Secret Basement Lab Alphabet: XX DOUBLE FEATURE XTRAVAGANZA

X is for XYLABONES

The music of the night: the wind whistling through headstones in an abandoned graveyard; the skitter of dry leaves, windblown, raking across dry concrete; the galloping beat of a frightened heart pumping in one’s ears. The melody of mystery! The harmony of horror!

X is for X-RATED SPECS

“I assure you, sir, that it is on the up-and-up!” The short, bearded man leaned over his booth and produced a slip of yellow paper.

X-RATED SPECS – ADULT AMUSEMENT FOR PERSONAL PLEASURE

CERTIFIED GENUINE OR MONEY BACK

PFSR. RANDY GADGET.

“It’s not really in our line of stock,” Chad said, trying to brush off the little man and continue his tour around the auditorium. He and his sales associate Sandra Bellows were looking for new acquisitions for their client, THE POPNECKER NOVELTY CO., purveyors of fine junk to be advertised in pulp magazines, comic books and the like.

This was hardly something that could be peddled to the general public. Hell, it would get Popnecker Novelty blacklisted from the trade, and he would be out of a job.

“What do we have here?” Sandra asked, stepping up to the booth. Chad hadn’t heard her approach. She grabbed at one of the pairs of cheap-looking black-plastic-framed glasses and unfolded the bows.

“Uh, Sandy I don’ think you should…”

“Someone finally perfect a set of X-ray Specs? Hope it’s better than the old make-you-see-double kind that produce—“

Sandy was staring at Chad, and her mouth was agape, her face fire hydrant-red.

“These…these aren’t…”

“X-Rated Specs!” Professor Gadget piped, pride in his voice. “First of their kind! Guaranteed to work!”

Sandy didn’t say anything, just continued to stare.
“Uh, yeah…”

She took the specs off and slapped them back on the table.

Chad was unsure how to proceed. The entire situation was beyond awkward. “You ok, Sandy?”  

“I don’t think these are for us,” Sandy simply replied. “Chad, I saw some new, improved hand-buzzers over on the other side of aisle B, next to the fake vomit vendor. I think it might be a marketable product.”

Apparently Sandy had been unfazed, or hid it well.

“I’ll meet you over there,” Chad said, eager to walk away and relieve some of the tension that seemed to surround the booth like invisible gelatin.

After Chad had vanished from eyesight, Sandy turned back to the small, bearded Professor Gadget.

“I’ll take two pair,” she said, fishing her wallet from her purse.

Secret Basement Lab Alphabet: O is for OMINOUS TOTEM

O is for OMINOUS TOTEM

The Seer was inwardly amused at the sergeant’s irritation at having to lower himself to consorting with a “press-hungry public shamster” as he’d put it, but kept the amusement to himself. No need to test the limits of sergeant Zucco’s irascibility.

Zucco cleared as throat with gusto. “You’ve doubtless heard about the string of murders in the Bryn Mawr area of town?”

“Indeed I have. I get the paper, sergeant, just like everybody else.”

Zucco replied,  “Looking for your own picture, no doubt.”

“No,” the Seer said, sitting down at the table and raising his coffee cup, “I only subscribe for the comics.”

To his surprise, this elicited a curt snicker from the callous cop.

“We’ve hit a wall,” Zucco continued. “I don’t like it, but I’ve been ordered to see if there’s anything you can add to flesh out the details on this nonsense.”

“What could I do to help?” The Seer asked. “I’m simply a, what was it? A public shamster?”

“Probably, but you seem to have a lot of useless trivia in that turbaned skull of yours about stuff like this, so here you go.” With that the sergeant put a small paper bag on the table in front of The Seer.  The kind you might bring home donuts in, or a small liquor bottle.

Cautiously, The Seer separated the edges of the mouth of the bag, and found a smooth, oddly shaped object with his fingers.

“What the devil?” What he produced from the bag was ghastly, and like nothing he’d ever seen before. It was a small figure, kneeling on all fours and grasping a skull in the primitively carved fingers of its right hand. It had a square-ish head with a series of rings carved around its neck, and a ghoulish open maw filled with tiny needle-prick teeth. Titling it towards the light hanging over the table caused the two eye cavities to glare a blood-colored reflection. Deeply set within the sockets were two red gemstones of some type.

“What is this?” The Seer begged urgently.

“What I came to you for, smart guy.”

“Where was this?”

“On the back of the body of the latest victim. And there’s been one exactly like it on the bodies of each of the last six.”

It was odd to say the least. It had the patina of aged wood or bronze, it’s ochre-hued form marred with splotches of green and brown. It resembled highly polished sandstone, but it didn’t feel like rock at all. Or wood or metal for that matter.

The Seer clasped the object between both of his hands, bowed his head until his chin was balanced in the center of his clavicle, and touched the seeing stone on his turban to the totem.

His mind exploded with a firework show of images; of natives slogging through fields of tall grass and palm trees under the crack of a whip, of a chair like no other he’d ever seen, hewn from a rock that matched the tiny chips of red that made up the statue’s eyes. There was a collage of pain, of sacrifices and blood, and at the perimeter of it all, a figure. The Seer couldn’t quite make out the form’s features, but there was a malevolent aura as hot as red steel radiating off it.

His head jerked up, his eyes flashing to the sergeant. He set the totem down on the table.

“Sergeant, I have to ask what will sound like a very silly question, but I want you to answer it honestly.”

“Whatizit?”

“Are you sure that there were individual totems on each body? Is it possible that it was simply the same totem—this totem—every time?”

“’s impossible,” Zucco spat. “Other ones were all tucked away behind lock and key in the evidence room.”

“Call and make sure, there’s a phone behind you.”

Zucco sighed, rolled his eyes beneath a heavily furrowed brow, and turned to the phone.

“Yeah, Zucco. Hey, go open the evidence lock-up and check on those figurines we found with the bodies in Bryn Mawr.”

There was a pause.

“Yeah? Y—wait a minute, how the hell could…” The surly sergeant turned to The Seer, the color flushed from his face. “What’s the deal here you Ouija board bandit?”

The Seer motioned towards the statue, not wishing to touch it again, ever. “This thing is alive, sergeant. It isn’t the killer, but it’s what the killer is killing for. Not to steal, but because this thing needs the blood of the victims.”

“You’re nutty. Why?”

“I don’t know. But I can assure you unless we find this psychopath, and soon, there’ll be something far worse than a madman with a knife running loose in the city.”

Secret Basement Lab Alphabet: N is for NIGHT WATCHER

N is for NIGHT WATCHER

He’d been there every night for several weeks now. Some nights she didn’t even go to the window, but she knew if she did, the shape would be there under the streetlight. After she’d been grabbed outside her apartment a few nights back, by that—that thing, she’d made a point to always have Jason, the building’s night door man, wait for her outside the front door, where she could be within his eyesight after stepping off the bus at the corner. If anyone, or thing as it may be, tried to gamble a grab, Jason could be there to intervene.

Every night. Under the streetlight. Staring up at her window from the corner across the street. She’d called the cops, given a report. Of course they thought she was bonkers. At least she thought they thought that. The sergeant who filled out the report came to the conclusion it was some nut in a monster mask, trying to get a fright out of her for a gag, working up the goony voice.

Millie wasn’t so sure.

That face…the face that had been burned into memory and the darkness that waited for when she closed her eyelids…there was something familiar about it. The eyes. She couldn’t place it, but she felt that it might not have been a mask, and maybe, perhaps, even not an attempted attack but a cry for help.

If Jeremy were here, he’d know what to do.

Where was he?

She edged to the window slowly, trying to stay out of the glow from the streetlights and shop signs below. She didn’t want the monster to know if she was home, and if he saw her, who knows? Would it—or he?—come up and try to get in?

And the memory of that hand on her shoulder—those clawed fingers! She had a hunch that maybe Jason wouldn’t be much of an obstacle to contend with. Not for someone like that.

Secret Basement Lab Alphabet: M is for MANSTER

M is for MANSTER

As she turned the corner, past the circumference of light provided on the sidewalk by the streetlamp, Millie got the gooseflesh premonition that she was being watched. It didn’t mean she was, nor was it uncommon to happen when she was walking alone at night. It was her body’s natural reaction to the dark and the quiet mixed with the setting of the unpopulated city avenue.

This time, however, her intuition had grounds for concern.

She didn’t see it approach. First there was the empty metallic clunk of a kicked stray soup can. It was trash day, so there was loose garbage all over the place, blown out of the back of the garbage truck as the bins were being unloaded. Not that there wasn’t trash strewn all over all of the time anyways. This was Saint Paul, after all; street trash was to the capitol city in the way that rain was emblematic for Seattle, or jazz was to New Orleans.

Millie spun, focused on the blackness behind her. Nothing. Maybe it was just a stray cat looking for dinner.

She kept on.

Then she heard another sound—the syncopated tread of footsteps. They were moving at an odd time signature. One short step, then a thudding drag. She started walking faster, the steps to her apartment building a block ahead.

There was a moan—a formless gasp that sounded like it was produced by a mouth unsure how to properly produce the syllables.

“Mee-leee.”

Her heart jumped up into her ears, pounding like timpani.

Don’t turn around, she ordered herself. Whomever or whatever it is will give you a start, and that will cost you valuable seconds you could be bustling your backside towards the door. Jason the doorman should be on duty by now. He’ll know what to do with—

Her train of though was interrupted by the clamp of a heavy hand on her left shoulder, forcing her to a stop. A quick sideways glance at the hand showed a set of green, scabby fingers, each ending in a long talon-like nail.

“Mee-lee. Izz Jay-wuh-mee.”

She turned, and found herself face to face with a hideous creature, a flat green face coated in scaly lesions, baring shark-toothed fangs in its gaping mouth. The man—the monster!—was dressed in a baggy black trench coat and a wide-brimmed  slouch hat, like The Shadow wore.

“Mee-leee!” the creature repeated. “Izz Jay-wuh-mee…”

Millie fell backwards, pulling away with all of her might. A piercing scream burst forth from her lips. Without looking back, she made a beeline for the door of her apartment building.

The creature—this Manster—did not give chase. Rather he sighed, raised the collar of his trench coat, tilted the front of his slouch hat down further, and walked off into the night. Had his face been visible in the getup, one could’ve seen the streetlight on the corner highlight the small tears racing down his swollen cheeks like small glass beetles. He had to find the man who did this to him and get him to change him back.

And if not…then, the world was soon to be down one scientist, he thought. There would be no middle ground.

Secret Basement Lab Alphabet: L is for LURID NIGHTCLUB

L is for LURID NIGHTCLUB

The strip was active all right, it was a veritable midway alley of hard liquor and games of chance. Every garish neon sign, animated and not, beaming its licentious potential to every broken heart, frayed morality or simply life-weary individual who dared to take a gander.

The Widow’s Den, The Voodoo Room, The Ticklish Tiki, The Puce Platypus; each housed their own brand of debauchery and a devoted clientele of hoodlums, chumps and holster hounds waiting for the next job offer or cheap thrill

Secret Basement Lab Alphabet: K is for KISS OF DEATH

K is for KISS OF DEATH

“You sure you got your facts straight?” Peabody asked. “I mean, how could one woman kill twelve men in seven years and not see the inside of a slammer?” He shook his head dumbfounded. “It just doesn’t reckon. I mean, she’d be a regular Bluebe—say, what would you even call her?”

“I’d call her deranged and dangerous,” Detective Smothers cut in. She was becoming irritated with the newspaperman’s insipid blathering. “And don’t go thinking because she isn’t some mug with a face like Boris Karloff with a dirty picture tattooed on his arm, that she can’t be the killer, neither.”

She’d followed the leads, and they all led to the same cul-de-sac: Marjorie Fritzell. One-time nurse, one-time burlesque dancer, twelve-time killer. All wealthy men; tough guys, too. All of them oblivious to the fact that a member of the so-called fairer sex might be the death of them. It was laughably ironic, she mused. Here she was­–a dame private eye in a business that she was repeatedly told, oh-so-condescendingly, was a man’s business. You needed strength, you needed speed, you needed a five o’clock shadow and a baggy trench coat. You had to be ready to rumble and make good with the tough talk, and of course a woman who stood five-five on her tippy-toes couldn’t ever hoe a proverbial row in that field. She’d heard it all a million times. Not always in words, but the smug smirks on the faces of the cops and perps and clients she dealt with, when they realized that who they were dealing with was a P.I., and a she at that. And here she was hunting down a black widow that had been able to rack up kills, had been allowed to succeed in continuing her craft, because she wasn’t a man. Because the very same reasons she couldn’t be a detective according to the world of men, were the reasons Marjorie Fritzell, the dazzling blonde socialite with a tabloid figure and a face for magazines, couldn’t be a serial killer.

“I’ve done my legwork, Peabody. You don’t like my conclusions, get out of my office and let me do my job. There’s a new ice cream parlor opening up on Division. It’s late in the day, but if you hurry you might be able to get a scoop.”

Peabody sneered at the joke, grabbed his hat and pad and headed towards the door. “If you’re so sure this Fritzell gal is responsible for all of this, why ain’t the police on her like white on rice?”

“I’m sure some of them would like to be. Truth is she’s a looker. And she’s got a pocketbook of aliases and phony papers about as thick as a phone book. She’s been good at covering her tracks: changing her hairstyle, laying low, moving around a lot. But that amount of moving leaves dirt on your shoes, and at least one or two footprints lying around somewhere to have traced back to you. I followed her trail from California to New York, to Arizona, to Minnesota and now Wisconsin. Sometimes I could confirm it with pictures in the local papers—engagement announcements, etcetera. Someone with money and brass gets a girl like Marj, he’s going to flash her around like winning lottery ticket. Other times, in the smaller towns, places where she skipped when someone got too close to pinning her for who she really was, I had to flash a photo, but the identification was always dead certain.

“So whattaya figure? Is this new dope she’s with, that banker who was in the paper you asked for, is he going to be unlucky thirteen?”

“I don’t know,” Peabody said. “But I have to believe it. I’m sure she’s waiting for old moneybags somewhere right now, watching for his car out the window and applying some poisoned lipstick or something.”

Secret Basement Lab Alphabet: I is for INVISIBLE HOOD

I is for INVISIBLE HOOD

Don’t let anyone fool ya ‘bout the nature of the crooked types. They’re all bums. Every one o’ them. I should know, I never been anything but. That load of bilge about that French character Lupin and him being a gentleman thief: it’s all bunkum for kids’ books. Crooks are crooks. People who have no scruples taking what they want when they want it because they feel they’re entitled to it. You gotta be a cold stone to not having feelings about it, but that’s just how some are wired.

All the same, I felt something alright all those months holed up in that rotten attic in that egghead flophouse over on Westdale Avenue. Nobody came knockin’ on that door, and the doc was only too keen to have someone around to talk to who could at least grunt back, unlike all them guinea pigs and rats and the rest of those miserable animals all caged up like they were.

That began to chafe of me, too. At first it was just the stink of the hay and the feces, enough to make a guy want to puke. Then I started to feel sorry for ‘em. Months later, after I seen the doc’s tests turn nasty; the way a rat’s pink toes would kick as it lost its site, began clawing at its eyes until its face was a bloody, pulpy mess. Or the way one of ‘em would shriek and turn on its side like it’d just been sucker-punched and rolled; then lay still. Yeah, it was a rat. But it had been alive, hadn’t it? Never did no harm to nobody. Not like me.

I guess I should’ve seen it coming when I woke up one morning, tied tighter than a ship’s rigging, and my left arm knotted off like some kinda dope fiend.

“Good morning, Luther,” the doc said, all cheery like as if he were setting a plate of waffles down in front of me. Only he didn’t have no waffles. Just a hypodermic needle.

“I don’t see much good about it, doc,” I said. He pricked me without warning. Not that it would have made much difference if he had.

“I think I’ve made the necessary steps to removing the malignancies from the serum,” he said.

I wanted to snap the ropes like the studs in the comic books, but my body and the ropes had different ideas. I wasn’t the Doc Savage type. Nobody was, but yours truly especially.

“The more you struggle,” the doc said, stepping back as if just in case maybe I might be able to free myself, “the faster the serum disseminates through the blood system.”

“I should’ve known there was a catch to the free room and board.”

“Ahh…but if this works, you’ll no longer need to stay here, Luther. You can walk down the street as free as a mailman.”

“You’re batty, doc. Maybe the cops ain’t searchin’ this end of town for me yet, but I can’t just…”

“The police won’t see you, Mr. Preston. No one will.” His voice cut off. I noticed his eyes widen, his jaw sort of hinge down toward his adam’s apple.

“It’s working!” he wailed. “It’s working! Look!”

He grabbed at my left hand. I wadded my fingers in a fist to try and take a swing at him best I could, but then I noticed, as he caught my wrist, that he wasn’t holding anything. I mean, he had my hand, but my hand wasn’t there. Or it was, but I couldn’t see it any.

Soon my whole left arm, that he’d jabbed the silver splinter in, was invisible. The doc backed off and came back with a large mirror on wheels.

“See!” he said. “See! It’s a success!”
            What I could see was my clothes moving around beneath the ropes on the table like they were caught in a draft. More important was what I couldn’t see, which was me. I was there all right, but not so as I could see myself.

“What the hell did you do to me?” I growled. I wanted to beat the smug little sadist to a pulp. Maybe it was worth the jail time just to put this jerk in his place.

“I’ve made a fantastic discovery,” was his reply. “And I’ve improved your situation considerably.”

            He was right. In a sense. If I was invisible, then I could go where I wanted, do what I want, and no one would be the wiser. I’d have to do it starker, which wasn’t my cup o’ coffee, but in my position beggars couldn’t be choosers.

            “Great. You a ghost outta me. What good does that do me wrapped up like a ham on this table?”

            “I’ll let you go, of course. I just needed to make sure you didn’t try to run before I gave you the injection.”

            “And what makes you think that’s a good idea?” I asked, playing devil’s advocate. It wasn’t so smart a move, but then nobody ever accused me of being smart. And color me cynical, but I felt another condition of my release about to come slapping down on me. “What makes you think I don’t wring your neck the second you let me go?”

            “Well, it’s quite simple, Luther. I have to create an antidote. If I don’t, you stay invisible forever.  And I can only assume that that would create some problems, even for a criminal like yourself.”

            He had me there. And it occurred to me that the reason I was on the lam in the first place was on account of that creep Don Dibetto, my ex-boss, putting the finger on me for some hatchet job down at the Widow’s Den. Maybe I could use this invisible gimmick to my advantage.

            “You still with us, Luther?” Doc asked.

            “Yeah, doc. I was just thinking is all. Maybe this ain’t so bad, for the time being. I ain’t no fan of being hustled, or tied down when I’m asleep, but I’ll let it ride for now. You get me the cure for this, and I’ll split and call it even. In the meantime, I got things I’d like to take care of, now that I can leave the house without being tagged by a cop.”

            “Fine,” the doc agreed. “But I’ll need to do a vitals check once a day, just to make sure the serum isn’t having any detrimental health effects.”

            “Agreed. Now cut the ropes, doc. I think it’s time I stretched my legs. I need you to give me a lift somewhere.”

            “Where are we going?”

            “I need a drink. Ever been to the Widow’s Den?”

Secret Basement Lab Alphabet: H is for HAUNTED HOUSE

H is for HAUNTED HOUSE

Stone, wood and mortar. Martin kept repeating the ingredients that made up the old house over to himself in his head. If the old Victorian home wasn’t built with a ghost to begin with, it was added as a garnish afterwards, and most garnishes wound up in the garbage with the steak rinds and the potato skins.

It was a small comfort, however. He was certain the veils of cobweb that draped from all of the ancient wall fixtures, and the heavy talc-like coating of dust that made the parlor look as if it had been situated downwind of a forest fire for the last century, weren’t present when old (then young) Redmond Rafkin carried his blushing bride over the newly-built threshold either.

Still…for all the hubbub about spooks haunting the place, Martin hadn’t seen hide or hair of one over the last three hours. To be honest, it was a bit of a letdown. Here he was, trying to exploit the adventure and romance of being a supernatural investigator, and so far all he’d gotten for his efforts was a cough.  It wasn’t like the movies had portrayed it at all.  The warped old grandfather clock in the hallway hadn’t chimed ominously at midnight; the thing was a junker that had wound down decades ago and would probably cost the city money to have some antique dealer come truck it away. There had been no mysterious voices, no thumping or the rattling of chains from the attic or cellar. Aside from the occasional skitter of an indigent mouse, or the warm summer breath of the July breeze down the old fireplace, there wasn’t a sound to be heard in the old place.

He’d made up his mind. As soon as the sun rose and he sauntered out of the place, he was going to draft up a lawsuit to the estate of James Whale for pushing propaganda. That and he was going to phone up his half-interested contact at the Lake Cove Daily News and give him the whole spiel; obviously bolstering his bravery for undertaking (pun intended) such a dangerous assignment as spending the night in the old Rafkin place, and adding a hint of ambiguity about what exactly he experienced, so as not to so bluntly have to admit it was a dud.

He twisted his wrist towards the moonlight coming through the parlor window. It was quarter-past two. Sunrise still a little over three hours away. Surely he could keep himself amused until then.

Already Martin had wandered around the place; the tracks of his bored pacing were clearly visible on the dust-coated floors of every room. And not a single thing to hold his interest. No creepy dolls, no moody portraits in oils with the eyes cut out, not even a suspiciously sacrilegious book title on the bookshelves in the library. Still, there was an air of creepy about the place, even if it was all psychosomatic.

He exhaled heavily and paced around the parlor some more. Casually his attention flittered from the same dull objects and shadow-basted furniture that he’d come to know by heart.

Would sunrise hurry, already? If only to save him from dying of boredom?

He paced back to the window, looked at the face of his watch.

2:15am.

Surely that wasn’t correct. He put his ear to his watch. Great. Nothing. Not a tick. What a time for the battery to give out. Now he can’t even while away the time listening to the seconds of his life tick away.

Actually, he thought, who’s to know if I sneak out now anyways? He was here of his own volition. There weren’t any ghost groupies camped out on the front lawn, there were no cops standing around at the front gate in case he started wailing for help. He could, theoretically, just step out the back door, maybe find some food and a magazine, and make his way back for whoever might be around to see him leave properly through the front door first thing after sunup.

Marty my boy, he said to himself, you are a clever devil.

Moving carefully so as to avoid jamming his hipbone or shins into any countertops or furniture in the darkness, Martin made his way through the parlor, through the dining room, and into the kitchen. He pulled the filthy, sun-faded curtain away from the window on the back door, and threw a glance around the back yard, making sure no one was keeping tabs on him or waiting to shout “a-ha!” should he abandon his post.

The coast looked clear. As clear as it could look in the inky blackness of two-fifteen…er…whatever-time-it-was a.m.

He twisted the brass door knob to exit. It stuck.

“Well, of all the dumb…” He tried again. The door wouldn’t move. Not just that, but the knob wouldn’t twist.

“Twisted earlier,” he muttered to the cockroaches.

There was a cellar door, the old sloped storm door type. But those were chained up from the outside, and he didn’t have the key for the padlock. Well, he decided, might as well use the front door. Nobody was likely to see him, he mused, and if they did, he could say he was just stepping out between bouts with old man Rafkin’s specter. Really dramatize the whole thing.

Marty jogged to the front door, got a grip on the handle, and pulled.

Door wouldn’t budge.

“Well hold on now,” he drawled, irritation piquing his tone. “I came in through this door. The door was never locked after I came in. So why the heck won’t the handle even budge for me now?”

“Can’t leave ya know?”

It was as if he’d been punched, his guts wadded themselves up in his chest. His throat seemed corked tight.

Martin spun and found himself faced with an elderly man in a suit that had been strictly for stage plays and costume parties for nigh on eighty years now.

“Door won’t work for ya, son. Not the windows, not the chimney, not even the hole in the shingles up in the attic.”

“Wha-why not? Who the hell’re you?”

“Suppose I should ask the same of yourself, you bein’ in my home and all.”

Ah, here it was. The wind up, the pitch, and he was supposed to swing for the fences. Some con this was.

“I­–uh–I suppose you’re supposed to be Redmond Rafkin. Amiright?”

“No supposin’ about it, sir. I am he. Or was he. Just as you were you. Suppose you still are, in a sense.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Martin balked.

“Why don’t ya come into the kitchen, we’ll talk all about it.”

Martin hadn’t noticed before, but the old man was standing right inside the kitchen doorway. He hadn’t been in there just a moment ago, Martin was sure of it.

“Why the kitchen?” Better to draw this out so he could think.

“Can’t really move beyond it for another half hour or so. Then, well…then my time is limited before I go away and then wind up back here in the kitchen again. Best to make use of the time.”

Martin fidgeted with the doorknob behind his back. “I don’t understand.”

“The missus, she poisoned me back some…oh…I don’t even know to think of it. Cleveland was president then. I wake up in the kitchen at three am every morning, the time she slipped me the poison in my bourbon. Got sick of my drinking, she did. In retrospect I can’t blame her. Only she gets to rest in peace. I got to hang around for the half hour it took me to die on the kitchen table. Then I’m free to wander. Then, at some point, I kind of go to sleep you might say. Wake up again the next morning at three, in the kitchen, do it all again.”

Martin’s head was swimming. Someone had taken a mallet to his bearings, and things were slow in recalibrating. “Hold on, you said I can’t use the doors anymore. Why not?”

“Dead too. I tried. Thought maybe I could walk out, find my grave and crawl inside my bones and that would be that. Not so. Unable to leave my home for as long as it stands, for all I know. Who knows, maybe even longer.”

“Well, it’s been fun, whoever the hell you are, but you’ve spun a yarn bigger than you can sew. I’m not dead. I’ve been here all night...”
            “And you got stabbed in the basement shortly after two o’clock I believe. There’s a feller who has been shacking up down there. Not a nice man. I stayed clear of him myself, didn’t want anything to do with him; way he keeps doping himself and coming back with other folks’ wallets and handbags. You’ll find yourself lying on the floor down there. He must’ve hid when he heard you come in, then cut you and fled. You’ll know soon enough. You’ll be seeing a lot of the cellar. Best get friendly with each other, ‘cause we’ll be seeing a lot of each other as well. Whether you like it or not.”

This is insane! There was an obvious play to end this whole affair, just simply go look in the cellar and point out to this madman that there was no other, more corporeal version of himself lying down there. But then again, maybe this was the junkie, hopped up and luring him downstairs for the actual kill. Or maybe this was all a big joke, and some photographer was waiting to snap a photo as soon as he stepped down into the basement, and make a laughing stock of him. One burst of a flashbulb and poof!, adios career. Not that it was much of one to begin with.

Maybe his grandfather was right. He should’ve studied business.

“And if I don’t go down and play this through?” Martin asked.

“No skin off my nose, son. You’ll wind up down there either way. Again and again and again…”

“Yeah, so you’ve said,” Martin snapped. “I think I’ll just stay here for a while. Until the sun comes up and all of those people who will be here for my exit show up and knock this door down and you’ll be arrested and…”

The old man just nodded and made a genial, resigned gesture. “Very well. I’m just going to sit quietly in here until I blink away. I won’t bother you none. See you in the morning, son.” With that he tottered to the kitchen table, withdrew a chair and sat down.

Martin tried the front door a few more times, but, sensing the futility, gave up and slid to the floor, the door against his back. He just sat and watched the old man at the kitchen table, waiting for him to move. Waiting for the need to defend himself.

It never came. He must’ve dozed off. The thought filled him with dread, but a sense of relief washed over him when, after a quick inspection, he deemed himself to be ok.

But where was he? He was no longer propped against the front door in the parlor. He stood slowly, feeling around the darkness for something to orient himself to. Wooden crates, something metal, a sheet or blanket of some kind. There was a shoestring dangling from a light fixture in the ceiling. He gave it a tug.

The planet began to speed up its rotation beneath him. At his feet, on the concrete floor of the cellar of the Rafkin house, was a thick white outline of a figure, with a large red splotch just above what would be the waist.

No. No! This was a trick! He’d been drugged, moved to the cellar. The old freak at the table and some others, taking this sick joke far too far.

“The police were here earlier. Took you away.” It was the old man. The alleged Redmond Rafkin. He was standing in the kitchen, at the top of the cellar steps. “You’ll get a sense of things like that in time: knowing things that happen here, even when you’re not.

“Why don’t you come on up, son,” he said, gesturing kindly. “We’ll talk it over.”