ONE.

“Hey, mister.”

Spring rain is pissing down, and his thin denim shirt is sticking to his back. His breath is hanging in the air like mist. Already March and it’s still fucking freezing. Vance hugs himself and steps down off the wet concrete curb.

“Need a ride?” A dark green Pontiac Firebird, idling at the light. There’s a man’s hand resting on the rolled-down window of the driver’s side, a hand wearing three silver rings and dangling a cigarette. Thank Christ it’s not some fat old fuck in a big white van — everybody and their fucking dad drives one of those in north Denver. It’s not some freak behind the wheel. It’s just some guy. Vance can handle himself.

“Oh man, look at you. You’re all wet.” Vance can see the driver’s eyes in the mirror, squinting at him behind a pair of shades, but the guy doesn’t turn around.

“It’s pissing down out here,” Vance snaps. “Are you going to let me in or what?”

“No kidding. Hop in back, buddy.”

The driver doesn’t look old and he doesn’t look young. Sort of cool, sort of faggy, but Vance has nothing to be scared of. There’s a cardboard box in the passenger side wheel well, and the seat is folded forward; in the gray light, the broad back seat looks like a hole in the ground.

Vance shimmies into it and throws himself down. Rainwater drips from his hair — the leather seats are shining, factory-black. Up in front, the radio plays, and the burlwood grain ashtray is piled high with cigarette butts, Marlboro 100s. Vance briefly entertains asking the driver for one.

The driver taps his fingers on the steering wheel. “Where are you headed, man?”

“Going to meet some girls in Carpenter Park.” He doesn’t know why he lies.

“Hey, that’s great. I’m headed that way anyway. Watch your shoes.”

“All right.”

He can’t really avoid scuffing his wet sneakers against the back of the driver’s seat. It feels weird being in a stranger’s car, but not that weird; it beats getting picked up again by the cops. They never leave him alone these days, and it’s not like Denver PD liked him much before. At least it’s dry and warm, and the smell of warm leather is comfortingly familiar.

Once they’re rolling, the driver finally turns just enough to get a look at him. Once he gets a better look at Vance’s clothes it’s like he starts in on the dad act: “You know, you really shouldn’t go around hitching rides, not even in town. There’s a lot of bad people out there.”

“It’s not really a big deal. I don’t do it that much. I can handle it.” The Grabber only takes really little kids, not teenagers. With a knife in his back pocket Vance doesn’t have anything to be scared of, not any more. “I’m gonna get a job this summer, then I won’t have to.”

The conversation seems to end there, and they keep driving. Rolling around in the backseat there are two cans of clear spray lacquer in a brown paper bag, fresh from the hardware store. They don’t let Vance hang out around the hardware store anymore. The cans aren’t that big, and Vance could fit both of them inside his jacket easily — but when he goes to wrap them in the hem of his jacket the ball bearings give a loud clatter. Vance freezes.

The driver smacks the steering wheel, making Vance jump. He doesn’t sound mad: “Oh! I forgot all about those, sorry. I’ve got a little project I’m working on back home. Sort of a rainy day thing. You like huffing?”

Vance snorts. Is that a trick question? Who doesn’t? “That stuff’s for kids.”

“Well. go ahead. Just keep it in the bag, not on the seats. I’ve got grass back at the house if you want it.”

Sniffing paint is cheaper than cozying up to somebody with pot and it’s easier than stealing a six-pack of beer — it’ll get you nice and fucked up faster than just about anything. Fill the bag, hold it shut. Then take a deep breath. Vance sprays, and breathes.

He lets his thoughts wander. They won’t let him back in the corner store again with his new record but there are still other places to go. Before long now he’ll be able to get into bars or at least the liquor store at the corner of Wilmington and 120th where the cashiers are always stoned and they tack up pages of Penthouse and Cheri behind the till. There’s more to do in this shitty town than play pinball but right now it doesn’t feel like it. He’s supposed to be doing some research thing for biology but all of that can wait til the weekend.

The cutting smell of paint fills his throat; his vision throbs, swarming. Vance coughs and lifts his head, shaking his hair out of his face. “You missed the turn.”

“I know. I’m going to drive around for a while, just until the rain stops. The girls you’re meeting, what are their names?”

But Vance isn’t thinking about that. He isn’t thinking about much anymore. It feels good, that’s why people do it — he brings the bag up to his face again and takes a deep breath, letting the fumes flood into him. Everything sort of goes away with every breath — the fumes work their way into his lungs, spreading like smoke through his brain. His eyes won’t quite focus on what’s outside the windows, and all the street signs start to blur —

Vance reaches out to steady himself against the seat in front of him. The passenger seat is flipped back now, and the cardboard box is sitting on the seat. The rain is lightening up. They aren’t stopping.

“You’ve got a bitchin’ ride, man.” He can feel his words slurring, falling out of his mouth freely. Vance lets his head loll back against the seat. His shoes slip down the back of the seat until they’re resting in the wheel well.

The driver is laughing. “Hey, thanks. You should see the other one.”

Vance never does make it to Carpenter Park.

*

TWO.

His head hurts, and the yellow light through the slats of the window is the only thing that says it’s daytime again, that it’s morning. He must have thrown up — his cheek is welded to the mattress under his head by a line of drying puke, and when he tries to lift himself up off the stinking canvas a surge of nausea hits him. There’s a heavy, bruised feeling in his head like his skull is stuffed full of dirty laundry. This isn’t his bedroom. This isn’t anywhere he’s ever been. There’s someone there.

“Let’s get that hair out of your face.”

Someone is touching his forehead. Vance’s eyes spring open. He recoils and his whole body jerks. At first, Vance has only one thought: what’s wrong with his fucking face?

His eyes can’t process what he’s seeing. Then the gut-twisting horror catches him all at once. “What the shit?”

The man laughs.

It’s a mask, it’s a mask, it’s only a shit-eating fucking mask. Nobody said anything about a mask when they were talking about the Grabber, not a ski mask or a cut piece of pantyhose but like something out of a carnival, like something from Halloween.

The awful image recedes. It’s just the man from the car — he’s standing there like a normal person from the neck down and like the Devil from the chin up. There’s a tray on the ground with a box of crackers and a folded dish towel.

Vance’s hands are shaking. He still has his clothes on, which means nobody did anything to him while he was asleep, but when he strips through the pockets of his jeans his money and his knife are both gone. The man watches him search for his stuff without saying anything; he watches him stand up and pat all his pockets down.

What’s he going to do, throw the fucking box of crackers at him?

He needs to blitz him, to get him down and keep him down. The fucker is bigger than him, but that’s never stopped him before. Vance doesn’t hesitate. He jerks forward, fists swinging, and he lunges — drives his elbow into him twice, flaring with anger and pleasure at the bone-rattling connection, hearing the man grunt from behind the mask.

The Grabber wrenches him off balance and stomps him down, driving his boot into him until Vance is retching, huddling up into a ball.

He stands astride over him. From down here he almost looks ordinary, if you sort of close your eyes he looks just like anybody else. He must wear a mask so nobody sees how fucking ugly he is. Coffee brown knit pullover, blue jeans, work boots. Vance starts to pull himself up, palms scraping against the unfinished concrete. Then a knife blade goes click, and Vance freezes.

“Bet you wish you had this.” The man waggles the blade of the knife at him, like he’s teasing him. “It’s pretty neat. I think I’ll keep it.”

“My big brother’s going to come looking for me and you better pray you’re not there when he does, ‘cause he’s a fucking Marine and he’ll beat the shit out of you.”

The mask is featureless and pitted — not rubber like a Halloween mask at all, not really, but something like stone. The man — the Grabber — slaps a hand against his leg softly. “A Marine, huh? He must be a pretty tough guy.”

“He hates fucking fags, and he’s going to cut your fucking nuts off.”

“Jesus, you have a dirty mouth for such a little kid. How old are you, Vance?”

“I’m sixteen, shit-for-brains.” He doesn’t know why he says it — he’ll be sixteen next winter, he’ll get his license

“I don’t know about that. You look younger to me.” Kneeling down, he takes Vance’s chin in his hand — his eyes, there’s something wrong with his eyes, and the mask is like something from a nightmare.

There’s blood pooling inside of Vance’s mouth now, filling the inside of his bottom lip. He’s frozen, not from fear but like his brain won’t figure out the angles of it. This place must be where the Grabber keeps his kills. This is where he killed Griffin Stagg. This is where he put that other kid. Maybe they’re here right now — buried under the floor, rotting.

Vance tries to say something, anything, but he just whimpers.

The Grabber’s hands are just normal fucking hands — those rings, those heavy veins. One of them cups Vance’s cheek. The other one holds the knife. “Are you going to be good?” His voice is softer now, quieter. Almost gentle.

“You better let me go, or I’ll fuck your shit up, I’m serious!” It’s like the sound of that voice shakes something loose. Vance kicks out at him, scrambling backward until his back hits the wall, but his sneaker only lands a glancing strike — the man spreads his hands, like what gives, only the knife stays put.

“If you don’t settle down, I’ll have to chop you up and feed you to the dog. Not with this, obviously. It’s like a kid’s toy.” He flicks the blade open and shut a couple times. “Gee, I think you must be pretty stupid. Getting into cars with strangers like that, I mean, jeez—“ Behind the mask, he snickers. “It’s like you wanted to go home with me.”

“You tricked me,” Vance says, stupidly.

“I didn’t have to trick you. You did it all yourself.” He claps his hands together and in the stone basement the sound echoes like a gunshot. “So which one are you, Vance? Stupid, or queer?”

“I’m not a queer.”

The guy crouches down on his heels and takes up the dish towel. “You know, I bet you think you’re pretty scary.”

“Don’t you fucking touch me.”

“Let’s get you cleaned up, hmm?”

The corner of the dish towel is wet — he dabs it against Vance’s cheek, rubs it over his mouth. The material is raised in little nubs of thread and they abrade Vance’s lips. It feels wrong, feels like something his mom would do when he was a kid — when he’d stay home sick. She used to let him sleep on the couch.

The Grabber keeps talking to him, looking at him. “When I saw you there by the side of the road I wasn’t even going to do anything. I don’t like to do anything like that, I wasn’t ready. But then you got into my car and it was just my lucky day.” Behind the mask, his eyes are soft. “Nothing bad is going to happen to you here.”

You’d have to be stupid to believe him. Yeah, right, freak. Fat fucking chance. Vance hugs his knees tightly. He can feel his throat start to ache like he’s going to be fucking sick again.

“I’m gonna fucking scream,” Vance says.

The man — the Grabber — raises his hands. “Down here? Suit yourself. It doesn’t bother me.”

*

THREE.

He holds out the knife between them — rubbing it over Vance’s cheek, through his hair, down to the hollow of his neck like he’s playing a game, tracing a line. Connecting the dots. The tip of the blade is so sharp it drags a little against the skin.

“No one’s looking for you anyway, you might as well stay here with me. You could help me out with some things, and once you’ve proved you’re trustworthy I might let you come upstairs. I might even let you drive the Firebird. Do you think we could do that?”

Vance grunts.

“I’m sure you know lots of shitty kids you wouldn’t care about seeing down here. Then I wouldn’t have to be so hard on you.” The blade of the knife taps twice against Vance’s collarbone.

Vance swallows. “How do I know you wouldn’t double-cross me?”

“You’d just have to trust me, wouldn’t you?” The man in the mask rolls his head on his neck a little like he’s got a muscle cramp. Through the holes in the mask, his eyes flash, and his body language is skin-crawling, like a guy when he’s looking at a hot girl. “You know, you never told me what your name was. If we’re going to be spending time together, you could at least be polite.”

“It’s Vance.”

“That’s a nice name. I never really liked getting called the Grabber. You can call me Al since we’re friends now. Friends trust each other.”

The mask grins at him. All this bullshit talk about friends when this guy just acts like a freak, wearing devil horns and kidnapping kids and how he’s always touching him, talking to him. Maybe he came downstairs in the night or maybe Vance only dreamed it; he hadn’t seen his face, hadn’t even seen the mask, but Vance heard what he was doing and it scared him too much to move. Friends don’t do that.

Vance swallows again; his spit tastes like stale soda, like metal. “Yeah, right.”

“I like your necklace, Vance. Turn around, I want to see the back of it.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“I mean no, fuck off. I hate how you look at me. I hate you.”

“Well,” the man says, “that’s a shame. We’re going to be seeing a lot of each other.” His hand is on the back of Vance’s neck; his thumb plucks at the braided band. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m just going to make you feel good.”

In the end, he cuts it right off his throat. The blade of the knife is cold against the back of Vance’s neck. Vance cries until his cheeks feel stiff and hot.

What the Grabber does to him, it takes so long. It doesn’t feel good. It hurts. After the first time, Vance lets his brain try and go somewhere else while it happens — but he can’t do it, there’s nowhere to go but here. It’s like he’s never even left this room. Where would you even go?

The Grabber doesn’t look like a big guy, but he’s heavy; the weight of his body presses against Vance’s back, his hips, his ass. Vance cries into the mattress, trying to smother the sound with his hands, and he’s ashamed of crying, and he’s angry. Sometimes it sounds like the Grabber is the one crying, there under the mask — hugging him and shaking, crying and snotting like a fucking girl, like he isn’t the one doing this, like he isn’t the one who did this to him.

“I’m really sorry,” the Grabber says, when he leaves him. “I’ll make it up to you next time.”

Next time. Vance doesn’t open his eyes until he hears the lock slide into place on the basement door.

*

FOUR.

There’s a shitty mattress bolted to the floor and it smells like old milk. There’s cold water in the porcelain tank on top of the shitter, but no way to get it out except with your hands. There’s an old broken phone on the wall; the cut cord dangles uselessly against the stained concrete. Maybe he can fucking hang himself with it. Who knows.

The Grabber doesn’t come down there every night. He comes down in the morning with some eggs or a piece of toast, shitty cafeteria food, and every time he acts like he’s the rude one — like Vance was the one who decided to move in. Then Vance breaks the plate and cusses him out and he beats him with the belt for it — he beats him with the buckle end until Vance pisses himself and cries for his mom.

Afterward, when he’s kneeling on the floor in his devil mask and his corduroy pants and cowboy shirt, picking up the broken pieces of the plate and scraping up the pieces of egg, the man — Al, the Grabber — looks just like some lame-assed substitute teacher who’s dropped his briefcase. All flustered and embarrassed, ducking his head like the mask isn’t enough. He doesn’t like feeling Vance looking at him, but it’s not like Vance can do anything else, stuck with his back to the wall and feeling the blood dry. What good does it do being embarrassed? Vance isn’t embarrassed. He’s angry.

By late afternoon, he’s hungry, and he’s cold. His shirt never seems to get dry, and his jeans stink like they’ll never get dry — he hangs them over the back of the toilet tank but down below the ground here there’s no way to keep warm, nothing to do but huddle up in the corner and hug his knees and steam with silent anger. There’s a couple of rolls of old carpet down there with him and he managed to drag them over to the wall below the window — if he stacks them up tightly, he can reach higher than before, but all he really manages to do is break a sweat and then tire himself out.

Vance’s hands rest against his knees, sitting on the end of the mattress, waiting. His hands are flushed a gross purple from the cold and damp — the cold has them stiffer than usual, and every time he flexes his fingers there’s a little burst of pain, like there’s little bits of glass inside every joint.

When the Grabber comes down that night, he brings him a blanket. It’s red wool, the kind Vance’s mom used to keep in the back of her brown station wagon in case they broke down on the side of the road somewhere, in case they had to go to her mother’s house in a hurry and Vance had to huddle up in the backseat and pretend to sleep, pretend he couldn’t hear her crying.

Maybe this is good. Vance takes the blanket from him — from Al — and retreats across the mattress as fast as he can, feeling acutely the nakedness of his bare legs. Don’t let him touch me. Don’t let him too close. He could kick him in the balls pretty hard, probably, or if he could get the knife out of his pocket — but which pocket is it supposed to be in? What happens if he guesses wrong?

The mask inclines slightly, quizzically. Hands on his hips. Like he knows Vance is watching him. “Aren’t you going to say thank you?”

*

FIVE.

“You’re pretty strong, for a kid.” He grips Vance’s upper arm, digging in sharply with his fingertips and twisting it against his back. That voice goes low again, ugly and urgent. “You little bastard. Nobody misses you. Nobody’s coming to get you. You lied to me, Vance, nobody else wants you.”

“Why are you doing this to me? Why don’t you stop?”

“Go ahead and fight me. I like it. Why do you think I chose you?”

He likes watching him bleed. Vance finds that out before too long too.

*

SIX.

“I really am going to let you go, I swear. There’s just a lot going on right now. It’s tax season, with how that is, and it’s really hard.

“I don’t do my taxes,” Vance says, affronted.

“Right, of course not. Of course you don’t.” Like he’s disappointed in him. Like he’s the weird one. “Look, I’m not going to do anything to you, so stop acting so goddamn ungrateful. I barely touched you. Stop being such a crybaby.”

After the Grabber leaves him, he starts to dig his way through the wall in the bathroom.

The plaster’s old and broken, and he can feel the thrum of a motor from the other side of the wall — he can almost feel the heat of it, if he presses his hand flat to the wall. Like he’s headed in the right direction.

He just needs to keep going — keep hitting — keep working on it until the plaster and lath come crumbling down and the old rotten wood gives way. This must have been an old house — it’s all coming easy until fistfuls of stuff start pouring out through the broken plaster, big black wads of hair, and Vance can’t keep himself from retching at the sudden horror of it under his hands. It’s too thick to be human, it has to be animal — doesn’t it?

This house is rotten all the way down to the ground. Looking at it from the street you might not even know but down here it’s all coming apart. There’s a thick black electrical cord winding like a snake through the rubble, something from a fridge or a freezer — Vance yanks on it with both hands until it rips loose somewhere, not just the plug-end but the whole cord, and notes with satisfaction the way the heavy motor-thrum on the other side of the plaster sputters and dies. He hopes it was something expensive.

Ultimately, the wall is a bust. Vance is hungry, and filthy, and he’s cold, and he’s pissed off. But that’s the last night the Grabber locks the fucking door.

*

SEVEN.

On the last day, he wakes up again at the bottom of the basement steps. The mask hangs over him with a deep satanic grimace, but the Grabber’s eyes are furious. He’s been waiting for him to wake up.

“You really shouldn’t have done that. Did I say you could go up those stairs? Did I say you could do that?” The hard flat of his hand knocks across Vance’s face, rattling the bones of his face. Open-handed slaps, bringing him back to the last day of his life. He’s going to die down here.

The back of his head feels pulpy and wet — his ears are ringing, and it’s like looking through a dirty window, everything is dark around the edges of his vision. He shouldn’t have gone up the steps. He shouldn’t have opened the door. He shouldn’t — he shouldn’t have seen what was waiting for him on the other side. There isn’t a place on his body that doesn’t hurt — the places where the blows crossed each other hurt most, splitting open the skin. He doesn’t know where he is anymore, he barely knows what’s happening, only that he doesn’t want to die.

“I’m sorry,” Vance says, but he’s not; he’s angry. “I’m sorry. I’ll be good.”

The man, the Grabber, sticks his arm out to the side and drops the belt. If Vance can grab it, if he can catch him with the buckle end right in the eye and get him to drop the knife — but he can’t even extend his arm without a white-hot jolt of pain that sends him screaming.

“Are you going to cry? Are you going to cry now, you little bastard? Go ahead and cry.” Now he’s got him by the hair, twisting and pulling right there at the roots — there’s a knife in his hand, and reflexively Vance jerks his right arm across his chest to shield himself. He doesn’t even feel the blade slicing into his arm. He doesn’t feel it go into his side, punching through the skin without resistance. Don’t cut my hair, the only thought in his mind. Please don’t cut my hair.

Vance throws his hands up in one last defense, jerking up on reflex despite the dislocating pain. His torn fingernails catch on the seam where the mask’s grinning jaw meets its eye sockets — he was aiming for the Grabber’s eyes anyway but his fingertips gouge down the pocked surface of the mask. The Grabber slams his forehead into Vance’s face, first once, then twice, and Vance sees stars — the impact knocks him flat on his back, and the collision knocks the air out of his bruised lungs.

The Grabber stinks like sweat and his hands are around Vance’s throat, squeezing — it hurts so bad, it hurts more than anything in the world, and the white spots swarming in his vision are like fireflies. If he’s going to choke him to death then why is it taking so long?

He doesn’t think about his mom or his friends or his high score or the girls he likes; he doesn’t think about anything. All he can hear is the blood in his ears. Somewhere a phone is ringing.

Then the hand squeezing his throat lets go, and a jolt of air rips through Vance’s lungs, sending his head plunging back against the concrete; his eyes are wet, and a sound comes from his own throat that isn’t a scream, isn’t a sob — thin and broken, a wet rattle. The mask is looking down at him impassively, and the Grabber’s fingers are flexing like they hurt from gripping so tight, like he’s surprised. Then he wraps them around Vance’s neck and does it all again.

Then again. Then again. Choke, revive. His vision is flooding in red. The Grabber is on top of him now, all the awful oppressive weight of him — even with his lungs on fire and his vision swimming he knows the smell of him, the sweat and stale Marlboros filling Vance’s mouth with every ragged blood-spit-tears gasp. It’s so cold down here but he’s sweating so much. It’s so cold. His knee jams into Vance’s belly.

“I’m going to cut you open,” he says against Vance’s ear, in a crackling rasp like a voice coming down a telephone line from a long way away. “Then I’m going to fuck your dead body.”

The lower jaw of the mask comes away like a hinge, pulls away like a torn fingernail. Vance’s heart is beating so fast, like his heart is going to explode. He’s going to die here and he doesn’t even have his driver’s license. The Grabber presses his teeth to the sweaty side of Vance’s neck, and when he bites, he tears.