by Etta Faire
“The doctor said he should be okay.” She looked down at her hands as she squeezed them together. “I might’ve oversold Louis on the powers of the rings a little.”
“You think?”
She wrung her hands faster. “One of the waiters found him in the basement unconscious, and they saw something else there too.” Rosalie plopped down on the sad, scuffed-up, probably-used-to-be-green recliner in the corner of the room. She threw her dreadlocks into a scrunchie then looked at me. “We may have a problem.”
Her light blue eyes seemed especially light, pale almost. And they were giving me a look I didn’t recognize at first because I so seldom saw it from Rosalie. Remorse. She picked up the flowered cloth sack that was sitting by her feet and quickly rummaged through it, bringing out one of her big books of paranormal recipes and definitions. She set it on her lap and gripped its cover. “I think we may have unintentionally opened the gates to the hosts of evil.”
“Come again?”
“Now, don’t freak out.”
I looked around for a place to sit, but Rosalie was in the only chair. “You cannot seriously tell me not to freak out after you just told me we opened the gates of the hosts of evil.” I lowered my voice, remembering we were in a hospital. “I don’t even know what that means, but it cannot be good.”
She bit her lip and opened the book. Then with the calming voice of a therapist unsure if her patient might be armed, she said, “I have to check my book, but it seems to be more like a vortex from what the waiter described. Of course, I can’t say for certain because I haven’t seen it myself. But the waiter said there’s something in the middle of the basement wall, right where we all saw the words ‘die, die, die.’ A dark, black hole that doesn’t seem to lead to anywhere human. Air was sucking in and out of it like lungs…”
“So help me God, if that book says one of us needs to go in that hole, I will shove you in there myself.” I said, pacing the room as I talked, wiping my sweaty palms on the same jeans and t-shirt I channeled in last night. “This is your fault.”
“Me? You’re the one who opened those gates,” she said. She clutched at her obsidian necklace like she was clutching at pearls.
“Except that the sapientia formula was your idea. And I told you that opening gates to the hosts of evil was a possible side effect. But you said not to worry. No one really got a 12-hour boner. What would you call this?”
Rosalie took a deep breath and seemed to think this through. The gentle sound of beeps from one of the machines droned on in the background. “You might be right. But I think it might also have to do with your channelings with Feldman. Every time you do them, things get worse at the speakeasy. For example, did you channel last night with that awful, rooting ghost?”
I sat down at the edge of Mr. Peters’s bed. “Yes. And I’m not sure for how long either. Maybe there is a connection. Maybe it was both things combined.” I put my head in my hands. “Please say your book has a solution.”
While she searched through her book, I turned on my phone and googled, “How to close the gates of hell once you’ve opened them.”
As a former click-bait writer, the search wasn’t even the strangest one in my browsing history.
I stared at the results. They were mostly just how-to guides for fantasy video games.
Mr. Peters moaned and Rosalie sprang from her chair. Her hip, which normally gave her problems, didn’t seem to bother her too much today as she darted to his bedside, adjusting the sleeves of the cute, black flouncy top I never saw her wearing before. “Louis, are you all right?”
He blinked at the florescent lights overhead and around the room, moaning even louder.
“Here you go,” Rosalie said as she handed him his glasses from off the tray table. He focused on her and smiled. She smiled back.
And even though their goofy smiles made me feel like I should leave the room, I couldn’t give these possible lovebirds their privacy, not when there was some sort of a vortex to hell we all needed to be more concerned about.
“I think I’m okay,” he said in a whisper.
“What happened?” I asked. “One of the waiters found you unconscious in the basement of your restaurant.”
He turned his head to the side, puzzled almost, and scratched at the bandages sitting along his balding head. The machines beeped around him, taking over the silence. “I… I was wearing the rings, the ones you guaranteed would keep me safe.”
“I don’t think I ever used the word guaranteed,” Rosalie corrected him, then seemed to think better about it. She patted his arm. “But regardless, I’m just glad you’re okay, and I’m sorry the spirit in your basement is very unusual. I think I may have mentioned it might be beyond our usual scope.”
He nodded. “I think it might be. There were noises in the basement, unusual ones. That’s why I went down there, thinking I’d be safe with my rings on…”
He paused to look at Rosalie, like he was waiting for a second apology. She didn’t give him one, so he went on. “And that’s when I noticed the strange sounds were coming from the wall where the three-D image used to be. A hole about the size of a large door had been torn into the bricks. My bricks. Is insurance going to cover that?”
“A vortex to hell?” I shrugged. “Maybe All-State.”
Mr. Peters chuckled at my joke, but then stuttered over his words at the realization. “Is that really what th… that was? A vortex to hell?” He shivered. “That I went near?”
His voice had a faraway quality to it, like a man stunned by the impossible. He giggled, but not in a good-natured way. He was giggling like a man losing it.
Rosalie took her therapist tone again. “Honestly, we don’t know what it is. We haven’t seen it yet,” she said, like we were experts on vortices to the underworld and we just needed to do a quick inspection to determine things. “Let’s not worry until we have something to worry about. You used to say that to me, Louis. Do you remember?”
He stopped giggling. “Yes, when we worked together at the bookstore. You were so cute coming in without any shoes.”
I coughed. “But let’s go back to the vortex and what happened. You went to the basement where there was a hole and…”
He looked at me with the wide eyes of a man unsure of life anymore. Like he was questioning everything he knew to be true. “Yes. Yes,” he said. “And as I got closer, I realized the sound I was hearing was wind, or breathing. More like breathing, very loud, and slow. But it couldn’t have been breathing, could it? Walls don’t breathe.”
“No, not normal ones,” I began. “But you might have been hallucinating.” I said this like hallucinating was a hopeful diagnosis.
“Yes.” He nodded. “I must’ve been hallucinating I’ve been under a tremendous amount of stress lately. The restaurant’s not doing as well as I need it to. I must get rid of this problem once and for all.”
“We’re trying. Just tell us what happened,” Rosalie said.
Mr. Peters went on. “I remember walking toward the hole, and I guess I got too close.”
Rosalie’s face went pale. “Are you crazy?”
“It wasn’t my brightest moment. But I had to follow the voices.”
“Voices?’ I said, practically shouting. Now, I wasn’t sure. Maybe he really was hallucinating.
He sat up, his thin blue hospital gown falling forward with him. He pulled it safely closed along his shoulders then continued. “Yes, voices coming from the hole in the wall. The closer I got the clearer the words. It was a woman’s voice saying something like tick tock, but it was more like Dick Dock. Dick Dock. It was weird. Then someone else said something about being sick of this dick. And are we playing cards or what?”
I gasped.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I said. “That’s just very interesting. I’ll have to look into that.”
“Into my hallucination?”
Mr. Peters’s voice was weak and raspy, and every once in a while he paused to take a deeper breath. “But whe
n I got about three feet away, just as I was noticing a little metal horse, it suddenly felt like the wall took a huge inhale. And I was sucked into the hole. I think it spit me back out again. I don’t know. I blacked out from then on.”
“Ohmygosh, Louis. I’m so sorry,” Rosalie said again, touching his arm, tracing a finger along his bandage. “I’m so thankful you’re okay.”
“Yes, I’m okay. I’m sorry too. I should never have asked you to do things for me for free. And now, look at me. An old fool with a huge hospital bill.” He was staring into my boss’s eyes, and she was only looking back at him. And they both got their goofy smiles back.
I snuck out during the love-fest staring contest, trying to think of a way to get in touch with my weak ex-husband.
One thing was certain, though. Those wall voices had come straight from my channeling, and I had no idea what that meant. But worse, the thing had sucked Mr. Peters in and spit him out probably because he wasn’t the one meant to go in there.
Chapter 22
Hole in the Wall
Rosalie lectured me the whole way over to the restaurant Sunday morning. Except that it was more like crazy yelling.
Her tirade started the moment I told her the conversation Mr. Peters overheard by the vortex was the same one I also heard in my channeling with Feldman.
So now, she was convinced my channelings were the cause of everyone’s problems, down to her bad hip, I think.
I ignored her as I drove. The weather was nicer today. The news said it might even hit 65. I rolled the window down, trying to feel the breeze along my face, taking a deep breath as I bounced over every pot hole on the drive. Life seemed different since my last channeling. Or at least I felt different. More powerful. More in control.
I stopped at the light by Potter Grove Methodist, the typical brown rectangular church most the locals attended. Music streamed from the sanctuary, and I giggled at the irony. “Good people are heading to church right now. While we are literally headed someplace else.”
Rosalie was still yelling about how I was the one who’d created the vortex, when she stopped and giggled too. “Those good people ought to be thankful we’re heading to the gates of hell, honestly. I’ve been reading up on the vortex. Things are only going to get worse if we can’t stop this. One farmer claimed he lost four goats, almost an entire crop of beans, and a mother-in-law before he was able to close the gate again. Of course, this story happened in the 1600s.”
“And he happened to hate his mother-in-law,” I added, driving away from the church. “How’d he close the gate?”
“Didn’t say. But there’s a recipe in the book. Of course, the ingredients are very expensive…” She let her voice hang there at the end, like she expected me to jump right in and offer to pay for it.
Looking down at my steering wheel, I felt the guilt pour over me. This whole thing was my fault, kind of. “I can ask Ronald if the estate will cover the costs again, but last time I could tell he really didn’t want to do it.”
We passed the Spoony River Cafe and I craned my neck to see if Shelby’s Cadillac was there. I didn’t see it, but it was still pretty early.
“Whole town’s looking for Bobby now that there’s a reward. You joining the task force?” Rosalie asked.
“I don’t need half off the gym,” I said. “I canceled my membership after I realized I hated exercising. But, I’ll probably still join a search party soon. I hope all of this attention brings up Shelby’s spirit. Gives her a little hope.”
Chez Louie was dark and quiet again, but this time I didn’t think it was the strong ghost causing it. Like the Purple Pony and most other businesses in Landover County, fancy dining places didn’t open until they were good and ready, which was usually around eleven.
I looked at the clock on my dashboard. 9:10. We sat in the car for a minute before either of us went for the door. “I’m a little nervous about this,” I finally admitted, pulling my door handle.
“I’d be worried if you weren’t worried.” Rosalie was right behind me.
The strong smell of sulphur seemed to take over the parking lot. The last time I was here, that smell was restricted to the basement. Now, it was everywhere.
I also felt something. A heavy presence coming from the restaurant.
Rosalie waved a hand by her nose and sniffed back a tear. “Not what you’d expect to smell from fine dining,” she said.
My eyes stung and I coughed into my elbow. The stench was so strong I could taste it sitting along my tongue. I popped my hatch and grabbed my bike helmet from the back. The shiny silver coating gleamed in the sunlight.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Rosalie said when she saw me stuffing my curls into the sides and clipping the strap.
“I bought this a few months ago, when I first learned that the penetrating-skull birds might be back.”
The helmet was a little loose so I pulled on the strap like I knew how to adjust it. Looking up, I noticed Rosalie staring at me, mouth open.
She took a wobbly step back. “You really think an oversized bike helmet is going to save you from whatever the hell the gates to the hosts of evil is?”
I shook my head “no” and the bike helmet slid along my hairline with the movement. “It’s all I have, though.”
“You got another one?” she asked, as I closed the hatch.
We made our way over to the basement, and the sulphur smell grew even stronger. Rosalie took her sweater off, exposing her large bare arms. She draped her cardigan over her nose and mouth and tied the sleeves in the back.
I resisted the urge to take a selfie. Me in my helmet, and Rosalie in her sweater mask.
The staircase seemed darker than what it should have been considering how light it was outside. And the temperature dropped as soon as I hit the first step. My teeth chattered and I almost snatched Rosalie’s cardigan from her face.
There was definitely a presence here, trying to make a connection with me, making my skin crawl with the sensation of fingers tickling my neck. I refused to focus on it, and instead kept my eyes on the stairwell and the old wooden door in front of me, reminding myself that I was in control.
Mr. Peters had given us a key, and I was just about to jab it into the lock when it occurred to me we didn’t really have a plan. I turned to the woman coughing into her sweater mask next to me.
“We’re just going to see the vortex for ourselves,” I said. “From a safe distance. We’re not actually stepping inside the speakeasy.”
I got my phone out, covered my nose and face with the edge of my t-shirt, took a deep breath, and unlocked the door.
Rosalie grabbed my arm before I opened the door. “Did you hear that?” she asked. I hadn’t heard anything strange, but I took my hand off the door knob and concentrated on the sounds around me.
It was unmistakable. The sound of breathing was all around me. Very loud and slow, making me wonder why I hadn’t heard it sooner. But then my own breathing had been louder than normal… I took another large inhale. And so did the thing inside, at the same time, which seemed strange.
Just to rule out the possibility, I held my breath. The breathing inside the basement stopped too. I quickly exhaled, same as the vortex.
“What are we waiting for?” Rosalie asked, motioning toward the door.
“Nothing,” I answered, because when your breathing happens to be exactly in time with whatever is breathing in the gates of hell, you keep it to yourself. And act natural.
But whatever it was, it obviously wanted me to know it knew I was here. And that we had made our connection.
I gulped and opened the door.
The door swung open with a sticky kind of sound I wasn’t expecting. I blinked around the dark room, shining my phone’s flashlight this way and that, willing my eyes to adjust already so I could see the hole and get the heck out.
Problem was, my eyes watered from the stench surrounding me and I was having a hard time seeing anything. Rosalie pointed toward the bac
k wall where tiny white specks drifted around randomly. Heavy breathing in time with my own echoed off the wall, making me feel like I was standing in the doorway of a giant MRI machine. Every exhale blew huge, cold gusts of sulphur-smells in our direction.
But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get my eyes to adjust to the room enough to see the hole accurately. I focused on the specks, realizing they were probably papers, and they didn’t seem to be blowing around the back of the wall after all. They were blowing around inside the hole.
I realized the hole was the entire length of the wall now.
“This is bigger than the waiter described,” Rosalie said. “We need to go.”
My heart quickened and so did my breath, which caused the thing to breathe faster too. The force sucked me into the room, and Rosalie screamed through her cardigan.
I fumbled through the gust that was pulling me, trying to grab something, anything — the door frame, one of the support beams, the bar — but I couldn’t. It was the horrible sensation of being out of control.
Somehow, I got it together enough to hold my breath. The thing did too, and I fell hard along the floorboards. My head smacked against my helmet, sending a pain down my neck and over to my shoulders. I looked at the wall. The tiny floating bits of paper had fallen as well.
I scrambled to my feet, my lungs already aching because they wanted to inhale. I was never a strong swimmer, so holding my breath was not something I was used to. My head already throbbed with the feeling I was going to pass out if I didn’t inhale.
I made it over to the support beam in the middle of the room and held on. Looking around for the horse that Mr. Peters said he saw in here the night he got hurt, I spotted it by the end of the bar closest to the hole opening. I took a strong, long inhale, and let my legs suck toward the vortex. My hands stung against the force of the air being sucked around me but I refused to let go. Then when my lungs were full, I held my breath again, dropped to the floor, hobbled over to the bar, and grabbed for the horse. It fell to the floor, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to get it. My lungs hurt. My face hurt. I hop-ran over to the exit as quickly as I could.
