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Zoe
“Zoe! Don’t encourage this!” Jason said, but Zoe tried to ignore him.
She didn’t know if this was the right move, but since she didn’t know what the right move was, she thought it was more important to actually move than to hem and haw about moving. They had to do something. Levi could be dying in there for all they knew.
Understanding dawned, and Emma nodded eagerly. She swung her body around with catlike agility and then grabbed one of Zoe’s hands in a death grip. Emma’s hand was cold and wet. Zoe squeezed it tightly, trying to convey that she had her.
Emma stuck one foot back through the hole. “Man, this is awkward.” She pushed on the ground with her free hand and stuck her other foot in through the hole, her thighs resting on the rotten sill, which collapsed a bit under her weight. Zoe edged closer as Emma started to disappear in through the hole. Zoe started to have trepidations—a fine time to start with that—and said, “Don’t worry, I can get you out. No matter what.”
Emma didn’t look at her. She was too busy looking under her arm at the hole. “I’m not worried.”
How had this kid gotten so brave? She was acting more and more like Mary Sue.
She’d squiggled in far enough so that her belly was the fulcrum. She grunted softly. “Okay, here we go. Please try not to let go of me.” She pushed up hard with her left hand, lifting her belly off the windowsill and squiggled backward like an ambitious worm. Zoe scooted forward to keep up, and gravity took over. Emma let out a little cry of pain.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” she said, not sounding okay at all. “I haven’t hit the floor yet.”
Oh no. She was just dangling there by her arm? With her free hand, Zoe grabbed Emma’s forearm as she scooted all the way to the wall.
“You’re squeezing too tight!” Emma squeaked, and Zoe relaxed her grip, but only a little.
Emma’s weight pulled Zoe’s arms into the building; her neck was pressed against the slimy, cold wall. She tilted her head to prevent her cheek from touching the house, and then the weight was gone.
“I found the floor!” Emma cried, and then she ripped her hand out of Zoe’s clutch, and Zoe heard her footsteps.
Zoe plopped her hands onto the wet ground and stuck her head in.
“What do you see?” Jason asked.
She saw Levi, and he didn’t look good. He was mostly lying down, with his head upright against the wall as if he’d once been sitting, but had slithered down.
“Levi?” Emma tentatively touched his shoulder. “Levi? Can you hear me?” She paused and then cried out, “He’s breathing, but his lips are blue!” She grabbed his hand. “Oh my goodness, he is so cold!” She ripped off Gramma’s jacket and threw it over him. Then she looked up at Zoe with wide eyes. “We need to get him out of here! Quick!” Emma looked up at the hole over her head and gasped. “A giant wood stove came crashing down through the floor.” Zoe could almost hear Emma’s wheels turning. “If I can get him up on that, you guys might be able to pull him up through the hole.”
Zoe found this plan one hundred percent impossible. How was little Emma going to get a nearly unconscious teenage boy up onto a stove? She tried to think of a gentle way to tell her that.
Jason took over, and he didn’t try to be gentle. “That’s insane, Emma,” he hollered. “Can he move on his own?”
She didn’t answer, which was answer enough.
“You’re not going to be able to move him,” Jason hollered and then said more quietly to Zoe, “Are there stairs?”
Zoe looked around. “There used to be.”
“What does that mean? Are they usable?”
Zoe tried to imagine how they could be. “I don’t think so. And the floor at the top of the stairs is gone. Emma might be able to climb up them, and that’s a big might, but I don’t see how she’s going to get Levi up them.”
“Don’t worry, Levi,” Emma said softly, and Zoe thought she could hear tears in her voice. “We’re going to get you out of here. We just need to figure out a plan.”
“I could do it,” Zoe said before she could think about it.
“No way are you fitting through that window,” Jason said.
If he called her fat one more time this evening, she was going to shove him into a rotten basement. And leave him there.
“I wasn’t going to try to go through the window,” she said, formulating the plan as she spoke. “I’ll go in through the top.”
“What? That’s insane! That’s how Levi got into this mess!”
“She said the wood stove fell through. So, we find the chimney. Then we know where the wood stove is. Then I go in, hugging the wall, straight for the chimney. Then I lower myself down. I don’t fall. I am controlled the whole time.” She tried to sound confident, but she wasn’t. Zoe had fallen through a lot of windows in her day. And with her long limbs, she wasn’t graceful or coordinated. She didn’t know if she could make this work, but she didn’t see any other option, and they needed to do something.
“No,” Jason said firmly. “This is stupid. We go get help.”
“I don’t know if he has time for that,” Emma said. “He doesn’t look so good. We need to get him warmed up.”
“Esther is going to kill me,” Jason said. “Literally kill me.”
“It could work,” Derek said, and Jason groaned. “We need to see the area around where the stove was first. Because if we can’t pull him out and get him out of the house, there’s no point in getting him onto the wood stove.”
That was an excellent point.
“Hang on, Emma,” Derek hollered. “We’re going to the kitchen.”
They left without waiting for Zoe, so she scrambled to her feet and followed. She got to the front door just in time to hear Derek say, “It’s possible.” She peeked into the room. She had no idea how Derek knew this had ever been a kitchen. There were no appliances left, and she didn’t see any sink. Remnants of a counter hung off one wall; maybe that’s what he was basing his theory on.
“We passed the chimney on the way here,” Zoe said. “So the stove should be on that wall.” She pointed, and they both looked. A stovepipe chimney hung suspended from the wall, with no stove attached. Under the chimney, the floor had been ripped completely from the wall.
“There’s nowhere for you to stand,” Jason said.
“Yes there is.” Zoe was feeling stubborn now. Whether this was a good plan or not, she wanted to see it through. “I don’t have to get directly over the stove. Just close enough to jump on it.”
Jason looked at her with wide eyes. “You’re going to jump onto a stove?”
He had a point. This did sound a mite unrealistic. “Yes, I’m going to jump onto the stove.”
Something that might have been admiration glittered in his eyes.
“I admire your hutzpah,” Derek said, “but maybe I should do that part.”
Something like relief swept through her.
“No offense, Derek,” Jason said, “but who has more strength to pull the kid out—you or Zoe?”
Derek swore. Then he started humming “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth.”
“That’s not helping,” Jason muttered.
Derek stopped humming to say, “It’s helping me.” He continued humming.
“Come on. Let’s do this.” Zoe wanted to get to Levi before he died, but she also wanted to get this over with before she lost her courage. She pushed past the men and stepped onto the threshold. A chill raced over her. Devil’s house or no, this place was creepy. She couldn’t believe Levi had chosen to hang out here on purpose. Then images of creepy places she’d frequented flashed through her mind. Oh yeah. Until recently, she too had occasionally wanted to find a hiding place.
She stepped inside and to the left, pressing her butt into the wall. She wasn’t truly scared until she removed her right foot from the threshold. Then she was standing on the smallest, most tenuous lip, staring at a downward slide into a dark hole. “Emma?”
“We’re here.”
“We’re coming!”
“We know. We can hear every word!”
Despite it all, Zoe laughed at this, and the laughter lifted most of her fear away. Just focus, she told herself and sidestepped toward the stove wall. She put most of her weight on her left foot and waited to see if the floor would give way. She looked nervously at the hole. It wasn’t the fall that scared her. It was encountering all those jagged edges on the way down. Maybe they should have smashed the floor to smithereens before attempting this quest. Oh well, too late now. She pulled her right foot in alongside her left and exhaled. Good. She was still on the first floor. She pressed her fingers into the wall behind her, as if this would help anything.
“You’re doing great,” Derek whispered.
Was he afraid that the vibrations of his voice might make the floor collapse? She looked down. He might not be wrong. She slid her left foot to the left, taking a bigger stride this time, pushed on the floor, and then, when it didn’t make a cracking sound, brought her right foot alongside.
“I can see you!” Emma cried. “I can see your feet!”
Zoe took another step, feeling more confident now. And then another. She had reached the corner of the room. She peered through the hole, trying to see the wood stove. She wished Emma had a flashlight to shine on it, but alas, their search party had left search-and-rescue headquarters without a real flashlight among them. When this was over, she was going to beg her grandmother for a new phone. She would need one while she was in the hospital, recuperating from two broken legs. She turned her body and stuck her left leg out. She pushed on the lip of floor that was left along the chimney wall. This section of the wall felt squishier. It had a little give to it, but only a little, less than an inch. She hesitated, not sure what to do. Did she want to turn back now after she’d come this far? No, definitely not. But did she want to turn back before she couldn’t turn back? Maybe. She looked at Jason, who looked impossibly far away.
She could read his face like a book. He was impressed. She looked at her feet. Very well, then. She would continue. Only partially aware that she was once again making decisions based on Jason’s actions and facial expressions, she took another step. The floor sagged beneath her weight, but it did not give way. Before she could talk herself out of it, she took another step.
And then she saw it. At least, she thought she did. Why hadn’t she taken Jason’s flashlight? “Shine your light over here,” she whispered.
He did, but it didn’t help much. She was still looking into a black hole, and it looked as though part of that blackness was raised above the rest. She thought that was the wood stove. “I’m almost there,” she whispered.
“But you’re not to the chimney yet,” Jason whispered back.
“It could have rolled or bounced,” Derek whispered.
She thought it was hysterical that they were all whispering like the little Puddy kids in church, but she didn’t dare laugh out loud.
“What’s so funny?” Jason whispered.
She shook her head. She had to figure out how to get to the wood stove. Was she really going to jump? It might be six feet down. It might be eight feet down. It might be more. Had she ever jumped that far before? She looked up at Derek. She had no reason to think he had attempted such feats, and yet, she did think that. “If I jump down eight feet, will I hurt my legs when I land?”
“It’s less than eight feet,” Emma said, noticeably not whispering.
“How do you know that?” Zoe asked.
“Because I can see the stove and I can see your feet.”
“Oh! So am I over the stove?” Why hadn’t she thought to ask her that earlier?
“Yeah. I thought you knew that already.”
“How’s Levi doing?” Zoe asked.
“Not great. I’m holding him, trying to warm him up, but he’s really wet and cold.”
Shoot. She had to do this. “All right. Hang on, both of you.”
“Bend your knees,” Derek said. “Let them cushion the landing. And look around as you drop. If you do start to fall, try to fall in the safest direction, and keep your arms around your head.”
“What?” Jason said. “Why? Shouldn’t she break her fall with her arms?”
“Definitely not. The arms will protect the head. Do it, Zoe. Time’s a wastin’.”
She looked into the hole. She had to do this. She swallowed and told her feet to jump.
They didn’t move. She looked down at them in horror. Oh no. I have to do this, she told herself. I volunteered. I can’t wuss out now. Everyone is watching. The whole world would hear this story. Well, not the whole world, but her whole world.
