A Long Way Down

by Randall Silvis

  “Are you talking about Connor McBride?”

  “The one the police want to find, yes. I saw it online this morning.”

  “And you know him?”

  “He was in the class with me.”

  “Dr. Gillespie’s class?”

  “I remember his video. It is where he might be. I see his face and remember him and think maybe that is where he might be.”

  “Okay, wait a minute,” Jayme said. “Let’s slow down a bit so that I’m sure I’m understanding you. You saw Connor’s face on a local news feed, and you recognized him as someone from your class with Dr. Gillespie?”

  “Yes, yes, that is exactly correct. I remember his face.”

  “Okay, good,” she said. DeMarco moved closer to her now, didn’t want to miss a word. She said, “And what’s this video you referred to? For a class project?”

  “Yes, exactly. We were to take photos or make a short video with our cell phones.”

  “Of what specifically?”

  “True will. To show the exercise of true will in action. By us or someone else.”

  “All right, good. And Connor’s video showed a particular place?”

  “An abandoned building that used to be a hospital, I think.”

  “In Youngstown? Or Garrettsville, or…?”

  “No, not anywhere I have been. But not far away, I think. I remember he said it used to be a hospital. With a woman’s name. The city cannot afford to tear it down.”

  DeMarco leaned close to her and whispered, “St. Margaret’s? In Sharpsville?”

  She said, “Is it St. Margaret’s Hospital, Daksh? In Sharpsville, Pennsylvania?”

  “St. Margaret’s, yes! That is the name he gave!”

  “Okay, great. You’re doing so well, Daksh. So why do you think he might be there now?”

  “I only thought when I saw his face this morning… I remembered when he showed the video. He was very excited about the place. About the people there and what they were doing.”

  “The people he met at St. Margaret’s Hospital? In the abandoned building?”

  “Yes! There were rituals, there were people wearing masks. There was magic being practiced there but it was very bad, very bad magic. It was not the kind of true will we were meant to practice.”

  “I think I understand,” Jayme said. “And you believe he might be there now?”

  “I do not know,” Daksh told her. “I only thought, he is hiding somewhere. Maybe there. This is why I use the card you gave me, and why I call your number.”

  “You did great, Daksh. You did the right thing.”

  “I see his face this morning, I remember the class, and I tell myself, you should call and let her know.”

  “Absolutely the right thing to do,” she told him.

  “I am glad,” he said. “Thank you. Ah, it is a relief to know I made the right decision.”

  “You absolutely did.”

  “Thank you. You might also like to know that the puppies will be ready soon to be placed in a new home. I remember how you enjoyed them.”

  “We’ll keep that in mind,” she told him, and gave DeMarco a wink.

  She was about to tell him goodbye when DeMarco whispered again. “What was Gillespie’s reaction to the video?”

  “One last thing, Daksh,” she said into the phone. “Do you remember how Dr. Gillespie reacted to Connor’s video?”

  “Hmm,” Daksh said. “I think the professor did not like him much. Some students he was very kind to, but others, like me, Connor McBride, he could be very, very unkind.”

  “In what way was he unkind to Connor?”

  “He was the boy, I think, who always dressed in army pants. I believe I am remembering this correctly. The class was many months ago.”

  “When you say army pants…”

  “The kind that are supposed to make a soldier invisible.”

  “Camo?”

  “Yes! Yes, camo. The professor was very brusque to him. Very unkind. He said that a soldier is invisible to everyone but the enemy. That a soldier has no identity of his own. He said that only the weak-minded and frightened want to be invisible. I am remembering it all better now.”

  “All right, good. Thank you for calling, Daksh. This is all very helpful.”

  “I am happy that I have spoken to you. And please remember that the puppies are here if you would like to give one a home. I think you would make a very good mother for a puppy.”

  After she ended the call, she regarded DeMarco standing motionless, hands in his pockets, his head cocked to the side, eyes fixed on a table leg. “So?” she said.

  He shook his head. “There are houses and an apartment building across the street from that hospital. I doubt very much that Connor would be living there. He has to have food, has to have water. Not a good place to survive unnoticed.”

  “Maybe somebody is taking care of him. Somebody from the group that practiced, or practices, ritual magic there. You want to call Brinker?”

  He shrugged. “St. Margaret’s is ten minutes away.”

  “So we go there and take a quick look around. Then we’ll know whether or not to call the boss.”

  “I thought you were the boss,” DeMarco said.

  She grinned. “I’m your boss, mister. And don’t you ever forget it.”

  And they were both happy again, the adrenaline flowing.

  Eighty-Three

  Movement, DeMarco realized as he drove, was helping him to think. Movement blew the cobwebs out, got the juices running again. Walking was best, walking in the woods, but even driving a car was beneficial. It had something to do with stimulation, he guessed. Blood flow to the brain. More oxygen to the brain. More brain chemicals lighting up more neurons. More endorphins, adrenaline, testosterone, L-DOPA.

  Sitting in a car didn’t sound like much movement but it involved a complex set of actions: foot from accelerator to brake, hand making fine corrections on the steering wheel, eyes assessing traffic ahead, to the rear, to the side, all of it continuous and synchronous. Taking the wheel with the left hand while putting the right hand out to lay atop a fine, warm leg clothed in tight denim. Yes, it was all so very good for the brain.

  And the sunlight warm on the side of his face, the cooling air from the vents. A good morning, already productive. So why was his chest sore again, every breath heavy? Why the metallic taste in his mouth?

  He said, “Didn’t Becca say she took Gillespie’s class with Connor?”

  “She did, didn’t she? And that would have been last fall. But she also said that he had dropped out for a while. Took the class when he came back to school.”

  “Daksh said the class was many months ago. Would you refer to last fall as ‘many months ago’?”

  “Maybe Connor failed the class the first time and had to repeat it.”

  “Is that how college works? If you fail a class, you have to take it again?”

  “Only if it’s a required course. I suspect Gillespie’s are electives unless you’re a religion major,” Jayme said. “So why repeat an elective you already failed?”

  “You tell me,” he said.

  “On the other hand, we know that he dropped out of college for a while. Maybe he never finished the course before dropping out. Then came back and took it again.”

  “So both Becca and Daksh could be telling the truth.”

  She nodded. “Which implies that the subject matter was important enough to Connor that he was willing to face Gillespie’s animosity a second time.”

  “Or maybe he took it to impress Samantha Lewis? According to her brother, Connor was always trying ‘to get with’ Samantha.”

  “Could be,” Jayme said.

  “‘Because the women are watching,’” he said.

  “Watching what?”

  “It’s wh
at T. E. Lawrence said. The guy the movie Lawrence of Arabia was about.”

  “That was a real guy?”

  DeMarco nodded. “He was asked once why men go to war. And he said, ‘Because the women are watching.’”

  “So now we’re getting the blame for wars too?”

  “You’re to blame for everything men do.”

  “I think it cuts both ways.”

  “Probably,” he told her, happy to be moving again, trying despite the heaviness in his chest to be happy for blue sky and summer’s greenery and a woman like her with whom to go to war.

  Eighty-Four

  The bank sign they had passed on their way into town five minutes earlier had flashed 10:37, then 84°. Now they were moving slowly along the street that ran more or less parallel to the Shenango River. DeMarco had considered making a quick stop at the building on South Walnut to let the local chief of police know what he and Jayme were up to, except that a quick stop would probably stretch into thirty minutes or more. The borough employed only five police officers in total, which meant that three at the most were working the day shift. So now he pulled to the shoulder in front of the old St. Margaret’s Hospital and shut off the engine. Almost immediately the cool air inside the vehicle began to warm.

  Both he and Jayme looked across the thirty yards of weedy, littered ground to the abandoned building. The old hospital took up four full lots, was flanked by a small macadam parking lot on the eastern side, empty ground to the west and rear of the building, the shallow river fifty yards beyond the rear wall. Two-story frame houses in disrepair lined the rest of the street, with a five-story low-income apartment building directly across the street.

  The concrete drive up to the front entrance of St. Margaret’s was blocked with a rusty chain and a lopsided sign that read No Trespassing. A massive catalpa tree, long untended, stretched twisting arms out across the circle of ground at the end of the drive, shading the weeds with its broad green leaves. Dead leaves and dry brown seed pods blanketed the ground and some of the pavement.

  The building was comprised of one main structure, three stories high, and two flat-roofed wings both two stories high, plus a small, detached shed of some kind, all made of 1920s yellow brick. The parking lot was bumpy with frost heaves and broken pavement and was slowly being reclaimed by weeds and wild grass. A naked, rusting flagpole stood in the circle of weeds, a limp length of fraying cord dangling from an eyebolt. Pieces of rotted white soffit and fascia, loosened by bees and termites and water damage, hung below the roof of the building like dirty Tibetan prayer flags.

  Jayme said, her arms pimpled with goose bumps, “It’s like looking at a decaying corpse in broad daylight.”

  DeMarco said nothing. Concentrated on trying to fill his lungs, exorcise that soreness in the center of his chest, the distant rumbling in his brain.

  When Jayme turned away from the window and looked at him, he nodded toward the glove box. “We’re not going to need them,” he said, “but let’s play it safe.”

  She popped open the compartment, handed him his weapon and holster, then took out her own. She then removed the two identical flashlights, only four inches long but with powerful LED lights and pebbled black steel handles, and gave one of them to him. He removed the key from the ignition and popped open the door. The wash of heat and humidity hit him like a soft blow, as if by opening the door he had let a huge invisible ball of hot, wet cotton roll atop him. In an instant he felt weakened by the heat, by the dry scent of dirty concrete and the pervasive stink of entropy.

  Jayme saw his hand go to his chest, heard his quick, shallow breath. “You okay?” she asked.

  “It’s just the humidity,” he said.

  “Are you having trouble breathing?”

  “I’m fine. Let’s get moving.”

  He stood up. Closed the door. Fitted the holster onto his pocket. Pulled his shirt down over the weapon.

  She climbed out the other side and closed the door. As she fitted the weapon into place and covered it with her shirt, she said, “Let’s just wait here a few minutes until we get used to the humidity.”

  “Stop treating me like a baby,” he said, and pushed the door shut, harder than he’d intended.

  “Stop acting like one.”

  He moved away from the car, kept his eyes on the building. “Looks like the front door is boarded shut. I’m going to check the parking lot side. You’re welcome to join me, if you wish.”

  He crossed ahead of her around the end of the chain and onto the paved driveway, breathing with his mouth open, long, purposeful strides, doing his best to appear strong and steady. Seed pods crackled under his feet. And then he was into the shade beneath the catalpa tree, breathed deeper, the air a few delicious degrees cooler. He pretended to be waiting for her, and when she caught up, they moved out into the sun together.

  And stopped simultaneously at the sound of laughter. Two kids coming around the side of the building, Black girl, white boy, midteens, both in shorts and tees. They spotted DeMarco and Jayme and suddenly got serious, whispered to each other and slowed down.

  “How you doing?” DeMarco said as they approached.

  “Doing good,” the boy said.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “We was just checking the place out is all. It’s pretty cool in there.”

  “Is it?” Jayme said. “What’s it like? We thought we’d check it out too.”

  Now the boy laughed. “Dude, it’s like a bomb went off in there. Lots of bombs.”

  “It’s awesome,” the girl added. “Zombie apocalypse awesome. Somebody should make a movie in there.”

  DeMarco asked, “Is there anybody else inside?”

  “Naw, man,” the boy told him. “I didn’t see nobody. And we went the whole way to the top.”

  “Just the zombies,” the girl said. “Have fun!”

  And then they were jogging away and laughing again, across the street and toward the low-income apartments. Jayme and DeMarco continued around the side of the building, and there found the heavy metal safety door hanging open crookedly, half-torn from the hinges. Part of an old cardboard sign was still tacked to the door:

  No Trespas

  Keep O

  DeMarco paused on the threshold and peered into the stairwell. The sun was still at his back but coming down at a sharp angle, so that the harsh light did not fully illuminate the small room all the way to the set of interior metal doors.

  She came up beside him and squeezed in close. Saw the way the old fallen tiles and ceiling panels had been kicked to the side, leaving a narrow trail that forked at the foot of the stairs and continued to the double doors. “Well-traveled path,” she said. “How long has this building been standing here like this?”

  “Late nineties,” he said. He shined his flashlight up the stairs, saw the landing at the turn jammed with old lockers and metal chairs. “It’s blocked off. Probably not safe.”

  “My God,” she said, “this place is a death trap. Why hasn’t it been torn down or at least locked up?”

  “Money,” he answered. “The lack thereof.”

  Then he said, “Stay close,” and pushed forward, in through the double doors. They swung easily for the first twenty or so degrees, then caught on debris piled on the floor. The doors opened onto a wide, dim hallway, brighter light in the distance, where the lobby with its high windows waited.

  Smaller rooms opened off the corridor—empty, raided, stripped and ruined rooms sometimes decorated with orange or green graffiti, the quick scrawls of teenagers testing their courage or venting their wrath. Water-damaged drywall was stained with black mold, punched full of ragged holes, some panels torn from the walls. A lot of the drywall lay shattered on the floor or was ground into dust, some of it into a thick wet paste in small puddles of stagnant water. Window screens, wires, cables, pieces of pipe and two-by-fo
urs lay about everywhere. Sometimes a heavy metal desk, an overturned filing cabinet with its files spilling out. Rubble and debris mixed with an occasional beer can, soda can, cigarette butt, even a single Converse tennis shoe, now waterlogged and black with mold.

  “The kid was right,” Jayme said as she followed DeMarco into the wide lobby. “It looks exactly like a bomb was dropped in here. Is this what it’s like to be in a war zone?”

  “All that’s missing are the bodies,” he said, and immediately she regretted her question.

  They came to a door with a small plaque that read Visitor Restroom. DeMarco turned the knob and opened the door. The tile walls and floor were mostly intact, a toilet still in place but with the seat and tank lid missing, four inches of black water still in the tank, a smashed soap dispenser still attached to the wall. The stink of old urine was unmistakable.

  In the next room the entire ceiling had been ripped down, every drop tile on the floor, along with a length of metal rectangular ductwork that, seen from the right angle in the partial light, could be mistaken for a coffin.

  Room by room, most of the damage was obviously deliberate, but only some of it purposeful. The place had been readied for demolition, holes cut into the floor, corner beams and I beams exposed—everything in standby for implosion.

  “Looks like the money ran out after prepping the building,” Jayme said.

  “Demolition is expensive. Lots of environmental issues too.”

  They could find no sign of Connor McBride or Satanists or ritualized magic on the first floor. The trail through the debris led to another stairwell on the far side of the lobby. This stairway appeared to be clear of obstacles. “You want this one?” Jayme asked. “I’ll go back and head up the other side.”

  “We need to stay together,” he told her.

  “Now who’s treating who like a baby?”

  “It’s the smart thing to do.”

  “The place is empty,” she said, “and I don’t plan to stand here breathing this mold any longer than I have to. See you at the top.” She turned to walk back to the eastern side of the building.

  He said, “Let’s both go up these stairs. Why climb over those desks and stuff? They could collapse with you on top of them.”