Creepers

19

The sound was like wet cardboard being torn. As Vinnie fell, his arms shot up, his flashlight flipping away. He screamed. Something crashed below him.

Balenger charged toward the open door and dove, landing on his stomach at the entrance to the murky room. The impact sent his hard hat clattering along the floor, its light twisting in sickening angles. He grabbed Vinnie's knapsack where it had caught the edge of a jagged hole in the floor.

Vinnie moaned.

The splintered boards collapsed. As Vinnie plummeted, Balenger tightened his grip on the knapsack, the force of Vinnie's fall dragging him toward the hole.

"Cross your arms over your chest!" Balenger shouted. "Tight! The knapsack! Keep the straps from slipping off your shoulders!"

In a frenzy, Vinnie clamped his arms across his chest. Balenger felt him trembling, felt the force with which Vinnie pressed the straps close to him.

Something crashed downward. Vinnie's headlamp pierced the shadows of the room into which he'd stepped. The floor was a rotted, gaping crater. The crash had come from a bureau falling through and smashing on the floor below. In turn, that floor gave way, its furniture cascading lower.

The floor under Balenger's chest began to buckle. His body slipped forward. "Bob! Get over here! Grab my legs! I'm sliding in!"

He heard the professor's heavy footsteps rushing toward him. At once, he felt thick fingers squeezing his ankles, trying to hold him.

Vinnie squirmed, his legs flailing, desperate to find something to support his feet. Another board gave way, repeating the dull wet cardboard sound. Vinnie jerked lower, forcing Balenger's arms into the dark, widening hole. A damp, moldy smell rose.

"Stop moving!" Balenger yelled. "For God's sake, keep still!"

"Gonna fall! Gonna fall!"

Now Vinnie's headlamp showed a gloomy four-poster bed moving. The floor buckled, the bed plummeting, crashing into the darkness below.

Vinnie's struggling weight dragged Balenger closer to the widening hole.

"Bob, hold my ankles harder! I feel your hands letting go!"

"Trying! Can't help it!"

"Lie on my legs!"

"What?"

"My legs! Lie on them, damn it! Your weight will keep me from sliding in!"

Balenger felt a crushing impact on his legs. He winced from the pain, but at least he was no longer being dragged into the hole. The light from the professor's headlamp glared past, revealing the crater. Only Vinnie's head showed. Meanwhile, Balenger's own head was almost in the hole.

"Vinnie, listen to me! I can get you out of there!" Balenger said.

"God, I hope."

"Stop squirming! You're making things worse!"

"Stop squirming," Vinnie told himself, trying to calm his frenzy.

"Count from one hundred backward."

"Why would I-"

"Just do it. Concentrate on the numbers. One hundred. Ninety-nine. Ninety-eight. Do it! Ninety-seven."

"Ninety-six. Ninety-five. Ninety-four."

Slowly, breathing hoarsely, Vinnie managed to still his body.

"Good," Balenger said, his arms aching. "I'm going to twist you around so you're looking up at me."

Balenger shifted his arms to the left, causing Vinnie to turn sideways to him. Balenger's left arm took most of the strain. He had to lean farther into the pit in order to give his right arm the leverage to help. Despite the chill of the hotel, sweat trickled down his face. "That's as far as I can turn you!" The strain on Balenger's muscles made him grit his teeth. His voice echoed into the pit.

"Don't let go," Vinnie said.

"I promise." Balenger couldn't hold his grip on the knapsack much longer. "Can you see my left arm?"

"Yes." Vinnie's voice trembled.

Balenger studied the way Vinnie clamped his arms across his chest to keep the knapsack from slipping off his shoulders. Vinnie's right hand was pressed against his left shoulder.

"Raise your right hand. Grab my left arm. It's just over your shoulder."

"Can't," Vinnie said. "I'll fall."

Balenger struggled to keep his hands from slipping off the knapsack. "No. You won't fall. Let's do this another way." He didn't say "try" to do it. "Try" implied weakness. "Try" suggested possible failure. Every word had to involve a command that left no doubt of a positive outcome. "Keep pressing your right hand against your left shoulder. Release it just enough to slide it farther up your shoulder. Toward your neck. The straps won't slip off."

"Scared," Vinnie said.

"This is almost over. Do what I tell you." Balenger's arms were in agony. He felt the professor's weight on his legs. "Pay attention. Slide your right hand up your shoulder toward your neck."

Vinnie obeyed.

"Do you feel my left arm?"

"Yes." Vinnie's voice quivered.

"Turn your body. Keep sliding your hand until you grab my arm."

"Do it! You're almost out of there!"

Balenger felt Vinnie's body turning slowly to the left. The strain on his arms was almost unbearable.

"Got it," Vinnie said breathlessly.

"You're doing great. You're almost out. Now I'm going to shift my left hand up the strap on your knapsack. I have to do it slowly so I can keep my grip on it. Okay?"

Vinnie's voice sounded terribly dry. "Okay."

"At the same time, move your hand down my arm. At one point, our hands will touch. Grab onto my wrist."

"Wrist."

"You're almost out of there, Vinnie." More sweat dripped from Balenger's face.

"Got it. I've got your wrist."

"Hang on tight. I need to let go of the strap so I can grab your wrist."

"Holy Mary, mother of…"

Balenger felt Vinnie clutching his left wrist. At once, Balenger released his left hand from the knapsack and grabbed for Vinnie.

For an instant, Vinnie dropped. He moaned. Then Balenger had him, although the sudden movement caused Vinnie to sway.

"No!" Vinnie said.

"It'll stop. It'll stop!" Balenger said. His right hand felt tortured as it continued to grip the knapsack.

Vinnie's body again became still.

"Hold my wrist as hard as you can," Balenger said. His right hand could no longer bear the strain of the awkward angle that Vinnie's position forced on it. "Good. As hard as you can. Now raise your left arm. Not much. Just enough so I can hook my right hand under it. I need to release the knapsack."

"No."

"We can do this, Vinnie. You're almost out. On three, I'm going to release my right hand from the knapsack and grab your left arm. Are you ready?"

"I…"

"You'll soon be up here with me. Ready? It's going to happen on three. One. Two."

"Three," Vinnie shouted, and gripped Balenger's wrist with all his might.

Balenger's right hand shot from the knapsack and drove under Vinnie's left arm. The effort pivoted Vinnie so they faced each other.

"Bob!" Balenger yelled. "Can you pull us up?"

The professor tried, breathing heavily. "I… No. Not two of you. I don't have the strength."

"Vinnie, try climbing up my arms."

"Can't."

Balenger thought frantically. "Okay, we'll do something else." Keep it positive, he thought. His voice was hoarse. "I'm going to roll sideways to the right. That'll pull up our arms on the left. Get your elbow over the rim of the hole. I'll keep rolling sideways while you squirm up."

"I'll try," Vinnie said.

"No," Balenger said. "You're going to do it. You're getting out of there!"

Racked by the effort of holding Vinnie's weight, Balenger rolled slowly from his stomach onto his right side, his left shoulder threatening to pop from its socket.

"Yes," Vinnie said. "My elbow's over the edge."

"Higher." Balenger gasped. "Get your knee over."

"Can't."

Suddenly, headlamps and flashlights charged at them.

"Holy…" The voice was Rick's. He grabbed Vinnie's arm.

Thank God, Balenger thought, his heart pounding with relief.

"We heard noises from the walkie-talkie, but we couldn't figure what was happening!" Cora yelled. "We ran up here as fast as we could!" She tugged at Balenger, pulling with the professor's help.

Five seconds later, Vinnie lay on the floor, shaking. "We did it. No, that's wrong. You did it," he told Balenger.

"We all did," Balenger said.

"Thank you." Vinnie had trouble speaking. "Thank you, everybody." He turned his head, studying the hole, and squirmed farther from it. His chest heaved with emotion.

Balenger continued to lie on the floor, catching his breath. He pulled a water bottle from his knapsack, took a long drink, and handed it to Vinnie.

"My throat's so dry, I don't know if I can swallow." But once Vinnie started drinking, he couldn't stop. Water trickling from his mouth, he finished the entire bottle. "Never tasted anything so delicious."

"What happened?" Rick shifted carefully toward the hole. He gripped Cora's outstretched hand so he'd have support if the hole opened wider. He aimed his flashlight into the crater. "There's a faint light down there."

"My flashlight," Vinnie said. "I dropped it."

"Every floor collapsed," Rick said. "The furniture's in a heap all the way at the bottom. Smells awfully damp."

Rick stooped and pulled a chunk of wood from the edge of the hole. He eased away, returning to the group. "The wood's soft and pulpy." He raised it to his nose. "Smells like an old basement."

"From rot," the professor said. "The roof must have a leak. When it rains or snows, water seeps down through this column of rooms. After more than thirty years, one step from Vinnie was all it took to make the supports give way."

"Maybe it's a good thing we can't get into the locked room," Cora said. "It's next to this room. Maybe the floor in there is rotten, too."

"Still didn't find a key?" Balenger rose to a crouch, then stood. His arms, shoulders, and legs ached.

"No key," Cora said.

"You're a handy guy to have around," Rick told Balenger. "You know about locks."

Balenger started to say "Not really," but Rick continued.

"You have quick reactions. The height didn't bother you."

"Because I couldn't see the bottom. Anyway, when I was a teenager, I did a lot of rock-climbing."

"Me, too. Where'd you go?"

"Wyoming."

"The Tetons?"

Why is he asking so many questions? Balenger thought. Does he suspect I haven't been telling the truth? "They're out of my league. The Grand in particular scares me. No, I took a course from a wilderness survival school. It's in Lander near the Wind River range."

"Sorry, everybody." Vinnie struggled to his feet.

"Sorry about what?" Balenger was glad to change the subject. "You couldn't have known the floor was rotten."

"What I meant is…"

Their lights showed a wide, dark stain on his jeans, all the way from his crotch to his left ankle where he'd urinated on himself.

Embarrassed, Vinnie tried not to look at Cora.

"In your place, I'd have done the same," the professor said.

Vinnie peered down at the floor.

"Speaking of that problem…" Balenger took the empty bottle from his knapsack. "In all the excitement, it almost happened to me. If you can bear to be away from me for a while, I'll find some privacy down that corridor."

"Not too far," Conklin said. "We've learned a lesson about separating. Stay close enough so we can see your lights."

"After you're finished, maybe we'd all better do the same thing," Rick said.

Balenger picked up his hard hat, adjusted the light on it, and put it on. He walked to the corridor, scanned his flashlight along it, and proceeded cautiously, testing the floor. Past a tarnished elevator door and a dusty table with a cobwebbed vase on it, he stopped in the darkness and holstered his flashlight on his belt. In the illumination of his headlamp, he unscrewed the bottle and urinated into it. He knew that the corridor's echo carried the liquid sound he made, but he didn't care if the others heard him.

As he screwed the cap on the bottle, he heard faint conversation from around the corner. Then he heard a slight thump in the opposite direction and aimed his headlamp toward the gloom at the end of the hallway. Doors stretched along each side. The angle of his light created shadows that made the doors seem slightly open. He set down the bottle with his left hand and used his right to lower his Windbreaker's zipper. He reached under the fabric and circled his fingers around a Heckler & Koch.40-caliber pistol in a shoulder holster.