The Room in the Field

 

His truck hit a pothole in the craggy city street, and because the shocks were shot to shit, the styrofoam cup of coffee he had just picked up at the Dunkin Donuts drive thru splashed up out of its flimsy plastic lid and hit his lap with a scalding and immediate pain.

He let out a string of curse words that likely had his mother rolling over in her grave. Even as he stopped his beat old Dodge Dakota and frantically patted at his jeans with a fitful of crumbled Dunkies napkins, he could hear his mother’s voice in his mind. “Jack Jonathon Smith, didn’t I teach you better than to talk like that?” she would have said, trying her best to repress a hard Boston accent that always leaked out when she was pissed with him.

She had tried her best to teach Jack to be polite, to never curse, and to speak in a manner that showed he was educated and civilized. Jack’s  father, on the other hand, had taught him by example how to curse quite proficiently. “Sorry Ma” Jack muttered, even though she had been buried about a decade ago. She had been a classy lady in every sense of the word; never drank, never smoked, never swore, but cancer had claimed her anyways. Yet his father, who had smoked a pack a day and kept a second address at the neighborhood dive bar, had outlived her until a few months ago, when he had been killed in some sort of work accident.

Now Jack was headed to the site of the accident, which he had inherited in some sort of cosmic joke. It would be a stretch to say he had remained close with his old man after his mother had passed away, but they would grab a beer every so often, and Jack was aware that his father had purchased lot of land in an up and coming part of the city. In fact, it was really all the old man talked about when they saw each other (well, that and how much the Pats sucked without Brady).

“I’m finally gonna put this family on the map” Jack’s father would hiccup between glances at the ever-running Keno screen that flickered on a dusty television set that must have been almost as old as Jack himself. “I took my winnings from that scratchy and bought that old lot off Highland Street, back behind those factory buildings. You know, the ones that they converted into rich person lofts.”

The lot had been the same since Jack was a kid; an open field that very likely had once hosted brick factory buildings that had since collapsed or been demolished. However, if the original buildings had been demolished, it had not been a clean job, as the lot was littered with broken bricks, only apparent in those spots that weren’t covered by dense brush and weeds. In the middle of this dystopian setting, a single brick room remained. It was as though the demolition crew got lazy and just stopped tearing the building down as they neared its center.

“Just gotta tear that last piece of shit down and clear the lot and I’ll sell it for a pretty penny to some big developer to put up more of those city slicker apartment units” Jack’s father had said. When he wasn’t regaleing his bar buddies with his sports insights, or falling asleep to sitcom reruns with a half smoked cigarette in his fingers, the old man labored as a construction worker all his life. So Jack figured his dad knew what he was talking about, but he also figured that the lot had to be on top of some kinda sinkhole, because otherwise someone with more money than what his father had won off a scratch ticket would have scooped it up years ago.

For his part, Jack knew nothing about construction, or at least this sort of construction. He was good with wood work, but not so good that he could afford to buy a truck with decent shocks, or good brakes, or really just a vehicle that could pass inspection without a bribe to a buddy. So, he had no intention of trying to make the lot presentable, but he did need to get a look at it to see if he could at least sell it for enough money to help get him around the bend with his small business.

He stepped out of the warmth of his rickety but mostly reliable pickup and onto the craggy sidewalk that ran the perimeter of the lot. Although it was the middle of winter, dead brush and carcasses of long passed weeds still choked the lot, and he could barely make out the path his father had bush whacked to the squat brick structure that still remained at the center.

He picked his way over the frozen soil, avoiding tripping over shattered brick that emerged from the ground, or getting snagged on the many prickly dead branches that reached out at him from around his ankles, knees, and waist. He wanted to get a good look at that brick room, not just to capture the information for the listing, but to try and understand the bizarre structure.

As a kid, Jack had experienced many frosty New England mornings in which his school bus brought him past this very lot as a cut through past the city’s clogged up main arteries. Each time he glanced past the thick forest of weeds he would see the strange brick room and wonder why it had been left behind. In a way, it looked like the four brick walls had been ripped apart from the original building. The exterior walls were jagged from where adjoining rooms had been demolished. The floor above looked like it had been blown away, but remnants of brick and a still standing rusted metal door promised that once there had in fact been a floor above this now lonely room. Even as a kid, it captured the imagination to ponder why the floors above and the walls around the room had been demolished, but these solitary four walls remained.

There was another itching concern about the brick room that had caused Jack to leave the comfort of his workshop and brave the whipping cold winds that tunneled through the city streets. From what Jack has been able to glean, his father had been killed when planning to demolish the structure. While tragic, this might not have been mystifying if it had been a mishap with explosives, or some sort of structural cave in. But his father had died from an impalement to his heart, and he hadn’t been operating any equipment at the time of his death. According to his longtime drinking buddy who had called 911, Jack’s dad had gone into the room to plan for demolition permits, and had stumbled out with blood gushing from his mouth. He hit the ground face first, and that was that.

Jack had tried to inquire if anyone had gone into the room to determine the cause of impalement, but according to the very annoyed sounding detective he spoke with, there was, “no need to suspect foul play so no investigation required”. All the old drinking buddy said was, “fuck if I’m gonna go in there after that”.

Now Jack stood outside of the brick structure and it was taller than he ever would have thought from a distance. It towered over his head by at least ten feet, and blocked out the hard winter sun so that he now stood in complete shadow. He circled the structure, kicking away stubborn roots and swatting the attacks of pricker bushes, and found that despite the years, the room stood sound. Not a missing brick or even a gap in mortar. Stranger still, was that in a city where graffiti littered every bridge, building, and underpass, there wasn’t so much as a smear of paint on the faded red bricks.

There was only one way into the room, and that was through a dented metal door that matched the rusted one on the mostly disintegrated floor above. Jack figured it had to be locked; otherwise any owner might become liable for squatters. He inspected the blocky door knob and saw that it had been drilled through; likely his father’s effort to gain access. He turned the doorknob and it came open effortlessly.

He stood back and coughed a dry, unnecessary cough that was more about nerves than it was about the dryness of the winter air. He was filled with a sudden sense of dread, which he told himself was only natural given that he was about to walk into a musty old space where his father had died. He reminded himself of all the wood working equipment he could afford if he could even just get back the money his father had sunk on buying the lot, and he took a deep breath, and he pushed the door open.

Nothing could have prepared him for what was inside. The room beyond was a time capsule; an immaculate office space that looked straight out of the 1950s. A cursory glance suggested it was the sort of room where people might clock in and out based on the punch clock on the wall. There was a heavy wooden desk with a neat stack of papers arranged in one corner and a desk lamp on the other side. Several large filing cabinets lined the walls. Jack stepped inside to inspect further, and the door slammed shut behind him.

He was cast into immediate darkness; a pitch black so complete that it felt thick around him, as though he had been submerged into a viscous black liquid. He wanted to scream but nothing came out, and as his wits slowly returned to him he reached back and fumbled for the doorknob. As soon as his hand touched the cold metal knob, the desk lamp snapped on and to Jack’s horror a man sat behind the desk, hands neatly folded and an ear-to-ear grin plastered across his face.

The lamp cast eerie shadows throughout the room, but even with the odd lighting it was clear that there was something not quite right with the man’s face. His mouth was too wide, his eyes too small, his nose too sharp. And when Jack looked hard enough, he could see that the man’s jet black hair wasn’t hair at all but a swarming of dark insects crawling about a waxy pale scalp. It was the sharp points at the end of the man’s teeth that made Jack snap. Suddenly he was disconnected from reality; he wasn’t really here in this room– he wasn’t really anywhere. The doorknob was in his grasp, but he felt a sudden certainty that nothing lay on the other side.

“Leaving so soon Jacky boy?” the man-like creature asked, unfolding his hands and raising them up in the air in an expression that suggested perplexity but looked like he had never moved his arms before and was simply trying to mimic something he’d seen on TV. “You haven’t even heard the deal.”

“I– I – I…” Jack stammered, and his own voice caught him by surprise, leading him to look wildly about the small room to determine who had spoken.

“Cat got your tongue my boy?” the monster man asked, and he let out a grating laugh that had all the auditory joy of nails dragging down a chalkboard. “Tell you what; I can offer you a one way ticket out of this plane of existence and into the one of your choosing. How does that sound?”

“You’re going to kill me?” Jack gulped.

“Pish posh, nothing so common lad. There are infinite universes you see; even ones in which your woodworking business takes you into the gilded world of high end furniture design and you live in a palace by the sea. Does that catch your interest?”

Jack said nothing. He couldn’t open his mouth it would seem.

“Not one for riches? How about a world in which your Dad wasn’t a drunk and instead built his own construction empire, and he could afford to get your mom the best medical treatment? In that universe you’re on a cruise with them right now, along with a rather lovely fiancee.”

Jack finally tore his eyes from the man’s grotesque face and as he shifted his gaze to the desk lamp he could actually see the world that the man described; his mother and father not only alive, but healthy in a way he had never seen them before. They were all wearing vibrant Hawiian t-shirts and laughing over hors d'oeuvres as a gorgeous young woman came over and planted a kiss on Jack’s cheek.

“It’s not real” he heard himself saying.

“It’s as real as anything else” the man shrugged, and as he raised his shoulders a sharp cracking sound like the breaking of bones echoed though the room, which seemed ot be growing ever vaster. “All you have to do is allow me to free you from this universe and I will transport you to that much lovelier existence.”

“Like you freed my Dad?” Jack asked, and while he wanted to sound mad all he could do was stare into the lamp, fixated on this vision of his father with a full head of hair, straight white teeth, and a smile that spoke of confidence that he’d never possessed in Jack’s lifetime with him. Jack couldn’t help but feel that if his father had been killed to end up in a universe like this one, it was the biggest gambling win he’d ever had.

Jack watched a thinner, stronger, happier version of himself take a turn on the dance floor with his charming fiancee, and imagined himself living that life. He imagined growing up without having to worry about whether there would be hot water for his shower in the morning, or feeling ashamed of the holes in his jeans. He envisioned going to the fancy art college he’d wanted to attend instead of racking up debt at a school that didn’t even have the program he was interested in. He could almost picture himself as this Jack now; confident, handsome, funny, and in love. Almost.

Jack could hear his mother’s voice speaking again, and she was repeating one of her famous sayings; “You know, the grass is always greener on the other side”. Jack may not have money, or a fiancee, or even have his parents anymore. But he knew who he was. He was the guy who worked hard to get his small business off the ground. He was the guy who had left his beautiful ex when he found out she had cheated on him, even after she said she was sorry and promised it wouldn’t happen again. He was the guy who kept his shitty truck running year after year knowing that eventually he would be able to afford something better. He hadn’t done all that hard work to throw it away to become this other Jack; hell, he didn’t even know who this other Jack really was.

He grasped the doorknob hard and the oddity behind the desk started to shriek an ear splitting scream. “NOBODY HAS EVER DENIED ME!” he roared, and the waxy substance that made up his face began to melt away to reveal a deformed and bug ridden skull. Jack ripped the door open with every ounce of strength and could find, and hurled his body to the other side, unsure if he would find the frozen field beyond, or just an endless abyss.

Jack hit the ground hard, a broken brick biting into his kneecap and his face smashing into a pricker bush that instantly claimed his blood. Despite the pain he wasted no time scrambling around and found that the door was still open. Crawling on hands and knees across the frigid and uneven terrain, Jack lurched forward to close the door. As he slammed it shut, he glimpsed inside the room and saw only a dank, empty brick room beyond.

The next day, Jack sold his Dodge Dakota. He only got $2k for it, but it was enough to pay one of his Dad’s old drinking buddies to blow that damned brick room up. And in the end his Dad was right; he sold the lot for a pretty penny.