32. The Great Below

It’s almost easy to forget about Staunch and his wad of money and his request for me to come over on Friday evening.

Almost.

But the week comes to an end, and no amount of lighthearted conversation with Kelsey changes anything.

Six o’clock hovers over me like the barrel of a loaded gun.

I’m not afraid for my life. No, not yet.

But I’m afraid of what might be asked of me.

And, oh yeah, maybe also of the man who’s going to be asking me.

I have to make up an excuse for Kelsey about why I can’t see her tonight. I tell her it’s a family thing, and I’m not lying because it really is a family thing.

It’s just a messed-up sort of family.

I ride up to the Staunch house and find the gate open. Maybe it’s magical like Marsh Falls. It senses people coming and opens and shuts on its own.

Coming back here, I think of Wade. I remember when Staunch showed me Wade chained up to the bottom of the small waterfall in the back of the Staunch property and gave me the choice of what to do with him.

I let him go … and Staunch killed him.

The way he—or they—killed Jocelyn.

The way they killed Lily.

The way they might kill Mom or Kelsey.

Or both.

That’s why I’m here at 5:55 p.m.

That’s why I knock on the door at 5:57 p.m.

That’s why I enter the house at exactly the time Staunch asked me to come.

For now, I’m going to be a nice little puppy and do what I’m told.

For now.

Until I can find another key and unlock the shackles around my arms and feet and soul.

“Would you like something to drink?” Staunch asks as I stand at the entrance to the large room with all the creepy animal heads stuck on the walls staring down at me.

I wonder what he’d do if I said something like “A gin and tonic, please.”

Or maybe “Martini. Shaken, not stirred.”

“I’m fine,” I say.

He leaves me for a moment in silence in the dimly lit room and then comes back with a bottled water.

“Here. Go ahead. It’s unopened.”

I take it and nod, but I don’t open it. He tells me to follow him so I do, down a wide staircase with carpeted stairs. The basement is finished with another large room much like the one above with animal heads and hunting rifles proudly displayed. There are no windows that I can see, and there’s one lamp emitting just a tiny bit of light.

“I doubt you’ll be down here very long, but he wants to talk to you by yourself. When you’re done just come on back down this hallway and head upstairs. Okay?”

I say a quiet sure that must not agree with Staunch. He turns and then leans his big set of shoulders and face down toward me.

“Do you need another wake-up call?” he asks in his gruff Southern voice.

“No.”

“Good. Don’t make me get mean again. I don’t like when I have to get mean. Do you understand?”

“Yes sir.”

He leads me down a hallway to the last door, takes out a key, and unlocks the door. I’m not sure why it’s locked. He opens the door, and it squeaks.

The room inside is pitch black.

Oh come on. I’m not going in there.

“Go on. Watch yourself. The bed is in the center of the room. You’ll find a chair on the right-hand side.”

If he wanted to kill me he could have done it by now.

Maybe he wanted to save the mess for a room in his basement.

I slowly walk into the black room that feels about ten or twenty degrees cooler than the hallway. I can’t see anything, so I just barely inch along, holding out a hand in front of me.

I half expect to feel Walter Kinner hanging from the ceiling.

Then I hear breathing. Heavy breathing like snoring.

No, like someone hooked up to a breathing machine.

My foot touches the edge of the bed. It feels solid, like metal. Maybe it’s one of those big hospital beds.

“Chris?” a hoarse voice asks in the dark.

Good, no hiss. For now.

“Yes.”

I edge to my right to try and find something other than the bed to hold on to. Eventually I feel a wooden chair and sit down.

Even though my eyes are adjusting to the darkness, I can’t make out anything.

“Move closer,” he says in barely a whisper.

The room smells like old people. That musty, stinky kind of smell that reminds me of visiting my grandma Buckley at the nursing home before she died. I move a bit closer but still keep far enough away from the bed that he can’t reach out and grab me.

The sound of the breathing machine continues to slowly go in and out.

“I’m not well,” the man says, and I wonder why he’s in bed when he’s been going through tunnels and waiting in the woods.

I hear him let out either a heavy breath or a deep sigh.

“I’m going to die soon.”

I don’t know what to say. I’m in the dark with this man in a bed smelling bad and the sound of something pumping back and forth.

“I can see you, Chris Buckley.”

I look around the room as if he might be really standing in the corner or something.

Don’t even think that don’t go there Chris.

“I’m right here. Right on the bed in front of you. Dying before your very eyes.”

“Where’s my mother?” I blurt out.

“She’s fine,” the weak voice says in a tired way. “She’ll be home before you know it.”

“I want her now.”

“And I want to be twenty-seven again. But life is vicious and cruel and then you die. That is the one thing everybody can agree on. That in the end you and I will die.”

He sounds like Pastor Marsh.

Or maybe Marsh sounds like him.

“On May 28 I’m going to leave this place and go down to the great below. And that’s when I plan on giving it to you.”

I think maybe it’s this bed of his that he’s talking about.

No, thank you very much, I have my own bed with its own sheets.

“Giving me what?” I have to ask.

“Do you remember the nonsense with that country bumpkin that Staunch dealt with? How he chained him to the rock and gave you the key?”

I nod but don’t say anything.

“I can see your nod. I can see better in the dark for some reason. Always been able to. Don’t quite know why. But don’t quite know many things about my condition. Just know it is what it is.”

His condition?

The ability to suddenly turn into a monster before your very eyes.

“That whole thing was all to see what you’d do with Wade. Oh, we were curious. Staunch especially. He wanted to see if you would do it, if you would leave Wade there to die. And you just couldn’t. But that’s neither here nor there. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that on May 28 you’ll be receiving another key.”

“To what?”

“A key that belonged to Louis Solitaire. It’s a special key, Chris. Do you want to hear about it? Do you like ghost stories?”

“Sure,” I say, wanting to know what this key was supposed to do.

“Louis Solitaire was part of a family that ran a town in the French Alps. The townspeople claimed that they were vampires because at night they would come and steal people away and leave them dead and drained of blood. They weren’t real vampires, of course. But they acted the part. They really were just monsters. They would slip inside people’s homes and rape the women and kill the men. Selectively of course. To make sure they ruled with fear. But eventually the townspeople revolted and burned them at the stake. Louis Solitaire was the last of the family alive. The people saved him for last since he was the most vile. They wanted to do something really special to him. But instead he made a deal with the Devil. That’s where this key came in to play. It’s a key that has a power to look in on the other side. A key that allows the other side to cross through to this side.”

By now my head is spinning.

I think I was lost when he said “drained of blood.”

“Of course, this is a lot to take in. Too much, in fact. But the truth is that you will be the new caretaker of the key.”

“And do what with it?”

“You will know when you take the key. That is where the ceremony will take place.”

I just sit there, waiting for more, waiting for anything.

I’m not sure what to say.

“There is one thing that the others don’t know, and that you are forbidden to say, even though they wouldn’t believe you anyway. Once the ceremony takes place, you must leave Solitary forever. Once I die, the town will die with me.”

That’s the first thing the hoarse voice has said that I like hearing.

At least for a minute.

“The key will go with you back home. Back where you came from. Back to the big city near the big lake where it’s flat and cold. You will take the key for this one purpose. The world needs to see a message of despair. We need to send a message that will instill dread in everyone who sees it. Solitary’s time has passed. It is time for something bigger and better. It is time to shut this door and to unlock another. That will forever be our legacy, Chris. Forever your legacy.”