The Girl from the Well

The knife blade sinks into the young woman’s finger. Her screams grow louder.

Just as suddenly, the light above their heads breaks off, shattering. Over the sound of the young woman’s wailing, the Smiling Man is cursing. He fumbles for a lighter that he has set down on the table, a small spark of flame igniting as the burning flint meets a candle. He holds this aloft, raising it up over his head to survey the bulb on the ceiling. He finds nothing wrong with it, except that it will no longer work.

He lowers the candle. He sees the faint outline of the boy on the bed and is satisfied. He starts to turn back toward the young woman, who is still struggling to free herself from her restraints.

Something else blocks his vision.

The Smiling Man finds himself looking at a

woman

on the ceiling. The glow of candlelight catches only her face, her long hair hanging down, and her bright black eyes. She is only inches away, and she

gurgles.

It is the Smiling Man’s turn to scream, and the brief light is suddenly extinguished.

The young woman freezes as noises begin to erupt all around her, the sounds of frantic combat. She can hear the Smiling Man yelling at something to get away, threatening the unseen with death and worse. A table is overturned, and she hears the sound of several metallic objects hitting the floor, scattering. Blows rain down against one wall.

And then there is silence again. The young woman strains to hear more, fearful of the outcome.

Something moves along the floor; more muttered cursing. Another light flickers on, revealing the Smiling Man holding a flashlight he has found inside one of the shelves. His clothes look ripped in several places, and thin, bloody trails mark his chest and upper arms, which he has scraped against his own knives and surgical equipment. He is no longer smiling. He is still sprawled on the floor beside the cot, panting and, for the first time since the young woman entered the tiny basement, afraid and no longer in control.

“What the hell was that?” he snarls. His face is twisting, the mask coming away so that the murderer underneath that gentle, genial facade is finally looking out. “Where are you, you bitch? I’m gonna kill you!” He swings the flashlight around the room, but other than the young woman, still trapped and whimpering, and the motionless tattooed boy, everything is silent. He swings the light up toward the ceiling, but there is no longer anyone there.

There is a cracking sound behind him, and something touches his foot. He looks back.

I am underneath the boy’s cot, watching him with wide, unblinking

eyes.

Shouting, the Smiling Man lunges forward, kicking desperately with his legs, but he continues to be pulled inexorably back despite his best efforts. He lands hard on his stomach and tries to crawl away, but his fingernails only carve deep grooves into the floor, leaving long scratches as he fights, shrill and squealing, and as he is yanked in quick, sporadic jerks underneath the bed, where I

kill him

am waiting

for

him.

The light goes out a second time.

The young woman does not know how long she lies in the darkness, waiting. The Smiling Man has stopped screaming, and silence now takes his place. All she can hear is the house settling around her and the absence of anything else alive in the room.

Her finger stings. She can feel the blood trickling down her hand from the wound. Yet she grits her teeth, muffling her cries as best she can, as she tugs again at the ropes binding her.