The Vivisectionist (38 page)

“Ummm, means that whatever is touching the thing it needs to be conductive. Like skin.”

“Isn’t metal conductive?” asked Jack.

“Yeah, but that’s not enough. These guys tried a paperclip, but they say it needs more surface area. Like a butter knife turned sideways or something,” replied Stephen.

Jack picked up his iPod an tried to control the wheel with several things around his room. The only thing he found that would work reliably was his finger. “So, anything we can use?”

“Well,” hypothesized Stephen, “if it’s just surface-area and conductivity, I think we could just shove like a metal spatula in there or something. As long as we were holding the metal part of the handle.”

“Okay,” said Jack. “That sounds easy. Let’s try it on the iPod.”

They spent the afternoon conducting secret experiments to try to find the perfect object that was conductive, at least two feet long, and had enough surface area. Stephen searched the closet in the guest room and discovered an old golf putter in the corner. They took turns experimenting with how to hold the metal of the handle so they could control the wheel on Jack’s iPod. Convinced they had solved the problem, they turned their attention to how and when they could actually get back to hotel.

“Hey,” said Stephen. “Don’t forget to hide the money.”

“Oh yeah, right,” said Jack. He took out the seven-hundred dollars from his front pocket and hid it with the rest of their money tucked into his sock drawer. “You know what? Let’s just go tonight” said Jack.

“What about your dad? He sleeps so lightly,” said Stephen.

“Yeah, but how many times has he actually gotten out of bed and checked on you?” Jack asked. “None—right?”

“Yeah, that’s true,” said Stephen.

“So why would tonight be different?” asked Jack. “He might hear us, and it might wake him up, but he’ll just assume everything is okay and go back to sleep.”

“Maybe we can wait in the kitchen for a few minutes. In case he is up,” said Stephen.

“What good would that do?” asked Jack.

“Well,” said Stephen, “if he comes down we’ll just be like ‘Oh, we were looking for cookies.’ or something. If he doesn’t, then we just leave.”

“Looking for cookies fully dressed?” asked Jack.

Stephen shrugged.

“Yeah, okay, that sounds like a good plan then,” Jack smirked.

The boy wandered through dirty, abandoned rooms for the better part of an hour. He wondered why someone built such a big place and then divided it into a maze of doors. The moonlight streaming through the windows and leaking under doors gave him enough light to navigate. He looked for a window closer to the ground, or stairs to get down to a lower floor.

In one room he found a nail, and he started marking an “X” above the knob of any door he used. Ten minutes later, he found a door that looked familiar, but showed no mark. He turned the handle and pushed it open.

It was definitely new territory.

It looked more like a hallway than a room, and it had a gate halfway down. At first, the bars reminded him of the gate he had scaled in the basement, but these went all the way up to the ceiling and afforded no opportunity for climbing.

Something moved up ahead. He twisted on the otoscope. By its waning light, he saw green eyes reflected back.  They startled him. It was a cat, locked inside a small cage which was mounted to the other side of the bars.

The boy rushed over to the cat. He knelt down and put his hand next to the cage. The cat looked up briefly and then returned to eating. The food smelled too fishy. It turned the boy's hungry stomach.

The cat’s cage was attached to the bars, and just over the cage, a solid metal box had two chains which lead to the ceiling. The boy put his foot through the bars and stepped up on the box to look closer at the chains; they actually went through a hole in the ceiling, and another set to the right came down and attached to the center section of bars. He pulled at the chains, but they were taught and immovable.

What interested the boy most was the center section of bars. At their base they ended about an inch from the floor. He reached below the plate and tried to lift the section of gate, but it wouldn't budge.

The whole thing reminded him of a drawbridge, and he glanced around for a way to raise it. He saw a likely candidate: a lever mounted near the wall on the other side.

He shifted from foot to foot. He didn't see any way through, and didn't want to be around if the cat's owner came back. Reluctantly, he decided to leave. On his way out, a reflection of the dim moonlight stopped him. Behind the door, he found another lever. This one had a black handle with a shiny silver trigger at its grip. It came up almost to the boy's chest.

He gripped it with both hands and pulled. The action was stiff, but not too hard and he pulled the handle evenly down to about waist level when it clicked and the tension was relieved. He let go and trotted back over to the gate to see if there was any difference. The center bars had raised—he was almost sure. With two fingers, he measured the gap so he would know for sure next time. He waved to the cat and ran back to the lever.

The lever moved more easily this time and he clicked it again and ran back to the bars. They were definitely higher. He could fit three fingers in the gap with room to spare. That was all the proof he needed. He returned and pulled the lever for three more clicks. Excited, he barely noticed how much noise he made.

On his fourth click in a row—sixth overall—a different sound stopped him. It was a low growl; he spun and saw the cats eyes fixed on him. The boy approached cautiously. He wasn’t afraid of cats, but this sound was menacing. With his eyes locked on the cat, he felt under the gate. He had made several inches of progress, but he saw the source of the cat’s anger. It hunched down under the tips of a grid of spikes that had descended into the cage.

He got down and looked closely. It looked like the spikes had dropped the same distance as the bars had raised, and he instantly knew that it was no coincidence.

The boy heard a voice in his head. It was his mom telling him not to be mean to the squirrels. She had caught him throwing rocks at squirrels in the back yard when he was little. He thought it wrong to hurt the cat and knew he must not pull the lever again. A second voice in his head, an even more authoritative voice, cautioned him that the cat would make a racket as those spikes lowered.

He tried to decide what to do. He suddenly realized that he didn’t have to tell his mom about the cat. Nobody would know; he would never tell. He walked back to the lever and thought about how much more room he would need. He could squeeze through if he pulled another five or six times, but then wondered if he should keep pulling until the cat was out of its misery.

Still considering, he started pulling.

The cat howled and he kept pulling.

Screeching, the cat thrashed. Several spikes pierced it, but the boy just looked away and kept pulling.

Click. Click.

He thought about the crazy man cutting open his leg.

Click.

The noise from the cat stopped and the boy scrambled over to the bars and pulled himself under. His left foot dragged through a puddle of warm blood spreading from the cage. He wiped the side of his foot on the floor.

He collected himself and walked to the door on the far side of the room. He turned the handle and pulled, expecting to see yet another strange room, but instead he found stairs leading down.

The boy exhaled with relief and started down the stairs.

At one in the morning, the boys were halfway to the hotel again. Jack slowed down and commented to Stephen, “I wish this hotel had a ‘save game’ feature, so we wouldn’t have to do all the beginning stuff every time.” Jack swung his dad’s extra golf putter as he walked.

“I just wish we had headlamps, so we wouldn’t have to carry these flashlights,” remarked Stephen.

“Yeah, that too. It takes like almost two hours to get through everything and then we’re going to have to worry about turning right around,” said Jack.

“Yeah, but I like the nighttime trips,” said Stephen. “Seems more fun.”

“Me too,” said Jack. “It’s electric.”

“Like Halloween or something.”

“Exactly,” said Jack.

**********

In front of the new button, Jack was ready to try the putter. He held it with both hands. He gripped the shaft just below the rubber handle. Jack was on his knees and Stephen crouched behind him—slightly hunched over in the small passage. He had the blade of the putter lined up with the hand drawn on the switch.

“Do it,” said Stephen.

Jack stifled a yawn and pressed the putter to the sensor.

Nothing happened.

“Damn it,” said Jack. He pulled out the putter and dropped it on the floor. He slumped back against the wall. “I’m tired, and it’s the middle of the night, and we can’t even get past this stupid thing.”

“We could go back to the pole,” said Stephen, reminding Jack of the other passage they had dismissed as too dangerous.

“We don’t know how we’ll get out if we go that way,” said Jack.

“We could try putting our hand in this thing and then wedge it open so it won’t close,” suggested Stephen.

“Are you going to try that?” said Jack. “I’m not.”

“Well this thing doesn’t respond to something conductive,” said Stephen. “We know that.”

Jack frowned and bent his head, grasping it with both hands. Stephen sat down and leaned against the opposite wall.  Jack had set his flashlight down on the floor. Now it lit his face from underneath and produced a frightening visage.

“Why don’t we go dig up a body and cut off the arm?” asked Stephen. He had intended to break the foul mood with humor, but succeeded only in giving himself goosebumps.

“Nah,” said Jack. “Wouldn’t work.”

Stephen wondered if Jack was seriously considering his joke as an option.

“I think maybe it’s heat,” said Jack. “Maybe whatever touches it has to be conductive and at body temperature.”

“We could go experiment with the other panel,” offered Stephen. “The one in the white room.”

“Hey, that’s a good idea,” said Jack, brightening at last. “C’mon.”

Jack led the way back through the ducts, up the stairs from the spiral room, and through the attic. As usual with the white room they had to approach slowly—it was so bright that it took a while for their eyes to adjust. They knew from experience that if they rushed into the white room they would be squinting back headaches for several minutes.