Limetown

by Cote Smith

  “I might stop at a pub after,” she said, “see what’s shaking with the sheilas.”

  “Do they actually call them that?”

  “Doubt it. But there’s only one way to find out.” She squeezed Lia’s hip. “We could meet up.”

  “Sure,” Lia said, knowing she wouldn’t. “Text me later.”

  But once Julie was out the door, Lia felt relieved. She’d ignored what Wiley said, and decided that the only way out of that depressing closet was to show Wiley that she deserved to do more than transfer someone else’s stories from one medium to another. It’s what Miss Scott would’ve done, Lia thought. Miss Scott, who was always going on about how questions were like doors. The right one could take you anywhere.

  She unpacked the transcripts.

  Lia started with the shows closest in time to the James interview. She would treat that show as the story’s epicenter and slowly extend from there. It was painfully slow at first. She didn’t know what she was looking for. A story about the facility James mentioned, maybe. Its opening, or other anecdotes about its successes. She eliminated pop culture pieces, as well as sports, but everything else, every news report, every feature and profile, could have contained a clue to what happened to James, who those two men were, and what they did to him.

  She awoke to the room phone ringing. It took her a moment to gather herself, to realize where she was, that she was on a different continent. She was in bed somehow, fully clothed and under the covers. Her chest and legs were wet with sweat. Her cell said it was four in the morning. Julie’s bed was empty. Lia picked up the room phone and whispered hello.

  No one spoke. Lia tried to think who would have this number.

  “Julie?” she said. “Wiley?” Then, desperately. “Mom?”

  At the mention of her mother the line clicked dead. Lia lifted the phone away from her ear and stared at the receiver, as if doing so would bring the line back to life. Then she hung up. She sat down to steady herself. The transcripts were splayed across her desk in a mess she didn’t remember making, no longer carefully sorted by subject and date. She tried to recall what she read last. It was unrelated. Something about abused children. Kept in a closet? Or was she thinking about the attic? About Emile and her father? No, there was a room. There was a two-way mirror, someone watching. She closed her eyes and the face in the mirror became her own.

  She shook her head, trying to separate what she’d read and what she’d dreamed. She scanned the transcripts but didn’t find a description matching the image floating in her mind. Julie returned half an hour later. Lia was still at her desk, staring at nothing, at everything.

  “Are you all right?” Julie asked. She smelled like sweat and alcohol.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Still stuck on States time?” She grabbed a water bottle from the mini fridge. “Well, the sheilas were underwhelming. But there was this one bartender. Totally your type.” Julie laughed and collapsed on her bed. “Oh, I forgot earlier. You got more mail.” She retrieved a folded manila envelope from her bag. “How is it you’re so popular here?” She peered over Lia’s shoulder. “Who’s it from?”

  “I don’t know,” Lia said. She didn’t recognize the return address.

  “Fair enough,” Julie said. She was a carefree, malleable drunk, part of what must’ve attracted Lia to her in the first place.

  “You didn’t text me,” Julie said. Lia apologized, said she must’ve fallen asleep. “No worries,” Julie said. Then, “I believe I’ll pass out now, thank you.”

  Lia waited until Julie was sufficiently snoring before she climbed into her own bed. She grabbed Julie’s flashlight and opened the envelope. At first she thought someone was playing a prank on her. Wiley maybe. It was another transcript from the radio station. A news item this time. Though really, it looked like some producer had gotten lazy and just photocopied an article from a local newspaper.

  Deakin Professor’s Death Remains a Mystery.

  Victoria Police continue to search for answers regarding the death of a beloved Deakin University faculty member, Professor Christopher Moyer. Dr. Moyer was discovered dead in his home by authorities late last Wednesday. An autopsy revealed no signs of trauma or toxins, investigators say. Nor were there any visible signs of forced entry into Dr. Moyer’s home. His colleagues remain in shock. “I just don’t understand,” says Dr. Tracey McNellis, head of Deakin’s neuroscience department, where Dr. Moyer worked for over five years. “Everybody loved Chris. None of this makes sense.” At this point, friends and family are left to wonder. Victoria Police would not comment further on the ongoing investigation, but are calling the death “suspicious.”

  Next to the text was a photo of the deceased, Christopher Moyer. He was an ordinary-looking man—clean-shaven, sharp chin, sharp nose, weighed down by wire-framed glasses. Lia flipped over the sheet of paper, looking for more, but it was blank. She reread the story. Who sent this? Why? She got out of bed and stood over the transcripts. The transcript was dated June 24, 2004. Just a few months ago, but long after the James interview. Lia checked the time. The transcripts for this year were at the station, waiting in her closet. The sun would be up in a couple of hours. The smart thing to do would be to get some sleep, go to class, then head into work fresh. But she grabbed her hoodie and ducked out into the night.

  The station wasn’t far, and she had the old bike. Lia pedaled ahead of the fading moon, her face chilled by the night air. September was the beginning of spring in Australia, and Lia sped past what she imagined were many beautiful wildflowers that she told herself she should one day make time to admire.

  Once inside the station, Lia kept her head down. She shut the closet door behind her. She quickly found the file for last June, took out the transcripts, and flipped to the twenty-fourth, where her piece of the puzzle should have been. It was missing. Or, it would have been, if Lia wasn’t holding it in her hand. She read through June, July, August, but found nothing more about Moyer’s death. She sat at her desk and pulled out the envelope, ran her thumb over the return address.

  The closet door opened, startling Lia. But it was only Wiley.

  “Hey, would you mind grabbing me a mocha. You know the place down the street, next to the bottle-o?”

  “Actually, I’m not working yet.”

  Wiley looked around, feigning confusion. “This is where you work, right? And you are here, aren’t you?”

  “I couldn’t sleep,” Lia said.

  “Ah,” Wiley said. “Bloke trouble, ay?”

  “That’s not it.”

  “No? Well.” Wiley stood in the doorway, waiting for Lia to say something.

  Lia showed him the envelope. “Do you know where this is?” She pointed to the return address.

  “I know where Williamstown is. It’s about a half hour away by the car you don’t have. But that seems like a long way to go to get my mocha.”

  “I meant this specific address? Do you know it?”

  Wiley squinted. “Nope,” he said. “But there’s this thing called the Internet—”

  “I checked. It’s not on—”

  “It’s pretty great. You can look up anything on it. People, places. Everything. You can even look up what an intern should do when a superior asks for a mocha. Whipped cream, please.”

  Wiley left on that high note. Lia grabbed her things and walked to the nearby coffee shop. The sun was thinking about coming up. There were no clouds, but Lia had read that the weather changed quickly in Melbourne, from sun to rain without warning. This too reminded Lia of her home, where the climate was just as unpredictable. There was a cliché her dad would always say: If you don’t like the weather, wait a few minutes.

  While Lia was waiting for her order, she looked up directions to Williamstown. She would have to take the bus. It would take forever, and she had class in an hour. Julie would be stirring by then, stumbling bleary-eyed to the shower, wondering where Lia was. Soon she would send Lia a text. Wher r u? She liked to abbreviate words that
didn’t need abbreviation. She thought it was funny. Clas soo? Lia packed her laptop. She rushed back to the station. She felt her pocket vibrate, and pictured Julie anxiously typing. Gun leav w/o u. The on-air light died. Lia busted in, holding two extra-large mochas. A minute later Lia was on the road, biking to the bus stop, forgetting about class, about why she came here in the first place.

  Her pocket buzzed. By by, Julie said.

  * * *

  The bus driver left her at the last Williamstown stop, the one closest to the beach. She would have to get herself the rest of the way, the bus driver explained. He wasn’t familiar with the address either, but bet that if she headed south until she reached the coast, followed the shoreline, she’d eventually run into it. Lia got off the bus and detached her bike from the front rack.

  It was after nine by the time she got to the shore. The city was already awake. Cafés and shops had opened early, welcoming sandaled tourists who expected it to be warmer. Ships and boats of all sizes jostled in the nearby bay, the water swayed between turquoise and a darker, more dramatic blue, depending on the clouds and the sun. Lia breezed by all of it, her mind turning over the possibilities of what she might find. Once the mystery she’d discovered was solved, she could send Julie a text maybe. Meet me at the beach, she might write. Il makit wrth ur w8.

  She followed the map on the GPS her mother had given her before Lia left for college, with a little note that cheesily read, For when you feel lost. The GPS guided her farther and farther west, away from the city, from the beach houses and the docks, though she still hugged the shore. Eventually the directions took her inland, into and then out of a warehouse district, and then back toward the coast, where it said she had reached her destination, though there wasn’t a single building in sight, only a line of woods hugging the beach and the ocean. She shook the GPS out of frustration, before remembering what the bus driver had said. As long as she kept the ocean on her left, she’d find what she was looking for. She continued on.

  A half hour later she found herself atop a small cliff. The sun stunned the beach below, and a few hundred yards away a family of five towering limestone pillars rose out of the ocean, as wave after wave crashed against them in vain. Lia looked for a way down, and when she found it, she walked her bike down a steep wooded path. When she reached the beach, she saw that hidden from view were two old buildings made of brick. Each had a roof that slanted in one direction, giving the impression that the buildings had been cut in half. Lia approached the buildings from the back, her GPS buzzing the entire time, telling her she had arrived.

  A rusted-through sign read MENNINGER STATION. The first door she tried was locked, as was the second. She put her ear to a third door and thought she could make out the whirring of an air conditioner. She circled the buildings, looking for a way in. She saw a busted window screen. Lia ripped what was left of the screen from the frame, and when the window wouldn’t open, she found a rock and threw it through the glass without thinking. Only after she cleared the glass from the sill with her hoodie and crawled in, when she was standing in the dark, the whirring audible but distant, did she think about what she had done. Miss Scott never said much about journalistic ethics, how far you should go when seeking answers. Once she’d casually mentioned the mother test—If you’re ever unsure whether what you’re doing is right or wrong, stop and ask yourself, Would my mother approve? But that test was almost laughable now. Who was her mother, the woman who repeatedly disappeared, and likely lied to both Lia and her father, to judge what was right or wrong?

  Lia shook the thought off and pulled out the flashlight she’d stolen from Julie. She flicked it on. There were four windows on each side of what appeared to be the building’s only room, which was empty save a couple of army cots forgotten against the wall. Lia ran her hands against the walls. The tile floor was cracked, but the walls were stunningly white, as if they’d been bleached clean not even a week ago.

  Her phone buzzed. She pulled it out of her pocket.

  U mist clas.

  Lia didn’t respond. She walked the walls until her hand bumped against a knob. It was attached to a door she hadn’t seen at first. The door was white too, and Lia was surprised how easily it opened when she turned the knob. She entered another room, smaller than the one she’d left behind, but big enough that she couldn’t see the other side with a swipe of her flashlight. The air was cooler here. Lia thought she heard the whirring again.

  R u K?

  She followed the whir. The closer she got, the louder the sound, until it became a roar. It was all around her, but she didn’t see its source.

  Ur bng stupd.

  Just as she was about to turn back, her flashlight caught a handle. Not on the wall, where she’d been searching, but on the floor. There was a cellar.

  “This doesn’t make sense,” Lia said to no one. But still she bent down and tried the handle. She put down the flashlight to pull with both hands. The door whined until she dropped it to the floor with a loud clang. Air rushed up at her. She took a step back, picked up the flashlight, and aimed it down below. She could make out the first few steps, but nothing more.

  Don b stupd.

  “I won’t,” Lia said.

  She slowly put her foot on the first step. A test, like dipping a toe into the pool to check the temperature. Her entire leg tingled. It buzzed. Don b stupd. She took another step and watched her leg disappear into the darkness. She aimed the flashlight but moving forward was like driving through a thick fog; light didn’t matter. She didn’t know she was at the bottom until she took a step and awkwardly found the ground. The air was freezing, the ground cold and hard—uneven stone, she realized. She took a few steps, and after each dared herself one more, until she felt untethered, like she’d swum far beyond the breaker. She turned around. The light from the room above had disappeared. She couldn’t see the stairs. She’d gone too far. Her leg shook.

  Sum1’s hear, Julie said. Theyv ben lookn 4 u.

  She felt a tingle down her neck. She could only see as far as her hands, trembling before her.

  She crouched on the ground, texted Julie. Who is after me?

  Don no, haha, Julie said. Mystry.

  Lia’s heart quickened. She thought, somehow, of her house in Kansas. It didn’t have a basement, and every spring during tornado season she worried. What would she do? Where would her family go when something bad happened?

  She wrote another text. Not to Julie. To her mother. I need help, it said.

  She was about to hit send when suddenly a switch clicked, and the basement was flooded with light, stunning Lia’s eyes. A voice called down. “Hello? Someone there?”

  Lia didn’t respond. She took in the revealed surroundings, though there wasn’t much to take in. Bare walls made of stone, as rough as the ground. Nothing else. What did she expect exactly? A cellar full of Dr. Moyer’s belongings?

  The voice belonged to a man, white-haired, maybe in his fifties.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” the man said.

  “Was it you?” Lia asked him. “Did you send me that article?”

  The man sighed. “Lady, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Now’s let go before the ghosts get us.”

  * * *

  Back on the beach, Lia sat cross-legged in the sand. She checked her phone. She’d missed a call from her mother. A voice mail waited. She’d listen to it later. The man was explaining how he lived in a caravan park nearby, that he got paid to come by every now and then and make sure no one had been messing around. Punk kids and the like.

  “I owe you for that window,” Lia said.

  “Correct,” the man said. “Or the owner, anyway.”

  He didn’t know who that was. Some real estate jerk, he suspected. The property had a lot of value, or it would if they used it right.

  “People love ghosts, you know. Been saying for years someone should open up a small hotel here, a restaurant. Take ya on a haunted tour. The whole thing’s right on the ocean. They’d
make a killing.”

  “Somebody wanted me here,” Lia said. “They wanted me to find this place.”

  She pulled out the envelope, showed the man the transcript.

  “Moyer,” the man said. His jaw hung open, and he took the article in his hands. He mouthed the words to himself.

  “You know him.”

  The man shook his head. “I didn’t say that.” He finished reading the transcript and stuffed it back in the envelope. He handed it to Lia. “Don’t really read the paper.”

  “It’s not the paper.”

  “Still.”

  “But you believe in ghost stories.”

  The man scowled at Lia. “I believe what I know.”

  “And what is it you know?”

  “I know lots of things.”

  Lia pulled out her phone, pretending she wasn’t interested, another Miss Scott interview technique. Especially useful when dealing with arrogant older men. “Like what?” Lia asked.

  “Well, for example. I know that before any of us were born, this was a quarantine station. For incurable diseases.” Lia looked up. “Yep. But what they don’t say is that later, this is where they conducted their experiments.”

  “Experiments?”

  “That’s right.” He looked over his shoulder, at the building Lia broke into. “You’re telling me you didn’t feel anything, when you were poking around in the dark?”

  Lia thought of the whirring, the source of which she could never find.

  “Ah,” the man said. “See? Now who believes in ghosts?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you felt them,” the man said, grinning widely now. “Didn’t you?”

  “I need to go,” Lia said.

  The man laughed. He winked at her and put his hand on her shoulder.

  “Get off,” Lia said, and pushed him away. She hopped on her bike and pedaled, the man shouting behind her. She lost some of his words, but caught his meaning. That Lia still owed him money. And if she ever showed her face here again, he’d make her pay.