Centralia

by Mike Dellosso

  He’s a kid, no more than twelve, sitting at a desk. Alone. There’s no one else in the room.

  A teacher enters, female, middle-aged, slender, hair loose around her shoulders. She’s wearing a dark skirt and light-blue blouse, plain.

  Now the teacher is next to his desk, hovering over him, hands on her hips.

  She wags a finger at him. “When will you learn to apply yourself, Mr. Patrick?”

  Peter snapped back to the present and the ruin that used to be Centralia Elementary School, but the woman’s voice resonated in his head. Not Patrick, but Mr. Patrick.

  He moved through the classroom, stepping over and around fallen ceiling tiles and school supplies that spilled from the overturned desks. In the hallway he drew in a deep breath of the musky air and let it out. What little light filtered into this area of the building colored the walls a chalky gray.

  The next room was another dilapidated classroom. More fallen ceiling tiles littered this room, like skin peeled away, exposing the electrical circuitry overhead. Peter tried the light switch, but nothing happened. He really didn’t expect the electricity to still be on.

  In another part of the building, several rooms down the hallway, as faint as the movements of ghosts, he heard the scuff of shoes on tile.

  Peter’s first thought was that the sound had come from a vagabond who’d found shelter from nature’s mood swings in the abandoned school. After all, someone had broken the windows. Someone had trashed the rooms. Someone had colored the walls with graffiti. He was certain this old building housed more than just forgotten lectures and misplaced homework assignments, that it had become home to many a homeless traveler, especially during the colder months.

  Peter withdrew the handgun from his waistband and held it in front of him with both hands. It might only be a drifter seeking shelter, but he didn’t want to take any chances.

  Moving slowly down the hallway, sticking close to the wall, Peter checked and cleared each room. He was no less careful than if he’d been searching for a lost child, maybe his own Lilly.

  Again he heard the shuffling, the scuffing of soles. This time he was able to pinpoint the location of the sound: it came from the far east end of the building.

  Peter followed the direction of the sound and entered what appeared to be the school’s library. This room was carpeted and most of the space was taken up with rows of bookshelves. Many of the shelves had been cleared, but what books remained were scattered on the floor, pages splayed, bindings broken, like a mass collection of dead birds with fractured wings. Whoever had been in here, vagabond or vandal, was obviously not a lover of books.

  Stepping from aisle to aisle, Peter swept the gun back and forth. And though his pulse thumped out a quick rhythm in his neck, his finger was steady.

  When Peter was confident the library was clear, he moved to the next room, which turned out to be the cafeteria. The tables remained, rows of them, but the ceiling had been totally ripped out, and the mineral-fiber tiles lay broken and crumbled on the tabletops and floor. A row of windows lined the far wall, some of them broken, the ones still intact covered with cloudy grime. Light illuminated the large room and accented the decay that had taken place over the decades.

  From the kitchen area came a rattle, then a clatter, like metal on tile. Peter hurried to the wall and followed it around to the kitchen entrance, listening for the now-familiar scuffing of shoes.

  The kitchen consisted of four large steel islands, three industrial-size ovens with six-burner stove tops, three stainless refrigerators, and three upright freezers. Compared to the rest of the building, the kitchen had fared well against the decay and wasting that passing time encouraged. A few pots lay on the floor by one of the stoves, and a collection of cutting boards of various sizes and thicknesses had been tossed around the large room as if someone had grown bored of walking the halls and decided to play Frisbee with them. A coffeemaker had also been pushed over, the tile floor stained brown around it. But the appliances did not appear to be in disrepair, the ceiling tiles remained overhead, and surprisingly there was no half-eaten food decaying on the islands.

  Peter inched into the kitchen, moving silently and slowly, sweeping his eyes over the floor and around the islands, listening, watching.

  Behind him something moved, a muted scraping, then scratching. He spun, pointing the gun at one of the refrigerators, and nearly pulled the trigger when something gray and quick jumped out from between the refrigerator and its neighboring freezer.

  It was a cat, more afraid of Peter than of his gun and the bullet that could have stolen one of its lives. The thing slipped on the floor, its legs going like they were attached to electric motors, then finally found its footing and tore out of the kitchen.

  Peter lowered his weapon and leaned against one of the islands, letting the breath out of his lungs. He left the kitchen and the cafeteria and made his way back down the hall to the other end of the building. He wanted to check out the offices and gymnasium. There had to be something in this town that would give him a clue—some reason Lilly would send him here. So far Centralia offered nothing but a few disjointed memories that had no connection to anything tangible.

  At the gymnasium Peter stopped before opening the double doors that led to the basketball court. Another memory was there, displaced and poking its way into his mind.

  He’s a kid again, twelve or thirteen, skinny as a rail and standing in the middle of a basketball court. Other kids are there, mulling around, talking, laughing. Some shoot hoops; some stand in a circle and hit a volleyball around. But not him. He’s alone.

  Something plunks him in the back, between the shoulder blades. He turns and finds a volleyball bouncing at his feet. Picking it up, he looks around.

  “Over here, Sped.”

  He looks to his left and sees a couple guys standing there, staring at him with expectant looks on their faces.

  One of them holds out his hands. “Well, you gonna give it here or what?”

  He tosses the ball. It bounces twice before reaching them.

  The taller of the three shakes his head. “When you gonna learn to stop throwing like a girl? And you wonder why we call you Sped.”

  One of the others laughs and as he turns away says, “Jed the Sped strikes again.”

  Peter rubbed his face. Jed. The name triggered no recognition. He couldn’t be sure the memory was even accurate. For all he knew, it was nothing more than a collection of odd images and moments in time jumbled together, much like a dream.

  He swung open the doors to the gym and stepped through the doorway. Daylight barely reached this part of the building. There was only a single row of narrow windows near the ceiling, and they were soiled with water stains and smut. The gym appeared mostly untouched. The wood floor was covered with a thin film of dust. The basketball hoops were still intact; even the nets still hung from the rims. The place looked nearly ready to host the next Friday night game. But something seemed out of place on the far end. The floor didn’t look right, like an object had fallen from the ceiling and embedded itself in the hardwood.

  Peter slipped the handgun back into the waistline of his pants and, sticking close to the bleachers, walked the sideline. At half court he stopped. The far end of the gym floor, near the exit, had buckled and caved as if giant hands had lifted it and folded it in on itself, cutting off one whole corner of the court and pulling some of the bleachers down as well. There must have been a sinkhole under that corner of the building, and over time, without the careful eye of a building inspector to diagnose the problem and prescribe a fix, gravity had gained the victory and pulled the foundation and flooring down toward the burning veins of coal beneath the surface.

  Walking out onto the court, Peter approached the sinkhole and stood at the edge. The flooring before him sloped at a forty-five-degree angle, creating a gulf of five feet between the intact portion and the portion that had given way to the crumbling earth beneath it. The crevice stood open like a gaping mouth with
an endless throat, so deep and black that it appeared to be solid matter. The hole belched a steady flow of air hot enough to singe and rank with the odor of sulfur.

  Peter backed away from the crevice. Eventually the hole would grow, more ground would give way, and the entire gymnasium would be swallowed up. The earth here was hungry, and the fire beneath it was unquenchable.

  Peter wondered if his very presence would shift the balance of the floor, maybe the entire building, and expedite the inevitable. In fact, if he stood completely still, he thought he could feel the floor shifting beneath his feet, moving on unstable ground.

  And then he heard it. Crying. More like a soft whimper than a sob. Peter froze and listened, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. It was Lilly. He knew his own daughter’s cry as well as he knew the sound of her laugh or voice. Suddenly his heart was in his throat, and he moved quickly across the gym, no longer concerned about upsetting the precarious balance of the floor on the edge of the earth.

  He knocked through the double doors, back into the hallway, and stood still, listening. The crying was louder now, closer. Oh, Lilly. He rounded the corner and caught a glimpse of a figure, small, petite—Lilly—entering the office suite.

  Peter followed, not caring about anything other than holding his little girl again. He reached the door to the suite and pulled it open. This area seemed untouched by the passage of time. Desks stood on their legs, chairs remained upright. On one of the desks a stack of papers remained in place, not a single sheet disturbed. Peter glanced back at the entrance, half-expecting to see a bustling school full of children on the other side of the sliding window at the receptionist area.

  “Lilly?” His voice echoed in the empty place.

  The crying had stopped.

  Peter walked over to one of the desks and lifted a sheet of paper from the out-bin. It was dated October 17, twenty years ago.

  Weaving around several desks, Peter called for his daughter, but still there was no answer. The suite consisted of the common come-and-go area and then offices: principal, vice principal, and nurse’s station.

  Somewhere toward the back of the suite, in one of the far offices, he heard the scuffing again, then the quiet, frightened whimper.

  “Lilly,” Peter called. “I’m coming, baby. Hold on. Daddy’s here.”

  Bypassing the principal’s and vice principal’s offices, he went directly to the nurse’s station and opened the door. The crying stopped again. There was a small desk, a couple chairs, a cot, and a metal supply cupboard in the room, all appearing as they did two decades ago, the last time the nurse occupied this office and fulfilled her duties. The faint aroma of alcohol rubs still hung in the air.

  “Lilly? Baby? You in here?”

  But his inquiry was met with silence.

  Then: “Peter.”

  Karen’s voice. Behind him. Peter swung around and incredibly found Karen standing in the doorway of the office. His legs nearly buckled. She smiled at him, then stepped away and disappeared into the hallway.

  Peter rushed out of the room after her, dashed down the short hallway to the come-and-go area, and was met by Baldy pointing a gun at him. A white bandage covered half his face, and his left hand was wrapped heavily in gauze.

  “Stay there, Patrick,” he said, holding his weapon shoulder-high.

  Instinctively Peter went for his gun, but Baldy advanced and gripped his own pistol with both hands. There was an intensity in his eyes that Peter hadn’t seen before, even when he was shoving the man’s face onto a hot grill. “No, you don’t. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

  Peter looked over Baldy’s shoulder but didn’t see Karen. She’d disappeared as if into thin air, as if she were nothing more than an illusion, a sleight-of-hand trick played on him by a master magician. He nearly climbed out of his skin. He glanced behind him at the nurse’s office door, expecting Lilly to appear or at least call to him. But there was nothing.

  “You don’t understand,” Peter said. “My wife. My daughter.”

  He took a step, but Baldy blocked his advance. “Hands where I can see them, Patrick.”

  “No! I need to get to them.”

  “Hands where I can see them!”

  Peter stepped forward, stopped, stepped again. He tightened the muscles in his arms, clenched his fists. He could make a run for it, charge the big guy. He wouldn’t be expecting that, and it might just catch him with his guard down even for a split second.

  But as if Baldy were the magician and also had the ability to read minds, he too moved in. They were less than ten feet apart now. “I said, hands where I can see them.”

  Baldy didn’t appear to be the kind of man to give commands he didn’t expect to be obeyed. Peter stopped and raised his hands to shoulder height.

  “Please. My wife.” He couldn’t let Karen get away. Somehow she had found him. It was unbelievable, and yet he had seen her just as plain as day. And Lilly was still in the room behind him. He stepped back but stopped when Baldy inched forward.

  Holding the gun in front of him at an arm’s length, Baldy said, “They’re not real.”

  Peter shook his head. “No, they are real. I saw them.” Baldy was trying to play mind games with him.

  “Patrick, listen to me. They’re not real.”

  “I saw them.”

  “You saw a hallucination. You saw what you wanted to see.”

  No. It couldn’t be. Baldy was lying, attempting to trick Peter, to get inside his head and scramble his ability to reason. Karen was there, as was Lilly. He’d not only seen them but heard their voices. He thought he even caught a faint whiff of Karen’s perfume. “No.” Peter scratched above his right ear. He refused to believe it.

  “It’s a hallucinogen. It’s in the air coming from the crevice in the gym. It makes you see what you want to see.”

  Again Peter shook his head. “No.” But now he wasn’t even convinced by his own denial. “Who? Who’s behind this?”

  “I can help you,” Baldy said.

  “Help me what?”

  “I can help you find your wife and daughter.”

  Peter jerked like someone had hit him. “You know where they are?”

  Still holding the gun on Peter, Baldy said, “I know more than I should.”

  Peter mentally relaxed a bit, but his muscles remained coiled for action. He was near the principal’s office and could make a dive for the doorway, test Baldy’s reflexes and aim. But at this range, it would be a fatal move. Even an amateur could hit a large moving target at ten feet. And the big man in front of him did not appear to be an amateur in any way.

  Baldy once more showed his propensity for telepathy, or possibly he was just great at reading and interpreting body language. He said, “Pull your weapons out slowly and toss them on the floor.”

  Peter did as he was instructed and tossed the handguns in front of him. They clanged on the floor and slid to about two feet in front of Baldy.

  “Now the automatics,” Baldy said, motioning toward the rifles slung over Peter’s shoulders.

  Peter obeyed and slipped the rifles off his shoulders and tossed them onto the floor. The only defense he had now was his hands, should it come to that. Again he searched the space over Baldy’s shoulder, hoping the hit man was wrong and that Karen was real and was there. It was nothing but empty office space. Maybe his mind had concocted the whole thing. Maybe his captor was right about the hallucinogen.

  Baldy motioned again with his pistol, this time to the right. “Over there, against the wall. And keep your hands where I can see them.”

  Peter sidestepped to the wall. “Where are Karen and Lilly?”

  “We’ll get to that later.”

  At the wall Peter stopped with his back against it, hands still in the air, palms forward. “We’ll get to it now.”

  Baldy shook his head. “Patrick, you’re not calling the shots. Not this time. I need your help.”

  “My help? For what?”

  “We’
ll get to that later too.”

  “How do I know you won’t just kill me? You tried to before.”

  Baldy smirked. “If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead already.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Habit. Lawrence.” Habit tilted his head a little to the right and studied Peter. “You don’t remember me at all, do you?”

  Peter lowered his hands to his waist. Habit was familiar to him, but he couldn’t recall where he’d seen the big guy before outside the splinter memories he’d had. “Should I?”

  “No. You shouldn’t. Not after what they did to you.” He paused and stared at Peter. “But you do, don’t you? You’re beginning to remember.”

  Peter said nothing. Remember what? What had he forgotten?

  “And that’s why they’re after you,” Habit said.

  “Where are my wife and daughter?”

  Habit pointed at one of the desks in the come-and-go area. “Sit down, Patrick.”

  “I’ll stand. Why do you keep calling me Patrick?”

  “That’s your name. Jed Patrick.”

  Jed Patrick. Jed the Sped. It meant nothing to him, though. It was just a name and might as well have been pulled out of some unknown book in some remote library. And yet it lined up with the images and snippets he’d been recalling. Amy’s words came back to him: “Things aren’t what they seem. They’re not what you think.”

  “My name is Peter Ryan.” But he wasn’t convinced of that anymore.

  “That’s the name they gave you. Your real name is Jed Patrick.”

  Peter’s head began to swim frantically as if caught in a whirlpool that sucked and pulled at his sanity. He sat on the corner of the desk and rubbed his temple. The name they gave him. They. Who? “Things aren’t what they seem.”

  “Who gave me?”

  “The agency.”

  “They’re not what you think.”

  “Agency. What agency? I don’t remember any agency.”

  A memory hit him, the same memory as before:

  “Welcome to Centralia, Sergeant.”