Limetown

by Cote Smith

  Lia stepped back from the fence, and from her periphery, a slow realization: the shadows to the left and to the right, they were the same. Every house on this street was her childhood home.

  She told herself to go inside. She grabbed a rock but the door was open. No locks, no police tape. The house was dark, empty. But it was her house. The open living and dining room, the secluded kitchen. The layout gave life to vague memories. Here was Lia, running around the dining room table and into the kitchen, seeking sanctuary, chased by some unknown menace. She found her mother’s legs, standing in the kitchen, her mother’s face smiling down at her. In the living room she sat in someone’s lap, in a chair by the window. She was describing a bad dream. In the present, Lia looked out the window and saw the window of the neighboring house. She saw her reflection in the neighboring window and waved, startled when it waved back. She left herself and found the attic stairs. At the top the room was as she now remembered it. The low, slanted ceiling, the oval window, the house’s eye. She tried to picture the rest. The cot in the corner where Emile slept, a stack of books bedside. She lay down on the floor, to see the ceiling as Emile would have seen it. She closed her eyes—for how long?

  A light splashed across the ceiling, through the window.

  Lia rolled off her imaginary bed. She army-crawled to the wall, pulled herself up to see what was out there. Her chest stopped. Someone was outside, standing in her front yard. They flicked a flashlight off and on a few times, running it over the windows, blinding Lia when it swept the attic. She dropped to the floor and held her breath, waiting to hear the front door open.

  Nothing.

  Lia waited a few minutes to be safe, then snuck another peek out the window. They were gone. Had they come inside? She watched the attic door, waiting for a shadow to emerge from below. When nothing happened, she went back downstairs, unable to shake the sense that she was being watched.

  She snuck down the street, careful to stay in the shadows. Some logical part of her understood that she probably should leave, but she had come this far, and who knew when, if ever, she’d be back. She tried not to think about each empty home, all their ghosts watching her from the windows. But the citizen names she’d memorized kept rolling through her mind like movie credits. This house could have belonged to Kenneth Wendall, this one to Warren Chambers. There was Deirdre watering her flowers, stopping to chat with her neighbor, Frank Banner. Lia saw all these people like holograms projected in her mind, transparent and ephemeral.

  She was thankful when she turned a corner and ran into the downtown area. Jesus, it was an actual town. To her right there was a corner pharmacy, across the street a little coffee shop, and a pizza place with a charming awning and outside dining. It wasn’t Lawrence, but it could have been. It could have been any American town, or how America liked to imagine its small towns, gilded against its dark past, its injustices and atrocities. There were ghosts here too. Smiling at Lia from every window. The barbershop. The department store. The box office at the movie theater.

  The movie theater.

  Her mother was right. It was all here, everything she described from her dream. She could almost see Sylvia and her mother, coming here for the quiet, watching the same movie on repeat. Lia looked up at the marquee. A few letters were missing. NOW P AYING – DE TH O M RS. It was like someone was playing a game of hangman, but had the stool kicked out from beneath their legs before anyone could guess correctly. Lia thought about going inside, sitting where Sylvia had sat, but she pressed on. There was too much to see, though all the while she wandered, she had a singular destination in mind, a pin on the map pulling her forward like a magnet. She stuck to the sidewalk and let her fingers graze shop windows as she drifted by, an unknown tune humming in her head. She was strangely calm. She couldn’t explain why she felt this way, filled with purpose, not anxiety. But she did. She did, and when she came to the end of the street, she hopped off the sidewalk and onto the brick road, her destination now finally before her.

  She understood she should have been scared, now more than ever. A man had died here. And the stake, the wooden post, was exactly where her mother said it would be, still burnt blacker than the night sky. She reached out and touched the post, her fingers blackened with ash that a year of rain couldn’t wash away. Beyond the post, beyond the town square was another street, and she knew somehow that at the end of that street was the research facility, and in there perhaps an answer to the question no one—not the Limetown Commission, not the conspiracy theorists, nor the families the citizens left behind—had figured out.

  What happened here?

  She began to head in that direction, when the light returned. It was down the street, far off but getting closer. Her skin told her to hide, but the rest of her watched as the light grew larger, a silent train racing down the tracks, directly toward her. She took a step back. But the train was steady and fast. It hit her before she knew what was happening. Her hands stung from the fall before she realized she was on the ground.

  “Careful,” the light said. “Are you all right?”

  Lia held her hand up, trying to see. “I’m fine.”

  The light clicked itself off. It was still too dark to see its face.

  Lia stood up, brushed her hands off. “I’m Lia. Lia Haddock.”

  The light tilted its head. “Are you supposed to be here, Lia?”

  Lia shrugged, acted like she belonged there. “Are you?”

  The light didn’t say anything. It turned to the side and Lia caught a glimpse of its silhouette. A man, forties or fifties maybe, around her father’s age. He had a thick beard, so it was difficult to tell. The man looked around. “There’s something off, isn’t there? This place. It’s like an amusement park. Trying to be real, but not quite right.”

  “I know,” Lia said. “There’s a word for it.” She still couldn’t remember what it was.

  “Verisimilitude,” the man said. “The surreal passing as real.”

  Yes. That was it. Lia felt a small relief. She thought of Miss Scott, what she would do if she were here. “I’m a reporter,” she said. “That’s why I’m here.”

  A lie, but one that she hadn’t even thought about telling since Menninger. She reminded herself that this was different. That she was exactly where she was supposed to be.

  Lia took out her phone, as if that would prove something.

  “Oh, is this an interview?”

  “Are you someone worth interviewing?”

  There was a playfulness in the man’s voice, and he scratched his beard in consideration, or maybe just to buy time. “Were you headed somewhere? Before I found you?” Lia pointed her phone behind the man, down the street to the research facility. “I could walk with you,” the man said, “if you’d like. I was just there.”

  “You were?”

  “Oh, yes. I like it there. Far away from the maddening crowd.”

  Lia felt her hair raise, her skin lift itself away from the bone. She put her phone away, and when the light disappeared, she tried not to feel afraid.

  “Can you tell me your name first?” Lia asked. “It can be off the record.”

  The man clicked on the flashlight, waved it around the ground in circles. He pointed it at Lia’s face, for what seemed a very long time. She could feel him studying her, looking for what, she didn’t know. Something to help him make up his mind, perhaps. The light clicked off, and by the time Lia blinked away the blindness, the man was already a ways down the street, walking toward the research facility. Lia ran to catch up with him, and when she did, he told her his name.

  “Austin,” he said.

  * * *

  The research facility was farther away than Lia imagined. There was another block of shops, and after that, on what was the east side of Limetown, more residences. Slowly, her fear returned to her.

  “If you’re afraid,” Austin said, “that’s good. So am I.”

  “But you’ve been here before.”

  “I have.”
r />   “Did Max take you?”

  Austin stopped. “Max?”

  “Maxine . . . I don’t know her last name. She lives in Sparta.”

  “I came here myself,” the man said, and resumed walking. From somewhere unseen, an owl called out the hour.

  “Should we, you know, hurry?” Lia said. One block of houses ended, but another began.

  “What do you know about this place?” Austin asked. “Just what the news told you?”

  “No,” Lia said. “I know someone who lived here. Or, I used to.”

  Austin stopped at an intersection. He looked both ways, despite the streets being dark and deserted.

  “Ah,” Austin said. “So did I.” He crossed the street quickly. Lia trailed closely behind.

  “A relative?”

  “A friend.”

  “What was their name?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Austin said. “He’s gone now.”

  Austin paused again. He looked around, and Lia followed his eyes. All the houses were behind them. The shops too, as well as the moon. Lia couldn’t see the facility, but she convinced herself that if she relaxed her eyes, she could make out the base of the mountain in the wall of black in front of her, darker than the hues of blue the night normally kept for itself.

  “Do you know what happened to him?” Lia said.

  “I know he’s not here.”

  “Then why are you here?” Lia asked. The wall of black in front of her began to feel like another dead end.

  “To help.” Lia felt his hand take hers. He unballed her fist and put the flashlight in her palm. “You’re going to need this.”

  Without thinking, she aimed the light at Austin’s face, only catching a brief glimpse of his beard and eyes before he covered himself with his hands. “Lia, please.”

  She lowered the flashlight to his hiking boots. “Sorry.”

  “We’re close, if you’ll lead the way.”

  Lia nodded. She stepped forward and pushed the flashlight into the dark, but the dark pushed back. She was reminded of her brief stint in the ocean, back in Oregon with Robyn. How Robyn had dared her to go under with her. She threw her arms up and let herself sink, deeper, deeper still, and when she finally opened her eyes there was nothing. Nothing above her, nothing below. She waved her arms and legs but they barely made a ripple. She pushed herself to what she thought was the surface, but how could she be sure? Even afterward, when her head emerged, gasping for air, her eyes drinking in the night, she still wasn’t certain she’d made it back.

  She ignored the dread and pushed farther.

  “We’re almost there,” Austin said.

  But she didn’t feel like she was almost there. She felt like—

  She kicked something. It rattled.

  “Watch yourself,” Austin said. He took her hand and helped her wash the flashlight over another chain-link fence, a sign that read TELOS RESEARCH FACILITY. “Eureka,” Austin said. He stepped in front of Lia, unlocked the gate, though the fence itself only came up to Lia’s chest and was easily climbable. Austin said it was just to keep the kids out.

  “I always forget,” Lia said, “there were kids.”

  Austin held the gate open. “Shall we?”

  The research facility had a glass door like any other office building. The door was unlocked, the glass intact. No brave vandal had made it this far, or maybe they had but were struck with reverence upon arrival, as Lia was. Inside there was a check-in desk, complete with an empty clipboard and bank pen still dangling from its chain. Lia tried to imagine some secretary type, smiling at the citizens, keeping their secrets. Past the desk was a long linoleum hall. At the end of the hall there was an out-of-order elevator, a side door that opened to a stairwell.

  “It’s all so ordinary,” Lia said.

  Austin took a deep breath. “I think that was the idea.” Then, “Come on. There’s more.”

  They descended five levels. Lia counted. She was careful to take note where they had been, where they were going. Five floors down, beneath the surface. She wondered aloud why the town kept its facility so far underground.

  “There was a belief,” Austin said. “More of a superstition really. That minds work better down here. Pretty foolish, I know.”

  Lia thought of Menninger, of the thrumming she heard before she descended into the cellar.

  “What were they doing here?” she asked. “Do you know?”

  “Just a little farther,” Austin said. “You’ll see.”

  They emerged into another hallway. Down that hallway and to the left, down that left and to the right. Austin was leading now, the flashlight in Lia’s hand now more of a spotlight.

  “How many times have you been here?”

  “More than enough,” Austin said.

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why do you come here? Do you think they’ll return? Like, your friend.”

  Austin stopped. They had come to a set of double doors. “This is as far as I’ll take you.”

  He stepped to the side, and Lia shone the light on the doors, but all she saw was the light’s reflection. “What’s in there?” she said.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Not anymore.”

  “Not anymore? Do you know what they were doing here? Were these experiments? On people?” Austin didn’t answer. Lia held her phone up, as if she was ready to record. “Why won’t you—”

  “You have a message,” Austin said. He squinted at the phone, and Lia could see his face change in the phone’s limited light. Lia expected another text from her father. But it was her mom.

  THE RESEARCH FACILITY

  Apple, the dream

  There’s someone after you

  you think you’re safe.

  You’re not.

  Just because you can’t see it

  doesn’t mean the clock

  stopped ticking

  Lia put the phone to her mouth. Her hand began to shake.

  “Is there a problem?” Austin asked.

  “Who are you?”

  “I told you—” And she saw his hand reach out for her, his hand floating in the darkness, yellow and detached.

  “Don’t,” Lia said.

  She pushed him aside and opened the double doors, shut them quickly behind her. She didn’t need to lock them. The handles didn’t shake, the doors didn’t rattle. Austin didn’t move.

  “Lia,” he said, calmly on the other side. “I know what you’re thinking. I know what you want. I can help you.”

  “You don’t know anything about me,” she said.

  There was a long pause. “That message,” Austin finally said. “It was from your mother.”

  Lia didn’t answer. So he had seen Mom on the screen. That didn’t mean anything.

  Austin continued. “There’s something different about her, isn’t there?”

  “No,” Lia said.

  “That’s why you’re here. That’s why everyone came here.”

  “No.”

  “But you need to go home, Lia. She needs someone there, someone who will listen to her.”

  “Stop,” Lia said. “You don’t know her. And you don’t know anything about me.”

  Her phone buzzed again, startling Lia so much she nearly dropped it. She wrapped her hand around the screen and slid to the floor, afraid what the text would tell her. She flipped her phone over and over in her hand, but didn’t bring it back to life.

  “My friend,” Austin eventually said, “he had problems too. No one understood him, no one except me. And there was a time, there’s always a time when you have a choice. Whether or not to do the right thing. It should be easy. It seems so simple, from a distance.” He exhaled. “I should have stayed. I should have been there.”

  Austin stopped talking. Lia looked at her phone. Just one line. From her mom.

  I love you.

  “You know,” Austin said. “I once had a teacher who said that if your mother says she loves you, you should check it out.
”

  Lia had heard that cliché before, from Miss Scott, during a lecture about the importance of fact-checking. What she meant was that you shouldn’t trust anyone. Lia stood up and aimed the flashlight down the hall, where Austin wouldn’t go.

  “I’m going to go now, Lia. When you’re done looking for whatever it is you came here for, I suggest you do the same. It won’t be safe for long.”

  “Wait,” Lia said.

  “I’m sorry we won’t get to finish our interview. They’ll be here soon.”

  “Wait,” Lia said again. “Who—”

  There was a click. It took Lia a second to realize what had just happened. She tried the door.

  “Hey! What are you doing?”

  “I’m sorry. I really am.”

  “You can’t—Hey! Let me out!”

  She pounded on the door.

  A jolt of fear zapped Lia’s brain. She stopped screaming. She froze. She thought of her mother’s dream. Sylvia’s mother pulling her away from the Panic. She put her hand to the door’s glass, cool against her palm. She couldn’t see Austin’s face, only the whites of his wide eyes.

  “They’re coming,” he said. “Run.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Emile

  James liked his stories. Here was the last one:

  You’re waiting for a man you think can help you. But the man is not who you think he is. You want him to be a friend but he’s your enemy. You call him brother when you should know better. Or maybe it’s your mother. Maybe she’s in on it too. What do they do to the water when you’re not looking? What poison do they drop in the well? Still, you wait for this man. You go out to the well and you wait. To catch him poison-fisted. You grab his wrist. Aha, you say. But when the man opens his hand his palm is empty. You know what you saw, though, what you tasted. It’s still there, at the back of your throat. The medicine they make you swallow. Perhaps they put it there while you’re asleep. You release the man. Your head starts to swim. Your brain feels waterlogged. No. You know what you saw. You know who he is. You push him out of the way and peer down the well. Expecting what? You can’t quite see, so you lean over. Farther. Farther still. You hear the man behind you. You’re right, he says. You were right all along. And then you feel it. The man’s hand on your back. Not patting. Pushing.