"Libby, can you turn on the light?"
"The switch is down there," she said. Her voice sounded so far away.
There should have been a bulb in the stairwell, providing enough light to lead Halford forward, but it was either gone or burnt out, another symbol of his rival's neglect and ineptitude. It was gratifying, at least, to learn he was better at something than Peter, considering how little use Libby had for her husband once the truth was exposed. How could Halford hope to compete with someone like that, especially when Libby made it clear there was no competition at all? The marriage, in an instant, had become a dark void, no different than the basement of their house, and like the basement he wanted out of it as soon as possible.
Halford tried to recall where in the darkness the switch for the light was. He groped forward in the emptiness, feeling for the wall he hoped was a few feet before him. Above, he could hear Libby's heels -- or were they cloven hooves? -- as she walked across the kitchen floor, a series of deep vibrations rattling the pipes overhead with each landing. The noise drilled into his nerves, drawing forth the irritation he had been trying to keep at bay, and in his distraction something hard caught his foot above the ankle and he nearly tripped on the same concrete floor he remembered once pouring. When he righted himself he wondered what it had been, but there was nothing there. Whatever it was he must have kicked it unknowingly into the dark.
He fished the lighter from his pocket -- the same lighter he once carried for Libby and had never been able to throw out -- and used the small circle of light it produced to scan the wall for the missing switch. It took him longer to find it than he expected, its position evoking no familiarity at all when the dim circle revealed it. Why couldn't he recall something so simple, he wondered, and when he turned on the overhead lamp, the sensation was amplified. Nothing was where it ought to have been.
One of the reasons Halford had selected a house in such need of repair was the basement -- its size and depth provided ample room for growth and customization. He had worked on it after finishing the rest of the house, knowing it would require most of his attention and yield the largest reward. He had just barely finished it before he had to leave it behind, but even in that short span he would have thought he had its layout committed to memory. Instead, what he saw not only confused but also unsettled him. He knew that in the warmer, temperate climate all sorts of things grew underground, and the only way to keep them at bay was to keep the room dry. Without a dehumidifier running, the wood would soften and bend, the walls would buckle, the concrete crack, so Halford made sure it ran all day. As he and his wife grew more distant -- Halford with the repairs, Libby with her computer -- the basement became more and more of a refuge, a place where he might find room to store more than just his boxes of office files.
But a year later, under the overhead lamp's low-wattage glow, he barely recognized the room he'd spent so much time on. The geography was inexplicably different; walls stood where his memory told him they hadn't before, and the room's overall shape bore no resemblance to the blueprint in his mind. He tried to make connections to the floor above, spot load-bearing beams and pillars, and yet there were none. It was impossible, unless somehow he had become turned around in the dark. That had to be it. Otherwise he couldn't be standing where he thought he was. Even if somehow replacing those load-bearing walls were possible, it was obvious no new material had been used in the basement since Halford last saw it. If anything, the wood, the floor, it all looked older, softened as though weather damaged. Halford looked around but couldn't reorient himself. Was it possible a person could forget a place so thoroughly? A house he had bought and lived in for so long? It was like looking in a mirror and not recognizing the face staring back.
The central room of the basement seemed too small -- its walls too close together, its ceiling so low that his head almost touched the ticking and groaning pipes running across it. All the bookcases Halford had built were still there, but their angles were no longer square, and the failing geometry disquieted him. Yet even natural entropy and failing memory could not account for such a different landscape. Did the floor always have the crack that ran through its center, bisecting the room? He squinted his eyes in the half-light. Was there something growing from that crack, or had something simply fallen from one of the sloping shelves? He bent down to look at the furry object and was surprised to find a dead field mouse just on its edge, no doubt inside hiding from winter. Ants had crawled up through the opening into the ground and had begun to feast on the rodent's carcass, stripping all the flesh from the front half of its body while leaving the rear untouched.
The echo of Libby's footsteps returned, rattling the ceiling. Was she pacing? Was that why the noise was so regular? Perhaps she worried what Halford might find in the basement, some secret she worked to keep from him. It seemed impossible there could be anything more worth knowing, but if it was there, he doubted he could find it in the mess. The floor was littered with crumpled paper and broken boxes, pieces of plastic or perhaps metal scattered indiscriminately everywhere, and though part of him felt offended that all his work had been destroyed so quickly, the rest remained unsurprised. Given enough time Libby made a mess of everything; the basement was just another in a long string of examples. Surveying the destruction, he wondered if rebuilding the server data was truly worth subjecting himself to the damp and the cold, and to suffering all the reminders of what he'd lost. He felt the resentment growing, threatening to split him open like a growing seed. If he hadn't needed those files -- if the company wasn't so dependent on rebuilding what they'd lost -- he would have stayed as far away as possible. It was like the house was full of all his old anger, and just being inside meant drowning in it. By staying away, as far away as possible, he could at least control the consuming rage that drove out almost all other thoughts. He had to close his eyes and take a deep breath, force himself to remember what he was suffering for below the ground. As he slowed his mind down, concentrated on what it was he needed, he realized the sound he heard, the sound that he thought was that of Libby's shoes, was not emanating from the ceiling at all but instead travelling along it from somewhere else in the basement, a slow deep drumming that lasted a few seconds. Perhaps the failing angles of the bookshelves were a clue. Perhaps it was the foundations of what he'd built that were failing, buckling under the weight of all they could no longer support, creaks like screams echoing through the veins of its body.
"Where would the box be?" he called back between cupped hands, then waited for his answer. It was mumbled and unclear, but he thought he heard Libby say, "Back," and then a sound like she was slamming a door.
But the single bulb overhead was not up to the task; its yellow circle was faint and dull and did nothing to dispel the shadows that grew like weeds across the warped and broken floor before gathering in the periphery, concealing what lay ahead. Halford let loose a chilled sigh; he would have to go further into the dark to find what he needed, and he was unsure if he wanted to face what no doubt awaited him there.
He stepped carefully toward where the light did not reach and was startled by the appearance of a wall where he was sure there once had been none. A corridor ran perpendicular to his mental layout, and peering down it only heightened his unease, a sensation dispelled once he recalled who was to blame for his current state. Had Libby not cuckolded him -- no, he swore he would not fall down that rabbit hole again, and already he had one foot firmly inside it. He was free of Libby and that's all he should worry about. Let her and her banker lover sail off together and leave him alone. All he needed from them was one simple thing: a box of documents that they should never have had in the first place, a box lost in the mess they'd made of his life. He turned to see the staircase he'd come down, the rectangle of kitchen light already faded to a dull grey, and cemented the sight in his mind. For some reason, fixing the landmark in space beyond the morass of debris seemed not only wise but also essential. Then, he took the turn into the corridor and followed i
ts poorly built plaster walls as they seemed to narrow in on him. In the confined space, the odor of damp concrete and spreading mildew became amplified, the age and decay growing to such a degree that it was nearly impossible to contain. Were the walls stained black from it, or was it merely an effect of the shadows?
As he stumbled down the unlit corridor the rhythmic sound above continued, mutating into a dry rasping that seemed to increase the deeper underground he travelled. As the debris on the floor multiplied -- the paper and metal joined by fallen dry wall and more boxes -- he wondered if the destruction had been something willful that Libby and Peter had carried out. It seemed incredible to believe such a state could be created even with a concerted effort, let alone by sheer neglect. He wondered if Peter was intentionally trying to screw with him. What kind of a man did that? Why had Libby longed for him, so much so that she would marry another in an effort to forget, and then destroy that marriage so she might return? The anger in Halford, it seethed when he thought of what Libby had done, thought of how he'd been mistreated. He tried to force the emotions down, force them out of his mind, until they disappeared in the ether as they'd done so many times before. But wherever they went, whatever receptacle was holding them had become full, and he was awash in the overflow. What kind of man was Peter? The kind that would let his home go to rot simply to punish everything Halford held dear? Halford understood his own hatred for the pair of them, but why did they hate him so much? What had he done other than his best to be a good husband? Why wasn't he allowed to be happy? And, more importantly, why didn’t he remember the basement being so large?
The corridor opened into another room, one Halford would have no recollection of if not for the singular shape of the small semi-circular window resting beneath the ceiling on the far wall. It was made of stained glass in a floral pattern and predated his and Libby's moving in, and in its own way was what decided Halford on the house. The illusion it fostered had warmed him. Over the intervening time since he left, however, dirt and grime had dulled its glow. Light still managed to find its way through as light always does, and it caught something floating in the air that wasn’t quite dust -- it was too heavy, more like snow or ash -- but whatever it was it brought with it a different odor to add to the musty air, something akin to cardboard kept too long in the dank, a kind of sickly honey fragrance.
Nothing else about the room was familiar beyond the window. He thought he recalled another light switch on the wall behind him, but when he turned all that stood there were more uneven shelves stocked with cobwebs, and shadows that moved in the periphery of his vision. He saw in the diffused window-light a series of tools -- a shovel, an axe, hammers of various sizes and shapes -- hanging from the wall opposite, and concealed inexplicably among them was the missing switch.
Flipping that small switch did nothing to dispel the gloom. If anything, it drew more in, filling the air with a dark haze. And the sweet stench was vile. The entire place smelled of earthy decay and dread -- Halford had once spent a summer in his youth as a groundskeeper at a graveyard, and he knew the odor well; it was like an open grave after a rainstorm, both atrocious and frustratingly familiar. The floor of the basement was so wet puddles had formed, and Halford could hear a slow dripping noise from the sweating pipes overhead. As each droplet hit the concrete, it seeped into the spider’s web of cracks that had spread across the ground like veins. And there was dirt, more dirt than seemed possible. Had it been moving through those cracks like water rushing through a ruptured hull? There was a haphazard pile of waterlogged boxed and mildewed clothes in the middle of the room, and for a moment he considered using them to staunch the flow of dark earth rising up. But too many cracks -- too wide and too deep -- had formed in the once solid foundation. It was a phenomenon he knew all too well.
From that broken and soiled floor grew another set of shelves in the corner of the room, nearly hidden by shadow. They seemed somewhat intact, and he could just make out the shape of a box resting on them. There was writing on the side, Halford was positive, and he took a step forward and squinted to make it out. He wasn't sure what he saw at first, but the shapes slowly started to wriggle and form words he recognized. He felt relieved only for a moment before the anger subsumed him. The box was his; it was clearly marked, though the term Libby or her lover or both used to describe him with that marking was not one he particularly cared for. As his irritation grew, flooding back on him from the place he could no longer send it, he tried to convince himself it didn’t matter -- as long as his files were there and intact he could rebuild everything he'd lost except for his life. Leaving the house, the festering reminder of his failure and humiliation, he hoped would handle the rest. Libby and Peter could keep the crumbling remains of their house of betrayal.
Between him and the box was a deep cloudy river of waterlogged refuse, half of which was hidden by the filth and ebbing light. Halford tentatively took another step forward and felt the brackish water soak through his shoe and crawl around his foot. It was a horrible sensation, but he pushed on, one slow step after another.
The smell of the room intensified the further across it he traveled. It had changed from earthy to sour like old perspiration, like unwashed clothes, and the odor burned his eyes and sinuses. He began to cough strongly enough that he had to stop walking, and when he did he could feel himself slowly sinking into the ground as though he were taking root. He cast a glance back, if only to reassure himself that the exit had not vanished, and was horrified to discover it was not where he expected it to be. The fumes, that stench -- he was disoriented. He had to be, otherwise... All sorts of terrible explanations raced through his mind, each worse than the one before, the sort of explanations one only has when alone in a darkened basement and nothing at all makes sense.
A draught passed over him, a fetid gust within which it was difficult to breathe. It wafted over from the left, from a wall that would have marked the outside wall of the house had his mental blueprint been correct. Yet it couldn't be; somehow he had become turned around further for instead of a solid wall he saw an open door. And beyond it, only darkness. From that place spewed the abhorrent air in wheezing breaths, a nightmarish groan accompanying them. The pipes above shook, raining down clumps of dirt on Halford's shoulders. The dull thudding had returned, pulsing far too slowly to be a heartbeat.
Halford should have run; something in him understood that implicitly. He should have taken his box of files and fled from the house, fled from Libby and Peter and everything they had done to him. What he came for was easily within reach only a few feet ahead of him. And yet he was drawn to the door, drawn to whatever lay forgotten in the dark beyond it. The urge niggled, coaxed, wore at his doubt until there was no longer a choice no matter how much his rational side screamed otherwise.
His data forgotten, his attention was filled with the door of nothingness in the dim of the basement. Halford walked toward it, across the concrete floor marked with fissures that spread wider the further he travelled, allowing dirt and water to continue to creep out at an alarming rate. The distance across the ruins was difficult to judge and seemed farther than it ought, perhaps farther than the house above was long, and with each step the air smelled worse.
On the cusp of the darkness, at the edge of the doorway, the draft was warm but stale. There was a metallic taste to it that only exacerbated the nauseating undercurrent of damp earth. The foundations of the house surrounded Halford, humming with electricity as pipes and wires reached down the walls like roots searching for something to feed upon, something they found within that unlit room that Halford was convinced should not have existed. He reached inside tentatively to feel for the remaining switch, and though the damp air congealed around him he nevertheless allowed his fingers to glance the softened plaster until they came in contact with a familiar shape. Before he pushed the switch however he heard the wafting air turn into a rasp, and then that rasp into strained grunts.
What the light revealed, what was until then hi
dden by the deep underground shadows, was a sight so bizarre that his mind rebelled against it. It was impossible, and yet there it was before him: a giant so large, so massive, that it was tightly wedged into the tiny room. The creature was hunched over, kneeling on one massive knee while its immense back propped up the wall, its broad shoulders the low-hanging ceiling. Dirt caked its enervate form, but its two eyes revealed an almost blinding white even while they looked directly at him. Those eyes struck Halford as familiar. They were sad eyes, haunted eyes, and Halford knew them as well as he knew his own.
Halford tried to speak but his tongue would not work. The giant shifted in the restricted space, the house creaking in complaint, and Halford's attention was drawn to its exposed foot and the deep grooved skin that covered it. It was like the bark of an old oak and thin tendrils like roots sprouted from fissures and burrowed into the soft ground. Warmth radiated from the room, enveloping Halford in a stale miasma that was familiar, primal, and he took a step closer, his foot sinking slightly into the dirt that lay beneath the house's fractured concrete foundations. It was as though the thing has sprung from some horrible nightmare, and Halford could not stop staring. Shadows grew and amassed around it, but what those shadows contained he could not discern. Were they leaves and stems and fruits, all the color of a humid night's sky? Did he hear insects chirping, or was it noise from the pipes above? Somewhere inside his mind a voice screamed, urging him to flee, but he could not move. The giant's head was moving, creaking as it pivoted, and as its slow blinking white eyes peered at Halford he was startled to find he recognized its face.
Nightingale Songs Page 9