Dismember

THIRTY

Trevor sat on the pile of blankets with his arms wrapped around his knees, watching Zach go through the clothes in the closet and occasionally touching his forehead, which had finally stopped bleeding but still hurt worse than any headache Trevor had ever had.

“Anything good in there?” he asked.

Zach shook his head. “Some of this stuff looks like it’s a million years old.” He pulled out a funny looking shirt with stripes. A boy’s shirt, but too big for Trevor. Maybe it would have fit Zach. Trevor wondered if there was a kid living here with the crazy man, if maybe he had a son or a little brother or something.

“Old clothes aren’t gonna get us out of here,” Trevor said and frowned at the shirt.

“Nope.” Zach returned the shirt to the closet and closed the door.

“Maybe you should try your mommy’s phone again.”

Zach looked like maybe he thought that was kind of a dumb idea, but he reached into his pocket for the phone and pulled it out anyway. It was as red as a dodge ball or Superman’s cape. Zach turned on the phone and stared at the screen. The phone beeped once, and Zach’s eyes opened wide, but then it beeped again, and he frowned.

“I had one bar for just a second,” he said. “It’s gone now.” He watched the phone’s screen for another minute, then held the power button again until the phone shut off. He flipped it closed and returned it to his pocket.

“Maybe we should try and get outside,” said Trevor.

“You think?” Zach said, rolling his eyes.

“No,” Trevor said and touched his head. “I mean maybe the phone might work better outside.”

“Well, yeah, it usually does.” Zach came over and sat down on the blankets near Trevor. “But how are we supposed to get out there? We’re locked in here, and there’s no window.”

Trevor nodded and sat quietly for some time. “I’m hungry.”

“Yeah, me, too.”

“I never got my popcorn,” Trevor said. He didn’t want to cry about some stupid popcorn, but he could almost feel it happening anyway.

Zach didn’t say anything, just reached up and touched himself on the forehead.

Trevor leaned back a little, thinking, staring up at the ceiling, and suddenly his eyes widened.

Once, at Daddy’s house, there had been a dark spot on the ceiling in his bedroom, a spot his daddy said was from water damage. His daddy said he was going to fix the spot, but one night, before he could, Trevor was sleeping and some of the ceiling fell down on his toy box and got gray powder gunk on his action figures. Daddy had gotten the mess all cleaned up and the ceiling fixed, but first Trevor had touched the gunk in his toy box, and he still remembered how soft it felt, like wet sand or cookies that were old but not real old. There was a similar spot on the ceiling now.

“I have an idea,” Trevor said. He got off the pile of blankets and moved to the closet.

“There’s nothing in there,” said Zach. “We already—”

Trevor flapped a hand at him. “Just wait.” The closet door swung open, and he smelled old clothes, the smell of garage-sale boxes full of other people’s old, used-up shirts and pants. He reached in and tugged on the first thing his hand touched, a plain blue sweater with a torn sleeve that looked almost big enough for a grown-up but not quite. The hanger holding the sweater slipped off the wooden closet rod, and the sweater fluttered to the floor by Trevor’s feet.

“What are you doing?” asked Zach from the blankets.

Trevor said, “Help me,” and pulled down another piece of clothing, this time a pair of denim cutoffs, the fringed bottoms of which Trevor could only just reach. Zach joined him at the closet door, and together they took down the rest of the clothes, making a pile on the closet floor that came up past Trevor’s knees. When the last item was off the closet rod, Trevor asked Zach to push up on it.

“Why?”

“Just see if it’s loose,” Trevor said, head aching. “We might be able to use it.”

Zach did, and the rod popped out of the plates nailed to the wall on either side of the closet. Zach fumbled with the rod for a second and nearly dropped it, which might have made the bad man catch them, but then he got a real good hold of it and took it out of the closet.

“Okay,” said Zach, “so what are we going to use this for? Bash the guy’s brains in? Ram the door?” He held the wooden pole at his side; it was just a little taller than he was.

Trevor shook his head and said, “Come here.” He led the bigger boy to the other side of the room, to an area just beneath the dark spot on the ceiling, which was a couple of ruler lengths across. “See that?” He pointed up.

Zach looked at the water damage but didn’t seem to understand. He eyed Trevor as if he thought this was some kind of joke, then looked up again. “What?” he finally said. “That stain?”

“It’s not a stain,” Trevor said, meaning that it wasn’t just a stain. “Try poking it with the pole.”

Zach raised the closet rod and touched the gray area with the tip. Some of the ceiling in the middle of the spot flecked away and fell down on the two boys’ heads. Trevor smiled. Then the whole section began to crumble, and it came down on them like dirty, heavy snow. Trevor managed to get his arms over his eyes and mouth before the bulk of the mess came down, but Zach kept his hands wrapped around the closet rod, and he ended up with a whole face full of the crud.

Trevor brushed dust out of his hair and looked worriedly at the door. The falling ceiling hadn’t made a loud sound, but it hadn’t exactly been quiet either. Trevor expected the crazy man to come bursting in, maybe with a 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 worthless without the phone. He’d have been better off escaping a spaceship without an oxygen suit.

He crawled along two of the wooden boards, a hand on each, his knees following right along behind them. The first few crawling steps into the darkness were scary and the next were scarier than the first, but it didn’t matter. He would get out of the house, and he would save them. It was his responsibility. He wouldn’t fail.