An Easy Job

The ever present silence was now rivalled by stillness. Walter looked up toward the ceiling,
trying to trace the footsteps – footsteps that became louder and louder with each harsh step,
much like the groans from before. Walter and I exchanged another look, and then he looked
past over my shoulder.

“The light!” He signalled, pointing toward the stairwell.

“Crap,” I exclaimed, grabbing the butcher’s knife before crawling up the wooden stairway
again. I hadn’t noticed the squeaks and moans before, but as I made my way up the rotten
wood, the protesting groans were present even to the people below.

“Make a sound and you’ll be bound,” Came the woman’s mutter.

“What are you talking about?” Walter hissed back.

“Make a sound and you’ll be bound,” She said again, louder this time.

“Walter, shut her up,” I called from the stairwell.

“Make a sound and you’ll be bound!” She screamed, followed by the sound of dragging
metal. “Make a sound and you’ll be bound!” She screamed again. I could hear the cage door
open. “Make a sound and you’ll be–” She began, but was interrupted this time by the sound of
steel clashing against flesh. I looked back towards opening just as the lights vanished with a
muffled roar. I turned back to the door. I’d left the picked locks on the counter. There was no
way I wouldn’t be found out. In just a few more minutes, that door would open, and I would be
dragged off to prison – but strangely, that wasn’t what I was afraid of. What if I ended up in one
of those cages?

I wasn’t sure why I felt so afraid, honestly. They’d told me only one man lived here, and that
was Henry Jiang. A short, pudgy man in his fifties, he’d come over from China a few years ago
after the more shady aspects of his business ventures took off. There was no doubt in my mind
that Walter and I could have held him off with little effort. This gave me an almost foreboding
sense of comfort. Could I be in denial? I hadn’t time to figure it out, though, as someone had
grabbed a hold of my leg.

“Ray, is that you?” A voice inquired.

“Yeah . . . listen, I know the guy that lives here. I think we could take him.” I replied, feeling
Walter’s grip loosen.

“The other man down there, Ray . . . he just got up and smashed the woman’s head in with a
pipe.”

“What?”

“I don’t know, he just sort of pushed past me and shut her up. Knocked the light out, too.”

“Shit. Alright, well, we have to get out of here, anyway.”

“Got a plan?”

“Maybe . . . we have to–” As I turned back to look at the doorway, two new shadows had
appeared underneath the frame – feet.

“Crap, crap, get back, go,” I muttered to Walter, as I crawled back down the stairwell.

“This way,” Walter said, pulling me into the dirt hallway just as the stairwell door creaked
open. I could see the faint electrical flicker of the broken lightbulb across from where Walter and
I were hiding. We could both hear the clicking each time Jiang would try the hanging switch.
Along with a frustrated grunt, the now familiar squeaks and moans began just around the
corner.

Walter tapped the butcher’s knife still clenched in my right hand, and then signalled toward
the stairwell. Did he want me to kill Jiang? Perhaps just wound him so he wouldn’t be able to
follow us? I looked down at the knife once more, rubbing out the scarlet stain my blood had left
on it from before. I’m not sure why I bothered to . . . there was much more blood to come.

The squeaks and moans were nearly right by us now, and I knew what had to be done. As I
slowly slipped the knife around in my hand, a figure appeared between us and the still flickering
lightbulb. It was not Jiang . . . unless he’d suddenly grown to eight feet tall, and put on fourhundred
pounds of muscle. The figure passed Walter and I, both frozen at the sheer size of the
man. This was not someone I wanted following me on the way out, and so I hesitantly shook it
off and brought the blade up to my chest. I took a step toward the monster as a howl came from
the cage room. A bearded man flew at the massive figure, knocking him against the wall. Walter
pushed past me and pulled me by the sleeve of my jacket toward the stairwell. I threw the
butcher’s knife over my shoulder as we sprinted up to the kitchen, slamming the door behind us.
I put my back to the door, and tried to catch my breath.

“All of these windows have bars on them!” Walter called, scouting the dining hall. I put my
palm up against my chest. I really was too old for this.

“Try the front door,” I hollered, still trying to catch my breath.

“There’s a lock on the inside”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s a big lock on the wrong side of the door . . . just come see”

I walked over to the front room, and was immediately greeted with a feeling of dejavu. I
remembered seeing the lock when I first came in.

“Think you can pick it like the ones on the cages?” Walter asked, glancing over towards the
kitchen.”

“Yeah, I just need a minute,” I said, pulling another pick from my side pocket.

For a moment, there was silence again, only broken by the ticks, clicks, and clacks of the
steel lock picks as I turned them from left to right. Then, another loud roar, this time loud enough
to shake the half of the house. It came from the basement.

“We may not have a minute – hurry,” Walter pleaded, violently shifting his gaze back and
forth between the kitchen door and my gloved hands.

“Okay, I think I’ve got–” I was cut off by a loud crash coming from somewhere behind me.
Massive footsteps raced towards us from the kitchen, and in that moment, my lockpick fell to the
ground. Walter’s eyes followed mine as we watched the sleek pin shake on the marble tile,
vibrated by the footsteps of the monster that had broken through the kitchen door. This time I
pulled Walter’s shirt, dragging his rigid body towards the stairwell.

“There’s a balcony up here, just follow me!” I shouted, perhaps climbing the stone stairwell
faster than I’d climbed any staircase before. We could hear the giant just behind us, crashing
against walls, and knocking over tables, reaching out for the two men just far enough to escape
his immense grasp. When we reached the balcony room, Walter slammed the door hard, as I
knocked a wardrobe over in front of it.

“This way, hur–” I began, but was interrupted once more by the wardrobe sliding across the
floor, followed by the now clearly massive body of a behemoth. Time seemed to stop in that
moment. It’s cold eyes looked over the both of us. Walter was backed into a wall, while I was
just in front of the balcony. The woman in the white dress stood where she’d always stood, the
same expressionless face looking back into my own. The ogre took a step toward us, and
without another thought, I jumped.