To the surface, Peter thought. There must be an entrance in the house to an underground structure. The ramshackle house was merely a front, the tip of an iceberg or network of icebergs housing a government agency as ghostlike and shadowy as any paranormal hunter’s film negatives.
Nichols stepped down off the porch and carefully navigated the ruined sidewalk.
Nothing about the man was familiar to Peter. Not his face or his dress or the way he walked. If he’d ever known Nichols, if he’d ever seen him before, he didn’t remember it now.
Stepping onto the road, Nichols walked up to Peter and said, “We really need to do something about that sidewalk, huh?”
Peter said nothing. He looked past Nichols at the house. It appeared empty, but appearances could be deceiving. Nichols would be an important man, and men like him rarely, if ever, traveled alone. He had backup; they were in there, hidden in the shadows, looming in the darkened places. Habit must know it too. Peter didn’t know where the big guy was, but he assumed Habit remained at a safe distance, ready to pick off Nichols with one squeeze of the trigger.
Nichols stuck out his hand. “Peter Ryan, what a pleasure it is to meet you. Again.”
In another place and another time Nichols would appear to be anyone’s father or grandfather, a gentle man, cordial, polite, friendly. But here, he was a menace and a phony, every movement calculated, every sentence carefully parsed. And for this reason Peter didn’t shake his hand. “Don’t you mean Jed Patrick?”
Nichols smiled. “Your name is Peter Ryan.” He looked deep into Peter’s eyes as if through them he could peer directly into a place he’d been before and had spent some time: Peter’s soul. “But I think you know that.”
Peter stared back at him, feeling naked and vulnerable and trying not to show the emotion that was building within him. He didn’t know it. Or did he?
Nichols tilted his head to one side. “What is it you want, son?”
Peter didn’t know what Habit’s plan was. He presumed there would be a shot, a single shot, that would drop Nichols. But he’d also presumed it would have happened fairly quickly. What was Habit waiting for?
“Why were those men trying to kill me yesterday?”
Nichols sighed, shook his head. “I’m afraid that was a misunderstanding. A terrible misunderstanding. And unfortunately it cost a few lives.” Nichols coughed, then coughed again, harder this time. The cough quickly became a hack, loud, forceful. His face turned red; he loosened his tie even more as his coughing fit continued, almost doubling him at the waist.
Peter was considering what to do when Nichols stopped coughing and stood upright and somehow had a gun in his hand. He pointed it at Peter’s head. They were more than an arm’s length apart, taking away any defense the quicker Peter might have had if they were closer.
Peter took another step backward.
“Hands where I can see them,” Nichols said.
Peter turned his palms toward the older man.
“On your knees.” Nichols motioned with the gun toward the pavement. “Now.”
Peter hesitated. Where was Habit? Why hadn’t he taken the shot? Maybe he was in it with Nichols. Maybe this was a ploy to take Peter alive. But Habit had had Peter at gunpoint in the school. He could have taken him then. Why hadn’t he?
Peter’s heart raced like the hooves of a herd of wild stallions. Something had to happen now; he had to do something.
Nichols took a step closer. “Now, Peter! On your knees.”
Suddenly the concussion of gunfire sounded, and Nichols’s head snapped back.
Nichols wobbled on his feet like a bowling pin. His eyes were empty windows; his mouth hung slack. A hole the size of a dime near his hairline oozed bright-red blood.
Two things happened simultaneously then: Peter noticed two gunmen taking aim in the windows flanking the front door of the house, and before Nichols’s knees could buckle and carry his weight to the ground, Peter stepped forward, grabbed the gun with his right hand, spun the older man around, and fired two shots at the window to the left of the door. Both shots caught the shooter in the upper chest. He toppled out of the window, lifeless. The other gunman ducked back behind the wall, but without hesitation, Peter aimed and squeezed off three rounds, placing them in the exterior wall between the window and the doorframe. The walls of the old home were thin, and the asbestos siding did nothing to stop a bullet traveling more than two thousand feet per second. The gunman dropped and landed in the doorway.
Peter let go of Nichols and, still clutching the gun, hurried up to the house and entered it. Inside, the air was still, and light was sparse. The doorway opened into what would have been the living room if the house were indeed a home where a family dwelled instead of a facade for a covert government agency. To the right was another, smaller room, and behind it, to the rear of the home, was the kitchen.
Sticking close to the wall, Peter searched and cleared each room. Occasionally he’d peer from one of the broken-out windows to make sure Habit wasn’t coming to gloat about his kill and then finish Peter off.
After checking the entire first floor, Peter headed up the stairs, every sense alert. He needed to make sure there weren’t more gunmen in the house waiting for an opportune moment to ambush him from behind.
The second story consisted of three bedrooms and a bathroom. In each bedroom was a closet. Peter checked them all, still keeping watch out the windows for Habit. But if Habit had stuck around after the shot, he wasn’t celebrating his victory over Nichols in the open. He was nowhere to be seen.
From the second story, Peter returned to the first floor and found the door to the cellar. The door opened on a wooden staircase, which descended into a dimly lit cavern. Gun out in front and held tight with both hands, Peter took the steps one at a time, pausing on each one to listen. If there was a secret passageway to some underground bunker, the cellar was where he’d find it. And if backup was coming, which no doubt it was, that was where they would emerge.
Midway down the steps, Peter got a look at the cellar. Hazy light filtered through four small windows in minimal amounts. Dust floated in the air, riding subtle currents that wafted from the open door to the first floor. The foundation walls were constructed of fieldstone; the concrete holding the stones together had long ago begun to crumble, leaving piles of dust on the dirt floor. The rafters supporting the first-story flooring held an intricate network of cobwebs tying them all together. The entire webbed labyrinth looked to be more intricate than anything a team of structural engineers could reproduce.
The area was clear of clutter. In the far corner was a utility sink and next to it, a thick wooden workbench. And in the center of the cellar sat a rotund coal furnace rising from floor to ceiling. From it reached eight round ducts like the arms of a manacled octopus imprisoned in this dungeon below the house.
Peter followed the north wall of the cellar to a door secured by two slide bolts and a hook-and-eye lock. Peter disengaged all three and opened the door. It creaked on hinges as dry as old bones. Behind it lay a root cellar under the front porch. The room was no more than eight by eight and housed a collection of old containers and boxes. It smelled of mildew and mold. Peter moved some of the boxes to the side and there found another door, but this one didn’t fit the surrounding motif. It was protected by a small biometric fingerprint lock concealed inside a gray box.
Hesitantly Peter placed his thumb on the scanner. He didn’t expect anything to happen, but a second later it blinked green and the door’s lock disengaged. He’d been there before, several times maybe. But how? He remembered none of it.
The door opened to another passageway descending farther into the ground beneath the house. Walls, ceiling, and floor were all concrete, and the total height was just over six feet, barely tall enough for Peter to stand in. Exposed lightbulbs every fifty feet or so illuminated the corridor, which wound its way deeper and deeper into the earth. At the same intervals were one-foot-by-one-foot metal ceiling vents. Peter
stayed close to the concrete walls, stepping carefully to avoid making any noise. There had to be some kind of alarm system that sounded an alert when the door was unlocked. Surely whoever was at the other end of the tunnel monitored such things.
But why hadn’t they sent anyone after him? Stuck in this tunnel, he was easy prey for a team of men with automatic weapons. There were only two explanations: this was a trap and an end consisting of automatic weapons was still in his future, or Habit had been telling the truth about them wanting to take him alive.
Either way, he’d keep going, keep moving ahead. Karen and Lilly were somewhere at the other end of the tunnel. He’d stay alert, remain quiet, and be ready to strike when needed.
The corridor descended in a spiral fashion, some of it sloped concrete, some of it wide but shallow steps. Around every bend, Peter expected to find men waiting, prepared to light the place up and destroy him, but the tunnel was empty.
A humming began, quiet, almost unnoticeable, like the machinery of a distant factory. Coming from the walls. Or the ceiling, maybe. Peter put his hand on the wall; the concrete vibrated. He then put his hand to the ceiling vent. Cool air poured out. The air-conditioning had kicked on. But why? Underground it was cool; there was no need for air-conditioning.
Quickly Peter turned from the vent, covered his mouth, and drew in a deep breath. There was something in the air—had to be. Whether it was the hallucinogen he’d experienced in the school or a toxic element, he had no doubt that what came out of the vents was anything but innocent.
Picking up his pace, he continued down the tunnel, still staying close to the wall. He had no idea how long he could hold his breath but figured no more than two minutes. He had to get to the end of the tunnel before he needed to breathe.
If he encountered any resistance, he’d have to make quick work of them, which meant he’d have to take risks. Fortunately he found the end of the corridor before the oxygen in his lungs was spent. And there was another door.
This door had no lock, only a simple lever handle. Peter depressed it and slipped through the doorway, shutting the door behind him and filling his lungs with clean, filtered, recirculated air. To his right and left was an empty concrete hallway fifty feet in either direction. Solid plain doors lined each wall, four to a side. Holding the gun chest-high, Peter sidestepped to his right to the first door and tried the knob. It was locked. As were the second, the third, the fourth.
Finally he made it to the corner. There he stopped, frozen by another memory.
He’s in this hallway or one similar. Long corridor, concrete, fluorescent lighting, doors lining each wall.
One of the doors opens and two men dressed in black commando gear emerge. One holds a knife and thrusts it at him. He blocks it with his left arm while jabbing the aggressor in the neck with his right fist. The man crumples to the floor clutching his throat. The other man brandishes a gun and points it at Peter’s head. Peter grabs the gun with both hands and thrusts upward while delivering a paralyzing kick to the man’s groin. The gun comes loose, and Peter engages the slide action and points it at the two commandos on the floor.
A man emerges from another room. Peter can’t see the man’s face, but he can tell who it is. He just knows. The man says, “Well done, Sergeant. You’ve come a long way. You’re almost ready.”
Peter shook his head, confused. Distracted. The man in this memory was Nichols, but it wasn’t the man who met him outside. Before he could make sense of the disparity, he felt something hard and cold against the back of his head.
Then a voice: “I knew you’d come to us, Peter.” It was Nichols.
Something hard hit him on the back of the head, his legs turned to paper, and he fell to the floor. The hallway spun, then went dark.
The house again. Second floor. Peter found himself in a bedroom. He wasn’t sure which one it was, but it wasn’t the first. Nothing in here was like that one—no bookshelf, no desk—except one thing; one thing was the same. In the corner, just like in the other room, stood the floor lamp with the C on the shade from Audrey Lewis’s office. Besides the lamp, this room was sparsely furnished, just a worn overstuffed chair, a small wooden table, a two-drawer metal file cabinet, and an old television, the kind equipped with a dial to turn channels and a rabbit-ears antenna.
Peter went to the file cabinet and slid open the top drawer. It was stuffed with hanging folders. Each one was labeled differently. High School. The Academy. The Force. Bills. Credit Cards.
He pulled the one for The Academy and opened it. An acceptance letter to the police academy in Indianapolis and a graduation certificate. Officer Peter Ryan.
He closed the file and placed it on top of the cabinet, then took out the one labeled The Force. Inside was a letter announcing his employment with the Indianapolis Police Department. There was also a photocopy of his badge and a photo of him in his uniform. He had been a cop. The memory was there again: seated in the coffee shop, sipping coffee. Even as it struck Peter strange that he could recall his memories in a dream, another memory surfaced.
He busts down a door by kicking it alongside the knob. It’s in an apartment building of some sort. Hallway on either side, more doors, all closed. The door swings in and Peter follows it, gun raised. He rushes in, feeling other cops close behind him. They’re all hollering, shouting orders. A group of men drop to the floor, but one flees. Peter chases him, catches him in the kitchen, tackles him against the refrigerator.
The memory blurred, then faded as quickly as breath on a mirror.
Peter shut the folder and placed it with the other one on top of the cabinet. He fingered through the folders in the drawer again and found one labeled Karen.
Opening the file, he found only one sheet of paper, which seemed odd to him. It was facedown, but he could see the imprint of an official seal of some sort. He flipped it over, scanned it, and let it drop softly to the floor. With it, his heart dropped into the pit of his stomach.
It was an intent to divorce, signed by Karen, stamped by the state.
He had been a cop, and he was divorced. Reality twisted in on itself, a snake coiling into a tight ball. He was divorced? Was that why he’d awakened by himself yesterday morning? Was that why he couldn’t find Karen or Lilly? They no longer lived with him? He wondered how many mornings he’d awakened calling Karen’s name, looking for her, looking for Lilly. But then, why had other people been convinced they’d died in a car crash?
Peter shut the top drawer with his thigh and opened the bottom drawer. It contained one object, a book. The same Bible from the first room. He lifted it out and cracked it open to the same spot as before. The pages crinkled and smelled of dust and much use. John chapter 10.
As before, he read the words and was overcome with peace. Hope. A feeling of complete contentment, as if he hadn’t a care in the world and whatever care happened to come his way would be dealt with properly. But as before, the feelings were fleeting and vanished, leaving him with a rock in his gut.
Disregarding the open drawer, Peter crossed the room to the closet, something the first room had lacked. Something drew him toward it, urged him to open it. An uneasy excitement built inside him, like the feeling a child has right before Christmas morning, wondering if he’ll get everything he asked for, especially that one special thing. But when he placed his hand on the knob, he was suddenly in the hallway, standing before the fourth door, trying to turn the knob but once again finding it locked. He shook the door, banged on it. Took a step back, then forward and kicked at it. Nothing. It was locked tight and impenetrable.
And as always, that shadowed pacer tracked back and forth, steady, unwavering.
Then, as a mist lifts and reveals the light of day, bright light filtered in and overcame Peter’s vision.
He was in a solid concrete room. Bare except for the metal chair on which he sat. His hands were cuffed behind him, his ankles shackled to the chair’s legs. Above, six fluorescent tubes glared at him. His mind swam in murky water, and for
a moment he forgot where he was. But as his thoughts cleared, he remembered his journey down here: the corridor, the vent; he’d held his breath and made it to the main tunnels. There were rooms, locked doors. And then . . . then what? He awoke here. Helpless, chained down like an animal.
He also remembered the dream and the memories within the dream. So strange. He was a cop, wasn’t he? Or had been a cop. That certainly explained his ability to use a weapon, his instincts for survival, his familiarity with hand-to-hand combat. But those memories were distant as well, like the others. They seemed to not originate from within him at all but to have been fed to him by some outside source. Like seeing pictures of your childhood and not remembering a moment of the events in the photo but knowing they happened because the picture is there to prove it.
And then there were the snippets of military action. How did those fit in? The only memories that really seemed to be his were from his life as a research assistant, but he was even starting to wonder how much of that had actually happened to him, as if that too was part of a script written by someone else. And what of the divorce paper he’d found? Was that real? Had Karen left him and taken Lilly? He couldn’t remember any of it, and yet it felt distantly possible. Maybe that explained why he knew she wasn’t dead. She was just gone, gone from him, a stranger to him. In the swirl of memories, it felt like Karen and Lilly were the only solid ground he had. That and the strange, unshakable feeling that despite what his mind told him about God, his soul seemed to know better.
Peter shut his eyes hard and tried to sort it all out, but his mind was a blank screen, an empty box. He had memories of Karen and Lilly’s accident, of the funeral . . . that was it. But if they were false memories, then Karen and Lilly were alive and they were here, in Centralia. This was why Lilly had left him the note.
Centralia Page 18