The Night Sister

“What’s down there?” Margot called from her post outside. She really was a good sister, Piper thought with a pang of something like regret.

“Hard to tell,” Amy said. “I think there’s furniture. A bed, maybe?” She leapt up, shaking the floorboards again. “Let’s get the ladder. We can use it to go down.”

“Amy,” Piper said, “I really don’t think—”

“You don’t have to come. You can stay up here and hold the ladder.” Amy’s words were taunting. Chickenshit, they seemed to say.

“Of course I’ll come,” Piper said, thinking, I go where you go.

Together, they got the ladder and carefully lowered it down into the darkness, leaning it against one side of the trapdoor.

“I’ll go first,” Amy said. “Hold the ladder.”

She climbed carefully down, testing each step before she put her weight on it.

“Crap,” she called once she was down all the way. “I forgot the light. It’s pitch-black down here. Bring it, okay?”

“Okay.” Piper tucked the plastic flashlight into the waistband of her shorts and positioned herself to start climbing.

“Don’t go,” Margot said from the doorway.

“It’ll be okay,” Piper said, meeting her sister’s eyes. “I’ll be careful. And I’ll be right back. I promise.”

No way was she staying down there long.

Amy held the ladder for her, and, slowly, she made her way down, shin throbbing with each step, until her feet touched the hard cement floor. Amy put her hand on Piper’s back, and Piper jumped.

“Got the light?”

“Yeah.” Piper handed it over, without turning it on. Amy would do the honors.

“Ready?” Amy asked.

Piper swallowed.

“Sure.”

The light came on suddenly, illuminating the room with a dim orange-white glow.

“Oh my God,” Amy stammered.

Piper couldn’t speak. Couldn’t make a sound, even though she felt a silent scream building somewhere deep inside her, coming out through her open mouth in just a sad, moist puff of air.

“What is this place?” Amy’s voice was squeaky and strange, totally unfamiliar to Piper. Then she realized: it was the first time Piper had ever seen Amy truly frightened.

“Everything okay?” Margot called from up above. “What’s down there?”

Piper looked around, scanning the small circular room from right to left. Just to her right was a pair of heavy chains, their ends embedded in the cement wall. Each chain ended in a rusty shackle.

And Amy was right—there was a bed. It was wooden and covered with leather straps and buckles. A mildewed blanket was balled up at the head of the bed.

It’s a torture chamber. Piper wanted to say the words out loud, but couldn’t speak, couldn’t even think clearly. Your grandfather built a torture chamber.

She thought of the serious-faced man she’d seen in all the photos—the army pilot with the Purple Heart medal, father and husband, a man of vision, who had built a motel with a tower.

But the tower had a secret room in the basement.

A secret room for doing terrible things.

Had he taken motel guests down here—salesmen far from home, who would never see home again? She knew there were men who did stuff like that, people like John Wayne Gacy or Ted Bundy. But they were just bogeymen she’d heard about on television, not much more real to her than werewolves or zombies.

Amy gasped sharply, breathed, “Oh, no. Oh, shit.”

Piper wanted to close her eyes and feel her way back to the ladder, up the rungs, and into daylight, to forget all about what she had seen. She certainly did not want to see whatever it was Amy was looking at.

“Look,” Amy said, putting her hand on Piper’s arm, tugging, pointing. Piper reluctantly turned and saw what the flashlight’s dim beam was illuminating.

On the opposite side of the room lay what looked like a pile of clothes. Then she saw the yellow-white gleam of a skull, dried strands of wispy hair, empty black eye sockets.

“It’s Sylvie,” Amy said, voice shaking. “We’ve found her.”





2013





Piper