13. Ambrose—age eight
Ambrose—age eight
A lone.
I stare up at the ceiling—the dark gray color morphs into dark memories.
Something bad happened in the little house.
The last thing I remember was being in Chuckles’ shack. The little furniture he had was old, like the kind Mom likes to paint. Mail sat on top of a table—all marked urgent and addressed to a man named Colin Bannadosi.
He doesn’t look like a Colin, this dirty clown.
The only other Colin I know is the local mailman—shorter, skinnier, friendlier. Clean.
This is a different Colin—someone who doesn’t deserve the innocence of a name like Chuckles—a monster.
One, who must have knocked me out to bring me here.
Is this even the same building?
Does this old basement sit below the tiny shack?
Will I ever be found?
A cold chill seeps from the wall to my side. My coat is gone, and unable to protect me from it. I rest on an old dresser, the same wooden color that fills our home.
My tongue rolls around in my mouth, feeling over gaps that weren’t there before. Two of my teeth are missing—one from the back and one closer to the front. The one to the side of my Dracula tooth won’t ever come back.
It’s Dollie’s fault.
Pushing myself up, a sharp pain throbs in the side of my head. I don’t remember what caused it, but the awful pounding above my ear continues as I search for Dollie, who isn’t at my side, annoying me like she usually would be by feeling my T-shirt between her fingers.
Her little pink coat floats on the basement floor, bobbing up and down slightly.
It’s her fault we’re here, but I don’t want her to die.
“No…” I whisper.
A fog from the cold down here leaves my mouth.
I’m in a basement. A flooded basement.
And I’m alone.
With a splash, I jump from the chest into water that comes halfway up to my knees, not thinking about my leg.
More splashes come as I limp through the freezing water, wincing as I move.
“Dollie!” I scream, praying that she’s not dead, as I flip over the coat.
She isn’t inside.
I spin, squinting and searching the dimly lit area.
“Dollie!” I keep screaming, feeling through the dirty water to make sure she hasn’t sunk to the bottom.
The door atop thirteen rotten steps creaks open.
Thirteen, thirteen, thirteen.
An unlucky number.
I move to the foot of the staircase and place myself on the bottom step so there are only twelve steps between me and the door.
“Dollie?” I whisper, hoping it isn’t her, and she did as I asked and ran to get help.
Help could be on the way.
This could be it.
“Mom, Dad?”
All my hopes fade to nothing when Colin—the monstrous clown—appears in the doorway first. He opens it wider with a loud groan from the old hinges to reveal Dollie on his hip, her sleepy head on his shoulder, and blood on her lip.
Her little face is a ghostly shade, and I can’t see from here if she’s breathing or not.
But she’s not okay.
She’s not moving at all!
My heart sinks straight to the bottom of the dirty water.
Colin takes one step, and my mind whirls. Eleven . There is an odd number of steps between us.
And odd numbers do something bad to my mind—they torment it, except for lucky number three.
Another step from me makes us e ven .
“Is she okay?”
Another step from him and no answer.
Another from me.
Another from him.
Another from me.
“Answer me! Is Dollie okay?”
He gives only a creepy smile, yellow teeth proudly on display.
“Is. My. Sister. Okay!” My anger shifts direction from Dollie for getting us into this mess to the person who lured her into it.
His dirty, gloved fingers move up her arm, and I have no idea why, but it sends goosebumps racing down mine. He touches her face, feeling over her cheeks with stained knuckles.
The shorter distance makes me uneasy, but I fight my trembling legs to stay where I am, closer to Dollie.
One more step. An odd number of steps between us.
Something awful is going to happen.
“Don’t touch her.” The awful things happening are currently all happening to Dollie.
Ugly red lips press to her forehead as Colin ignores me. The kiss print stays there, mocking me when he returns his smile to me.
“Did you miss her?” he questions, his voice much deeper than before. It rings in my ears after he’s done talking, and I know it’ll haunt me there forever. “It was only a few minutes you were apart. I gave Dollancie a little photoshoot while you were sleeping. She really is the perfect little doll.”
Something about his words has the hairs on the back of my neck rising.
“Just put her down. I want her here with me and not with you.”
Dad would hate this. And hate me for letting her down and being a bad brother.
“Oh, you want her? Down there in the cold? Very well.”
Before any objections could leave my mouth, she’s flying at me through the air. I brace myself for impact as her body thuds against mine.
Taking her weight, my foot slides off the step, and my ankle twists. My healing leg isn’t strong enough for the extra weight, so we fall back into the water.
The water barely cushions the blow as I land. My lower spine screams out in harmony with the pain in my leg. I join them with a sharp gasp, and Dollie adds more sound as water enters her mouth and sputters it back out.
With her still in my arms, I lift her face from the water, and her eyes open slowly. The blood on her lip is gone as she whispers, “Ambrose,” before her eyes roll shut again.
I keep her close to me, rubbing her back to try and rid any trapped water from her lungs as the wooden stairs creak and pound under Colin’s weight. I glance in his direction to see him leaving, not moving closer. And then the door slams, leaving us alone.
The thrumming in my chest is hard to keep up with, and I can’t get away from the thoughts in my head, which are all violent endings to our lives.
I brush loose strands of Dollie’s hair from her eyes before putting it back and removing it twice more to lessen my anxiety.
It feels right, but the bad thoughts still swirl in my head, clawing me back whenever something more positive tries to creep in.
We’re still alive.
That’s a positive thought. But maybe I’ve watched too many movies, or perhaps, I know what psychopaths are capable of, as that positive thought doesn’t feel so positive.
Tiny fingers wrap around my neck, clawing at me. I try to peel Dollie away. Now that she’s waking, her hands all over me cause agitation to build walls up inside me.
“I wanna go home.”
It isn’t an option, but I do, too.
Not telling her that, I stay quiet, trying again to unlatch her fingers from my clothes and skin.
Agitation shifts back to anger, and it bubbles inside me. Trying again for distance, I pull at her wrists gently. I don’t want to hurt her as much as I don’t want her to sense my anger and realize it’s all because of her, because it’s her fault we’re in this mess.
“Dollie, get off me.”
“No…” she mumbles and holds me tighter, scratching my skin with those blue-painted nails and finally making my anger boil over.
I force my fingers between hers, bending one of them until it accidentally clicks. She shrieks like it hurt more than it probably did.
Dollie’s dramatics are off again, as Mom would say.
Mom is probably worried sick by now.
Dollie snatches her hand into a tiny fist that just happens to crash into the side of my face.
Pain radiates, and I’m sure there’s already a bruise on my cheek from something Colin did, and I’m sure that it’s already purple.
Blood soaks into my tongue, leaking from my swollen gums, and that’s it, I’m done. I push myself to my feet, leaving her to fall to the watery ground, begging me with screams and demands to go back, but giant steps take me through the water and away from her.
“I’m telling Daddy!”
“When?” I snap, twisting to her with my arms flying out. All my patience with her is gone. “When exactly are you telling Dad?”
“He’ll be mad that you’re being mean to me. He always sides with me.”
True, he has since I moved here. But…
“He won’t this time because we’re never gonna see him again, Dollie. We’re never gonna see Dad, and we’re never gonna see Mom, and we’re probably gonna die down here!”
“No, we won’t. They’ll find us.”
“Just shut up.” My voice is a low whisper. But she either heard it or ran out of things to say.
Instead, she cries.
Ignoring the noise she makes, I hoist myself back on top of the dresser and sit there shivering, arms around one leg and the other stretched out.
I try to collect my emotions and hold them tight.
Only because I’m unsure what she’s been through as I stare down at her, pulling herself from the water and brushing down her dress that’s now on backward.
Her hair is different from the last time I saw her, too.
All pulled into pigtails with just the front hanging down.
Still crying, her fingers play with the ribbons hanging from her hair.
My eyes pull away from her, but then the door opens again, and the need to protect my sister drives me from the dresser and back into the water, cursing my leg with each step back to Dollie.
“What’s all the noise?” Colin asks.
“He sounds different,” Dollie states the obvious, sadness still in her voice, and tears still falling from her eyes.
“I asked you a question.” The new voice makes Colin’s appearance so much more menacing. Dollie trembles with it.
Feeling protective over her, I step right up to her side and say, “I was yelling at her.”
“Why?”
“She made me angry.”
Dollie takes a step back as Colin takes one forward. She continues moving back as he rushes down the stairs. Running out of room, she hits the wall. His feet splash through water, but he isn’t heading to her.
His long fingers wrap around my throat, squeezing until they meet. In mid-air, I struggle to claw away his hand.
White noise rings out in my ears, and it gets worse as he rushes us to the wall and slams me back against it. Once, twice, three times, my head collides with the stone.