Authors: James Roy Daley
“Beer.”
“Bud?
“Corona.”
“Ah… you’re one of the Corona guys. Roger picked up a case last week, said the summer folk drink it like water.”
Dan’s smile became a grin. “Tastes good to me.”
“Me… I’m not picky. Beer is beer.” Cameron opened a bar fridge and lifted a Corona from the rack. She cracked the bottle with an opener she kept in her back pocket and placed the drink on the bar. “You need a lime?”
“Have you got one?”
“Nope.”
“Didn’t think so. You guys never have limes.”
Cameron smiled.
She looked wholesome when she smiled, like a girl you could introduce to your mother. Dan figured if she downsized the Gothic look she’d be perfect, if such a thing existed. Not that he hated the way she looked. He didn’t. But still, the dark and mysterious facade didn’t quite fit Cameron’s personality. She seemed more conventional somehow.
“Tell you what,” Cameron said. “I’ll pick up a few limes the next time I go shopping.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Honest, I will. I’m always shopping for the bar. One more thing on the grocery list is no big deal.”
Dan took a drink. Switching the bottle from one hand to the other, he said, “Menu?”
Cameron reached beneath the counter, snagged a menu, and handed it over. The menu was old and nasty and needed to be thrown away.
Dan opened it saying, “Some things never change.”
“Same old menu.”
“Same old menu.” Dan agreed, wondering how many times he looked at that very one.
Cameron’s eyes drifted. “Back in a minute.”
She approached a man and a woman sitting in a booth on the far side of the restaurant. They were in their seventies; the only other customers in the pub. The man was Jay Hopper of Hopper’s Gas. He wore a tweed jacket and smelled like after-shave. The woman was his half-sister Emily. Her hair looked like a white ball of yarn. They were having a bite to eat before Jay worked the evening shift.
Nicolas Nehalem, still sitting beside Daniel, watched Cameron from the corner of his eye while pursing his lips tight and curling a hand into a fist.
Impulsively, Dan reached for his pocket. He wanted to check the time on his cell, but remembered that he had no phone. The clock on the wall said it was a quarter to seven. He scanned the restaurant’s menu, knowing what was on it, what was good, and what wasn’t worth eating. Most of the food was greasier that a machine-shop mechanic, which he feared was the reason he liked it.
Cameron returned from Jay’s table.
Dan said, “I’ll have a steak sandwich, medium rare.”
“Fries?”
“Mashed.”
“Coming right up.”
She slid the menu beneath the counter and entered the kitchen.
Dan watched her hips moving back and forth until she was gone. She was a sexy
Goth
girl, a rarity for sure. Most Goth girls he knew of looked depressed, irritated, and in need of vitamin D.
The front door opened and Roger McMaster, owner of
The Big Four O,
came waltzing in, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. He had short curly hair and a carefree smile.
“Mister McGee,” Roger said, extending his hand. “You’re back!”
Dan turned towards the man and lifted his bottle. “I’m back.”
As the two men shook hands, Nicolas Nehalem squeezed his teeth together and knocked his fist against the table. He wanted to smash Roger in the face with his coffee cup and slash Daniel’s throat open with a corkscrew. Those two fuckers were ruining everything. Why the hell did they have to be here now? Why not later? Why not tomorrow? Couldn’t they tell they were
not
wanted?
After slapping some money on the counter, Nicolas pushed his glasses high upon his nose and marched out the front door, cursing under his breath.
Roger, ignoring Nicolas, said, “Great to see you, Dan.”
“You too, brother. Where’s Will?”
“Ah, he’s around. Said he might pop by later. Can I buy you a beer?”
“You sure can. You can buy me two beers if you want.”
“Yeah well… just ‘cause I own the place doesn’t mean you can’t buy me a drink now and again.”
Dan smiled. “Want me to buy
you
a beer?”
“Sure.”
Both men laughed and Cameron stepped out from the kitchen. “Hey Roger,” she said. “How ya doing?”
Roger slapped his hands together; his eyes were wide and cheerful. “Cameron, you met Daniel yet?”
Cameron adjusted her belt and lifted Nicolas’ money from the table. “Why yes I did. He was telling me all kinds of terrible things about you.”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“No it’s true. He was telling me how cheap you are and how you’re a stud with the ladies…”
Roger rolled his eyes. “Pfft. Now I know you’re lying. Hey Cam, set us up, will ya?”
“Bud?”
Roger nodded. “Bud.”
“Another Corona, Dan?”
Daniel took a good-sized drink from the bottle. “Another Corona would be just great.”
The two men sat down and started in on a long conversation about nothing, making good-natured jokes along the way.
Stanley Rosenstein entered the restaurant looking twenty years older than he did on the day he was in the car accident, the day the teenagers died, the day he saw the
thing
on the road and his life was damaged beyond repair. He ordered take-out without making eye contact with anybody, speaking with a soft and nervous tone. Life had become hard for the man; it was easy to see. He appeared to be hanging onto his sanity with his fingernails.
The steak sandwich came and Roger ordered another round.
Stanley Rosenstein received his take-out and left without saying a word, keeping his head low.
Jay Hopper and Emily paid their bill and left the restaurant, leaving a three fifty tip. And as strange as it may seem, Jay Hopper leaving the restaurant is somewhat of a turning point in this tale. Fact is, if Jay knew about Daniel’s discovery he may of said something worth considering, and the hours ahead might have played out differently. He didn’t say anything though, and the hours ahead played out worse than most people could possibly imagine.
∞∞Θ∞∞
When Jay Hopper was just an orange haired kid with a face full of freckles, he worked construction for a man named Lester Long. It was Lester’s company that built Daniel’s house and the monstrosity that was beneath it. In fact, it was the last job Lester ever worked on. Once the job was completed he moved as far away from Cloven Rock that his wife would allow, and died a few years later in his sleep.
Long story short: Lizzy Backstrom and Stanley Rosenstein weren’t the only ones that believed there were monsters living in Cloven Rock. Some of the old-timers did too. They just didn’t talk about it.
∞∞Θ∞∞
When Dan finished eating, Roger closed the kitchen for the night and sent the cook home. The cook was a man named Azul Bunta; he’d been working there for five years.
After Azul left the building, Cameron cracked a Corona for herself, counted her cash, finished her paperwork, and closed the restaurant. Sitting on a bar stool between Roger and Dan, she joined the conversation.
Dan said, “So listen guys, I found something today that’s a little bit peculiar. I can’t stop thinking about it.”
Roger lifted an eyebrow. “Really? That sounds interesting. Tell us more.”
“Yeah Daniel. Let’s hear it.”
Dan adjusted the stool beneath him, took a sip from his bottle, and wiped a drop of beer from his chin. He said, “I came into town last night, alone. Sandra stayed home.”
“Sandra?” Cameron asked.
“That Dan’s wife,” Roger said. “She’s a cutie.”
Cameron smiled. “Oh yeah?”
Dan almost blushed. “You wanna hear this story or not?”
“Of course,” Roger said.
“Just buggin’ ya,” Cameron said. “We’ll behave, promise.”
“Yeah, Dan. We’re listening.”
“Okay. Well, I got in to town last night, like I said. I opened my place for the summer… you know, got the water running and stuff. This week I plan on renovating the basement.”
“Oh wow.”
“That’s a big job,” Cameron said, tilting her bottle outwards.
“I know it is,” Dan replied. “I took two weeks off work and I might need to take a third. I want to put a bar down there, hardwood floors. I want to make it nice, you know? I want to be able to bring friends down there.”
Roger said, “Sounds great.”
“Hopefully it will be. So, today I got up early and cleaned out the garbage, took down a couple of walls, tore out the carpet…”
“Damn,” Roger said. “I’m impressed.”
“Me too,” Cameron agreed.
“Thanks. Anyways… after I removed the carpet I pulled out the sub-floor, and I found a door in the
floor
, in the
concrete!”
Roger wrinkled his nose and squinted his eyes. “What kind of door?”
“A trap door; a secret cellar or something.”
Cameron leaned in. “What was inside?”
Dan smiled. “Well, this is where things get weird. There was a hole in the floor. It was like a manmade mineshaft or something, a tunnel going straight into the earth.”
“Oh wow,” Roger said, his eyes widening. “We should go down there somehow.”
“Going down isn’t a problem.”
“No?”
“There’s a metal ladder attached to a wall. It reminded me of a sewer ladder, know what I mean?”
Roger said, “I’ve haven’t been inside many sewers, but I can imagine. Did you go down?”
“Yes.”
“Really!” Cameron almost jumped off her stood. The excitement she felt was obvious, an open book, she was easy to read. Suddenly she seemed very young. “What was down there? Did you see anything good?”
“Yeah, Dan. Tell us. What did you find?”
Dan lifted his bottle, swallowing the last of his beer. “I went down with a flashlight and a lantern. The ladder was longer than I expected it to be. I never reached the bottom.”
Cameron said, “How far did you travel?”
“You know what? It seemed really far when I was climbing. I was alone and I didn’t expect to go down so far. It was dark and cold. I thought the floor was right there, like it was a normal cellar. After a while I got worried. Nobody knew where I was or what I was doing; nobody knew I was down there. I started thinking I might get hurt or something, and nobody would find me. Then I heard a rat squeak, or maybe it was a bat. I don’t know. I just…” Feeling embarrassed, Dan stopped talking.
“Don’t worry, man,” Roger said. “Nobody should go into a place like that alone, especially if nobody knows you’re down there. You were right to get out.”
“I guess.”
Cameron said, “But tell me, how far down did you travel?”
Dan tallied the rungs in his mind. “Maybe sixty, sixty-five feet. But it felt like more. Sixty feet might not sound like much inside an open space with the lights on. But inside that shaft, I don’t know. It felt…”
“That’s pretty far,” Roger said. “I would’ve gotten out of there too.”
“Yeah,” Cameron said. “I can’t believe you found a secret tunnel in your basement. That’s so cool! Can I see it?”
“You want to?” Dan asked.
“Yes! Of course! This is amazing! It’s like something from a movie!
Journey to the Center of the Earth
, something like that.”
Dan looked at Roger, hunting his opinion.
Roger said, “I’d love to check it out.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely. One condition though, if we find anything valuable, we split it.”
“Three ways!” Cameron added. Now she did jump off of her stool. She looked almost ecstatic. “Can we split it three ways?”
Dan said, “If we find anything good we’ll split it.”
Cameron said, “You promise?”
Dan nodded. “Yes. I promise.”
Not half as excited as Cameron, Roger finished his drink. “Want another beer, Dan?”
“You buying?”
“Wait!” Cameron said, with her eyes suddenly bulging. “We should do it right now, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know,” Roger said. “What do you say, Dan?”
Truthfully, Dan wanted to get back to his basement ASAP. His entire project was now in ‘handyman limbo’ and that made him feel both anxious and concerned. Until he knew what was down there it was hard to keep working. He
could
keep working, he supposed. And he would if need be, but he didn’t want to. He wanted to figure out what was going on. The very fact that the pit existed was affecting his design plans. Originally, he wanted the bar sitting where the trap door was located. Now it seemed like the area should be left open.