The sound of my cellphone vibrating against hardwood jolted me awake. Though it’s a no-brainer to tap that moon icon before going to bed, I was always overcome with this petty little fear that it would silence my seven o’clock alarm. Safe to say that, at 3 AM, I was regretting it.
With blurred and sleepy vision, I felt around my night stand, my fingertips eventually making contact with the quivering cellphone. I turned the screen toward me and squinted from the bright light. The caller ID read unknown. My inclination was simply to ignore it and hope I could fall back to sleep. But I was awake and might as well have answered it. Besides, who in their right mind was calling at the witching hour? I swiped the little phone icon to the side and pressed the cellphone to my ear.
“Hello?” I mumbled.
“Hello.” The voice on the other end was male. Sounded like a guy in his twenties.
“Yes?” I replied.
“Is this Olivia Bennett?” the voice asked.
I delayed for a brief moment but realized if he got my number, he was likely sure I was Olivia Bennett.
“It is,” I said.
“I’m sorry to bother you at this time of night,” said the voice.
“It’s…”
I was about to say It’s okay, but I stopped when I realized it certainly wasn’t. When morning came and I had to drag myself off to work, it would be nothing short of unbearable.
“Who’s calling?” I asked.
“Again, I do apologize for calling at such a late hour,” the voice said, “but I couldn’t risk calling you at a time that someone else may be present.”
I sat up, intrigued. This suddenly felt rascally and dangerous, and for a moment I forgot to even care who was calling.
“Oh?” I uttered, keeping the ball firmly in his court.
“As for who’s calling,” the voice promptly continued, “that, I cannot say.”
“Why not?”
“Because.”
“All right, then, Mr. Stranger. What can I do for you?”
Static filled the air for a moment. I wondered if he was still on the line.
“There’s nothing you can do for me,” the voice continued. “In fact, I’m calling because I’ve got some information for you.”
“Which is?…” I asked, growing impatient.
“I knew your father, Roger Bennett.”
The blood in my veins ran cold for a split second. My father, a wealthy stock broker, had died several months earlier. He and I hadn’t been on speaking terms for a little while, mainly due to his refusal to spare a few of his millions. I had always asked him why he was so obstinate, so keen on not sharing the wealth, to which he would reply with a lecture on how a family fortune is gained and lost in two generations. No matter how many times I told him that I would refrain from splurging an inheritance on frivolous purchases, the stubborn bastard just wouldn’t hear it. He had strived for years before reaching the top of the ladder, and he would be damned if he watched one of his kids kick back on a beach and call it a life.
“Seriously?” I replied.
“Yes,” said the voice. “My regards on his passing.”
“Thanks.”
“Be that as it may, I am going to tell you something that you may not want to hear. Your father was no straight arrow.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean is he was a bit of a scammer. Now, this isn’t to take anything away from his accomplishments as a broker, but I’d be lying if I told you he gained all his fortune by, uh…playing by the rules.”
“What’d he do?”
“He scammed people out of their money. Ever heard of the pump-and-dump?”
“The pump-and-dump?”
“It’s a kinda scam… anyway, doesn’t matter. Listen up. ” The guy took a deep breath. “There was a significant portion of his money he never laundered,” he said. “Means cash. And he had it squirreled away where no one could find it.” I was sure as hell paying attention, now.
“The money wasn’t moved before he died,” he continued. “Still in the same spot it always was.”
“How do you know this?” I interrupted.
“Again,” he replied, “that’s really not something I can say. Whether you believe me or not, that’s your business. Just passing along what I know.”
“If you know where the cash is,” I said, “why haven’t you taken it?”
“Number one,” the voice said, “I don’t need it. Two, it’s dirty money, which is a risk that someone who doesn’t need money…doesn’t need to take.”
“I see. So, where is it?”
“At his old house, upstairs. There’s a hidden compartment in one of the bedrooms.”
“Which bedroom?”
“Don’t know.”
“How much money?”
“Enough to flip off your boss, that’s for sure.” I paused to think for a moment. This was lunacy.
“Like I said,” the guy continued, “if you don’t believe me, it’s your business. But, if I were you…let’s just say it can’t hurt to check and see if I’m right.”
And just like that, the guy hung up the phone. I laid there, baffled, even forgetting to take the phone away from my ear. One phrase kept repeating in my head, over and over: dirty money, dirty money, dirty money. It wasn’t easy to grasp the idea of my father being a criminal, but it also wasn’t completely implausible. Wall Street is notorious for foul play, and besides, my dad was a money-hungry shit. But more importantly, could I really take dirty money? For a split second, the thought of possessing illegally obtained money unnerved me. However, my fear was soon completely wiped away when I thought of work in the morning.
I worked a desk job, and it sucked. Must I go into more detail? My boss tried to tell us to be passionate about the company. Passionate? I did not even like it, not even a little. Every day I would sit at my desk and think that maybe if I were hotter I could marry some rich guy and hang out by the kidney-shaped pool for the rest of my days.
So, here at 3:05 AM, my options were thus: sleep in and then go on a scavenger hunt for a hidden fortune, or lie down and toss and turn, hopefully squeezing in a few hours of sleep so I could at least function at my shitty job in the morning. This, clearly, was not a difficult decision.
While I did end up getting around six hours of shuteye, I was, unsurprisingly, not able to sleep in past nine o’clock that morning. My brain, which was preoccupied with thoughts of cold, hard cash, snapped me awake and jolted waves of energy through my body.
Money really does make the world go ‘round. Money makes feet move, is what it does. And my feet moved fast, carrying me out of bed, over to my dresser to grab some sweatpants and a t-shirt, and down the stairs where I could grab a hearty breakfast of OJ and a protein bar to go. My feet hadn’t moved this fast at this time of day in some time. I didn’t even bother calling work to tell them I was sick. I could only interpret this as a sign that, deep down, I truly believed this mystery-man’s story about the hidden jackpot in my old house.
I bet I still have the key, I thought. Or rather, I hoped. It had been a while since I had even thought of needing the key to my dad’s house. I looked around my apartment, hammering away at my mind as I tried to remember where I put that thing. I ended up finding it at the bottom of one of my dresser drawers, buried under some underwear.
I hopped in my car and floored it. Not five minutes passed before my cellphone began buzzing atop the passenger seat. I glanced at the screen. It was the workplace. I uttered out a little screw-you giggle as I flipped my cellphone facedown.
The phrase that the mystery-man had used on the phone kept repeating in my head: enough money to flip off your boss. I pictured walking into work, grabbing my stuff, and saying something cocky as I extended my middle finger. Or, better yet, maybe I just wouldn’t show up ever again. After all, the stuff on my desk consisted of a couple framed pictures, a jar of pens and pencils, and a few things like a telephone and a computer that were owned by the company. Yeah, I thought, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll ghost ‘em. I thought maybe I’d keep count of how many times my place of work called, all while I was kicking back on a beach somewhere, silently thanking that mystery man. Now, this was all very overconfident thinking. After all, it could have turned out there was no money. But this mystery caller knew my name, he knew my father’s name and his profession, not to mention his criminal activities. There had to be truth to this.
My father’s house was about a two-hour drive from my place, over in a wealthy suburb in Atlanta, Georgia. My kid brother, Sammy, and I grew up there. It was a nice, sheltered sort of childhood. We played outside a lot, mostly riding bikes and building tree forts. All of our childhood friends either lived on our street or the one next to it. On the other side of our street, behind our house, was a forest, which had a pond and a few generators that powered all the lights. I’ll never forget this awesome tree fort my brother and I built back there. We used a bunch of branches, leaning them up against a tree in a row around the trunk, leaving a space for the entrance. It was the last happy memory from my elementary years, because a few days after that, I never saw Sammy again. We never found out what happened, but I always suspected it had something to do with those damned woods. He always used to mess with me about those woods.
“I’m gonna go to the woods at night, when it’s dark!” he would declare while bravely puffing out his chest. I would always giggle and tell him that he didn’t have the guts. I guess he did.
I was soon snapped out of my thoughts when I pulled up to our old neighborhood. I had not been here in years, but I still remembered the code for the gate. When you’re in high school and you go to class and live the same day over and over again, like Groundhog Day, motions like punching in a code became robotic.
Soon, I was driving down memory lane. I passed by houses, some of them housing people I knew, some of them not. Some of them used to house people I knew, but those people had since moved. As I drove through, I reminisced about Halloween as a kid, and how on that night each year, the streets were flooded with a river of costumed children. I remembered how with each passing Halloween, as the neighborhood’s current generation grew older, less and less costumed children would be out trick-or-treating.
I pulled up to my old house. Though I should have grown only more nostalgic as I gazed upon the place I grew up in, my sentimentality slowly oozed away as the thought of money popped back into my mind. Today was about the future, not the past. This was ghost money, it had no destination, and no one was looking for it. Granted, someone was missing it, but likely no longer looking.
I hopped out of my car and walked briskly up the driveway. Sentimentality struck again for a brief moment as I watched dead autumn leaves blow across the lawn, reminding me of how my brother and I used to rake them all up into a gargantuan pile and then nosedive into it. It then hit me that it was late-October. I pulled out my cellphone and checked the date: October 31st. I giggled to myself, imagining buying a lifetime supply of Halloween candy with all the money.
I walked up the doorsteps and peaked through the window. The place was empty and lifeless. It almost felt wrong looking into it, strange as it sounds. But then…more thoughts of money.
I unlocked the door and opened it. I stood in the doorway for a moment, taking it in. The second I stepped forward and entered, the familiar smell of the house entered my nostrils. During October, there was usually a candy corn fragrance in the house, emanating from these orange Halloween candles we would set on the table. But not this year. There was only the house smell. Unhesitating, I ascended the stairs.
At the top of the stairs, I peered down the lengthy hallway. At the end of it was the master bedroom, dad’s old room. That, I figured, was the most likely place for the money to be.
I walked down the hallway, continually glancing over my shoulder, which I soon realized was a bit silly. After all, if a ghost lived here, it would be my dad’s ghost. I wondered what I would say if his ghost showed up. More pressing, I wondered what he would say when he saw me holding the money. Would he be angry, or would he smile and wish me the best with my newfound fortune?
I entered my father’s bedroom. The place smelled like mothballs. My aunt had come and stripped everything away after he died, so the room was barren. I looked around and tried to think of the most well-reasoned place to look. This house was big, but at least the mystery man had narrowed it down to a bedroom.
I approached the closet and opened it. It was a large walk-in closet, and it made me think of how our dog used to curl up on a pillow in the corner. I looked around the barren closet, but all that was there were four walls and a roof, plus an empty dresser. I thought to move the dresser aside, placing my hands on it and inching it away from the wall. That’s when I saw the gleam of a metal surface. I pushed the dresser more, ignoring the possibility of it falling over from my impetuous shoving.
And there it was. Behind the dresser was a vault door, built into the wall itself. It was about the height and width of a mini-refrigerator. I excitedly crouched down, but quickly realized that it needed to be opened with a code. The numbered buttons stared at me, almost taunting me for thinking I was about to get my hands on any money. I tried to jog my memory, thinking back to significant dates.
I tried my dad’s birthday. It didn’t work. I thought some more, racking my brain. Then it hit me. Eleven-twenty-one…my parents’ anniversary. My dad used it as the passcode for almost everything. I punched in the code. To my greatest elation, I heard the locks click, and I ripped the door open.
I peered into the dark void beyond the vault door. I couldn’t see a thing, so I pulled out my cellphone and turned on the flashlight. All that laid beyond the vault door was a five-foot compartment, completely empty, save for some dirt and dust. Goddammit, I thought. At that moment, I was certain someone else had taken the money. Perhaps my aunt knew about it. There had to have been money at some point. This mystery caller told me about it, and then here was a secret compartment.
After sulking in defeated fashion for a moment, something caught my eye. At the back of the compartment, about five feet beyond the entrance, was another door. This one was a wooden door, sort of like the small door on the back of a house that leads to a crawlspace. I’ll admit, this seemed strange, at first. But then I realized it made sense. Embezzling money on Wall Street was a surefire way to have the FBI busting down your door, so it was only natural for this money to be hidden behind layers of security. Although, I must admit, a simple wooden door was a bit on the nose.
Using my flashlight, I crawled into the compartment and toward the wooden door. I crept through at a quick pace, feeling claustrophobic in the tight area. The wooden door was closed with a simple hook through a metal loop. I unhooked it and pulled the door open.
I peeped my head through the small doorway. I wasn’t sure if what I was seeing was real. I was looking at another home inside our home. Beyond the doorway was a long, dark hallway. Faint beams of light seeped through a crack in the ceiling, but beyond that, the hallway had no windows or lights at all. The floor was smooth concrete, covered in a layer of dust. The walls were made of wood, the kind that gave you a splinter just by looking at it. The hallway stretched on for about thirty feet. And, as you may have already guessed, there was a door at the end of this one. But this door was a regular door.
I was frightened, at first. How bizarre that I couldn’t even think of how this hallway could fit within the architecture of the house. My dad’s room was upstairs, so this wasn’t underground. If this hallway stretched on for thirty feet or so, why was there not a thirty-foot protrusion on the side of the house?
Enough money to flip off your boss. That phrase popped back into my head. I was no longer sure that it was welcome, but it popped in. It was stuck there on loop, and it wasn’t going away. The temptation was strong. That money was close.
After a moment of gazing down the corridor, I worked up the courage to crawl forth. I wormed through the tight space and got to my feet and took a deep breath. The hallway was unbelievably musty. I pinched my nose and shined my flashlight and walked forward. Halfway down the hall, a sudden noise startled me and caused me to stop. The noise was a little scurrying sound. The pitter-patter of tiny rat feet, I reckoned. I pressed on.
At the end of the hall, I placed my hand on the doorknob. I wondered what was beyond this door. My mind juggled a mix of fear and tenacity.
I turned the doorknob and yanked the door open. At first, all I saw was darkness, but my eyes quickly adjusted. What I was looking at was actually a pitch-black wall. But as I further scrutinized, I realized there was something off about it. This wall was not made of wood or brick or concrete. This wall was oily and…slimy. It looked almost like latex, or dare I say, flesh. I peered in through the doorway. I looked left, I looked right. On either side, there was an entire tunnel lined with this slimy stuff. As I continued to examine the walls, it seemed as if the material was lightly pulsating. Or more like breathing.
As my heart fluttered and I began thinking of getting the hell out, I noticed something on the ground about ten feet to my left. I knew what it was before I had even gotten a good look at it. A wad of money, wrapped in a currency strap. Like a moth to a flame, I immediately walked through the doorway and tiptoed to it, stepping onto the slimy, pulsating surface. The ground squelched with every step I took. I bent down and picked up the wad of cash. The currency strap was a mustard orange and was marked ‘$10,000’. I stared at the cash like Gollum at the ring, running my fingers through it like a flip book. It felt sublime just to hold it.
Ten-thousand was enough for a year’s rent, but allow me to quit my job, it would not. The rest had to be here. Most people may have been frightened off by the sheer peculiarity of these tunnels. I was frightened of working a nine-to-five the rest of my life.
As I walked through the tunnels, I continued to run my fingers across the edges of the dollar bills. Each time I flipped through the stack, the air would fan my face, and it made me think of how I could soon pay somebody to fan me on a hot summer’s day.
I arrived at the end of the tunnel. Here was a chamber, lined with the same gelatinous materials. The chamber was about the size of a standard bedroom. I shined my flashlight into the room and saw a duffel bag at the back. This must be it. This was the money I had been dreaming about since 3 AM, my mouth watering each and every time I imagined getting my hands on it. I walked forth, bent down, and unzipped the bag. There was a mountain of cash inside. I let out an excited yelp as I stared at it. There were countless wads of cash wrapped neatly in those colorful currency straps of yellow and pink and blue. Smiling wildly, I shoved my hands into the bag and immediately began rummaging around, scooping up wads of cash and letting them fall back into the bag as if I were scooping water from some fresh spring in the ground.
I tossed the cash I had found on the floor into the bag and zipped it up and threw the strap over my shoulder and got to my feet. The second I did this, I began to notice a strange and constant squelching sound coming from the very room I was in. More specifically, it was coming from the wall straight ahead. I shined my light on the wall, and what I saw next frightened me to my core.
Something was emerging from the wall, a mass that was the size of a human being. It was rising like pizza dough, but remained shapeless. Before I had time to turn and run, the mass began to take a humanoid shape. And then, to my greater horror, a sapient arm burst out of the wall. The skin on the arm was pitch-black, just like the tunnels. At the end of this arm was a clawed hand, black talons protruding from the fingers. The claw reached sideways and sliced away at the outer “skin” of the wall.
My eyes widened as the most grotesque of humanoid creatures emerged. It was a demonic being with a pitch-black body and a sickly, skeletal face. But what caught my attention the most were those eyes. The eyes were as a snake’s, yellow and devilish, the kind that could catch you in a horrified trance if you looked into them for too long. The teeth, like a shark’s, rows upon rows of jagged rippers. It had decrepit harpy wings on its back that didn’t look capable of flight.
The demon fully emerged from the wall and just stood there, staring me down with a look of ire. The thing was leering at me as if I had done something punishable by death. I was frozen. Not a muscle on me so much as twitched as I stared back at the demon. The thing stood still as stone. It didn’t even respire. A few moments passed, and the demon’s mouth began to upturn into a grin. Its grin soon became a full-blown, toothy smile.
I felt the adrenaline kick in and I turned around and bolted through the tunnel. The duffel bag was still strapped around my shoulders. If it hadn’t been secured then I likely would have dropped it. For the first time since 3 AM, I wasn’t thinking about the money. I kept sprinting through the tunnel. Then, to my horror, I dropped my cellphone, which was also my light. The place was pitch dark, and I surely would not have found the door without a flashlight. As I bent down to pick it up, I noticed something that was as peculiar as it was frightening.
Down the tunnel, back in the chamber where I had found the duffel bag, was the demon. It was just standing there, continuing to stare me down. It had never even attempted to chase me, as I had expected it would. This entire time, I assumed it was right behind me, ready to pounce and do its worst. But no, that abomination simply stood and leered. I picked up my cellphone, and as I did, the demon exited the chamber and hanged a left down one of the other corridors, disappearing. And that was when I realized that this place was a labyrinth and I didn’t know where I was. I panicked as frightened whimpers escaped my dried mouth.
I frantically twisted and turned, trying to piece together where I had and hadn’t been, but it was no use and I knew it. As I pivoted my head this way and that, I heard the echoes of the demon’s horrible growl bouncing off of the slimy walls of the endless labyrinth. It was a deep bellow, like a silverback. That thing was hunting me and it wanted me to give it chase. Its echoing growls soon slowly faded into a deep and menacing voice. I still couldn’t see the demon, but I could hear its voice echoing through this maze, jumping from wall to wall and making its way to my ears.
“That doesn’t belong to you,” it said. “You knew it wasn’t yours”.
My blood ran cold and my heart stopped. It had lead me here. I no longer felt an urge to beg or anything of the sort. It was my doing, not the demon’s, that I was here. I had brought this upon myself. It wasn’t even a spur of the moment decision. I drove hours to get here, to get my hands on money that did not belong to me nor belonged to my father.
But I didn’t take the time to unstrap the duffel bag, even though the heavy thing slowed me down a bit. It was the icy hands of my own greed that still had a hold of me. I ran frantically through those tunnels that twisted and turned like the body of a massive python, and the growls and the taunts of the demon continued to echo throughout. Panic continued to sweep over me, and every few moments, I thought about stopping and just succumbing to the demon, allowing it to put me out of my misery just so I didn’t have to feel this terror any longer.
I stumbled around that labyrinth for hours, though how many hours it was, I cannot say. I wondered why the demon hadn’t taken me already. It surely knew its way through the place. That beast must have fed off of my terror. I tried to call someone numerous times, but my cellphone had no service. And all the while, the bag of money stayed strapped to me. Part of me would like to say it was because that, in my terrified state, I forgot it was there. But there was still a part of me that could not let it go. Hours more passed. I prayed and prayed, wept and wept.
“Olivia!”
After hours in those hellish tunnels, a voice echoed. But it was not the demon’s, at least not his deep voice. It was a voice I recognized but hadn’t heard for a very long time.
“Olivia!”
There it was again. I knew that voice anywhere. That voice called out to me several more times. I followed the sound. As I did, I glanced down at my cellphone. Five percent battery life. Just a few more minutes and I would be in the dark forever.
I continued to follow the sound of that sweet and innocent voice that I hadn’t heard for many years. Of course I wondered if this was a trick, but I had nothing to lose. I ran through the tunnel as the voice grew louder. It was not far, now. And then the voice entered my left ear. I turned, and to my left was a small jail cell, like a dungeon. Tentacle-like bars covered the doorway. I shined my light through and my heart broke instantly.
Inside the jail cell, looking just as he did when he was nine years old, was my little brother Sammy. He was curled in a fetal position in the corner of the cell and his face was grimy and bruised and gloomy. When he saw me, however, his face lit up with a childlike sense of desperation, like a preschooler who’s mom had just arrived to pick them up from school.
Sammy crawled to the doorway of the cell and placed his hands on the bars and looked at me. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I approached the bars of the cell and squatted down and stared into Sammy’s baby blue eyes. He was still wearing the dinosaur pajamas that he was wearing the night he went missing. I had forgotten about those dinosaur pajamas. Sammy used to love to count the different types of dinosaurs that were pictured on them. I believe he had counted six.
“S-Sammy,” I uttered, the sound just barely escaping my mouth.
“Olivia,” said Sammy, as he stared back at me.
My lip quivered as I tried to find the words to say. I felt as though I had a million different questions to ask him and a million more things to tell him.
“Sammy, what happened?” I asked.
“Charlie told me I could have that wallet,” said Sammy. “The one that Miss Sally lost, and I gave it back to her, even though I wanted the money. Charlie said I could have it.”
“Who’s Charlie?”
Sammy’s glance down the tunnel was all I needed to know. It was a strange name for a demon but it didn’t make him less unnerving. I remembered what Sammy was talking about, too. With the wallet. Our neighbor Sally had lost her wallet after coming to our house for dinner. What was worse, it had $50 inside of it. When Sammy found it between one of our couch cushions, he wanted to pocket the money. But my good little brother Sammy, sweet as he was, returned it that very same day without so much as a dollar missing.
“Charlie told me I could have the fifty bucks,” Sammy repeated, tears welling up in his eyes as he began to choke up. “I know I did something bad. It wasn’t mine.”
Sammy’s face winced as he started to cry. I cried, too. But I wiped the tears from my eyes and began thinking of how to get him out.
“I’m gonna get you out, okay?” I said.
Sammy somberly shook his head. I looked at him, confused.
“Sammy, it’s okay,” I said.
“I can’t,” said Sammy.
“Yes, you can. We’re gonna leave, okay?”
“It’s too late.”
I contemplated this with despair. I reached forward through the bars of the cell, attempting to touch Sammy’s face. My hand just passed right through. This was his spirit, no hope of walking back into the world.
“Oh god, Sammy.”
Sammy glanced at the duffel bag. He looked into my eyes and then at the duffel bag and then back at me again. I felt ashamed.
“You can free me,” said Sammy. “You have to escape Charlie.” Sammy pointed at the duffel bag.
“But you have to let it go,” he continued. “You have to let it go, Olivia. And you have to let me go, too.”
I reluctantly removed the strap from my shoulders and slowly pushed the duffel bag aside. I looked back into Sammy’s eyes and I knew that this would be the last time I could. Sammy smiled as he seemed to recall something of a cheerful nature.
“Remember that fort we built in the woods?” Sammy asked.
“Of course,” I replied.
“Do you think it’s still there?”
Sammy’s eyes were filled with childlike wonder. I do not think he realized how long he had been here. I didn’t know what to say, but as I watched the unworldly glee fade slowly from his eyes, I quickly concocted an answer.
“Yes it is,” I said firmly. “I looked. It’s still there, Sammy. It’s still there.”
At that moment, Sammy beamed a satisfied smile and looked to be at peace. Those sweet baby blue eyes looked as content as they did when we built that fort all those years ago. And then the echoing roar of Charlie snapped us both out of our sentimental bliss. Sammy’s eyes turned wide and frantic.
“Quick, you have to go!” Sammy said in a hushed tone. “If you escape, it’ll break the cycle. You’ll free my soul! Go!”
“How do I get out?” I replied, just as frantic as he was.
“Keep going down this tunnel, take a left, the doorway will be on your right after you take about twenty steps.”
I nodded my head, looking into Sammy’s eyes one last time. “I love you,” I said.
“Go!” he replied.
A horrible reality suddenly dawned on me as I looked down at my cellphone. The battery was on two percent. Time to go. I stood up and gave Sammy a last glance and bolted off. Charlie’s ravenous snarling was growing louder by the second.
Doing exactly as my brother had said, I ran down the tunnel and kept my eyes peeled for the left hand turn. All I had to do was find the left hand turn and then the doorway. Twenty steps. That’s what Sammy had said. Only twenty steps and I’d get to the doorway, which was on the…right side? At least, I thought he had said right.
As Charlie’s roaring grew uncomfortably close, I came across the left hand turn. But just as I hung the left, my cellphone died and the flashlight went out. I began to panic, but I quickly remembered what Sammy told me. Twenty steps. I counted fast in my head.
One, two, three…
Charlie’s growling grew louder. I was sure he was coming upon the same left hand turn that I’d just taken.
Four, five, six, seven…
That demon’s bellowing sounded almost like the growling of a hungry stomach, amplified as it shot through the airwaves of these musty tunnels.
Eight, nine, ten…
Halfway there.
Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen…
Now, I was sure Charlie had taken the left hand turn. Not only was its growling unbearably close, but I could feel its hot breath gusting against the back of my neck and it sent a snakelike shiver down my backbone.
Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen…
So close I could taste it. I could sense Charlie’s presence just ten or fifteen feet behind me. The demon was now excitedly whooping like a circus animal. Whether or not I escaped, one thing was for certain…the hunt was almost over.
Eighteen, nineteen… twenty!
I threw myself to the right and made contact with the slimy wall. I frantically began feeling around for the door, shimmying down the wall as Charlie began to close the gap between us. I could see his yellow eyes, which glowed in the pitch darkness. They were all I could see. And those devil eyes were now almost in front of my own. I screamed out in terror as Charlie’s eyes and jagged teeth made their way toward my face. Just as they did, my hand found the doorknob. I turned the knob and pushed. Light flooded the tunnel as I fell backward through the doorway, back into the musty hallway that at least wasn’t made of flesh.
But Charlie wasn’t done. I got to my feet and began running down the hallway. Charlie entered the hallway and continued his pursuit. He began to run along the wall like a lizard chasing a bug. My eyes locked onto the opened wooden dog door at the end of the hall.
I dove for the door and knocked the wind out of myself in the process. My head now poked through the small doorway, but as I crawled through, I felt Charlie’s claw grab my ankle and begin to pull.
“Get back here, you whore!” Charlie bellowed, his voice carrying a hint of desperation. “Don’t you want the money?!”
“NO!” I shouted back, wrenching my ankle from his grasp. As I frantically crawled through the doorway and back into the crawlspace, I heard Charlie utter a scream of pure agony. It was over. Using my foot, I slammed the wooden door shut and thus Charlie’s agonized scream was blotted from existence.
I quickly crawled toward the doorway of the crawlspace. The light that poured in from my father’s walk-in closet was ecstatic and so was the breath of fresh air I took once I crawled out of the vault. I got to my feet and slammed the vault shut. I was panting like a dog. The room was spinning and it felt like what had just happened didn’t actually happen. As it turned out, enough money to flip off your boss wasn’t worth it.
I got out of that house as fast as I could. I stepped out onto our old back porch. The sun was setting now, and that crisp autumn air had gotten a bit colder. I savored it though, and as I took in a deep breath that smelled of fallen leaves and pine, I stared into the depths of that forest behind our house. And as I did I thought of the tree fort and how Sammy thought that it was still there.
But I knew the truth. We had built that fort out of branches and logs that weren’t long for lasting. Truth was, I didn’t need to check. That fort had long since rotted away, eaten up by the woodlice and the carpenter ants and bees. But I smiled anyway, knowing that Sammy found peace in the thought that it still might be there.
As I walked around to the front of the house, I grew somber as the concern of the unknown shrouded me. Sammy had told me that escaping would break the cycle, but I had no way to be certain that Sammy’s soul was free.
When I walked out in front of the house, I almost couldn’t believe my eyes. An absolute ocean of costumed, trick-or-treating children filled the streets. A new generation of kids occupied the neighborhood that Sammy and I once claimed as our own.
As I stood there in awe, I saw an apparition that brought me peace. Walking among the trick-or-treating children was Sammy, wearing his old Superman cape and carrying a pillowcase that was already half-full. I watched as he and a 10-year-old me galloped across a neighbor’s front lawn, ready for the next offering of Halloween candy.