The House on Mayberry Road

by Troy McCombs

  "There was a time today when I thought I wouldn't come home again. God, I can't believe you're so mellow right now. What we've just been through—"

  John smiled and took a big drink of cola. "It's not cut out for everybody. It's really not cut out for anybody. I will tell you this: you've probably seen it as bad as you will. I assume you're not going in again?"

  "You got that right! I will pray for you, your safety, but I can't go near there again. I know I said I would help, but—" Jennifer trailed off.

  "Don't say any more. There's no need to explain."

  Lucky kneeled by John's feet and scratched at his pant leg. John patted him lightly on the head. "Hey there, buddy."

  Jennifer cracked open her can of soda. Carbonated beverage foamed from the breach. She quickly used her mouth to soak it up before it spilled onto her lap.

  "Hey, I'm heading out to work!" -The voice spoke suddenly, without warning. It was deep, loud, and authoritative. The vocals of a Native American male.

  Startled, John dropped his soda on the floor and turned immediately to see who it was. He expected to see twenty-two horrible eyes watching him. Instead, he saw the same man he had seen in the hospital the day after the United Apartments had burned down. It was the Native American gentleman John presumed to be Jennifer's husband. He was standing in the doorway now, dressed in a McDonald's work uniform, keys in hand, an apologetic look on his dark-complected face. His eyes were dark like D'kourikai's, but only on the surface. "Sorry, man, didn't mean to scare you."

  John quickly picked up the can of Pepsi before soda poured out everywhere.

  "It's okay." Jennifer waved for him to enter. "I don't think I've introduced you two yet. Harold, this is—"

  "Introduce us later? I'm waaaay late for work." The man pointed to his watch, turned, his black ponytail swaying from side to side as he hurried out the door.

  John exchanged a look with Jennifer. She chuckled. "That's Harold, Mr. Personable. He can be so reticent at times. I tell you, he can be the most stubborn out of all my brothers."

  "Your brother? I thought he was your—"

  Jennifer smacked her knee and laughed. "You thought we were married? Nooooo. We're siblings. You couldn't tell we had the same facial features? Same hooked nose? Same lips? No, he's one of my brothers. He's the only one of my siblings who isn't married."

  John looked around the room, as if searching. "Where is The Mr. Jennifer, anyway? I don't think I've seen him before. Every time you and I've crossed paths in The Apartments, I saw you alone and just assumed you lived by yourself. I mean, not to pry, just curious."

  "He's been...out of town for a while. On business, y'know. He has to fly around a lot, and me, I am more grounded than he is. I'm not much of a traveler. Never was." She nervously twisted the wedding band on her finger. A look of sadness flourished in her eyes. It was obvious she did not want to discuss this any further, as if it pained her to talk about the mystery man she was married to. What was she hiding? John didn't know, but he surely didn't want to intrude into her personal life.

  He changed the subject. "I found one thing out about the house."

  She looked at him. Some of her visible sadness was gone. "What?"

  "There's a border that surrounds it. Where it stops, D'kourikai cannot see past unless given certain rights to cross it."

  "Like the lock of your hair..."

  "Yes, a key, in a sense."

  "Key...key," Jennifer remembered something. "I almost forgot!" She reached into her back pocket and pulled something out: the folded piece of paper Sandra had given her back in the attic. "She gave this to me and said something about a key, a portal." Jennifer got out of her chair, sat beside John, and unfolded the old, dusty sheet of paper, revealing the crayon drawing of the silver pyramid within.

  "I saw that!" John pointed. "When I was in the basement, this pyramid was there, suspended in mid-air by no real means. It seemed unmovable, like it couldn't be budged at all."

  "It has to have a connection with the source of it all!" Jennifer offered. "John, I didn't tell you about the girl I saw. She was about nine-years-old, dressed for the early twentieth century, who gave me this and said...Jesus, what did she say?" Jennifer thought about it long and hard. "Before D'kourikai appeared, the girl said to me...'this is the key, but the portal is—' and then she trailed off."

  "Sandra Prestillion, you mean?”

  "Sandra!” Jennifer's eyes lit up. “Yes, that's what she said her name was.”

  "Sandra was the daughter of the man who built the house back in the mid eighteen-hundreds. I think I saw him before I left the attic. I got a feeling from him that he had something to do with the ledge you landed on before you...fell."

  Jennifer pointed to some of the mathematical equations written on the paper. "And what do you suppose these are? Doesn't look like any math I've ever learned in school."

  "Looks like symbology and geometry wrapped in numerical formulas. That's just my guess. Somebody's trying to tell us something by giving you this. They want us to know what's going on at the most minute level. That's how math and science work. Pyramids are a sign of both."

  "There's more." Jennifer looked into John's eyes, then looked away, as if uncomfortable. "Sandra distinctly said 'only pure life can destroy true death'. She also said that D'kourikai was keeping her, her mom, her dad, and some woman, like slaves. Does this mean anything?"

  John stared ahead, the drawing clutched tightly in his hands. "Only pure life can destroy true death? Could mean a few different things. Pure life can be looked at as a newborn just coming into the world. This, some say, can override certain death amongst the world."

  "Couldn't the reference 'true life' mean human, and 'true death' mean the thing that's in control of the Mayberry House? Good versus evil?"

  John smiled. "Yes, you could be right. So, in order to stop It, who needs me to thrive, I need to do something to intervene."

  "What could that be?"

  "I don't know. First, we need to find out what these equations mean. Then we need to figure—" John absentmindedly turned the paper over, unveiling a whole new page of information neither he nor Jennifer expected to see. On the reverse side was one small disorganized paragraph of words written in neat, fine handwriting: Savior, look down, look up. Feel up, fall down. Jarsky wasn't (blotched word) Jarsky and greatest (more blotched out words) Answer is within the (blotched word) It wasn't meant to go this route. Hell has been unleashed. It will spread (blotched word) unless confined. Nothing more I, nor (many blotched words)

  The Jarsky pro-(blotch) was (blotch) staple in the new development of-- (a huge blank space)

  John's eyes quickly zoned in on the bottom of the page and on the last few visible words and digits he could make out. It was an address, circled and underlined.

  2219 Caroni Street, Bellsville.

  "What does it mean?" Jennifer could barely contain her curiosity. Her increasingly-squeaky voice revealed this fact. "Do you understand any of it? Most of it seems incoherent!"

  "Incoherent? I don't think it's meant to be; I think it was hurried before the entirety of this clue was completely destroyed."

  "By what?"

  "The spawn of Cthulhu," John sighed. "What else?"

  "Are you familiar with that address?"

  "I am."

  "Well, where is that place?"

  "It's where the abandoned Gerriton Warehouse used to be."

  "What are we waiting for?" Jennifer jumped to her feet. "Let's go!"

  "Okay."

  ***

  Jennifer's Blazer pulled into a faded parking space behind an old, abandoned brick building standing on the banks of the Ohio River. The driver's and passenger's side doors opened simultaneously. Jennifer and John stepped out into a cold, strong passing gust of wind. It reminded Rollings of an earlier incident involving a certain alien wind that ended up killing many innocent young soldiers in a nearby field during its descending wrath.

  He shook the idea from his mind.
Instead, he looked out at the river. Its current was strong, racing. Raging waves crashed together in harmony with or in resistance to each other. The high points briefly sparkled, then shifted, and the low points followed in their path. Tiny-looking vehicles vooshed quietly past on the opposite side of the waters hundreds of yards away. He saw a line of school buses headed toward Steubenville. The sound of the wind blowing against the flowing river was like harps from heaven, soothing in his ears. He closed his eyes and took a deep, soft breath.

  Relaxation was over: "John, you coming? What are you doing?"

  John smiled, almost laughed. "Nothing. I'm doing nothing. It's the best thing in the world to do. Nothing can compare to it."

  "Nothing can compare to nothing, huh?" Jennifer joked.

  John gazed at the river for one last second. "Let's figure out once and for all what we're dealing with. I'm already sick of this entity, this case. Even though he can no longer trace me, I still feel him close, searching."

  "I found a window over here already broken. It's pretty small, but I think we can squeeze through."

  Jennifer and John walked over to the corner of the three-story building, near a gutted old walkway, and to a shattered basement window. Diseased-looking glass littered the sill, the ground, and the ledge within. The opening, though not huge, was wide enough to crawl through with some effort.

  John thoroughly kicked as much of the broken, tetanus-carrying shards out of the way, clearing a path. Afterward, he looked at Jennifer, who was kneeling but not entering.

  "What? You want me to go in first?" She laughed in disbelief.

  John offered a joke of his own. "You know what they say. Ladies first."

  "Well, thanks, John. Or should I be calling you Mr. Rollings now, too, instead?"

  There was not a spark of humor anywhere on his face.

  Is he really this dense? He didn't find THAT funny? Jennifer thought. "I'm joking with you. Geesh!"

  He did laugh, but very quietly, inconspicuously. She didn't catch on until several seconds later, when he vocalized his concealed amusement with a loud chuckle.

  "I was kidding with you! And you didn't even catch on. And you think I'm dense?"

  "What?" She'd been fooled. "You mean you were reading my mind when—?"

  "Hey, I don't make the rules. Sometimes I can see other people's thoughts. It's not often. You know. You're psychic."

  Jennifer gestured to the gaping hole in the foundation of the warehouse. "You know what they say. Age before beauty." She showed him her pearly whites.

  John knelt down, planted his butt on the moldy ground, and snaked his way feet-first in through the opening. Once inside, he offered Jennifer a hand. "You coming? Or would you rather me unlock and open a door for you?"

  She gave him a silly look, then her hand. He carefully helped her in through the gap, which was no higher than three feet and no wider than five. Her small frame slowly wiggled through, her back arching awkwardly, her free hand gripping the top of the windowsill. She almost fell once.

  "I gotcha. Just watch the glass," John said, his body close to hers. He could smell her perfume, her breath. Her eyes were darker than he thought they were, and he could hear her steady breathing. Not once during his assisting her did she look at him. She even seemed uncomfortable that he was touching her at all.

  John broke contact with her once her feet met with solid ground.

  "Sorry." He took a step back, giving her space.

  "No, it's okay. It's just—"

  "Just what?” Up until now, he hadn't looked at Jennifer in that way, but only as a friendly acquaintance. She was married and he still hardly knew her. Besides that, the chemistry between the two seemed awkward, at least to him, probably because they were both psychic. Like the saying goes: opposites attract; attractions repel.

  But, by coming so physically close to her as he just did, he felt a sudden, overwhelming attraction to her he'd not felt before. She had never been his type, had never really sparked his interest. In a fleeting instant, she was, she did.

  Was this just one of those brief momentary impressions? A fluke of togetherness between two like-minded individuals? Or something more?

  She responded to his question, “I was just going to say watch where you put your hands. I'm a little skittish about physical human contact."

  John suppressed his previous inclinations. Yes, a fluke of the moment. You're losing it, fellow.

  "Here." She produced and handed him an unlit glow stick she'd found in the backseat of her Blazer. He took it and broke it open. The dark storeroom burned to life with red light. Jennifer broke open a green stick of her own.

  "Looks like we picked the right room from the start," John muttered, his voice faint and distorted in the small room. They both held up their improvised flashlights to examine their surroundings. The place was in shambles, littered with old papers, boxes, crates, rows and rows of rusted-together file cabinets, a movable chalkboard with equations written on it, dusty desks with some strange diagrams scratched into the wood, and, in the far corner, miniature multicolored pyramids, much like the one in the Mayberry House. But these weren't suspended by anything. These were hanging from the ceiling to the floor by small metal wires.

  "Where do we begin?" Jennifer felt overwhelmed with the tedious amount of data they may have had to sort through. It showed in her face and in her tone of voice.

  John panned around in one long motion. "You got that drawing?"

  She slipped it into his hand without saying a word. He looked at it and rushed over to the chalkboard. She followed closely behind.

  With a sleeve, he lightly brushed away a layer of dust to reveal the writings beneath and read them aloud. "The Jarksy Experiment can be understood in laymen's terms as the complete collaboration of energy and matter molecules. Space and time do not exist in the third dimension, or especially in the next dimension. They can be combined to connect to another dimension that exists around us everywhere, every time. There is only one geometric figure that provides the special key. This key is essential in opening the door to the path of light. This symbol has been used for many centuries in Egypt…the pyramid—a perfectly conformed combination of life and symmetry. This opens the sphere—a symbol of renewal and attachment. When these two elements fuse together, they create the greatest power known to man, an equation of utmost importance..."

  John wiped away some more dust at the bottom of the board. Jennifer shined her glow stick over it. It was an equation they were both familiar with, but only Rollings' eyes widened.

  "E=MC2?" She lowered her eyebrows. "But Einstein already knew that!"

  "Not until 1905. Prestillion, the man who wrote this, died in the eighteen hundreds."

  "Are you serious?"

  "Prestillion was on to something like the atomic bomb, but he wanted to use it for some different function."

  "Like, make some sort of key?"

  John looked up. "And a door. But to what? And why?"

  He rushed over to the three small pyramids in the far corner of the room. Jennifer had to run to keep up with him. The green and red glow stick reflections bounced off the chewed walls like strobe lights.

  "But how did he do it?" John approached the first—a blue pyramid hanging by two thin metal rods. "This transcends the atom bomb. This transcends the core of science, itself."

  For a long time, both mortals examined it. The sides of the pyramid were impossibly flat, and the edges and tips were sharp as razors. Its blue color was exquisite, bright, almost glowing, unlike any paint either of the two had ever seen. It had been meticulously constructed, so much so that John thought it was geometrically flawless, down to the most minute unit of measurement.

  Curious, he slowly reached out with his right hand and brought it close to the sacred object. The tip of his middle finger made contact with a side. The surface was smooth, somehow soft and substantially hard at the same time. It did not budge from its current spot, even though it did not look securely fastened to t
he ceiling or the floor. Jennifer looked at John's face to check for any change in expression. He was quiet.

  "Do you feel anything?"

  John didn't.

  Then he did. It was very subtle at first, a gentle sensation of electricity flowing into his palm. Wanting more, he put his whole hand against the small pyramid, gripping it like a ball. The sensation intensified. It felt as if twenty volts of current were running up his arm, through his body, into his feet, around his brain. He had never felt anything like it.

  But it wasn't till he touched the topmost point when something really amazing happened. A massive surge of energy coursed through him unlike seconds ago, a wave of tingling little needles burning into much more than just his nerves. He could feel it in the core his bones, his cells, his hair follicles. It didn't hurt, was not the least bit painful. It felt like the hand of God touching his soul. A pleasant wowwing sound flowed into his ears and a bright, unseen blast of light crossed his innermost-eye. He could sense life forms swarming around him—behind him, across the room, the river, the world—oblivious to him. They could not see him; he could not physically see them. But he was certain they were there and had always been there. This was just a taste of what the Mayberry House had to offer. Except there, the door was wide open. This little pyramid was only half of a two-piece puzzle.

  "John? John?" Jennifer tugged at his shirt. He had been catatonic for the last several seconds.

  Finally, he broke contact and stepped away.

  "What did you see? What happened?" She demanded to know.

  "Jennifer, the core of an atomic bomb is the atomic nuclei: Plutonium/Uranium-type elements. It's confined in a small ball, surrounded by a lot of explosives. When it detonates, the ball sort of—implodes. What if the Jarksy Experiment was completely reversed? Using a pyramid instead of a ball?"

  "It said something about a sphere."

  "The sphere is the second part, yes. But what if you, instead of splitting atoms, creating a massive explosion, condensed the atoms through another means?"