by Troy McCombs
I can't remember.
John looked at the carton and made the vain attempt at clearing his mind. Like those bolts of lightning the other day, it hit him.
Mary came to me in a dream and said 'Don't go in the Mayberry House again without orange juice.'
He shook his head and laughed, thinking he was going crazy. It sounded too silly, too outlandish.
But what about the two wrecks he'd miraculously avoided? And what about the vital information he'd discovered from Patricia Goldsmith?
He absentmindedly looked aside. His eyes focused on a small, empty, unlabeled pill bottle sitting on the windowsill behind the faucet, just waiting to be filled.
John did just that. He filled the bottle to the top with orange juice and capped it. After he slipped it into his unoccupied right pocket, a car horn sounded from out front. It was from Charlie's SUV. Ben's house was lifeless a moment later.
***
Charlie apologized to John multiple times during the drive to the house. The psychic brushed him off until the SUV came to a stop in the bare clearing; there, he sucked in his anger and decided to finally forget the past. "It's okay. What's done is done, Charlie. We all make mistakes. I've done things I wish I could change, too. Don't worry about it."
Life returned to the Sheriff's eyes. He finally felt better.
Both men stepped from the vehicle. Only John's eyes shot to the upper windows of the Prestillion house. He felt closely watched and resented now that he was untraceable. He also had a bad feeling that not only could he be killed today, but that his soul could be sucked into some horrible alternate reality. There were many more things he didn't know about the house and D'kourikai than what he actually did. Figuring out the old-fashioned building thirty yards away was like an ancient caveman finding and playing with plutonium.
"Welcome, Mr. Rollings." Vaul appeared, hands folded behind back. He looked less like a mannequin today and more like a person with human expression.
John turned and looked around. There were far more soldiers and investigators here today than any previous time. Two plainly-dressed gentlemen were setting up some kind of bizarre, futuristic-looking contraption near the northeast window. Attached atop its three thin, curved lead rods was a latex balloon, which was floating high in the air. Three other young soldiers were busy setting up a large radar antenna, its topmost point aimed directly toward the front of the house. Tables stacked with new monitors and imagining equipment were everywhere, each one occupied by more soldiers, male and female. There had to have been fifty or more people standing or sitting, each doing a different job. John wanted to laugh at the scenario. He knew they would get the right information they wanted only if D'kourikai wanted to give it to them. That hadn't really happened yet.
Vaul said, "You see we've got personnel trying to take electronic readings of the house outside and in without being inside. The thing with the balloon on it is an improvised sonar apparatus. Lets us see through the walls. We can only get so far, of course. Maybe through one-third of the entire structure. And we got audio readings, thermal readings, nuclear energy readings...we have material to study for decades."
John looked surprised. "Your gadgetry actually works? It let you?"
Vaul looked confused. "Let us? John, we have recordings of audio signals that made four of these men brutally ill. After they left the clearing, they were fine. You know what that could do for riot control? Warfare? And we could do it on any scale we choose. We can incapacitate only one person if we want, or we can incapacitate a whole country without them hearing anything directly! We have readings of thermal radiation that may help us create more stable and powerful reactors. These things came out of the woodwork. Literally. Ed Pilppi, that guy over there, believes he's found a completely new form of energy and matter. A fifth state! Possibly more. It's more complex but easier to reproduce than plasma. Rorry—him—a brilliant scientist and mathematician. During the night, he saw the schematics of one of the downstairs rooms shift on the monitor. He claims he saw with his own eyes the changing of space in dimensional form. There are four dimensions that we know of. He claims he saw others via their movement. And we've found new insights into geometry. We may have even found an easy way to prolong human life!" The man's enthusiasm was uncontainable, and not just via his tone, but by his expression, his mannerisms. John could not share it. Today he felt really afraid.
I wonder if it can see me here, now, or if the Wolf’s bane still blinds it...
But he could feel the eyes watching him, furious, frustrated, beckoning him. He knew he was going in alone this time. He would not allow anyone else to follow him, lest they would die some odd, painful death.
"Just me," John told Vaul. "I'm going in there by myself."
"But I've got five guys willing to go in with some very high tech equipment. It's far more durable and powerful than the junk we gave you before. Besides, I've had men probing the hell out of the immediate perimeter of the house for three days. Other than the sound that made some temporarily ill, nobody's been hurt or killed. I think it's safe—"
"That's what it wants you to think."
"Isn't it possible that certain dimensions could have been reabsorbed into themselves? Maybe the worst is over."
"Vaul, I don't think we've come close to the worst yet. Whatever has been hurting and killing people has burned my apartment building down. There is more, but I won't get into it right now. For your sake, and for the sake of these ignorant soldiers, don't order them in. They will die. I swear this to you."
The man in black bowed his head and scratched an eyebrow. He then looked into John's eyes and smiled. "You sure you'll be okay in there by yourself?"
"I'll do my best. It's all I can do."
"Do you need any safety measures? Weapons?"
John burped out a chuckle. "I don't even know what weapon will work against what's inside, if there even is one. And no equipment, either. It will just slow me down."
Vaul nodded and turned. Raising his voice, he spoke to everyone in the clearing, "Okay, listen up everybody."
Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to him.
"Change of plans. Mr. John Rollings is going inside today on his own. We have reason to believe that it's unsafe for anyone other than him to investigate the heart of the house. He will, however, be going in with a small tracking device. This will let us know where he is at any given time, and how he's doing. 'Till he comes out, I want nobody within a hundred yards of the structure, itself. Is that clear?"
Everyone looked at one another. Only a ballsy young soldier sitting before a TV monitor, objected: "Sir, wouldn't that be more dangerous? For him, I mean?"
Vaul shot the kid a look. "I said, is that clear?"
The kid exhaled and nodded. "Yes, sir."
Vaul hated being questioned by anybody lower on the authority food-chain than him … unless they impressed him with a very valid, intelligent question.
"Mr. Rollings has been inside more times than anyone ever has. He knows the house better than anyone here. I've had twelve soldiers go in. Only one has come out. And Rollings' theory on what may or may not be happening seems the most plausible, despite how unbelievable. John?" Vaul motioned to a large camouflaged tent, under which two young female soldiers were adjusting circuitry on a videocassette-shaped tracking device. John followed Vaul over to them, passed some crates marked FRAGILE, and stepped into the shade.
"These ladies will attach a sensor to your hand. It'll tell us many things after you're in," Vaul said. "Your body temperature and heartbeat, as well as information about your surroundings. It's got a tiny, impenetrable microphone, an even smaller camera that can record footage a full three-hundred and sixty degrees—much like the way a fly sees—and even a proctum sensor that can pick up traces of certain odors or gaseous elements that may be present in the air. Now, I know you don't want to go in with this, but I urge you to. Even if you don't come out, we can still examine the readings in the sensor remotely."
I haven't kissed a woman in sooooo long.
She turned and walked away before he could entertain the thought any further.
"Okay." Vaul smiled patted John on the shoulder. "It's your time now."
John held up his right arm, examining the sophisticated piece of equipment resting comfortably on his forearm. It looked like something out of a science fiction movie, with blinking red lights and triangular-shaped buttons with tiny holes under them.
"It's called a Silicoter. Don't tell anyone about it. It's supposed to be secret."
"I bet this would sell like crazy on Ebay," John joked.
"Don't get any ideas. And here. From the test we've done, we know these UV lights will give plenty of needed illumination for you to see inside." Vaul handed him a long, narrow stick through which many tiny filaments could be seen. "Just click that button to turn it on. Are you ready to do this?"
John let out a deep breath. "I guess."
"Look at it this way, John. The sooner you do this, the sooner it will all be over with. I, too, have seen my own share of horrors. Don't repeat this to anybody. Down in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, some farmer found what he thought was a large, injured bird in his backyard. Ended up, it was some small winged creature that my people believed to be the spawn of the legendary Mothman. You've heard the rumors, have you not?"
John nodded.
"The creature spoke English. The thing was so mysterious to look at that you thought your heart would just stop. It knew things about the future that actually came true days afterward, such as the Indonesia Tsunami, the capture of Saddam Hussein, and the election of the first black president, all in vivid detail. Even the dates and times it gave were right on the money.
"How will you like flying to work by 2023? Or watching an asteroid come within ten miles of hitting the Pacific in 2036? Needless to say, the thing is still going to cause massive waves, killing most of California and the western seaboard. You don't even want to know what the Mayan's prediction of 2012 is really about. I know where the lost city of Atlantis is. I even know what causes disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle. I've been to Area 51, which does exist. I know things I wish I could forget."
John sighed. "I do too, Vaul. The world's full of regrets."
Vaul smiled again. It looked weird coming from his blank, tightly-drawn face. He worked for an organization more secretive than the CIA, where emotions were not usually shown. What he'd just told John could have gotten him into very serious trouble.
"Good luck," he told Rollings, who turned and looked up at the house of a thousand unsolved secrets. Silence filled the clearing as John walked toward the red-bricked beast, his palms sweating, his mind racing. He could feel the sensor on his forearm vibrating very faintly against his skin. He envisioned a monster's mouth dropping open and swallowing its prey when he stepped onto the porch, grabbed the knob, and opened the front door. That's what was happening in his mind. He was about to be eaten by wood, plaster, and brick in some metaphysical way. Vaul, Charlie, and a clearing filled with others watched the door creak closed by itself once he was inside.
Wow was the only word that came to mind when he switched on and shone the UV light around. He could see everything far clearer. The floorboards, walls, and broken furniture had much more detail on their surfaces, maybe too much detail for mere ordinary things. Dead bugs lay on their backs on the floor in the living room and in the kitchen, their little legs sticking up like tiny needles. George's abandoned boots were still stuck to one floorboard by an icy, solid, silvery-white material. John walked forward, toward the kitchen, unable to shake the idea that he needed to be upstairs, not below, to find the information he needed. He had been upstairs twice now, but maybe D'kourikai had purposely lured him away from the basement thus far to divert him from the truth.
It was a very good theory.
But It did not divert him today. He hardly felt anything emanating from any corner of the woodwork. There were no noises, no visions, no smells, no psychical manifestations. Today it seemed like a house. Nothing more.
John soon came to the basement door. Opened it. Descended the steps slowly, one by one. Once his feet met with the concrete slab at the bottom, he raised the UV light high over his head. Though he got no weird vibes, there were blue ivy vines growing all over the ceiling. They did not look like any plantlike organism with which he was familiar, but they did look natural and earthly. A mass connection of roots spawned every corner and rafter of the entire cellar. Attached to each long string were lightning-colored buds surrounded by small, slick whiskers.
John reached up with his free hand and felt the vine, then the bud, then the whiskers. Cold and wet and tingly. Upon further inspection, he noticed that the micro-thin whiskers were actually some kind of metal. Secondly, he noticed the odor. It reminded him of the pizza his grandmother used to make from scratch. A pungent, assaulting smell. Garlic?
***
Outside, back behind a tree twenty feet from the rear of the house, an unseen and unauthorized woman waited anxiously for two camo-clad gentlemen to go back around to the clearing so they wouldn't catch her snooping around. Her patience was running thin fast. She stood quietly, still, her head peeking around a knot of an oak tree, her eyes focused on two acne-faced young men lugging around something that looked like a homemade microwave. They carried the heavy object back around the side of the house, their chubby forms almost out of sight. The young woman behind the tree made a dash for the back door. Sensing a spy, one of the two soldiers looked back, just missing spotting the outsider who had no business being here.
They continued lugging the box around to the front.
The woman opened the back door and entered. Her eyes adjusted to the difference in brightness. She could see very little, just small glimpses of retracted sunlight glimmering through the dusty window. After she closed the door behind her, she entered the pantry. The basement door ahead was cracked barely open. Through it, she could see the distinct luminescence of an ultraviolet light shining coolly within.
The basement's where stuff like this happens...she remembered saying to John just yesterday.
The young intruder was, indeed, Jennifer. She could wait no longer to see the house for herself. And now, after having waited hours to come in unnoticed, and now that she was finally inside, she firmly believed every legend and myth her tribal ancestors had ever told her. The energy she felt coming from the house was unmatched, unequaled, godly in a sense of raw power. The ripped wallpaper, the peeled paint, and the busted floors had layers beneath them, and layers farther beneath that. The house was the ultimate Ouija Board, open to all and bound by nothing.
Jennifer closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths, concentrating. She felt many things, many presences, many forms of energy. She felt wind as heavy as gravity pulling her body in multiple directions simultaneously; an aquatic world filled with living psyches that used water to obtain forms; creatures made of light that dreamt of what it was like to be the most impossible form of matter in their realm—physical.
There was really no limit, no stop, to the number of worlds floating through her mind...until she was disturbed from her trance when she heard a little girl giggle.
Jennifer opened her eyes. A small humanoid figure ran out of the basement and into the kitchen, out of her field of vision. There one second, gone the next.
"Hello?" Jennifer walked forward, through the pantry and into the kitchen. Once there, she saw no little girl; just a broken kitchen table and a very unsanitary-looking sink. Noticing a light switch out of the corner of her eye, she flicked it on.
Nothing.
The sound of a child giggling entered her ears again. Footsteps followed. They sounded close and low, then far and high.
<
br /> Upstairs.
Jennifer followed the sound through the living room, then up the creaky wooden steps. All available light grew bleaker as she peaked at the curved banister top.
"Hello? I promise I'm not here to hurt you."
There was a faint thudding noise from right overhead. She tilted her head back and looked up. The ceiling, though rotted and black all over, appeared distorted and uneven. It looked like there was a large rectangle etched into a small portion of it. Upon further examination, Jennifer noticed a small finger loop near one top of the rectangle.
Standing on her tip-toes, she reached for it. Grabbed it. Pulled it.
Boom!
It opened up with a large crash.
A small, unused staircase bellowed out, along with a cloud of dust, leading the way to an attic. Carefully, cautiously, Jennifer climbed up into it, into the cleanest, most brightly-lit room she had been in thus far. The floor was unusually smooth, its surface coated with a thin layer of sawdust, whose scent lingered heavily in the air. The arched roof hanging over her shoulders was so sharp it made the height of the room disproportionally small to the floor. Regardless, this room seemed brand new, as if recently built by expert carpenters who obviously knew what they were doing. A huge beam of afternoon sunshine blazed through the window against the farthest wall, its warmth and radiance illuminating a little girl sitting on the floor, coloring on a sheet of paper.
She could not have been older than five or six, dressed in a bleached-white nineteenth-century dress, her hair fixed not unlike women from the Pioneer Era. She had soft features, an upturned little nose, beautiful ice-blue eyes, and rosy-red cheeks stretched to form the smile of a young angel. The girl obviously wasn't from this time period, or even alive. Jennifer knew she was seeing a spirit in bodily form, following a routine she probably performed daily whilst stuck between worlds.
"Hi!" The girl's voice was sweet and buttery.
Jennifer paused. "Hello, honey." She walked over to her and knelt down. "What is your name?" Jennifer's voice was untidy and forced.