The Vivisectionist (23 page)

“Well, patience suggests a time-reference, and it’s modern, so I would suspect that the hands are on clock. Could be minute-hand against the hour, or second-hand against either.” his dad replied.

“Oh, so it could mean have patience for a minute?” asked Stephen, joining the conversation.

“Or an hour,” said Jack.

“A bit more than an hour, actually,” corrected his dad. “If a minute hand travels around, it doesn’t catch the hour hand for sixty-five minutes.”

“Oh, right,” said Jack.

Stephen looked up at the clock on the wall and studied it until he figured out the extra five minutes.

“Not very hard for someone my age,” said Jack’s dad. “But you boys have probably never had a watch with hands.”

“Well, no, but we had to learn to tell time anyway,” protested Jack.

“No offense intended, sir,” Jack’s dad joked.

**********

“It’s closed again,” announced Stephen. He was the first up the ladder and into the “Bishop’s room.” The boys had carefully agreed on names for all the locations they had seen during their discussions the night before. Now it was Sunday morning and they each carried a backpack with lunch and water.

“What, the door on the right?” asked Ben—he was heading up the ladder.

“Yeah, it must be spring-loaded, or motorized or something,” Stephen conjectured.

Picking his way, Ben stepped off the ladder onto the harlequin floor. Jack was right behind.

“It’s not surprising,” said Jack. “Everything else here resets.”

“Kinda like us,” said Ben. “We just do the same thing every day.”

“Wait a second,” said Jack, inflamed, “
you
 convinced 
me
 that we had to keep going on this.”

“Me?” asked Ben. “I went to talk to you about it and you had already decided to keep going because you liked figuring out the clues in that letter.”

Ben turned away from his friends and started studying the wall with his light. A crack extended from the ceiling to about halfway down the wall; it was covered in black paint. By leaning over Ben was able to reach the crack and he picked away some of the paint, leaving a small white spot of gypsum exposed.

“What are you saying?” asked Jack. “You don’t even want to be here?”

“It’s not...” began Ben. “It’s not how I pictured spending my summer is all.”

“Don’t you even want to see what’s down that hall?” asked Stephen. He pointed his light at the door on the right at the end of the room.

“I don’t know,” Ben answered. “I guess so.”

“Look,” said Jack, “we have all day. Let’s just keep going a little while, have lunch, and then we’ll figure out what to do.”

“This place is creepy though,” said Ben. “How can you want to have lunch in here? I keep expecting to run across rats or dead bodies.”

“It’s just dark,” said Stephen. “We haven’t even seen anything unusual.”

“You don’t think that painting down below is unusual?” asked Ben. “I wouldn’t be surprised if some murderer painted that.”

“The guy’s gone though,” protested Jack. “The place is empty.”

“How do we really know that?” asked Ben.

Stephen and Jack looked at each other. For a moment they ignored Ben. They sized each other up to see if Ben’s idea had any resonance. Jack was the first to speak—“We’ll just see what’s past the door.”

Defeated, Ben agreed by moving across the tiles towards the door. Stephen led the way.

“Careful this time,” said Ben.

The door stood closed at the edge of Stephen’s reach. Leaning forward, he gingerly turned the handle and let the door force itself open. Jack circled to the left to get another angle on the doorway. When it banged open, Stephen moved towards the door. Once again, they saw a long, dark hallway. Its walls were painted the same black as the Bishop’s room. The floor was solid black.

Stephen stepped on each white tile on his way to the threshold. “Guess it doesn’t matter where I step,” he said as he passed a foot through the doorway and willed his body to follow. He brought his other foot across, turned around to face Jack and Ben, and then pointed his flashlight up. “I think we caught a break.”

“What is it?” asked Jack.

Stephen was facing him and looking up above the door-jam from the hallway side. “I don’t know,” said Stephen. “Something bolted to the wall up there. Looks like it could be bad news for people coming through the door, but it didn’t do anything to me.”

“Oh wait.” Stephen traced his flashlight down the right-hand side of the door. “There’s a wire that looks like it goes to the floor here. You guys should come through just like I did.”

Jack crept up to the door and waited for Stephen to get out of his way. He mimicked Stephen’s one-leg-at-a-time style of crossing into the hall without incident.

“Maybe one of us should stay behind,” said Ben. When he saw that Jack and Stephen were about to protest, he quickly rescinded—“Just kidding.” Ben stepped through and joined his friends.

“Okay,” said Stephen, getting ready to head down the hall, “I’ll look down. You guys look left and right.” He pointed at Jack to look left and Ben to look right.

“What about up?” said Jack.

“Both of you look up,” Stephen responded.

It didn’t take long for Stephen to sound the alarm. About ten feet down the hallway, he put up his arms to physically stop Jack and Ben from proceeding. “Check it out.” Stephen trained his flashlight on the floor a couple of feet ahead of himself.

Barely visible in Stephen’s beam of light, a thin wire was stretched across the hall. Ben got down on his knees and got close to the wire. He found impossibly small holes in the walls between which the wire was strung.

“I bet it sets off something awful,” said Stephen. “What does the letter say about it?”

Jack didn’t have to consult the paper to quote the letter. “Nothing—it ends with a thing about a hasty man and our job.”

“Okay,” said Stephen. “Keep going then?”

“We should be looking for another letter,” said Ben, looking up and around. “We’re going to need more clues.”

“I think we know what to look for,” said Stephen. “He didn’t get us with this.” Stephen stepped over the wire and continued down the hall.

A few more feet later they found a turn in the hallway.

When they came to the end of the hall, and could see around the bend, they were greeted with a dead-end. After it turned, the hall went only a few feet.

"Which side of the building is this?" asked Jack. He moved his light all around, the ceiling, floor, and walls were all black and offered no clues. The wall in front looked the same as the ones on either side.

"Well, we came in the back, went to ground floor, the ladder was on the right and then we doubled back." Stephen thought through the steps that had gotten them to their current location. "I think we must be on the north end of the hotel."

"So, looking at the hotel from the back, this would be the left side?" asked Jack.

"Yeah, the corner of the building should be there." Stephen pointed to the left end of the corridor.

"No way,” said Ben. "We took the right-hand door, and plus, the chute we came down when we first entered. There's got to be at least ten feet to the corner; assuming we've got far enough to make it to the corner."

"Yeah," admitted Stephen, "you're right, I guess."

"So that means that there's space this direction." Jack looked at the wall opposite the dead-end.

"Right," said Ben, "you probably would get to it through one of the other doors that we didn't try from the Bishop's room."

"I thought we all said that those doors were no good?" asked Stephen.

"If you believe that model,” said Ben. "But maybe there's just a dead-end that way too."

"Hey—turn off your lights for a second,” said Jack.

"What for?" asked Ben.

"Just do it," answered Jack.

Stephen and Jack turned off their lights and waited for Ben to follow suit.

"You guys have really gone nuts,” said Ben. He turned his light off. "What did you expect to see? Dancing dingle berries?"

"Just wait,” said Jack.

They waited in silence and dark. At first they heard nothing, then Ben's breathing became noticeable.

"This is dumb,” said Ben. He started to fumble with his light.

"Just hold on a little bit,” said Jack.

A distant noise made Stephen gasp. Goose bumps jumped up on Ben's neck and arms. Jack tensed with excitement.

"Here it comes,” said Jack.

At last Ben was able to identify the noise they were hearing. It was the door at the end of the hall closing under the power of an electric motor. The buzzing and churning reminded him of a garage door opener, but much quieter. It finally clicked home and stopped.

"Great, so now we have to figure out how to get that back open,” said Ben.

"Oh, I get it, where's the light?" asked Stephen.

"Right,” said Jack. "The model showed a light coming from under the door, so maybe there's supposed to be light back here."

As if on cue, a crack of light appeared in front of Jack. He was facing the left side of the hall they had initially traversed. The crack expanded as a portion of the wall drew back to expose a hidden way. Momentarily blinded, the boys could see nothing but bright shapes ahead. In the lead, Jack raised his arm to shield his eyes.

"Wow,” said Stephen, awed. "What's in there?"

"I can't see yet,” said Jack.

When his eyes had adjusted more, Jack saw an extremely well-lit room, painted white. Poking his head in, he could see that the room had no windows and stretched off to his left. The walls and ceiling had no adornment. The floor was the same nondescript tile, but in this room it was all white. It was blinding—the bright lights reflected off all the white surfaces.

"Look up,” said Ben.

Jack—still leaning his head through the secret doorway—twisted his neck to look above the opening in the wall. He saw nothing but more white surfaces.

"So, did that open because we turned off our lights?" asked Ben.

"I think so,” said Jack. "I think that you have to be in the dark before it lights up."

"How did you ever guess that?" asked Ben.

"It makes sense, if you think about it,” said Stephen. "The model showed us there was supposed to be light coming from under the door. But the door was open and we had lights."

"That actually makes no sense at all,” said Ben.

"Do you think it's safe to go in?" asked Jack. He braced himself against the wall and leaned farther. "It goes on for quite a bit that way." Jack pointed with his chin.

"Look for wires,” said Stephen.

Jack crouched and put the side of his face near the floor. "I don't see anything."

"Could be pressure sensitive,” said Ben. "Like the Bishop's room."

"I'll try just one foot,” said Jack. He pushed back. When he had recovered his balance he gingerly advanced one foot. Jack touched a toe to the floor, ready to pull it back at the sign of any trouble. Nothing happened, so he put more weight on the foot.

"I'll go in,” said Stephen.

"It's my turn,” said Ben. He was resigned, not excited.

Jack stood aside and let Ben pass. He poked his head in, looked side-to-side and then Ben entered the room. "I call this the White Room."

"Very original,” said Jack.

"I guess this is the Black Hall then?" asked Stephen.

"No," began Jack, "we should call it the Tripwire Hallway, so we don't forget."

"Good point," said Stephen. "Too bad we can't mark it with something. Later, I guess."

"Are you guys coming?" asked Ben. He had moved into the center of the White Room. Ben was still training his flashlight in the direction he was walking.