Authors: James Roy Daley
Terror Town (10 page)
“You might know ‘em. He’s a summer guy. Good looking, friendly, has that city vibe.”
“City vibe? Most city guys tend to come into town acting like they own the place.”
William raised an eyebrow. “Cameron’s city folk.”
“Yeah… but she’s one of us too. A couple of years in university doesn’t make you city, not completely. She’s different now, though. Do you see it?”
“Cam’s embarrassed is all. I can tell. That boyfriend stuck the knife in and twisted it a fair bit, and now she’s… let’s just say she’s having a tough time. You don’t need a PHD to recognize
that
.”
“Huh.”
Beth took a fair sized drink of beer followed by another. Will stepped into the kitchen. A few seconds later he stepped out again, satisfied that things were okay.
“What do you want to do, Will? Wanna hang with your brother?”
Although he wasn’t ready for another beer, he pulled two more from the fridge and slid one towards Beth. “Yeah, let’s say hello. You can meet Daniel, if you don’t know him already. After a bit we’ll hit the Waterfront; maybe they’ll join us. If they do, well, the more the merrier. If they don’t, that’s good too. It’ll give us somethin’ to talk about while we drink.”
Beth finished her beer with authority, slid the empty bottle across the bar and watched it move. “Sounds good to me,” she said. Clearing her throat, she opened her next beer. “We’ll go after this drink.”
15
“What is it?” Cameron asked, squeezing Daniel’s hand.
“Not sure,” Daniel moved away from Cameron, uncoupling their fingers as he stepped out of the hall and into the giant room.
“I know what it is,” Roger said with a nod. “Sure I do. It’s a bomb shelter.”
“Really?” Cameron squinted her eyes and furrowed her brow. She had her doubts. Bomb shelters on television were average in size, wall-to-wall computers, and loaded with supplies. This room was enormous––the size of two gymnasiums attached together. It had forty-foot ceilings. And not only that, it was empty. There was nothing in it, nothing at all. No food, no water––nothing. “A bomb shelter? You sure?”
“Just look around. The walls are made of concrete; the room is absolutely
buried
in the earth. What else could it be?”
“I don’t know, but why would there be a bomb shelter here? This isn’t New York City; it’s Cloven Rock.”
Roger chuckled. “Question for you Cam… during a nuclear holocaust, where would you rather be… New York City or Cloven Rock? Or here’s another way to look at it: if you wanted to kill as many people as possible, where should you detonate a bomb? Here, or somewhere bigger? This is a bomb shelter, built by someone with lots of money. You can count on it.” He turned away. “Hey Dan, you bought this place like, what, ten years ago?”
“About that, yeah.”
“Who’d you buy it from?”
“Uh, I could check the records I guess, but off-hand I don’t know. I only met the guy twice. I dealt with the real estate agent.”
“This is so cool,” Pat said. “We could play indoor soccer.”
“Yeah,” Dan said. “Too bad the balls are still in the garage.”
Dan and Pat walked towards the center of the room. Footsteps echoed off the walls. Cameron turned in a circle before walking quickly to catch up. Roger just stood there. He was partly amazed, partly ready for a warmer climate. There was nothing to see here, nothing to do. The mystery had been solved and the prize was nothing more than the memory of the climb.
“Hey guys,” he said. “Where’re ya going?”
“To look around.” Daniel clicked off his flashlight.
“Yeah,” Pat agreed. “Let’s take a walk.”
Roger scrunched his face and lifted his shoulders in disagreement. “Look around… at what? There’s nothin’ to see in here. The place is empty!”
“Come on Rog,” Dan said. “Don’t be a stick in the mud. Live a little.”
“But––” Roger rolled his eyes. They were going to investigate the big empty room no matter what he thought. He couldn’t change their minds. The choice was clear. He could either A) climb up the ladder alone and be a
loser
, or B) join his friends. Not much selection from his point of view. “Shit guys… wait for me.”
Roger dashed towards them.
Cameron walked backwards, looking at the ceiling. She thought she saw something move, but with the duct work and the shadows it was hard to tell.
Daniel stopped walking completely.
Once they were all together, Daniel said, “Let’s circle the room once and head back up.”
“Damn straight,” Roger said. “It’s cold down here. You sure you wanna circle the room? Maybe we should just go back.”
Daniel frowned.
Pat said, “Let’s look around.”
Roger shook his head. “Again, I must ask: look at what? This place is empty! It’s a big vacant box.”
“You’re a big vacant box,” Cameron said, smirking.
Daniel giggled. He glanced into Cameron’s eyes and smiled. Before he knew he would do it his line of vision rolled down her body, slowing at her breasts. Whoops. It was an honest mistake. Oh well, too late now.
Cameron grinned.
And Dan realized that he liked this girl. Not just physically, and not enough to have an affair with (he loved his wife too much for that), but Cameron was a fun girl to be around. She mixed her femininity and her ‘just one of the guys’ thing nicely.
Silence.
Pat said, “Hey, what’s that?”
“What?”
“That!” He pointed to something embedded in the wall, and together, the four explorers walked across the room slowly, investigating the unknown. “It’s a big door.” Pointing at a handle. “See?”
It was a door all right, a big wooden one. But it didn’t look like a house door or a cupboard door; didn’t look like a car door or a set of patio doors. It was the size of a garage door, and it looked like part of the wall, with a handle.
Roger wondered if something good was hiding behind of it.
It’s a secret room
, Daniel thought,
a secret room inside a secret room
.
“Maybe we’ll find treasures down here yet!” Roger said. “Should I open it?”
“Treasure?” Patrick mocked, releasing a condescending chuckle. “Do you idiots expect to find
treasure
? That’s hilarious.”
“You never know,” Cameron contested.
“Yes you do. Treasures are only found in movies where pirates have a patch over one eye and a parrot strapped to a shoulder. Are you guys for real?”
With a soft, mocking voice, Roger said, “Treasure is the wrong word, old boy. The proper word is ‘antiques’. We were hoping to find some antiques; know what I mean? We’re hoping to find something that might have been worth a fair bit of change a hundred years ago, and has increased in value since… like pottery, or rare art. We’re not expecting to find a trunk filled with gold or a shiny chalice.”
“Oh,” Pat said, scratching himself behind the ear. “Yeah, I guess that could happen. Well then, I stand mistaken. Let’s open the door!”
Daniel wrapped his fingers around the handle. He pushed and pulled on the door. It moved both ways freely, and the nasty smell they noticed earlier became all the more noticeable.
Cameron stepped back. The smell reminded her of rotten fruit, spoiled milk, wet fur, and decaying meat. Needless to say, she didn’t care much for the aroma. It gave her a bad feeling deep inside. Something was wrong here. The warning flares were blasting inside her mind the way they always did when something was off beam. Experience had taught her that ignoring her premonitions only led to grief and sorrow, and she had learned from her past to respond to her instincts. “I don’t want to be here,” she said flatly, keeping her voice in check.
Pat examined her face. “What?”
“You heard me. I want to get going. It smells bad down here and I don’t like it. I want to go upstairs.”
“But Cameron,” Roger said, putting his hand on her arm. “Why?”
Cameron pulled her arm away vigorously. “I’m scared, is that okay with you? Something isn’t right down here. Can’t you feel it? There’s something in that room. I can tell.”
Roger’s shoulders slumped. “Cameron––”
“I don’t care if you believe me… I can
sense
it. It’s like I’m standing inside a dream that’s about to become a nightmare, you know? I feel like Carrie White at the bloody prom. I don’t like being down here, not at all. Not one bit. Look where we are!” She took a step back, lifted her shoulders and extended her arms. “I don’t like the smell down here. I don’t like that big creepy door, and I don’t want any part of what’s behind it. I’m getting out.”
“It does stink,” Patrick quietly said, adding a shoulder shrug to his statement. “I wasn’t going to say anything but I’ve got to admit, she’s not wrong. Smells like monkey shit down here. In fact, it smells like monkey shit
covered
in monkey shit.”
Cameron needed out. She turned away from the three of them and she started walking towards the ladder. She wanted to run as fast as her legs would carry her, only pride didn’t allow it. She forced herself to stay calm, forced herself to walk. Everything would be okay as long as she moved away from the door and out of the cellar.
(
Bomb shelter,
she reminded herself.
This isn’t a cellar; it’s a bomb shelter. Who knows what’s down here? It could be anything
!)
“Wait Cameron,” Roger said. “You’re being silly!”
She wasn’t listening.
“Let her go,” Daniel said.
“But––”
“Rog, how long do we plan on staying down here? You want to spend the night? Like you said, it’s friggin’ cold down here.”
Roger grunted. “The amount of time we’re down here will depend on what we find. How big is this next room, and what do you think is inside? Anything good?”
As the two men turned towards the door, it swung towards them. Cameron was right. Something
was
inside and it wasn’t treasure. Something was alive and looking at them, pushing the door open, making the hinges squeak.
Pat didn’t notice. He was looking at Cameron, and slowly walking towards her. He said, “Awe, don’t go. Stay!”
Roger stepped back a foot. His mouth slid open and his eyes widened.
Daniel put a hand to his face. His flashlight slipped from his fingers, bounced off the floor, and rolled towards Pat.
Pat stopped eying Cameron when the light hit the floor. Instinctively, he looked down. Seeing the light roll towards his feet, he crouched to pick it up.
And the thing in the darkness, the thing with no name, shuffled its enormous legs, snapped three of its twelve sets of jaws, and began to hiss.
It sounded angry.
It sounded like a kettle.
16
William returned to his car much like his brother had, with a bag filled with beer bottles in one hand, and a set of keys in the other. The car was a 1979 firebird, rusted to the nines.
In the front seat was Hellboy, a pure brown Boxer that had big bulging eyes and feet the size of snowshoes. He was the type of dog that slobbered all over the place, never stopped shedding, had lots of gunk in its fur, and dropped turds the size of watermelons all over the yard. On a better note, the dog rarely barked and never went to the bathroom in places that caused trouble. But he did have a fair amount of energy and some days William wondered why he shelled out six hundred bucks for the stupid thing. Eat, sleep, and piss: that’s what Hellboy did. When he wasn’t begging for a walk, or getting walked, or begging for food, or unloading one of his watermelon sized turds, that’s what he did: eat, sleep, and piss. It was quite a life.
As Beth and William opened the car doors, Will said, “Get in the back seat dog… now!”
Hellboy lowered his head, licked his snout, and wagged his stumpy tail, shaking his ass (and half his body) in the process. He jumped onto the backseat gracelessly, with his snowshoe feet thumping the fabric. He walked in small circles before his head found residence between the two front seats. He licked Beth’s large arm as she plunked herself into the car.
Once they were on the road, William rolled down his window, pulled a smoke from his pack, and lit it. He offered one to Beth, even though he only had four left. He was good like that, a generous man.
“How far?” Beth asked, taking a cigarette from the pack.
“By the time your smoke is gone we’ll be there.”
“Yeah?” Beth raised an eyebrow. “We’ll see.” She lit the cigarette and rolled down her window.
Hellboy plodded around the backseat. He stuck his head out the window, opened his mouth, and allowed his tongue to unfurl. His tongue flapped and fluttered like a thick, wet flag. Drool hung from his jaw and drops of white spittle hit the side of the car every few seconds; he was a doggie rain-machine. Occasionally he tried to bite the air.
They drove past Nicolas Nehalem’s car and pulled into Daniel’s driveway a few seconds later. Beth crushed her cigarette in the dirt and followed Will to the front door, admiring the flowerbed in the yard. No flowers yet, she noticed, but the brickwork looked stunning.
William rang the bell twice then checked the door. It was unlocked. He stepped inside. Beth followed. Hellboy entered next with his stumpy tail tucked low. He didn’t bark, but
did
consider it.
