Lance Brody Omnibus

by Michael Robertson Jr

  He saw nothing different.

  Yet the feeling persisted.

  Lance reached out and rapped his knuckles on the glass, causing a metallic rattling as it vibrated in its frame. He waited. Nothing knocked back from the other side. Lance gripped the mirror on either side and gave it a slight jerk up and down, left and right. It did not move. It was mounted solidly on the wall. He swung the medicine cabinet door open again, took in the fly graveyard once more and found nothing else of interest, and swung the door closed again.

  He sighed and stepped back. Stared at the mirror for another full minute. Looked at it for what it was, instead of what it might be. There’s something off about it, he thought. Then he remembered that yesterday, he’d thought the same thing, realizing that the mirror was mounted much higher up than most mirrors he came across in life.

  Then another thought collided into this one. Joan’s mention of Mark Benchley being a man of above-average height.

  Lance added these things up. The mirror was high. Mark Benchley was tall.

  The feeling pulling at his stomach started to grow.

  People put things in high places that they don’t want others to reach, Lance thought. Or things they don’t want them to find.

  Lance stepped back up to the vanity, stretched his arm up to reach the top of the mirror and let his hand search blindly across the top of its dusty surface.

  His fingers brushed against something. It was small, and cold and solid. He wrapped his hand around it and—

  A basement. No windows and a hard-packed dirt floor. Wooden steps leading up to a closed door. A wooden work table along one wall with neatly organized boxes and jars of nails and nuts and bolts and other things that only had any use for a man who knew how to use them. A pegboard was above the table, tools precisely hanging in their spots. They showed signs of use, but also of care. Well-sharpened blades and deeply oiled leather. Glinting steel and shining metal. There was a sprinkling of sawdust on the floor near the work table.

  A lone lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. The light it cast was dim, but another light was flickering in the corner. A kerosene lantern sat idly on the floor, casting shadows along the wall under and around the rows of metal shelving. The shelves held toolboxes and industrial-type storage containers. There were a handful of paint cans. There were extension cords coiled tightly and stacks of newspapers piled high but well aligned and balanced, their edges crisp and flush with the wall.

  The wall was not flush with the adjacent wall. Where the wall with the shelving should have met its neighbor, forming a back corner of the basement, there was a five-foot gap. There was some sort of track system inlaid in the ground and in the ceiling. The entire wall had shifted over, sliding neatly behind the stairs, just far enough so that the edges of the shelves did not collide with the edges of the steps.

  It was a door.

  Light spilled from the opened mouth of the wall.

  “So you see, Ray, when the Japs or the Chinks or whatever group gets pissed off enough and comes and starts bombing us, I can come down here and lock myself in and be nice and safe until it’s all over.”

  And then the basement shifted forward and the opened-mouth doorway in the wall came rushing forward in a blur and Lance was standing in the opening and—

  The room beyond the wall was long and narrow. The size of a bedroom that had been squished at its sides. There was a long encasement of fluorescent lighting on the ceiling at the center of the room. A pull cord dropping down a foot or so. The light was powerful, enough to illuminate the entire room. Along one entire wall were floor-to-ceiling shelves full of canned food and gallons and gallons of water. There were gas cans along the floor, and a stockpile of lanterns lining the wall beside them. Piles of batteries and both CB and AM/FM radios. Stacks of paperback books and a couple old board games. At the far side of the room were a sink and a toilet. A shower curtain and rod were hung from the ceiling in front of the toilet, serving as a bathroom door. In the center of the room was a futon. It was in the folded-down position.

  A boy and a man lay atop it, looking up at the ceiling.

  “And of course you and your mom and the rest of yous can come, too. It might be a little tight, but we’ll make it work.”

  The man was tall and wore faded overalls with a short-sleeved white t-shirt underneath. Boots on his feet. The outfit of a country man who worked with his hands and worked the land. Built things and grew things and enjoyed the fruits of his labor. He was in his forties, maybe, but looked older. Heavy creases on his brow and cheeks, skin like leather.

  He poked the boy playfully in the ribs, turning and saying, “It’ll be fun, won’t it, Ray? Like a big sleepover. Like the kind you probably have with your friends, right? You can stay up as late as you’d like—because if it comes to that, what’s the point of a bedtime, am I right?—and we can read each other stories and play board games and it’ll be a grand ol’ time!”

  The man laughed and poked the boy again, and the boy grinned and squirmed away and the man laughed some more and said, “Hey, I got an idea. Why don’t we play a game now? What do ya say, Ray, my boy?”

  The boy, who looked not much older than he’d been when he’d pulled the garden hose in his backyard and tripped the little girl because he was angry that she’d splashed him, grinned and nodded his head. “Okay,” he said.

  “Good! I could use a little fun,” the man said. “I’ve been working too much. Too much, I tell ya!” The man crinkled his brow and tapped his temple, making a show of pretending to think. Then his eyes lit up big, and he smiled and said, “I know! Why don’t we play our secret game?”

  They boy’s face fell. His eyes dropped to the futon’s mattress and he said nothing.

  The man, seeing the boy’s apprehension, did not respond with sympathy. Instead, his eyes grew hard, narrowing to slits. His voice came out hushed but hot.

  “Ray. Come on, now. Be a good boy. What’s the matter, too good to play a game with an old slog like me? Do you think when your mama comes and picks you up, she’s gonna want to hear her boy didn’t behave? Do you want me to tell her that, huh? She’ll be real mad, I bet. Disappointed in you, too.” The man shook his head. “I wouldn’t want that, Ray. I’d hate to see your mama upset, wouldn’t you?”

  The boy said nothing. He kept staring at the mattress.

  “Ray?” The man’s voice was even quieter now, but scarier all the same. “I’m starting to get mad.”

  The boy looked up and met the man’s eyes. “Okay,” was all he said.

  The man’s face lit up again, an instant transformation back into the happy, playful person he’d been moments earlier. He hooted a laugh. “Hooray! Ray’s going to play!”

  The boy didn’t so much as blink. He just sat stone-faced and waited.

  “And remember,” the man said, “it’s our secret game. That’s what makes it so fun, right? I’d be really mad, Ray, if you ever told somebody. I want this to be our thing, okay. Something special for just you and me, okay?”

  The boy said nothing. Waited.

  The man, apparently satisfied, said eagerly, “Okay, let’s get ready.”

  He unfastened the buckles of his overalls and flung the straps over his shoulders, then worked to shimmy them down around his ankles. Then he pulled down the threadbare boxer shorts he’d been wearing underneath, fully exposing himself. He was already growing hard.

  Quietly and with the poise of someone much older than his true age, the boy reached down and began to—

  Lance gasped and felt himself flung back into the bathroom. The world coming back into focus with a speed that was almost blinding. He closed his eyes and counted to ten, getting his breath under control and letting his heart slow. Then he slowly opened his eyes.

  He saw his reflection in the mirror. His eyes darted up to the top of the mirror, then back down to his hand. His right hand was closed in a fist. Something was inside, digging into the soft flesh of his palm. Lance raised his hand and opened it, e
xamining what he’d found—what had held within it a terrible memory that no person should ever have to see.

  It was a key.

  27

  Lance stared at the silver key in his hand. It was small, but heavy. Thick and durable, not flimsy and easily bent like most cheapos you had made in hardware stores or at the checkout counter at the Walmart Tire Center. He tossed it gently in the air, feeling its heft.

  Then he considered what he’d seen. His eyes went unfocused again as his mind drifted back to the flash of memory the key had jolted him with. Most of Lance’s instant downloads came from a human touch, and although he knew he could never quite seem to make sense of from who he received them, or why, there was still something incredibly unsettling about receiving one of these flashes from an inanimate object. It was even more unexpected than the ones he received from other people, because at least with human contact, Lance could have a sense of expectancy, even if the odds were slim. With inanimate objects … well, he wasn’t going to go around all day expecting to have an item’s history presented to him every time he went shopping or opened a door or picked up a fork in a restaurant. The Universe had at least spared him that consideration.

  It had only happened twice before.

  Both items had presented him with horrible scenes that he knew he’d never forget.

  Today’s was no different, but it was also relevant.

  Lance remembered Victoria Bellows’s words, how she’d told him that after the Benchley family murder, the sheriff had gone around telling people that he should have known better. That too much evil had already happened in the house and it made sense that more would follow.

  Now Lance understood. Ray Kruger had been molested in the farmhouse. How many times?

  (“Why don’t we play our secret game?”)

  How much had that little boy who would grow up to be the town’s protector suffered at the hands of a twisted older man?

  And who else knew about it?

  Every time Lance had tried to dig for more details about why Ray Kruger was so protective of—and repulsed by—the farmhouse, he’d received coy answers, changes of subject, and hushed whispers. But never any valuable information.

  Did the whole town know and simply wish to protect their sheriff’s privacy? Was the abuse of a small boy a secret that an entire town was trying to keep buried? Lance could understand that. It was a terrible thing. Not something you’d want tossed around in casual conversation.

  But Lance felt there was more.

  As usual, there was always more.

  Lance looked at the key again, thought about the wall that had slid open in the basement.

  He didn’t want to go down there again. Not now. He wanted to put his shoes on and jog the short way down the hill and find Jacob Morgan and try and talk to Ethan. As much as Lance was invested in trying to figure out what had happened to the Benchley family—especially after hearing the echo of some of the events that’d taken place the night they had been killed (Who was the fourth person?)—he could not dampen his excitement and elation at finding another person who shared his abilities. He had so much to ask, and so much to teach the young boy, if possible. Help him come to terms with who he was and what life would be like for him.

  Lance again remembered the feeling he’d gotten when he’d stepped off the bus in Ripton’s Grove the evening before last. He’d been hit with such a compelling drive to stay here. He’d felt that pull of being needed, more than he’d felt in a long time.

  Ethan had to be the reason for that. The Universe was finally giving him something in return. A small gesture to say You are not alone.

  Lance finished up in the bathroom and returned to the bedroom to pull on his shoes, and then he was moving down the stairs, his backpack snug on his shoulders and the key he’d found—that terrible key—tucked safely into the pocket of his cargo shorts.

  And instead of walking out the front door, he found himself turning and heading down the hall to the kitchen. Opening the basement door. Heading down the stairs. Despite the sun having risen, the basement was still nearly pitch black, the light coming down the stairs from the kitchen doing little to fight back the dark down below. Lance could just make out the pull cord he’d ripped down lying coiled on the ground, and he stepped over it and used his height and long arms to reach up and fumble in the dark until he found what was left of the bit of chain hanging from the fixture and pinched it between his fingers and tugged. The bulb snapped to life.

  Lance turned around and looked at the wall behind the stairs, the metal shelves, the paint can, and was amazed at how different it all felt now that he knew what was behind the wall. And what had taken place back there. A secret place. A secret game. A disgusting crime.

  Lance walked closer to the wall, his steps feeling heavy, his stomach grumbling. He needed to eat. He needed coffee. He needed answers.

  He hoped he’d get all these things soon. But for now, the wall had his attention. He stood three feet away, then two. Then he reached out, slowly, and rested his palm on one of the empty shelves. Braced himself for another memory, another flash of the past.

  He got nothing but a bit of dust on his palm.

  He grabbed the edge of one of the shelves in both hands and pulled, gently at first and then with more effort, finally leaning in, throwing all his weight into it and feeling the cords in his neck stand out as he strained.

  The wall did not so much as flex. It had no give whatsoever. Lance wasn’t too surprised by this, but he had to try. He walked back and forth along the length of the wall, pulling his flashlight from his backpack and scanning the surface, looking for a handle or a lever or some sort of trigger that would open the wall.

  Then the key in his pocket suddenly seemed to weigh a hundred pounds, weighing down his thoughts.

  Of course, Lance thought. Lance, you idiot. Sometimes you’re such a dumbass.

  Now he was looking for a keyhole.

  He spent ten minutes shining his flashlight over the entire surface of the wall, floor to ceiling, side to side. Again, his efforts were in vain. Lance remembered Joan telling him that ol’ Uncle Joe had been an engineer for the Army and could build anything. If he’d built a way to open the wall, he’d sure hidden it well.

  The air in the basement was cool, but Lance felt the dotting of perspiration on his forehead and temples. A dampness was at his lower back, causing his t-shirt to stick. He was about to pull off his hoodie, but his stomach gave another grumble, and Lance knew that the longer he stayed in the basement, the longer it would be before he could have his conversation with Jacob Morgan an Ethan. Which, unless Jacob offered Lance some coffee and a stack of pancakes, meant the breakfast Lance planned on devouring at Mama’s would be pushed even further away.

  Sometimes hunger was a real pain.

  He took one last glance at the wall and couldn’t shake the feeling that something important waited for him on the other side.

  While inside the farmhouse had been chilly, as the cold fall morning air had seeped through the old house’s walls, when Lance stepped out the front door and onto the porch, he breathed in deeply and saw the white cloud of his breath as he exhaled. Each passing day seemed to be getting colder and colder, taking longer for the sun to warm things up. Lance loved fall, loved the chilled mornings and the crisp evenings. He stood for another minute on the porch, breathing in the clean mountain air, and then pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and started down the steps. Rounded the corner of the farmhouse and found the trail. Followed it down the way he’d walked up yesterday afternoon.

  There was a stillness to everything. An overshadowing calmness that seemed to have fallen among the trees and the rocks and the creatures. Lance’s footsteps seemed very loud. The only noise aside from the occasional breeze stirring up leaves and rustling branches that had started to go bare.

  He was at Jacob Morgan’s house within a few minutes, standing on the path and peering through the trees at the small home. Just like yesterd
ay, Lance thought the place looked more like a small hunting cabin than home, but he didn’t pass judgment. The scattered pieces of split wood were gone from the yard, all neatly stacked and ready in a heaping pile. The chopping block remained, but the axe was gone as well. Stored away, taken care of. Lance watched the house for a full minute, watching for any signs of life. A shadow in a window, a reflection of light, the sounds of muffled voices carried to him on the breeze like a telegram.

  There was nothing, except a small tendril of smoke snaking from a crude chimney at the side of house’s roof.

  Lance adjusted the straps of his backpack and stepped into the woods. Dead leaves and fallen twigs and branches crunched and snapped underfoot. Now he did hear the scurrying of small animals, suddenly alarmed at an intruder in their midst. Lance felt oddly like he was trespassing, creeping through the woods and into somebody’s yard, but with no driveway or entrance from the path that he could see, he didn’t dwell too much on it.

  He emerged from the tree line and stepped into the grass. Finding his strides growing longer and quick, he stopped just short of the cabin. A single step led up to a modest covered porch. Two rocking chairs sat at opposite sides of the front door, one large, one small. Two-thirds of the Three Bears. The building was old, there was no mistaking it, but Jacob Morgan had obviously used his handyman skills to keep the place up. It was small, but it didn’t appear shabby or forgotten. It had been cared for. Lance admired Jacob Morgan’s work, his commitment to keep his home modest, yet presentable. A combination of rustic and quaint.

  Lance stepped up the porch step and knocked on the door. Two quick thwops. He took a step back, waited. Heard nothing from the other side of the door. He tried again, another two knocks, only this time more forceful. The window next to the door rattled as he did so.

  Still nothing. Lance counted to thirty in his head before he slowly reached out and grabbed the handle, knowing what he was doing was wrong yet unable to stop himself. Thankfully, the door was locked. Lance wasn’t sure he would have been able to keep himself from trespassing any further. His curiosity about the boy was too high. The potential too great.