The closet where Becca was trapped held every nightmare she’d ever had, plus one that had never violated the borders of her imagination until now.
Outside of the closet, a gas lamp burned in an empty room. The lamp’s unnatural white light and dizzying stink came into the tight space through a crack in the locked door. Sawdust from the unfinished floor stuck to Becca’s sweaty palms and formed a gritty paste. Her breath was noisy and her heart was a frightened cat trying to claw its way out of her throat. If she wanted to avoid a split lip, she should follow orders: shut up, sit down, stay put.
Becca got to her feet and pressed her cheek against the wood, looking through the gap for her opportunity to disobey. To survive. Better to live with a split lip than die without one.
Outside the closet, only fresh floorboards made the burnt-out carcass of a room suitable for humans. It seemed there was no electricity here. There was definitely no heat. For the most part there was fear, and something else that Becca couldn’t name: a sensation that the place was unstable, that the floor might open up and swallow her.
She wrapped herself up in her arms. If she could keep her head, she might be able to see her way out.
Jett, the boyfriend who turned out to be a liar, was gone now. He’d promised her a candlelight picnic and privacy, when what really awaited was a crumbling house and a man who looked her over as if she were something to eat.
That man, who had an unfortunate resemblance to her stepdad, had forced her into the closet. She raked at his grip with her free hand; she kicked at his knees, at his groin, and screamed. But he hefted her in as if she weighed no more than a pair of shoes and he was just tidying up the house. She beat on the door with her fists, and though it rattled, it held firm.
At first she had feared for Jett. Would the man kill him if he didn’t get away? Her eye found the crack for the first time and she looked out—shouting, questioning, pleading—and saw something more terrifying than a murder. Cash exchanging hands. The man gave Jett a thick bundle of bills. Jett caressed those bills, kissed the stack, and left the house without her.
His betrayal silenced her. She pressed her hands to the door, which was now a shield separating her from worse horrors, and wondered if there was a handle she could grip from the inside. Something to prevent the man from opening it. No. The panel was smooth and flat.
But he seemed uninterested. He stood in the shadows of the opposite corner of the room, where the glare couldn’t reach, and studied the illuminated panel of his phone. He tapped, he scrolled.
He said, “You’re not as strong as you think. Accept that as quick as you can.”
She wasn’t sure he was talking to her. The crack in the door put him in a tight frame. He had Hollywood looks equally fit for an unwitting hero or suave bad boy.
He continued, “Things’ll go better for you when you do.”
Slowly she lowered herself to her knees and moved her fingertips over the surface of the ground, searching for something besides sawdust and spiders, something useful for self-defense or escape. A nail, for example, that she might slip between the door and the wall to dislodge the latch.
“What’s your name?”
She didn’t answer. Dust clung to her hands.
“Jett said your name is Becca.”
“Then you don’t need me to tell you,” she snapped. She remembered the fake ID—Jett’s idea, so she could get into his favorite club. The card was still in her jeans pocket. She fished it out, thinking new thoughts about the things he had often talked her into doing there after just a couple of beers.
Today the manager had asked her if she wanted a job.
In the closet, Becca rose from the floor and leveled her eye with the crack.
The man’s eyeball was there, staring into her black hole. She flinched and knocked her head against the underside of a stair. The ID card dropped from her fingers and lightly slapped the floor.
“You’re right,” he said. “I don’t need you to tell me anything.” His words were thick against the wood, for her ears only, though as far as she knew they were alone. “In fact, don’t speak at all. Or I’ll shut you up myself.”
She believed he would.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded of someone else. An unexpected visitor? He moved and the crack filled with light.
“Hey, Uncle Phil.” The voice was thin with undertones of whine, like Becca’s little brother’s. But a kid her age stepped into the skinny view, an athletic boy, all-American clean. She recognized him at once. Brock Anderson. They’d gone to high school together before she dropped out, but she knew him by reputation: star pupil, king of the wrestling mats, and when the adults weren’t looking, the Tom Sawyer of troublemaking.
Uncle Phil? Brock would be no ally of hers. Would he?
Brock took in the run-down room. “When I told you about this place I didn’t think you’d actually be interested. It’s a dump.”
“I’m waiting for someone, and you don’t want to be here when he comes.”
“Was that Jett I saw leaving?”
“As you should be.”
“I need to talk to you,” Brock said.
“We both have phones.”
“I wanted to see you.”
The pair stood on the other side of the gas lamp and faced off like bright halves of the moon. Behind them, the ceiling bent their dark shadows at an aggressive angle.
“You here to ask for money?”
Brock sniffed and looked embarrassed.
“Get out. And don’t ever follow me again.”
“Look, I’m freaking out. I lost my scholarship!”
“Not my fault,” Phil said.
“It wasn’t my fault either. And you know Mom can’t pay for Cornell.”
“No, after her latest incompetence she probably can’t afford a Happy Meal.”
“But you’re rolling in cash. Mom says—”
“Do you think she can say anything that would matter to me?”
“Why do you think I’m the one talking?” Brock spread his hands wide. “Help me out here!”
Taking advantage of their argument, Becca lowered herself to her knees and patted the floor for the ID card. Now was the time to tinker with the latch if it could be done at all.
“I don’t give handouts,” Phil growled.
“Then make it a loan.”
“I’m not a bank either.”
“Then . . . then . . .” Shadows shifted across the crack in the closet door. Becca found the card, slipped it under the latch, looked out through the crack at the two men who faced off, one desperate, one indifferent. The plastic met resistance.
Brock was saying, “Let me work for you, just one year. Now through next summer. Give me something to do. Anything.”
At this Phil’s expression changed from irritated to amused. His eyes darted to Becca’s closet. She snatched the card back to her racing heart.
“You think you can earn enough for Cornell that fast? Just what is it that you think I do?”
“Mom says something criminal.” Brock’s laugh was a snort. “Not that you care what Mom thinks.”
“Anything successful must be criminal. It’s how she excuses her résumé of failures.”
“That’s what I said.”
“I doubt it.”
Brock gestured to the ruins. “I think you flip houses. You’ve got enough of them.”
Phil watched him, tapping his phone against his chin.
“I can work, Uncle Phil. I’m good with a hammer and paintbrush.” Brock crossed his arms.
“Tell me how you lost your scholarship.”
“Wasn’t my fault.”
Brock rolled his eyes. “Teacher gave me a D at the end of the term, a totally subjective grade. She was completely unfair.”
“Old hag with an ax to grind? Teacher for fifty years, angry about today’s slacker youths?”
“Not exactly. She’s the one who brought us up here on a biology field trip that one time.”
“So I have her to thank for the house.”
“I guess. It’s when I first saw it.”
Phil looked at his watch. “Contest the grade.”
“Tried. But Ms. Diaz is some kind of darling, won a bunch of teaching awards. Everyone’s all gaga over her. Hot too. Probably sleeping with the principal.”
“Oh, that type,” Phil said.
Type. Becca knew Ms. Diaz, and it took no special brains to guess that Brock had finally met a teacher who wouldn’t be charmed by his flashy intelligence into letting a few assignments slide.
“You mean your type,” Brock challenged, and his uncle laughed agreeably.
“Unattainable,” Phil said. “Until she learns she’s not.” He put away his phone, his thin tolerance of Brock replaced by some kind of fresh interest.
In her closet, Becca believed she had glimpsed her imminent future with Phil and felt sick. It would take more than silence to save her skin; she knew it the way she knew when her stepdad was about to throw a plate at her head. She worked the card back into the door, and it went in far enough to tap the latch before snagging in some unseen joint of the hardware and refusing to dislodge.
Brock was saying, “So, about a job?” when the gas lantern popped and Becca jumped, bumping the door. The latch jangled and the card remained pinched. She held her breath. Brock’s head turned toward the closet.
“What was that?”
“I think I could come up with something for you to do,” Phil said as if he hadn’t heard Brock’s question. But he was moving toward Becca. She pressed herself against the back wall, then thought there might be a better way. She had just enough room in the short storage space to throw herself at the door if he opened it.
The story continues in Stranger Things by Erin Healy.