Dan entered the basement, walked past the rolls of carpet, the planks of baseboards and the scattered tools. He approached his new discovery with a smile. He felt like a kid again, a kid at Christmas. Oddly enough, he recognized it too. There was no wondering why; he knew. This was the first time in twenty years he had received a gift that could be anything. Sure, it might be nothing, but that was part of the reason he felt so giddy.
It might be nothing; might be anything.
Way better than a birthday present, no doubt.
For Dan, the yearly gift exchange had lost its magic long ago. No matter what he received, he always had an idea what the gift would be––a book, a shirt, a pair of shoes, a coffee mug. After a while it didn’t matter; it was all the same crap. Year after year he received things purchased at the mall, or online, or wherever. Yawn. And year after year he knew the price range by considering the person that offered the gift. Double yawn.
Yeah, this was different all right. This was invigorating.
He sat at the edge of the pit with his beer at his side. Drops of water rolled off the bottle. He put a foot on the ladder. The ladder creaked, sounding like a loose floorboard. He wondered if it was stable. The more weight he put on the ladder the more it creaked, but not in a bad way. It seemed secure enough; it seemed okay.
Dan turned the flashlight on and pointed the light down the hole. He couldn’t see the bottom. Slowly, carefully, he stood on the ladder. The rung cried out more now than before but it didn’t waver, didn’t budge. He turned the flashlight off, slid it into his front pocket, lifted the lantern, and began his descent. Immediately he noticed the change in the air: the space was colder, the unpleasant odor was strong. The pit smelled like mold, like earth, and like something else, something he couldn’t put his finger on.
The lantern wobbled and bounced off the ladder a few times. The flames danced and flickered but they didn’t go out. Climbing wasn’t easy, he discovered, but it wasn’t impossible either. The fingers in his right hand––already sore and bleeding from tearing the basement apart––felt tight and strained as they wrapped around the rungs. The fingers in his left hand felt even worse as they juggled between the rungs and the thin metal handle of the lantern.
The walls seemed to glow; the shadows were strong and sharp.
He descended more––eleven, twelve, thirteen rungs into the pit. Now fourteen. Now fifteen. Surely the bottom couldn’t be much further away.
Sixteen.
Seventeen.
Eighteen.
He stopped climbing and looked down.
Nothing.
He pulled the flashlight from his pocket and turned it on. As he pointed it beneath his feet he illuminated a large spider’s web, the biggest he had ever seen. After a slight pause, Dan returned the flashlight to his pocket and continued his descent. Rung after rung he traveled. His fingers burned. Spider’s webbing clung to his clothing. His patience wavered, but only for a moment. And in that moment he considered returning to the surface, but he had to wonder what would happen next. Would he think about the pit until he tried his luck again? Probably, so what was the point of giving up so soon? He couldn’t leave this mystery unsolved––no way, no chance. He had to keep going, keep climbing, for every rung he passed increased his curiosity and amazement. He was getting hooked on exploration, and so far he loved the adventure.
He kept climbing.
And climbing.
What is this, he thought, a bottomless pit?
The consideration seemed less absurd with every passing breath. But it was absurd. It was. The pit couldn’t be bottomless. It just couldn’t be. Bottomless pits didn’t exist.
Who would build something like this, he wondered, and why? Was the pit a part of the cottage originally, or had the cottage been built on top of this vault for some reason?
And how deep is it?
Thirty-eight.
Thirty-nine.
Forty.
It wasn’t a cellar, Daniel decided. It was a shaft, a coalmine. But that didn’t seem right either. Mines were thick and rough, opened by explosives. This was more like a secret tunnel or something, made with concrete.
It’s getting cold down here, he thought. Really cold!
Crawling through another large spider-web, he thought about returning to the surface to get a long sleeve shirt.
He decided against it, for now.
Fifty-two.
Fifty-three.
Fifty-four.
Daniel stopped climbing a second time. Again he retrieved his flashlight and pointed it towards the bottom… if there was one.
Nothing.
If there was one? What kind of thinking was that? Of course there was a bottom. There had to be a bottom. There was always a bottom!
Climbing.
And climbing.
Sixty-eight.
Sixty-nine.
This was crazy! How much deeper could he go?
He rested the lantern on a rung and leaned it against the wall. He was tired of hauling the bloody thing around; his fingers were killing him.
He descended a few more steps and stopped again. He was in the shadows now. It was dark… really dark; he didn’t like it.
“Hello,” Dan yelled loudly. His voice echoed off the walls; the repeated word became quieter and deeper in tone.
He heard something foreign and unfamiliar, like a high-pitched voice, like whispering or squeaking; he wasn’t sure which. Not surprisingly, his childlike wonder slipped away and was replaced with boyhood fear. His arms sprouted a thousand tiny bumps. His chest muscles tightened and an arctic shiver rolled down his spine in a rippling wave.
“Hello,” he said again. And this time his voice was quieter, more timid. He heard something else, the pitter-patter of feet, lots of feet. Sounded like an insect... maybe, a really large insect––one big enough to wear a leash. Clickety, clickety, click.
Or create those webs.
Or maybe––
His mind drew a blank.
He didn’t know what he was hearing, but he was afraid now, very afraid; of this there was no denying. Like a child, he was afraid of the dark, afraid of his own shadow. Or was this fear more logically grounded? Was there something inside the pit with him that was deserving of these emotions? Something dangerous?
He heard that strange sound again, like rainfall tapping against a glass table.
And a shadow in the darkness moved.
He was sure of it.
And for no reason at all, he wondered if he would ever see his wife again, never thinking for a moment that the answer might actually be no.
3
There was a moment, brief as it was, when Daniel thought he would faint. His fingers loosened, his knees became weak and his head started to sway. He imaged his feet being yanked away from the ladder by large muscular hands.
If he fainted, how far would he fall exactly? Ten feet? A thousand feet?
He didn’t know. More than that, he didn’t want to know.
He remembered once, when he was eleven, he had fallen from a tree and landed flat on his back. His lungs felt like they had been stomped; the wind was knocked out of him. The whole world seemed to stop and he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to stand. Looking back, he got off lucky. But how lucky would he be this time? How lucky would he be if he fell ten stories and his ribs exploded as his legs shot through his shoulders?
This adventure was over. Daniel was gettin’ the hell out of dodge while the gettin’ was good.
Moving up two rungs, he grabbed the lantern.
He heard the sound again: Clickety, clickety, click.
That did it. He was racing up the ladder now; his muscles were straining and his knees were pumping. Suddenly the air seemed warmer, fresher. It tasted cleaner. Within no time at all he was nearing the top, the exit. A terrible image came to his mind: the door slamming shut, trapping him in the pit with… with…
With what?
Just what the hell was he so worried abou
t?
Didn’t matter. He wanted out. And he wanted out now.
He reached the top and scrambled free of the hole, plunking the lantern down in the first spot he found. He looked around the room. Nothing was altered; nothing had changed. His beer was sitting by the hole untouched, drops of water clung to the glass. The room was destroyed; tools were everywhere, rolls of carpet sat near the staircase.
Everything was exactly the same.
He pulled the flashlight from his pocket, turned it on, and pointed it into the pit. There was nothing to see, nothing at all.
Dan stood up and walked in a circle with his heart racing, his blood pumping, and his face gone flush. He felt like laughing, or crying, or maybe even screaming half-heartedly with his hands waving in the air like a contestant on The Price is Right. He wasn’t sure what to think. His emotions were hypersensitive and illogical. He felt like a child again, afraid of the monster hiding beneath the bed with dagger teeth and a hunger for killing that couldn’t be quenched. And that wasn’t him. That wasn’t Daniel McGee, friend of the environment, lover of classic rock, cousin of James McGee––the Terror of Martinsville, killer of the innocent.
Dan closed his eyes.
Why am I thinking about James again, he wondered. Am I not freaked out enough without recalling the shame of my family tree?
He opened his eyes and looked down the hole.
Nothing.
Daniel let out a deep breath and laughed.
Scared of my own shadow, he assumed. And why? There’s nothing down there but a bunch of rats.
No, not rats, he thought. Bats! Of course! That’s what I heard; that’s what I saw. Bats!
Dan put a hand on his forehead and smiled. How could he be so foolish? How could he be such a baby?
Now he understood what had happened: he yelled, a couple bats squeaked and took flight and that was all, nothing more, nothing less. And another thing: the pit’s floor had to be close. It just had to be. Ladders don’t go on forever. Only a fool would think otherwise.
He looked down the hole one last time before turning away, shaking his head back and forth.
Bats.
“Of course,” he mumbled. Sometimes he could be so stupid.
He turned the lantern off and closed the trap door, slamming it shut with a TWHACK.
Dust clouded the room.
He felt better, however, bats or no bats, he wasn’t going down there again. Not alone anyhow. Nobody even knew where he was. What if he fell? What if he got hurt? What if the ladder broke? He’d lie on the pit floor with his legs smashed into a thousand pieces as rodents drank the blood that poured from his wounds. In short: he’d die. And even if he didn’t die, even if his wife Sandra figured out where he was hiding (with his legs smashed apart and the blood draining from his body) that wouldn’t be until Friday night at the earliest. This was Monday. He didn’t want to be in a cold dark tomb with rats and bats (and God only knows what else) for the next five days. No friggin’ way.
Dan left the basement, satisfied with his decision: he was done for the day.
He considered calling his wife but couldn’t. He had forgotten his cell phone at home and the house line inside the cottage wasn’t connected.
Oh well. No worries. He’d give Sandra a ring later somehow.
He showered, and my-oh-my did it feel good. Good for the body; good for the soul. Afterwards he threw the same faded t-shirt on again, figuring it wasn’t that dirty.
He jumped into his car, headed for Cloven Rock.
On his way into town, he drove past a long row of homes, an empty field, and St. Peter’s church. The church had a tall steeple and a pair of gargoyles above the front door. On one side of St Peter’s was a cemetery. The trees near the back of the necropolis seemed as old as the hills. A windmill sat near a wooden bridge that had been designed for horses, not cars. Beneath the bridge, water stumbled over rocks that crayfish and minnows called home.
The other side of the church didn’t have a graveyard, but a house. It was built with large, multi-colored rocks, rather than brick. And inside the humble abode, which looked clean, pleasant, and not the least bit disorderly, lived Father Mort Galloway. (And Galloway sat alone, always alone, forever alone, drinking his favorite gin and killing time by the glass. That’s what he did most days: killed time. The priest had lost his faith, which had become so common among priests his age that it almost seemed fashionable. But he wasn’t the first to lose faith in the church, nor would he be the last. His faith was lost years earlier, after his parents died in a boating accident that claimed the lives of more than two hundred men, women, and children. It was hard to speak of God after a slap in the face like that; nevertheless he tried. Some days Galloway wondered if he ever really had faith. And some days––not many, but some––he figured the bulk of his faith would return. It was a nice thought, even if it seemed like a lie. But lying was nothing new for a priest like Galloway; he did it every Sunday in front of many, and every day in front of few. His entire life was a lie at this point, a lie he didn’t know how to escape. What kind of life could he have after so many years of priesthood? Exactly, what kind of job could he possibly hold down?)
Dan drove on, passing another row of houses.
Walking next to a ditch was a boy with a fishing rod in one hand and a box of tackle in the other. He might have been ten years old. Might have been younger. Looking at the child was like seeing a living postcard.
If Dan was to summarize the reasons he liked Cloven Rock in a single image, a simple portrait of the boy with the rod might be it. Cloven Rock was a link to another time, a time before technology became king and the communication age turned the entire planet into a global village.
Being in the Rock was like having a life transfusion: out with the city, in with the town. He wondered why he shouldn’t stay in the Rock ‘til the end of his days, which oddly enough, had already arrived.
4
Dan drove along King Street, parked against a curb, walked past the Laundromat and the Post Office and entered Cloven Rock’s weekend bar of choice: The Big Four O. It was owned and operated by two brothers: William and Roger McMaster. The McMaster boys were Cloven Rock’s answer to Ernie and Bert, being that both men were pushing fifty and lived together in the same house.
Dan entered the tavern and sat on a stool by the counter, next to a man he had never seen before: Nicolas Nehalem.
Nicolas shifted in his chair and stirred his coffee with a spoon, making the spoon rattle inside the mug.
Dan made brief eye contact and nodded.
Nicolas returned the gesture, hiding his distaste.
There was a pretty girl standing behind the counter that Daniel didn’t recognize. Looked about twenty-one. She had dark hair and nice features. She wore tight, charcoal colored jeans, a thick black belt, and a black dress shirt. There were two buttons attached to the breast pocket on her shirt. One button had a picture of Nostferatu with his fangs pointing out and his hands in the air like animal claws. The other button said THE SEX PISTOLS in scary pink letters.
She approached Dan with a dimpled smile, saying, “What can I get you?”
Now that the girl was facing him he could see her makeup was understated and pale, accented with black eyeliner. Combining that with her wardrobe gave her a minimalist Gothic look.
Maybe it’s a new style, Dan thought. Punk light.
“You new here?” Dan asked politely.
“No, not really,” the girl said, tapping a glossy fingernail on the counter top. “I’m a Cloven Rock girl, born and raised. I lived here until I went to university, just outside of Martinsville. I’m back now. You a seasonal regular?”
“Suppose you could say that. I’ve been spending my summer weekends here for about ten years. I’m Daniel, last name’s McGee.”
“Hello, Daniel. My name is Cameron.”
“Like Cameron Diaz.”
“Spelled the same and everything. But for the record, with ‘Cameron’ being one of
the oldest clans in Scotland, the name was making the rounds before her time. Know what I mean?”
Dan smiled and said, “Never met a Cameron before.”
“There’s a first time for everything, I guess. Roger and Will, they’re my cousins.”
“Oh yeah?”
Cameron nodded. “My folks have a place right around the corner.”
“You’re a McMaster?”
“No sir. English. The McMaster’s are on the other side of the family tree. Coffee?”
“Beer.”
“Bud?
“Corona.”
“Ah… you’re one of the Corona guys. Roger picked up a case last week, said the summer folk drink it like water.”
Dan’s smile became a grin. “Tastes good to me.”
“Me… I’m not picky. Beer is beer.” Cameron opened a bar fridge and lifted a Corona from the rack. She cracked the bottle with an opener she kept in her back pocket and placed the drink on the bar. “You need a lime?”
“Have you got one?”
Terror Town Page 3