by N. P. Martin
But just as soon as the thought had occurred to me, I felt a warmth rising from my belly and spreading throughout my whole body. A welcoming sense of well-being that seemed to bring a certain amount of courage with it. My new power perhaps? Whatever it was, I was glad of it.
There wasn’t much to see in the living room. It had been stripped bare, even the carpet was gone. In my mind, I could picture perfectly where everything used to be in the room, right down to the position of certain ornaments on the mantle. I spent many happy hours in that room, watching TV with Josh, or sitting in the corner drawing while my parents, or more usually my father, sat reading. That mental picture soon disappeared, though, to be replaced by the grim and dark room before me.
"Let’s go upstairs," I said quietly.
"Sure," Kasey said. "Great idea. Can’t wait."
I couldn’t help a small laugh. "I’m glad you’re here, Kase."
Kasey squeezed my arm. "I’m always here for you, sister."
Once again, my stomach ached with guilt. How long was I planning to keep her in the dark? For a moment, I thought about telling her everything then and there, but I ended up pulling back at the last second. Something was stopping me from saying anything; some sense that I had to protect my friend from the truth for a little while longer, if only until I got a better handle on the situation myself. Now isn’t the time, I told myself as I put up with the guilt.
As far as Kasey was concerned, I didn’t know much of anything about what happened to my parents. I told her when we first met that someone had broken into the house and killed them both while Josh and I were sleeping. I put it across that it was just some random murder that no one had ever been brought to justice for. Shit like that happens all the time, so Kasey didn’t question it. She had no reason to doubt me anyway.
I leaned my shoulder against her for a second, then directed us upstairs—the place I was most dreading going, and which had become a nightmare setting in my mind over the years. A place of murder, and of evil…and terror.
The stairs creaked loudly as we put our weight on them, the bare boards sounding like they were going to crack any second, a sound that reminded me all too much of the creature that had once stood outside my bedroom door, its heavy bulk pressing down hard on the floorboards…
I shuddered at the thought.
"Why have we stopped?" Kasey asked.
I hadn’t even realized we had stopped. "It’s nothing," I whispered. "Let’s keep going."
It seemed especially dark upstairs as we stood on the landing, which also groaned and creaked under our combined weight. The presence I’d felt downstairs seemed especially pervasive up there. I didn’t even have to go to my parents room to know that the presence would be strongest in there.
"Which room was yours?" Kasey whispered.
I directed the beam of the flashlight down the hall to the closed door at the very end. "That one."
We both moved at the same time down the hall to the bedroom door. I held the knob for several seconds before I found the courage to turn it and push the door open, not sure what I was going to find inside.
What I did find, I wasn’t expecting. At all.
The bedroom looked almost the same as it did when I was last in it that fateful night eleven years ago. Obviously, everything was covered in dust and grime, rendering the room and its contents into dull gray tones. But all of my books, toys and teddy bears were still there, some scattered around the floor as if my seven year old self had just finished playing with them. Even some of my drawings were still on the wall—pictures of fairy tale castles, dragons and magical landscapes, all showing my burgeoning artistic talent at the time.
"I know this was your room and all," Kasey whispered. "But this is damn creepy. Why is all this stuff still here? It’s like no one’s even come into this room since…" She trailed off as if the mere mention of that night would upset me.
I hardly heard her, though, because I was lost in my memories at that point. One memory in particular, of my father putting me to bed and reading Alice In Wonderland to me, my favorite book at the time. When he’d finished reading and he’d kissed me goodnight, I would say, "I love you more than I did yesterday, Daddy."
"I love you more than I did yesterday," he would say back, before smiling and exiting the room, leaving the door open just a crack as I always insisted he do.
I was surprised to feel a tear run down my cheek, and I wiped it away with my hand, shaking my head as I turned away from the room.
"You all right?" Kasey asked.
I sniffed back my remaining tears and nodded. Then I went across the hall and peeked quickly into Josh’s old room, which was slightly smaller than mine. The room was just as preserved, though. Even Josh’s toy car collection still sat on one of the shelves, and a dusty baseball glove lay in one corner on the floor. Sighing sadly, I closed the door.
"One more room left," I whispered, staring down the hall. Already, the events of that night were fresh in my mind again, right down to the sounds of my parents fighting with the demon, and the loud snorts of the hellhound. Instead of tears, beads of sweat ran down my face this time, as the fear of that night gripped me hard the closer I got to the bedroom.
As expected, the door was missing, having been smashed to pieces by the hellhound. Under my feet, I could still feel splinters of wood embedded in the dank carpet.
"Oh Jesus," Kasey uttered to herself as she looked at the busted doorframe and the splinters on the floor. God knows what she was picturing in her mind at that point, although it couldn’t have been worse than what I was reliving.
My eyes went to the floor, to the spot where I lay after the demon took my mother through the portal. I don’t know how long I was curled up there, until Josh finally found me. Then having to look at my father’s mangled body on the bed, the blood that seemingly covered every surface, the strange smells in the room…
Now the room was dark and strangely empty, even though the bed and furniture was still there. When I noticed the bloodstained mattress, I squeezed my eyes shut and swallowed the enormous lump in my throat as I waited for my stomach to stop churning. Only, when I closed my eyes, all I saw was my father’s mangled body.
It was too much.
"I have to get out of here," I said, moving past Kasey toward the stairs.
"Leia?" she whispered after me. "Are you all right?"
I didn’t answer as I practically ran back down the stairs, my heart thumping hard against my chest, cold sweat still running down my face. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I ran through the hallway and then through the kitchen, finally bursting out the back door into the fading daylight. There, I stopped and leaned on my knees, doubled over as bile left my mouth and splatted onto the ground. When I finished being sick, I crouched down and started to take deep breaths to calm myself.
"I guess that was hard for you, huh?" Kasey said as she put a hand on my shoulder.
I shook my head. "You think?" I snapped.
Kasey stepped away. "Sorry, I was just…"
I stood up and sighed. "No, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap."
"It’s cool. I was scared shitless in there too."
I moved to close the back door, then I lifted the board from the ground and placed it over the door again. "Well, this was a waste of fucking time."
"I don’t know what you expected to find here in the first place," Kasey said. "There’s nothing but decay here, and…" She shook her as she trailed off. "Maybe we should go, huh? You look like you could use a drink. I certainly need one."
I nodded. "Let’s go."
As we were walking to the car, a voice called out that stopped me in my tracks, and I looked around to see an older version of the woman I presumed to be Mrs. Jones, standing on her porch. "Are you Leia Swanson?" she asked, looking around somewhat nervously as if she was afraid someone might hear.
"Yes," I said without hesitation. I told Kasey to wait in the car for a moment, then I started walking toward the wo
man, who I could now see was definitely Mrs. Jones. She was older obviously, in her late forties now, a good deal heavier than when I last saw her. She had a thick, tatty looking dressing gown wrapped around her, and wore fluffy slippers on her feet. When I was close enough, I caught the scent of alcohol coming off her. She cracked some sort of smile at me when I reached her, her blue eyes anything but smiling. I remembered the woman as a jolly sort, always ready with an easy smile. What the hell had happened to her?
"I can’t believe it’s you," she said. "I didn’t think I would ever see you back here."
"Mrs. Jones, right?"
"Yes, although my husband died three years ago."
That would explain her ramshackle appearance, and the booze smell. "I’m sorry."
She then swiped her hand away, as it to suggest it didn't matter, or that she didn't want to go into it. "I never did get to tell you how sorry I was about your parents. They took you and your brother away before I could say anything."
I shrugged. "That’s all right. I was just checking out the old house."
"Why?"
The bluntness of her question took me aback a bit. "I thought coming here might help me make sense of things, make sense of what happened."
"Did it?"
I shook my head. "No, not really."
"Wait here," she said. "I have something that may help you."
Despite myself, excitement and anticipation tinged my belly as I wondered what she meant when she said she had something for me. It was probably some useless trinket or other.
Or something more…
Mrs. Jones arrived back on the porch with a manilla envelope in her hand, which she handed to me. The envelope was creased and faded, as if it had been lying around her house for years now, which of course it had. "Your mother gave me that to give to you," she said. "She told me if anything ever happened to her, that you were to get this, but only when you were old enough. You look old enough to me now."
"What is it?" I asked.
"I didn’t look inside. It’s none of my business."
I shook my head as a slight smile appeared on my face.
Finally, something concrete. I hope.
"Have you been waiting on me coming here at some point?"
Mrs. Jones gave me a grim smile. "Not really. I didn’t think I would ever get the chance to give you that. I didn’t think you would ever come back here after…you know..."
"My mother obviously thought I would be back," I said, more to myself.
"Yes, she seemed to be sure of a lot of things, your mother."
I frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Nothing. Your mother wasn’t like anyone else I knew, or have known, for that matter." She shook her head and gave me a smile. "Regardless, you look just like her. That’s how I knew who you were."
I smiled back and nodded. "Well," I said, holding up the envelope, dying to know its contents. "Thank you for this. It means a lot that you kept it all these years."
"That’s okay," Mrs. Jones said. "I just hope it helps you."
"So do I. Bye, Mrs. Jones."
I walked quickly back to the car and got inside. Kasey sat in the passenger seat, rolling another joint. "What you got there?" she asked.
"Something my mother left for me."
"Really? What is it?"
I tore open the envelope. Inside was a piece of paper with an address on it. There was also a key attached to a plastic keyring, with the number 101 written on it. I handed the piece of paper with the address on it to Kasey. "You know where that is?"
“Sure,” Kasey said. “It’s a storage facility. It’s just a few miles from here, I think.”
Good old Kasey. She knew the city like the back of her hand.
"We go there now then," I said, hardly able to contain my excitement, although it was laced with trepidation, as I wasn’t sure what I was going to find at the storage facility.
I knew I was going to find something, though, and that was good enough for now.
6
Kasey directed us without much trouble to the storage facility, which was just off the freeway at the edge of the Warehouse District. "What do you think we’re going to find here?" she asked excitedly as I parked the Mustang by the front entrance. "A suitcase full of money maybe? Stolen jewels? The bones of some long forgotten kidnap victim?" She laughed at that last one.
"What kind of person do you think my mother was?" I said to her.
Kasey shrugged. "I don’t know. You tell me."
I just stared at her, unable to tell her anything even if I’d wanted to. The truth of the matter was, I didn’t know my mother at all. There literally could be anything inside the storage unit, although I had a strong feeling that whatever we were going to find in there, it would have something to do with my rapidly unfolding situation of the preternatural variety.
And demonkind, of course.
As for Kasey, I wasn’t sure if I wanted her to go in with me, given that I didn’t know what I was going to find in there. In the end, though, I decided I would feel bad if I told her just to wait in the car. She seemed more excited than I was anyway. Plus, I felt like I needed the moral support of my best friend.
"Let’s go inside."
Kasey and I walked through the glass doors and into a small reception area. An old guy sat behind the reception desk, his feet resting on a stool as he casually perused a porn mag.
Kasey laughed. "What, you don’t have the internet in here? Who still reads porno mags?"
The old guy turned his head slowly to look at Kasey, his piercing blue eyes boring into her for a moment, which soon wiped the smile from her face. "I’m old school," he said in a raspy voice that sounded ravaged by years of smoking cigarettes. The full ashtray on the counter next to him said as much. "There’s a kind of glossy realism in these mags that you don’t get with videos. I also like to read the stories."
"I’ll bet," Kasey said, turning away like she’d heard enough.
The old guy closed his magazine and slowly stood. He was surprisingly tall and sinewy for a man of his age. I got the impression that back in the day, you’d be making a big mistake if you tried to fuck with the guy. Going by the prison tatts on his nut brown forearms, no doubt many had also tried, to their detriment most likely. "What can I do for you girls?" he asked me. "You wanna rent a locker so you can play your kinky sex games in peace?"
"Eww," Kasey said behind me. "That’s just…no."
The old man sniggered to himself. "You’d be surprised at some of the reasons people rent lockers for. I’ve seen it all, believe me. I should also add that I've been known to provide appealing discounts, should you require, let's say a third wheel and all…" His eyes came to rest on me for a moment. "Why do you look familiar, Missy? Have you been in here before or something?"
I frowned as I shook my head. "No, but I think my mother has."
"Your mother? Who would she be then? Is she as pretty as her daughter?"
I shook my head at his comment and produced the key that was in the envelope. "She left this key for me? It’s one of yours, right? Hector’s Storage, that’s you, right?"
The old guy nodded as he took the key from me. "That’s me." He examined the key for a second, then started nodding to himself slowly as if he had just remembered something. A smile crept across his face.
"What?" I asked him.
"I know who you’re talking about now." His eyes fell on me again as if for confirmation. "Yep, the key’s her’s all right. Damn, you look just like her, though younger obviously, and not as…formidable."
"Formidable? Are you talking about my mother, Rachel Swanson?"
"Rachel, that’s it, that was her name." He smiled and said the name again in that dreamy way people exhibit when recalling experiences with a fondness present all over their faces, a "yuck, I want to go and throw up" kind of impression I could've done without experiencing
I ignored his blatant salaciousness toward my mother in favor of going back to the description he
had given of her. He called her formidable. That wasn’t a word I would have used to describe my mother. Confident perhaps, sometimes aggressive in her mannerisms, but not formidable. The way Hector said it, it was like my mother had earned his respect in some way. For a man like Hector to have such respect for anybody, they would had to have done something pretty damn big to be worthy of that respect.
"Who was she to you?" I asked him.
Hector frowned as he seemed to look right into me with his intimidating stare. "I heard she disappeared over a decade ago, that she’s most likely dead. Is that right?"
I nodded. "Yeah, that’s right."
"I’m sorry then," he said, bowing his head at me slightly. "From what I remember—and the old gray matter isn’t what it used to be—she was a good woman your mother."
"Why did you respect her so much?"
Hector rubbed at his chin as he stared at me, then he threw me the key back. "The locker you’re after is down that way to your left. Let me know if you need help with anything else."
Just like that, Hector sat down and went back to reading Asian Babes as if we had left already.
"Dick," Kasey said quietly.
Whatever, I thought as I walked away from the reception desk to head down a long corridor that was lit by flickering florescent lights. "He knows more than he’s letting on." I said more to myself than to Kasey.
"Huh?" she said.
"Nothing." I started checking the numbers on the lockers, finally stopping at 101. "This is it."
I stood there with the key in my hand, staring at the steel shutter. What was I going to find in there? Was I going to find the answers I so desperately sought? What if I didn’t like what I found? Maybe, in opening the locker, I would be opening a whole can of nasty worms that I wouldn’t be able to put back in. Maybe—
"Just open the fucking locker already!" Kasey said, practically on her tip toes like some kid waiting on a birthday present.
