SATURDAY, 11:55 P.M.
When Xander returned from a late-night bathroom run, David was not in his bed. The covers were folded back, exposing only sheets and a pillow. Had he been there when Xander got up? Yeah, he thought. He remembered hearing David’s rhythmic breathing. It was only a little after eleven, but the day spent outside had worn them out. The boys had crashed around ten. Xander had watched the shadows on the ceiling, falling in and out of light sleep until he realized he had to visit the bathroom. Maybe David had felt the same need, and finding the bathroom occupied, went to one of the others.
“David,” he whispered, in case the boy was hiding. No answer. Xander crawled in bed, pulled the cover over his shoulder, closed his eyes. They snapped open again. He threw back his blankets and jumped up.
“David?” he said, louder. “Oh no!”
He ran from the room and down the hall. Past the foyer. Past their parents’ bedroom to where the hallway bent and went toward the back of the house. By the illumination of the night-light, he saw the false wall was angled into the hallway, leaving a gap of several feet.
“David!”
He ran through, scraping his injured arm on the edge. He felt the pain, but did not allow it to distract him. The second door, the one with the metal skin, was also open. He slammed into the doorjamb, rolled off and through, and started up the stairs. A flashlight clicked on, blinding him.
“David?”
“What took you so long?” He was sitting on the landing.
“What are you doing?” Xander’s concern had instantly turned to anger.
“I promised I wouldn’t go into the rooms without you.”
“Then what are you doing?” Xander repeated.
“Waiting for you. I can come here any time I want. See?”
“What are you saying?”
“I want to know what it’s like. Just once.”
“David, there is no way—”
“Just once, Xander. You can help me, or not.”
“You promised.”
“I’m not breaking it, but I’ll take it back if you don’t help.” Xander’s heart felt squeezed to the size of a raisin. David was honest, but that did not always translate into being good.
“Scoot over,” Xander said. He sat beside his brother. While David played the light over the stairs, the open door below and, occasionally, down the hotel-like corridor, Xander told him about fighting the gladiator. He did not spare any detail. The bodies. The sword crashing down on the shield. The soldiers who attacked when he had begged them for help. The close calls, when he’d thought he was dead. David listened without making a sound. When Xander finished, they sat quietly. David had stilled his hand; the light shined on his sneakers.
After a few minutes, Xander felt his brother’s hand on his shoulder. David said, “I’m sorry that happened to you.”
“You see why I don’t want you to do it?”
At first, David didn’t reply. Then he whispered, “I have to. If I don’t, I’ll always wonder. My whole life.”
“If you do, your whole life may not be very long.” Xander had to admit this was consistent with David’s personality. He had dirt biked and scuba dived, hit a black diamond slope on only their fourth trip to Mammoth Mountain, and had even flown in an ultralight with a friend’s father. Xander was into adventure as well, but never with David’s degree of enthusiasm—Dad called it “reckless abandon.” David could ramble on for hours about the things he wanted to do when he became old enough: pilot a jet; bungee from some bridge on the Zimbabwe-Zambia border; and streetluge, which was like putting wheels on your back and flying down the longest, scariest road you could find. Once, when the dinnertime conversation turned to how each of them wanted to die, Xander had said “In my sleep.” Yeah, that sounded like a decent way to go.
David had said, “I want to hang glide into a cliff when I’m ninety.” OK, that was cool, Xander had admitted to himself.
Then David had added, in all seriousness, “Or get eaten by a shark.” He did not have a death wish. He would be the first to say he wanted to live a long, long time, so he could do all the things he dreamed about doing. It was more like, for David, life was most exciting when you could lose it. Xander didn’t think David had actually figured that out yet. But it was true.
Now that Xander thought about it, he had been an idiot to think he could keep David out of those rooms. His little brother got scared like everyone did. He was just very adept at pushing his fear aside when doing so led to some grand new adventure.
“Look,” Xander said, “if I go along with it, I pick which room.”
“Not something stupid, like the one with the beach towel.”
“That one sounds like a lot of fun to me.”
David just looked at him.
Xander said, “Okay, but nothing with a weapon. Okay? A weapon seems like a bad sign.”
“Well, if the only rooms that look cool are the ones with weapons . . .”
“No,” Xander said. “No weapons, no matter what.” When David didn’t respond, he added, “Otherwise, I’ll drag your butt to Dad right now. He’ll brick up that wall down there, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll kick and scream till we move.”
“All right, already. No weapons.”
Before his brother’s agreement had registered in Xander’s mind, David was standing, stepping toward the corridor. He flipped the metal breaker, turning on the lights.
Xander stepped up behind him. “Do you know which room?” “Antechamber.”
“What?”
“That’s what Dad called these rooms: antechambers.”
“Whatever. Do you know which one?”
David shook his head. Xander stepped past David and opened the first door.
“That’s the beach towel room,” David complained.
“Uh . . . no it’s not.” Hanging from the hooks were an astronaut’s helmet, a metallic space suit, something that looked like a pistol, but may have been a welding torch. There were a few other items consistent with an outer-space adventure.
“Whoa,” David said, looking past Xander.
Xander quickly said, “There’s a gun. That’s a weapon.”
“That’s not a weapon!”
“I said, not this one.” Xander slammed the door.
He opened it again, peered in. He clicked it shut, once more. He said, “You know, I think you’re right. That was the beach towel room.”
“Duh. Those beach things with the flip-flops were the first things we saw. Remember?”
Xander nodded. “Well . . . it changed.”
David scrunched his nose, hitched up his top lip. “Would Dad do that?”
“Why would he? And . . .” Xander thought about it. “It’s not like someone just switched the stuff around, and I don’t remember seeing astronaut stuff. I know we checked every room.”
David nodded in agreement. “Somebody put brand-new stuff in there.”
Simultaneously, they gazed up the corridor at the other doors. About ten minutes later, they had rechecked every room. About half of the themes were ones they had seen the previous night, though both brothers thought they were in different rooms. The other themes were altogether new.
“Who’s doing it, you think?” David asked.
Xander was squinting at the doors. “I don’t know, but . . .”
They went to every room again, verifying that none of the themes had changed since their last inspection. None had.
“Maybe they all change at a specific time,” Xander suggested. “Or when no one’s around.”
They were silent for a while. At last, David clapped his hands together. He strolled up the center of the carpeted runner. “Let’s see. Which one . . . had . . .” Thinking, thinking. “The police badge and uniform?”
“No weapons,” Xander reminded him.
“That one didn’t have . . . oh, the pistol.”
“You’d probably wind up smack in the middle of a bank robbery.”
Xander caught the spark in David’s eye before he turned away.
“David . . .”
“I know. How about that one with the rope and carabiners?” Xander tossed his hands up. “You don’t know how to mountain climb! These places don’t suddenly give you new skills. They just drop you in.”
David opened a door. He turned a smile on Xander, then stepped through.
“What?” Xander said, rushing to catch the door before it shut. Khaki-colored safari hat. Compass. A vest with many pockets and loops and straps. A canteen on a utility belt. A machete. On the bench were knee-high leather boots.
“A jungle?” Xander said.
David grinned and nodded.
Xander said, “A machete. That’s a weapon.”
“It’s a tool. I’ll probably have to cut my way out of some bushes, that’s all.”
Xander didn’t like it, but a deal was a deal. He pulled the utility belt off its hook and held it out to David.
The boy hesitated. When he reached for it, his hand trembled.
Xander’s eyebrows went up. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” His voice was high, like it had been in the clearing.
His tongue clicked dryly in his mouth.
Xander thought of Richard Dreyfuss in Jaws, when he was preparing to go in the shark cage. He was so afraid he couldn’t spit into his diving mask to keep it from fogging up. Now there was a David personality for you: scared, but willing to do it anyway.
David cinched the belt around his waist. Xander handed him the machete. He unsheathed it and gave it the once-over.
He clipped it to the belt. Xander set the helmet on his brother’s head. It was too big and made him look five years old.
“Dad’s gonna kill me,” Xander said.
David reached for the second door’s handle.
“Wait!” Xander said. “Don’t open that door. I’ll be right back.”
“What?” David said.
“Just wait, don’t move.” Xander hurried out of the room.
Even with reining in his speed on the stairs and tiptoeing past the master bedroom, he reached his and Dae’s room and was back in the antechamber upstairs in no more than a minute. He held his camcorder up to David. “Here, take this.”
“I don’t want that!” David protested. “What if I need my hands? What if I lose it?”
Xander let the camera drop to the end of its long leather strap. He slipped it over David’s head so it hung around his neck.
“I’ll turn it on now,” he said, flipping the power switch and pushing the record button. “If you think about it, point it at something. If you don’t, we’ll still have proof you went somewhere. You might not want to burp or do anything too embarrassing, though.”
“Like scream?” David asked. He opened the inner door.
The antechamber instantly became more humid. A botanical fragrance wafted in. Beyond the threshold, fat, green leaves swayed in a breeze. Trees rose out of sight, hairy-looking vines looped down, almost touching the moss-covered earth.
“You sure about this?” Xander asked.
David nodded. He tightened the helmet strap under his chin. Xander said, “How long was I gone last night?”
David shrugged. “Twenty minutes?”
“So, it’s probably all in real time. A minute over there is a minute here. If you’re not back in fifteen minutes, I’m gonna get Dad and come after you.”
David nodded. He stepped through.
The door pulled out of Xander’s grip and slammed shut.