Eximere (The River Book 4)

by Michael Richan

  Roy sputtered a little, but he knew Steven was right. There was no point in accusing Jonathan, even if they believed him to be the rat. He just couldn’t stand Jonathan’s smug silence.

  “You warm enough?” Roy said, changing the subject.

  “I’m fine,” Steven said. “Go get some sleep. And think about D and A.”

  Chapter Eight

  Roy was back in Steven’s room the next morning right after sunrise.

  “Get up,” Roy said, shaking Steven awake.

  “What?” Steven said groggily. “What time is it?”

  “You know how sometimes things just hit you first thing in the morning? As through sleep allowed you to see more clearly?”

  “Yeah,” Steven said. “So?”

  “You remember when you said that Eliza was writing erratically? Yesterday, when you told us what happened during the séance?”

  “Yes,” Steven said, propping himself up in bed with one elbow.

  “What if it wasn’t a ‘DA’ she wrote?” Roy said. “It was dark, you were looking with a flashlight, you were being attacked, and she was writing without any self-control. What if it looked like a ‘DA’ to you, but it was something else, or she meant it to be something else?”

  “What else?” Steven asked, sitting up.

  “Well,” Roy asked. “I can see how a ‘D’ might have really been an ‘O’ with an accidental flat side, or a “P” with the bottom not connected at the right place. An ‘A’ could be an ‘R’ if it isn’t drawn correctly. That gives us new combinations to work with.”

  “Right,” Steven said, wiping the sleep from his eyes and yawning. “So ‘DR,’ ‘OA,’ ‘OR,’ ‘PA,’ and ‘PR.’”

  “Right. The River, please.”

  They both jumped into the flow.

  PA - pantry, Roy thought. The kitchen has a couple of pantries. We could try there.

  That could be it, Steven thought. Is Eliza up yet?

  I’ll check, Roy thought, and abruptly left the River and the room. Steven fell back in bed, remaining in the River for a moment. Sometimes the River was a nice place to be, especially when waking up. Also, he didn’t want to feel the pain of the exit just yet. He let himself float through the house a bit, and up above the house. I wonder where the tunnel is from this vantage point? he thought. He heard Roy come back into his room, and he slipped out of the River.

  “She’s coming,” Roy said. “No one’s up yet, now would be a good time to explore. Come on, get up!”

  “All right,” Steven said, throwing off the bedcovers and searching for clothes. “I’ll meet you downstairs in five minutes.”

  “OK,” Roy said, heading for the door.

  “And Dad?”

  “Yes?” Roy said, turning.

  “Coffee first, please.”

  “I’m on it.”

  ◊

  Steven, Roy, and Eliza met in the kitchen ten minutes later.

  “So what are we looking for?” Eliza said, studying a wooden panel in a corner of the kitchen.

  “If it’s like the other one,” Steven said, “the panel will recede when pushed straight back, then slide to the left or right.”

  “There are two pantries that I’ve seen,” Roy said, examining one of them. It was filled with canned food and bags of flour and sugar in plastic containers. “I can’t see anything in here that would do it.”

  “Where’s the other one?” Eliza asked.

  “Back through to the room that has the outside door,” Roy answered.

  Eliza and Roy made their way to the other room, with Steven following. There were two doors in the room with the large butcher block, aside from the door outside and the way into the larger kitchen. Steven opened one of them, finding a small bathroom. He examined the walls of it while Eliza and Roy tried the other door. After a few minutes he heard Eliza calling for him.

  He joined them. The pantry was large, and the shelves were bare. A second door was open at the back of the pantry that Roy stood next to.

  “At first I thought this pantry was it,” Roy said. “But it’s actually inside this closet. Look!” he said, pointing inside.

  Steven stepped into the closet, which was large enough to hold four or five people comfortably. There were a couple of mops and rolling buckets, and chemical cleaners on shelves. In the back of the room Steven noticed an open space near the floor behind a metal rack.

  “The entire section of wainscoting fell in when I pushed hard enough,” Roy said.

  “We’ll have to rearrange this closet,” Steven said. “Move this rack out of the way.”

  “Let’s do it without making too much noise,” Eliza said.

  “If we move it over to here,” Roy said, “it’ll still look normal. If the others come snooping, there’ll be no reason to suspect anything.”

  “We’ll just have to make sure that wainscoting goes back into place,” Steven said, grabbing the side of the rack and waiting for Roy to grab the other. After a few minutes of lifting while trying to be as quiet as possible, they had access to the empty space Roy created, which was about three feet square. Light from the room didn’t shine well enough into the space to be able to see anything. Steven turned on his flashlight and poked his head into the space.

  “Ladder, going down,” he said, his head inside the hole.

  “Great,” Eliza said, a little sarcastically. “But at least we’re on to something, finally.”

  “I say we do it now,” Roy said. “Leave a note telling the others we’ve gone back into town.”

  Steven pulled his head back out of the hole and looked at Eliza. She nodded.

  “Agreed,” Steven said.

  “I’ll take care of the note,” Eliza said, leaving the room and returning to the dining room.

  “I’ll start down,” Steven said, “and see what we’re dealing with in here.”

  “Look for that section of wainscoting,” Roy said. “We’ll need to get it back into place behind us.”

  Steven turned and crawled into the open space backwards, searching for the first rung of the ladder. He eventually found it, then slipped more of his body down into the hole. He stopped just after he had completely entered the space, shining his flashlight around.

  “This is a small space,” he said. “I don’t see the wainscoting. It must have fallen below. Did you hear it crash when you pushed it in?”

  “No,” Roy said. “I didn’t.”

  “That’s a little unsettling,” Steven said.

  Eliza returned and saw Steven’s head in the hole. “Oh, I don’t relish climbing into that,” she said.

  “It’s not too bad,” Steven said, “but we don’t know about the wainscoting. We don’t know how far down this goes. So let’s just take this slow and steady.”

  Steven began to descend, slowly repositioning his foot. “This is a wooden ladder,” he said, his head disappearing from the hole. “Who knows how old it is.”

  “Why don’t you go next,” Roy said to Eliza, “and I’ll make sure everything looks normal up here before I follow you down.”

  Eliza gave Roy a weak smile. “I’m sorry I got you both involved in this,” she said.

  “Now, now,” Roy said, smiling back at her. “It could have easily been the other way around. You were pretty quick to help me and Steven when we needed your help in Oregon. We’ll get this sorted.”

  She looked at the hole. “How do I…?” she said.

  “Get down on your hands and knees,” Roy said, “and go in feet first. Don’t get too close to Steven, and I’ll maintain several feet from you.”

  Eliza did as Roy instructed and soon found herself standing on the first rung of the ladder. She looked up at Roy, concerned. “Just go one step at a time, and take your time,” Roy said. She smiled back at him and lowered herself to the next rung.

  Roy looked around the closet. He went back into the pantry, shut the door and turned off the lights. Then he went into the closet and did the same. He could just see the opening to t
he ladder. We’re going to have to get that wainscoting back in place, he thought. Anyone who walks in here is going to notice the hole.

  He moved a rolling mop bucket into place by the hole, and as he slipped into it, he pulled the bucket towards the hole. At least it’ll obscure it a little, he thought. But not enough to stop someone who’s searching. Then he descended after Eliza.

  Steven began counting rungs after the first dozen. He could feel little bits of debris falling on him from Eliza and Roy above. After another ten rungs he stopped and shined his flashlight around him and down the hole. The walls of the shaft were covered with pine planks, and went down as far as his light would illuminate.

  He continued down, not wanting Eliza to run into him. Each step was driving him crazy, not knowing what was coming, if the ladder would just suddenly be gone. He counted another twenty rungs, and stopped to shine the light down below him once again. Now he could see a platform below, and he exhaled with relief, as though he’d been holding his breath the whole time.

  Once he reached the platform he shone the light back up the shaft. Eliza was still ten or fifteen rungs above him. “I’ve reached a platform,” he shouted up.

  “Oh, good!” Eliza replied.

  The platform was made of the same pine planks that lined the walls. It was about three feet square. Steven saw the piece of wainscoting lying on the ground. It was broken on one corner. There was a small wooden door leading out of the platform – he assumed that’s where they’d head next. He tried the handle – it opened, a welcome change.

  Eliza soon landed on the platform with him. “Not too bad, was it?” Steven asked.

  “My claustrophobia needle is in the red,” Eliza said.

  “Look, the wainscoting is damaged,” Steven said, showing it to her.

  “We should still try to replace it,” Eliza said.

  Roy emerged from the hole above and stepped onto the platform. He saw the wood in Steven’s hand.

  “You found it!” he exclaimed. “Ah, but it’s broken.”

  “Should we put it back in place?” Steven said. “With this damage, what’s the difference between the open hole and this? They’ll both give it away.”

  “Let’s take it back up when we return,” Roy said, “and see what we can do with it. I pulled a mop bucket in front of the hole before I came down. Won’t camouflage much, but at least it was something. I think we’re fine for a little while so long as no one gets a hair up their ass to go exploring.”

  “OK, we’ll leave it here for now,” Steven said, propping the chunk of wood on its side against the walls of the platform. “The door opens, I checked it already.”

  “Good, let’s see what we’re dealing with,” Eliza said.

  Steven opened the door, finding himself in another passageway, not unlike the one they’d discovered behind the trophy room.

  “I hope this doesn’t just lead to that welded door,” Roy said.

  “We’re well below that level,” Eliza said. “I think we’re below the point where the protection was blocking our ability to see.”

  After several turns and a couple of stairs, Steven came to another door. He tried the handle, and this one opened as easily as the first. They all stepped into a wooden room, about twelve feet square. The room contained nothing but doors.

  “Christ,” Roy said. “What is this?”

  Steven tried one of the doors, seeing a stairwell leading up. Another contained a passageway that turned after ten feet. Still another contained a stairwell leading down.

  “That’s the one we’re after,” Eliza said. “The one that leads down.”

  “What about these other routes?” Steven asked.

  “I suspect the stairwell up will take us to the welded door,” she said. “And one of these others will take us to the large metal doors in the tunnel.”

  “All the secret ways down converge at this spot,” Roy said.

  “Yes,” Eliza said. “The liquor runners would bring the booze in through here and back up the stairwell to the rooms with the peepholes, where they could store them. They could go back out this way, or out through the trophy room.”

  “And the ladder we just came down?” Steven asked.

  “A backup way in, if there was a problem with the other routes,” Eliza said. She stepped over to the door that opened to the stairwell leading down. “I suspect this door was off limits to all of them,” she said. “This is the real prize. What we’re after is down there.” They all looked down the stairwell. It went down about twenty steps, then turned out of sight.

  “Keep going?” Steven asked.

  “Hell yeah, let’s go,” Roy said, heading down the stairwell with the other two right behind him. Steven held his flashlight over his head so it would illuminate the way for the other two, then he looked down at the wall. There was a light switch. He turned it on, and the stairwell lit up. Roy and Eliza stopped on the stairwell ahead, and turned to look back up at him.

  “It works,” Steven said. “I wasn’t sure it would.”

  “Let’s hope it didn’t light up more than we wanted,” Roy said.

  At the base of the stairs Roy turned right and found himself at another door. This door was different from the others; it had a large golden oval painted on the surface. The handle was locked.

  “Ah, it couldn’t be that easy, could it?” he said.

  “It makes sense there’d be another locked door down here,” Eliza said, retrieving her lockpicking tools from her pocket. “They wouldn’t want the people running liquor to be able to get in here.” She knelt in front of the door and began maneuvering the tools into the key slot below the handle.

  “Is this a symbol?” Steven said, pointing to the oval. “Hasn’t been on any of the other doors.” Neither Roy nor Eliza replied.

  “This door,” Eliza said, still working the tools, “is the protection you saw in the trance in the tunnel, Roy. There’s no way to know what’s beyond it without walking through it.” Within a few moments it clicked, and she turned the handle. The door opened.

  “You’re going to have to show me how to do that,” Steven said. “And tell me how you learned it.”

  “Long story,” she said, “best told over drinks.”

  “Rain check then,” Steven said, walking through the threshold. Inside was another stairway leading down, and another light switch. Steven reached for it, but Roy stopped him. “Let’s just use the flashlight for now,” he suggested.

  Steven led the group down. They were going a little slower than the last stairwell, feeling for each step with less light.

  “Wish there was a handrail,” Roy said. “And I don’t look forward to coming back up all these stairs.”

  “Given the ladder and these stairwells,” Eliza said, “we must be at least fifty feet below the house.”

  “I’d say a hundred,” Roy said. “Maybe more.”

  The stairs continued down for several more minutes. It finally ended at yet another locked door. This door had the same oval symbol painted on it. “Any idea what this means?” Steven asked, shining his light on the symbol. The gold paint reflected the light back into their eyes.

  “No idea,” Eliza said, cracking open her tools again. After several minutes she had unlocked the door.

  Steven grabbed the handle. “Please not another stairwell,” he said, pulling the door open.

  It was not a stairwell. What they saw made each of their jaws drop. No one took a step to pass through the door. Instead they stood frozen, staring at the scene before them.

  ◊

  “I’m not sure I believe what I’m seeing,” Steven said, his eyes fixed on the images past the doorway.

  “Me either,” said Roy.

  “Come on,” Eliza said, stepping through the doorway. “Let’s check it out.”

  They passed through the door and stepped onto a brick path. In the distance, about two hundred feet away, stood a large house. Between them and the house was the path, meandering through a lawn, a foun
tain, and several trees.

  “What the fuck is this?” Steven said, looking up. There was light coming from above, but he couldn’t see a ceiling – or a sky. Just diffused light that gently illuminated the entire area. It seemed to be coming from all directions above them; nothing cast a shadow. This is a cave, a large cave, he thought, but he strained to see the walls of the cave and couldn’t – the images in the distance just dissolved at a certain point. “You think James did this?” he asked as they walked slowly along the path towards the house.

  “No idea,” replied Eliza.

  “Am I going crazy?” Steven said. “That’s a fucking house? Underground?”

  “Apparently,” Eliza said. “That’s what it looks like.”

  “Amazing, isn’t it?” Roy said, staring at the house. “All this, under here?”

  The house they were walking towards didn’t look dissimilar from the real one on the surface, though it was smaller. In fact, the path they were walking and the arrangement of the lawn reminded Steven of the layout upstairs. Like the house upstairs, this one also had two stories, but it wasn’t as grand or imposing. It mirrored its style but not its size.

  As they got closer to the house, Steven could see that the front facing windows were all open, and a slight breeze was causing the inside curtains to flutter in and out of the window frames. The path they were on led right up to the front door, which looked open. As they approached he realized it wasn’t open, it just wasn’t there at all. There was no door. An open doorframe led into the house. Above the door was a small sign that read EXIMERE.

  “Strange name for such a beautiful place,” Eliza said. “Wonder if it means anything.”

  “I guess the front door to this house is really back there at the base of the stairwell,” Roy said. “No point in more doors here. No weather to worry about, no visitors, I’m guessing no animals. No need for a door.”

  They walked into the house. At the far end of the room was an archway that opened to the back yard, again with no door. Hallways led to more rooms on the right and left, and a stairwell led up to the second floor. There was a large fireplace with a small fire, and several couches and chairs throughout the room. There were large vases filled to capacity with freshly cut flowers. The walls were white and the room felt sunny and warm. A slight breeze blew through the archways and the room. Steven felt that were it not for the strangeness of the house and the situation they were in, it might be the most peaceful place he’d ever been.