The main door to the mansion opened and an older man stepped outside. He raised his hand in a careful greeting and started down the stone stairs in front of the door.
“I was told I would meet a Jane Elring?”
Jane carefully raised her hand and said, “That would be me.”
Caleb registered the old man’s genuine surprise. It sparkled in his eyes and made its way to his thin, arched eyebrows. He was easy to read, which made Caleb feel more secure.
“You are Jane Elring? Forgive me, but you are only a child!”
Jane held up her index finger and, with her other hand, reached inside her pocket. Out came the wallet Caleb had first seen during his job interview. Jane’s small fingers dug inside and soon revealed the same ID card she had shown to him. Carefully she handed it to the old man in front of them.
“What is this now?” he asked as he took the ID from her. Then he proceeded to study it carefully until he reached a satisfactory conclusion. “You are really twenty-three years old?”
Jane nodded. “Just stopped growing at some point.”
“Indeed,” the old man said as he gave back the ID.
The ID card went back into the wallet, and the wallet back into her pocket, all with the careful and deliberate movements of Jane’s small fingers.
The old man’s eyes went from Jane to Caleb and he asked, “And your companion?”
Jane answered, “This is Caleb. He is my bodyguard.”
This time mild shock ran rampant across the old man’s face. Caleb watched as it ran from the downward curl of his aged lips all the way to his wrinkled forehead.
“My dear! You are not in any danger here in Brettville, certainly?”
Jane shrugged. “It’s just a precaution.”
The old man’s eyes bounced from Jane to Caleb and back again. “Yes, well! If there is anything you need, anything at all, you must certainly come to see me!”
It was now that the old man extended his hand in greeting as he said, “I am Arthur Toaves. I was the one that asked our government for help in this very strange case.”
“A strange case indeed,” Jane said as she shook Arthur’s hand.
Caleb was next and he noticed there was no reserve in the old man’s handshake. It was warm and kind and he didn’t know why but he immediately felt welcome.
Arthur said, “Please come inside. I fear there is quite a bit we have to discuss.”
Then the old man turned to the girl that had been watching them and said, “Homework, young lady!”
“I want to ride!” The protest came sounding back.
Arthur paused briefly to consider his course of action. “You will do your homework tonight, then?”
“I will!” she agreed.
Arthur nodded and gestured for his guests to come inside. “We can discuss things in my office.”
Caleb was last through the front door and closed it behind him. He found himself in a poorly lit hallway that stretched off into a right curve. There were dark wooden doors left and right, leading to rooms and ever more impressive hallways. Unknown destinations inside a cold building that did not match the vibe of its owner at all.
Caleb followed Jane and Arthur through the labyrinthine mansion, constructing a mental map of the place as well as he could. He did not want to lose his client in here.
Arthur spoke. “You must think me a weakling, giving in to Ellie like that.”
Jane asked, “Ellie is the girl outside? Is she a runaway?”
“Yes. I picked her up hitchhiking back in February this year,” Arthur answered.
“Then you did the only thing you could do.”
Arthur stopped dead in his tracks and turned to face Jane. “Is that so?”
Jane nodded. “You squeeze a runaway too tight, she’ll just run again.”
Caleb noticed that the old man looked pained as Jane’s words registered with him. Suddenly he seemed tired and the remaining white hairs on his head dominated his appearance.
Arthur said, “That is my greatest fear. That she will run again, off toward this uncertain future.”
Jane did not mince words. “If she runs again she will run toward certain death.”
Her words gave Arthur pause. Eventually he nodded and turned around to lead them through the mansion in silence.
Finally the claustrophobic hallway drew out into a larger room. Caleb couldn’t be sure, but they were probably in the center of the mansion now. The room was circular, with two large sets of stairs curling up toward the second floor. Rising above them like vipers ready to strike at their prey.
They started up the left staircase and Caleb watched Arthur greet one of his maids dusting the banister. It struck him how genuine the old man’s words sounded when he thanked her for the hard work, and how warmly those words seemed to flow from his thin lips.
It wasn’t a trick, or a hoax, a way to make him look better in front of his guests. Caleb was sure of it because the maid’s smile, her only response to her employer’s praise, was as genuine as the compliment he had paid her.
When they reached the second floor Caleb noticed that the old man was out of breath.
Arthur said, “This mansion is so darn big. I know I shouldn’t complain but we’ve been thinking about installing an elevator for me.”
Jane answered, “They have stair lifts now. Those are really convenient.”
Seeing the old man’s weak physical state drew Caleb back into the memory of the mother he had lost. Her coughing and wheezing as she lay in bed, suffering through the painkillers that didn’t help anymore.
In the end she hadn’t even recognized him through the delirium of her ever-increasing temperature but she had held his hand all the same. Squeezed it with a tenacity that ultimately wavered underneath the pressure of the cancer eating her up from inside.
Caleb wanted to escape his memories but he couldn’t. The mansion had swallowed him whole and the claustrophobic hallways were slowly choking the life out of him. The terror in the pit of his stomach roared and clawed at his throat.
Caleb could feel his pulse rise and the sweat drip from his forehead, and then he heard a voice he thought he knew echo inside his skull. It’s okay now, Caleb. Please come back to us.
They stood in front of one of the wooden doors and nobody had said anything to Caleb. The terror subsided and he could focus on his surroundings again.
Arthur opened the door and said, “This is my office. We can talk here.”
Ethan Walker suffered in silence. He had no say in the matter, as he found himself strapped to a hospital bed and his senses were blurred by the medicine. This medical confinement had doomed him, Ethan thought, because it left him defenseless against the horror that intruded on his life.
He couldn’t scream and he couldn’t fight back whenever Billy returned. He couldn’t kick; he couldn’t punch or claw. He was even too weak to plead or beg for his life.
With no way to defend himself Ethan lay on the hospital bed, watching as Billy sat on his chest and ate away at his face. Ethan could tell that Billy’s zombie teeth tore his skin to shreds but he didn’t feel the pain anymore. He wasn’t sure if that was a blessing or not.
His dissociated state felt so dreamlike that he thought he existed in a permanent nightmare. One of those nightmares you could sometimes wake yourself up from when they got too bad. Not this one. His zombified old friend visited him dutifully and whenever he did, Ethan felt himself moving one step closer to hell.
Maybe it was hell he deserved. Ethan couldn’t abandon that thought anymore. Why else would his dead friend return from beyond the grave to torment him so? Drive him ever closer to death with each and every bite?
It had been Ethan’s idea to run from the cops when they got caught. Billy only followed his lead. Billy always followed his lead. But it hadn’t been Ethan’s chest that exploded from the cop’s bullet. It had been Billy’s.