Rushed (31 page)

A narrow hallway stood before him.  Shadowy, dusty, with cobwebs in every corner.  A kitchen was to his right, a cramped bathroom to his left.  He could see a table in the dining room ahead of him.  An apartment, just as he’d predicted.  But it looked as decrepit and poorly kept as the stairs that brought him here.  The paint was faded, peeling.  There was water damage on the ceiling tiles over the sink.  There was no furniture except an old gas stove and dated refrigerator.  It was hot and stuffy.  And it smelled bad, like overflowing trash cans and dirty public restrooms. 

Aiden was nowhere to be seen. 

Eric felt his stomach sink a little as he recalled a similar deserted home, a farm house with the same kind of empty rooms.  Like this time, he’d even followed someone right through the door, someone who vanished before he could catch up. 

He could even remember a similar, narrow hallway.  A bathroom.  A bedroom.  An old wardrobe…

Eric shuddered at the memory. 

He forced himself to relax.  This was different.  That place was far away, unfamiliar, threatening.  This was Creek Bend, Wisconsin.  His hometown. 

And this place was far from deserted.  Someone had been here.  It was a mess. 

“Hello?” he called again.  “Aiden?  Is that you?”

Still cradling the daisies in his arms, Eric stepped into the apartment and looked around.  Garbage was strewn across the kitchen counter tops and now that he was inside, he could hear the buzzing of flies.  Standing there with the daisies in his arms, he felt a strong urge to turn and flee back down the steps. 

“Please, God,” he muttered under his breath, “don’t let there be any dead bodies in here…” 

On the counter, next to the sink, surrounded by crumpled soda cans, warm bottles of Aquafina water, snack food wrappers and empty tequila bottles sat the paper bag Aiden had been carrying when he entered the alley.  Eric walked over and peered inside.  It was filled with junk food.  Snack cakes, mini-donuts, pretzels, some cereal bars…  He was reminded of long nights cramming for exams in college.  The only things missing were the Hot Pockets and microwave burritos. 

Clearly, this was where Aiden went after he vanished from the alley.  But where was he now? 

Eric left the kitchen without searching it.  It was obvious that no one was here.  And he had no desire to check the fridge for human heads.  He returned to the hallway instead. 

The bathroom reeked.  It smelled as if no one had ever flushed the toilet.  Covering his mouth and nose against the stench, he leaned through the door and looked around.  There was no shower curtain and a sizeable pile of dirty clothes lay in the bottom of the bathtub.  A large package of toilet paper stood open and half-empty on the floor within reach of the toilet.  Beside this was an empty five-gallon bucket.  A toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste, deodorant and a comb lay scattered on the counter around the sink basin along with several empty bottles of water and one half-empty bottle of Captain Morgan.

He reached out and twisted the knob on the sink, but no water came out.  Clearly, the bottles of water were for brushing teeth while the bucket served to manually flush the toilet.  But only occasionally, by the smell of it. 

The rum, Eric could only speculate, was the all-in-one medicine cabinet, good for whatever ailed. 

In need of fresher air, Eric withdrew from the smelly bathroom and moved on. 

Next door was a small bedroom.  A pile of old blankets were arranged into a makeshift bed surrounded by flashlights, empty soda cans, more water bottles and even more empty liquor bottles.  There were junk food wrappers, fast food bags, napkins and other trash, as well as more dirty laundry. 

His eyes washed over these clothes, examining them.  Pants and shirts, socks, briefs…  No women’s clothing. 

Eric eyed the bed nervously.  A tightly rolled blanket lay in the corner, a makeshift pillow.  Aiden wasn’t merely spending time here…he seemed to be living here.  And had been for a while.  It must have taken at least a few weeks to make this much of a mess, perhaps months.

But how could he have been here this long without attracting attention?  The whole
county
knew about Aiden Chadwick.  His disappearance was the stuff of urban legends. 

Now
he was beginning to look a little more Hannibal Lecter-y.

Turning his back to the bedroom, Eric glanced back the way he’d come, half-convinced that someone was sneaking up behind him.  But the apartment remained empty and silent. 

He had a bad feeling about this place.  More and more, he was sure that what he found here was going to ruin his day. 

He walked to the end of the hallway and stepped into the combination living and dining room.  Here, the walls were decorated with maps and photos of Creek Bend and the surrounding areas.  In the middle of the room stood the cheap folding table that Eric had seen from the doorway.  A large map of the city was taped to it.  Several locations were circled in black Sharpie marker, each with a straight line drawn from it to the edge of the map, seemingly at random.  In the center of one of the circles, a screw had been driven into the table.  Two lengths of bright green string ran from this screw to two more screws driven into the walls on two sides of the room, where strange, spiraling arrangements of numbers had been drawn onto the faded wallpaper.  Strewn across the table on top of the map were a wooden ruler, a compass, several markers and an old Polaroid camera. 

There were more maps lying in an untidy pile on the floor under the table. 

What the hell was this? 

That bad feeling grew even stronger.  Carefully, he placed the daisies on top of the map between the camera and the compass and reached for his cell phone. 

“Are you seeing this?” he asked as he pulled it from his pocket.

The phone rang obediently in his hand.  He answered it and lifted it to his ear without glancing at the screen. 

“I am.” 

“It’s weird, right?  I mean it’s not just me?”

“Definitely not just you.” 

“Like I should be
concerned
about how weird this is.”

“I agree.  You should be careful.”

Eric looked around the room again.  “You think I’m in danger?” The only other door leading in and out of this apartment was in this room.  With the apartment empty, Aiden must have gone through there.  By now he was probably long gone. 

“Never hurts to assume so.”

Eric nodded and said, “Especially when things are freakishly weird.”

“
Especially
then.  I’m doing great, by the way.  Thanks for asking.”

Eric was looking nervously around the room, appreciating just how weird this all was, but as soon as she said this, he felt his shoulders slump.  “Aw crap…  I’m sorry.” 

Isabelle giggled.  “I’m totally just joking.  It’s fine.”

“No it’s not.”  Now that he was thinking about it, it’d been over a week since he last spoke to her.  Karen had been keeping him so busy preparing for the shower…  He felt like a jerk. 

“I’m fine, Eric.  I’m not a kid.  Well…  I
am
a kid…  You know what I mean.  I can entertain myself.”

“Still, that was rude of me.”

“Seriously.  Forget it.  You should be focusing on those…what
are
those?  Maps?”

Isabelle couldn’t actually
see
what was in front of Eric.  More accurately, she could perceive what he was looking at by what he was feeling and thinking.  They shared a connection.  It was…complicated. 

Eric turned in a circle, scanning the walls around him.  “Yeah.  The whole city.  He’s circled a bunch of locations for some reason.” 

“He’s put some serious work into all this,” observed Isabelle.  “But what’s he up to?”

Eric turned and leaned over the map on the table.  This part of Main Street was enclosed in the circle with the screw driven into it.  A line jutted out from the circle, pointing roughly westward.  It crossed three other lines, each of which originated from another circle elsewhere on the map, but did not appear to lead anywhere.  Each line ran to the end of the map.  And none of the drawn lines matched the lines created by the two lengths of string.  “Is he planning some kind of…massive burglary?” 

But Isabelle didn’t know.

There was another circle drawn over the hospital and another just south of the water tower,
centered over Milwaukee Street.  The others didn’t seem to have any outstanding landmarks to help locate them. 

Only one of the circles did not have a black line running out from it.  Instead, it
had been circled again in bright red marker and then crossed out with an X.  This particular location wasn’t far from his home.  He wondered why it was marked out.  It was the only one like it.  Was it a mistake?

“I get a seriously weird feeling about that place,” warned Isabelle.

“Weird how?”

“I don’t know.  I can’t quite put my finger on it.  But I
really
think you should be careful.” 

Eric glanced around the room again.  There were two windows.  One appeared to have been broken.  It was boarded over with a roughly cut piece of plywood.  Eric’s eyes were drawn to a hole in the center of the wood.  Bright sunlight was pouring through. 

As he ducked under one of the strings and moved toward this window, he saw that there were actually two boards, one behind the other, with about an inch of empty space between them.  The second board had a hole in it, too, but it was offset from the first so that he could only look through them at a sharp angle.  Peering through these holes, he could see the roof of one of the buildings across the street and the tall peak of a distinct structure reaching up behind it.  Pressing his eye to the hole for a better look, he thought at first that it was the steeple of the Catholic church on Deer Street, but it was squared off, not pointed, less a steeple than a tower.  And as he thought about it, he realized that Deer Street was in the opposite direction.  This looked more like a clock tower, minus the clock.  But he couldn’t quite place the building, even though he’d lived in Creek Bend most of his life. 

A noise startled him.  It sounded like a door clicking closed. 

Suddenly his heart was racing. 

“Be careful!” hissed Isabelle. 

Eric nodded but didn’t dare speak aloud.  Was that Aiden?  He pressed his back to the wall and glanced around the room.  The big, pink bouquet was still lying on the table, visible from the door all the way down the hall.  If anyone had entered the apartment, they would know instantly that someone was here. 

That was really stupid. 

But no one called out to ask who was trespassing.  The building remained deathly quiet.  The only sound was the occasional rumble of passing traffic on the street outside and the thudding of Eric’s pulse in his ears. 

Silently, he stepped away from the wall and ducked under the string again, careful not to make any noise.  Seconds passed as he crept toward the hallway, his body tense, ready to defend himself, but no one came to investigate the bouquet.  The apartment remained quiet.  And when he peered around the corner, he found no one there. 

He’d left the door open behind him.  Now it was closed.  Perhaps a breeze had pulled it shut.  It wasn’t all that unlikely.  The door at the bottom of the steps didn’t have a latch, so the wind could easily have created a draft. 

He checked the bedroom and bathroom, just to be sure, but both remained empty.  There was nowhere to hide.  There weren’t even any closets. 

He peered out the door and down the steps, but no one was there, either. 

Returning to the living/dining room, he opened the second door and looked out.  Another dark stairwell led down to the first floor of the building. 

Eric turned around and scanned the mysterious apartment again.  If these were the only two exits, then Aiden could only have gone this way. 

Isabelle’s voice drifted up from his hand and he lifted the phone to his ear.  “What was that?”

“I said, what’s the deal with this guy, anyway?  You knew him?”

“Not very well.  Aiden was one of my students about seven years ago.  The next year, he disappeared without a trace.  It was big news in this town for a long time.”

“A missing person, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“I can relate to that.”

Eric smiled.  “That’s right.”  He found Isabelle almost a year ago.  She looked and sounded thirteen, but she’d been missing for thirty-six years, trapped inside a living mansion that existed between two worlds.  She saved his life, and in return he gave her the courage to escape her strange prison.  But she still wasn’t exactly free.  Although she’d left the terrifying Altrusk House behind, she could only travel between buildings with similar properties.  She still couldn’t venture outside. 

“Maybe you can save Aiden, too, just like you did me.”

“Maybe.”  But Aiden didn’t seem to want to be found.  He was gone as quickly and mysteriously as he’d appeared.  “But for now, I’m going to hang up until I’m out of here.”

“I’ll be watching.”