The Third Floor Part 15

(The park planning committee's intention had been to keep anything that may hark back to Nigel Naas out of their blueprints, but hidden clues to Nigel's existence kept finding their way into the park. The name of the park itself is an acronym of Nigel's initials, Nigel Icarus Naas. The dragon symbolized Nigel's soul--he used to say that in a previous life he'd been a dragon. The marble globe was a prison in which, he'd written in a journal, he trapped the souls of trespa.s.sers he'd killed. The real globe, if it exists, was never found).

Liz closed the book, looked again at the cover.

"Nin Park?" she said. "I don't remember seeing any Nin Park in town."

She flipped the book open again, searching for the pages she'd just read. When she found them, she scanned through the rest of the chapter, looking for something about what happened to Nin Park. She found it toward the end.

Someone had unlocked the Nigel Naas clues--the initials of his name, the dragon, the globe--and it was decided to close the park for good in favor of two new, better, untainted parks. Upper and Lower Hill Parks. Upper Hill Park was a block and a half from the Kitch house.

And that explained why she'd never heard of it.

She looked the book over again, wondering now why Jack had it, why he hadn't shown it to her, and why it was stuffed under his side of the mattress.

She put it back, contemplating whether to ask him when he got home, or to wait and see if he said something about it himself.

Joey's dreams had not only returned, they'd moved from the park to the house.

He was playing on the second floor, pitting his newest Batman figure against an old Power Ranger, when he heard the voice.

He froze, wondering if the little girl had followed him home. But this wasn't her harsh, screaming voice. Someone was whispering. He listened, and realized they weren't talking to him. He got up from the rug, leaving his toys behind, and moved toward the sound. It was upstairs.

He stopped at the foot of the stairs and listened again. Was this anything important enough for him to go up there? Could he leave it alone?

He looked up at the flight looming above him. The stairs, the third floor, the unknown voice in his house.

No, he decided, he would leave this alone and go back to his playing. Maybe his dad would be home soon and they would all go out. That would be nice.

But the further away he moved from the voice upstairs, the louder it got in his head, whispering over and over the phrase Joey didn't understand, but one that worried him anyway.

"Forgive me--pant pant--forgive me. Forgive me--pant pant--forgive me."

He picked up the Power Ranger and carried it over to the window, staring down to the street, trying to will his father to come home. Then he heard someone coming down the steps, that voice in his head nearly screaming its whispered phrase at him.

"Forgive me--pant pant--forgive me. Forgive me--pant pant--forgive me."

With his eyes on the street, Joey felt the presence creep toward him, could tell it was reaching out for him, knew its fingers were inches from his skin. He tensed, felt the chill on his shoulder, and leapt in his sleep, on to waking, as Liz shook him awake.

Jack called Liz before he left work and said he and Charley were going out for a bit first.

"Says he wants to show me something," Jack said.

"I'll bet he does," Liz said. "Just remember to use the ones, okay?"

"What?"

"The one-dollar bills," she said. "For the strippers. If you're gonna tip them, use the ones, not the fives and definitely not the tens or twenties."

"Gotcha," he said. "I'll be home soon."

He and Charley clocked out and got into the Kitch Jeep. They pulled out of the Fett Tech parking lot as Charley told Jack where to go, but he wouldn't tell him where they were going to end up.

"Come on, man," Jack said. "What's so important we got to do this now? Where are we going?"

"I just want to show you a couple things," Charley said. "You're so sure everything around here is normal as can be, I want you to see a few things and then you can decide. Turn left up here."

Jack followed his directions and within fifteen minutes he was pulling up outside an apartment building.

"My bother is the manager here," Charley said. "I'm gonna have him show you something."

"I already have a place to live," Jack said.

"Funny. Come on."

Jack followed him inside and to the manager's office where he met Charley's brother, Ron, who was sitting at a desk, rolling a tennis ball back and forth. They traded handshakes and Jack asked, "So what's the big mystery here? The bas.e.m.e.nt infested with giant killer rats or something?"

Charley and Ron exchanged a look, then Ron grabbed a key off his desk and said, "Alright, then. Come on."

They followed him upstairs and he stopped outside a door marked B11. He slid the key into the lock and looked at his brother.

"Ready?"

Charley nodded. "How long?"

"A minute, at the most."

"Okay. Let's go."

"Hold on, hold on," Jack said, hands raised. "A minute for what? What's in here? We're not stepping into a murder scene, are we? 'Cause I'm pretty sure that's illegal."

"No, nothing like that," Ron Clark said. "You'll see. Just be careful, and stay close to the door."

He turned the key, unlocked the door, opened it, and they stepped inside.

Jack wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but an empty apartment was not it. He looked around, still wondering what was so special about this place. It was small. One, two rooms. He saw a kitchen off the back of the place, but couldn't tell how big, so it might only qualify as a room and a half. The closed door must be the bathroom.

He took a step into the room and Charley grabbed his arm.

"Stay by the door."

"What for?"

Ron knelt in front of them and put his tennis ball on the floor.

"Here it goes," he said. His fingers came off the ball and it rolled immediately to the center of the room.

Charley and Ron looked at Jack. Jack looked back and shrugged.

"So what? Come on, man, I'm hungry, I gotta get home."

"You say *So what?'" Charley said. "Didn't you see that?"

"Yeah, he rolled a ball to the center of the room. Wow, you're right, that's pretty amazing, now let's go."

"I didn't roll it," Ron said, getting back to his feet.

"Well, it didn't roll itself."

"Sure it did."

"What?"

He produced another tennis ball. Jack wasn't sure from where.

"You wanna try it?" he asked, offering the ball to Jack.

"What for?" He turned to Charley. "Seriously, come on, this was great, but pointless."

"Here," Ron said, still holding out the ball for Jack.

Jack sighed and took it.

"Fine," he said, "but there's no way it's going to get as close to the middle of the room as yours. I'll overshoot, I can tell you that."

"Just let it go," Charley said.

"Just put it on the floor, and take your fingers off it," Ron said. "Don't push at all. Just let go."

Jack shook his head but went to his knees anyway.

"Anything to get the h.e.l.l out of here already," he said. He'd only just noticed it, but his head was pounding.

He put the ball on the floor in front of him, looked up at the ball Ron had rolled and . . . saw it was in the middle of the room, spinning.

Now that's a cool trick, he thought. What Charley didn't tell me is his brother does stage tricks, too. Apparently.

Jack aimed the ball, then went a little off center, and pulled his fingers off.

The ball shot off for the center of the room, veering off the crooked course Jack had put it on, and joined the first ball in the middle of the room. The two collided. Then they began to spin around each other.

They rotated like a planet and moon.

"That's a cool one," Jack had to admit. "You got any aspirin or something?" he asked. "My head, man . . ."

"s.h.i.t," Ron said. "Too long, come on, we got to get back out."

They all three quickly ducked back into the hallway and Ron had a little trouble pulling the door closed all the way before turning the key in the lock again. When he let go, the door jerked once, rattled in the frame, then stopped. He put the key in his pocket and shook his head, then rubbed his temples.

"That's a harsh one," Charley said, rubbing his head.

"Yeah. And it doesn't get any easier."

"Wonder if it's bad for you. You know? Is it harmful?"

"I wouldn't think so. It's just weird is all."

"So I can go home now?" Jack asked.

They turned to him and Charley said, "That was pretty cool, huh?"

"Yeah, it was alright, but so what? You got a dip in the floor so the b.a.l.l.s roll together. Probably got metal inside them and magnets under the floor, that's not a hard one to pull off. Was there a point to this?"

"Couple months ago," Ron said, leading them back to the office, "this guy moves in. He's got all his stuff moved in and he's been here maybe a day, no more than two. Somebody drops by to visit him, but he doesn't answer. Few days later, they come back, and he still isn't home. Now I sat in here for a week and watched people come and go and knock on his door and not once did he answer. I watched the guy move in, so I know he's gotta show up sooner or later. Another week goes by, nothing. Then the exterminator, he's making the rounds, you know, I mean we don't have a problem, but that's because we do this regular to make sure no problems start 'cause once the bugs get in you can't get *em back out. So anyway, the exterminator knocks on the door and the guy don't answer, so he knocks again, and still the guy don't answer. He's got pa.s.skeys, though, the tenants, they know we do this every six weeks and they don't mind as long as we're not going through their stuff, right? So he opens the door, and the place is empty. This guy, he'd paid the full first month, and I watched him carrying boxes into the building and up those stairs, and not once, after that first day, did I see him leave this building, let alone move his stuff back out again. He's just gone. Like that. And all his stuff with him."

Jack shook his head, shrugged his shoulders. "So what?"

"So what," Ron repeated. "So you saw what happened in there, and you felt it to," he pointed to Jack's head. "That's so what. You open this door in twenty minutes, those b.a.l.l.s are gonna be gone, that's so what. You spend more than five full minutes in there, you're head starts pounding. Another five minutes, you're throwing up all over yourself. Another five and you're s.h.i.tting blood for a week. That's so what."

Jack looked at Charley.

"Is this guy for real?" he asked.

Charley shrugged and said, "I'm just showing you one of the unexplained mysteries of Angel Hill, one of the things you're so certain can be easily explained. So go ahead and explain it."

"I told you, slanted floor and magnets."

"If it were true, but it's not. And that doesn't explain where the guy went and what happened to his stuff. And how come the physical effects on people when they stay in there too long?"

"The guy bailed with all his stuff, probably decided he couldn't afford the place and moved back in with his parents. The headache, h.e.l.l, maybe you got something being pumped into the room. You can do that, you know."

"Yeah," Charley said. "I'm that desperate to prove you wrong, I'm gonna go to that trouble. Just realize it, man, there's something in there and we can't explain it."

"Maybe not you," Jack said, "but personally, I'm not worried about it. I told you what I think and that's good enough for me."

"You're impossible."

"Can I go home now?"

"Almost," Charley said. "One more thing."

Jack groaned. He shook Ron's hand and he and Charley went outside.

"You know, we can drive around all night," Jack said. "The only thing it's going to prove is that you'll believe anything."

"Then it's a good thing the next place is within walking distance. Come on," Charley said. "Right over here."

He led Jack over two blocks to an abandoned building. The painted sign across the facade, faded from years of Angel Hill weather, read Four Brothers Paper Mill. The building hadn't been used for paper milling in decades, Jack guessed.