“Mom, can I sleep in your bed tonight? I keep thinking I’m hearing dad.” I turned over to see Ryan standing at my bedside. “What do you mean sweetheart?” “I can hear him yelling at me, threatening me.” My heart skips a beat as I know exactly what that sounds like. 

We recently left my deranged husband back in Des Moine, to keep us safe. He was a charming, yet cruel man. On the outside, he took care of his stay-at-home wife and provided the support of his daughter. He would go to her basketball games and Science Olympiad competitions. But on the inside, there was no trust between me and him. I would catch him following Ryan in his car when she is out with friends or on the bus headed to a game. I knew he did the same for me when I wasn’t home. He always needed to be in control of us. He would raise his voice at me. Until that wasn’t enough for him. Then it got violent. But I can’t focus on that anymore. I need to focus on Ryan and my new life. 

I swallow the pit in my stomach and motion for her to get in bed with me. “Honey, I know the wind gets loud at night in Nebraska, but eventually you need to learn how to sleep on your own. Your dad can’t find us now.” 

Ryan climbs into bed with me and rolls over to turn her back. She exhales “I know.” I scoot over to hug her from behind, and she drifts off to sleep. 

I try too, but I can’t get my mind around him. How he hurt me. How he hurt Ryan. I held Ryan a little tighter. “I love you.” I said to her, knowing that she couldn’t hear me.  

I wake up with an empty feeling in my arms. I reach over for Ryan, but my arm comes up with nothing. “Ryan?” I rolled over and noticed the bedroom door was open. Ryan had gone back to bed on her own. I take a sigh of relief that she slept through the night after she came to bed. “Is there enough bread for french toast?” I ask myself as I head down to the kitchen. I turn the heater on, the house is freezing. I look for a window that may have been left open, but don’t find any. 

As I begin to make the batter for the bread, I hear a crash come from upstairs. “Ryan? I’m making french toast for breakfast, come down when you’re ready!” I call out. No response. Then I hear another crash, this time, from beneath my feet.

The cellar. I haven’t had the chance to even explore down there yet, not since the open house. “Ryan, honey, are you okay?” I hear mumbles as I walk towards the door to the cellar. “Ryan, what’s going on?” I open the door and rush down the steep and cold concrete steps.

I see a small cabinet door open in front of me. A dumbwaiter. I realize that there isn’t a dumbwaiter in the kitchen. I didn’t even know we had a dumbwaiter. I am interrupted mid thought by the subtle sound of squeaking. I realize the dumbwaiter is moving, slowly approaching its next floor. Coming towards me. I scream as a bloody, severed head is lowered on the platform and it jerks to a halt. Perfectly placed, the eyes glaring into mine, as I realize that I know to whom it belongs. My husband. He is staring at me, like he can see right through me, just how he always has. 

I feel a dirty sense of relief to see that he could no longer hurt us. That the pain and abuse was finally compensated for by his death. But, how?

“I was only trying to help,” A shaky woman’s voice comes from behind me. I turn around faster than my body can jerk, still afraid to lose eye contact with the severed piece of a monster. A woman is standing in the corner, covered in blood. I notice the blood trail that leads to her feet. Her face, pale as the concrete floor, her small figure is wrapped in a worn down blanket. The only limb visible is her right hand, which is covered in dirt. It is loosely grasping a saw, that too, was covered in blood. I try to catch my breath. “Ryan?!?” No response. I run to her room, “Ryan, honey where are you?” and open her door to her bed pulled away from the wall. I run around it to see the other half of the empty, soulless room. My heart drops. My throat is dry, I try to swallow between breaths. I run downstairs to the kitchen, and push the fridge from its place on the wall. Nothing. I pull the oven from off the wall. There it is, the dumbwaiter. Messily covered by two slabs of wood. Why was it covered? I run back downstairs, the woman still standing in the exact position she was in when I first saw her, I don’t even think she blinked in the time I was gone. “She is safe.” She said, still gazing into my eyes. “Where is my daughter?” I demanded from her. She said nothing. I watched her eyes slowly fixate on the eyes of the head sitting in the dumbwaiter. 

My hands are shaking as I point to it, “What happened to him? Why is he here?” I mutter. She said nothing. I feel my throat tense as I scream at her, “WHAT THE F*CK HAPPENED TO HIM AND WHY IS HE HERE?” Pointing more firmly now, as my entire body feels like it is being crushed, my arm almost unable to hold its point anymore. “I was only trying to help,” she said again. I turn my back to her and walk towards the dumbwaiter. I close my eyes and use a broom to shove his head off of the platform. It squishes as it hits the floor and I try to avoid catching its stare. Sticking my head inside, I see the floors rise. I feel a drop hit my face, then another. I wipe the moist feeling off my face with my fingertips, and realize that it is blood trickling down my cheek, my husband’s blood, alongside the tears my eyes begin to shed. The smell. The awful smell of blood and rotting wood. I take my head out and gag. My body begins to give out. “RYAN?!?” I scream.  Before I know it, I climb into the dumbwaiter and begin to pull myself up. Using every last ounce of strength to force myself up as I pull the ropes that line the concrete walls. The squeaking sound of the platform lifting is drowned out by the shrilling screams that I let out. I am sobbing now. The tears stream down my face, mixing with the blood that has dripped from my forehead down to my lip.

I watch as I pass the kitchen, I can see the oven pulled out from its original spot. I look up to see another room. It is covered by my daughter's headboard. I scream louder. I keep pulling.  I begin to see a crack of light shine through, it stings my eyes. I shut them as I continue to pull myself up the tight concrete case. Suddenly I come to a stop. I can’t pull anymore. I have reached the top. I open my eyes. I am staring at my husband’s decapitated body. His neck is hacked and dripping blood down the walls of the dumbwaiter. I can smell the blood. The flesh. It smells rotten. I scream louder, and vomit as the smell intoxicates every part of my body. I wipe my face and look around. I call out for Ryan again. An attic. There is a mattress and old sheets under an open window. There are pictures on the walls of the woman that was in the cellar. Holding young children, a boy and a girl. I turn around to see my daughter in a cage. I look above her and see a workstation, with tools hung on the wall above her. She is silent. She is motionless. I run over to her and open the cage. I pull her out and find a dead dog up against the back of it. It smells awful. The same rot and vile smell I could almost taste when I first stepped into the room. Ryan was laying on it. I see blood smeared across her chest. She had been stabbed in the chest. I collapse to the floor and I scream even louder than I had before. I pull her into my lap and stroke her hair. I could hear the house rattling beneath me. I hold her close to my chest, just like I did the day she was born. Like I did when I was proud of her, or when she had a bad day. It has always been me and her. The light in my life. 

I feel a breath hit my face. “Ryan?” I shake her. “Ryan, baby come back to me. You have to wake up.” I watch as my tears hit her face. Her breathing becomes more apparent. I look around for a phone. I remember I left my phone on the kitchen counter. I lay her against the wall away from the cage. “I will be right back honey just stay with me,” I whispered to her. I squeeze myself back into the dumbwaiter, keeping my distance from what used to be my husband and begin to pull the rope again to lower me to the first floor. The only thing on my mind is saving my daughter. I wipe my face and pull the ropes to a halt and lay against the back wall to kick the two wooden boards down. I pull myself through the opening in the wall. I grab my phone and dart back into the elevator. I pull myself back up and dial 911. I put my daughter’s head back in my lap. 

“Hello, y-yes I need police and an ambulance to my house right now, my daughter has been stabbed.” I wipe my tears again, my eyes feeling heavier and heavier. Suddenly I hear creaking come from behind me. I hadn’t realized that the platform was no longer on our floor. I hold my daughter tight and grab the screwdriver that is lying on the floor next to the cage. “DON'T COME ANYWHERE NEAR ME OR MY DAUGHTER. STAY AWAY” I sob harder. I hang up the phone and throw it across the room out of anger. The woman slowly comes up on the platform. She gets off and stares at me. “WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?” I scream at her. “I was only trying to help,” she muttered. “STOP SAYING THAT AND TELL ME WHAT THE F*CK IS GOING ON.” I can feel the snot running from my nose. I realize she is no longer holding the saw, with her hands at her side. She turns away from me and slowly walks to the bed in the far corner. She sits down and stares at me.

A few minutes go by. I’m still holding onto Ryan tightly, listening to the slow sounds of her breathing.

I hear the front door being broken down through the open window in the attic. I scream for the “HERE, I’M OVER HERE IN THE ATTIC MY DAUGHTER NEEDS HELP.” The tears begin to stream down my face again. I think about my husband. He’s gone and he can’t hurt us anymore. Now he really can’t hurt us anymore. I repeat that to myself over and over again. I even say it to Ryan a few times, hoping that at the end of each one this would all be over. I look back over to the woman who is just sitting there, staring at us, but she’s crying too. Why?

I hear the dumbwaiter shift again. They were almost there, it was all almost over. “We are going to need backup” one woman said over her walkie talkie. “We’ve got at least one body in the basement.” The walkie talkie beeps. 

A policeman comes up first, he looks around. He notices the body and immediately steps away from the platform. He demands the woman to show her hands and she gets on her knees. She is still crying. The policeman rushes over to me and checks Ryan’s pulse. 

He yells out “CAN I GET AN EMT IN HERE? WE’VE GOT AN UNCONSCIOUS CHILD” He looks at me. “It’s going to be alright ma'am, we will take good care of you both. Are you hurt?” “No, no, just please save her.” She is then carried out onto a gurney and into the ambulance that takes us to the nearby hospital. I hold Ryan’s hand as the sirens screech and the vehicle begins to move.

We arrive at the hospital and they pull Ryan away for evaluation. A few police escort me to the waiting room, one offers to sit with me while we wait for news. 

A few minutes later another police officer comes in and sits in the chair in front of me. 

“Have we heard anything yet?” He asks the officers next to me. They shake their heads subtly. He then turns to look at me 

“We have finished conducting our search on the house, and we are gathering any information we may need in the process of analyzing the unfortunate events that occurred at your house. We did find a small stack of letters, dated from about 6 years ago, in the attic next to the bed. We have collected a few for you to read if you are willing. They were able to provide some background before we interview the woman.”

I wipe the tears under my eyes again, and nod slowly. He hands me a clear evidence bag. There is a letter on the top in messy handwriting: 

January 9, 1983

Dear Ashley and James,

A new family moved in. 

It’s been almost 6 months since your parents moved out. I don’t know where they went, they of course haven’t forgiven me. I know I write this in every letter, but please know I never meant to hurt either of you. 

I almost feel more lonely now that there are actual people living down there. 

I hear them laugh and make jokes as they move furniture. I also hear them cry. I don’t know why though. Sometimes I cry with them, I cry for you two though. 

I wish I never let you go to the beach that day. I should’ve gone in the water when you both wanted to play. I should’ve spent more time with you, not just watching and taking care of you. I will protect you now, like I should have then.

I miss you dearly.

Lillie