American Elsewhere - By Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,116

family and friends are, and where everything makes sense). She looks at the definition for “Home” for a while. Maybe he’s coding something into the first letter of each word? But when Mona actually takes the time to test this idea the letters spell nothing but gibberish.

Frustrated, she starts flipping through the cards. There must be over thirty of the damn things. But then she comes across a card that is markedly different from all the others:

PANDIMENSIONAL

(adjective)

1. The quality of existing in several different aspects of reality at once, rather than just one

2. The ability to operate or move across the same

Mona stares at the note card, and again says, “What the fuck?”

She flips through the remainder of the stack, but finds no other card like it. She is certain that this card was the purpose of Parson’s entire charade. But what it means is beyond her.

Yet then she remembers that moment back in Weringer’s house, when one room felt nested inside another, yet occupied the same place. And when she focused, she could stay in one room, and avoid that huge stone cavern with the enormous fires…

Mona thinks for a moment, then stands and throws the door open.

Behind it is a long set of cement stairs leading up. They are dark and she cannot see where they go. So she takes out her flashlight, flicks it on, and starts up.

The staircase is completely black, and though she can see fluorescent lights hanging at each landing she can find no switch for them. Mona’s been climbing for about an hour, but the stairs seem to go on forever. She looks over the metal railing once and shines her light down and sees an endless blocked spiral of gray yawning below. She can’t even see the bottom anymore.

She remembers that Coburn is supposedly located at the top of the mesa, and she started at the very, very bottom, and she groans. Her legs are already aching and she’s almost out of breath, but she’s willing to bet she’s not a quarter of the way up.

She keeps climbing with nothing but her flashlight to guide her. The railings and the stair corners cast jigsaw-puzzle shadows on the walls. Occasionally she’ll shine it up the stairwell to see if she’s finally getting close to something, but there is always darkness and more stairs above.

The only sounds Mona hears throughout all of this are the stomping of her feet and her labored breath. Her calf muscles feel as if they’re about to snap, like guitar strings stretched too tightly.

Then she hears a third sound.

She stops and listens, and realizes she’s right. But it’s one she never expected here:

Someone is singing.

It’s only because the stairwell is so quiet that Mona can hear it. But it’s definitely there. Someone very far above her, maybe a woman, is singing.

She stares up at the darkness. She can see no lights up there, nor can she hear the sound of anyone moving. Yet as she listens, she hears saxophones and trumpets joining the singer. It’s like there’s a Big Band performance happening up there.

Very, very slowly, Mona takes out the Glock. She points the flashlight down at the ground to lessen the chances that someone above will spot it. Then she starts climbing the stairs again, moving slowly and softly with her eyes trained on the next flight of stairs above her.

The singing gets louder as Mona climbs. Eventually she recognizes the song: to her total confusion, it’s “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.”

Then more sounds join it. There’s the sound of laughter, the mutter of conversation, glasses tinkling. But that shouldn’t be right at all… she thought Coburn was abandoned.

Somewhere above a voice shouts, “Charlie? Charlie! Come on! Get in here!”

It’s a party, she thinks. They’re throwing a fucking party up there. She can’t even begin to understand it.

After a few more flights of stairs Mona thinks she can discern a very faint light cast on the wall at the top. She stops and turns off her flashlight and waits for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. She isn’t wrong: a very dim blade of light is cast across a wall on one of the topmost landings. She isn’t willing to shine her light up there and give away her position, but she’d bet now that she’s reached the very top of the staircase.

She slows her ascent to a crawl. As she rounds the landing opposite the light, she sees there is a thin, glowing line at