Golem in My Glovebox

by R. L. Naquin

  The last time Kam called me to check in, they’d been in Georgia, following a dead end. A swamp bogey thought he saw a woman with my mom’s description working in a diner outside Atlanta. He was wrong of course. That was a week ago.

  I slid into the passenger seat and buckled up. “Let’s go.”

  Riley started the car and pulled out without a word. As we passed the tree, Iris’s tree, I forced a happy smile for Molly’s kids and waved.

  Aaron must have sensed that I missed Iris. He balled up his tiny hands and gave me a double thumbs-up, exactly the way Iris used to do. Aaron’s gesture gave me a feeling of peace and comfort. Iris would always be with us in one form or another, as long as we remembered him together.

  I returned the gesture, and my smile became genuine. We pulled out to the street, and tension in my shoulders I didn’t know I had, released. We were on a road trip.

  A million adventures awaited us.

  * * *

  My new-trip euphoria lasted all of an hour and a half. Once I realized, upon scrutinizing the map and Maurice’s travel plans, that the drive from Bolinas, California, to Lebanon, Kansas, was approximately two long days of nothing, my enthusiasm deflated. Plus, I’m a California girl. The farther we drove from the coast, the harder it grew to catch my breath.

  The response was psychological, of course. The minute I stopped thinking about the distance to the ocean, I was fine. Still. We were driving to the geographic center of the contiguous United States. That’s as far away from the coast as you can get, mathematically. But it’s also why headquarters was built there. The center was where ley lines crossed and gave it some sort of extra oomph. Bernice explained it once, but it didn’t mean much to me at the time, so I sort of glossed over the listening part.

  Somewhere on the other side of Reno, we took our first break for gas, snacks, bathrooms and stretching. We chose one of those big truck-stop-type places with a food court, convenience store and gift shop.

  “Four hours down,” Riley said, grinning and rolling his shoulders. “Only about twenty more to go!”

  I tried not to groan. I’d looked at the map. I knew there was a whole lot of nothing between here and Kansas. Rocks, dirt, and for a variety, salt, once we got to Utah. The plan was to stop for the night in Salt Lake City, then make the rest of the trip on the second day. We could do it, if we didn’t die of boredom. And since I’d be driving the next leg of the journey, I got control of the radio. I switched it to play Broadway musicals to punish Riley for the last stint we’d done where he made me listen to the All Elvis station. Things were looking up.

  I leaned against the car door and watched while Riley filled the tank. “That’s hot.”

  He raised a quizzical eyebrow. “What’s hot?”

  “You being all macho, filling my gas tank. You going to check my oil and wash my windows for me, too?”

  His gray eyes sparkled. “I was planning to do that in Salt Lake City in the hotel. They kind of frown on that sort of thing in public places.”

  I pursed my lips in mock disapproval. “Dirty boy. I’m going to check out the gift shop and see if I can find a souvenir.”

  “To commemorate having made it four hours from home?”

  “The farthest I’ve been from my house since all this started is across the bridge to San Francisco. I don’t get out much these days.”

  The gas nozzle clicked off, and he placed it back in its cradle. “Be careful. Those gift shops lure you in with fancy shot glasses. Before you know it, you’re walking out with the second season of The Love Boat on DVD.”

  I gave him a solemn look and crossed my heart. “No Love Boat. I swear.” I walked away singing the theme song at the top of my lungs. “The Looooove Boat...Soon will be making another ruuuuun!”

  Behind me, I could hear Riley sounding like a cheap lounge singer. “The Love Boat...promises something for ev-ery-one!”

  A few minutes later, I made my way back to the car, the proud owner of a Sparks, Nevada, shot glass, a deck of cards with naked women on them, a snow globe in which dollar signs floated around a tiny casino, and a pair of mirrored sunglasses.

  Riley was already filling the cooler with more drinks for the road. “Nice shades,” he said, slamming the door shut.

  “Gently,” I said. “You don’t want Maurice to find out you mistreated his baby.” I snagged the keys from his pocket. “My turn.”

  “You’re the navigator.”

  “I think you can handle it for a while. It’s a big responsibility, but I trust you.” I grinned and jumped behind the wheel. “No time to explain! Get in!” I’d always wanted to say that.

  He slid into the passenger seat, buckling up with a sigh. “Try not to steer us off the road.”

  I lowered my head and gave him a serious look over my shiny, obnoxious new glasses. “Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.” I started the car and pulled away.

  Riley pressed his head against the seat back and pretended to white knuckle the door. “We’re going to die.”

  The smile on his face reflected in the windshield didn’t hold with his words. Riley was having the time of his life.

  * * *

  Driving or navigating, there really wasn’t much difference. The scenery held very little of interest, aside from the occasional mysterious shoe on the side of the road. We stopped for the night, as planned, on the other side of Salt Lake City, having spent about twelve hours on the road, plus stops. I tried not to think about the similar drive we’d be doing the next day.

  “Whose idea was it to do this in two days?” Riley asked, stretching his arms over his head.

  “Maurice printed out the directions and planned the route. I blame him.”

  He grabbed our bags out of the trunk and followed me into the building to our door. “Closet monsters don’t sleep much. From now on, only humans get to plan road trips.”

  I slid the keycard into the slot, waited for the green light to click on, then held the door open for Riley.

  “I got you here, didn’t I?” The familiar voice came from inside the darkened room. Closet monsters have incredible hearing, what with their enormous ears and all.

  I flinched and turned around, flicking on a light. “How the hell did you get here?”

  Maurice sat on the edge of one of the beds, grinning at us. “I came through the closet. Duh.”

  The closet he referred to didn’t even have a door on it. It was little more than an indentation in the wall with a bar across it and those weird hotel hangers that are locked in place so you can’t steal them.

  “You came through there? How is that even possible? I call bullshit.”

  Riley stacked our bags on the other bed. “Hey, Maurice.”

  “Hey, Riley. How’s the trip going?”

  I cut off Riley as he tried to answer. “Shouldn’t you be back at the house keeping an eye on things?”

  Maurice shifted and looked at his feet. “It’ll keep. I just wanted to check on you guys.”

  I dropped my purse on the desk. He was clearly hiding something. “How’s it going with Stacy? Is she cooperating?”

  He shrugged. “I guess.”

  “You guess? What’s going on, Maurice? Is she giving you a hard time or not?” I gave him my best mom-face. If I’d been wearing my cool new sunglasses, I’d have given him cop-face over the top of them for a better interrogation effect, but I’d already taken them off and put them in my purse.

  “Yes. No. She’s fine. She’s doing all the jobs I give her.”

  “Then what’s the problem?” I sat next to him and made him look at me. “Is it the personal stuff?” I knew it was. His discomfort prickled my skin and made my toes go numb.

  “It’s so damn awkward, Zo. Why can’t I send her home? She’s sorry. She won’t do it again. I’m sure
of it.”

  I nudged him with my shoulder. “Have you tried talking to her about it?”

  He scowled. “You’re not going to let her go home, are you?”

  “Nope. Sorry. Talk to her. Sort it out. Then maybe get her to clean out the attic or something. The garage could use some work, too.”

  He picked at a loose thread on the hem of his bright Hawaiian shirt. “Fine. But for now, I thought I’d hang out here with you guys. Maybe watch some TV.”

  I tossed a distressed look in Riley’s direction.

  “Maurice,” he said. “Buddy. Brother. I’m going to have sex with Zoey in a few minutes. It’s going to be really loud, because we’re in a hotel, and because we can. There may even be barking and other animal sounds involved. Do you really want to be here for that?”

  I think my eyes may have bugged out a bit. My cheeks burned all the way down to my knees.

  Maurice, on the other hand, wasn’t particularly taken aback. He sounded more like a thwarted teenager forced to shut off the television and do his homework. “Fiiiine. Go do your monkey-sex thing. I’ll find something else to do.” He pulled himself from the bed and dragged his feet all the way to the makeshift closet. “I’ll be back if anything new happens.”

  Riley patted the monster diva on the shoulder as he walked past. “How about you call us on the phone, instead?”

  Maurice tossed his head back in a dramatic, put-upon pose. “Fine. I’ll call first.”

  Before we could tell him goodnight, he stepped into the opening, blended into the paint and disappeared as if he’d never been there.

  I tilted my head at Riley. “Barking?”

  He grinned and came toward me. “Maybe.”

  * * *

  The second day of travel was much like the first. Unremarkable, dull scenery. Weird souvenirs. Mile after mile of rocks that eventually turned to grazing cows and scrubby bushes. By the time we passed through the tiny town of Lebanon, Kansas, my eyes burned and my lower back was having a pity party. Riley slept in the dying light of twilight when I stopped the car across the road from a large metal plaque embedded in a small stone pyramid. A church not much bigger than an outhouse stood across the grass from the marker, with a few picnic tables under an overhang. A decorative sign declared Welcome to the Geographical Center of the 48 States.

  This, I knew, was not exactly true. The real center was about a half a mile away. The story was that the center was located on a private farm owned by a cranky farmer who didn’t like tourists. In reality, it was located within a fence surrounding the compound headquarters for the Board of Hidden Affairs. The farmer story was only to cover it up.

  “Rise and shine, handsome,” I said, stroking Riley’s arm. “I got us as close as I could. You have to guide me the rest of the way.”

  Riley sat up and rubbed his face. “Oh.” He blinked to focus. “We’re here. Follow the road around to the right.”

  Tires crunched as I guided the car over dirt. “How far is it from here?”

  “Almost there. Turn left here and go straight for half a mile. Then stop.”

  “There’s nothing here. There’s no road—just a field.”

  “Exactly.” His face was deadpan, giving nothing away.

  I gave him a cynical look, and followed his directions. The marker and its tiny outbuildings disappeared in my review mirror, but nothing appeared in front of us. Wide open space. The horizon. The setting sun.

  A crow crossed our path a few hundred feet ahead—the first sign of movement I’d seen.

  “Okay,” Riley said. “Stop here.”

  “There’s nothing here.”

  He didn’t say anything. A few seconds later, a crow flew across in the same spot.

  I narrowed my eyes and glanced at Riley, and his lips curled in a half smile. We waited another minute. The crow crossed again in the same direction, same altitude.

  “It’s got a bubble around it, like my back yard,” I said.

  Riley grinned. “Yes.”

  “So how do we know where to drive into it without bashing our car into the fence?”

  “We don’t know. That’s what makes this place so secure.” He hit a button on his phone. “Art. We’re here.”

  “I had no idea,” I said, amazed. The only time I’d been here before, I’d flown in and out. I’d never driven it. No wonder Bernice kept trying to get me to relocate. It wasn’t only about alarms and defense. It was about disappearing completely.

  Two crows later, a gate swung out in midair, seemingly connected to nothing. A disembodied arm waved at us to come through.

  Passing through the bubble in my car was no different than going into my backyard. Moving forward was an act of faith, knowing something was there you couldn’t see, but also believing you wouldn’t smack into something the minute you crossed the threshold.

  We passed through the membrane without detecting so much as a change in air pressure. A man stood next to the car, his face impassive. I stopped the car and rolled down the window, mostly because I figured it was part of the procedure.

  “Please proceed to the compound.” His eyes were disconcerting—empty and vague. I knew that look. Nobody was home. This was one of Bernice’s constructs. She created golems out of who knows what, and they ran the day-to-day tasks for her.

  The road led around and ended in a circular compound surrounded by small, rickety buildings. We parked and slid out of the car, groaning and working out the kinks in our abused, cramped muscles.

  The front door to one of the buildings swung open, and Art stomped down the steps. “Thank God you’re here,” he said. “We have a new problem, and Bernice is going out of her mind.”

  Chapter Five

  Art’s sweaty, balding head shone like a beacon in the dwindling light. He wasn’t as round as I remembered, and his clothes were far more casual than the vacuum-cleaner-salesman look he’d sported the last time I saw him.

  “We’re great. Thanks for asking,” I said. “More importantly, how are you?”

  He frowned at me. “Still just as flip and dismissive of authority as the last time, I see.”

  Still just as humorless and dead inside, I see. You old fart.

  “Lighten up, Art. It’s been a long drive.” Something about that guy set me on edge every time he opened his mouth. To be fair, something about me did the same to him. When he needed help, though, he’d called me. And I came. That said a lot about both of us.

  Riley pulled our bags from the car. “Let us get settled, Art. Then we’ll be all ears.”

  Art waved an arm, and another nondescript man appeared. He took the bags from Riley and headed into the building he’d come from. None of the buildings in the circle were what they appeared to be on the outside. I knew this from my last visit to the compound. This one, in particular, looked like a dilapidated, cracker-box house.

  “There,” Art said, nodding toward the front door. “You’re settled. Follow me.”

  I rolled my head back and groaned, mimicking Maurice from the night before. “Fiiine.”

  We trailed behind Art, and he led us through the front door and down the hall. It was the same building I’d been in the last time. Impossibly big on the inside, the elaborate decorations, tall staircase, and exotic carpets made no sense when compared to the cracker-box, single-story wreck on the outside. More magic. More disguises. If I hadn’t known it was warranted, I’d think the entire Board throughout history had been paranoid.

  Of course, it’s not paranoia if everyone really is out to get you.

  Art took a right down the hall into what I remembered as Bernice’s study. She sat at her desk, gray hair mussed and eyes red either from lack of sleep or crying. Possibly both.

  She looked up when we came in, and relief washed over her like a clean breeze.

&
nbsp; “Zoey,” she said. “I’m so, so glad. Sit down by the fire. You too, Riley. Art, did you get them settled in their rooms? Get them something to drink. Are you hungry? Get them...something.” She came out from behind her desk and put her arms around me. “I cannot tell you how happy I am that you’re here.”

  She let go and ushered us to a cluster of leather chairs pulled up to the fireplace. The spring weather wasn’t really cold enough for a fire, but the temperature in the room was comfortable, as if the fire were only for show. It probably was.

  I didn’t know what to say. This was nothing like the reaction I’d expected. Art had called me behind her back about something she didn’t think was real. We all expected her to be angry—or at least dismissive. Her relief worried me. Whatever had happened since we’d left yesterday morning was going to be big.

  Another of Bernice’s automatons—this time a woman—came in carrying a tray of iced tea, cheese and crackers, and oatmeal cookies. She placed it on the table between us and left without a word. Even when my walls were locked down, people projected a sort of emotional heartbeat or warmth. The lack of any sort of emotion emanating from Bernice’s golems gave me the squidgies. As an empath, it was like staring into an empty eye socket into some minor level of hell where everyone ceased to exist. They made my skin itch and feel too tight for my bones.

  Art paced behind us, refusing to take a seat.

  Bernice shifted in her chair and cleared her throat. “I suppose I should come right out and say it. No use trying to ease you into it at this point.” Her hands fluttered in her lap, and I noticed for the first time the wad of tissue balled up in her palm. “There’s been another body.”

  Riley sat forward. “What do you mean another body? Like back when the board members were murdered? All staged and posed?”

  Bernice nodded. “Yes. Just like the rest.”

  Fear

  Sadness

  Anger

  Devastation