by Peter Clines
She blew on her tea, two polite little puffs, and looked down at the floor. “So you think whatever’s in this sub-basement has to do with the electricity-from-nowhere?”
“Yeah,” said Veek. “That’s why I think we need to get in there.”
Nate was looking around the cathedral apartment again, examining each plank on the wall. “I think we should take some measurements. All these different layouts have to mean something.”
“Like what?”
He shrugged. “I have no idea. It just seems to be the most blatantly weird thing about this place. Apartments are usually symmetrical, but this place is as unsymmetrical as it can be. There has to be a reason for it. Maybe if we can make up some actual blueprints we’ll catch something we’ve been missing.”
“Or we could just see what’s in the basement,” said Veek.
“Yeah, but that’s going to be tough. If he is hiding something, Oskar’s going to be suspicious right now. We need to wait a couple of weeks for him to forget he found us there. And we might as well use those weeks checking out some of the stuff we can do without raising suspicion.”
Debbie set her mug down. “He’s got a good point.”
“Fine,” sighed Veek. She tapped her fingers against her glass. “It’ll be tough,” she said. “I only know maybe half the people in the building, and I’m maybe on speaking terms with half of them.”
“Between the three of us and the public spaces, we could get a lot of it though,” said Debbie. “Maybe enough to help us get a sense of the place. Clive’s got tomorrow off, so he could help.”
“Would he be up for it?” asked Nate.
She nodded. “He’s just as fascinated by this place as Veek. He just never has time to do anything. If you’ve got a plan ready to go, he’ll lunge at it.”
Veek got up to refill her glass and flinched away from the counter. Nate glanced over and saw a hint of green vanish into the sink. He glanced at Debbie. “You’ve got ‘em, too?”
“Yep,” she said. “They’re fascinating, aren’t they?”
He sipped his water. “I guess. I’ve never seen green cockroaches before living here.”
“Normally they’re only in the Caribbean and along the gulf coast,” she said. “But these aren’t panchlora nivea. I’m studying biochemistry, and we do tons of work with roaches in the lab. The guys in this building are unique. They might be a whole new species.”
“Oh, joy,” said Veek.
Debbie gave her a look that should’ve been condescending, but she somehow made it seem cute and motherly. “If you actually looked at them sometime you’d find them fascinating, too. Besides, if you’re looking for mysteries, they’re little enigmas, believe me.”
Nate perked up. “How so?”
Debbie smiled. Again, all the smiles should’ve been creepy, but she made them work somehow. They were so ridiculously sincere. “There’s something lurking in their DNA if I can just figure out how to study it,” she said. “I mean, I could do my graduate thesis just on their physical mutations if I can figure out how to get them and the equipment in the same place.”
Veek set her glass on the table. “UCLA won’t let you borrow stuff?”
“Not the stuff I need.”
“So the extra leg counts as a full-on mutation?” asked Nate. “They’re not just some freaks or something?”
“The extra leg’s a pretty big thing,” Debbie said. “A stable mutation along those lines that’s fully functioning is pretty rare. They’ve also got a weird mandible arrangement and the green carapace. That’s not even the weirdest bit. As far as I can tell, they don’t eat.”
“Don’t eat what?”
“Anything,” said Debbie. “You can leave food on the counter and they won’t touch it. They walk around it. They also ignore poison and bait traps, which is why you can’t get rid of them. I’ve got a tank of about a hundred in the bathroom and I’ve never fed them once.” She put her hands up. “So what are they living off?”
Veek gave the bathroom an uneasy look and she and Nate both shook their heads. “And you can’t study them in your lab because...?”
“Because I can’t get them there.”
“No car?” asked Nate.
Debbie shook her head. “I’ve tried to take some in. My first thought was to start a colony there and do some work on them.” She shook her head. “Thing is, they die if you take them away from the building.”
Nate’s glass stopped halfway to his mouth. “Die?”
Debbie nodded. “I thought the first time was a fluke. Then it happened again so I ran some tests. I haven’t done enough to draw viable conclusions, but it looks like they die once they get thirty-one feet, seven inches outside the building. They can’t even get to the end of the block.”
“What happens?” asked Veek. “Do they get sick or something or...something?”
Debbie shook her head again. “It’s like flipping a switch. They cross the line and they drop dead. I even had it marked with chalk a few months back.”
“I remember that,” Veek said. “The big green arc in the street. I thought it was kids playing a game.”
“Nope, just me. Once they get about ninety feet out they shrivel up like they’ve been dead for weeks. I can’t be exact because I don’t have a tape measure long enough. So I’m stuck working on them here with whatever I’ve got.” She had a sip of her tea. “Weird, huh?”
Twenty
Clive loved being a carpenter because at the end of the day he could stand back and see all the things he’d accomplished. There was physical evidence of progress. Even the grueling days ended well because he could see he’d gotten a lot done. For a guy who was never expected to do anything, the constant reminders were a good thing.
So he was already in a good mood before he got home. He found parking with no problem, walked past the liquor store without a pause, and went home to his lovely wife. They’d talked about having a quiet night in, and they’d gotten the last disc of Middleman from Netflix.
He opened the door to the apartment, called out to Debbie, and saw a man he didn’t know sitting at their table. Veek was visiting with one of the new guys he’d seen a couple times around the building. Clive liked Veek. They shared the same fascination with the oddities of the Kavach Building. Plus he got the sense she had a few demons of her own.
He gave his lovely lady a kiss, shook hands with Nate, and joined them at the table. When they explained what they wanted to do, Clive squeezed Debbie’s hand. “I’m in,” he told them. “And I think Nate’s right. Let’s start with the basics. Measure everything we can.”
“I still think we should try to get into the basement,” said Veek.
“How, though?” asked Debbie. “We’d have to steal the keys or break the lock.”
“We could pick the lock,” said Veek.
Nate raised a doubting eyebrow. “You know how to do that?”
She sighed. “No.”
Clive got up and went to his tool chest. It was a wooden case the size of a small dresser, built from two-by-fours and plywood and mounted on heavy casters. The double doors held four large shelves in place. He’d built it himself after getting his first regular studio job. It was bright blue, and on the left door he’d meticulously painted a white sign covered with instructions for the “Police Telephone” inside. He pawed through the second drawer and pulled out two neon tape measures and then a large one like a reel. “I think I’ve got everything we’d need.”
Nate nodded and Veek made a sound of grudging agreement. “Do you want to be in charge of this?” asked Nate. “You’ve probably got the best idea how to do it.”
Clive stopped and felt himself shrink back from the idea. Debbie met his eyes and gave him a reassuring nod. “Are you sure?” he asked. “I don’t want to step on your toes or anything.”
Nate shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll meet up tomorrow and you can tell us all what we’re doing.”
* * *
When
Nate showed up the next morning, Clive had their plan of attack ready. He’d even drawn up a set of preliminary blueprints on a legal pad. They were ready to have measurements put in.
The redheaded man gestured at the walls and patted the reel. “We measure the outside of the building with the hundred-footer. We do the back wall and this side, so we’re never near Oskar’s apartment.” He tapped the inside of his diagram. “We measure the distance from door to door everywhere we can. Then we measure inside the apartments from the door to the shared wall. That’ll tell us how thick the inside walls are.”
“We can do between you and Veek,” said Nate, “and probably between me and Tim. Do you know who lives next door to Mandy?”
“That’s Andrew,” said Debbie. “He’s a bit high and mighty, but I think he’ll be okay.”
“High and mighty?”
Clive snorted. “His faith is stronger, his church is better, his God can kick your God’s ass. Just ask him, he’ll be glad to give you the two-hour lecture on how inferior you are.”
Debbie tapped him gently on the head. “Don’t disrespect the man’s beliefs.”
“Sorry, hon.”
Debbie looked at Nate. “Where is Veek, anyway?”
“Sleeping in, I think,” Nate said. “She told me she was going to be up all night doing final tweaks on her big bonus project. I figured we’d hold off waking her until we got started.”
Clive nodded and tapped the diagram. “We can do the same measurements going across an apartment, across the hall, and across another apartment. If we can get two doors open across from each other, we can go from outside wall to outside wall. That’ll give us the depths of all four of those walls.”
“Sounds good,” said Nate. “Is sixteen open? Veek said it gets left unlocked sometimes.”
“It might be,” said Debbie. “I thought I saw them cleaning in there last week. They almost never lock it. Nobody’s going to spend much time in there.”
“We could do that as soon as she’s up.”
“Sounds great,” said Clive. “We can do the outside right now and then start in here.”
Nate and Clive snuck out to measure the building’s walls. Then they measured Clive and Debbie’s apartment. Clive ran his measuring tape across the hall while Nate checked 16 to see if it was open. The knob was stiff, but it turned and the door opened. It moved on its hinges like the door to a bank vault.
“You want to wake up Veek?” he asked Debbie. “We’ll measure this and be ready for her in a couple minutes.”
“Done.”
Clive recorded his hall measurement in a small notepad. The tape rewound with a metallic hiss. Nate pushed open the door and they stepped into apartment 16.
The wall between the kitchen and the main room had a huge opening, and the counter spread out there to form a table, like the counter at a diner. Against the far wall were two pillars, one in each corner. They flanked the wall the apartment shared with 14.
The room was still. The air didn’t move. There were none of the usual noises associated with an inhabited building. Nate wondered if the walls were soundproofed.
“Let’s do this and get out of here,” said Clive. “This room always gives me the willies.”
“You been in here before?”
He nodded. “Right after we moved in they left the door open. They’d just repainted it. Debbie wanted to see if any other apartments were as cool as ours. We didn’t know about it then. What happened here.”
“Right,” said Nate. He took one end of the tape and walked to the far wall.
Clive walked the tape to the opposite wall. “We were in here maybe ten, fifteen minutes and it just started getting to us, y’know? It’s just...wrong in here. Like there’s a noise you don’t register or the temperature’s off or something.” He jotted numbers down in his notebook and gestured for Nate to go between the pillars.
Nate walked over and the measuring tape chimed and rustled. He pressed his end against the wall and his eyes went wide. “Whoa,” he said. “Feel this.”
Clive scribbled numbers. “What?”
“The wall’s cold.”
“Like Veek’s place?”
“Colder.” Nate put his hand against the painted plaster. “Maybe just a couple degrees over freezing. Check it out.”
Clive set his own palm against the wall. “Okay,” he said, “that’s creepy.”
“What do you think it means?”
“Whatever’s next door is really cold? I've got a better one for you. Why isn’t it cooling this whole room?”
Nate blinked and pulled his hand off the wall. It warmed up immediately. He touched the wall with his fingertips and a chill shot through them.
“Hey.” Veek stood at the door, dressed in red and blue sweats. She gave Nate a quick wave and then sent one at Clive. She looked around the apartment and yawned.
“Good morning,” said Nate.
“Morning. You guys almost done in here?”
“All done except for measuring across the hallway,” said Clive. He ducked into the hall.
Nate looked at Veek. “How’d the project go?”
“Shitty,” she said, “but it does what it’s supposed to and they’ll pay me for it.”
“What’s it supposed to do?”
“It writes ‘none of your business’ on the screen in big letters.”
“Ahhhh. Well, as long as you’re getting paid for it.”
Her eyes roamed around the empty apartment. “Anything neat in here?”
“You’ve never been in here before?”
She shrugged. “A couple times, but maybe you spotted something I missed.”
“D’you know about the wall?” He pointed at the surface between the two pillars.
“What about it?”
“Touch it.”
Veek walked to the wall and peered at it through her glasses. She set her fingers against the plaster and yanked them back. “Wow.”
“Weird, huh?”
She reached out again and pressed her hand against the wall. “Yeah,” she said. “I’ve probably been in here four or five times and I never caught this.” She lifted her palm away and wiggled her fingers in the air inches from the wall.
Clive came back. “Ready?”
“Oh, yeah,” Nate said.
“Here,” said Veek. “I’ll walk it in. That way I can make a last check for what I left laying out.” She grabbed the end of the tape and walked across the hall into her apartment.
Clive waved him toward the door. “Stand in the hall and make sure no one walks into the tape or anything.”
Nate stepped out and joined Debbie. She smiled and they tried to look casual while they kept an eye out for Oskar.
“You good?” called Clive.
“Yep,” Veek yelled back.
He made another note in his little book and gave the tape a tug. Veek let it go and he rolled it up with a little crank that folded out of the side of the ring. He glanced around 16 and looked at Nate. “Enough in here for one day.”
“I agree.”
They headed out into the hall and pulled the door closed behind them.
Twenty One
Nate and Clive ran the long tape across the lounge while Debbie helped Veek measure her room. They headed upstairs and the two men began to work in Nate’s apartment while Debbie and Veek knocked on Mandy’s door. It took a little bit of work to convince her, but not too much. Tim was all for it.
“We can go do Xela’s place,” Debbie said while Clive jotted down all the numbers. “You guys want to talk to Andrew?”
“Not really,” said Clive. She gave him a look and he cleared his throat. “I mean, of course, dear.”
“Watch it, mister.” She shook a mocking finger at him and headed down the hall.
Nate followed Clive over to apartment 25. “We might be lucky,” said Clive in a low voice. “Sunday before two, there’s a good chance he’ll be at church.”
“Why’s that good?”
“Because I don’t like dealing with him.” He set his jaw and knocked.
Nate recognized the man who answered the door. He had LEGO-perfect hair, wide eyes, and was wearing a tie and sweater vest with a short-sleeve shirt. Clive nodded his head in greeting. “Hey, Andrew.”
“Clive.” The man with plastic hair looked at Nate. “Hello,” he said. “I’m afraid I don’t know your name, but I’ve seen you around.”
“Nate Tucker.” He held out his hand. “I live right over there. I think you held the gate for me once.”
“That’s right. You cleaned up some of the phone books.” Andrew shook Nate’s hand as if he was worried it might break.
“So, this is a little odd,” said Clive, “but we were wondering if we could take a couple measurements of your apartment.”
Andrew’s head tipped to the side, went straight, and swung to the other side. “What for?”
“We’re just trying to figure out something. How thick the walls are.”
“Why do you need to know?”
“It’s just a little bet,” said Nate. He sensed Clive tense up next to him. “Nothing important.”
Andrew bit his lip. “Oh,” he said, “I don’t know if I can condone gambling.” He took in his breath as if he had more to say but just stood there.
Clive cleared his throat. “It’s just a figure of speech.”
“The Book has some very specific things to say about gambling and other distractions.”
“But we’re not,” said Nate. “Sorry, bad choice of words. I apologize.”
Andrew looked back and forth between them. “I have your word this is not some form of wager? It would look bad for me if it was.”
“Absolutely not,” said Clive. “It’s just to satisfy curiosity. Nothing more.”
Andrew took another breath and twisted the bottom of his sweater vest with one hand. “I suppose it can’t do any harm, then.” He gestured them in.
Clive ran his tape measure from the door to the wall. It wasn’t hard. The apartment looked like a monk lived in it. “I didn’t think we’d catch you in,” he said. “I figured you’d be at church.”