House of Cabal Volume One: Eden

by Wesley McCraw

  After living in the garden for an eternity, I no longer belonged.

  I had heard a million love operas, as love of all kinds was a very popular theme, and I had incorporated romantic love into my memories of Eve. Seeing a new woman in the garden had stirred up those feeling. Dana would live forever with her husband in a perfect paradise of their own creation. My ridiculous feelings for her would never be reciprocated, and I didn’t really want them to be. With my new sense of purpose, I didn’t need some fantasy past life with Eve, and I didn’t need to relive the experience with Dana.

  It was best I never returned. I had a job to do. I would bear witness to the House of Cabal and compose my masterpiece. Everett Grimes would lead the way.

  Chapter 4

  I

  On May 19th, 2000, twenty-seven-year-old Everett Grimes drove a convertible through Monterey County, California, down Highway 1. Against his steering wheel, he held a scrap of butcher paper. On it was written a rain-bled return address, and postage stamps depicted the same orange groves that now rhythmically flowed by like silent train cars. What awaited him at his destination, at the address on the paper, was still a mystery.

  On his left, the evenly spaced groves bordered mountainous national forest. The road ahead gently curved, hugging the landscape. The Pacific Ocean shimmered on his right, under a mostly azure sky, and then a towering bluff of sandstone and wind-gnarled trees blocked the spectacular views.

  His destination was before the next town: San Luis Obispo. He had to be close.

  He scratched the back of his ginger crew cut. His tailored dress jacket, sunglasses, and handsome face made him look like a Hollywood heartthrob. His recent self-makeover felt overtly sexual; he wasn’t used to fitted clothes, and it made him more nervous than confident. He tapped at the steering wheel.

  A mailbox whizzed past, flashing a string of numbers that took him a moment to process. The next address could be it.

  In the distance was something red on the ground. He took his foot off the gas. A red brick road led off to the right through another orange grove. Instead of neatly spaced rows, the grove’s crowded trees grew in chaos and fought for light, the leaves as dark as avocado skin, blocking any sight of the ocean.

  The road had no address, just a weathered “Private Property” notification. This had to be it.

  He signaled, though no one was behind him, and eased down the steep grade and under the canopy. The vermilion brick playfully wove among the trees. Behind him, the highway disappeared. It was like entering a new, darker world. He didn’t know orange trees could grow this dense and tall. Overripe oranges littered the ground, and the pungent aroma overwhelmed him.

  He felt his stomach would revolt from the coffee or from driving curvy roads or from his nerves or from the sickly sweet smell of rotting fruit. Despite his nausea, the rot somehow made him hungry, and the hunger in turn made him even more queasy.

  An orange fell into his back seat. He wasn’t ready for answers—anything could be at his destination—and it gave him a good excuse to park off to the side of the road.

  He turned off the engine, leaving the buzz of insects to fill the silence. The stagnant air felt heavy despite the shade.

  He unbuckled, reached back, and grabbed the softball-sized fruit. The skin of the orange was warm against his cheek and felt like human skin when he rolled it against his lips. The sensual nature of the experience made him oddly horny. He breathed in the citrus smell and salivated. It reminded him of Dana Parr, of their kiss a week before.

  As he peeled the orange, a shaft of sunlight pierced the canopy and highlighted the zest that sprayed forth from the skin. He gaped at the momentary beauty, more present in the here and now than he could remember feeling. He had slept through his entire life. The musculature of his arms and chest and back tightened, like during a workout, and he became a physical thing instead of just a troubled consciousness rattling inside a skull. The peel came off in one piece. He tossed it out of the car into the orchard. He shoved his thumbs into the orange and broke it down the middle.

  To his shock, a mass of rice-sized, opalescent bugs swarmed out of the hollow fruit onto his hands, while others spilled out onto his jeans and car seat.

  He sprung out of the car and flung the orange into the trees. The tiny insects were already on him and spreading. He frantically tried to brush them off.

  They circled around his arms and onto his back and up the nape of his neck and into his hair. He wanted to scream but feared if he unsealed his lips they would crawl into his mouth.

  II

  The overripe fruit smelled even more pungent fifteen years later, on August 31st, 2015. The trees refused to die despite neglect, and now an unnatural layer of rot, decay, and cancerous regrowth disfigured the orchard. This didn’t stop the nesting bugs inside from multiplying into profusion.

  The engine of the SUV that drove among the gnarled trunks hid the insect buzz. Here was Chuck Pointer, with unruly, receding hair and squinty eyes that made him look stoned, a man widely considered the world’s most notorious living biographer, driving to interview Everett Grimes for his next book. Chuck resembled his Jewish father, Aaron Pointer, more than his Scandinavian mother. On his father, the sleepy look read as sadness. On Chuck, as he drove (and in his life in general), it came across as unflappability, a useful quality for putting his subjects at ease.

  He’d inherited more than his father’s looks: Aaron’s life was one of struggle and perseverance. Chuck honored that legacy by putting his career first and working relentlessly to maintain economic prosperity.

  After a few minutes winding through the orchard, oranges smashing under his tires, he came out onto a grassy flat. He continued down the narrow red-brick road until he reached the beach and slowed to a stop.

  From there, the road took a sharp turn north into a roadblock, before it continued on and rounded its way up a cliffside. He wasn’t going that way. Never mind the roadblock. Those cliffs were where the House of Cabal had perched before falling into the ocean, killing all who’d resided within.

  Chuck’s research revealed that on May 19th, 2000, Everett Grimes had been a guest when a quake or an explosion caused the whole estate to plummet into the ocean. Beyond that, most of the details were contradictory. In contrast to his S.O.P., Chuck was coming into this interview relatively blind. He didn’t necessarily view this as a bad thing. Focusing on his primary source first could cut down on the kind of unnecessary tangents that often bogged down his process. This time he would fill in the gaps with research only as needed.

  His objective was to solve the mysteries as efficiently as possible. His current mantra was work smarter, not harder. To accomplish this goal, he would have to understand Everett Grimes first and foremost. Facts didn’t sell biographies; confessions did. Today he would pierce through the front Grimes wanted others to see. Long-coveted secrets would be revealed. The forthcoming bestseller was all but inevitable.

  It all seemed like common, human hubris to me, but I couldn’t confirm my suspicions. Chuck’s destiny thread led me here, but disturbingly, didn’t allow me to jump forward. Traveling into his past was still possible, and so I did just that for more context.

  His father Aaron had the surname Poneviaser until he’d changed it to Pointer in the early 1950s to benefit a potential career in Hollywood. Unlike his son, he never found success. Not that he didn’t try his damnedest, first to become an actor and then to become a producer. Eventually, given enough punishment, even the most resilient fighter throws in the towel. Shortly after turning fifty, Aaron resigned himself to a managerial position at a paper mill.

  Not long after that, Chuck’s mother died of breast cancer. Aaron had divorced her years earlier, but the news hit hard, and soon a heart attack struck and ended his life too.

  Successful people didn’t die of heart attacks, Chuck told himself repeatedly. He was overweight, like his father late in life, with high cholesterol and blood pressure. But Chuck had excellent health care. H
e didn’t always follow his doctor’s advice. But he managed his stress better than his father. Chuck had a happy marriage, or at least a happier marriage than his parents’ had been. He didn’t have to fight about money all the time.

  While I witnessed Chuck’s past, all my abilities functioned normally. His various connections led to other destiny threads that led to others. Yet the next hour in Chuck’s life, presumably the interview, was hazy. I couldn’t latch onto anything concrete. All I could do was follow him forward in real time with trepidation, while hoping for the best.

  The ocean was calm. Chuck was still parked at the beach, taking in the view, thinking the water looked serene, even though, somewhere out there to the north, human remains were buried beneath the waves in underwater ruins. The rolling surface reflected the light from the sun in a dazzle of glint and shimmer. On the beach, a surfboard leaned against an old shed. A portentous day. An ideal late-summer mid-afternoon.

  Chuck turned left onto a gravel road that would take him the rest of the way to his destination. This drive was being undertaken fifteen years after Everett found the bugs in the orange on his way to the House of Cabal and thirty years since Lane and Kyle had lived it up on this very beach. The bigger picture was coming together, but if this was yet another dead end as I feared, I would be out of options. He rolled down the window so he could breathe in the fresh ocean air. As my anxiety grew and he came closer and closer to the end of his destiny thread, he was as relaxed as he had been in weeks.

  Not far south stood a two-story structure overlooking the water. Everett lived there, hidden away on the first floor. I had to see inside if I was to write my opera, but I knew the mansion would deny me, just like the House of Cabal.

  I would be a failure. My opera would amount to nothing.

  Chuck parked in the driveway, grabbed his suitcase, and got out.

  As he entered through the mansion’s front door, his destiny thread became indistinct, as did his surroundings. I thought all was lost, but I noticed a dimensional tunnel into which I could slip through that led inside. Chuck was greeted by a man, but I couldn’t tell who the man was, because his past and future were blocked to me. While Chuck walked down what seemed to be an unremarkable hallway, I searched the floor and ceiling for the causes of my dissociative state.

  Unknown to the biographer, above us was a spider infestation and below us was an abandoned research laboratory where the spiders had been created. The silk strands had qualities like destiny threads, yet they were made of a physical protein in addition to being of a primarily temporal nature. I folded inward and kept my distance, yet still an invisible gossamer clung to my celestial essence, binding me to the present moment. The damn stuff was everywhere, and was the reason I couldn’t see this place and time from the outside.

  I centered my focus back on Chuck. He had gotten ahead of me. I had to find him.

  III

  In a decrepit dining room deep within the mansion, Chuck offered a glass of water across the table. A man with a brain tumor, the man who greeted Chuck at the front door, took the water from Chuck’s outstretched hand.

  “There you go, Mr. Grimes.”

  Chuck sat back down.

  Generally, he felt at home in other people’s homes. Success often made the biographer feel invincible. He had interviewed a serial killer on death row and remarked to his wife afterward how normal it felt. Interviewing strangers in strange locations was his normal world. Today didn’t feel normal. He felt nervous, and he didn’t know why. It irritated him.

  He thought it was the room at first. The light bulbs shone too bright for their fixtures. A mirror reflected those seated at the table, the mirror’s ornate silver frame long ago tarnished gray. The room was designed for interrogation, not relaxed conversation.

  Then he blamed Grimes. But what had the man done exactly? He introduced himself. He led Chuck down a long hall and into the dining room. He sat in silence, while Chuck unpacked interview equipment and explained his process. It was all very straightforward.

  And yet as Grimes popped two pills and put the prescription bottle back into his breast pocket, a chill made Chuck want to recoil.

  “What were those?”

  “Oxycodone. For the headaches. Or maybe 20 mg of Oxycontin. I’ve stopped reading the labels.”

  Chuck had a few pages of prepared questions and a legal pad for notes. He scribbled down the drug names. “You taking anything else?” He tried to gently clear his throat. Sun-bleached wallpaper curled off mold-infested walls. His throat still tickled, and he coughed roughly.

  He wanted Grimes comfortable and at ease on his home turf, but maybe the next session could be away from the mold, maybe outside on the deck in the fresh ocean air, or even up the road at the site of the avalanche.

  “Why you, Mr. Chuck Pointer?” Grimes hadn’t looked up for more than a moment; he seemed only interested in the tape recorder at the center of the table. Chuck had yet to press record.

  “If you want your story out there, you could do worse.”

  Chuck had written eight biographies, sold four film options, and consulted on three high-profile Hollywood projects. Only one film had made it through the production cycle, The Mardi Gras Serial Killer, but it was enough to cement Chuck’s status in the publishing industry. In addition to his mainstream successes, his insight into the morally aberrant made him a literary darling, and while he still had his vocal critics, they were nothing he couldn’t ignore if he kept his head down and focused on the work.

  “You’re a gentleman who writes other people’s stories. Never your own.”

  “Not everyone would call me a gentleman.”

  “A gentleman is just a man who can remain straight-faced while listening to other people’s lies.”

  Chuck’s wry smile brightened his round, bearded face, making him look younger than Grimes by a decade, easily, despite the fact Chuck was fifty-four and his subject was supposedly only forty-two.

  Chuck noted on the pad, “Fragile like bird bones."

  He gently cleared his throat again. “Anything else before we begin?”

  The distant sound of the Pacific occupied another of Grimes’s pregnant pauses, and for a moment, he forgot Chuck entirely.

  Chuck noted on the pad: “Inexpressive, withdrawn. Dazed?”

  And then, with a mechanical movement, Grimes looked up from the tape recorder and stared directly into Chuck’s eyes. “At your birthday party, with that hypnotist, with your writing colleagues laughing and feigning interest in your next project, I had my pick.”

  Chuck swallowed hard and shifted in his chair. “That’s funny. I thought for sure I was the one that contacted you.” He refused to believe that Grimes’s mysterious persona was anything more than an act. “How did you hear about the party?”

  Grimes didn’t answer, still staring.

  Chuck chuckled to cover his anxiety. “The guy, the hypnotist, he had what’s-his-name acting like a chicken. The talk of the town, I guess. Even my son enjoyed himself, and that's saying something.”

  “Bobby Pointer. Yes, the avant-garde writer. We considered him. A bit too unstable.” A movement at the corner of Grimes’s lips and at the corner of his eyes animated his face and hinted at the vibrant man that once resided behind the hollow gaze. Everett Grimes was supposed to have been extraordinarily handsome in his youth. How distant that seemed now. “You think I’m off my rocker. Don’t you? You think I may be a waste of your time.”

  “The House of Cabal was exclusive, not to mention deadly. I’m not sure anyone else is alive to interview. But you’re right. Get on with it.” Though Chuck’s tone was mellow, he had chitchatted long enough. "I understand you grew up in a conservative household, in a strict religious family. Is that true?"

  "Yes."

  "And then you went to the University of Oregon: a fairly liberal campus. That must have been a big change for you, striking out on your own for the first time."

  "Can we speak off the record?"

&n
bsp; "I haven’t started recording yet." In truth, Chuck had lost confidence the interview would go anywhere worth taping. Grimes seemed content with one word answers or deflections.

  Then abruptly, that changed.

  "I began as an Arts Major. This was back in the nineties. I thought I could start over, where nobody knew who I was. But the counter culture. I found it unsettling. I feared something bad would happen if I engaged in sex or drinking or partying. The whole college experience was off limits.”

  “Why?”

  “At the time I thought it was by choice, but I know a deep part of me thought I would die on the spot if I sinned. It was like a phobia.

  "After college, regret started to eat at me. I hadn't lived. I started doing things with my girlfriend. Nothing aberrant, I was just testing the waters. Seeing what the fuss was about. I bought a case of beer and had a panic attack. I thought God would strike me dead. But nothing happened. Not even a hangover. If I could sin without punishment, maybe I could be free from the fear and the shame that had crippled me. I wasn't really aware of this at the time, but subconsciously, I think that's what was going on.”

  “Most people go through a wild phase, especially when brought up within a strict religious family.”

  “In their teens. But it happened to me in my mid-twenties, years after college. I didn't handle it well. Before going to the House of Cabal, I was primed for a breakdown."

  "That's a great place to start. Why can't that be on the record?"

  "That's not for the public. That's for you."

  “You’ve hidden here for what, fifteen years? No wonder you’re reluctant, but everyone has a past. My readers want to know the real you. I know it takes courage, but people respect vulnerability.” Grimes didn’t look convinced. “People envy those involved with moral deviation. People want a life filled with excitements and extremes, otherwise, why would they read my books? And as for regrets, they only make you more relatable."