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It had been a stupid idea, but when Pinball Vance tells you to do something, you do it. The heavy-metal angel ghost had sounded proud, had carved out the wall like the hollowing of hipbones. Finney could even see where the Grabber had been forced to repair the hole in the wall. The new paint job clung like a bruise to the wall.
Once Finney had realized he could use the toilet tank lid as a makeshift shovel, he was surprised at how easily basement wall came apart, crumbling loose as soil on a fresh grave. Sweating, with hair matted to his forehead and fingernails lined with dirt, Finney saw what Vance had been getting at: the back panel of a large freezer.
Unscrewing the panel and pulling it off was easy. Crawling into the freezer was harder. The opening was just big enough to allow Finney in, but he hissed as the sharp metal of it scraped along his thin back.
Amongst dark parcels of long forgotten meat, he pushed against the freezer door. With the first few shoves, Finney imagined progress. He used the bone of his shoulder, like he had seen in late-night cop shows – forcing it against the door, praying as though he were a sinner at the gates of heaven. Please, please open for me. Please let me go.
By the time his knuckles cracked and bled, when his shoulder felt like an open wound, Finney discovered what he should have known all along; you can’t open a freezer from the inside. It was only once hot tears began to stream down his cheeks that he realized how cold he was.
He was cold to his marrow and beyond it. Had been contorted at odd angles for what felt like, and might have been, hours. His legs were numb with frost and bent beneath him, his chest was slumped forward against the door.
One winter, before his mother died and his father’s Saturday night drinks turned to Monday morning routine, the family’s car had broken down on the way to go Christmas shopping at the mall. As the family waited for the tow truck in the freezing cold on the side of the highway, his mom pulled Finney into the warmth of her down jacket. Don’t worry, sweet boy.
And darkness kissed him like death. Like relief.
–
As he was dragged out by his ankles, unsure whether he was dead or alive, Finney thought of the others, wherever they might be. In basement graves, or rotting slowly, tenderly, out in the snow-covered woods. He wondered if the man liked them still after death. How they looked and felt – bodies clammy-cold, flowering decomposition slowed by Rocky Mountain winters, holding their shape for now.
The man, the Grabber, was shirtless again, as he had been sitting at the top of the stairs in the dingy kitchen. Pulling Finney’s small, limp torso to himself, the man was talking. “I just fixed that,” he growled.
He smelled of sweat and the dark, cheap cigarettes and quicklime. His broad chest was freezer-hot against Finney’s bare back. (When had his shirt come off?)
The Grabber’s large hands and arms pulled Finney even tighter to him. A vice-grip of warmth. His voice was softer now – the too-queer voice that had bubbled in Finney’s stomach that day behind the van. A lifetime ago.
“Oh, naughty boy, you must be so cold,” came muffled from behind the mask. Lightly calloused hands moved from Finney’s chest to his stomach. “I’ll warm you up,” he said as though it were a song or a game.
“No. Please, no.” Finney didn’t want the man to touch him. He didn’t want the man to talk to him, or look at him, or know he existed. He wanted to kick and bite and scratch. To put up a good fight or die trying. But he was too cold, and could only manage to shiver.
As the Grabber squeezed him, the numbness began to subside, and Finney became conscious of just how bad the cold hurt. Worse than kicks to the face, and worse than the buckle end of the belt.
One of the hands on his stomach moved lower, unzipping his jeans. He hated himself for not being able to squirm free. He hated himself more for enjoying the Grabber’s warmth, the relief it provided. And as the hand dipped below the waistband of his underwear, he hated himself most for being hard.
–
A large, living body, and a small, half-dead thing, curled into one another. When he came, it was like swallowing broken glass.