Dismember

chainsaw.

But nothing came. No stranger. No chainsaw.

He turned to Zach and asked if he was okay.

“Not—” Zach spit on the floor. “Really.” He let go of the pole with one hand to wipe at his dusty eyes. He looked like a ghost, all covered in gray, but Trevor wouldn’t think about that. Ghosts were dead, after all, and Zach wasn’t. Not one bit.

Trevor looked up at the hole they’d made. It was about the size of those holes in the street the Ninja Turtles used to get to their home in the sewers. Above it were two wood boards and some clumps of yellow stuff. For just a second, Trevor imagined he was seeing the hairy bones of some sort of attic monster, and then he shook his head.

Zach was still trying to get the gray stuff off his face. He finally leaned the closet rod against the wall and went to work wiping at his face with both hands.

“What is this stuff?” Zach said, pawing furiously. “I hope it’s not asbestos.”

“What’s that?”

“Never mind.” Zach leaned over and brushed at the top of his hair. The ceiling powder came pouring off and piled on the floor below.

“I think,” Trevor said, “I could get through that hole and in between those boards.” He looked at Zach. “If you lifted me.”

Zach spat again and looked at the hole himself. “I’ll try. But it’s awful high.”

If he could get through the hole, maybe he could escape and try Zach’s mommy’s phone outside. Maybe he could get them help.

“Let’s try,” said Trevor. “We have to.”

Zach wiped one last time at his face and moved back beneath the water-damaged section of ceiling. There should have been more of the yellow stuff up there, Trevor knew. His daddy had told him all about houses and how to build them, and he knew that yellow stuff was probably old insulation. He saw right through the yellow stuff to the roof above, but it was so dark up there he couldn’t really see much more than the darkness itself. It looked scary, and he thought about bugs and bats and spiders, but he had to try, had to help himself and Zach. He had to.

“Okay,” Zach said, cupping his hands and holding them low so Trevor could step up into them. “Let’s give it a whirl.”

“Give me your phone first. I’ll try to call for some help.”

Zach straightened, took the phone out of his pocket, and looked at it for a long time. Trevor thought he was probably remembering his mommy and wondering when he would see her again.

“Be careful with it,” Zach said. “Have you ever used one of these before?”

Trevor frowned at him and said, “I’m not a baby. I know how to use a phone.”

Zach said, “Yeah, sorry,” and handed over the cellular. Trevor slid it into his shirt pocket, where he’d stored the five dollars earlier that day when he’d messed his pants. Thinking about that worried Trevor. Could he really expect to get out of this room, out of the house, and call for help if he couldn’t manage to potty in the toilet like a big kid?

Just an accident, he thought. Happens to the best of us. His mommy had said that, and although he knew she was just trying to make him feel better, that she probably never pottied her pants, that Daddy never did either, he did feel better. He could get them help. He would.

Zach cupped his hands together again the way you do when you’re drinking from the faucet, and he hunched over. “Okay,” he said and lowered his hands. Trevor slid one foot into the finger cup, thinking about the poo on his shoes that morning, wondering what Zach would say if he knew he was touching poo shoes. He grabbed the older boy’s shoulder.

“Kay.”

Zach lifted, making a soft groaning sound. Trevor wobbled, and the two of them started to tip over. He grabbed Zach’s other shoulder and tried to balance. He looked up to the ceiling, and it still seemed a very long way away.

“Hold on,” Zach said. He stood up as tall as he could now, raising his arms almost in slow motion. Only Trevor knew he wasn’t going in slow motion, that he was trying his hardest and only just barely making it. Trevor reached for the hole in the ceiling, stretching his fingers until they trembled, wishing he could fly, the way Superman and some of the X-Men did.

Zach groaned again, louder this time. Finally, his shaking arms stopped moving and he said, “You’re going to have to climb on my shoulders. But you gotta hurry. I can’t hold you up much longer.”

Trevor looked into the other boy’s scrunched-up face and bit his lip. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll try.”

He stepped up onto Zach’s upper arm. The bigger boy winced, and Trevor whispered an apology, but he didn’t stop moving. With one hand still on Zach’s shoulder and the other on the top of his head, Trevor pulled a knee onto Zach’s collarbone.

“Good,” Zach wheezed, “but hurry, please.” Zach pushed on Trevor’s bottom until Trevor had both knees on Zach’s shoulder, then held him steady while Trevor regained his balance.

Trevor had gotten closer to the hole now, could smell the old, dusty smell coming from the space above, but he still couldn’t reach the boards, what his daddy called joists. He looked down at Zach, who was also staring worriedly at the hole.

“You’ll have to stand on my shoulders,” Zach said.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

Zach shook his head. “Just do it. All that matters is you getting out. I’ll be okay. But do it now.” Without waiting, he grabbed Trevor’s legs and started forcing him higher. Trevor got both hands in Zach’s hair and boosted himself up, feeling wobbly, like he was trying to stand one-footed on the top of an extra-tall pole. He knew he would fall over any second and break every bone in his body. He straightened up slowly, letting go of Zach’s head and coming so close to falling that he imagined he felt his face bashing against the floor.

He touched the ceiling. The edges of the gray spot crumbled. He couldn’t pull himself up on that stuff, but if he could just get a hold of the boards above…

“Can you boost me a little more?” he asked, knowing Zach was probably only seconds from dropping him.

“Step on my hands,” the other boy said, and Trevor did. Zach thrust him the extra few inches, and Trevor clamped his hands onto the wood like a mountain climber on the edge of a really tall cliff. Except, Trevor thought, dangling from the joist, mountain climbers have rope and helmets and pads and things. Trevor had only Zach below to break his fall if he happened to slip.

“Now just pull yourself up,” Zach said.

Trevor didn’t look at him, didn’t want to look down. The hole wasn’t huge, but neither was Trevor, and he thought he had enough room to pull up one of his legs and wrap it around the board. That was how he climbed trees. First grab onto the branch, get your leg around it, then swing yourself up.

He tried.

He failed. His leg bumped against the edge of the hole in the ceiling and never made it to the wood.

He tried again, but this time he managed to get the very tip of his knee onto the joist. He quickly dragged the rest of his leg and his foot over the board, careful not to kick through the ceiling on the other side. Yellow fuzzy stuff tickled his nose and got into his mouth. He didn’t think that stuff was very good for you, but he guessed just a little bit wouldn’t kill him. Trevor pulled himself up into the dark space and heard Zach cheering quietly below.

Something tugged at the front of his shirt. For a second, he thought it must be a spider or a bat or some other kind of attic creature, but then he remembered the phone and reached for the pocket just in time to keep the cell from slipping out and falling to the floor.

“—kay,” Zach was saying below. “Get out of here.”

Trevor waited.

“Oh, and if the phone won’t work right outside, get to higher ground. Sometimes that helps.”

“Okay,” Trevor said. He made sure to push the phone deep into his pocket before moving. He couldn’t lose the phone. He’d watched the way they’d come and knew they were in the middle of nowhere. An escape would be