Vacancy

by Fredric Shernoff

“Oh, hey, it’s no problem. Stay as long as you like. I don’t mean to pry, but you guys look like you’ve been up all night. Were you camping?”

  “Something like that,” Dylan said. The Apple logo appeared on his phone. He never would have thought he’d be so happy to see that white apple.

  Shortly afterwards, his phone loaded and he pulled up his recent calls. “Strange,” he said.

  “What now?” Emma said in feigned annoyance.

  “Nothing’s downloading in.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Like, okay, one time I went on a vacation with my family. Right before Hunter was born. We flew to an island and I had to keep my phone turned off the entire week. We got Wi-Fi at the airport waiting for our flight home, and when I switched it on I got bombarded by group texts and emails and tweets and stuff like that. So I expected now that there would be so much crap coming in. Missed calls for sure from everybody looking for us.”

  “And nothing’s coming through?” Emma asked.

  “Nothing. Well, like two junk emails.”

  “Maybe it needs more time.”

  “I don’t know. I just feel like after how long we’ve been gone…” He trailed off as he looked at the home screen of the phone. “What the fuck?”

  “What?”

  He showed her the phone. “Look at the date and time.”

  “June thirtieth. It’s like we just left! How is that possible?”

  “I don’t know. How is any of this possible?”

  “You guys sure you’re okay?” the clerk asked.

  “Yeah, man, we’re good,” said Dylan. He dialed his mom’s cell.

  “Hey Dylan,” Mrs. Merchant answered.

  “Um…Mom! Hi! Can somebody come give me and Emma a ride?”

  “Already? Your father just dropped you off like an hour ago, didn’t he? Everything okay?”

  Dylan smiled. “Yeah, mom. Yeah. Everything’s okay. It’s just that we’ve seen what we came to see. Should I give Dad a call?”

  “Well I was about to call him to remind him we need more eggs. I’ll just tell him to go get you. I’ll have him shoot you a text when he’s close.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Mom. Can’t wait to see you!”

  “You too baby… that’s a very nice thing to hear.”

  “Yep. Love you! See you soon!”

  He hung up the phone. “I don’t think you need to call your parents,” he told Emma. “Nobody knows we’ve been gone.”

  “I don’t think we were gone,” she said. “It’s like the store put us right back to where we started.”

  “Are you guys talking about the ghost store?” the clerk asked. His eyes were wide with excitement.

  “Ghost store?” Emma asked. “What ghost store?”

  “There’s a store in the middle of this one and the dress place. Or there was. People say it shows up on the full moon. I’m pretty sure…” He typed something on his phone. “Yup. Definitely a full moon going on. What did you see?”

  “Sorry, man, we don’t know anything about a ghost store,” Dylan said.

  “But you said—”

  “We just got lost downtown and thought it had been a lot longer than it actually was,” Emma said. “Looks like everything worked out okay.”

  “Hmm. If you say so.” The teen turned back to his phone and began playing some kind of game. “Feel free to look around while you wait for your ride,” he said without taking his eyes off his screen.

  “Will do. Thanks.” Dylan put his arm around Emma’s shoulders and walked her to the far end of the store.

  “We are so lucky,” she said.

  “Yes, we are. But what about Clyde?”

  “It’s still the full moon. So that means—”

  “Oh hell no. Please tell me you aren’t considering trying to get back in the store.”

  “There’s no harm in it for us, Dylan! We can ride it out until the next purple storm, and come right back to where we started. And maybe we can find a way to help Clyde and his friend!”

  “Jesus, Emma, come on! We don’t know if we just got lucky to get away. Can we really afford to take that chance? We’ve been given this opportunity to go home unharmed, other than my shoulder, which, by the way, could really use an icepack. Let’s just let it go. There’s such a thing as tempting fate, I think.”

  “I guess you’re right. I just feel selfish.”

  “I’m not saying that Clyde deserves what happened to him. And I’m not saying there isn’t something we can do at some point to help him. But for one thing, it was his impulsiveness that got him trapped there, and we don’t need to follow that example. And for another, we don’t know what became of him. He might be back on that street corner or he might not be. Maybe he’s a whole new identity. Who the hell knows about any of this? Right now we just need to go home and sleep in our own beds and let all this settle a little.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I understand. You are a wise man, even though you’re a pain in the ass.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  Dylan wondered if his father would question him about the missing bike. He decided if it came up he would have to say that it got stolen. The whole thing would sound awkward, but what choice did he have?

  When the text came through that Mr. Merchant was about to turn onto Butler Avenue, Dylan grabbed the phone off the charger and put it back in his pocket. “Thanks,” he said to the teen at the counter.

  “No problem. Glad you found your way back from wherever you got lost.”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  Dylan and Emma waved to the clerk as they exited Galaxi’s. Mr. Merchant was just pulling up in front of the store.

  “God, I’m so hungry,” Dylan said as his dad pulled up.

  “Me too. I feel like we haven’t eaten in days.”

  “Hey, Dad,” Dylan said. “How did you know where we’d be? I thought I’d have to wave you down.”

  “This is where I dropped you off,” Mr. Merchant said. “Remember? You said you wanted to interview people about the alley for some local history report you’re doing for the library. I figured you two wouldn’t have wandered too far away.” He looked at them with a mischievous smile. “Enjoying each other’s company?”

  Dylan realized he was holding Emma’s hand in his. He laughed. “Yeah, we’re having fun. I’m glad to see you, Dad.”

  “You missed me this past hour! I’m so touched.” He looked at Emma. “You see? He plays tough but he’s a big softy.”

  “He’s a keeper,” she said.

  They stayed quiet the whole ride. Emma had offered to get picked up by her parents back at the Starbucks, but Mr. Merchant insisted on taking her home. “Nonsense!” he said. “Dylan’s girl gets first-class treatment.”

  Dylan couldn’t believe he actually wasn’t too embarrassed by his dad’s offbeat sense of humor. He supposed those uncomfortable feelings would return, but Emma rolled with it so well and he was so happy that his parents hadn’t been searching frantically for him for days.

  After Emma was dropped off, Mr. Merchant turned to Dylan. “She’s a really nice girl, Dyl,”

  “Yeah, she is.”

  “She’s going to school with you in the fall?”

  “Mmhmm.”

  “Well that’s really nice. You’ll have a date for homecoming and prom.”

  Dylan smiled. “I guess you’re right.” He hadn’t thought about normal things like school dances when it came to Emma. Their fledgling relationship had been formed in such unusual circumstances. His insecurities still existed, but he had good, logical reasons to believe she might at least try to stick around in his life. He hoped he could do right by her.

  Back home, he greeted his mom with the warmest hug he could manage. Both his parents looked at him with bemused but pleased smiles.

  “Do you recognize our son?” Mrs. Merchant asked.

  “Nope,” said Mr. Merchant. “I’m fairly certain he’s been possessed by a demon. A very friendly, loving demon.”
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br />   “You guys. Jesus.” Dylan laughed as he walked out of the room.

  “Well that sounds like the Dylan we know and tolerate,” his dad said. “You headed upstairs?”

  “Yeah. I’m actually feeling pretty tired. I’m going to take a shower and nap for a little while.”

  “Okay,” his mom said. “If you want to eat with us after Hunter goes down for the night, dinner will be in about two hours.”

  “Sounds perfect,” Dylan said.

  He climbed the stairs and entered his room just long enough to put his cellphone on the charger. He saw the battery charging indicator light, and walked into the bathroom. After what had seemed like an endless time of peeing behind stores or in public restrooms, it was nice to have a little comfort and privacy. He flushed the toilet and turned on the shower. His shoulder still hurt, but only when he prodded it. He didn’t think he’d damaged it too much during his heroic attempts to save Clyde.

  Had he saved the poor, lost man after all? Something had happened, that was certain. Clyde had only known what became of people trapped outside the store when the purple darkness came. He hadn’t even known he could get back inside. So it was a mystery to all involved what would happen to someone whom the past had tried to absorb.

  He still got confused by how much their conversations and thoughts personified the past. As if the past made decisions. But how to explain the story that had been written as his bike became a 1980’s bike that belonged to a young Hugo Callahan? And Clyde had been force-fed a new identity with a whole backstory. How did something like that happen? It was like the universe was pulling plot lines from alternate realities. The whole thing gave him a headache.

  He finished showering and dried himself with one of the large tan towels on the rack. With the towel wrapped around his waist, he entered his bedroom and flopped on the bed. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so comfortable. He thought he should get up and put on some clothes, or at least take off the towel and throw on some underwear, but his body didn’t want to move. In minutes, he was fast asleep.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Dylan slept straight through the night. If he dreamt of the good or the bad of the experience he had shared with Emma, he had no recollection upon waking.

  He rolled over and checked his phone. He was glad he’d thought to charge it before going to take a shower. It hadn’t been charged much beyond the 20% low battery limit at Galaxi’s, but now it was fully loaded and ready for whatever the day might bring. He thought he could say the same about his body and mind.

  The phone screen showed 6:30. Not surprising, considering how early he’d fallen asleep and how screwed up his inner clock was from traveling through time over and over again. Still, he hoped this waking early thing wouldn’t become a habit.

  He got up and put on his boxers. He grabbed the top t-shirt from his drawer and put that on, along with a pair of jeans that hung over the back of his desk chair. He knew he had placed the jeans there only two days earlier, but he felt like that could have been a week or more in the past.

  He swapped his wallet and its random contents from one pair of pants to the other, and grabbed his phone. He sat back down on the bed and looked at the screen.

  There was one new message, a simple line from Emma that read, “Thinking of you,” with an emoji heart at the end. She had written that message at 2:17 in the morning. He hoped that she’d either fallen asleep late or had experienced a brief waking in the middle of the night, and not that she awoke for good that early. He prepared to write her back, then paused, unsure if he would wake her up by delivering a message.

  He opened the photo library on his phone and flipped through the images of the store. There were pictures of the outside, pictures of the inside, and even some from the first trips to the past. Videos too. The images were amazing to see, and in some strange way they conjured some mournful feelings of an experience come and gone, much as he often felt when looking back at pictures of camp or a fun family vacation.

  He watched the video of their first time closing the door from inside the store. They hadn’t known what that small act would trigger. He paused on a frame of Emma’s face.

  He really couldn’t stop thinking about her. She amused him, aroused him, and challenged him in ways he found unbelievably intriguing. He didn’t know what would have happened if she’d never brought him to the store. He believed her when she said that she only came to him with the story because she liked him to begin with. It was his own actions that he doubted. Without the chaos of the trip to the 1980’s, he didn’t think he could have mustered up the ability to kiss her.

  Now, all he could think about was kissing her again. He flipped open her iMessage and began to type his reply, before stopping himself again. Better to wait, as difficult as that would be.

  He realized he was hungry. He put the phone in his pocket and went downstairs. His dad was in the kitchen, drinking coffee out of a dark red mug that featured the menacing face of the Temple University owl, and studying an iPad in a silver case.

  “Morning, Dad,” Dylan said.

  “Morning yourself, buddy. You sure seemed tired last night. Your mom asked me to poke my head into your room about 9 or so, and you were out cold. You feeling okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m actually fine. Just some late nights that finally caught up with me.”

  Mr. Merchant laughed. “You been going clubbing without us noticing? Or are you sneaking out for your nighttime job loading boxes at UPS?”

  “All of the above. But seriously, no, I’m fine. Just some trouble sleeping recently and it all finally leveled out.”

  His father took a sip of coffee and scrolled something on the iPad screen with his finger. “Good. It was probably Hunter keeping you up. I don’t know if he’s teething again or what, but he’s been on the warpath.”

  “Ha. Yeah, that’s probably what it was.”

  “Amazing he didn’t wake you up last night. He put on quite the show. I think the full moon’s bringing the crazy out of him. I have to tell you, Dyl, and I know I say it a lot, but your mom and I really appreciate how helpful and understanding you’ve been with Hunter and all the changes he’s brought to our lives.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Dylan said. He grabbed a Pop-Tart package from the pantry and peeled the metallic wrapper off the pastries. “He’s a good little guy.”

  “Still, it’s a testament to your character, and I appreciate it. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Mr. Merchant flipped the iPad cover over the screen. “So… plans to see your lady today?”

  “Nothing planned at the moment. Might go see Matt. Besides I didn’t want to contact Emma too early.”

  “You’re a funny one, Dyl.”

  Dylan sat down across from his dad. “How do you figure?”

  “When I dropped you off yesterday you were nervous as hell…don’t deny it, bud, you’re just like me and I know the anxiety when I see it. But a couple hours later I pick you up and you and Emma are chummy like you’ve been together forever. What’s the secret to your success?”

  “Um…I’m not sure. I guess I just warmed up to her.”

  “She is charming, I’ll give you that. What’s her deal?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Mr. Merchant picked up his mug and gestured with it as he spoke. “You said she’s from out of town, right? Whereabout did she come from?”

  “Hmm, you know, I really don’t know. I’ll have to ask her. It’s just kind of a sore spot for her. Her dad moves her family around pretty often, I think.”

  “Do you think she’ll stay here for a while?”

  “I honestly don’t know. I hope so. Hey… I know this is a silly question, but have you seen my bike?”

  Dylan waited nervously while his father thought about it.

  “First of all there are no silly questions. Only silly people. And as far as the bike…uh…I think it’s in the garage. Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “Oka
y. Yeah. You’re right. Well I’m going to take it now. See if I can get some exercise until Matt wakes up.”

  “All right. Love you, kiddo. Be safe.”

  Dylan was already halfway out of the kitchen but he turned back. “Hey, Dad?”

  “What’s up?”

  “You lived near Ambler in the 1980’s, right?”

  “Yeah, sure, why?”

  “Do you remember anything bad happening on Butler? Like a store burning down or something.”

  “Hmm.” Mr. Merchant took another sip of coffee. He suddenly put the mug down with some force. “Yes! There was something…a little pharmacy. The kind that most of the big guys have put out of business over the years. Some mom and pop operation. People said it burned down. The owners never rebuilt it. At least that’s what I remember hearing. I wasn’t down in that part of town all that often.”

  “Okay, thanks!” Dylan turned and left before his dad could ask any questions.

  Dylan went in the garage and found a bike that seemed to be exactly the one he remembered. Somehow the same hidden hand that had given the bike to Hugo Callahan had altered the story just enough to prevent some kind of conflict. Like a natural bug-fixing capability of the universe? Dylan couldn’t help but marvel at what he’d experienced. The more he thought about it, the more improbable it seemed.

  He walked the bike out of the garage, hopped on, and rode to the edge of the neighborhood. He felt very fortunate to be free of the clutches of the vacant store, but knowing that Clyde was still back there bothered him. At the same time, he had so many mixed-up ideas of what he wanted to do. He wanted to research the mysterious store. He wanted to talk to Matt about what had happened, or maybe just have some fun and not think about it at all. He wanted to see Emma, but there too he didn’t know if he’d prefer to dwell on the store or pretend it hadn’t happened.

  He straddled the bike and took out his phone. Almost 7:30. He still thought it was too early to bother anyone, but his willpower was fading. He opened up Emma’s text and replied, “Thinking of you too.” He sent the message and opened his chat thread with Matt. “Hey buddy,” he wrote, “if you’re up I can swing by.”