The day began like any other, and would have continued being the same boring slide into obscurity for out-of-work math teacher Ethan McCloud living in Chadron, Nebraska, except his mother called. She never called. He always called her, and only on Sundays. He stared at the phone.
Seven on a Tuesday night.
It rang again.
They’d talked two days ago, and everything had seemed normal.
On the fourth ring, he answered it.
“Ethan, it’s your mother.”
So formal. So obvious.
“Hi.” Something had to be wrong. “What’s up?”
“It’s your father.”
“What about him?”
“He wants to speak with you. He says you have to come here. He says you have to come here now.”
“Mom? What is it?”
Her voice was tight. She was clearly nervous. “I don’t know. He won’t tell me anything. Can you come, Ethan? Do you have the time?”
He thought about his time. He had nothing but time. He hadn’t told them he’d been laid off, though. He knew he’d have to eventually, but they’d been so proud he’d gotten a job, even if it was in a town no one had ever heard of.
“Yeah, Mom. I have time.”
“When can you come?”
“How soon do you want me?”
He could hear her pause.
Then she said, “Ethan, he’s been acting strange.”
Ethan was the youngest of five kids. His father was in his seventies and had seemed to be teetering on the edge of dementia. Most of the time it was just weird, unexplainable things. “What do you mean by strange?”
“He keeps asking me…” She sighed again. “Never mind. Can you come tomorrow?”
His parents lived in the same house in which he’d grown up, in the northwest Denver suburb of Arvada. “Yeah, Mom. If I leave at seven, I can be there by noon.”
“Okay, please do.”
Still so formal. Ethan decided to press.
“Why the rush, Mom? Is he okay?”
“Like always. You know your father is a little weird.”
“Sure. But, Mom, why the rush?”
“He seems to be obsessed.”
“With what?”
“He keeps asking if I’ve seen a six-fingered man.”
The five-hour trip to Arvada took three and a half hours. Ethan couldn’t sleep at all, so at two in the morning he packed a bag full of clothes and his laptop and headed out. Interstate 25 was clear except for the occasional long-haul trucker. He found one doing eighty and tucked in behind him, trusting that if they were spotted by a highway patrolman the bigger target would get the most attention.
He turned on Coast to Coast AM and began listening to the conspiracy theories of George Noory. His father had always liked listening to them, sometimes even recording episodes for long family trips. Back then the narrator had been Art Bell. Ethan’s logical mind had made him poke fun at the crazy assertions that aliens were among the human race, the government knew about UFOs, and that Bigfoot was real. His father had taken Ethan’s good-natured jibes with laughter, but it had never stopped him from listening. Now Ethan felt a kinship with the man he used to think foolish for wasting his time listening to tall tales when they could have been listening to Stone Temple Pilots or Pearl Jam.
Ethan arrived at his childhood home just before six in the morning. He parked at the curb and let himself in. He dropped his bag on the dining room table, went into the kitchen, and made a pot of coffee. All the way there he’d been wondering what the connection was and why his father was concerned about a six-fingered man. It was too much of a coincidence. Noory had had nothing to say on his radio program about giants. Instead, the entire episode was dedicated to the hole to hell that had evidently been found in Siberia. The purported sounds of a billion souls screaming still raised goose bumps along his spine. Not that he believed in the devil or hell, but with an actual soundtrack, it was hard not to wonder.
When the coffee was done, he poured himself a cup and then meandered into his father’s study. The walls were decorated with pictures of various family members, and fish his father had caught, and a framed photo of him holding the monster salmon he’d caught just two years ago on the Columbia River. Ethan stared fondly at the photo and at his father’s astonished smiled.
Then Ethan stepped over to the frame he’d come to see. It was his father’s honorable discharge from the United States Army, awarded to one Robert Steven McCloud.
“I thought that was you.”
Ethan turned and saw his dad standing in a tan bathrobe, bought so he could look just like the Dude in The Big Lebowski, his favorite movie.
“Dad…” Ethan had driven all this way and now found himself at a loss for words.
His father smiled wanly, moved to his desk, then plopped heavily onto his chair. He looked older and paler than his seventy years. His hair had gone all white and shot out in all directions.
“I could use a cup of that.”
Ethan glanced at the cup, then took it over and placed it in front of his father. He sat in the chair on the other side of the desk—the same chair he’d sat in waiting to be punished, or waiting for his father to get off the phone, or just waiting for his father to pay attention to him.
His father regarded him as he blew across the surface of the coffee to cool it.
“Why me, Dad?”
His father gestured toward the door to the office. “Why don’t you close that, son?”
Ethan stood, closed it, then decided to lock it as well. He returned to the leather library chair and sat. “So?”
“I wasn’t sure you were going to open it.”
“I wasn’t sure, either.”
His father stared at him a moment. Then after a tight sip of coffee asked, “Are you glad you did?”
The question was unexpected. Ethan thought about that for a moment. “I’m not sure. I’m intrigued. It seems to be an unbelievable mystery. But I don’t know why I should even be involved. Why did you decide to do it?”
“At first because I was bored. Plus, I felt a responsibility. Matt was an old army buddy of mine.”
“Matt’s the smart-ass, right?”
His dad grinned. “He was always the smart-ass. It was in his DNA.”
Ethan felt his eyes narrowing. “You said was. Is he…?”
“He was hit by a car nine months ago.”
It wasn’t making sense. “Then how did you get the box?”
“He must have known something was going to happen. I got it in the mail the same day I found out he’d been killed.”
“Was it the Six-Fingered Man?”
His father chuckled, but no joy lived in his eyes. “I don’t know. No one knows. The case went unsolved. Just a random hit-and-run, they say.”
“But you know better.” Ethan thought for a few moments. “Mom said you were talking about a six-fingered man.”
His father took a slow sip of coffee. When he spoke, he did so softly. “I’ve been having these dreams lately. I can’t make out the man’s face, but I can see his hand. Every night he gets closer and closer to me, the man with the six-fingered hand.”
“Do you think it’s some sort of warning?” Ethan asked.
“I don’t know how it could be. The power of suggestion, I suppose.”
“Still, it was enough that you got in touch with me. Was it you who wrote all those warnings? About the Six-Fingered Man, the Valkyrie server, etcetera?”
His father shook his head. “Not at all. They were the same warnings I received. In fact, it was the same paper and the same box. I just repacked it and sent it to you.”
Ethan hesitated asking the next question, but he knew he had to. “You think something’s going to happen to you, don’t you?”
His father widened his eyes, then exhaled explosively. “It’s such an overwhelming feeling. The dread is almost physical. I can’t explain it, but yes, I do.”
“Oh, Dad, what have you gotten yourself into? And me? Why me and not Bryce?” Ethan glanced at the bureau to his father’s left and saw all the family pictures. His brothers and their families and his sister with her partner. Even an older picture with his grandfather standing next to Ethan’s dad and aunt. Then Ethan realized the truth of it. “It’s because I’m alone, right? I don’t have a wife or kids, so I’m expendable.”
His father shook his head slowly and put the coffee down on the desk. “Not at all, son. That’s not the case at all.”
Ethan didn’t exactly believe the answer. It didn’t pass the logic test, especially if the keeper of the box was destined to die. “Then why, Dad? Why?”
The doorknob rattled behind them, then came a knock. “Bob, are you in there? Is Ethan in there with you?” his mom called.
Ethan glanced at his dad, who merely shrugged and smiled. “We’ll talk more later, son. I’m so happy to see you.”
He got up and came around the desk. Ethan tried to stand, but before he was all the way up, his father’s arms were around him and they hugged awkwardly, Ethan half in and out of his chair. Ethan smelled the residue of yesterday’s cologne on his father’s skin and the slightly sour musk of night sweat, then they parted and his father unlocked and opened the door.
His mother stood in the doorway. When she saw Ethan, her eyes lit up. She grinned. “Nice to have you here, son. Was it you who made the coffee?”
Ethan nodded. “You like?”
“I’ve had battery acid that was weaker.”
“Then pour yourself some battery acid,” Ethan said in response to their age-old battle over the strength of coffee.
“Don’t listen to your mother. It’s terrific coffee. I can finally taste it.”
“You old sod. You’d prefer it if you could stand a spoon up in the cup.”
“Oh yeah.” His father lip-smacked. “Thick. Just like in the army.”
Everyone shuffled into the kitchen.
Ethan spent the next half hour answering questions, including about the upcoming school year. He couldn’t help but lie and act as if he hadn’t been laid off. It was work to act properly excited. His mother made them scrambled eggs and toast. They sat around the kitchen table and laughed as she caught him up on the trials and travails of his brothers and sister. His father excused himself from the table first and headed off to take a shower.
After Ethan helped his mother clean up, she went upstairs as well.
It was thirty seconds later that he heard her scream.