Here I am in this dank, mildewy basement, with the rotted wood frame, creaking under the weight of the old house above me. Here I am, leaning on a metal shelf filled with old paint cans and brushes and pans, my feet kicking a stack of cardboard boxes, each overflowing with yellowing newspapers and lined notebook pages, poking out the sides. Here I am in the dark, surrounded by concrete walls, down the shag-carpeted stairs from the locked and barricaded door.
What had I done to deserve this?
I check my hands. I've found that's the best place to start. Caked in white-gray powder. Thick patches of dirt under my finger nails. There's something dark on my arms...paint? Multiple shades, splashed lengthwise down my forearms, shaped like Bob Marley's hair.
Elbow scratched, bruised. My hands and arms are, too, I realize. I must have fallen down the stairs.
Sneakers? Caked in mud. Thick mud, dried. How long have I been down here?
I hear a creaking, the click of a latch. I look to the stairs, but the sound is coming from above. A door opens in the ceiling, and I squint in the bright light. I see a silhouette of a man.
"So," I call out. "It happened again?"
"Yeah," the voice said. Male, curt, all business.
"You OK?" I ask, because I should.
"Fine," he said. "But that's just me. What do you know."
"Dirt, mud cakes, paint and dust and dirt on my hands."
"Anything else."
"I'm cold and tired and would like to get the hell out of here."
"Unlikely,"the voice said. It must have been bad this time.
"When?" I figured I should sound intereested. I guess I was. The truth was, if I could get him to feed me, I could hang out here as long as I had to. Beats working.
"Don't know yet."
"What happened? Can you just tell me what happened?"
"You really don't know."
"I really don't know." I was starting to get angry. Not a good idea.
"What's the last thing you remember," the voice asked.
"Who are you?" I said, testily. Testing.
"It doesn't matter." Oh well. "What's the last thing you remember?
"I remember arriving at Greenwood. Am I still in Greenwood? Stopped in at this burger place. Sat in the booth by the window. Had a burger and a cup of coffee, a danish and some hash browns. The food was delicious."
"And then?"
"And then I ask for a glass of water. And the waitress comes back, but she's not wearing that little pink and white number she'd been wearing. She's grown four arms, out of her side, like a spider. And her face and body are all hairy. And she's got these sharp needles for teeth and these pincer things sticking out of her mouth. Her eyes are big black goggles, like a bug right? Only giant. And she starts walking toward me, and I realize that the cooks look like this too --just as beastly only wearing aprons and chef hats."
"So what did you do?"
"Well, first I asked for more coffee, but she didn't seem to have any. She said something I didn't understand. I remember I said it again and again, but she didn't seem to understand. The others started gathering around. There must have been dozens of them."
"Thirty-four."
"What?"
"There were 34 people. In the diner."
"Wow, that's a lot."
"Yes. It is a lot." He sounded very grim, kind of mean.
"So anyway, I kept yelling and they all started crowding me, you know? Getting closer and closer."
"Then what happened?"
"I don't know. That's the last thing I remember."
"Convenient."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing."
"I think you can tell me. I think you can tell me now. NOW." I jump. It must be like 12 feet in the air, and I hook my hand around his leg, start scratching at the floor. My eyes are closed because the light is so bright now I can't see a thing, but I can tell this guy's wearing rough cotton-polyester pants and has on tall leather boots. Something hard hits my hand and its slips off his leg. My nails -- long, almost claw-like dig deep grooves in the wood floor. I growl, just to let him know I mean business. But the growl is met with a sharp blow to the jaw, and I fall back down to the floor, knocking over a cardboard box and sending papers scattering all over the floor.
I'm pissed. "Tell me now!" I scream again and again and again until the door until the ceiling slams shut and the latch clicks and I'm all alone again.
Thirty-four. At least I won't be hungry for awhile.
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