Whimper (10 page)

“Pretty much, yes, but I need to run a lot more tests, of course.”

“Elliott, maybe you’ve been working too hard. You realize how crazy this sounds, right?”

“I absolutely do. Believe me, Brie, I know. It’s impossible, but it’s still there. I’d get a second opinion if I could. For now, I’m going to have to follow my gut and look into the possibility, no matter how ludicrous it may seem. Do you think you could talk to Zoe or Zack and find out as much as possible about this house and about the family member who built it?” I looked around, remembering the sheer amount of stuff tucked into every nook and cranny of the house. “It doesn’t seem like this is a family who lets go of their history easily. Maybe if we’re lucky, they have documents stashed somewhere. You know, this looks like one of the plans we found from Europe. Do you think that’s a coincidence too?”

Brianna shook her head, still thinking. “It
is
very similar. I’ll have to pull up the scan to be sure. It still could be a coincidence though. Zoe said her grandfather built it in case of flood.”

“Well, you couldn’t exactly tell your grandkids or the conservative townsfolk that you built a house meant to withstand corpse attack,” I scoffed. The argument made perfect sense to me, but Brianna didn’t seem to agree.

“We’ll see. I think you’re grasping at straws and drawing your conclusions from massively unrelated pieces of information. It’s not like you.”

I let that sink in, questioning myself all over again. I understood why she was skeptical, hell if I was in her place I’d feel the same way. “Just, please look into the family history. There’s something there. I’m sure of it.”

Brianna shot me a searching look, her worry and skepticism plain to see. It reminded me of the look on her face when I first told her about my plan to escape from my own lab and my own life. But, she’d agreed to help me then and I knew she would again.

Finally, she nodded. “I’ll talk to them and do some digging. I’m not jumping to any conclusions, though, and neither should you. I don’t want you to get your hopes up and then find out that this is a dead end.”

“Poor choice of words, but I understand what you mean.” I forced a smile to soften the blow, but my sister still flinched.

“You aren’t going to die, Elliott. I won’t let you. Now get back to work and take your meds.” She patted my shoulder and headed to the staircase.

I was going to die. Hell, we’re all going to die sooner or later, right? I simply happen to have a partially dormant super virus in my system and that tipped my odds of croaking on any given day slightly higher than most other people’s. Good thing I’m not a smoker too, or I’d be
totally
screwed.

I moved back to my makeshift lab table, focusing on the sample we’d taken of the football player’s blood. If I was really lucky, the virus wasn’t adapting and I could focus on a single strain. Luck. What’s the statistical probability of that?

I got off the phone after leaving another message for Katie, Zack’s ex-girlfriend. This was the third one I’d left in the last half hour and my patience was growing thin. Sure, it was Sunday and there were all kinds of reasons that she might not be answering the phone, but I blamed my brother for being a dickhead. It figured that he happened to cheat on the one person I knew who could help me get into a campus lab. I didn’t even have a student ID I could use to try to bluff my way in.

I sat at the kitchen table, racking my brain for anyone else I could call. I tried Seth, he had some science type friends. None of his buddies had lab access as far as he knew, but he promised to ask around for me quietly. Strangely, he didn’t even ask why I needed to break into a genetics lab. I’m a pretty good friend, but I still would have asked questions about that one. I stared at my empty notepad, trying to figure out my next move. I could go over to the science complex and see who was there. Maybe I could bribe a security guard? The list of people I could call and ask for help was pretty short. I used to have all kinds of friends, but once my uncle got really sick I stopped being able to go out and do all the normal kid stuff. After he died and I dropped out of school, well if I didn’t know you through the bar then chances are pretty damn good that we’d lost touch. I really needed Katie to call me back. I was out of other options.

Zack came wandering in, freshly showered and shaved. I knew he wasn’t looking for me, but I got his attention anyway. “You!” I accused. “You and your man-whore tendencies are causing me problems that I don’t deserve right now.”

Zack managed to look wounded for a moment, but I knew my brother well enough to know it was an act. “I’m hurt! You know I’m turning a new leaf!” he smirked. “What did I do? Piss off one of your beer delivery guys by stealing his girl?”

“No. You cheated on Katie, who happens to be the only person I know who might be able to sneak us into the science complex and let Elliott use a lab. He needs equipment he doesn’t have here. But Katie won’t call me back because she hates you!”

“Katie doesn’t hate me. She just called me last week. Oh…Yeah. She might hate me actually. I think that was her roommate I hooked up with the other day.” He shrugged. “Sorry? I didn’t know we were going to need to use her for her mind this week!”

I scowled at him, rubbing my temple to ward off the “Kill your brother” headache that was starting to form there. “What are you going to do to fix this?” I asked slowly, enunciating each syllable very precisely.

“Hmmm. Well, I think I’ll run over to the science complex and see who I know.” He reached over and ripped a few sheets of paper off my Firebrand logo notepad. “And if any IOUs come in on these, you better honor them this time!”

I nodded dumbly, a little amazed that Zack was actually going to help. I mean, he does when it’s really important I guess, but usually he does what’s best for Zack. “Is this to impress Brianna?” I asked suspiciously.

“Nope.” He grinned broadly. “This is to impress Zoe. But if it helps me out with Brianna then it’s even better. Got anything specific I need to look for?”

I handed him Elliott’s list, fighting a burning sensation in my eyes that I strongly suspected could be tears of emotion. What the hell? I was turning into a total wuss.

Brianna came up from the basement as Zack was leaving, gave him a puzzled wave goodbye, and turned to me. “Where’s he taking off to?”

“He’s actually going to try to find lab access for Elliott,” I answered, unable to keep a hint of emotion out of my voice.

Brianna nodded. “I know this is going to seem like a strange question, but what can you tell me about this house?”

I wasn’t really all that surprised. People had been asking me about our house most of my life. Kids used to love to come to our slumber parties so that they could check out all its strange secrets. I launched into my usual spiel. “My great-grandfather built the house because he wanted a home that would be a safe haven. That’s actually carved into the lintel on the front door, ‘Haven.’ I used to think it said heaven, and that we were protected by angels. Great-Grandpa McGuire had money and was pretty eccentric. It took ten years for them to finish the house and all its mechanical elements. Most of the mechanical parts were custom made by my grandpa and his best friend, who was a blacksmith and ironworker. There are two hidden passageways, and the house can be self-sufficient with water and electricity for months. During big storms, the whole neighborhood used to come over and shelter here. We had great parties,” I ended fondly, remembering Uncle Rick and his stories about the past along with my own happy memories of the house. Rick had been the only father we’d ever known and my mother, well she’d died when we’d been so young.

Brianna was listening so closely that I almost expected her to start taking notes. “Are there any blueprints or other documents about the house’s construction?” she asked eagerly. “I’d love to look at them. This house, it resembles an etching Elliott and I have seen before. Maybe if we can do some research, there might be a connection.”

“You want to research the history of my house
now
? That doesn’t seem very pertinent. I mean, I understand that you’re very into the past and all its mysteries, but can’t it wait until after we’ve helped Elliott?”

“Zoe, trust me. The only reason I’m looking into this house’s past is to try to help Elliott. The engraving I’m referring to was from the 1700s and was entitled ‘Dormus Portu.’ It was in a document that contained references to ‘insepultus consimili.’ Do you know any Latin?” Brianna leaned in, looking very excited about what she was about to tell me.

“I know very little Latin. Please, translate,” I replied, proud of myself for not allowing any sarcasm to color the words.

“‘Dormus Portu’ roughly translates to
House of Safe Haven
, and ‘Insepultum’ means
walking corpse
. So?”

Surprise sucker punched me in the gut as I considered the information. Could the engraving they’d found really have anything to do with my house? Why would my grandfather care about walking corpses? “Well, I guess we start looking for Great-Grandpa’s trunks,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. Searching would at least give us something to keep busy. As I led Brianna up to the attic, I couldn’t help but feel a little like Alice must have when she followed the white rabbit down that hole. The world was different now. It was a far more disturbing and dangerous place than I had realized. I thought I was a pretty skeptical and pessimistic person for the most part, but I never saw any of this coming.

The attic was so hot that it hurt to breathe. No one in my family threw anything away if they suspected it could be used again, so the attic was packed from floor boards to rafters. I’d played up here when I was younger and when it wasn’t blisteringly hot or freezing cold. I knew where Great-grandma’s dresses were and the old toys. I’d never paid much attention to the boxes and boxes of papers, books, and other oddities. “Let’s check the trunks first,” I gasped, moving towards the point farthest from the steep, narrow staircase. The steamer trunks always seemed to be among the oldest items here. Brianna nodded, the heat obviously having an effect on her as well. We managed to search for about fifteen minutes before the heat was simply too much.

“We’ve got to take a break or one of us is going to pass out,” Brianna wheezed. “I don’t think I could carry you down those stairs and I know you couldn’t carry me.”

“Don’t be so sure,” I bragged. “I can haul kegs and cases of beer all day. I’m a lot stronger than I look.” But honestly, the heat was unbearable. Giving in to our misery, we left our boxes and trunks open so we’d know where we left off.

“We could search down in the basement storage for a while and check on Elliott. There’s a lot of stuff down there. I don’t know that any of it will be paper, though. It gets pretty damp in there sometimes.”

Brianna shrugged, willing to agree to anything so long as we didn’t have to go back into the attic/bread oven. Her hair was damp and her face glistened with sweat. I could only imagine what I looked like. My once cute dress clung in sweaty patches to my back and sides. Returning to the second floor, Brianna stopped me. “We need to clean up a little. If we go down there looking like this Elliott will have a heart attack before we even have a chance to explain. I went jogging once and thought he was going to inject me the moment I stumbled through the door.”

When I caught sight of myself, I blessed her for being so fastidious. I looked like I’d tried to run a marathon and then got hit by a truck. How freaking hot was it up there? I wet my hair down and brushed it back into a ponytail, washed my face clean of my melted makeup and reapplied deodorant before slipping into a clean outfit. Once I vacated the sink, Bri did the same and changed into a set of her own clothes.

We trooped down to the basement, but I don’t think Elliott even noticed we were there. He was too intent on his work, moving from one machine to the next, making notes and taking measurements. I had no idea what all he was actually doing, but he looked so capable and in control I had to believe he was making progress.

“I love to watch him work,” Brianna whispered next to me. “He reminds me so much of Dad. He was a scientist too, though not quite as brilliant as Elliott. We had a lab in the house and on weekends we’d conduct little experiments as a family. Stuff like freezing bananas in liquid nitrogen, and making glow in the dark paint. We loved it. Dad was a chemist, but he always wanted to work for the CDC. He was always talking about how
they
would be the heroes who saved the world.” Her voice grew strangled until I could barely understand her whisper. “All he ever wanted was to make them proud.” She wiped a few tears away from her eyes and forced a bright smile. “Let’s get to work. After a bit, we can take a break to force Elliott to eat lunch. He never remembers to eat when he’s working.”

We spent the next hour sifting through crates and searching shelves in the basement and cellar. We found lots of spare parts for various mechanical devices in the house, tons of weird tools, and the accumulated junk of four generations, but nothing that revealed the original house plans or anything about its construction. At least it was cool down here. The cellar actually felt air conditioned thanks to the spring fed well it stood over. Most of the plumbing was attached to the city water and sewage system, but we could still switch over to the well whenever we wanted. I liked the way the well water tasted and used one of the well spigots to fill my water jugs most of the time. Brianna inspected the well pretty closely, but didn’t say much about it.