33

The exposed wooden structure made Lazarus feel like he was inside the skeleton of a huge creature that had swallowed him. He walked carefully, taking slow steps in the dark. The moon was a small, thin shape in the sky, providing just enough light through the unfinished roof to keep him from tripping.

Stacks of drywall and lumber were everywhere in the home, secured with plastic ties. Lazarus stopped every few steps and listened, but all he could hear was the breeze whistling through the structure.

Sweat trickled down his back, seeping into his cotton tank top and making it cling to his skin like soggy tissue. His throat was sandpaper.

There was a second floor, but the stairs were unfinished. Lazarus worried that the figure had already passed through the house and was heading for the street. He hadn’t seen the man well enough in the dark to provide a good description. If he escaped, he would vanish.

“I just wanna talk,” Lazarus shouted.

There was no reply, just a soft flap from sheets of plastic hung over sections of the wooden frame.

A closet was finished and the doors closed. He approached slowly. He expected rounds to come flying out of the thin wood.

He stood to the side, out of the line of fire. Leaning against the incomplete wall near the closet, he strained his ears to listen. There was no audible breathing, but the rustling breeze outside could have masked the sound.

Reaching over slowly, he gripped the handle of the closet and began opening it.

The explosion of pain on the back of Lazarus’s head sent him tumbling forward into the closet door and then to the floor. He spun around just as another blow was coming and managed to get his arm up in time, blocking the hit from the slab of timber the figure was swinging at him.

The shape stood over him, feet on either side of Lazarus’s body. He lifted the timber in his hands and swung down. Lazarus held up his arm again, and his left forearm took most of the blow. He ignored the pain and slammed his fist into the figure’s groin, then grabbed his legs at the back of the knees and pulled. The figure stumbled backward, releasing the timber.

Lazarus found himself on his knees with no time to regain his footing before the figure came charging at him. Despite being smaller, he was significantly faster. He frantically searched for the lumber he had used to strike Lazarus.

Lazarus managed to grab it first. The figure charged at him like a wild animal, emitting grunts and growls. In a momentary glimpse under the feeble moonlight, Lazarus noticed that his face was disfigured.

The attacker pounced on him like a crazed creature, his nails clawing at Lazarus’s face. In the moonlight, Lazarus glimpsed a glint of metal, a screwdriver, in the figure’s hand.

The figure swung the tool down, attempting to thrust the tip into his eye. Lazarus grabbed the man’s forearm, preventing the screwdriver from entering his eyeball by a few inches. The figure exerted his weight, forcing the screwdriver down. Lazarus grunted, struggling to push him off, while the man drooled and spittle landed in his mouth and eyes.

Lazarus, his muscles straining under the onslaught, twisted suddenly to the side, using the attacker’s momentum against him. The screwdriver, now off its course, stabbed into the floor.

Lazarus pulled out his cuffs and swiftly cuffed one wrist to the figure and secured the other to an exposed plumbing pipe in the closet. The figure, desperate and frenzied, attacked the pipe relentlessly, yanking and pulling and grunting. Lazarus, breathing heavily, lurched to his feet as the figure lunged forward and missed grabbing him.

Sirens wailed in the distance.