by John Mathews
Once her stepmother left the bedroom, Maria waited for several minutes. She didn’t like being told what to do when her father was not around. She cracked the bedroom door open a few inches and peeped out to be sure that the coast was clear. Then she slipped out into the living room and grabbed Tammy’s cell phone from on top of the coffee table. She connected to the internet and did a Google search on the bottle of white powder. “A pesticide used to kill small birds and rodents. Can be extremely dangerous when inhaled, swallowed, or otherwise absorbed through the mouth. Can cause poisoning resulting in involuntary muscular convulsions and possibly death.” She looked up the meaning of the word convulsions. Then she went through the list of phone contacts and found her father’s name. She hit the green call button and waited. There was no ringing on the other end and it went straight to voice mail. She hung up and dialed him again, getting the same result. Frustrated, she set the cell phone back carefully where it had been, and went to drink some of the newly melted snow in the sink.
***
Tammy entered the kitchen. The door to the tea cabinet was open, with some cups and a tea pot sitting on the table. She started to put them away when she noticed something else – the silver skeleton key. Well where in the hell did that just come from? I looked through every inch of this cabin and couldn’t find that. She took the key and examined it closely. The tip of it was dull and misshapen as if it had been ground down a bit. The interlocking circular design in the bow looked hand carved. Excited, she put the key in her pocket and went into the living room.
She tried the key in the front door lock – and it fit. Then she went over to the door leading into the den. She held her breath and tried to put the key into the keyhole, but something was blocking it. She bent down and peeped inside. There was a thin piece of cardboard that had been jammed into the keyhole from inside the den. Son of a bitch, someone HAS been in there. And if anyone else has a key like this, they can get into any of the other rooms. Tammy took another safety pin and bent it so that the sharp point was sticking out more. She carefully inserted the pin into the keyhole. After a bit of fidgeting, the piece of cardboard came out. She bent down, peeped into the keyhole, and saw only darkness. Then she took the flashlight from the bookcase, checked that it worked, and used it to provide more light while looking through the keyhole. There didn’t appear to be any sign of movement inside. She pushed the skeleton key into the keyhole and turned it. There was a clicking sound and the door came unlocked.
Tammy opened the door a crack and shined the flashlight inside before entering the den. She was shocked that the room was filled with warm air and immediately wanted to know what the source of heat was. She used the flashlight to investigate further and found a small vent on one wall near the ceiling. She reached up, put her hand in front of it, and felt warm air coming into the room. Then she turned on a small table lamp to have a better look around.
The lamp was on top of a very unusual, circular table made from the trunk of an oak tree. The floor was made of an elegant light colored parquet with natural knobs and ridges in it, which was different than the flooring throughout the rest of the cabin. There were two wooden chairs with decorative pillows on them next to a small sofa bed and a coffee table. Under the coffee table was a brown canvas trunk with black metal slats and golden hinges. A thick shelving unit was attached to the back wall of the room. On the shelves were a collection of hand-painted wooden ducks, two gourd vases, a can of some long rusty nails, and a brass lantern. Hanging from hooks near the shelving unit was a large net. The head of a mountain lion that had been preserved was mounted to the wall beside it.
Tammy took the net from the hooks to have a look at it and see if it might be useful. It was brittle to the touch and many of the strings that held it together were broken. It was also discolored in some places with black stains. Then she bent down and pulled the trunk out from under the table. It was small but heavy and the wood felt thick and sturdy. There was a small loop in the front running through a metal clasp with a padlock. She tried the skeleton key in the padlock and it came right open. Tammy opened the trunk and a foul odor filled the room. The interior walls were full of cut marks and indentations. There was a razor sharp hunting knife with a nephrite jade handle inside that matched the shaft of the dagger from the living room. The knife was stained with dried blood. There was also a collection of sharp animal teeth, a neatly coiled section of rope, and a tattered folded pair of camouflage pants.
Someone has kept this room up perfectly. It’s like a hunter’s showroom. Someone has been hunting or used this knife rather recently to kill something. And these teeth must be from that animal head on the wall. But who would kill an animal, chop off the head, and mount it on the wall just before the arrival of the tenants? Wouldn’t the owner clean the damn knife off after using it? And that net is old and brittle so I don’t think anybody is gonna catch something in that.
She took the hunting knife and set it on the coffee table next to the dagger that she removed from her pocket. This is obviously an old set of hunting weapons, and not cheap ones either. Tammy looked around to find out if anyone could get into the room from outside the house. There were two tall windows rather high up on the wall and one was slightly ajar. She reached up and pulled the window shut but was unable to lock it as the mechanism had been broken. Anyone could have come inside through that window. But the lock was broken from the inside. How could someone be in this room already and break the window lock from the inside? I need to make sure those damn windows stay closed.
Tammy took the rope from the trunk, cut a section of it with the hunting knife, and pulled one of the wooden chairs over near the wall. She climbed on top of the chair, wincing from the pain in her leg. Examining the windows better, she saw that each one opened by sliding upwards. With the locking mechanism broken, she decided to secure the windows with the section of rope. When she tried to close the left window, it wouldn’t move all the way up – something seemed to be blocking it. She opened the window and a folded piece of paper fell to the floor. Then she closed the window again, and taking the piece of rope, tied it to a metal clasp on top of the lower portion of the window. She pulled the rope tight and tied it to the same clasp in the adjacent window. With the remaining portion of rope, she pulled down hard and tied it to the hinge of the heavy trunk, which she moved snug against the wall. Well it ain’t perfect but that should be damn hard to break if someone tries to get in.
Having secured the windows as best she could, Tammy got down off the chair. She opened the folded piece of paper. It was wrinkled and worn so she took care not to tear it. It showed a hand-drawn sketch layout of the cabin. There were fuzzy circles representing the trees and surrounding forest. There was a faded outline of the living room and two bedrooms. A darker small square was drawn for the den and a couple ovals for the bathrooms. There was another room drawn adjacent to the master bedroom, which Tammy concluded was the one leading from her walk-in closet. She decided the closet must have been added after this map was drawn. There was also a series of dotted lines showing several connecting rooms and passages below the ground line. Ok so this is an old map that someone drew on after the den was added. That dotted line must be the damn basement. But how do you get down there? Did someone try to cover a door up like they did with the one in the closet? There was an arrow drawn from the living room to the connecting rooms below. She folded the map back up and set it on the coffee table. Then she grabbed the lantern and headed into the living room.
Tammy peered behind the bookshelf looking for some kind of doorway. She moved her hand along the wall and felt nothing unusual. Then she looked behind the rustic desk and sofa. She scoured every inch of wall space and could not find any trace of a door or opening. She was certain that if at one time there was a way down into the basement from inside that cabin it must have been sealed off.
***
Maria took a tea cup from the kitchen and filled it with the water from the melted snow. She drank some d
espite a slightly bitter taste. She went back into her room and gazed out the window. The sun shone through the tree tops as it was near midday. If dad is out there somewhere then we’ve got to help him. How could he just disappear and not tell us anything? She pushed her face against the window and looked up to see large icicles hanging down from the rooftop near the top of her window. She wanted to hold one. It might even melt and taste better than the snow water, she thought. She climbed up on a small chair, opened the window, and reached outside. It was hard to get a grasp on the icicle. Maria reached out further as she stuck her head out the window and looked upwards.
Suddenly, she screamed and fell back on the chair. She rubbed her eyes, gathered some courage, took a deep breath, and got up to look again. A snow owl was lying just off the edge of the roof. It was dead with a sharp nail file pushed into one of its eyes, and many of the feathers had been removed. Some fresh blood had dripped down onto the top of an icicle. Maria gasped and covered her eyes for a moment, shocked that someone would do such a terrible thing, before taking one last peek. The nail file was purple and pink with an alabaster handle. She had seen this before in her stepmother’s purse and was sure that it belonged to her. Horrified, she closed the window and jumped down off the chair.
***
Tammy set the lantern on the coffee table to examine it. There was a handle on the top to carry it with and a knob at the bottom. She removed a glass encasing from the base of the lantern. Then she turned the knob on the base and a small wick extended upwards. The base seemed to already be filled with oil. She took her lighter, lit the wick, and the lantern burned brightly. She adjusted the height of the wick so that the flame was not too high, and replaced the glass encasing.
Tammy went into the walk-in closet. The stools were as she had left them, keeping the thick, pinewood door secured. She removed the stools one at a time and set them aside. She turned the handle and opened the door. She looked at the stone stairway leading downward. With the lantern in one hand and her heart pumping quickly she started to walk down the stairs, making sure to leave the door open behind her.
SEVEN
The stairs were narrow and turned to the right as they descended. When she got to the bottom of them, Tammy noticed right away the particular flooring. Carefully placed red slate tiles had been laid down and sealed with grout to form a walkway. The tiles were old but in very good condition. She stepped slowly along the narrow path and felt the air to be a bit warmer and drier than throughout the rest of the cabin. Looking up, she saw a ceiling that curved from left to right in the shape of an arch. It had been meticulously crafted from bricks of all different sizes. The walls were made from a hard, charcoal colored clay. The walkway gradually sloped downward until it ended at a red brick archway which led into a larger room. Tammy slowly entered the room and set the lantern down to have a look around.
The ceiling was made of the same multi-shaped brick layout, but with less of a curvature. In the back of the ceiling were three foil-covered air ducts heading in different directions. Also hanging from some hooks in the center of the ceiling were several large portions of meat that had been seasoned, wrapped in cheesecloth, and left to cure. Tammy went up and smelled the meats. They were dried and in excellent condition, ready to eat.
On either side of the walls there were smaller bricks put together to form a series of storage units, which seemed to mostly be empty. The outside of these cubby holes was covered with dust. She looked into some of the small units and saw mostly just more dust and some spider webs. One of them had a few bits of broken glass inside, and in another there was a metal vice.
Against the back wall there were some large barrels stacked one on top of the other all the way to the ceiling of the room. The barrels were covered with a thick, grey blanket of dust that must have been accumulating for some time. Tammy wiped off the barrels one at a time to have a better look at them. The strips of metal holding the barrels together were completely rusted out, and the wood in between looked rather rotted. So this is the old wine cellar. Those barrels are ancient and it looks like nobody has stored any wine down here in a long time. So then how long have those pieces of meat been hanging out to cure?
Next to the barrels was a HVAC unit. The unit looked fairly new and in good working condition. It connected to the air ducts in the ceiling, but two of the three ducts had been damaged – cut in half down the middle. Warm air was blowing into the room through the openings made from the cuts. The remaining smallest duct was still connected to the unit. Tammy felt a rush of nervous energy from seeing that the heating ducts were damaged. Someone had to have sabotaged the heating from down here, but left one duct working to heat the den. But why? I need to know how the hell they could’ve gotten down here and back upstairs without me seeing them.
Tammy turned to the center of the room to see an old wooden table made from barked pine logs. On top of the table was a small cherry wood box. She opened the box and inside was a package of Alec Bradley Prensado Churchill Cigars. Tammy felt a chill knowing that her husband enjoyed a fine cigar, although she had not remembered him packing any in his luggage. The cigar box had already been opened and several of the cigars were missing. In the space where the other cigars had been there was a metal lighter engraved with the initials “SW”. Tammy recalled the moment when Steven had received this lighter as a gift on his last birthday. Her heart was racing and she whisked her head around to make sure that nobody else was there.
Holy hell, so Stephen HAS been inside the cabin! That son of a bitch. But how the hell did he get down here without me seeing him? And why did he go back outside? He must not be hurt at all and is up to something. He would never just leave his lighter here by accident. He wanted me to know that he was here. She nibbled on the tip of her painted fingernail. I need to figure out what the fuck he’s up to. Don’t be scared, Tammy. There ain’t no way he is daring enough to hurt you. I can explain this all as an accident anyways. I never even touched anything on the car. She quickly put the lighter into her pocket.
Tammy needed to calm herself down. She reached up to move one of the barrels to sit on. It was lighter than it looked. Using her fingertips, she slid the barrel along from on top of the others and caught it in her arms. She set it on the floor, sat down, and lit a cigarette. While taking a puff of her Capri, she looked towards the far right corner of the room just next to the rest of the barrels. There were two canisters sitting on top of a tightly-roped bale of hay. One was marked “propane fuel” and the other “hydrogen gas”. A pile of hay had been scattered about in front of the bale. Tammy set her cigarette on the edge of the table, and got closer to the pile of hay on the floor.
She reached out to grab the canister of propane and stepped forward. Her foot suddenly fell through a hole in the floor that had been covered by the hay. One of her finger nails broke off as she lost her balance, but she was able to grab and push off with one of the barrels. Tammy screamed wildly as she fell to the floor. Her head stung from the collision but after a few moments she realized that she was not really hurt. She crawled slowly to the hole in the floor and looked inside.
Sharp rusty spikes were jutting up from the bottom of a dangerous pit. Disoriented, Tammy ran her hands through her long hair while biting the jagged edge of the broken nail. What in the hell is this? Did Stephen set this booby trap up while I was sleeping last night? I can’t believe that the bastard is actually trying to kill me! But how does he know what I’d planned to do? When did he find out? And where the hell did he get that trap from?
Maria, hearing her stepmother’s screams, ran into the closet and stood in front of the open door at the top of the stairs. “Tammy – are you down there?” She didn’t get a reply. She leaned into the opening of the stairwell cupping her hands over her mouth and spoke louder. “Tammy, can you hear me?”
Tammy turned her head towards the sound of Maria’s voice. “Maria – don’t come down here! Stay where you are and I’ll be coming up in a dang moment.”
&
nbsp; “But what’s happening? I heard you scream.”
“I’m fine, I just slipped and fell. Just get away from that door and wait until I come upstairs. Do you hear me? Do as I tell you to dammit!” Tammy’s tone was irritated and abrasive.
“Fine! Stay down there then.” Maria slammed the pine door shut as she left the closet.
Tammy took a few deep breaths to relax and grabbed her lit cigarette. She stood up on her toes to have a closer look at the severed HVAC ducts. She was not exactly mechanically inclined and they looked to be beyond repair. She took the lantern from the table. As she was leaving the room, she gazed hungrily at the delicious looking meats, but thought better about daring to eat any of them. She walked up the stairs, opened the door, and went back into the large closet. She closed the door to the stairwell but did not try to block it, confident that there was no way that anyone could get into the wine cellar from outside.
Back in the living room, Tammy called out to Maria. “Would you come in here please, I want to talk with you.” Maria came into the living room and sat on the sofa. “I’ve got some troubling news and I need you to pay very close attention to what I’m saying. Got it?”
Maria nodded.
“Your father has done gone crazy. You know that he left in the car and never came back. Well, I think he did that on purpose. He must’ve brought us up here to hurt us, do you understand me? He isn’t lost at all.” Tammy’s hands shook a bit as she spoke. “If he had any kind of accident with the car, we would have done heard from him by now. He was in the cabin last night and went down into that wine cellar. He snuck around while we were sleeping. Do you understand me, Maria?”