The Last Magician

The Floor Dweller

For a few seconds time froze.

The Dweller stared at the newcomers, his eyes wide and shocked at the intrusion, at being caught.

Jack and Amanda mirrored his look of disbelief. Coming face to face with the Dweller so unexpectedly caught them off guard and all they could do was take in the sight.

Kurt had a clear view of the wretched figure pawing through a pile of junk. He could not hold his tongue.

“It’s a fucking kid!”

Time started with a jolt.

The gangly child wheeled away, flailing his arms and legs in a blind panic. He dropped to the floor, his body almost touching the floorboards as he scurried on all fours towards the staircase.

Outside the confines of the floor-space the Dweller moved with frightening speed; spider-like across the floor with arms and legs a blur. He hit the stairs before Jack moved. He knew instinctively where the child was headed; his hideaway. If he managed to duck under the floorboards again, they would lose him.

“Wait!” Jack yelled, running across the hallway as he shouted the first thing to come into his head. “We’re not going to hurt you.”

The Dweller leapt up the stairs two at a time, hands and legs pounding the unsteady wood in his frantic attempt to outpace his pursuer. His breath rattled from his scrawny chest in ragged, phlegmy gasps but he did not slow. Jack could hear him talking but could not decipher the words. It sounded like the whimpering of a wounded animal; frightened, desperate and out of control.

The Dweller was several steps ahead of Jack, moving faster towards the landing. It seemed the child was going to outpace him then suddenly the Dweller’s haste betrayed him.

While he concentrated on reaching his safe place, he no longer watched the wood rushing underfoot and did not see the rotten stair until it crumbled beneath his hand. A shocked squawk escaped him as his arm vanished into darkness and he slammed against the stairs.

Jack was on him before the child comprehended what had happened. The Dweller fought viciously as Jack locked his arms around the child’s bony torso. His feet kicked and his arms, one at first then the second as soon as it was free of the hole, thrashed at the air, beat blindly to dislodge the hands holding him.

“I could do with some help here,” Jack bellowed down the stairs.

Kurt was already at the foot of the flight and at the shout he quickly ascended to where Jack struggled to hold his balance and the child.

Kurt bent down, grabbing at the child’s small feet. He missed them twice, deceived by their quick movements before finally catching them on the third attempt. The child had a strength that his skinny frame belied.

“He’s a real live one,” Kurt said, raising his voice over the commotion.

“Cut the cracks,” Jack snapped. “Bring him down into the hallway. We have to get off these stairs before someone gets hurt.”

Kurt gave a sharp cry as one of the Dweller’s feet fell from his grip and pummelled the soft flesh of his stomach.

“Fucking little shit,” Kurt said, reclaiming his hold on the flailing limb.

Jack and Kurt moved down the stairs choosing their way carefully. If one of them hit a rotten board they would all go down.

At the bottom of the stairs Amanda watched the descent, her hand to her mouth where her teeth worked on the rough skin around her nails.

It was a child. Somehow a child had managed to survive where it seemed so many had not. Her attention focussed on him as he was brought closer. His head appeared too large for his emaciated frame, like a melon growing on a plant stalk. Amanda cringed at the sight of the numerous bones pressing through semi-transparent flesh. How the child was a live was a miracle enough; where his strength came from was something else entirely.

When they reached the hallway the child refused to abate, still trying to break loose of his captors.

Suddenly Jack felt a hand at his shoulder.

“Let me try,” she said quietly, her gaze set beyond Jack at the child’s face.

She did not give any option for refusal, moving past Jack to where he and Kurt held the boy as best they could.

“Put him down,” Amanda said, soft and coaxing.

Jack nodded to Kurt his consent but told him not to let go.

They bent down until the child lay on the floor. He continued to wriggle and squirm but his actions were suddenly subdued.

Amanda hovered over him, her gaze focussed on his sallow-skinned face. His eyes were still wide, but with something more than fear. Jack noticed it; it was a look of wonder.

Amanda reached out, placing her hand gently on the child’s chest. Her eyes never left his, keeping the connection, keeping him under the spell she weaved around him.

Suddenly she began to hum; a lullaby.

Jack exchanged a glance with Kurt. A woman’s touch was all it needed. More than that though; a mother’s touch.

Their rush to prevent the Dweller’s escape had been so dominant they had forgotten what their eyes clearly told them; he wasn’t an animal, just a boy. He was lost and frightened, to some extent just like them, but still just a boy.

”Now,” Amanda soothed, her voice so low it became hypnotic. ”Isn’t that so much better? You see? If you stay still it doesn’t hurt, does it? No, it doesn’t. There’s nothing to fear. We aren’t going to hurt you, but we do want to be friends. Do you want to be our friend? Do you want to be part of our little gang and go on a big adventure?”

She waved gently at Kurt and Jack, signalling them to release their grip on the child. Neither thought to question her.

“There we go. That’s better now, isn’t it? And you know what I think? I think that you’re clever to have been hiding away in here. I bet you know all the best places to hide don’t you? Would you show us where they are? Show us what you have there?”

As Amanda tamed the Dweller, he did nothing but stare at her, nodding occasionally. The fear was gone from his eyes like a forgotten memory and all that remained were the sad eyes of a lost child. A lost child who had just found a mother.

Jack stepped back from the pair; the thought of the child’s family entered his mind for the first time. Clearly the kid was alone and that meant he had been alone since…well, that was the question. Had he awakened in similar circumstances as they had. Lost, alone, disorientated. Looking at it from a child’s perspective frightened could be added to the top of the list. Amanda had expressed how fear had worked on her, Kurt had eventually spoken his fear of being trapped in his cell forever, and Jack knew that deep down he had been scared of this new world; for the child it must have been terrifying.

Like a rat in a town the Dweller had been given two options; make himself known to the world and risk death, or live in the anonymous shadows as an outcast. He had chosen to survive in the dark rather than die in the light, scavenging, running, hiding.

Jack imagined what it must have been like, cowering beneath the floor and listening to the creaks and groans of the house, the sound of footsteps and voices overhead. Thinking back to the moment he had fallen through the floor of the wardrobe, crashing into the place the child had taken to be a home, what images must have been going through his young mind. Jack had been wary of him, lurking and shifting mysteriously beneath them, but he was now sure that the child had been far more scared than he could begin to understand.

And now an angel had come to banish the demons; a gentle and caring vision the likes of which could surely not exist in this lifeless world. Jack knew he should have seen it straight away. Nothing would have stopped the child trying to flee from them, but Amanda was always going to be the only one who could connect with him.

Yet the extent of that connection only became apparent when the child suddenly spoke.

”I want a hug,” he said, his words clear despite the obvious dryness of his throat.

All thoughts of escape and hiding had left the child’s mind. All he had wished for since awakening in the dark to horrible sounds and shifting movements lay offered to him now; open arms promising safety and warmth. What could possibly drive him away from that?

The child reached forward and let Amanda’s arms close around him. He pressed his face into her chest, and it was a moment before she realised he was silently crying. She put a hand on the back of his head and held him.

Jack saw the first tears roll down Amanda’s cheek, and felt his own eyes prickling. Part of him wanted to join them, throw his arms around both of them, but this was not the time. This was a moment just for the two of them.

Amanda couldn’t describe what she was feeling. Some instinct inside of her had taken over as soon as Jack and Kurt had caught the child on the stairs. So that was what mothering instinct was like. Had she been a mother before things changed? Is that why her feelings were so strong towards the child?

She wasn’t looking for answers, not right now. All she wanted was to hold him close, absorb his sorrow and make him feel like everything was alright.

She almost laughed. Of course they would tell him everything was okay, not one of them trusted that to be true but they would convince him regardless. That was what needed to be done where children were concerned; make them feel safe, make them feel secure.

What they would tell him would come late though. For now she just needed to hold him close and feel his damp tears against her skin. Whether she had been a mother before or not, he was her child now.

In her arms, the Dweller’s heart thumped in his wasted chest with a new strength as his thoughts mirrored the unspoken sentiment.

For a time, nothing else mattered.

Not the strange new world that seemed so threatening. Not the burning red light that had frightened him so much or the ground-shaking that followed in its wake.

And for the shortest time, his memory of the Big Gun Man faded into insignificance.