The Academy (Moving In Series Book 6) (2 page)

Once more, it disappeared into the spaces left by fallen mortar.

Bruce turned away, grabbed hold of the light and brought it closer to the wall. He squinted and looked in. He saw a small space and what looked like the door to a safe. Bruce took a step back, pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and called Larry.

“Bruce, what’s going on?” Larry asked when he picked up.

“You need to come here,” Bruce said. “You need to come over to Deer Stag. You’re not going to believe this.”

“Is it bad?” Larry asked, concern filling his voice.

Bruce shook his head as he answered, “Larry, I don’t know. Just get over here.”

“Okay.”

Bruce ended the call, stubbed out his cigarette and went back to the wall. He angled the light as much as he could, trying to get a better look. But there was nothing more he could make out. He stepped back and lit a fresh cigarette. Bruce paced back and forth, work shoes splashing in the water. A few minutes later, he heard the front door open and then Larry’s footsteps on the stairs.

“Bruce,” the older man said, frowning at the cigarette, “what’s going on?”

“Just look through the cracks,” Bruce said as he took hold of the light and raised it up. “Tell me what you see.”

Larry walked to the wall, leaned in, and then took a surprised step back. He looked at Bruce. “Holy Jesus Christ, Bruce, is that a safe?”

Bruce nodded. “Yes!”

Larry looked in again, putting his hand against the wall to steady himself.

And the stone he pressed against moved. Not with the grace and ease of a hidden lever, but with a groan. Bits of mortar dropped to the floor, splashing in the water. Larry hesitated, and then he gave the stone a firm push. A second later, it fell in on the other side, crashing down loudly.

A hole, the size of a basketball, now opened to the small space beyond.

Bruce held up the light higher, letting the bright beam penetrate deep into the hidden space. He didn’t see a handle on the safe, just a keyhole and hinges. And hanging on a hook near the top was a steel ring with a massive, curiously-shaped key. It was long and slender, with a round opening at the end; it looked almost like an oversized clock key.

The air in the small opening was damp and stale as if all of the life-giving oxygen had been stolen from it long ago.

“We need to tell Mitchell,” Larry said after a moment of silence.

“The hell we do,” Bruce said.

Larry raised an eyebrow.

“Listen,” Bruce said, “we can tell him in a few minutes, right? I mean, let’s take a look around. Once we tell Mitchell, he won’t let us go in there. We’d have to wait for a ‘specialist’ or something, and who knows if they’d even let us in the cellar.”

Larry looked back through the hole, then at Bruce. A grin crept across Larry’s face. “Yeah, let’s take a look.”

Bruce laughed happily and pulled another stone out of the wall. Larry did the same, and in a few minutes, they had the wall in front of the safe dismantled. Bruce picked up the light and shined it around. The safe was only two feet by two square feet and was set in ancient cement. Larry reached into the space, took down the skeleton key down from its hook, and looked at Bruce.

“Ready?” Larry asked.

Bruce nodded excitedly. He watched as Larry fit the key into the hole. Larry turned it first to the left, and then to the right. A harsh ‘clack’ sounded, and the door moved out an inch or two. Bruce waited, his heart picking up its pace.

Larry gripped the exposed edge and pulled it open.

Bruce angled the light.

The space revealed was little more than the size of a bread box. The walls, though, were lined with a dark metal. Bruce could make out individual hammer marks. At the base of the wall across from him was a small, ornately carved box.

Larry reached in and took it out. He held the box up to the light, and Bruce watched as Larry turned it over in his hands. The box was hinged, and Larry glanced up at Bruce. “Should we?”

“Yes,” Bruce said, nodding.

Larry opened it.

Inside, it was lined with a deep, red velvet. Set within the fabric was an ambrotype. The image was an old man, his eyes deeply set within their sockets. A long beard stretched down and vanished into the edge of the photograph. The man’s forehead was tall and bare, the hair swept back.

“Jesus,” Bruce said. “He looks like he would have been miserable to deal with.”

Larry nodded. “You know, I think I’ve seen this guy before.”

“What?” Bruce asked, leaning forward, squinting. “Oh, yeah! In the main hall, right?”

“Yeah,” Larry said. “He’s, oh damn, what’s his name? Weiss! Nathaniel Weiss.”

When the name left his lips, a wave of cold air slammed into Bruce, pushing him back and knocking the light out of his hand.

Bruce quickly picked it back up, his hands shaking. He shined the light on Larry and said, “Oh Jesus!”

Larry turned and looked at him, his face pale, and his hair was no longer a light brown but shockingly white. The man’s eyes were wide.

“Bruce,” Larry whispered. “What did we do?”

Chapter 3: The Photograph

Mitchell poured two cups of coffee and brought them back into his office. He handed one to Bruce and the other to Larry. Without a word, he returned to his seat behind his desk and looked at the two men.

They wore matching expressions of shock. And both of them now had white hair. The two of them had appeared at his door, each shaking. Larry held a small box and old ambrotype photograph. Larry continued to hold it in one hand, looking dazedly into his coffee mug.

“Okay,” Mitchell said gently. “Tell me what happened.”

Bruce opened his mouth, closed it and shook his head. Mitchell turned his attention to Larry.

Larry took a long sip before he spoke.

It was only for a few minutes, but when he was done, Mitchell looked at the two maintenance men and frowned.

“I’m sorry, Mitchell,” Larry said.

“I’m not upset with you,” Mitchell said. “I don’t understand what happened. Why is your hair white? I saw you not half an hour ago, Larry. This doesn’t make any sense.”

“I don’t know,” Larry said. “I really do not know.”

“Okay,” Mitchell said. “Alright. I want you two to go home for now. Or go to the doctor. Whatever you think you need to do.”

“What are you going to do, Mitchell?” Larry asked.

“I don’t know,” Mitchell said.

Bruce put his mug on the desk, nodded, stood up, and left. Larry finished his coffee, and then did the same.

Mitchell sat and waited for the office door to close behind Larry before he stood up. He walked over to the window. Beyond the glass, the campus of the school spread out. The sunlight of the warm June day should have filled him with joy. Usually, he was as excited as the students with the end of school so near. But the events in Deer Stag House had robbed him of any pleasure.

He turned away from the window, picked up the ambrotype off the desk and opened it. The photograph within, was certainly of Nathaniel Weiss. One of the city’s hallowed sons. A famed writer and one of the founders of the Academy.

Why was it in a hidden safe?
Mitchell wondered.

He closed the delicately carved frame and put it down on the desk. Mitchell turned off his computer, picked up his keys and walked out of his office. He locked the door and nodded to Marilyn at her desk.

“Mitchell,” she said. “I managed to get a hold of the plumbers. They’ll be here in an hour to take a look at the damage and get an estimate together.”

“Good,” Mitchell said. “I’m going over to Deer Stag to look at the damage there. I want to be able to give a good description to whoever is sent by City Hall.”

“Alright. Mitchell?” Marilyn said hesitantly.

He paused, halfway through the doorway out. “Yes?”

“What happened to Larry and Bruce?” she asked. “Why is their hair white?”

Mitchell shook his head, “I don’t know. It’s why I’m going to Deer Stag.”

“Should you call the fire department? What if there’s something wrong in there?” The younger woman’s concern made him smile.

“If I get the slightest hint something is wrong, Marilyn,” he said soothingly, “I’ll leave immediately.”

“Alright. Do you have a radio?” she asked.

He patted the portable on his hip. He never left the office without one, and she knew it.

“I’ll be fine, Marilyn,” Mitchell said. “Honest, I will.”

She nodded and said, “I know. I worry.”

“And I appreciate it,” he said. “I’ll check in as soon as I get there.”

Mitchell left the office and made his way to Deer Stag. When he arrived, he took the portable off his belt and called Marilyn.

She didn’t answer.

He tried once more before he put the radio away.

She’s probably on the phone.

The front door to Deer Stag was open, left wide when Larry and Bruce had run from the building. Within a minute, Mitchell was down in the cellar. He stepped through the puddles towards the large hole in the wall. A work light was on and propped up against some of the stones. The bright beam illuminated the dull metal of the safe.

The metal, Mitchell saw, wasn’t steel.

Lead?
he thought.
Why would it be coated in lead?

The sheets were held together with small rivets, and those seemed to be of lead as well.

He looked around the safe as best he could, but he felt uncomfortable. As though insects had gotten under his shirt and crawled along his skin.

A shudder rippled through him, and he picked up the work light. The metal was cold and comforting in his hands. He glanced back once at the safe, turned the light off and left the cellar.

Chapter 4: At the Office

Marilyn Davilla brought up Mitchell’s appointment calendar on the computer, double-checked it, and then added a meeting for the eighteenth. He was supposed to meet with Jeff Ricard about the caterers for the senior graduation.

Marilyn straightened up in her chair; a dark shape had passed through the edge of her vision.

Suddenly feeling nervous, Marilyn turned carefully to the left, but there was nothing there. The bookcase, a filing cabinet, a picture of the quad when the cherry trees were in full bloom.

Her mouth went dry, and she swallowed uncomfortably. The room had gotten colder, and goose bumps rippled along her forearms. She tried to shake the nervousness away as she turned back to the computer. The monitor’s screen flickered and went out.

“Oh damn it!” Marilyn exclaimed angrily. She hadn’t saved the last file she had worked on. Auto-recover would salvage most of it, but she couldn’t be sure of how much until she opened the document again.

She went to hit the ‘power’ button, and the lights went out.

Even though the sun streamed in through the windows, the room felt dark. Marilyn fought the urge to leave, to run out of the building for the safety of the outdoors and the daylight.

A creak sounded from Mitchell’s office, followed quickly by a crash.

Marilyn stiffened, and her heartbeat quickened.

It’s probably a squirrel,
she told herself. One had gotten in at the beginning of April, and it had taken Larry an hour to catch it.
Yes, just another squirrel.

The idea of the animal running around Mitchell’s office and making a mess made her frown. She reached for the portable to call Larry, and then she remembered how the man had looked.

I bet he’s gone home
, she thought. Marilyn looked at the phone, debated on whether or not she should call a pest control service, but her decision was made when another item crashed to the floor of Mitchell’s office. The squirrel would destroy his office if she didn’t get it out of there.

Marilyn took her key to his office out of the desk and let herself into the room. When the door swung wide, she gasped. Broken mugs were on the hardwood floor, and the coffee was seeping down. The curtains had been pulled down from the window, and papers were scattered across the floor.

A dark shape eased past her, and Marilyn stiffened. A sharp cold tried to penetrate her flesh, and she stood still. She shivered as what felt like rough lips brushed against her ear.

Then Marilyn relaxed, her eyes losing focus. A gentle voice whispered in her ear. The words were soft, caressing. She smiled, nodded, and stepped to Mitchell’s desk. She picked up a pen and a piece of paper. Marilyn hummed to herself as she wrote a few words down.

Nodding happily, she signed the note, returned the pen to the desk and looked up at the beautiful, antique brass chandelier mounted in the center of the ceiling.

Chapter 5: Bringing Back the Portable

Mitchell didn’t feel well as he returned to the administration building. The Deer Stag House had left him with a sense of dread. A deep, primal fear had burrowed into his heart and refused to be dislodged by the warmth of the sun.

He hurried up the stairs and into the building, making his way quickly to his office. He saw the lights were off, and Marilyn wasn’t at her desk.

“Marilyn?” Mitchell called out as he caught sight of his own door open.

“Marilyn?” he asked again, walking around her desk.

He stopped abruptly, turned, and vomited onto the floor. The remnants of his breakfast splashed up and stained his khakis. He dry heaved several times before he was able to straighten up, wiping his mouth off with the cuff of his sleeve.

Marilyn was hanging from the chandelier mount. Her pretty, light blue blouse had been knotted around her neck. Her eyes, which had been a sparkling green, were dull and glazed. Her once neatly-brushed and set hair was in disarray, and her tongue protruded from her mouth like a fat worm in a garden plot. Her pale flesh was sickening to look at, her breasts heavy in the plain white bra she wore.

When she had died she had wet herself, the urine leaving a trail down the inside of each leg and dripping slowly, rhythmically onto the top of his desk. Her blue, flat shoes were neatly placed in front of his desk, the heels touching one another on the wood.