Blood Red Summer: A Thriller

by J. Conrad

  “There’s one more room off the side of the first one we were in,” I say.

  My stomach dips, but at the same time, I get a nervous flash of hopefulness. I remember the lockers and large closet in that one. I recall it was that room specifically that Martin mentioned at closing. It was where workers changed out of filthy clothes to go home. But no one would hide something in such predictable places as closets or lockers—not big somethings, anyway.

  After working our way to the room, we find that it’s burned mostly to the studs like the others. I don’t need my flashlight to find the corner. It’s wide open and gaping, a raw wound bleeding sunlight from the wall and ceiling. Bare, copper wire hangs down and catches threads of daylight that burst in. Near the hole in the floor is a large, sooty, black pile of goo. It’s as though something plastic melted and turned into a molten mountain of sludge.

  “Looks like we may have found our source,” I say.

  “Agreed,” Trent says. He sniffs.

  I wipe my gloves on my old jeans and produce my mobile phone from my back pocket. With the flash on, I take photos. I even snap a few without the flash just in case it obscured something in the previous ones. The sunlight may reveal clues the flash washed out.

  My pulse quickens, and I back up toward the lockers. “Am I imagining it, or do I smell motor oil?”

  “You’re not imagining it. I smell it too,” Trent says.

  I can’t pinpoint where the petroleum odor is coming from. I go for the closet first, only because it’s something I can easily examine. It has two wide double doors, which are both unlocked. As I grip the handles and tug, they creak open on rusty hinges. My heart pounds as I shine the light into the space. It’s a walk-in, about six feet wide and going nearly ten feet back, with shelves on one side. Besides being mostly black like everything else, it’s empty, just as it looked before the building inspection.

  Trent brushes my shoulder with his chin as he looks past. Shining his own flashlight around, he peers at the shelves and into the corners. “Are there any other compartments in here? Like small doors? I’ve sometimes seen that in old buildings like this.”

  “Not inside here. But you’re free to look. I could have missed something,” I say. We scour the inside of the closet, but it’s as empty as it looks.

  The lockers are affixed to the wall outside the right-angle turn of the corner where the closet opens. They’re just farther back, near the wall opposite us that is perpendicular to the closet door. I chew the inside of my cheek as I study them. There used to be a row of plastic benches too, but now all that’s left are metal stumps. One by one, I lift the locker latches, finding nothing inside. Most of them open easily, but three of them are locked.

  “I don’t suppose you have a pair of bolt cutters in that nifty tool bag?” I ask.

  “I do,” Trent says. “But I didn’t bring a bomb-disposal suit, so if we find any explosives, don’t ask.”

  “I’m glad you’re not holding out on me,” I say.

  Trent sets the pair of mini bolt cutters on my palm. With my gloved hands, I proceed to cut the locks, patiently working at each shackle until I break through the steel. One at a time, the broken locks clatter to the concrete floor. The sound rings in my ears. Afterward, I stand quietly for a moment, listening.

  Birdsong reaches us through the hole in the ceiling, and I can still catch hints of traffic from Lamar. Wind plays through flapping bits of insulation. There are no other sounds. I wipe my forehead with my shirt sleeve, taking a deep breath and telling myself it’s doubtful anyone heard us poking around in here. Good. Still, I’m not letting my guard down.

  I open the first locker. Though the interior is almost as black as everything else, I can identify most of its contents. It contains an old Sony Walkman, a magazine, and an empty Coke bottle. Locker number two holds folded clothes. Locker number three contains what looks like a bottle of prescription medication, a thermos, earplugs, and a rumpled t-shirt.

  Trent crouches down and gives the contents of each locker a cursory inspection as well but doesn’t touch anything. Then he stands and reaches toward the top of the locker section. When he pulls, it rattles slightly, like it isn’t firmly attached to the wall. He darts his gaze across the torn, blackened room, and I wonder if he’s looking for something to pry with. Neither of us thought to bring a crowbar. Now I wish we had, although it probably wouldn’t have been wise to be seen carrying one in.

  “Are you thinking of pulling that away from the wall?” I ask.

  “Feel it,” he says. “It’s not very well attached. You try pushing up from the bottom, and I’ll push up top. Let’s see if we can get it free.”

  I nod. Maybe we can even reattach it, though I doubt it. A slapping sound behind me makes me jump, and I whirl. It’s just a piece of metal shingle flapping in the wind through the ceiling hole. I sigh, placing the flashlight on one of the metal legs that used to hold a bench and angle it at the lockers. I squat down and slide my fingers underneath the bottom of the locker nearest me.

  So much for not touching anything. I brace myself. “Ready.”

  We heave upward in unison, and I strain my arms and shoulders. I groan as the old wound near my armpit sends a wave of pain through my chest. With a sharp, metallic pop, the lockers come away from the wall. I don’t know how many we’ve dislodged, but the row sways and teeters in my hands. Losing my balance, I attempt to stand up. My hands slip, and my corner of the locker section hits the concrete floor. It almost stabs me in the foot. I stagger back, trying not to fall and impale myself on the metal bench legs. My flailing fingers knock the flashlight off its perch. Its light shunts off toward the black blob of goo.

  Now bearing the entire weight of the row of lockers, Trent curses, and his legs buckle. He lets go, and the sound of metal striking the concrete floor shreds our ears. It may as well have been a wrecking ball. Trent releases his light from his teeth, and it drops from sight. As the lockers lean and begin to fall toward him, Trent shoves them upright before they slam into the bench legs.

  I curse under my breath as I hold the searing muscle near my armpit. My vision seems spotty. I blink a few times to try and clear it. The patch of sun leaking through the hole in the ceiling gives us some illumination, but there’s a lot of darkness in here.

  “Aria, are you all right?” Trent asks. The lockers now rest vertically on the floor, and he slowly backs away from them.

  My breathing comes loud and rapid. My heartbeat is audible too, at least to me, and it shakes me as I stand here. “I’m okay. I didn’t expect that section to come free so easily or to be that heavy. I think I pulled a muscle.”

  “Shit. I didn’t think about that injury under your arm. I shouldn’t have asked you to do that. Are you sure you’re okay?” He frowns, looking me over, but there’s nothing visible besides my inclined bearing.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” Sweat trickles down my forehead, and a wet stain drenches the front of my shirt. I shiver. A small wave of nausea churns in my belly, but it’ll pass.

  I bend down and grab my flashlight while Trent retrieves his. I shine the beam at the site where the lockers were attached. It’s a bare, plywood wall, with only a few smears of black near the edges. It’s the cleanest thing in the room, but there’s nothing remarkable about it.

  Swallowing down the acrid bile from the discomfort of straining, I pass around the lockers and stand next to Trent. The smoke has left a clear impression of the lockers’ former position. We run our fingers along the edges of the imprint, feeling for anything out of place. My once white gloves leave black smudges everywhere they touch. I place my hand a little higher than my head, lightly brushing a slight indentation.

  “Here,” I say. “What’s this?”

  17

  Trent halts with his chest against the carbon-stained wall. He places his fingers next to mine and slides them over. "I feel it."

  "Anything on your end?" I ask.

  "Nothing this obvious, just a couple of places where
it feels uneven. But settling or wood warping can cause that too."

  Toward the bottom, the fire damage is worse, and there's a six-inch hole where it burned through the wall near a stud.

  I say, "And look here. Wow, this is odd. It's almost like this section behind the lockers has a corner—like this was a separate piece. Maybe they installed a piece of plywood for reinforcement because of the weight?"

  Even in the dim lighting, I perceive Trent's eyes brightening as he crouches beside me. I point, and he reaches down and feels the slight, protruding corner at the bottom left. We wouldn't have found this if not for the fire which partially burned away the wood around it.

  Trent shakes his head. "Maybe. I don't know. It's weird."

  We stare at each other before rising.

  "Can we pry it off?" I ask.

  Now we're entering point-of-no-return territory. We can put the lockers back, but restoring the wall to its previous condition will be impossible. However, the protrusion is just too strange to leave alone. Or are we making it out to be more than it is? We came here expecting to find something, and we don't want to leave empty-handed. I bite my lip, my mind spinning with consequences.

  "We can try. Let's find something metal," Trent says.

  For the next twenty minutes, we comb the annex area and the rest of the warehouse for something we can use to jimmy the wall. In an old, burned building with wires and boards visible everywhere, you would think that scraps of metal would be lying around ripe for the picking like apples in autumn. But they aren't.

  We wind up tucking our filthy gloves in our pockets and walking back to our vehicles. So that it won't seem strange carrying a tire iron down the street, we get in Trent's truck, and he drives it about two hundred feet to Lamar. He parks in the lot of the Asian restaurant adjacent to the warehouses. I take the tire iron, and Trent brings his spare donut. This way, if anyone sees us, it won't look like we're up to mayhem. We walk around the back of the restaurant, and as there's no fence, we're able to access the annex building directly and enter through the hole in the corner.

  With my injured muscle, I can't tackle our next job head-on. I hold the flashlight so Trent can see. It's the only thing I can do, and I hate it. But I don't want to damage my shoulder muscle further and have to take prescription pain relievers again—it used to be that bad since it never healed properly.

  Trent starts prying at the weird edge we found. As he works the bar into the space and pulls, he moves the board outward enough to reveal a nail sticking out behind it. After about twenty minutes, sweat runs down the back of Trent's neck, but he loosened all the plywood section except for the very top. We've been here for over an hour, and the daylight leaking through the roof opening starts to wane.

  "Here it comes," he says. With a final push of the tire iron, nails creak as they slide away from the wood. The section hits the floor on end and bangs into the lockers. It rests against them at an angle.

  My breath comes out as a choked gasp as I stare. We both stand with our flashlights aimed and gawk at the empty space formerly covered by the wall section. If it was some type of reinforcement piece, we should see bare studs behind it. We're not.

  I step closer with the blood pounding in my ears. I lean over the lockers to shine the light inside. The area isn't tall enough to be a hallway. It's more like a large crawl space, going back in a shallow tunnel. However, it doesn't go very far back. Our lights stop at a vertical wall maybe six feet in. The oddness of the space silences us.

  "What the hell?" I say in barely a whisper.

  Trent peers into the beckoning strangeness. As though hearing one another's thoughts, we each grab a side of the row of lockers we removed earlier and lift together. I mostly use my left arm, not risking more pain to my right side. Picking the lockers up off the ground only a few inches, we scoot sideways and put enough distance between the lockers and the wall to fit our bodies more comfortably. We slide the large plywood piece over as well. Then we stand in front of the crawl space, scouring the inside for the next revelation.

  I guess the weirdest thing is that there's nothing here. It could have been a utility tunnel of some sort, but there are no utilities here. The floor and walls of the crawl space appear to be nothing more than unpainted plywood, just like the piece Trent pried off. Sticking my head slightly inside the opening, I strain to sniff through the mask, but because of our surroundings, I only get a faint whiff of wood before drawing in more smoke smell.

  "I guess I don't have to ask if this was on the blueprints," Trent says.

  "Definitely not."

  My hands are so sweaty inside my gloves I'm surprised they haven't slipped off. My heart slams against my chest cavity like it's going for a prison break. I'm used to being afraid all the time. My lingering fear is unwelcome but familiar, and I've learned to live with it. But staring into this unusual post-construction shaft, my mind drags me back to the dirty, dark room in the old house on County Road 140.

  I was Korey's plaything, a desecrated piece of meat left to waste away and rot. Soaked in my own blood, I thought I would die against the wall, with my stepmother's corpse as the only witness.

  I pinch my inner arm. It forces me into the present moment. I came up with this stupid routine to keep from slipping into one of my flashback meltdowns. Right now is a terrible time for one.

  Trent's voice finds me, but it's muffled. Distant. Like he's talking underwater. "Do you want to come in with me?"

  I glance at him but can't speak. What is it that he's asking? The crawl space. He wants to know if I want to explore it with him.

  Trent's eyes are bright and alive, but when they alight on me, he frowns. "Are you okay?"

  "I'm fine." I swallow, my mouth dry and cottony. "I'll stay out here and keep watch."

  Trent grabs the edge and pushes himself up and in. His legs and feet disappear within the tunnel. He knocks on the wood of the bizarre passage with his fist.

  Thud, thud. Thud, thud. He tests the walls, the ceiling, and the floor. Thud, thud, thud.

  I look away, purposely keeping my eyes out of there. I attempt to put my attention on my surroundings to get my mind straight. But glancing at a gloomy cell made of boards covered in scaly char that skirt an inky water puddle isn't stabilizing.

  Trent's feet shuffle as his work boots scrape against the wood. More knocking. And then a few short, quick knocks as though what he hears tells him something. The last few sound higher pitched.

  Trent's dampened voice calls from far away. "I think it's hollow under here."

  "I'll hand you the bar," I say.

  I walk my trembling body the few steps to bring me to the tire iron, and I grab it. Trent sticks his hand out, and I place the bar across his palm. But instead of using it inside the crawl space, he shimmies in my direction, dropping his feet to the concrete in the main room. I step back. I can't help but think he's going to have a hard time prying anything inside from out here.

  Trent pauses. "You okay?"

  "Yeah, I'm fine. Why do you ask?" I feign a smile, not that it's visible through my mask.

  "You look a little pale. How are you feeling? And don't say fine," Trent says.

  "I'm not bad. I just don't want to go in there. It gives me the creeps," I say.

  "Don't worry, there's no reason at all for you to go in there," he says.

  I nod.

  He's about to turn back to his task, but he stops again. He puts a hand on my bicep. "Aria? Are you getting a flashback?"

  I start to nod, then shake my head. "No. I can stave it off if I look around. I'm fine."

  Trent stares at me for a few seconds before replying. "Okay. But if you start feeling bad, you tell me, and we'll leave. Okay?"

  "Okay," I say. I don't add that it would be silly to leave now that we've come this far, barring police intervention or Nick showing up with firearms. But at least if that happens, I won't be alone. And I'm a good runner.

  "Okay," Trent says. "Just please let me know if you start feeli
ng bad. I'm going to see if I can get this off, okay?"

  "Sure. I will." I give him a thumbs up. It's half-sarcastic because chances are I won't say a word. A wave of lightheadedness hitting me, it occurs to me that Trent's going to try and remove the crawl space floor.

  His gaze still burns into me, so I add in a steadier voice, "That's a good idea."

  "Good," he says. I can tell he smiles because of the creases beside his eyes. He gets back to work.

  Continuing to pinch my arm, I move my fingers to the tender skin on the inside of my wrist and dig my nails in. Not psycho at all. And I don't scream in my sleep or take souvenirs from dead people, I swear. However, the pain makes it possible to continue standing here. Trent pries and pounds at the plywood. He groans through gritted teeth as he tries to work the bar into any available crack. It's no wonder he's having trouble. Anyone who would have gone through the hassle of constructing such a thing wouldn't have made it easy to disassemble.

  Finally, as wood creaks and splinters, a layer of "floor" pops off. Trent broke it in half, and I can plainly see another layer beneath it. He takes the bar and removes the first layer completely, tossing the pieces of wood out into the main room.

  After climbing back inside the tunnel, he removes the screws along the perimeter. Then he pushes himself back out and stands on the annex floor, peering inside the crawl space one last time before the moment of truth.

  Trent's fingers shake as he tucks his screwdriver back into his tool belt. He inhales and wipes the sweat from his brow with the back of his arm. For a moment, the building lies silent. The crawl space now beckons us like Pandora's Box. It's waiting to be opened—and it wants to be. Trent wedges his fingers under the board and strains. He pulls, leaning back and putting his feet against the wall as he tries to get this second layer to come free.

  "Are you sure you found all the screws? I know you were thorough, but it's dark in here," I say.

  "I'm pretty sure I got them all. I think it's just heavy." He steps back and jams the tire iron farther under the board. His eager, expectant expression is too much.