Prologue

Prologue Call me Gib. No, really call me Gib because that’s actually my name. I’m not trying to be cryptic or anything. Well, specifically my name’s Gibson Bartleby but my mom told me in one of our last conversations that she tried to use the name my father picked (they flipped for the choice and he called tails which didn’t work out for her that time) but she always imagined she was calling a guitar when she yelled my name. She said every image from Slash to Angus Young went through her head when she called it out, so she shortened it to Gib. Dad didn’t seem to mind. He never really brought it up that I recall. Well, it doesn’t matter now because that’s my name as was given to me some fourteen years ago. It’s a random thought to be sure but I find it funny the stuff you think about when you’re in the middle of nowhere and past the witching hour.

There’s a special kind of isolation in being out of doors when the sun goes down, true enough. It’s the illusion of infinity in all directions, or perhaps that’s not an illusion at all come to think of it. It’s the not knowing what is beyond the stifling boundaries of already limited perception. It’s the suffocating emptiness brought on by—it’s the dark, OK. It’s the freakin’ dark.

Humans are creatures of light. Go to sleep during the period of the sun being on the other side of the dirt ball, wake up when He comes back around. What makes the night even more intimidating is moving through it. Standing in one spot at least provides the benefit of all the other senses that have been put into overdrive but movement, particularly rapid movement, like oh say running or riding a bike, that creates a vacuum where the only existence is the wind cupping the ears and numbing the cheeks, especially cold wind. And that’s where I am right now.

That’s what I’m doing like some lunatic evading the authorities or some lovesick kid trying to sneak to his companion. I’m riding a bike in the morning, one of the clock though not the shiny newness of post seven am that the word morning usually brings to mind. It’s the middle of the night and this section of the world seems to be entirely unconscious, not the first car has passed, not a lit window to be seen, and I’m out here not only trying to be alone but going to a place where I can practice, hone my skills as best I can. Yet what I really want to do is find out something about myself. I’m going to a house I know to be abandoned and I’m going to walk through it, scour its contents, find out everything I can find out about it. While doing that, I want

to find out one thing, discover a single aspect of my personality that as far as I can tell makes me stand out from everyone else, more so even than the rest of my personality. I want to find out if I can get scared. Because other than heights, I’ve never found anything that gives me the sensation of what it’s supposed to entail to be afraid, and you know what, that kind of scares me if you can wrap your head around that.

I’m not a daredevil. I’m not a thrill seeker. I’m not even exciting as far as I can tell. What I am is good at figuring things out. I’m smart, as far as the definition goes, able to solve things with minimal help but that help usually comes from someone who makes me look average, below average actually, and it’s funny in a way because everybody thinks he’s delayed until they get to know him.

My younger brother, Jack, is the absolute man when it comes to figuring things out. He’s autistic, moves around about as much as a sloth on Nyquil because his movements are so awkward they look exhausting even to me but he’s a genius, addicted to only one thing in this world and that’s reading. It’s like a drug to him or, to put it a little more gently, it’s like his Xbox or PlayStation, his pc or cell phone. It’s what he does every chance he gets. The coolest part about it is he remembers every single word that goes in. He’s like a sponge but one that never gets full or squeezes anything out. Still I’m getting ahead of myself. Right now I need to focus on getting into this house and discovering whatever it is I can about myself.

Everything feels like downhill at night, it seems. A welcome feeling during daylight hours but out here, it doesn’t allow the opportunity to slow down much. A dog barks in the distance to disturb the wind in my ears and the tires humming on the asphalt. I squeeze the brake and let the front wheel gently hit the concrete step at the bottom of the redbrick walk that leads to 1134 Boland Street. The streetlight in front of the house is out, which is typical for my luck, and the sky is overcast, not the first star to be seen, not a sliver of moon. There’s a soft wind, not enough for anything more than the slight rustle of leaves, and the quiet is a little unsettling after the ride. Walking my bike up to the next set of steps leading to the porch, I lean it over and let it fall on the grass to the side of the walk then I step back and look up at the house.

An old Victorian that must’ve been one of the first built in this neighborhood, probably erected before this even was a neighborhood, the house has the rustic look typical of an eighties horror flick. White exterior with black shudders, the paint peeling in places, one of the shudders hanging crookedly where the tired nail gave out, this might as well be a scene from a movie. All it needs is the hooting of a lone owl perched on the porch railing and the squealing made by the rusted chain of a porch swing in the breeze, maybe a wind chime to boot. I shrug and plant my black Converse on the first step with the customary creak coming from the board under my weight. An old screen door with the metal screen sliced diagonally all the way across swings open easily. There’s a brass knocker that looks somewhat like a Fleur-de-lis and a peephole above it. I grab the old doorknob and try to turn it but it’s locked. Absolutely no give in the heavy door as I lean into it, so I doubt I could open it with a card. Too bad, I watched a lot of YouTube for that. A pair of windows peers out of the wall about halfway down the porch to the left, and I decide to give those a try.

I keep my steps close to the wall, not trusting the old boards under my feet. An animal scurries across the yard and into the woods nearby, the sound of leaves rustling, a broken stick.

Looking in the direction of the noise with the futility of my eyes that only work with light, the shapes of trees slowly take shape on the other side of the yard. A gust of wind helps them wave to me, and I stand there watching them and the spaces between realizing just how alone I am.

Light would help so much. I have my flashlight in my backpack but I’m not about to turn it on out here where I would undoubtedly get the cops called on me for burglary or vandalism.

No, the world is the same at night, Gib. Don’t let the idea that it’s not even enter your head.

Realizing I wasn’t going to win this staring contest with the trees, I walk on to the first window and place my hands on the bottom wood that holds the glass. It rattles back and forth, far less sturdy than the door, and I put my fingers underneath the cross section of the wood that separates the panes. It slides up. I place my fingers underneath the window after I’ve worked enough room, and wiggle it up the wooden sides. There’s no counterweight that I can tell, or if there ever was the line connecting it had long broken, so the opening takes a full minute but I eventually slide through head first. My eyes can’t adjust to the blackness inside the house even when I get my head past the thin curtain that smells of grandmothers or great-grandmothers—I assume that’s what they smelled like, since I’ve never known mine but I’ve been around older people enough to know the smell. Teachers come to mind. I turn and try to close the window but after shaking it until my arms start aching, I hear a crack and decide to leave it open, taking off my pack and placing it underneath to soften the fall just in case it comes down on its own. Turning into the room, I click on the flashlight.

A mirror on the opposite wall throws the light right back at me and, for a second, a blip of a second, I feel that which I was seeking but it is just a start, not real fear, a jolt of something unexpected. A hoarse laugh escapes me, and I shine the light on the floor, waiting for my heart to slow. The ceilings are high, far higher than modern houses, and I know that’s because these older homes were built to maximize heating and cooling by design rather than technology. There’s a well-used fireplace on the opposite wall, only scatterings of furniture. The shape of a couch covered with a white sheet sits in the middle of the room, and I look around carefully, looking for anything out of place, anything recent or just anything that doesn’t belong. The smell of dust and rodent droppings makes me want to sneeze but a finger to my nose helps it pass. When the tingling stops, I feel the heaviness of the silence for the first time. Outside there was always something. A barking dog, rustling leaves, a distant car horn but in the house there is nothing, and it is unnerving as much as the blackness constantly trying to defeat the beam of my flashlight.

With Jack there’s always sound. There’s usually a box fan in his presence. He even has a fan by his desk at school because he suffers from tinnitus, a high-pitched ringing in the ears if there is no background noise. Because of this, there’s always noise in the house and obviously I have become accustomed to it. In here, the silence is as alien to me as if the walls were made of foam.

I move through the room letting my breath hiss through my teeth, anything to defeat the house’s noiselessness. The soot in the fireplace is old and untouched, no sign of use for a long time, maybe years. The floor is covered in a layer of dust, and I look behind me to see it has been disturbed by my footsteps, no evidence of that anywhere else except where I’ve been. This room offers nothing, and I make my way to the next, cursing the sturdiness of the floors that won’t give me the luxury of a sound. I move into the foyer in front of the locked door I abandoned on the porch. The white beam of the light shows a deadbolt in addition to the doorknob, a good thing I didn’t waste time trying to unlock that. There’s something wrong with the deadbolt, and I see as I nearly touch it with my nose that it lacks dust, a swirl of clean around the edge of the brass. Grabbing the mechanism, I turn it unlocked then lock it back, my knuckle dragging across the clean wood around the lock.

“Someone locked this recently,” the house swallows my voice like a predator at table.

Behind me is a set of stairs against the wall opposite the room I just left, and on the other side of these, what looks to be the dining room, or what’s left of a dining room. I can see the kitchen beyond. Stepping toward the dining room, I stop and look back at the stairs.

“Let’s go ahead and do this.”

My flashlight is strong, doing well to cut through the blackness where I can see the top of the stairs. I listen intently to anything the house will tell me. A scratching somewhere upstairs, a rodent feeding on the insects slowly devouring this place, a bird nesting away from the elements, a bat? I move on, one step at a time. I find myself counting the steps, fifteen now, only halfway.

These ceilings are so high; outlines of squares and rectangles on the wall beside the stairs, family pictures long gone perhaps, or works of art. My flashlight flickers like a cliché, and I give it a little shake. If it comes down to it I can use the light of my phone but this is a good flashlight, always has been. I’ve used it many times to read myself to sleep under the covers. The light bobbles a bit as if I’m shaking but I’m not. There’s a walkway at the top of the stairs that goes to the right, a series of doors along the wall of it, I count four. As I move the beam across the walkway, the darkness instantly falls back into place like something palpable, as if the beam is an extension of my hand pushing a blanket away from me only for gravity to pull it down all the time, a constant struggle. The unused hinges of a door moaning, it’s unmistakable, and I stop two steps from the top.

There’s a tingling on the back of my neck that crawls up to my scalp like a living thing.

Every hair, every pore, every fiber of my being stands on end. Is this fear? A minute passes. Two. My brain transforms the sound of the hinge into doubt. It didn’t happen. How could it? Or, it did happen, and it does it all the time. This house is drafty, the wind moves the door twenty, thirty, a hundred times a day. I haven’t been here to say otherwise. Let it go. Let logic take over. The world is the same when the sun goes down. I tighten my jaw and move on, wishing I could bathe the whole room in the flashlight beam, like water from a hose, something that would stick to the walls.

The walk is wide, the banister sturdy or so it appears to be. This used to be a glorious house and still is in its own right. The first door opens easily, not the first sound from it. The bed is covered, even the canopy posts, by a number of white sheets. Location alone has kept this house from being taken advantage of by the homeless or anyone else who could use the solitude of an old structure to satisfy the id. Perhaps there were too many neighbors, or perhaps there was a story about the residence that kept the riff raff away. I’ll make sure to research it the moment I wake up in the comfort of my own home with Jack and Lula. This room offers nothing, and I leave it exactly as it was found, making my way to the next.

I pause. Something about the banister here catches my eye. I move the beam to it, sweeping it back and forth slowly as if I can clear away the darkness. There on the side, something on the rail, pale against the stained wood. I find myself moving closer even after the letters come into focus. Why would I keep moving except to run down the stairs and out the door, leaving a Bugs Bunny hole in the wood from hyperbolic escape? This image actually goes through my mind as I hold the beam on the spot, the light now shaking and not because I’m walking because I’m not. I leave it there for some time while my brain works at the speed of synaptic firing, not sure what I am to do next.

Gibson Bartleby

My name stands out on the wood to me as if this house were built around it. Shavings of wood along the edges tell me this carving was done recently, less than a day, in fact. I look at my name stenciled there with the element I came here so desperately searching for. If this isn’t fear then I don’t want to know what is. I find no joy in this.

Images flash through my mind as I sweep the beam like a sword against my enemy.

Everything seems to slow down from the adrenalin dump—a defense mechanism as I understand it, the brain’s way of coping with a dangerous situation. Experiments have been conducted where people pushed out of a plane could read digital numbers moving too fast to decipher when the same numbers were viewed while standing on the ground.

This image finally leaves me. I see Jack at home, possibly asleep, likely sitting up in his swinging chair that hangs from the ceiling, or sitting cross-legged with book in lap, a fan droning away in the background, nothing in the world, in all existence concerning him except the words on the page.

I see Lula in her bed, the day’s agenda sketched in pencil on the notepad that sits on the bedside table, her green sleep mask accenting her red hair that spills all over the pillow like a cascade of frozen fire. She tries so hard to raise us the way she thinks our parents would want us to be raised.

Stranger images plague me now. I see the emblem I had toyed with in my childish fantasies, perhaps delusions of grandeur. I see the letter B backwards, a capital letter next to one facing forward, like a butterfly perhaps, a symmetrical symbol for the Brothers Bartleby, my backward brother and me. I see the girl I can’t seem to stop thinking about. I see them together with my brother while I set off trying to make a difference, trying to make the world a better place, or perhaps just trying to improve myself or prove something to myself.

I see Jack and me sitting in that classroom answering John’s questions, showing him that we stand out even in a world of adults. We could answer anything, me with my deduction and Jack with his limitless bank of information to shine a light on an answer or something as close to an answer as could humanly be obtained much the same way I shine my own light on this carving now. There is a whisper in the distance, from the right or the left I can’t tell but it brings me out of my trance, back to the present to the situation I find myself in right now.

“Hello?” the word comes out before I can stop myself, sounding like a victim in a horror movie.

There’s no need to move to the next door. I am approximately one hundred and fifty feet from the closest exit—that I know to be locked—two hundred and twenty-five from the window I entered, and someone knew I would be here, that I would get to this spot. Did they know I would be here tonight? Did they know I would be here now? That is the question I can’t help but ask myself.

My beam sweeps in front of me. The walk ends in yet another door. That would be the last thing expected, that I would move forward, that I would go on. Whoever left this little message for me obviously knew I would be here, and what they would expect would be what every person alive would expect and that is for me to go back, to tuck tail and run out the same way I’d come in. Why not? Who wouldn’t do that, after all?

I sweep the beam back down the stairs at the door that stands waiting for me then I swing it back, half expecting the Devil himself to be standing on the walk with me but there is only the door, one that I know for an architectural fact does not lead to the outside world. I move forward because I am not one to be intimidated but more importantly, I am not one to do what is expected of me at any time. There isn’t the first creak from the wood below, and I find myself walking on

tiptoe despite the fact that my Converse wouldn’t make any noise unless I jumped up and down with effort. I pass the second door then the third. My confidence grows with every step like a faulty metronome.

There’s nothing here that a little sunlight wouldn’t cure. Doors lining a walkway, stairs leading to an exit, I keep the logic of the situation firmly in mind as I move forward to the last door, the one that faces me at the end of the walk. I realize that the others no doubt lead to bedrooms. The exterior of the structure and the layout I’ve seen so far dictate that this is the case.

There is likely a bathroom in the middle of the four rooms, fancy for a house of this age to have an upstairs lavatory but by the look of the layout and the money spent on its initial construction, I do not doubt this is the case. Perhaps I’ll make a trip back here in the near future and in broad daylight but for now all I’m concerned with is getting out of here, getting on my bike and peddling my way back to Jack as fast as I can and ask him what he thought of the engraving on the rail, who put it there. If he couldn’t tell me who did it then no person alive could except for the one responsible. I keep these thoughts close to me as I make my way to the end, the white beam cutting away the darkness as a dependable old friend. I need Jack in my ear. That’s what I’m missing more than anything. Always calm, always confident Jack.

My feet move faster now. I find myself reaching out to the doorknob several steps before I get to it. It takes less than a few seconds to put me where I belong, which is in the state I so longed for. I don’t fear for my life or my safety, not that I’m aware. It’s the not knowing, the not understanding. My thoughts bounce all over the place. The smell of whatever lotion Minnie uses, Jack’s humming while he’s reading, Lula’s dancing to old music in the kitchen back and forth; these thoughts hit me. The smell of cinnamon throughout the house where Lula hangs it in over a dozen places, John’s refusal to give me the real reason for all this, his questions to us in the classroom. I stop and look at the floor in front of my feet then look for a way to find my center, and it hits me. I look at the end of the beam, blocked by the wood of the floor, and I push the button of the flashlight.

When there’s no difference between eyes open or eyes closed, that’s when you know you’re in the dark. The blackness hits me like a weight but not one that hurts, more like a heavy blanket, camouflage. It doesn’t make me vulnerable; it makes me invisible. I give it sixty seconds, a hundred and twenty. I see just as much now as when I turned the light off, not even the outline of the railing, so my eyes are not going to be able to adjust to this. I breathe deep with no noise, letting the darkness soothe me. My heart beats against my chest like some primitive alarm. Thirteen steps back to the stairs, thirty stairs, twenty-six steps to the right, give or take, to the window that’s still open. My thoughts are clear now; no more jumping around, no more jumble. I open my mouth to laugh, and there it is. The same moan from the same door I heard earlier. I don’t know which door but I do know which direction and I know it wasn’t the wind.

With my first step, I crouch and turn. I might as well be in socks because my Converse make zero noise, so thank goodness for that. Twelve, eleven, ten, I reach to the left and touch the wood of the railing to judge my distance. There’s the moan again and a creak then a whisper. It’s behind me without doubt, the other side of the door at the end and given my distance now, I make it to the first step with three more strides. I hit the button on the flashlight at the first step, just in time to get my footing, and I’m descending two at a time. The locked door to the porch is in front of me but I’m not wasting time. My best option is going through the window that’s still open. I can be on my bike between five and ten seconds tops, realizing with some sense of satisfaction, indeed, I can feel fear outside looking out of a high window or trying to climb a ladder.

The door crashes open at the top of the stairs, and the beam of another light hits me. I can almost feel it but I’m not slowing down nor speeding up. There’s no way I can be caught at this distance. I plant my hand on the wall to make the right turn.

“Gib,” the voice is harsh and deep but there’s a bit of restraint in it like he too doesn’t want to make too much noise. Two more steps, and it hits me. I plant my feet, sliding on the dusty floor and stand breathing for a few seconds before I turn and see the figure at the top of the stairs then I walk back and shine my light on him as he does me.

“John?” I’m panting but there’s no doubt. I see him clearly now.

“You did the right thing by turning the light off,” he said, walking toward the stairs and stopping at the carving. He rubbed his hand over it a few times.

“Please tell me you did that,” I’m half serious.

“Ha, I did this time,” he walked down halfway and stopped. “I can only imagine what you’ve got in mind by coming in this house, kid. You watch the videos I give you and give me feedback, you and your brother. That’s it. Now, what would you have done if I had been someone else? What would you have done if I was a killer?”

“I did exactly what I would’ve done,” there was confidence in my voice, trying to disguise the doubt. “If you hadn’t called my name I’d be doing twenty-five on my bike in the middle of the blacktop right now.”

“There’s not always the option to run,” his voice was monotone. On the last syllable, he made his way to the bottom of the stairs, unlocking the deadbolt, his knuckle dragging right where I knew it would. “What would you do if you couldn’t run?”

“I could do whatever you’ll train me to do,” I answer without a second’s hesitation. With that, he walked out the door with what I swear was the hint of a smile on his face. “Hey, how’d you know I was coming here, anyway?”

“I know everything, kid, didn’t you know that?”

“If that were true you wouldn’t need me and my brother!”

“Touché, I’ll give you that one. And why don’t you keep yelling, maybe somebody’ll call a cop.” He disappeared around the side of the house with the last words trailing him.

I stand at the door for several minutes, flashlight by my side. It flickers again and I give it a shake. Maybe it is time for a new one. I turn to go get my bag from underneath the window, and there it is again, the same moan from the door upstairs. Stopping for just a second like a deer in the headlights, I make my way to the porch door and get my bag from the outside.

I’m on my bike with the wind in my ears again before this night gets any weirder. I must say however, as far as the weird factor is concerned, this night is pretty much on par with most others the past few weeks. It all started when Mr. Sunshine there, John Blacksuit as I call him, the guy who just nearly gave me a heart attack, came into my brother’s classroom at school for some sort of crazy recruitment. Ever since that day, we’ve gotten out of regular school but the work load certainly hasn’t decreased. You know what? It’s easier just to start at the beginning. . .