last of a lost civilization

The first time he sees him without the mask, Finney thinks: this is it. It’s over. He’s tried his hardest but the Grabber is going to kill him, and he wants him to see his real face when he does it.

Under the circumstances it’s a reasonable assumption. He’s worn himself out from digging, and the phone hasn’t rung for a very long time now; it feels like days, but he’s lost track in his count, he can’t differentiate his own long bottle-cap scratches in the concrete from the marks that are already there, the scrapes and divots that pockmark the floor. Finney’s never been a heavy sleeper, and when he feels the man on top of him he waits a long time to open his eyes, waits for those hands to leave his shoulders and start on the buttons of his jeans. When he does open his eyes, there it is, not in the dark but in the eerie light from the wall sconces, like sun coming down through water — no grimace-smile, no frown, no eerie protruding blank. Just skin. Just human.

Without all that white paint on his face, the guy looks — normal. He just looks tired. There’s dark circles under his eyes and the kind of tight parched lines in his face that heavy smokers get. His hair is faded brown with a lot of gray in it, and his eyes are small chips of ice-blue.

If that’s a monster’s face, it looks like everybody else’s. Finney puts up his hand in disbelief to touch that haunted mouth, and sees it blossom hesitantly into a smile.

*

When they drive to California at first it’s just good to be warm again — to be far away from the basement, to have a bedroom again, to be far away from the Denver suburbs. Far away, where nobody’s heard about him. Nobody’s seen his face on a wanted poster, no one’s heard his new name, and there’s no quaking sound of breathing metal to wake him in the night. He hasn’t heard the black phone ring in a long time now, but Finney knows better than to think any of it is really over. Nothing really ends, as long as you carry it with you.

It’ll be a fresh start. Finney sits up tall in the passenger’s side seat — one of the privileges he now enjoys, and one he’ll be sure to savor, like sleeping with blankets and being trusted with silverware. Looking out the window as the streets roll by it’s like nothing has changed, like the world has still gone on just like it did before. Mailboxes, fences, bus stops — the world is too-open now, with too much in it, and he has to steel himself against the queasy feeling of a trap about to spring, a vast and colorful spread of bait. He’s going to reach for the wrong thing, or go too far, and he’s going to end up somewhere worse than a basement. Swallow down that fear, and look for the opportunity, the angle.

Maybe he’ll be happy here. He survived the basement; he can survive starting high school in a town where the name Finney Blake no longer means anything in particular, where he’s no longer Finney Blake at all. He’ll be just like any other kid. But that’s making a big assumption.

Finney turns his head, swallowing tightly. It feels like he hasn’t spoken in a long time. “Will I be able to go to school?”

“We’ll see about that when we get there. Depends on whether you behave yourself.” Al takes his hand against the center console, rubbing into the palm of it with his thumb. “You’re the best one, Finney. You’re different.”

This is one of his newest privileges — he’s been touched so much that he no longer flinches. Even when his skin is crawling, even when he wants to die inside. Before they could leave the old house behind, Finney pried the old black phone off of the wall with a claw hammer, and Al made sure to stay and watch. It didn’t ring once.

*

His new bedroom is no bigger than the basement was, but it has a dresser and a bedside table, a closet and a door. There’s no lock. His first thought is, it’s bigger than my bedroom at home, and just as quickly he feels bad even for thinking it. This is home now, and it isn’t. None of his things are here — none of his books and posters and toys, he doesn’t even own more than two or three sets of clothes, things that Al — his captor, his would-be murderer, the Grabber — chose for him. Here, they’re father and son, nothing more normal in the world, nothing more natural.

Al has sex with him there, as soon as the sheets are on the bed. Finney shuts his eyes and lets it happen. Al doesn’t beat him any more and he makes him come. That’s better than before. Finney wants to die.

After Al leaves him, he curls up inside the closet, reassured by its cool unfurnished solidity. Finney closes the door behind him and sleeps there on the floor. Somewhere in this rented house, there’s a basement door; there has to be. Somewhere, a telephone is ringing.

*

Sitting in the parking lot, Finney feels sick. There’s plenty of people going by, moms with their babies and couples that might be on dates, girls in the sunshine with bare legs shining. There’s a long line of stores, selling stereos and frozen yogurt and sports stuff; there’s even an antiques store, the kind of place, Finney now knows, that Al could spend the whole day poring through old cookbooks and china sets and rusty old-fashioned irons, looking for exactly the right thing to take home and clean up. Last month it was a heavy chrome ashtray and a painting of a weirdly square-looking dog. Finney likes these trips, he likes the comforting clutter of it all and the smell of old houses.

But they’re not here to shop. Al is watching the boys go by, past the video store and the arcade. Looking for the right one.

Suddenly he gestures with his cigarette toward a redheaded boy — Finney realizes with surprise that it’s not one of the little boys walking their bikes along the curb, but one who’s more like his own age, old enough to have a blond smudge of mustache going. He’s tall, but Finney is tall now too. He’s not a little boy any more, and he hasn’t felt like a kid for a long time.

Finney wonders if Al will give him a cigarette if he asks for one, or if he won’t risk it when they’re outside the house. If he’s supposed to be his father now, he’s worlds more permissive than Terence Blake ever was — he lets him drink beer, he doesn’t care if he smokes grass, he even lets him go to the movies by himself. Finney’s classmates must think he’s lucky.

(Al smokes more cigarettes these days. He drinks more, too, but he tries to hide it. He knows what Terence Blake was like, even though that consideration is far from Finney’s own mind now, distant as the surface of another planet. Or maybe Al just doesn’t want to look washed-up, weak. Really, he’s nervous. Nervous, and speeding up. Al doesn’t just want another boy; he needs one. He needs this now.)

The redheaded boy moves on to browsing through tapes. His hair is long, and there are patches on his jacket.

They both just watch him for a while, before Al speaks. “Ask him if he wants to make $100.”

Finney flexes his fingers against the wood-paneled dash. His legs are longer now, and his sneakers can reach the floor mats. “How?”

“Helping out with a little magic show, of course.” You can hear the smile creeping in at the corners of Al’s voice, like that’s their joke. “Walk over there and start talking to him. Say hello.”

“I can’t do that, that’ll look weird. Shouldn’t I go and walk around for a while first?”

For a moment Al presses his lips together, his expression unreadable; then he lightens, reaching for his wallet. “Sure. When you’re at it, go buy yourself something, you earned it.”

He gives him two ten-dollar bills, folded crisply into halves. This part is a test. There’s two ways this can go, or maybe three, and there’s no one to tell Finney now which one he should take. Go; don’t go. Pretend to go, and then tell him: act normal, but there’s a weird guy watching him in that van over there, and he should go find somebody, go call the cops. Get out of the car and run as far as he can, as fast as he can, and don’t stop. Maybe he can do that. Maybe this time will end it.

Finney swings his feet to the side and reaches for the van’s passenger side door handle.