The Dead Room (41 page)

He stepped off the porch, gazing at the hills rolling toward the horizon and trying to imagine a country club and hotel set on the landscape after it had been shaved down and carted off. There was a place for everything, he figured. This just wasn’t it.

He trudged through the snow over to the barn. The doors were locked with a chain, but the building was old and weathered and pleasingly dilapidated. Prying the barn doors apart, he squeezed through the opening and slipped inside. It was colder in here, the space filled with speckled light. A breeze whistled through the rafters. He shook the snow off his shoes, padding the leather soles dry so that he wouldn’t slip as he eyed a late-model Ford Explorer. The car was clean, but dusty. No chemical residue from winter driving could be seen on any of the fenders. He opened the door and noted the interior light. Checking the glove box, he found nothing. Then he saw a copy of
Time
magazine on the floor behind the driver’s seat. He reached around and grabbed it, his eyes moving directly to the nameplate. MR. AND MRS. EDWARD TRISCO, JR. He checked the date. September 6 was more than three months ago.

Teddy tossed the magazine into the car and shut the door. As he moved deeper into the barn, he noticed a small boat on a trailer beside a stack of cinder blocks and gardening supplies. A tractor used for cutting field grass down in the fall was parked off to the side. He thought he heard something and turned. That’s when he noticed the door to a small room behind his back.

A bird flew out of the doorway, landed on a rafter and began cooing at him from above. A mourning dove that appeared melancholy and alone. Teddy tried to get a grip on his nerves and stepped toward the door. The room beyond was dark, and he entered the space slowly, carefully. A light bulb hung from the ceiling. He saw the switch on the wall and turned on the light.

The room seemed harmless enough. Fishing rods were tacked to the wall, along with coils of nylon rope. A toolbox sat on a workbench before a window that had been boarded shut. In the corner he noticed a large wooden bin that had probably been used to store feed at some point when the farm was more active. Teddy lifted the heavy lid up and back and leaned it against the wall, then looked inside. On the right were a pile of fishing nets. On the left, a wetsuit lay over a pair of goggles, fins, and air tanks. Teddy thought about his run-ins with Mr. and Mrs. Edward Trisco, Jr. They didn’t strike him as having any interest in scuba diving....

It was all about the lake, he reminded himself.

He closed the lid and exited the room, pried the barn doors apart and slid out into the light of day. The rope, the cinder blocks, even the diving equipment—everything Trisco needed to make people disappear was here. His eyes flicked over the lake and zeroed in on his car as he walked through the wet snow. Checking the time, he thought he’d better head back into town.

The Corolla sprung to life on the first try and he pulled out his cell phone, searching for Powell’s number on the phone log. As he pressed the clutch down and shifted into reverse, his foot slipped off the pedal. The car snapped into gear and stalled, then began rolling forward.

Teddy felt his pulse quicken as he looked through the windshield at the hill. He threw the phone onto the passenger seat and jammed his foot on the brakes. The car slowed some. But then the brake pedal gave way, sinking into the floor as if it was broken. He turned the key, heard the engine fire up, and eased the clutch back. The car shook and vibrated, vaulting over the rough ground and skiing toward the lake at high speed. He checked the rearview mirror, the barn fading in the distance, then checked the mirror again trying to decipher what he was seeing through the jumbled blur. There was a man hiding behind the house dressed in dark clothing. A figure. A shadow. Someone watching him tumble down the hill into oblivion.

He tightened his grip on the wheel, the lake rushing toward him as he instinctively jammed his foot into the place where the brake pedal should be. There was a boat launch at the bottom of the hill. The car vaulted into the air, then bounced on the ice and slid forward across the lake. Water sprayed up over the windshield and he thought about the warm sun. But only briefly as he heard a loud snap.

The ice broke open, and the car collapsed.

He looked back at the house, heard the splash and felt the terror swell through his chest. The car was rocking back and forth, and he flinched as that first sensation of ice-cold water bit through his shoes into his feet. His eyes flipped down to the base of the door and caught the water gushing in. The engine died, the electric windows, useless. He looked back at the hood, eyes wide open as it dipped below the ice. Water sprayed out the air vents, around the seams of the doors and windows.

Teddy grabbed the door handle, ripping at it and driving his shoulder into it, but the door wouldn’t open. The ice on the surface began fading away, the weight of the motor pitching the car down at an angle. Staring out the windshield, he tried to think, tried to stop shaking and not panic.

What lay on the bottom of the lake didn’t seem real at first. He spotted a chimney, then a roofline, then two more houses eerily set on the other side of an underwater street. It suddenly occurred to him that he wasn’t hallucinating or on a passage through hell. The lake was man-made. The valley had been flooded as a result of a dam many years ago.

His eyes shot down to his legs, checking the water level in the car and how much air he had left. The water was rising over his knees, coming on fast. He looked back out the windshield. As the car drifted by the first house, Teddy eyed the buildings covered in bright green algae. The walls were made of brick and stone and hadn’t collapsed. A thick layer of mud had taken over much the street. Debris had punched through most of the windows and he craned his neck to watch a school of fish swim inside.

That’s when he spotted the faces, staring back at him. He shuddered, his nerves unraveling. There were faces in the windows. Hideous faces cloaked in fishing nets, and anchored into the rooms with rope and cinder blocks. In spite of the cold water, many of the forms were bloated and hairless. Others looked as if they’d become part of the food chain a long time ago. Still, Teddy recognized two of the women from the pictures he’d seen on Nash’s wall. They were keeping an eye on him. Watching his entrance to their hidden piece of the underworld.

The car suddenly rolled over, and he screamed. Gallons of water from the floor followed the course of the roll, washing over the interior door panel and splashing him over the head. Everything was upside down now. He felt the car bounce off something, then come to a rest on the bottom.

The water was rising up his chest, so cold it burned. He couldn’t get enough air, couldn’t move his lungs. When he kicked at the windows, nothing happened.

He pawed at the door again as the water line reached his neck. Stabbed at the handle with his fingers, but couldn’t find it. He took a breath and went under, opened his eyes and let the icy pain shoot through them to the back of his head. The door handle was where the floor should be. He grabbed it, yanked at it, kicked the door with his knee but still couldn’t make it budge. He surfaced and let out a scary gasp. Six inches of air. Six inches to death.

He’d seen someone hiding behind the fucking house
.

He looked up and spotted the trunk latch on the floor over his head. He gave it a hard pull and thought he’d heard something click. Stepping across the ceiling toward the back, he plunged his hands deeper into the water and flung the rear seat out of the way. Inching his feet back, he tried to beat the confusion and keep in mind that everything was upside down. As his shoes slipped on the metal lid of the trunk, he felt it sway open. Then he did a gut check and took a last breath.

SIXTY-FOUR

He was getting too old for this shit. His back ached, his knees hurt, and his toes were so cold he thought they might be frostbit.

Michael Jackson hated the fucking snow. When he retired, he figured he’d point his DeVille south, load the CD player with the
Best of Frank
, and hit I-95 South until he ran out of road. Miami Beach, baby. Maybe even Cuba if they ever worked all the bullshit out.

He stepped away from the house and wiggled his feet in his shoes. How could he lounge on the beach if some asshole doctor chopped off his frozen toes? Chicks noticed that kind of thing. They’d turn away like he was used goods. His eight-inch canon might never see the light of day.

He lit a cigarette and started to cough, then spit on the snow-covered driveway. Wiping the brake fluid off his switchblade, he closed the knife and returned it to his pocket. He’d cut the brake line while the kid was in the barn, then found a hiding place on the other side of the house so that he could keep an eye on things. It seemed like the way to go. The Corolla looked like a real junker, and the bald tires jumped out at him. If anybody checked, the whole thing would look like an accident.

Jackson doubted anyone would look into it though. And if they did, not very closely. This was the sticks. The hinterland. He’d heard inbreeding was big out here. Rumors of farmers who went out to the barn at night to spend
quality time
with their sheep. He guessed the rumors might be true when he tailed Teddy Mack out here from the city and saw mile after mile of fast-food joints along the road. Not a decent restaurant. Not even a bar that looked like it knew how to make a mixed drink.

Jesus Christ, he thought, Einstein lived in Jersey. This one was a no-sweat deal.

He walked down the drive, eyeing the lake. He hadn’t really expected the car to break through the ice. The goal had been to follow the kid and keep him busy for an hour or two. When the car started down the hill, Jackson peeked around the corner and tried not to laugh. As the thing bounced onto the lake and skidded across the ice, he couldn’t hold it in anymore. It looked like he’d come through in spades. Teddy Mack would be stranded out here with the sheep fuckers all night long. He’d get out of his car, walk across the ice and try to call a taxi with that cell phone of his.

But then he heard the sound of the first crack snap against the side of the house. The ice opened up, the lake swallowing the car in one big gulp. Jackson’s jaw dropped. He’d watched the whole thing go down. The car still had forward momentum as it slipped beneath the ice. He guessed the Corolla would end up somewhere near the middle of the lake.

It was a solemn moment, even though Jackson had been through it before. As the chunks of broken ice settled in the water, he glanced at his Rolex and noted the time. A minute passed without any sign of Teddy Mack. Then another. After five minutes, Jackson turned around and started up the hill to the road. He said a blessing for the kid and crossed himself as he kicked the snow out of his shoes and spit. Climbing into the DeVille, he got the heat going, flipped on the CD player, and cruised back into town. His memories of Teddy Mack would be fond, he decided. He really didn’t have anything against the kid. What happened was just a matter of the way things went down.

SIXTY-FIVE

The biting pain from the cold water ate through every pore in his body. Backing out of the trunk, Teddy followed the course of his feet until they landed in the muddy bottom and stuck. He looked past the houses, the faces, Trisco’s secret playground—trying to get his bearings. Overhead the ice-covered lake sparkled—all lit up from the sun. He spun around, unable to find the spot where his car had broken through. But he saw a shadow in the light, a dark circle or square, and remembered the fishing tents set up on the ice.

Teddy pushed down on the lake bottom, thrusting his body upward. Wriggling through the water, he thrashed at it with his arms and legs as if the dead bodies were chasing him and pulling him down. The weight of his clothing felt like an anchor, the pain in his chest, as if his lungs were made of lead. He was in the tunnel, squirming toward the darkness and running out of air. He thought about drowning. He was scared shitless his body might override his brain in the confusion and make the mistake of trying to draw in air. He knew that’s the way it would happened. Sucking in water instead of air.

He sunk his teeth into his lips, rising closer and still closer. The shadow darkened, then went black. He reached toward it with an open hand, felt a paper thin layer of ice break over his head and wake him up as it vanished.

His body heaved, then bobbed to the surface. He seized hold of the ice, fighting off tears and gasping for air. He was inside one of the tents, huffing on the fresh air in the darkness. His eyes glanced off a five-gallon bucket set beside a couple of canvas chairs. Stabbing at the ice with his fingernails, he clawed his way out of the hole and just laid there. He was panting like an animal, whimpering and shivering in the cold air. He stared at the hole in the ice for a long time. The water glowed like a lit window in the middle of the night.

He pulled himself together and managed to get to his feet, then found the opening in the nylon tent and staggered outside. His shoes were long gone. Ignoring the feel of his socks on the ice, he kept his eyes on the shoreline and moved toward it as if a monk in prayer, one brittle step at a time. He thought someone was walking with him as he reached the boat launch and started up the hill. Powell maybe. Kissing him and hugging him and keeping him warm as he listened to her breath wisping in his ear.