I walked up to the gaping maw that was the entrance into the basement. I peered within. It should’ve been as black as coal down there. I should’ve have been able to see more than four or five steps down.
I was surprised I could see all the way down to the basement floor. Plainly, I saw the runnels of blood, the shoe marks muddling it. There was a thicker, darker rope of it that had to have come from Lenny’s mangled right foot. It was broad, almost brush-like. I could tell it was the impression made by his sock. It was drenched all the way through. His foot must look like hamburger.
My eyes darted about. I was beginning to realize it wasn’t Bruce. It wasn’t our friendly tenant who was doing this. The ageless hippy couldn’t’ve flung open the side gate as if it were no more than chicken-wire. He couldn’t have handled the heavy doors of the basement as though they were made of balsa wood. And, he sure as hell couldn’t have done it without making a sound.
Yes, he was strong, his muscles were ropey and defined, but he wasn’t the Incredible Hulk, he wasn’t that Bruce. He was Bruce, Bruce – your typical non-violent, bee-keeping, flower-lover from a bygone era. He wasn’t a raving monster. He wouldn’t saunter off with full-grown man in tow like he was a sack of potatoes.
Something else was happening. Something else had Lenny.
I realized this as I gazed down into the basement, my orbs capable of piercing what should’ve been sheer obsidian.
It wasn’t darkness either. Some alien light source was down there. It was phosphorous, a dim glow. It had no pulse or flicker, or periodic dimming. It was constant. It was blue, the color of gemstones, pure, of a single ray. It was emanating from the right, what we knew as the northern portion of the basement.
Something had Lenny. It wasn’t a person. It wasn’t an animal. It was a something.
Something I had yet to see.
I heard the sound of creaking hinges and the slam of a heavy door. The azure light extinguished. The basement went dark.
I felt my heart sink.
I knew something had taken Lenny into the passage leading to the root cellar. Whatever it was, it had closed the door leading to it. I knew whatever it was, it would kill him there. It would end his miserable life and, though I already felt something like it in my heart, I’d be fatherless.
Lenny would never see things above the ground again.
~~~~~~~<<< ᴥ >>>~~~~~~~
Chapter Eighteen: The Warehouse
I thought about the situation for a split second. Did I have to do anything? Should I just stay there atop the stairs and let whatever was happening take its’ course? It would sure make things easier for us, for my mother.
I should just leave, right? I should let the cops take care of it. I should…
I walked down the stairs, uncaring now if my slippers were besmirched with my one-time father’s life-giving fluids. My mind focused on navigating the pitch-black surrounding me. In my head I counted until I reached the number eleven and stopped. That was how many steps it took to reach the concrete floor. I extended my hand to the right, feeling for the surface of the boxes that should’ve been stacked there.
My hand closed over the flashlight we were in the habit of leaving atop the boxes. It was the way we did things in my family. In case of great need, we’d always know where to find a flashlight. I’m not sure if it was a by-product of having a father like Lenny. We seemed – my mother and we kids – always prepared for the worst. Whatever it was, it sure helped that night.
I thumbed the switch and a strong, steady beam shot forth from the four-cell Maglite. I trained it immediately upon the medieval door leading to the root cellar, all six by five and a half feet of it. Its’ huge oaken planks bound with iron and wood shod with large rivets had been cleaned and partially restored. The iron ring serving as the door handle was polished as well. The once-looking crudeness of it wasn’t as noticeable now that the thick hinges had been greased and painted black. It didn’t seem as foreboding as it had over a year ago when my mother and Eli had urged my sister and me down into the basement to ponder its‘ existence. Though it was large in comparison to modern doors, it looked relatively normal now.
Well, except for the ever-widening swath of blood running directly underneath it.
If you’re gonna do this, Jeremiah, you better get a move on, I urged myself. I shook my head, physically banishing all doubt, stepped over and pull the circular latch downward, hard.
The portal opened readily. Nothing had changed there.
But, everything had changed beyond. I should’ve been staring at rough-hewn walls, dug out of the sandstone fundament of the hill. The other set of stairs should’ve given way to hard-packed dirt. It should’ve seen a passage supported by cross-beams every five feet or so. The thick layer of dust would’ve been gone. It had been swept away long ago by the men my mom had working down here six or seven months prior.
None of it was in evidence.
What I saw made my mouth gape so drastically, the hairs of my scraggly goatee should’ve been awash in Lenny’s blood when my jaw hit the floor.
Instead, there was no passage. There was a soft, deep blue glow that seemed to come from everywhere at once, but nothing else I would’ve expected. I was perplexed. I was struck motionless, incapable of making my body move. I don’t think I even breathed.
Before me was an alley, much like an alley one would see in the older portions of metro Los Angeles, only it was the strangest sort I had ever seen. Yes, there were what appeared to be tall buildings on either side, each one at least fifteen stories high. There was an assortment of trash bins, empty milk and produce crates, heaps of newsprint, broken glass, smashed soda cans and the like rubbish one would expect to find in an alley. It was dim with long shadows, because of the odd lighting. It was cold, much cooler than it was in the basement, where I stood. The entire passage was damp, but the verge of freezing. I could feel the icy air chapping at my cheeks, making my lips crack. There was even the typical smell of garbage, turned milk and urine, comingled as it would within any typical alleyway.
As I said before, though, this place was anything but usual.
To begin with, there was a roof. I could see the tops of the buildings – normal - except there was a small extension of the wall above and beyond the rooftops. Where this ended, an overarching ceiling – or whatever – began.
The doors leading from the alleyway were different as well. Unlike the windows, which faced perpendicular to the passage, they were turned, forty-five degrees in my direction. There were hundreds of them, as far as I could see down the alley, which seemed to have no end.
No end, the words repeated in my brain, my eyes scanned the distance, searching for some semblance of a terminus. I couldn’t see one. There were only stretches of differently colored, in-laid brick facades as far as my vision allowed. The bizarre roof covered all.
Down through the center of it all, leading away from where I stood, splotched and dribbled, was Lenny’s blood.
I squinted, trying to determine if the trail led to either side, possibly down a crossing passage, another alley. I couldn’t tell from my vantage. It appeared to go at least seventy - maybe eighty - yards before it faded from my view altogether. I knew the gruesome trail continued. It was merely obscured the further away I gazed.
If I wanted to discern where my one-time-father had been dragged, I was going to have to personally investigate it.
I stared down at my feet, standing as I was in the mess left behind by Lenny. I hadn’t stepped through the doorway yet. I saw the line where the concrete of the basement met the frigid sogginess of the alley. I had this odd notion, the moment I stepped over it; I wouldn’t be in the same place any longer. I wouldn’t be at 1052 Lincoln Drive, in Los Angeles, in California.
I’d be somewhere else entirely.
I glanced up at the long, crimson streak upon the unclean pavement, my mind uncertain. Thoughts, similar to those I’d thought before, bubbling to the fore. Did I really have to go after
him? After everything he had done to us, was it necessary to seek out his attacker? Couldn’t I just let it go? Lenny was a world-class douche. Did he deserve my concern, or my time? Couldn’t I let the police figure it out? After all, we hadn’t done anything. He and his brothers had broken into the house. They’d been the ones who’d battered down the door. They were going to hurt my mother. Why should I bother?
I peered about, breathing in the fetid, chilly air, feeling my shoulders bunch, then release. The answer was simple. Though I hated it, I couldn’t escape it. Its’ simplicity made it so.
Because…
It was one word, without explanation, devoid of closure. It was open-ended, because there was no single correct way to finish it. Sometimes, especially when things no longer make sense, the only answer is a beginning, whatever sort that may be.
Because…
I could sit here and attempt to enumerate all of the “endings” to the beginning of that sentence. I could spell them out and explain them, in detail, if I chose. And, believe me, there were many. But, in the end, it would amount to the same thing. In the totality of the situation, it all added up to the same act.
I stepped across the threshold and entered the alley. I risked leaving behind everything I’d known in my short life and went in search of the reply to every query I had ever asked.
That night, I would find out.
Feeling I had wasted enough time as it was, I began my trek into that strange place at a jog.
I worked my way through the debris clogging one side of the alley and then the other, following the mild “zig” and “zag” left behind by the body of my one-time father. I tried to ignore the peculiarity of my environs, but it was hard not to look.
It wasn’t as though I felt an overbearing presence or felt anything threatening, but there was something about the place that kept my head jutting from place to place, my eyes flitting from one object to the next. And, it wasn’t as though the odds and ends within the alley were abnormal or even foreign for that matter. It was a certain characteristic, a particular aspect about them that made me uneasy. They appeared normal, but something primal, something stretching back into my genetic past told me otherwise. In here, something creeped, something...
I trotted along the ghastly trail, trying to figure out what it was precisely. What was so unusual about this place and everything in it? Why was I so unsettled?
Maybe, because it appeared out of nowhere. Ever think about that?
Then, without fading or showing signs of diminishing, I came to the end of the stream of Lenny’s blood. Within the length of a linear foot, it was there and then it wasn’t. It didn’t stop as if cut off nor did it drain away. It seemed to have ended, as if at that exact point my one-time father had simply bled-out.
I stopped, glancing around. Nothing had changed. I was still surrounded by the seemingly unending buildings, twin, sentinel-like walls peering down at me through two or three score nearby windows. They were like huge, rectangular eyes gazing at me, watching my every move, scrutinizing my intentions as if they hadn’t decided if I was a friend or a foe.
I frowned in consternation, a drip of fear tingling down my spine. I looked back the way I’d come. Far off, I could see the doorway back into the basement of my house. It appeared no different than any of the other times I had walked into the earthen passage to the root cellar and had peered back, only the distance was much greater this time. But, the door was still open. The bizarre indigo afterglow of the alley illuminated the first ten feet of the chamber beyond. I could easily see the things we had stored within. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
I inspected the blood trail again, but found no new clues. The sanguine fluid ended. Lenny’s life had finished seeping out. It was spent.
A set of double doors to my right caught my attention. They were the first set I’d given more than a cursory glance since I’d been within the alley. There was a sign hastily written and secured to the painted wood with masking tape, most of it had come loose, but what remained in place held the sign. It was scrawled in marker as if the writer had scribed the words in a hurry. The words written there were the odd, especially given the situation.
“Don’t go in before 6:45 in the morning.
Don’t leave open after closing,
And definitely no later than 10:30 at night.”
I felt my head turn slightly to the side of its’ own volition. It wasn’t just the way the sign had been made or how it was hung. The way it was transcribed was just as difficult to explain. It didn’t seem as though an adult had scrawled those words there. It was written the way Eli might’ve written, not using abbreviations of any sort. There was no “am” or “pm” at the end of the specified times. Someone older would’ve been satisfied with merely that. Someone older wouldn’t have spent the time to spell out the time of day. And, that was just the tip of the iceberg… Why was it there in the first place?
What time is it? I asked myself. Then, I recalled I’d been awakened in the dead of night. That meant I was standing before it during “do not enter” block of time outlined upon the sign. But what if Lenny had been dragged inside?
So what? Leave his ass there!
The earlier conundrum had resurfaced once more. Was my reject of a father worth it? Was he worth any risk on my part?
I probably would’ve stayed rooted in place, forever at odds with myself, if the sign hadn’t fallen to the ground. I stared at it as it cascaded downward, falling slower than it should’ve, like a feather upon the breeze until it landed upon the ground, soaking through in some areas, where moisture had puddled underneath it.
Wasn’t it too cold for liquid to act in that manner?
My eyes found what had been stenciled onto the doors themselves, professionally done, as one would expect to find in any warehouse. “Clothing Storage”, it said upon the left side door.
I brow furled even further. I must’ve looked like Winston Churchill standing there, hands at my sides, my face wrinkled to the point of disfiguration. What is this place? I gazed at the door knobs. They were normal. There wasn’t a locking mechanism on either door.
So, why had someone put the warning there in first place? Why shouldn’t I go inside during the night time hours? And, if there was something dangerous within, why wasn’t it locked, or chained, or something?
Where was I? What was this place?!?
I could feel my frustration rising. Everywhere I looked, everything I inspected became all the more surreal, unusual. Yet again, I peered about, seeing the over-sized trash bins, industrial-sized, made of thick steel. I saw the empty juice cartons, the broken bottles, the squeezed soda cans, the crates – all sorts - some broken, some whole. There were scraps of discarded metal, smashed-up car bumpers, old-style trash cans scorched from within as if, long-ago, someone had tried to warm themselves by lighting a fire their middles. There were old magazines and newspapers strewn every which way, plastered to the ground, stuck fast upon the lower portions of the walls. And…
…There were no footprints!
I spun around as if wound-up, my orbs questing, finding without problem a lone set of tread-less tracks, my tracks. Where there should’ve been two, there was only one. If someone had pulled Lenny into this place, where was the evidence of it? Where had the other set gone? There was mine. Where was…?
I’d had enough. I needed answers. Everywhere I looked, every second I spent down here, there were only more questions. I needed answers, now!
I turned back toward the doors, walked briskly toward them. I placed my hand upon the door knob of the right side door, twisted. It came open as if the mechanism had been recently oiled. There was no resistance or screeching protest of any sort. I threw it wide and found myself gazing before a truly massive pile of clothing set directly in the middle of an equally humongous room.
Clearly, it was a warehouse of some sort or at least it was big enough to be construed as such. I walked in, noticing the overall dampness of the alley and its�
�� persistent smell had permeated within the confines of the vaulted chamber as well. I stopped ten yards from the jumble mass of cloth. I was amazed that it towered over me by more than fifty feet! It had to be a square acre of garments, at least. I had never seen such a conglomeration of apparel before. In fact, I had never heard of a place housing such an amount. Not even the Society of Saint Vincent Du-Paul had stores of accouterments on this scale. I was stunned. I was gazing upon every sort of garment ever sewn together. Pants from every era, shirts from the same, coats, jackets, vests, dresses, tank-tops, tube-tops, tights, shorts, miniskirts, and more and more, wherever my eyes fell. I couldn’t believe it.
“Good God, why would all of this be here?” I heard myself ask aloud, to no one in particular. My mouth and throat had moved with the thoughts in my head.
I walked toward the edge of the gigantic pile, stepping from side to side as I went. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure I wanted to go much closer. After all, there had been a sign out front warning all-comers not to come in during a specific time frame, a string of hours I was within at the moment. What if there was something hiding under all the clothes?
Like what, a clothes-hoarding dragon? Come one, Jer, get it together!
I smiled crookedly. Maybe I was sort of over-doing things. But, who could blame me? This place was outlandish. It was making me think abnormally. Bending at the waist, I reached down to grab a handful of the nearest garments. Surprisingly, they were dry. When I brought them closer, they were odorless as well. I had expected them to be dank, decrepit with mold and mildew, but they weren’t. They appeared no different than I would expect from something hanging in a closet for a long period of time. They might smell dusty, but beyond that, they were no worse for the wear. This seemed wrong. The rest of the room was damp, even the air was moist. Why were the clothes dry?
The Birth of Bane Page 20