The Monocle Man Read online

  “What… what was that?” She asks gagging.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh my…” she adds, looking past Garrison.

  He cranes his neck around and the breath catches in his throat. Eyes widening, he opens and shuts them several times, thinking this must be an illusion. But an illusion they can both see? Not likely. He turns around, Annalise pressing against the back of his arm. Her fingers run the length of his forearm to the elbow and grasps tight. Her quickening heartbeat thuds against him. The silence within is so vast, he swears it’s audible. Licks his lips and the sound echoes through the emptiness. But emptiness isn’t quite accurate.

  A cavern stretches out before them. An endless oblivion cast in shadows and pale light as if filtered through falling dust and an opaque glass pane. Veering in all directions, the darkness is ever-consuming. But what lay within this enormous chasm defies all logic and comprehension.

  Suspended from nothing, sit countless staircases. Each stretch into the shadows above; disappear into the darkness below. They crisscross each other at multiple places, running under and above, around and side by side. Some jut off into the distance straight as an arrow. Others bend and twist as if decayed by millennia of water damage and mold. Still some snake about, slithering into odd curves or spiraling into the abyss. Constructed of every material imaginable, they reach and descend. Some concrete, some wood. Others organic, grass, mud and yet some metal, boasting occasional railings. A handful are even imagined. Ghosts of staircases that once were, sitting aloft, a phantasm of shadows and fading mist.

  The chasm is dark. Black as night. But in the colorless curtain, pinpricks of soft light blink like falling stars in the a sky. They are but dust particles of illumination, hardly breaking through the gloom, flitting about on a non-existent breeze. The sight is beautiful and yet haunting. When one hits a stair it explodes in silence, sending off spores of smaller particles dancing in a fine spray, which fade in an instant. It’s hardly enough light to see by. Not that either Garrison or Annalise can find the motivation to move.

  “What is this place?” She asks Garrison, her hands gripping his upper arm. The few moments that transpire in silence only hasten her angst, and her fingers dig deeper into his skin. “Garrison?”

  “I… I have no idea,” he responds, his eyes following the occasional explosions on the stairs.

  “I’m scared,” she adds.

  “I know.” What else could he say? It’s taking all his resolve to not freak out. Where the hell are they?

  “We should go back.” Annalise tugs on his arm, but his feet remain planted. She tugs again. “Please Garrison, let’s go back.”

  “We can’t.”

  “But we shouldn’t be here. This is… is… wrong.”

  “I know,” he says again. And he does. He senses it to the core. There’s something amiss here. Something lingers in the air, a feeling, that neither belong. Annalise gives another tug but Garrison shirks his arm, nearly releasing her grip. “We can’t. We need to find-”

  “Gary?”

  Brent’s voice isn’t all that far away. Garrison takes a few steps forward, head lifting toward the sound. He feels the tug of Annalise again. But this time it’s stronger. She pulls back as he takes another step. His lifted foot hovers in the air a moment before falling backward. Garrison almost stumbles. But he sees as he lands off-kilter. He’d almost stepped off. Off of what is hard to say. The only word his mind can find to describe it, is the edge. A sweat breaks out on his brow and his heart quickens realizing the mistake he’d almost made. He falls to his knees as vertigo crashes in. When he looks to the side, Annalise kneels next to him.

  Garrison leans forward on hands and knees and peers out and over the edge. Looks down into nothingness. He can’t tell where they are. The ground beneath seems alive; always changing. It’s neither a rock cliff, nor an expanse of grass. Neither dirt nor water. It’s all of these and more. A mirage with texture.

  “Gary?” The voice calls again. Though this time it carries that sense of maturity; that eerie hint of masculinity which shouldn’t be present in a ten-year-old’s voice. “Gary, is that you?”

  “It’s me Brent!” Garrison returns, sending his voice out into the void.

  2

  2.

  “Where are you?” Garrison yells as he pulls himself to his feet. Beside him, Annalise stands. Her heads swivels this way and that, trying to locate the sound of the younger Holly brother’s voice.

  “Up here Gary!” The response comes.

  Both their heads dart upward and lock on the figure standing above them. The sigh of relief that escape the two, both Garrison and Annalise, echo about the cavern. Her hand grips his arm again as she bounces on her toes in excitement. And he? Well, he feels like crying.

  “Wait there!” Garrison yells up to his little brother.

  “Ok, gotcha,” the voice of a kid returns as Brent smiles with the side of his mouth. He plants himself on his bottom, peering over the edge of a staircase down at his brother and Annalise.

  Garrison can’t help dwell once again on the change in Brent’s voice. Can’t help wonder what the hell is going on with the kid. One second, he’s typical Brent; talking like he’s five, head all banged up and brain and speech a mess from his accident. The next, he sounds like a grown man. Not grown exactly; his voice is deeper, yes, but still that of a child. However, the cadence is adult. But that isn’t the problem right now. The problem is, getting to his brother.

  Looking up and around, Garrison scans the staircases weaving every which way, trying to find a connecting route from where he and Annalise are standing. He makes a careful circle of the area on which they stand. Beneath their feet, the landscape still changes. From grass to dried leaves to snow covered forest floor. Every step they take touches a new form of ground. Annalise sticks by his side, hand clutched beneath his upper arm, a look of concern on her face. She fears many things at the moment. But the one thing she fears most, is Garrison stepping off the edge. Even if “edge” seems a weak word. There’s no discerning line where the ground ends and the abyss begins. It more or less fades by degrees. She scans the ground at her feet, noticing the ground is white, crunching, but darkens as she looks ahead where the colors drift into nothingness.

  Garrison takes his time though his heart pounds in his chest. He’s anxious. If the situation weren’t strange enough, him and Annalise coming through a portal of some sort at the base of the overturned tree, now they find themselves trapped on a ledge, with his brother waiting above. He rounds the area, prodding with the toe of his boot repeatedly, not setting any real weight down until he’s sure something solid lies beneath. His patience wanes though, nerves ratcheting, wondering if he’ll ever be able to get his little brother from his perch. He’d have suggested his brother jump, and he would catch him. But the staircase he’s on isn’t only above them, it’s yards away. He doubts very much whether Brent, depending on his frame of mind, can make the jump. Or whether he can catch him.

  His eyes plead with Annalise. She can sense the worry in them. Knows he’s struggling for a solution. But none seems apparent. Trying to reassure him, she clutches tighter, offering a feigning smile. They prod on. Test the ground beneath them as they make their way around the odd matter beneath their feet.

  At their back the glow of the portal they’d come through seems to have faded. It’s not nearly as pronounced as before. Testing, Garrison pushes his hand through as they inspect that area of the ledge. His hand enters though grudgingly so. And he can’t help but wonder… is the portal closing? If so, what’s their chance of returning home? Annalise reaches forward with her free hand and pulls his from the opening. She gives him a stern look and shakes her head. The girl who wanted very much to leave just moments before steels him with a glance, insisting now they can’t. She need not say anything. He reads it in her face. She’s here with him, until they find a way to get to Brent.

  His eyes tear a moment, the stress of it all and the
look on her face taking its toll. That’s when he sees it. Just over Annalise’s shoulder. A few sparse particles of light, floating in the air, descending and drifting their way. The first strikes something just to the left. It bursts, the fine bloom of light exploding for a moment before fading away. But it's just enough time for Garrison to make out the staircase that lay before them.

  It dawns on him then. The little pinpricks of light remind him of it. Something that should have been at the forefront of his mind this entire time. They’d both been carrying flashlights out there in the woods. Had them in hand while they inspected the fallen tree. Had them still when they came through whatever brought them here. So, where were they now? He searches his pockets. Comes up empty. Had he dropped it? Had she?

  Garrison turns on heel and searches the ground near the portal blindly with his hands. It takes Annalise a few moments before she realizes what he’s doing. She falls to her knees to help. The ground is even more strange on his bare skin. Not only does the landscape change in appearance, but changes with touch. The sensory of each coincides with the pattern below. The grass is soft and feathery; he can almost smell it. Like a freshly cut lawn. The dead leaves crackle as his hands sift through the detritus of some unseen tree. The snow is cold, biting. Jagged rock. Dirt kicks up in plumes of dust. Even pavement presents itself. And that’s when he finds it.

  His hands brush the surface of concrete a moment before the side of one smacks against the metal of a flashlight. Annalise stops searching as the two hear it rolling along. They’re seized by a moment of panic, listening to the metal carcass of their only source of illumination roll beyond them. But soon after, his hand finds it again. Taking it up, he props himself back to his feet and pushes the button. In what seems like a miracle, the flashlight comes to life.

  3

  3.

  Annalise’s cry of joy breaks through the darkness, her giggle dancing throughout the cavern, jostling off each staircase. She can’t stifle the excitement of seeing the flashlight come to life. Her hands go up to her mouth, covering the broad smile spreading across her face. Her eyes tear a little. Garrison can’t help smile himself. With one arm he reaches out and pulls her closer. They hug a while as she sobs into his jacket. The sense of relief is overwhelming. Just this tiny thing, this beam of light, makes anything seem possible.

  “Sit tight!” He yells up to Brent, who looks over the edge of the staircase above. He smiles as the light catches his face. Waves.

  “K, Gary,” Brent returns.

  Garrison takes several steps toward the staircase where he watched the particle of dust-light explode. The beam of the flashlight illuminates the ground below, but only to a degree. As he nears what he thinks would be the edge, the light fades along with the colors and texture below before dimming to shadow. He plays the beam around, finds it does the same over and again. Such an odd occurrence. As if the dark were swallowing the light. But as he pushes the flashlight ahead of him, the beam catches the staircase he’d seen earlier. The strange thing is, between the staircase and where he stands is three or four feet of nothing. The light can’t cut it.

  “Hold this,” he tells Annalise as he passes her the flashlight.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Just hold it here. Keep the light ahead. On those stairs,” he says, pointing. She pushes the beam over and across the blankness to the stairs. Her breath catches in her throat. The black between them and the stairs is at least a few feet.

  “Be careful,” she pleads.

  Garrison pushes the toe of his boot out, touching it to the last bit of ground he can discern before the shadows take hold. Once steady and sure of his footing, he repeats the process. His foot descends, inch by inch searching for purchase. The toe of his boot fades, becomes almost non-existent as he steps down. He teeters a little, expecting his foot to push through into the air below. But the boot hits solid matter. Garrison can’t see his foot, but it finds the purchase of solid ground beneath. His eyes stare a long time, trying to unravel the oddity below. Annalise holds her breath as he moves his second foot forward into the low-lying shadow. But this too finds solid matter beneath. He turns, spinning to face her. She smiles a weary, nervous smile as she pushes the light in his direction. It too, once again, disappears.

  She can’t believe her eyes. Garrison stands before her, unwavering, though the legs below his knees vanish. He looks almost an apparition floating above the ground. Garrison lets escape the slightest giggle. Nervous. Unbelieving. She smiles back, eyes wide, eyebrows arched. With a cautious step he turns back toward the staircase. She hastens the light in that direction. Takes another step forward. Finds purchase. He breathes a huge sigh of relief. Looks over to either side into the nothing that exists there.

  “Come on,” he insists, reaching a hand out.

  “I don’t know,” she responds, eyes begging for a moment to reconsider.

  “It’s fine, look!” He jumps up and down a few times. His feet and shins appear, then disappear again into the shadows below with every hop. “Trust me,” he says.

  Annalise takes his hand, and he steps aside to let her join him. Suddenly his foot feels different. His heel, lighter. And when he puts pressure on it, he tumbles backwards. With a quick hand, Annalise reaches out to grab him. His arms pinwheel a moment as his other foot fights for purchase while he falls backwards. She tugs harder, pulling him forward into her. He bumps her, and she steps back on the ledge as he falls to his knees. A beam of light spins out of control as the flashlight falls from her grasp and goes tumbling over the side. Within seconds it vanishes. They’re at once plunged back into darkness.

  On his knees, Garrison takes in a few huge breaths. Tries to steady his nerves. He can sense the toes of his boots hanging over into nothing. He realizes then, the area connecting the ledge to the staircase is more narrow than assumed. Maybe a few feet wide at best. With the flashlight gone it’s difficult to see again, save the occasional splash of illuminated mist when a dust-light lands on something.

  Steadying himself, Garrison pulls to his feet. One at a time. Slowly. Annalise watches on, a look of concern and horror in her eyes. He stands and breathes a huge sigh. Looks at her, raising his eyebrows.

  “Shall we try this again?”

  “Gar… I don’t think this is safe.”

  “What other choice do we have?”

  She knows he’s right. There is no choice. They need to get to Brent. Need to get his little brother and get the hell out of here before something terrible happens. She watches on as Garrison turns and takes a few steps. A few particles of dust-light fall near, and when they explode on the staircase, she’s beyond relieved to see he’s made it. He looks to her, beckoning, and she nods. One step at a time. No need to rush. Soon, she too is across.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE CRASH

  20 MILES OUTSIDE of Brookwise, NH

  The repetitive ticking finds its way into Reynolds’ mind, burrowing into his subconscious. He swallows a large breath of air, breaking into a violent fit of coughing. The seat belt digs into his neck and shoulder, forcing his head to bend at an awkward angle. His head swims behind eyes which stagger to open. He tries shaking off the sensation, only the gesture makes things worse. He peels one eye open, but the other sticks. Looks around. Beneath him, the roof of his car. He strains to pull his head upward. The dashboard lights the interior as the green arrow of his turn signal ticks away. Spidery veins weave their way throughout the smashed windshield. He reaches for the seatbelt with one arm, but the appendage hangs limp. It’s then the pain registers. It shoots in abrupt waves up his shoulder and into his neck and head. With the other he fumbles about his waist, tracing the belt until he finds the release button. With fingers straining, he pushes the latch. His breath knocks out of him as he falls in the overturned vehicle, neck crunching on impact. Half rolling, he sets himself on his side and rests a moment. Just trying to breathe. Trying to remember.

  It comes at him slow at first, just a tr
ickle. But soon, the memories are like a wave, rushing through his mind. He remembers. Remembers the snow falling; a storm they’d not predicted the severity of. He’d stopped for some breakfast. A large coffee. On the road again he played through the scenario of the missing boy. What was the name again? Brent Holly? He’d thought of his ex-partner. Considered the truth that Dori might be the actual killer of all those girls. And even if not, there still lingered something terribly wrong about the man. He ate, sipped his coffee. Something? Yes, something crossed in front of his car. He clutches his eyes closed a time trying to remember. But it’s all a blur. The only thing he’s sure of, is that it wasn’t an animal. No, it looked more like a smoky wisp. A soul lost in the storm. He’d lost control of the car. It skid this way and that until colliding with something which catapulted it upside down. The world spun out of control until he and the car came crashing to a stop. Then… darkness.

  Silence.

  Until the sound of the vehicle’s directional wove its way into Reynold’s mind. And now? Now he rests on the interior roof of his car. The vehicle sits upside down at a slight angle. Snow drifts in through the missing side windows and Reynolds acknowledges the cold along with the growing pain racking his body. He rolls onto his back, trying to stretch his legs over to the passenger’s side. With his good arm, he reaches for the other. When he grabs just below the elbow and tries to rest it on his stomach, a bolt of fire shoots through his body. Dislocated. He hopes that’s the worst. A wiggle of his fingers offers a good sign.