Iron House

by John Hart

  “Don’t mark him this time.” A faceless voice above dirty jeans. “Not his face.”

  Julian screamed. “Michael!”

  “Your brother’s not here to save you, you little freak.”

  Julian knew the voice. “Hennessey. Wait…”

  But Hennessey didn’t wait. He bent low, copper hair dull in the empty light, his eyes narrow and dark as he curled his fingers into Julian’s hair and pushed down, grinding the smaller boy’s skull into the concrete, twisting so that his left cheek came next, pressed flat on the filthy floor. “Say it.”

  His mouth forced hot air into the tunnel of Julian’s ear. Julian rolled his eyes, saw the flush in Hennessey’s skin, the wisps of pale hair on his lip, the crazy, unforgiving eyes. “No.”

  Hennessey pushed closer, his lips touching Julian’s ear, the whiskers as light and fine as a spider’s silk. “Say it.”

  “Please…”

  “Hennessey is the king of Iron House.” Julian started to cry, but that only made Hennessey push harder. He leaned in until skin tore from Julian’s cheek. “Hennessey is the king. Not Michael. Say it. Hennessey is the king of Iron House. Michael is a pussy—”

  “No.”

  “Michael is a pussy. Say it.”

  “Please…”

  “What?” Hennessey thumped Julian’s head on the floor, then stood. “Please, what?” They loomed over Julian, all five of them. A smile touched Hennessey’s lips and the same mad light filled his eyes. “Please what, motherfucker?”

  “Please, wait.”

  But they ignored him. Hennessey laughed once, said, “Boys.” And they went to work with their feet. They kicked until Julian stopped moving, then leaned close and told him what they were going to do. Julian curled tight but it was useless. Hands found his legs, his hair. They pulled until cold air knifed his skin, then threw him naked through the window. He landed in a drift of snow, on his back beneath a metal plaque bolted to the stone wall. Snow obscured the letters on the plaque, but he knew the words.

  Enter child, and know no fear but that of God

  Laughter came from beyond the window, pale faces pressed against the glass, then gone. Julian touched his gushing nose and saw finger-paint snow on his nails. He spit blood into the drift, and when he tried to pull himself up his hand brushed something sharp and hard, an old knife, lost in the snow. He tilted it and saw a wooden handle, half-rotted, and eight inches of rusted metal. He touched the flat edge to his cheek, then squeezed the handle until his fingers ached. “Michael,” he wept.

  But his brother never came.

  Julian looked at the sky, the pinpricks of white.

  Snow like tears.

  So cold …

  Falling.

  * * *

  The limousine crept up a mountain road edged with slush and broken asphalt. Road grit feathered the car’s paint, a rough film thrown up by tires that had no business on a black-ice road four thousand feet up in the North Carolina mountains. The air outside was cold, the light flat. Nothing else moved on the mountain, no traffic or blown leaves, just a heavy, wet powder that sifted from the low sky. The woman in the backseat never looked at the drop-offs, the vast open spaces where the earth simply vanished. She closed her eyes until the car plunged back under the trees and the vertigo left her, then she stared out at the forest, at the snow that lay between the naked trunks. She lit a cigarette, and the driver’s eyes rose in the mirror.

  “I’m not smoking again,” she said.

  His eyes flicked away. “Of course not.”

  “It’s just today.”

  “Of course.” His hair remained military short, but she noticed that it was starting to gray. Creases cut the back of his neck, and against his black jacket, the collar of his shirt shone whiter than the snow. She twisted her wedding ring and pulled smoke into lungs that burned. They’d been an hour out of Charlotte when the first flake fell. The driver had twice suggested they turn back, but she had refused each time. Today is the day, she’d said. Now, here they were, alone on the edge of the world.

  The driver watched his passenger for a long second. She had translucent skin and green eyes, golden hair that curled at the tops of her shoulders. She was barely twenty-five years old, young for such wealth and power.

  “We’re going to be late,” she said.

  “They’ll wait for you.”

  “Yes.” She lit another cigarette. “I suppose they will.”

  Snow thickened as the car moved over and around the folds of silent rock. Cigarettes appeared, turned to ash, and she thought of why she was here, high in the frozen mountains. She thought of why she had come. “Stop the car.” She rocked forward in her seat, pressed a palm into her stomach. The driver hesitated. “Stop the car.”

  The driver slowed and stopped. She swung the heavy door into the falling snow and stepped out, her expensive shoes ruined by slush and salt. Three steps carried her to the edge of the woods, where she bent at the waist.

  “Ma’am? Are you okay?”

  Snow beaded her hair, her fine silk blouse; when she finally stood, she smoothed the back of one hand across her cheek. The cold air felt clean on her skin, and the nausea passed. She turned and found her driver standing by the front of the car, one hand on the hot metal. He nodded. “It’s a big day,” he said, as if he understood.

  “Yes.”

  “I would be nervous, too.”

  She allowed his misperception to stand.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  She looked at the wet linen sky, the skeleton trees with crooked arms and a million twisted fingers. “It’s so still,” she said.

  “Let me get your door.”

  “So cold.”

  * * *

  It was after four when the limousine began its slow descent. The road wound into a narrow valley, the town at its center a knot of low buildings. Abigail Vane did not claim to know the place, but she knew what it would look like: properties in decline, bars with vinyl stools and people in cracked skin. There would be a gas station at each end of Main Street, a drugstore near the middle. It was a small town, a blink of light on the dark edge of the mountains, and she knew that in a half-day’s drive there were a hundred others just like it. North Carolina. Tennessee. Georgia. Small towns, and people who dreamed of other places. The car edged onto Main Street and she watched the bar fronts, the rough men with bent necks. “Soon?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  The road narrowed on the other side of town, and the driver turned right onto a barely plowed track of old pavement. Crumbled columns stood in the snow, and a river ran fast and black at the far end of a long field. “This is it,” the driver said, and she leaned forward.

  An institutional building piled up from the valley floor. Made of brick and stone, it rose three stories, with long wings that spread from each side of the main edifice. One wing was completely dark, its windows rowed and blank, some boarded over. From the rest of the structure, light spilled out to touch smaller buildings and an uncompromising yard. Bent figures moved between the buildings. Small figures. Children. A boy stopped and turned, his features lost behind the falling snow. She strained forward, but the driver shook his head. “Too young,” he said.

  The drive curved around the yard and they stopped where broad steps climbed to a covered porch. The door opened and a man stepped out. Above him, letters scored the concrete.

  Iron Mountain Home For Boys

  Shelter and Discipline since 1895

  She stared at the words until the driver turned in his seat. Lines creased his face, and hard eyes shone under the salted hair. “Are you ready?”

  “Give me a minute.”

  Her heart beat too quickly, a slight flutter in her hands. Thinking he understood, the driver got out of the car and stood by her door. He nodded to the man on the high porch, but neither of them spoke. After several minutes, Abigail Vane tapped a ring on the window. The door swung open and the driver accepted her hand.

  “Ma’am.
”

  “Thank you, Jessup.” She stepped out and he released her fingers. She took in the broken concrete steps, the rust on the iron handrail. Her gaze traveled to the high, sloped roofline, then to that portion of the building that lay in ruin. Windows stretched away in triple rows. She saw cracked glass and missing panes, weather-stained boards under nails hammered flat.

  “Mrs. Vane.” A round-shouldered man scuttled down the steps. His eyes were attractive and very bright, his Adam’s apple large. He’d combed sparse hair above neat ears, and his teeth, when he smiled, were small and white. “We are so pleased that you have come. My name is Andrew Flint. Perhaps your assistant spoke of me? After all the correspondence and phone calls, I feel as if I know her.”

  She took his hand, found it narrow and cool. “Mr. Flint.” Her voice remained neutral, the same used at a thousand fund-raisers, a thousand functions. She’d used the same tone when she’d met the last two governors, the President, a hundred different CEOs. She gave his hand a firm squeeze, then relaxed her fingers and waited for him to realize that he, too, should let go.

  Flint glanced at the empty limousine. “Your husband?”

  She touched a button on her blouse. “The senator is otherwise engaged.”

  “But we had hoped…” Flint forced a smile. “Never mind. You are here, and that, too, is exciting.” He made a nervous gesture, hands spread to take in the snow, the gathering dark. “Shall we go inside?”

  Halfway up the steps, she turned. False dusk had settled in the yard, and what children remained were indistinct in the gloom. The scene depressed her: so many lost children. But today would be different. For two brothers, she thought, today would be the beginning of something grand. “You received our donation?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Vane. Of course.” Flint made another bow and dry-washed his hands. “As you can see, we have ways to use it.” He gestured and she followed his gaze. Stretching into the storm, the abandoned wing of the orphanage looked like a derelict ship, massive and broken on some unforgiving shore. She saw movement behind one of the windows, a slash of white that flickered twice and was gone.

  “Is that wing in use at all?” she asked.

  “God, no. The conditions are deplorable.”

  “I thought I saw someone.”

  He shook his head. “A bird, perhaps. Or a wild cat. Both seem to find their way inside. It’s a very dangerous place. The boys are under strict orders—”

  She stopped on the top step. “I’d like to meet them.”

  Flint’s fingers curled around one another, and he fumbled his words when he spoke. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

  “The gift was five million dollars. That should make many things possible.”

  “Yes. I’m aware, of course. But…” He hesitated further, craning his neck to peer at the building behind him. He hesitated, as if waiting for someone to save him. “The truth is. We can’t seem to find them.”

  “You’ve lost two boys?”

  “Ah … Just for the moment.”

  “Does this happen often?”

  “No. No. Of course not.”

  “I had hoped to meet them at once.”

  “I’m sure they’ll turn up soon. Boys, you know. Probably off somewhere…”

  “Off somewhere?” Her eyes sharpened on his.

  “You know…”

  A nervous laugh.

  “… playing.”

  * * *

  Michael ran down the deserted hall, eyes cutting left and right, fingers curled into fists. Windows rose above him, tall as doors, but he did not look at the snow outside, his reflection as he ran. Julian had been gone for an hour, and Julian never did that. He stayed in their room on the third floor, stayed on their hall or wherever Michael was near. And when Michael was gone, which happened, Julian stayed with what friends he had. Because Julian wasn’t stupid. He knew he was weak. That weakness led to torment.

  Abusing Julian was one of Hennessey’s favorite games, mainly because he and his friends lacked the courage to mess with Michael directly. They’d tried it once and left with broken fingers and loose teeth. Five on one and Michael cleaned the floor with them, as if it didn’t matter how much he was hit or how much he bled. Michael fought with a noise in the back of his throat, like an animal in a cage. He fought like Tarzan would fight. That’s why the younger boys looked up to him, why the older ones stayed clear, because Michael, in a corner, became so wild and fierce that some of the older boys thought he might actually be insane. But that’s not how it was. There was nothing but time at Iron House. Time to burn. Time to kill. The place was hell, and his brother wore a target on his back. What other choice did Michael have?

  “Julian!”

  He called his brother’s name and it echoed in the frozen space. Michael had come back from kitchen duty and a kid on the hall told him Julian was gone, culled out of the group, then dragged to the empty wing. He said Hennessey was laughing when he pried boards off the sealed door and kicked Julian hard to get him running. There were five of them, the kid said. They gave him a two-minute head start, and then went after him.

  That was an hour ago.

  So, Michael ran. He called his brother’s name, and when the sound came back alone, he called again.

  Cold words.

  Smoke on his lips.

  * * *

  Flint showed Abigail to a small bedroom on the second floor. “This is our only facility for visitors,” he apologized. “You can freshen up. Rest. The boys will turn up soon.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Flint.”

  He started to turn, then paused. “May I ask a question?”

  “If you must.”

  “Why these boys?”

  “You ask because of their age?”

  “And because one is so sickly.” Flint’s eyes were kind but puzzled. “It’s highly unusual.”

  “And you wonder if I have some special interest.”

  “My curiosity is only natural.”

  Abigail stepped to the window and gazed at the snow. “They’re ten and nine, yes? Foundlings?”

  “Discovered in a creek bed, just across the line in Tennessee, not that far from here, really. Forty miles as the crow flies, twice that with the roads up here. It was late November, very cold, and two hunters heard crying at the backside of a dead-end hollow. The creek was two feet wide, but fast. Julian was partly submerged and both were half frozen. It’s a miracle either survived, but especially Julian. He’s a weak child—puny, as my grandmother might have said. The hunters carried them out tucked in their shirts. I believe they’d have died otherwise. A few more minutes. Less kind strangers.”

  “How old were they at the time?”

  “We’re not sure, exactly. Julian was newborn, a matter of weeks, probably. Michael was older. The doctor put his age at roughly ten months, though he could have been younger. Julian was definitely premature. We’re assuming the same mother, so—”

  “Premature?”

  “By a month at least.”

  “A month.” Abigail felt her vision blur, and enough time passed for Flint to become uncomfortable.

  “Mrs. Vane?”

  “I was raised in an orphanage, Mr. Flint. It was a small place, poorer even than this. Cold and hard and unforgiving.” She turned from the window, and one palm tilted to catch the institutional light. “You can imagine that I have certain sympathies…”

  “Yes, yes. Of course.”

  “I was adopted at age ten, and my nine-year-old sister was not.” She showed Flint her eyes, and there was no weakness left in them. “She was sickly, too, like Julian, and left behind because of that. I went home with a loving family and four months later my sister contracted pneumonia. She died alone in that horrible place.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you?”

  “Well, I should like to think—”

  “I married well, Mr. Flint, and find myself in a position to prevent a similar tragedy. I’ve been searching for children just like thes
e boys. Older. Unwanted. It won’t bring my sister back, but I hope to find some small measure of relief. A new life for the boys, and maybe for myself. Does that satisfy your curiosity?”

  “I meant no undue intrusion.”

  “I want to meet them, Mr. Flint.”

  “Of course.”

  “Please find them.”

  * * *

  Julian had hiding places for when things got bad. An abandoned well house in the woods, the crawl space under the chapel. He’d once found a crack in the granite where the river spilled to the lower field. The descent in was a headfirst scrape through a narrow slit, but three feet down, the cave opened up and he could stretch out, the rock wet and black twelve inches from his nose. The cave was cold and dark, and he’d come out once covered with leeches; but the worse things became for Julian, the deeper he went. Deep in the world. Deep in his mind.

  Michael found him in the subbasement.

  The place was a maze of dark and dusty rooms—dozens of them, maybe even a hundred—but over the years, Michael had been down every hall and opened every door. He’d found ranks of cabinets with files more than eighty years old; a hall stacked with bundled newspapers rotted to mush; an old infirmary; moldy closets full of stored books, bandages, and gas masks. He’d found boxes of glass syringes, chairs with leather restraints, and straightjackets stained brown. Some rooms had steel doors; others had manacles bolted to the concrete walls. He’d once entered a room at the southern corner and been driven to the floor by a flood of bats that had found a passage in through a rotted place at the foundation. The ceilings pressed low in the subbasement. Light was sparse.

  The first time Julian went missing, Michael found him in the furnace room, curled up in the tight space behind the hot metal, his knees to his chest, back hard against the brick.

  He was six years old, beaten bloody.

  Three years ago.

  Michael ducked under some pipes, then pushed through a stretch of black to where blue light and furnace heat pushed under a warped door. He heard a low voice, his brother singing; when he opened the door, heat drove past him. The furnace filled the room, blue flame in its guts, damp heat pushing out. Julian had squeezed into the narrow place behind the boiler, his back curved, arms around his knees. Shoeless, he rocked in the narrow space, his upper body bare and red and filthy, his hair wet enough to steam.