and rescue rope midair over the center of the well as they lifted Hector out.
Mike, David, and Scott were going to do the pulling. Mike gave them instructions as they took up their places six feet or so back from the well on the side opposite the tree. The three of them gripped the rope firmly. Diane dropped the other end of the rope down the well to Hector.
“Hector, I want you to listen to me,” she said.
“I’m listening.”
“Put your good foot in the loop nearest the end of the rope. Use the other loops as handholds. Don’t try to help us by putting your hands on the wall; it’s much too unstable. Just hold on to the rope. Your leg is probably going to hurt, but you have to ignore the pain,” said Diane.
“How do I do that?” asked Hector.
“You just do it,” she said. “Scream if you have to, but don’t thrash about, just hold on to the rope. Let us know when you are ready.”
“You know,” he said, “I’ve been thinking about the physics of hauling a weight up, and—”
“Hector, we have the math worked out. Just concentrate on hanging on to the rope,” Diane said. “Remember what I do in my leisure time.”
“Fishing?” he said.
Diane smiled. She watched him as he struggled to stand and she wondered whether she needed to go down into the well to help.
“You doing all right?” she asked.
“It’s not so bad. I can do it,” he said.
She winced as he held on to the side of the well to steady himself.
Hector got his foot in the loop and held on. He started to say something when a stone dislodged from near the top edge and fell with a crash as it hit the rotten wood.
“You all right?” she said. “Were you hurt?”
“No,” he said in a voice that could be called squeaky at this point. He definitely sounded scared. “But, I’m ready to get out of here—now. Just don’t drop me, okay?”
“You’re going to be fine. You’re in good hands. Here we go.”
Diane signaled for them to pull. They leaned into the rope as if they were in a life-and-death tug-of-war, and Hector rose toward the surface, screaming at the top of his lungs. When his shoulders cleared the top, Diane and Neva pulled him to the edge and dragged him over the tarp and onto solid ground.
Scott ran over to him. “Hector, are you all right? Are you in pain?”
Hector lay on the ground breathing hard.
“I’m fine. Not much pain, really. It’s just that, when Dr. Fallon suggested it, screaming seemed like such a good idea.”
Diane opened the blade of her pocketknife and ripped Hector’s jeans while David held the flashlight. His skin was bruised and swollen, but it wasn’t an open fracture. What was most noticeable, however, was the broken tibia he held next to his chest.
“You brought a bone up with you?” said Scott.
“Well, hell, yeah. I wasn’t going to have all that be a wasted trip. What is it, Dr. Fallon? Tell me it’s not a deer or a dog,” said Hector.
“It’s not. It’s human,” said Diane. “It’s relatively small, but judging from the epiphyseal union, I’d guess it was from a teenager.”
“Dang,” said Scott. “Wow.” And then the realization: “A small teenager. Dead. In the well.”
They heard the siren come up the driveway and stop in front of the house. David had cleared a path to the well by taking down some of his string and stakes. The two policemen led the paramedics around the back of the house to the abandoned well. The local firemen arrived with them. The paramedics set the stretcher down and began attending to Hector.
“We were thinking,” said one of the paramedics as he began taking vitals, “that maybe we would just drop by here every morning and evening. Save a lot of time.”
They were the paramedics who had taken Marcella to the hospital, as well as Officers Hanks and Daughtry, and the late Ray-Ray Dildy—and now Hector. They probably decided the house was cursed.
“His vitals are good,” he said.
“My granny always said this old witch house is haunted,” the young paramedic said.
“You know this house, then?” asked Diane.
“A little. Granny says when she was a young girl, some crazy rich woman, an artist I think she said, lived here. She had all these demon creatures all over the roof,” he said, as he immobilized Hector’s leg.