The Narrows(67)

“Where are we going?” Brandy finally asked after the two of them had spent a substantial amount of time stumbling through the underbrush.

“There’s a set of doors back here somewhere,” he told her.

“There,” she said, pointing through a part in the trees.

Ben bent down and peered through a curtain of crispy red leaves behind which stood a set of double doors made of oxidized copper. A thick chain wound itself around the rectangular doorhandles.

“Nice lookout,” Ben said, stepping through the trees while brandishing the bolt cutter. He held branches out of the way so that Brandy could follow him, unimpeded.

“What’s that smell?” she said, wrinkling her nose.

Ben whiffed the air but didn’t smell anything. “What does it smell like?” he asked.

“Like the cleaner my mom uses to scrub the bathroom.”

Ben gathered a link of chain between the teeth of the bolt cutter and squeezed. A second later, there came an audible pop and the link widened into a C. Ben cut the same link again and the chain came apart and dangled from the doorhandles like a mechanical snake. With one hand, Ben unwound the chain from the handles until it coiled to the ground. His fingers came away orange with rust.

“Matthew would have found another way in,” Brandy said at his back.

“Yeah,” he responded, though he was already quite certain her brother had not found a way into the old building. He was more curious about who else might have found a way in—whoever it had been that Matthew Crawly had thought he had seen in here…

Ben took a step back, already breathing heavily though he hadn’t done anything except walk here. “You know what,” he said. “Take a few steps back. I don’t know what might come jumping out when I open these doors.”

“Jumping out?”

“A raccoon or possum, I mean,” he said, though he was thinking mountain lion.

“Oh. I thought you meant…” But her voice trailed off, her thought unfinished. Brandy took a few steps back, the boughs of the trees sweeping down over her like curtains after a stage exit. Ben dropped the bolt cutter onto the ground and grabbed the doorhandles in both hands. The doors were enormous, pitted monstrosities, like the doors on an old battleship.

“Here goes,” he said, and heaved them open.

The stubborn hinges squealed and flakes of rust snowed down on him. They came only partway open, either impeded by the encroaching trees or simply refusing to budge any farther on their uncooperative hinges. A panel of darkness—of varying shades of darkness—appeared before Ben. Stale air breathed onto his face. There was another smell, too. Suddenly, he could smell what Brandy had smelled just a moment ago—the acrid, chemical stink of industrial cleaner. Though more potent, it was similar to the smell at Porter Conroy’s and Ted Minsky’s farms.

“Yuck,” Brandy commented from behind the tree branches.

Ben stepped inside, cautioning Brandy to be careful as she followed him. He entered into a room as spacious as an airplane hangar. The upper portions of the walls were lined with tiny square windows that reminded Ben of tic-tac-toe grids, the windowpanes so thick and grimy that only the barest hint of sunlight permeated. The floor was a level plain of concrete covered in an ancient blanket of dust. Large machines stood at intervals about the room, looking like a cross between an oil rig and dinosaur bones. The ceiling, with its exposed iron girders and sheets of hammered tin, reminded Ben of the high school gymnasium. Some sections of the ceiling were missing, allowing shafts of sunlight to slide like rapiers into the factory.

“This place,” Brandy said. Her voice was almost reverent and hushed as she walked slowly across the floor. “This place doesn’t seem like it belongs here in Stillwater.”

Ben thought it was a pretty astute comment, particularly coming from a sixteen-year-old. “Don’t wander off too far,” he warned her.

“Matthew!” she shouted, startling Ben. Her voice echoed off the walls and the corrugated-tin ceiling. Flocks of birds lifted off rafters and funneled through the rents in the roof.

“Quiet,” he told her.

“He could be anywhere.”

“Yeah, well, we don’t need to start an avalanche.”

He unhooked his flashlight from his belt and went over to one of the large industrial machines. It was enormous, and looked like something that had been conceived and engineered on some distant planet.

“What do these do?” Brandy asked. She was examining one of the machines, too.

“I have no clue. It looks like an old printing press, only bigger. Much bigger.”

Brandy opened a small hatch on the side of the machine and peered in. “Dusty,” she commented.

“Stay here,” he told her. “I’m going to take a look around.”

“I want to come with you.”

“Just stay here. It’s too dangerous.”

“He’s my brother,” she challenged.

He pointed his flashlight at her face. “I thought we went over this outside? You do as I say.”

She continued to stare at him until he softened.

“Okay,” he relented. “But stick close to me.”

She followed him into an adjoining room where the ceiling wasn’t as high. Enormous lights were recessed into the hammered tin and caged with a metal meshwork, similar to the light in the sally port back at the station. The floor was empty, though there were piles of sawdust everywhere. What looked like jewels glittered on the floor as Ben panned his flashlight across the room. He bent down to examine some only to find that they were little metal shavings in the shape of fingernail clippings.