American Elsewhere - By Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,87

football field, with many indentations in its surface from friction, as if something very big and very heavy has been laid down here again and again.

This is where he slept, says a little voice in Mona’s head.

She agrees, though she feels she has to correct it: Not a he. An it.

She walks toward the stone shelf. The spot from her flashlight is a tiny dot dancing in the gloom. She feels an immense pressure on her thoughts, as if the enormity of this place and what dwelt within it is so great her sanity cannot bear it, and surely she will snap…

Yet she does not. The vision releases her, and the room begins to resolve itself—or perhaps she is forcing it to resolve itself—and soon she is inside the boring old master bedroom again, standing just before the bed.

She knows this isn’t quite true. She knows, on some wordless level, that this room exists in two locations, as if one reality is hidden within another like a Russian nesting doll, or perhaps if you advance in one direction then reality itself expands inward (or perhaps outward) in an almost—what is the word—fractal manner.

She is not sure how, but she wills herself to stay within the bedroom and avoid the huge stone cavern. Just like swimming in a pool, she thinks, and staying out of the deep end. She walks to the nightstand and goes through its drawers. There is a copy of Southern Housekeeper and Gardener in one drawer, along with a box of Kleenex, but there is no key. Then she kneels and looks under the bed. There is nothing underneath it, but a thought hits her, and she lifts up the bedspread and reaches underneath the mattress and feels around.

Her fingers brush something long and thin and hard. Her heart leaps, and she thrusts her arm in, grabs the object, and pulls it out.

It is a key, just as Parson described. It is nearly six inches long with nearly two dozen impossibly complicated teeth, and its head is fat and striped diagonally in yellow and black. It appears scuffed and very old, yet she can feel the indentations of writing on the key’s head. She holds it up to the flashlight to try to read it.

She can make out a logo of some kind on the key, an atom encased in a smooth ray of light.

A place that has answers for you, and me.

“Goddamn it,” Mona says, and she turns the key over. Written on the other side is COBURN NATIONAL LABORATORY AND OBSERVATORY.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

It’s Tuesday night, so Mrs. Benjamin starts off on her weekly tour of her backyard, swinging her compost pail, which is redolent of the tea and coffee she consumes by the gallon. She totters out, hits the floodlights, and is about to sprinkle a cupful around the base of her yucca when she notices a figure standing in the corner of her yard, beyond the reach of the light.

Whereas most people in Wink would immediately retreat back inside, eyes averted, Mrs. Benjamin does nothing of the sort. She straightens up, looking directly at the intruder, and crosses her arms.

“Well?” she says. “What are you waiting for? Come into the light at least, and let me have a look at you.”

The figure steps forward slowly, feet rustling in the grass. When it enters the light she sees it is a tall, thin, waxy-skinned young man in a brown suit two sizes too big for him. His eyes are large and eager, and he stands with his hands clasped at his waist and watches Mrs. Benjamin with a faint smile.

“Hm,” says Mrs. Benjamin. “I assume you’re here for a reason?”

“Meeting,” says the young man softly. His eyes gleam wetly, as if he is so pleased to have delivered his message that he is on the verge of tears.

“What’s that?” she says. “Meeting?”

He nods.

“Oh, I can already tell you’re one of the young ones,” she says. “You can’t just walk into someone’s yard in the dead of night and say meeting and assume they know what you mean. What meeting? What are you talking about?”

“Mr. Macey’s,” says the young man. “It’s tonight. They would like you to come.”

“Mr. Macey is dead, dear thing. Did you not know?”

He nods, still smiling, eyes still shining.

“Then what do I care about his meeting?”

“You’re the next eldest, after Macey,” explains the young man.

Her mouth drops open as she realizes his meaning. “Oh, no,” she says. “You want me to lead his