The Key to Everything

by Alex Kimmell

  Jabez took both hands and fiercely rubbed his fingers through his hair. With his eyes closed he started walking. Five, six, then seven steps forward. Ten, eleven, up to fifteen steps before he opened his eyes. The wall was immediately in front of his nose, but the pencil and the grey crumble it made on the surface were gone. He scanned the floor, and it was nowhere. He ran over to the bed and dropped to his knees, sure that it had rolled across the floor and ended up beneath the bed.

  He reached out his hand, searching under the bed, but found nothing but empty white space. He got up to his feet and turned around. Leaning all of his weight on the back of the chair, he all but fell over when he counted the seven perfectly sharpened pencils resting in a row on top of the stack of blank paper.

  * * *

  He didn’t know how long he slept. When his eyes opened, he hoped to find himself back home in bed with his dog Tikvah sleeping at his feet. No such luck. The achingly empty whiteness still held him prisoner. Someone was holding him here. Someone made this place. He didn’t know who, and he really didn’t care. He just wanted out.

  There seemed to be a flicker of movement from the framed blackness. A circular ripple spreading outward in this pond of dark. He approached it cautiously, not wanting to fall victim to a trap. He came at it from the side, pressing his back against the wall and inching quietly toward the frame. Trying to get his fingernails between it and the wall, he thought he might be able to pry it loose.

  A familiar low rumble filled the room. The sound was coming from the framed dark void next to him. When he stood in front of it, the slow, curving ripple continued to flow across the black surface in a pattern he recognized. He couldn’t quite place it, but he was sure he’d seen it somewhere before.

  The rippling grew in intensity and swelled into deeper tones. The surface heaved outward as the sound of waves breaking far off in the distance rolled closer and closer. The blackness forced its way outward from the frame and stretched, like an arm reaching for the center of the room. Thin, pointing shapes grew and morphed into the semblance of a hand. The almost-fingers tightened into a fist and slammed down on the top of the desk. The wood creaked and groaned. The almost-hand picked up one of the pencils and scratched something on the first blank page. Jabez was struck still as stone and could not move to read the words. His body didn’t even shake, he was so filled with terror. The almost-fingers gently put down the pencil and reached for Jabez. He wanted to back away and run, but where could he go? Finding its way to him, the almost-hand lovingly took him by the shoulder. He was pulled to the chair and made to sit. The almost-hand walked up to his chin almost-finger by almost-finger and tilted his head down to look at the page. He recognized the words at the time, though they didn’t register in his shattered mind. The almost-hand disappeared back into the now-silent, still void, and the room held its breath.

  The chair falling backward moved in slow motion. White rushed in on Jabez from everywhere, and he let it take him away. Before he faded completely, the message written to him on the page flashed across the inside of his eyelids.

  “You turn the key.”

  -15-

  Jabez: Writing

  I didn’t notice it before. It’s warm in here. I still can’t stop shivering. Shaking so bad all over, I can hear my body humming. My teeth are clenched so tight the muscles in my jaw are killing me. I can’t feel my toes. No matter how hard I stomp my foot, I get nothing.

  Last night, or whatever it was, I passed out on top of the bed. I woke up with the covers neatly tucked in over me. I couldn’t kick my legs free I was wrapped in so tight. Awesome.

  I don’t think I moved while I was unconscious. At least the covers didn’t look like it anyway. It took me a minute to remember where I am.

  All this fucking white everywhere. White walls. White ceiling. White floor. Even this damn piece of paper is white.

  I don’t know why I’m writing any of this. There’s nothing else to do.

  Fuck it.

  Right?

  I thought about the guys. They sure got the better end of this shit deal, getting blown up. Or maybe I was blown up too and this is purgatory or hell or someplace like that. Guess I should have read the Bible at some point.

  What am I supposed to do here?

  The piece of paper from before kept staring at me, so I crumpled it up and threw it under the desk. I don’t want to see it anymore. I don’t want to read it or figure it out. Just give me a door or a window to climb through.

  Something.

  Anything.

  tired. if I look hard enough I try to imagine grooves wearing into the floor from my pacing.

  went to piss in the corner and nothing came out. i don’t think the room wants me to mark any territory.

  the picture hasn’t moved again. if it even really did.

  not sure if I dreamed that one or not.

  OH! when I got up before to stretch my legs the ball of paper I tossed underneath the desk was gone.

  now i feel nice and safe.

  F U C K Y O U.

  screamed for a while.

  thought it would make me feel better. maybe someone would hear me.

  now my throat hurts.

  broke all the pencils and ripped up the stack of paper too.

  obviously that didn’t seem to make much difference because here I am writing again with a freshly sharpened pencil on a clean untorn piece of white paper.

  been avoiding the frame. it’s the only distraction I have from this terrible whiteness, and I can’t bring myself to look at it again.

  who knows how fucking long I’ve been here. watch still won’t work in this shithole.

  thought about shoving a couple of these pencils into my ears.

  looked into the frame.

  something not white.

  felt good.

  i’ve had it.

  fuck this shit.

  i’m done.

  well that didn’t work.

  don’t know why i’m fucking surprised by anything at this pencil point disintegrated in my hand i could feel it right on the edge of my ear and then it just crumbled away into dust gone before it hit the floor

  we wouldn’t want to mess up the whiteness, now, do we?

  betcha if I get up and walk around the desk a few times they’ll all be back in place again

  yup

  frame won’t stop staring at me

  saw something

  it moved

  turned circles

  came in waves

  talked to me

  think it asked for help

  reflection in frame

  static eyes

  key

  i

  am

  the

  key

  i am the key i am the key i am the key i am the key i am key i am key i am key am key am key am key am key am key am key am key am key am key am key am keyamkeyamkeyamkeyamkeyamkeyamkeyamkeyam keyamkeykeykeykeeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeyk
eykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykeykey

  key

  -16-

  Sgt. Harmon: Standing Stones

  Sgt. Harmon dragged himself away from the wreckage. He hid under a pile of old rotting logs for three days, eating cockroaches and whatever other small insects came his way. Collecting rainwater in his canteen, he was able to get enough to drink. Otherwise he wouldn’t have made it until his emergency beacon was answered.

  He stayed alert, looking for anyone to come hunting for survivors from the ambush. The explosives must have been planted and forgotten about a long time ago. They were far enough out that the sound wouldn’t reach any of the small villages a few miles past the mountain range. People in this part of the world were well accustomed to seeing fires and smoke columns rising from explosions anyway. If anyone noticed this one, they wouldn’t give it more than a second glance.

  Within hours of being released from the infirmary, Sgt. Harmon enlisted a group of six men and went back out to resume the search for Jabez. His superior officers warned him that going back into that territory was a fool’s errand. None of them tried to stop him after seeing the unflinching determination in his eyes.

  He saw the river on his maps and felt a strong pull in his gut. It would have been a good place to attempt hiding the progress of an escape. Sgt. Harmon made sure the linkup with the satellite system was solid before splitting up the team. He sent three men downstream to the east and headed west with the remaining three.

  He stopped one hundred yards before the river took a bend to the North. The ground rolled upward into a small mound that made for a good natural source of cover. Jabez might have come this way and dug in. Using hand signals, the men spread out silently and vanished into the landscape. The melting ice cracking over the river water echoed through the air like gunshots, helping to muffle what small sounds the team did make as they moved in near-complete silence up the incline.

  Sgt. Harmon raised a hand to signal the men to hold their positions when he saw the weathered wall, standing partially upright in the ruins of an old building. Curtains floated lazily in a window that appeared to be the only thing left unbroken in the entire structure. He gestured for two of his men to move west around the wall to check for anyone lying in wait for them on the other side.

  Five long minutes later, a hand pulled the curtains apart and signaled the all clear. He walked up to the large door and pushed it open. As soon as it felt the pressure of his touch, the heavy wood split down the middle and fell to the ground in a cloud of wet snow and dust. Someone had definitely been here. He could make out the shape of a hand brushing snow from the tabletop fairly recently, and a shuffling of boot prints marked the area around the fallen door.

  Sgt. Harmon knelt down and stirred his right index finger in the snow at his feet. He was sure Jabez had been here, but for how long? Where was he now? The prints moved to the door from the table and then disappeared. The soldier barricaded himself against the door in a panic but didn’t seem to go through it. There were no traces left to determine which way he went. Looking back down at the river, he wondered.

  He shaded his eyes from a bright shaft of sunlight coming through the doorframe. Stalactites of ice dripped ever-increasing flows of cold melt-water down from the trees. A freezing draft came up from the river. Chills climbed the back of his neck from a different source entirely, though. Jabez was someplace close. He could feel him. There was no intellectual way to explain the odd magnetism of connection he felt in his gut.

  A quick flash of light, and Sgt. Harmon pivoted toward a fallen log a few yards above the shoreline. Just beyond the water’s edge lay a standing of rocks. It wasn’t a pile caused by the flow of water. This was put there intentionally. Someone built it. He didn’t know how he missed it before. It couldn’t have been there when they arrived at the ruins.

  The rock pile started below the surface of the water and climbed several feet into the air. Not something easily missed. Especially by men as well trained as these.

  Smooth white stones with perfectly rounded edges balanced atop one another. Not a crack or blemish anywhere. Increasing in size as the structure reached upward, they should not have been able to stand at all, let alone so completely still. With the rough water crashing into the structure at such high speeds it seemed next to impossible. He inched closer to it. There didn’t appear to be anything holding the stones together, other than the pull of gravity.

  The stone resting on top was three feet wide and at least a foot thick. It must have weighed over a hundred pounds. The rock below it was six inches smaller in diameter. Each stone progressively shrank smaller and smaller until they disappeared from view beneath the river. He counted seven stones in all. Each one as blindingly white as polished ivory, they hurt to look at.

  Light shimmered from a spot at the center of the top stone. Something was reflecting the sun and shining directly into Sgt. Harmon’s eyes. By now the men had gathered behind him and were muttering nervously. He motioned for them to come forward, and they lifted him high enough to see what appeared to be a key, sitting on top of a brown leather book closed with frayed red twine loosely tied in a bow.

  The fingerless gloves he wore for a better grip on his weapons allowed his fingers to brush across the book when he grabbed for the key. His hand jerked back when the book moved. He squinted against the sharpness of the early morning’s bitter sun to focus his sight. The cracked leather rose up and down slowly, accompanied by a quiet hiss of air exhaling from between the old, yellowing edges of the pages.

  Knowing that it might be important, the sergeant pushed through his fear as if running into battle and picked it up. It was much too heavy for a thing of this small size. The men began to weave back and forth at the sudden change in weight, so Sgt. Harmon jumped back down into the water. His mind raced, attempting to decipher the meaning in all of this and what, if anything, it had to do with his lost man.

  Just then, the standing stones toppled over, crashing into the oncoming waves. They flickered in and out of focus. Static crackled across their otherwise beautifully white surfaces, giving them the look of an early television’s bad reception. The men backed away and raised weapon sights to their eyes. Only after the final stone vanished into the river did Sgt. Harmon allow himself to look in the direction the guns were targeting.

  He didn’t recognize the naked man on the far side of the shore. So malnourished, you could see virtually every bone in his body outlined through his flesh. The pallid white of his skin was almost translucent. The shiny long hair and matching beard looked freshly washed and dry for someone who just clawed his way out of the water. He moved, but not much, and very slowly at that.

  Sgt. Harmon reached to put the book and key into his pack, but they were no longer in his hand. Checking the water before moving to help the old man, he didn’t see either of them anywhere. Saving a life was more important than some old artifacts, no matter how mysterious their appearance. He made a mental note to have his men help find them once everything was squared away with this new long-bearded development.

  They turned the old man on his back and checked his vital signs. His eyes were clamped tight shut and he held one forearm up to cover his face. A pitiful, childlike moan issued from between his clenched teeth. He was obviously in a great deal of pain.

  One of the men removed his jacket and wrapped it around the poor soul like a blanket. The white and grey camouflage jacket was too big for him. He wore it like a little boy playing dress-up in Daddy’s clothes. The bearded man tried to take a few sips of water from a canteen. His teeth chattered so violently
that most of it ran out of his mouth and into his beard.

  They asked him who he was and where he came from, the first of hundreds of other questions waiting to be asked. The man appeared broken, more unable than unwilling to respond. He flinched at each word. Sounds entering his ears like bullets piercing flesh. Sgt. Harmon hushed his voice, and the men followed suit. The bearded man slowly calmed down a little.

  Sgt. Harmon called in their position and requested a rescue chopper for their new patient. He decided they should head back across the river and light a small fire to help warm the man. They quickly built a makeshift stretcher from branches and jackets. Everything seemed simple enough when they lifted him. They carried him slowly and stepped gingerly around the rocks. He seemed to be doing well until halfway across the river.

  The bearded man opened his eyes, pointed directly at the wall, and began to howl. He kicked and pulled, screaming like he was being attacked by the devil himself. The stretcher twisted and broke apart from his wild thrashing and dropped him into the freezing water. The two men holding the remains of the stretcher in their hands were dragged down, along with the screeching mass of bony splashing limbs and hair, the powerful current dragging them all forty yards downstream before they could regain their footing.

  After making sure his men were safe, Sgt. Harmon sprinted down the shoreline, chasing the flailing bearded man. Shifting rocks and rotten branches strewn everywhere impeded his progress. Fortunately he was fast, and as soon as he was within reach, he dove into the water, reaching for his quarry. The man’s borrowed jacket had slipped off somewhere in the struggle with the disintegrating stretcher. The only grip Sgt. Harmon could get was when his fingers interlaced with the old man’s long beard.