crosses. That’s sick.”
The cross was made of wood. The suspended figure of Jesus looked as if it might be gold-plated. Pete reached for it.
“Please don’t,” Jean said.
He looked at her. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, yeah.” Apparently he had just remembered that Jean was Catholic. He lowered his hand. “Sorry. I was just kidding around.”
“Reason prevails,” Barbara muttered. She pushed herself away from the banister and resumed climbing.
She got as far as the landing.
The wood creaked under her weight, then burst with a hard flat crack like a gunshot.
Barbara sucked in her breath. She flung her arms up as if trying to find a handhold in the dark air as she dropped straight down.
Four
“My God!” Pete shouted.
Jean, racing up the stairs, called out, “Hang on!”
“I’m slipping! Hurry!”
Larry dashed toward the foot of the stairs. He didn’t hear Pete coming. “Where
“Get up there and grab her!” Pete snapped.
“Oh shit,” Barbara groaned.
Larry swung himself around the newel post. As he rushed up behind Jean he saw the hazy glow of Pete’s flashlight ahead and to the right of the stairs. Hadn’t the guy moved? Was he still down there in front of the crucifix?
Jean sank to her knees at the edge of the landing.
Barbara, her back to the lower stairs, looked like someone being swallowed by quicksand. She was hunched forward, pressing her chest against the remaining boards, bracing herself up with her elbows.
Jean crawled aside to make a space for Larry, then hooked an arm under Barbara’s left armpit. “Gotcha,” she gasped. “I gotcha. You’re not gonna fall.”
“Are you okay?” Pete called up.
“No, damn it!”
Larry dropped against the landing and stairs, looked down into a six-inch gap between the broken planks and the white of Barbara’s blouse. Blackness.
A bottomless pit, he thought. An abyss.
Ridiculous, he told himself. Probably no more than a six— or seven-foot drop, all told, from the landing to the lobby floor. She was already about halfway there.
What if the floor doesn’t extend under the staircase?
Or she breaks through that, too?
Even if she had only a four-foot fall, she would end up trapped under the staircase. And the broken boards might scrape her up pretty good on the way down.
He squirmed forward until his face met the hair on the back of Barbara’s head. He wrapped his arms around her. They squeezed her breasts. Muttering “Sorry,” he worked them lower and hugged her rib cage.
“Pete!” he yelled.
“You got her?” Pete’s voice still came from below.
“Just barely. If you’d give us a goddamn hand!”
He heard a crack of splitting wood. For a moment he thought that more of the landing was giving out. Nothing happened, though.
“Yah!” Barbara yelped, jerking in Larry’s embrace. “Something’s
“It’s just me, hon.”
For an instant a pale tongue of light licked the darkness beside Larry’s right shoulder. It had risen through the broken boards.
Pete’s under us, he realized.
“How’d you get down there?” Jean asked. She sounded amazed, relieved.
“Tire tool magic,” Pete said. “Okay, I’ve got you, hon. Let’s lower her gently.”
“No no no, don’t! I’ll fall.”
“We gotta get you down outa there.”
“Well, boost me up, okay?” Her voice was controlled, but tight with pain or fear. “If I try to go down, I’ll get wracked up even more.”
“All right. We’ll give it a try. You guys ready up there? On the count of three.”
“You gonna push her up by her legs?” Jean asked.
“That’s the idea. One. Two.”
“Take it easy,” Barbara urged him, “or I’ll end up with a bunch of wood in me.”
“Okay. One. Two. Three.”
Barbara came up slowly through the break as if she were standing on an elevator. Still hugging her chest, Larry struggled to his knees. She swayed back against him. He slid a hand down the slick, bare skin of her belly. She gasped and flinched. Then he grabbed her belt buckle, yanked upward, pulled her hard against him, and she came to rest sitting at the brink of the gap.
“Okay,” she gasped. “I’m okay. Give me a second to catch my breath.”
Larry and Jean held onto her arms.
“All right up there?” Pete asked. The beam of his flashlight swept back and forth through the break in front of Barbara’s knees.
Barbara didn’t answer.
“She’s safe,” Jean called down.
The beam slid away and only a faint glow drifted out of the opening.
“I want to go home,” Barbara muttered. Larry and Jean held her steady while she leaned back and drew her legs up. She planted her shoes against the rim of splintered wood at the gap’s far side.
“
Barbara went rigid. “Pete! What’s wrong!”
“Holy jumpin‘... Oh, man.” Not quite so scared now. Amazed. “Hey, you’re not gonna believe this. Honest to motherin’ God. Larry, get down here.”
“What?”
Barbara leaned forward and peered between her spread legs. “What is it?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“This is no time for games, Peter.”
“You’re just damn lucky you didn’t wind up down here.”
For a moment no one said anything.
Then Pete’s voice came up through the crevice. “You would’ve had company.”
Shivers ran up Larry’s back.
“There’s an old stiff in here.”
He’s kidding, Larry thought. But his body knew that Pete was telling the truth. His cheeks suddenly felt numb. He had trouble getting enough breath. His bowels went shaky. His scrotum shriveled up tight, as if someone had just grabbed it with a handful of ice.
“Oh jeez,” Barbara muttered. Jean and Larry got out of her way as she twisted around, grabbed the banister, and struggled to her feet. They followed her down the stairs. She held the railing and moved slowly, hunched over just a bit. Her blouse now hung all the way down her back.
“I knew I didn’t like this place,” Jean whispered.
