on the other side of the door.

She kept clawing at the door, at the door jamb, at the doorknob, frantic, the movements sending shocks of sound through the house as her panic-soaked muscles worked frenzied music on the wood and metal.

Then she slowed as she became aware of another noise, one underneath the sounds she was making. Low, guttural, growling. The sound of damnation come to visit.

And at the sound, the doorway splintered as something hit it from the basement side. Something powerful. Deadly.

Sean stopped screaming. Suddenly. Forever.

Amy-Lynn redoubled her efforts, trying to get in, to break in, to find her way in to her boy, to her baby.

She couldn't do it.

But still she tried, until exhaustion drove her inexorably to her knees in front of the door, a weeping mass of threadbare muscle and pain-ridden mind.

Then....

Click.

The door...

...swung...

...open.

Amy-Lynn looked into the basement. Only a few moments before it had been clean and inviting, full of light and the easy order of a house well kept. Now, it was dark. Dim. Frightening.

Amy-Lynn looked into the basement, trying to pierce the darkness with eyes weary from screams and tears.

She looked into the basement.

And finally, she saw.

And began to scream.

And was still screaming three hours later, when Ron came home to find her curled on the floor in front of the basement, shrieking and screaming and praying to God to send her back her son.





ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Michaelbrent Collings is a lawyer, screenwriter, black-belt martial artist, father, husband, and has a killer backhand on the badminton court. He has written several other books, has published dozens of articles on several continents, and is currently writing a number of television shows and movies. He has a Facebook page, and if you search for "Michaelbrent" on Facebook you'll find him, guaranteed (like it or not, there is only one "Michaelbrent" in the whole world). Or, if you wish, you can follow him on Twitter by following mbcollings.

He also has a website and blog at michaelbrentcollings.com, and double dog dares you to check it out.