Terror Town (3 page)

Dan McGee was his name.

Daniel; named after a wise and honorable prophet whose faith in God had protected him in the Lion’s Den. This fact was not kept in the forefront of Dan’s thinking, but it was ironic. At least now it was, now that he was standing at the mouth of precarious exploration.

He was at the cottage.

Cottage
.

Truth be told, the place looked more like a house built next to a lake. It was a summer home really, but Dan considered it a cottage. He wasn’t sure why. The building, located just outside Cloven Rock, had two floors, not including the basement. It had a full kitchen, two bathrooms, four bedrooms, a laundry room, and a deck that was large enough to accommodate seventy-five people or more. It also had a garage and an attic. The building was secluded, but not completely secluded. It was one of three cottages built together on a small, fat peninsula. There were no others for a quarter-mile in either direction. And now, as Daniel McGee discovered, his summer home had something else. Something he never knew about until just this minute, something interesting and almost certainly hazardous.

Dan cleared his throat and walked across the dusty room.

The floor was littered with tools: hammers and saws, drills and screwdrivers, crowbars and wrenches and everything else he needed. Some of it was piled around an open toolbox; some was scattered about.

He stepped past three rolls of thirty-year-old carpet and lifted a bottle of water from where he left it, next to the rotting pickets on the warped and rickety staircase. He drank two swallows quickly, poured water into his free hand, and slapped it onto his face, cleaning himself slightly. Still feeling dirty, he poured a splash of water over his head. The water wasn’t cold but it
was
refreshing, which was exactly what he wanted. After returning the bottle to its home on the stairs he ran his fingers through his sopping hair and took a deep breath.

He was excited. That was the truth of it.

He felt energized.

Six hours earlier the basement was loaded with junk: Boxes of clothing from years gone by, old furniture, unloved artwork, boring books, unwanted appliances, out of date electronics, rusted tools, VHS tapes, pointless sporting equipment, photographs that meant nothing, corroded machinery, unfashionable clothing; the list went on and on.

He cleared it all out.

The photographs and tools were put away. The rest of the stuff went into garbage bags and charity bins. The bags were thrown next to the garage. The bins were placed in the hallway, close to the exit. Once the basement had been cleared, he unhinged a door, knocked down a pair of walls, removed some baseboards, and pulled out the carpet. The sub-floor beneath the carpet was moldy and rotten. He lifted half of it, exposing the concrete floor beneath.

That’s when he made his discovery.

Dan licked his lips.

He was alone, and had gotten a fair amount finished so far. If his wife had been with him his accomplishments would have been cut in half. He would have been subjected to a twenty-minute debate regarding every worn-out pair of shoes. Dan hated that. Working was hard enough without dealing with a committee, and that’s what Sandra seemed to be at times like this. A committee. She was a good woman, no question. The girl was an intelligent sweetheart. She had the face of a model and a body that could make a Playboy photographer hot under the collar and hard under the zipper. But at times like this,
look out
. Everything was a discussion. Everything was questioned. That’s why Dan took the week off work; he wanted to get to the cottage a few days sooner than Sandra and get things done.

If he had known that he would never see her again––never even
talk
to her again––he would have done things differently. But he didn’t know. He figured he’d enjoy a few days on his own and life would continue on, just like before.

He was wrong.

Dan approached this
thing
he had uncovered beneath the carpet, still rubbing his chin.

It was a door, a trapdoor in the floor.

Its size: two and a half feet by two and a half feet, give or take a few inches. Looked like that famous cellar door in the Evil Dead movies, without the medieval chains strapping it down. It had a small hole you could slide fingers into, which seemed to be the handle. The hinges were rusted brown and the unstained wood was faded, knotted, and looked almost grey in color.

Dan put his fingers into the slot and pulled.

The door was heavier than it looked so Dan repositioned himself into a sturdier pose and tried his luck again, putting more muscle into it this time. The door unlatched. He opened it slowly. Hinges screeched and squeaked. A dull metal casing was exposed and a nasty, stale odor crept into the room. Once the door was at a ninety-degree angle, a dark hole in the floor came into Dan’s line of vision; it looked like an open throat in the earth.

Muscles straining, Dan grunted, but the hard part was over. He let go of the handle and stepped back. Gravity pulled the door the other way and the trapdoor stopped in the air with a
CLINK
.

He wondered why.

Walking around the opening he found his answer: there
was
a chain. It connected the door to the floor. The chain was old, rusted and thick––not quite medieval, but still fifty years past its prime. It had big one-inch loops and seemed perfectly suited to chain Cujo to his doghouse.

Daniel looked down the dark hole, somewhat amazed. There was a ladder attached to one of the four walls. A dusty light switch sat next to it.

Pit
, he thought.
Is that what this is? A pit?
Why is there a pit in my basement?
And what’s down there? Anything good? Anything valuable?

Dan smiled.

Valuable.
He liked the sound of that.

After walking around the opening several times, Dan thought about the cottage. He figured it to be a hundred and some odd years old. What if the previous owners were hiding treasures? Or what if the previous owners didn’t even know the pit was there, and the items in the cellar (assuming there
were
items in the cellar) were not worth a few hundred bucks, or few thousand, but a few million? Was it possible? Could he be standing at the brink of incredible fortune?

Dan’s eyes narrowed.

Sure it was possible.
Anything
was possible. Building a dream house with Popsicle sticks was possible, but was it likely? Was the cellar loaded with gold and silver artifacts from Kings and Queens a hundred years dead? No, of course not. Not here. Not in Cloven Rock. The basement was probably filled with rats, dirt, spiders, and dust… and a large bucket filled to the brim with sweet fuck all.

Still, the pit was an interesting find.

An interesting find indeed.

2

Dan headed upstairs with his mind racing. He entered the kitchen and snagged a beer from the fridge. The ice-cold Corona was delicious, even without the taste of lime. He drank half the bottle and washed his hands and face in the kitchen sink. Being so dirty, he needed to do more. He needed a long shower and a wardrobe change but technically he wasn’t finished working. The sub-floor was only half pulled up, rolls of carpet were leaning in the corner near the staircase, and he hadn’t even begun yanking the ceiling down. All said, he was only half finished today’s job. Still, the work portion of the day seemed to have ended, or if nothing else, put on hold.

He kept thinking about the pit.

What was down there?

Dan threw on an old and faded t-shirt, one of his favorites. He thought it was cool looking and it fit like a glove. The shirt had a drawing of a demon with its wings spread wide and it said BLACK SABBATH in long gothic letters. In a smaller font near the bottom of the shirt, below the demon’s evil grin, it said 666 - HEAVEN & HELL. It was a throwback item, a reminder of a time in his life when he didn’t care about insurance policies, the stock exchange, real estate, investment funds, and all the other things that helped him turn his quarters into dollars, his assets into prosperity, and his wealth into his own personally restricted freedom.

He stepped outside with his Corona in hand, gazing into the sky. The heat from the sun was beginning to ease and the wind was blowing mildly. Looking at his watch, he contemplated his next move.

It was a little after four-thirty. He was hungry and would soon need food. But that wasn’t a concern, not yet anyhow. Up until this point the plan was this: finish gutting the basement and go into town for dinner. But was that still the plan, or had things changed? His predicament was simple yet he didn’t know what to do.

Dan walked across the gravel driveway and opened the garage door. Sunlight entered the space. He spotted a flashlight sitting on his workbench and couldn’t help thinking it was just what he needed.

As he picked it off the bench, something else caught his attention: a kerosene lantern. It was old, red, and slightly rusty. He wondered if it would come in handy.

Sure,
he thought.
Might as well grab it, just in case.

He lifted the lantern from a hook on the wall and shook it back and forth. Kerosene swished inside; the lantern seemed about half full.

“Good enough,” he whispered.

He finished his beer and sat the bottle on a bench. He left the garage with the flashlight in one hand and the lantern in the other. Once he was in the kitchen he clicked the flashlight on and off, insuring that it worked. He opened the fridge, snagged another beer, cracked it, and drank. A moment later he lit the lantern with a wooden match. At first the lantern didn’t work; the wick was dry and stubborn. But after a bit of fiddling and manual persuasion the lantern worked just fine.

Dan entered the basement, walked past the rolls of carpet, the planks of baseboards and the scattered tools. He approached his new discovery with a smile. He felt like a kid again, a kid at Christmas. Oddly enough, he recognized it too. There was no wondering why; he knew. This was the first time in twenty years he had received a gift that could be
anything
. Sure, it might be nothing, but that was part of the reason he felt so giddy.

It might be nothing; might be anything.

Way better than a birthday present, no doubt.

For Dan, the yearly gift exchange had lost its magic long ago. No matter what he received, he always had an idea what the gift would be––a book, a shirt, a pair of shoes, a coffee mug. After a while it didn’t matter; it was all the same crap. Year after year he received things purchased at the mall, or online, or wherever. Yawn. And year after year he knew the price range by considering the person that offered the gift. Double yawn.

Yeah, this was different all right. This was invigorating.

He sat at the edge of the pit with his beer at his side. Drops of water rolled off the bottle. He put a foot on the ladder. The ladder creaked, sounding like a loose floorboard. He wondered if it was stable. The more weight he put on the ladder the more it creaked, but not in a bad way. It seemed secure enough; it seemed okay.

Dan turned the flashlight on and pointed the light down the hole. He couldn’t see the bottom. Slowly, carefully, he stood on the ladder. The rung cried out more now than before but it didn’t waver, didn’t budge. He turned the flashlight off, slid it into his front pocket, lifted the lantern, and began his descent. Immediately he noticed the change in the air: the space was colder, the unpleasant odor was strong. The pit smelled like mold, like earth, and like something else, something he couldn’t put his finger on.

The lantern wobbled and bounced off the ladder a few times. The flames danced and flickered but they didn’t go out. Climbing wasn’t easy, he discovered, but it wasn’t impossible either. The fingers in his right hand––already sore and bleeding from tearing the basement apart––felt tight and strained as they wrapped around the rungs. The fingers in his left hand felt even worse as they juggled between the rungs and the thin metal handle of the lantern.

The walls seemed to glow; the shadows were strong and sharp.

He descended more––eleven, twelve, thirteen rungs into the pit. Now fourteen. Now fifteen. Surely the bottom couldn’t be much further away.

He pulled the flashlight from his pocket and turned it on. As he pointed it beneath his feet he illuminated a large spider’s web, the biggest he had ever seen. After a slight pause, Dan returned the flashlight to his pocket and continued his descent. Rung after rung he traveled. His fingers burned. Spider’s webbing clung to his clothing. His patience wavered, but only for a moment. And in that moment he considered returning to the surface, but he had to wonder what would happen next. Would he think about the pit until he tried his luck again? Probably, so what was the point of giving up so soon? He couldn’t leave this mystery unsolved––no way, no chance. He had to keep going, keep climbing, for every rung he passed increased his curiosity and amazement. He was getting hooked on exploration, and so far he loved the adventure.

He kept climbing.

And climbing.

What is this
, he thought,
a bottomless pit?

The consideration seemed less absurd with every passing breath. But it
was
absurd. It was. The pit
couldn’t
be bottomless. It just
couldn’t be
. Bottomless pits didn’t exist.

Who would build something like this
, he wondered,
and why?
Was the pit a part of the cottage originally, or had the cottage been built on top of this vault for some reason?