by Alton Gansky
“It must be important if he locked it away in a safe,” Carl said. “Do you have it?”
“Yes.” Perry extracted the folded paper from his back pocket and held it against the concrete wall. Gleason shone his light on it.
Carl pressed closer. “No offense to your father, but it’s not a very good drawing.”
“My father is an excellent draftsman,” Perry said. “That’s what bothers me about this. It’s just a few crudely drawn lines.”
“In that case, he must have drawn it that way on purpose,” Janet suggested. “A way of keeping it secret.”
Perry studied the drawing. It was a rectangle—no, a trapezoid—narrower on one end than the other. The room they were in was the same shape. Perry’s brain chewed the information. Inside the trapezoid was another box. Perry examined the floor again but saw nothing. Once again he examined the walls. Again nothing. Then it hit him. He looked up.
“Got it.”
“What?” Gleason asked.
“It’s similar to a reflected ceiling plan.” Perry’s architecture training surfaced. “When an architect creates working drawings for a building he starts with the floor plan. A floor plan is a downward view, as if someone has taken the roof off the building and is gazing down at the walls and fixtures. But in buildings that have complex ceilings, like a lobby in a hotel or a business office with many recessed lights, the architect draws a reflected ceiling plan. The point of view switches from looking down to looking up.”
Six faces turned up as did three flashlights.
“It looks solid,” Zeisler said.
“But it’s not.” Perry directed his light to a thin crack that traced a perfect square. “I bet there’s an opening behind that crack.”
“Isn’t that solid cement?”
“I doubt it. I’m guessing a hatch is there, and it’s been covered over with plaster. Plaster and concrete expand and contract at different rates, hence the crack.” Perry reached up. The ceiling was two feet beyond his reach. “I need a couple of strong backs.”
“I got it.” Jack slipped his pack off and worked his way by the others. He interlaced his fingers, providing a stirrup for Perry. Gleason stepped close. Perry put his right foot in Jack’s hand and raised himself up. Gleason grabbed Perry by the front of the shirt to steady him.
Perry steadied himself with one hand on the ceiling and touched the area inside the square outlined by the thin fissure, and then he touched the area outside the box. “There’s a temperature difference. Janet, you carry a knife on that utility belt?”
“Of course.” She removed a large folding knife and handed it to Perry, who opened it.
“Watch your eyes.” He dug the blade into the surface, and the soft plaster chipped. “It’s plaster all right.”
“More work, less talk,” Jack said. “You’re no lightweight.”
“Let me know when you need a break,” Perry replied. He began cutting and chipping at the plaster, and dust and chunks began to fall on himself, Jack, and Gleason. A few minutes later, the area had been cleared, revealing a gray metal door, three feet square. It had a recessed ring latch. Perry pulled the ring down on its hinge, turned it, and opened the hatch. Cool air flowed out. Perry stepped to the ground. Jack stood straight and stretched his back.
“I hate to ask this, buddy,” Perry said to Jack, “but I need another boost.”
“No problem. I’ve been carrying you for years.”
“That you have, Jack. That you have.”
With a flashlight clipped to his vest, Perry let Jack boost him high enough to see through the opening. Before him was a short, square tunnel. Perry pulled himself in. The tunnel was tall enough and wide enough for him to crawl through without touching the sides or top. He inched his way along. Fifteen feet from the opening was a shaft, straight down. Perry shone his light down it but couldn’t see the bottom. Attached to the side was another ladder.
“You’re not going to like this,” he called back to the others.
Chapter19
1974
It was a two-story Victorian, complete with wraparound veranda and railing, octagonal turrets, spindle work, horizontal siding on the first and second floors, and fish-scale siding on the gable ends. It was a handsome home, painted in grays and greens, although the color seemed washed out. Henry approached with caution, no longer trusting his senses. The windows were wrong, not in design but in some other way. They were black. No light escaped from inside, and light from the flashlight failed to penetrate.
“You say this was a barn last time you were here?” Henry asked Sanders.
“Yes. It stood right where this house stands. And before that, it was a farmhouse.”
“Did you go inside?”
“Of course. It would be rude not to visit.” Sanders walked by Henry, up the four steps that led from sand to the veranda, and placed his hand on the doorknob.
“Odd,” Henry said.
Sanders turned. “That may be the understatement of the century.”
“I’m talking about the stairs you just climbed. The steps in the tunnel were out of proportion, but these look perfect.”
“One is a tunnel, the other porch steps,” Sanders said. “Different function, different design.”
“Perhaps.” Henry wasn’t convinced. He climbed the steps, and the others followed.
Sanders pushed the door open, and light washed out the opening. “It looks like they left the light on for us.”
“They who?” Zeisler asked.
“Ah, that’s the rub.” Sanders walked into the home as if he lived there. Henry followed.
The same stunning emotions that had left Henry speechless when he first crossed the threshold from the tunnel to the desert hit him again. His mind tried to make sense of nonsense. Outside the house appeared to be a lovely Victorian, but the inside was unexpected. There should have been rooms, hardwood floors, drapes on the windows, and furniture. There was none of that. Instead, there was a large open space, two or three times larger than the structure could hold.
“Okay, this is just plain nuts,” Grant said. “I’m dreaming, or maybe I’ve lost my mind. That’s it. I’m sitting in some loony ward, snuggled down in a straitjacket, waiting for my prefrontal lobotomy.”
“Easy, Monte,” Henry cautioned. “There’s an explanation.”
“I’d like to hear it,” Grant shot back.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t mind hearing that myself,” Zeisler said.
As the group spread out in the space, Henry tried to understand what he was seeing.
“Where are the stairs?” Cynthia asked. “This is a two-story, isn’t it?”
“On the outside, yes,” Sanders said, “but not on the inside. When I first stepped in here, the building looked like a barn on the outside. Inside, I expected to find a hayloft, a workbench, some compartment to keep equipment or animals. What you see here is what I saw then.”
Henry looked around. Curved walls with gentle slopes that reached a pinnacle defined the room. The space was large enough to serve as a ballroom dance floor. The curved walls amplified every sound and word like a parabolic dish.
The floor was hard underfoot, like concrete. He reached down and touched it. It was warm on his fingertips. The surface was as smooth as glass and reminded Henry of the long corridor they had descended.
In the center of the ceiling was a shaft. Henry had the impression that he was standing in an inverted, opaque wineglass, looking up a hollow stem.
There were no decorations that Henry could see: no paintings, no artwork, and no windows. He had seen black windows outside, but there were none on the inside. Henry scratched his head as if the act would make everything come clear. It didn’t.
As far as Henry could see, the room was empty except for one structure. The others had already been drawn to it. Henry stepped closer. A four-foot-high, one-foot-thick ring dominated the center of the room. He estimated that the ring was twelve feet in diameter. It reminded him of a concrete fire rin
g on the beach, a place to build a bonfire and roast marshmallows.
The image was further enhanced when he looked over the edge of the ring and saw sand. “Wait a second.” Henry examined the floor, the walls, and the surface of the ring. “Everything is clean?”
“So the builders were neat,” Zeisler said. “So what?”
Henry spun and started for the door, the sole opening in the room, and opened it. He crossed the threshold and scrutinized the exterior siding. He ran his right hand along the surface. Powder. He stepped back inside and ran his left hand on the smooth surface of the curved wall. Clean.
“What are you up to, Henry?” Cynthia asked.
“The sand. It’s everywhere except inside this room. Except it’s not sand. It just clumps together in little grains to look like sand.”
“So what is it?”
“I don’t have a clue, but we can’t overlook the fact that the substance is all over the ground, the Joshua tree we examined, and the exterior of this house . . . structure . . . whatever it is.”
“He has a point,” Zeisler admitted. “Hey Sanders, did you say the first time you saw green rolling hills, but the grass wasn’t grass?”
“That’s right,” Sanders said. “It was similar to the sand.”
“But not identical,” Henry said.
“No, of course not.”
Henry looked at the others, then down at his feet. “Gone.”
“What’s gone?” Sanders asked.
“Look at my feet. My boots and pants legs were covered with the sand, but now they’re as clean as the day I bought them. The same goes for you.”
Everyone looked down.
Henry scanned their surroundings again. “Sanders, didn’t you say there were supplies in here?”
“Yes. We carried several packs of food, water, and the like, but I don’t see them.”
“Who could have taken them out?” Cynthia asked.
“Good question,” Grant said.
Henry’s mind was spinning. “I have an idea.” He started for the door, quick-stepped through the opening, and plunged down the steps. He studied the sand beneath his feet for a second, then stooped and scooped up a fistful of the beige material and trotted back up the steps and through the door. Without a word, he poured the sand on the floor.
“Didn’t your momma raise you better than to track in dirt from the outside?” Zeisler said. It was meant to be light banter, but Henry could hear the tension in the man’s voice.
Henry let the sand fall into a small mound, then dusted off his hands. He took a step back. Seconds rolled into a minute, then the sand began to move.
First it shed its color, becoming milky white, then the mound flattened and recomposed itself. In less than thirty seconds, a six-legged creature with a body the size of a bite-sized Tootsie Roll formed from the material and walked toward the door. Henry followed. He heard footsteps behind him.
The creature crossed the threshold, scampered across the veranda, tumbled down the steps, and onto the sand, where it dissolved back into grains of sand.
“O–o–o–k–aaa–y,” Zeisler said. “I don’t know about you folks, but I find that a little disturbing.”
“How is that possible—” Grant began.
“—fainted!”
Henry turned, expecting to see Cynthia unconscious on the floor. It wasn’t Cynthia on the floor—it was McDermott.
The journey through the metal duct was arduous. Perry couldn’t wear his pack, and if he couldn’t, then Jack couldn’t. Thanks to Gleason’s obsessive packing, they had rope to use to lower the packs down the shaft. Perry pushed all three packs in front of him. The work was hard, and sweat dripped from his face and nose. Fortunately, the horizontal duct wasn’t long.
The process was slow. Perry pushed the packs through the shaft, one end of the rope tied through the arm straps. He straddled the rope and shouted, “Lower away!” At the other end of the rope, still in the concrete room, Gleason and Jack let the rope ease, bit by bit, through their hands.
Foot by foot the rope passed beneath Perry and the packs disappeared into the darkness. At last the rope went slack. “That’s it,” Perry said. “I’m starting down.”
Perry fixed his flashlight to his belt and let it hang at his side, casting its white beam down the dark throat of the shaft. Just before he was fully in the shaft, he heard a noise behind him. The beam of a flashlight made him turn away.
“Hang on.” Carl crawled toward Perry. “Jack thought you could use some overhead lighting. That man is always thinking.”
“That he is. Thanks.”
Carl pointed the light down the rebar ladder. “I’ll keep it close to the wall so you can see the rungs.”
“Good. It was going to be hard finding my footholds in the dark.”
“Be careful, Perry. I owe you one for what you did to help Janet.”
Perry smiled. “I was in the neighborhood.”
He started down. He counted every rung. It was nice to have something to do when descending into the unknown.
Two hundred and twelve rungs later, Perry felt his foot land on something soft and familiar: the packs. Careful not to trip—a broken leg here might turn the shaft into his tomb—he probed downward until he found solid footing. He was relieved to be off the ladder.
With the aid of his light, Perry scanned his surroundings. He was at the cul-de-sac of a six-foot-wide passageway. He cast the beam down the tunnel but couldn’t see the end. The air was thick and stale. A breeze moved up the passageway. He had first felt it when he opened the hatch in the ceiling of the spillway.
He squinted up the shaft he had descended and could see the distant glow of the flashlight Carl held. “Next,” Perry called and flashed his light three times. Carl returned the signal.
With a little time to kill, Perry removed the rope from the packs and moved them into the tunnel; as he did, a light came on, weak and more ivory than white. Perry jumped and looked for the person who might have flipped the switch but saw no one. The light extended about ten feet in front of him. Not far, but it was something. The light flickered, dimmed, and then returned a little brighter.
Perry stepped back to the foot of the ladder, and the light went out. “Gleason is going to love this,” he said to himself.
Perry waited until the others had descended before doing any exploring. It was a hard decision. His first inclination was to don his pack and start down the round, stone corridor, but separating from the group was not only bad form, it was bad thinking. Traveling together was the rule, and he would force himself to live with it.
Jack was the last man down and none too soon for Perry. The stale air was made lighter by the constant breeze, but the additional bodies raised the temperature and humidity.
As Gleason and Jack slipped on their backpacks, Perry rolled up the rope. Jack had released the end before his descent.
“I hate to be the dense one of this group,” Janet said, “but why is there a breeze? I mean, we’re underground, right?”
“The dam is breathing,” Perry explained. “The air pressure inside is different than that outside. Caves do the same thing.”
“I want to know where the light is coming from,” Jack said. “I don’t see any fixtures or switches. Got an answer for that one, Zeisler?”
“Nope. I don’t even have a guess.”
“You’ve been awful quiet,” Jack said. “Having second thoughts?”
“You wish, big man,” Zeisler said. “I’m in for the duration. As far as my being quiet, well, some things should be experienced rather than discussed.”
Perry looked around. Gleason was standing in the tunnel, staring at the wall. “Anyone need to rest before we move on?” He got a round of “no.”
“Hey, Perry, look at this.”
Perry stepped to Gleason.
“Initials.”
Perry looked closely and saw “A.S.—H/S.”
“The H/S is my dad. That’s how he wrote his initials. He alwa
ys used a slash.”
“Who or what is A.S.?” Carl asked.
“I don’t . . .” Perry stopped, and then smiled. “Arne Saknussemm.”
“Arnie who?” Janet asked.
“Arne Saknussemm.” Perry spelled the name. “He’s a character in a Jules Verne novel. Journey to the Center of the Earth. It was my favorite book when I was a kid.”
“I thought you were enjoying this hike a little too much,” Jack said.
“Verne was a Frenchman. In many ways, he was the father of science fiction. He wrote Journey to the Center of the Earth in 1864.”
“Why would your dad add this Arne guy’s initials next to his own?” Carl asked.
Perry felt a sadness rise in him. “I remember when my father made this trip. I was ten at the time. I wanted to go with him, but he refused. Of course, he had to say no.” He paused and gathered his thoughts. “When I was young, we used to choose a book to read together. We had a book for every month. He would choose on the even months and I on the odd. Dad would always buy two copies. That way he could keep up the reading when he was away on jobs. He’d call, and we’d talk about what we had read. I chose Journey to the Center of the Earth.”
Perry felt a big hand on his shoulder.
It was Jack. “I guess he was thinking of you.”
Perry nodded.
“What a minute,” Gleason said. “I’ve read that book a couple of times. Arne Saknussemm isn’t the main character. He’s the missing explorer the professor and his protégé try to find, right?”
“That’s right,” Perry said. “They follow clues and find . . .”
“Find what?” Janet asked.
“They find Saknussemm’s initials chiseled in the rock face. It was a clue they were on the right track.” Perry touched the rough engraving. “Dad is telling us that we’re on the right track.”
“How would your dad know that we would be here thirty years later?” Carl wondered.
“He didn’t,” Gleason explained. “Maybe it’s just as Jack said. Mr. Sachs was thinking of his son, or maybe he thought he might return here himself someday.”