by Brian Harmon
“What is it?” The question came from Brandy, but she felt it as soon as it was out of her mouth, that feeling of warmth, as though the sun had just come out from behind a cloud. But there were no clouds.
“There’s something a little strange about this place,” Albert said. “Sort of a ghostly feeling.”
“No ghost stories,” Brandy insisted.
“Hell no,” Nicole confirmed.
“No ghosts here,” Albert said, but he wasn’t sure he was entirely convinced of that. “Just the ambiance. Strange place in the woods, old and dilapidated. Makes you think too much, that’s all.”
But that wasn’t all. Not really. There was something else about this place. He just couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
Nicole hugged herself a little tighter. “Maybe we should just get the fuck out of here.”
“Is that what you want?” Albert asked.
Nicole shook her head without looking at him. “No. Not really.”
Brandy agreed. “I want to see what’s in the cellar. I didn’t come out here just to go back and listen to some more of those fucking messages on my answering machine.”
“Okay,” Albert said, surprised at her courage and determination. “I want to look inside first, though.”
“Inside the walls?”
“Yeah. Just a peek.”
He wanted to familiarize himself as completely as he could with the surroundings before descending through any kind of cellar door. The more he knew about this place, the better. One never knew what information might come in handy.
Chapter 13
Andrea’s heart continued to pound long after Albert and the two girls disappeared around the far side of Gilbert House.
What just happened?
After Albert closed the door between them in the apartment building on Park Street, she drove home with her mind still full of questions. She was upset with him for not letting her in on what it was he knew. And he did know something. She saw it in his eyes, something about that picture of Wendell Gilbert. He recognized it somehow, saw something that obviously meant a great deal to him, and he simply thanked her and shut the door in her face without giving her another thought. She was also disgusted with herself for not having more guts than she did. Rachel would have demanded to know what was going on, would have forced her way into that apartment if she had to.
But Rachel wasn’t there. And Andrea Prophett was no Rachel Penning.
But she didn’t give up. She’d studied the things that were in that envelope. She knew what was written on that piece of paper. She knew about the cellar door and she knew where Albert Cross was likely to be in the next few hours.
She almost called Rachel, even went so far as to pick up the phone, but she restrained herself. Rachel had her boyfriend now. Rachel had her job. Rachel had just too damn many things in her life now. It was silly, probably even stupid, but this was Andrea’s. She did not intend to share it. Not just yet, anyway.
She changed into some blue jeans and a black tee shirt, grabbed a granola bar for a quick dinner and told her mother she was going for a walk. She then came immediately here, to the forest behind Gilbert House. She found a good spot in the brush to hide, a spot within sight of the mysterious cellar door that Albert’s strange note had revealed, but far enough away to remain hidden. Fairly certain that she could not easily be seen, she sat down on the ground and waited for Albert to show up.
As it turned out, Albert did not waste any time. Less than an hour and a half after being turned away at his apartment door, she heard voices approaching from the direction of the tire store. It was him. And he was in the company of two girls.
These girls were out of place in the eerie clearing that was Gilbert House’s yard. Albert was a handsome man, not tall, but with a strong build, sort of mysterious, she thought, and it seemed fitting that he should step out of the shadowy forest and approach these cold and empty walls. But these girls had a look about them that defied this setting. She’d seen this even from a distance. They were soft and pretty, delicate. They moved through the weeds and the brush with a grace that was natural enough to be their own, but awkward enough to reveal that they did not often tread the forest floor.
Why were they here? What were they doing? It was driving her crazy.
They did not go directly to the cellar door, as she’d expected. Instead, they circled around the back of Gilbert House, passing unnervingly close to where she was hiding. It was here, as they began to move away from her again, that Albert Cross gave her the fright of her life.
When she leaned around the tree to get a better look at the two girls, Albert abruptly turned and looked at her. She shrank back into the brush, her heart stuttering in her chest. She did not know him, after all. She didn’t know what his motives might be for coming out here. What if his intentions were bad? What if he planned to do something terrible? What would he do to her if he found her here, spying on him? Would he be mad? Would he hurt her?
For a moment, it seemed that he did not see her. He began to walk again, continuing on around the blank maze of windowless walls that was Gilbert House. Then, suddenly, he turned and came straight at her.
She almost screamed. She shrank back into the brush, her heart racing, and Albert came right up to her and looked directly into her wide, terrified eyes.
She lay there silently, staring up at him, wondering what he would say, what he would do. She opened her mouth to speak, not knowing what to say, and unable to form any words anyway.
Albert’s eyes washed over her, seeming to study her, and then drifted off into the woods, as though searching for any other witnesses before dealing with her. For what felt like a very long time, he just stood there, searching the forest around them, and she realized that the expression on his face was not of anger or malice, but of puzzlement, as though he couldn’t understand where in the world she could have come from. Again, his eyes washed over her, and it was only then that she realized that it was not as though he were looking at her, but rather through her.
She stared up at him, trying to understand this game he seemed to be playing with her. He lowered his eyes to the ground at his feet, searched all around him, then up at the branches above. She, too, looked up into the tree limbs, but there was nothing there. Finally, his eyes came back down to her, but even then they landed somewhere behind her, as though he didn’t see her at all. Then, suddenly, his face shifted. Something like fear flashed in his eyes and he spun around, looking back at Gilbert House as though it had suddenly called out to him in some ghostly voice to which she was deaf.
The blond girl asked him what was wrong.
“Nothing,” he’d replied. “Just… I think I’m imagining things.”
She stared after him as he returned to his two pretty companions, thoroughly confused. Why didn’t he tell them she was there? Could he really have not seen her?
She watched him reach into his backpack and remove the envelope she’d delivered to him. They spoke too quietly for her to hear from where she sat, but she dared not move any closer.
Then the three of them continued on around Gilbert House and out of sight.
How could he not have seen her? If he’d taken one more step, he would have tripped over her. Had he chosen to simply pretend that he hadn’t seen her? That seemed the most probable, since there was no way he could have actually missed her, but what kind of sense would that make?
She wished she could see what they were doing, but she dared not press her luck any further than she already had. She remained where she was and listened to their distant voices.
Chapter 14
Albert forced his way through the brush and climbed the steps to the opening in the wall that served as Gilbert House’s front (and apparently only) door. Brandy and Nicole followed closely behind him. “According to one of the articles from the envelope,” Albert explained, “Gilbert House was originally going to be a new men’s dormitory for the college. If finished, it would have been the second ol
dest dormitory ever built on the Hill.” The oldest was Hamm House, which had gone through extensive renovations just a few years ago.
“Seems awful far from campus,” Brandy noted.
“Not really. I mean the University Center is just down the street, right across from Bernard. You can see it from the tire store.”
Brandy nodded. That was true.
“Besides that,” Albert added, “the campus was smaller back then. And the oldest buildings are all on this side. Maybe they intended to build in this direction when they hired Gilbert.”
“That makes sense,” said Nicole.
“Another article suggested that there was all sorts of trouble after Gilbert’s disappearance. The university lost a ton of money and without Gilbert there was no one to prosecute to get it back. And they still needed a dormitory. I’m thinking that Gilbert House was stuck in limbo and they really needed a new dorm so they cut their losses and built Daney instead.” Daney Hall was the second oldest existing dormitory on campus. He’d looked it up before leaving the apartment. It was built only two years after the Gilbert scandal, suggesting that it was Gilbert House’s replacement. He could only assume then that this building would have eventually been named Daney if it had been completed as planned. He doubted that it was ever intended to be known as “Gilbert House.” In fact, it wasn’t even referred to as such anywhere in any of the information inside the envelope. Only the girl who delivered it had called it by that name, which suggested that it was the name given to the place by the locals who knew of it. “That was all in the twenties. And in the fifties the university acquired a huge chunk of farmland to the south. That’s where all the newest buildings are. And there’s plenty of room still left over there. It doesn’t take a genius to guess that it’s probably a lot less expensive and more convenient to build over there than over here.”
“So they just abandoned this property?” asked Brandy as they did their best to avoid the broken glass that blanketed the steps.
“Not abandoned. I’m sure they’re just sitting on it. Property is always an asset. They’ll leave it alone until it becomes the most financially attractive site to build on. Or they might sell it if they ever need the money.”
Albert looked around as he stepped through the doorway and down onto the dirt floor within. “Careful,” he warned the girls as he turned and offered them each a hand. Because of the slope of the hill, the ground was considerably higher here than where the steps ascended, but it was still at least twenty inches from the threshold to the floor.
The slope of the hill also resulted in a noticeable difference between the height of the walls here and at the back of the building, so that where they stood now, just inside the door, the walls were the highest. Albert gazed up at the sky and was eerily reminded of the maze he and Brandy had looked down upon from over the side of a vast stone bridge deep inside the temple.
He forced his attention back onto Gilbert House, but not before a light shiver passed through him.
They stood in a short hallway that ended only a few yards ahead in a T-shaped intersection. Grass, weeds and thorny brush grew between the walls. A few small cedar saplings jutted upward here and there. Straight ahead of them, in the opposite wall of the adjoining hallway, was another gap in the wall, similar to the one that served as a front door.
Albert made his way toward this doorway. As he walked, he studied the dirt floor beneath his feet. “Apparently, Wendell Gilbert was spending a lot of money, but nothing was getting built. When the college put two and two together, they accused him of pocketing the money, but he vanished before they could press charges. They never proved that he did it, but it looks to me like they were right about him. There’s no real foundation, no floor, not even a concrete slab.”
“So he never intended to finish Gilbert House,” Nicole concluded.
“Never even really started it.” When he reached the intersection between the two hallways, he peered down the left side, then the right. Apparently, there were plenty of doors inside Gilbert House. With the exception of the one directly in front of them, all the doorways in this adjoining hallway led toward the front of the building. These, he assumed, were all living quarters. At both ends of this corridor, another hallway branched off toward the back of the building, forming that U-shape he’d observed from outside the structure. He knew from the sketch of the floor plan inside the envelope that both of those hallways were lined on either side with individual rooms. “It doesn’t make sense, really. I mean it seems like a really stupid plan, and Wendell Gilbert was no idiot. He was a very successful architect. He also designed the city’s courthouse and public library, plus other buildings all over the Country. He even worked in Europe for several years. First of all, I don’t understand why he would need the money, and even if he did, I’d think he would be smarter than to throw up a few walls and expect to get away with it. What was he thinking?”
Brandy stared up at the walls as they walked. The hallways were fairly wide, yet there was something about this place that was almost claustrophobic. There was a blue sky above her, but it was cold. It almost felt as though she were underground again.
Nicole tugged at her elbow. “Hey, let me in your backpack.”
Brandy turned to give her access.
“I need a cigarette.”
“Grab me one too.” Brandy had cut back on cigarettes after moving in with Albert. He never complained about her smoking, but she still wanted to quit for him. She did not want to risk his health for her idiotic addiction. And she was doing very well. Today, however, she’d already indulged in two and was going to need another.
Albert stepped through the doorway that stood facing the front entrance and gazed around at the large room on the other side. It must have been some kind of common room. It was easily four times the size of the lounge in Lumey, where he and Brandy first opened the box all those months ago.
There were several trees growing in here, but none of them were very big. This struck Albert as a little odd. He remembered that there were also no sizeable trees growing in the courtyard, either. If this place had been here for more than eighty years, that was plenty of time to grow full-sized trees. There was plenty of sunshine in here, but as with the courtyard, this room was mostly filled with that thick, thorny brush.
But then again, perhaps the campus had removed the trees at some point in the past. Maybe they even sold the lumber for extra funding. Or maybe there was a fire out here. He didn’t know the history of this land.
After lighting their cigarettes, Nicole stuffed the pack and the lighter back into the pocket of Brandy’s backpack and then wandered back the way they’d come. She, too, was trying to quit, but like Brandy she was in need of one. There was something eerie about this place, and although she wasn’t really scared, she felt she might need all the nerve she could muster. Not wanting to smoke near Albert, whom she too had long ago decided didn’t need to breathe the stuff just because she did, and also because these walls were making her uneasy, she walked back to the front door, leaving her friends to explore.
Albert stepped back out into the hallway and looked again in both directions. A portion of the wall had collapsed to the right. The scattered rubble and a particularly dense patch of brush made that direction less traversable, so he turned left instead.
“Weird in here,” Brandy said. “Kind of freaky.”
Albert peered into one of the dorm rooms. “I know. It’s like something out of a movie. It’s so strange, like it’s too wrong to be real.” The actual rooms were small, only about the size of the little prison cell rooms over in the Cube. His room at Lumey had been easily three times this big. He felt as though he’d have gone crazy if he’d been forced to live in a room that small, especially if he had to share it with a roommate.
“Hey guys!” Nicole’s voice traveled to them through the passageway, sounding oddly echoing, as if they were enclosed in one of the tunnels beneath the city instead of standing beneath an open sky. Albert thought
that it must have been a trick of the tall walls, but he didn’t have time to ponder it. “There’s someone out here!”
Albert and Brandy looked at each other with identical expressions of surprise and then turned and hurried back to the front door.
Chapter 15
Wayne was startled by the appearance of the girl. There had been no one in sight as he approached the strange, windowless walls of what must have been Gilbert House, and he thought that he was alone here. Although he was determined to satisfy his curiosity, he’d intended to get in and out as quickly as possible and avoid any contact with anybody, if at all possible. But here he was, standing out in the open with nowhere to go, only a few yards from the large concrete slab on which the girl stood.
She was a very pretty brunette, dressed in snug blue jeans and a tight, white tee shirt with the word “PRINCESS” printed across her impressive bosom. Her thick hair was tied back in a careless ponytail. She held a cigarette in one hand and hugged herself as if cold with the other. She slowly exhaled a white cloud of smoke and gazed out at the woods to her left as it vanished in the breeze. For a moment, she did not see him and his heart raced as he prayed that she would just turn and walk back into the structure. But then she turned her head and looked straight at him.
“Hey guys!” he heard her yell. “There’s someone out here!”
Wayne’s stomach knotted in his belly. If he’d seen anybody before he stepped out of the woods, he would have turned around and left, but it was a little late for that now. He thought about leaving anyway, just turning around and running as fast as he could all the way back to his apartment, but he saw little point in that. Besides, only Laura waited for him there.
Within seconds, two others joined the girl. One was a cute, slender blonde with glasses, wearing a plain yellow, sleeveless shirt, jeans and a pink backpack. The final member of the group was a young man with dark hair and a somewhat stocky build. He was dressed in jeans and a tee shirt and wore a green backpack. All three of them stood in the doorway of Gilbert House and stared at him, their eyes boring into him, tightening the knot in his belly.