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FICTION BY EDWARD AHERM

EDWARD

Edward Ahern resumed writing after forty odd years in foreign intelligence and international sales. He’s had about 500 stories and poems published so far, and ten books. Ed works the other side of writing at Bewildering Stories where he manages a posse of seven review editors, and as lead editor at Scribes Micro.

 

FINDER’S FEE
by Edward Ahern

                                                                                                                            
The house smelled of cat piss.

The man died two years ago—the cat farmed out to a neighbor right afterward—but the place still reeked. It was owned by an obscure foundation that paid the taxes and utilities…which made it relatively easy for Robbie to get into.

Robbie was a finder, a half low-tech, half mediumistic dowser. If there was something valuable thought to be hidden in a house or on a property, he was paid to try and find it. He took a small initial fee to cover expenses, and a pre-agreed payoff if the item was unearthed. About a third of the time, he was able to locate whatever it was, an astoundingly high success rate. Robbie credited his intuition but competitors said it was something darker.

This house was late nineteenth century: large, five bedrooms, three baths. The item desired was reportedly only about the size of a brick and Robbie allowed himself five days to either find it or admit failure.

As he got out of his panel truck, Janet called. “You get that wild party going?”

He laughed. “I love you too. I wish there was something salacious here instead of just scummy. Going back in now. I found the sandwiches, thanks.”

Janet was his wife, business partner, accountant and gentle nag. They were both relatively short and relatively round, congenially matched. He already wished he could spend the night next to her, listening to her gentle snore. 

“The neighbors get nosy yet?”

“Didn’t have to. I knocked at the two next door houses, introduced myself, and told them there’d be no remodeling noise after 9pm.” He glanced at the painted advertisement on the side of his panel truck: Sullivan’s Remodeling and Landscaping. His presence in the house was almost legal.

“Okay, but watch your middle-aged tush. There was something peculiar about this guy’s answers to our interview.”

She was right. One of their first questions was: “Is the object alive, dead, inert or other?”

 Septimius Falcone had said other. Other was okay, and there were a fair number of occultists out there looking for missing amulets and talismans. But he offered no other explanation; just a description of its container: a dark mahogany box with gold fittings and trim with gold cuneiform characters. The payment for its recovery was fifteen thousand dollars.

Robbie said, “He also appears to be extremely suspicious. He’s had cameras installed inside the house to monitor my activity and make sure I didn’t steal the box.”

Janet had wanted to turn him down. “Listen, I’ve run some checks on this Septimius and come up empty. Thorough checks, and he doesn’t exist in either human or supernatural records. Could we just give him back his money and move on?”

“Too late, I think we’ve spent it.”

When he met Septimius, Robbie had thought of Boris Karloff as painted by Picasso in his blue period. Business was slow, however, and his retainer had cleared promptly, so Robbie took the assignment.

And here he was, alone in urine central, with a blueprint of the house, a ground penetrating radar to locate cavities in the walls and floors, and, most reliable, Hector the sledge hammer. Furniture first, he thought, and took out his assortment of surgical steel probes. These looked like extra-long hat pins, but with wood handles to enable more forceful insertion.

Septimius had told him he hadn’t conducted a search of his own, but Robbie noticed several small puncture marks on the chairs’ upholstery. Lie one, he thought, and guessed there would be several more before the session was over. It took Robbie only two hours to impale every chair, sofa and bed. No box.

He put the probes away and set up the portable radar. The high-voltage batteries were in a backpack that Robbie strapped on. He started as usual in the kitchen, where self-help hiders often thought others wouldn’t look for a hiding place. But walls, floor and ceiling yielded nothing of interest beyond a dead space cubby sealed off in a remodeling. Hector the sledge hammer made short work of the drywall but Robbie only discovered a bulge-lidded mason jar of fruit preserve that screamed botulism at him.

He was able to check out all the drawers in the house before it got to be 8pm, time to quit for the day. Once back in his two-star motel he flushed off the dust and sweat, ate a sandwichand called Janet.

“Hi. Nothing so far, but there usually isn’t this early.”

“Be careful when you tune into that out-of-body stuff of yours.”

They exchanged bonded nothings for another few minutes and ended the call.

Early the next morning, Robbie returned to the house. The smell of cat urine was still overpowering. He stopped himself from waving at the cameras and started in the attic before the heat got suffocating. Access was a rickety pull-down ladder. The attic itself had a few haphazard boards laid across the joists for hopscotch navigation. The radar found nothing, which was pretty much all there was in the attic.

He clambered downstairs and was working on the second bedroom when he caught sight of movement in the corridor. He took off the battery pack, unzipped a pocket on it, and took a .38 special. The motion had been right to left, and Robbie slowly paced down the corridor toward the bedroom at the end.

The door was open and he went in, looking for something large. Nothing. As he turned to go back out, he caught sight of a dull-black cat lying on a dusty bed as if it owned it.

How the hell did you get in? he thought. The cat didn’t hiss, but also didn’t purr.

Robbie was not about to chase a possibly infected cat through the house, so just nodded at it. “Stay the hell out of my way,” he said, and left the room, shutting the door. That, he thought, explains the eau-de-piss.

Except for a short drive to get coffee, Robbie spent the morning radar-sounding. The back pack was heavy and impossible to adjust properly, so his back ached. He stopped to eat lunch, gingerly sitting down in an easy chair that puffed up swirls of dust.

The cat padded silently into the room, sat across from him and stared. Robbie repeated, “How the hell did you get out of the bedroom?”

But Robbie thought he knew. The house was full of warped and dry rotted baseboards and paneling that would let a cat squeeze through. It seemed utterly unafraid. Robbie broke off a chunk of liverwurst and tossed it to the cat, which distained it. Maybe, Robbie thought, it’s true what they say about preservatives and cured organ meats.

They proceeded to ignore each other.

Robbie braced himself for the next, necessary phase. The easy parts of a finding were mechanical and technical. Getting into himself deeply enough to activate his sense of presence was straining. As he began to do so, the cat got up, paced over to him and stared up into his eyes, as if trying to learn the process. Robbie ignored it and went deep down inside himself.

In here there was no precision; just pulsating coronas of impressions. He shifted his thoughts to the grounds surrounding the house. Something large and long dead was buried next to the swamp oak in the rear garden, but Robbie passed on, bones of man or maybe horse for someone else to discover.

As he searched underground for a wood box, mice and chipmunks flickered in and out of focus, and grubs and worms showed up like pepper on scrambled eggs. But other than buried junk, he found nothing.

After two hours, he resurfaced, sweating so badly that his toes felt squishy. The cat was gone but its fetor abided.

He had sensed nothing else in the grounds outside the house, and had run out of energy to search further today. Robbie stood up. The cat rejoined him as he walked toward the front door.

“Buddy,” he said aloud, “no offense, but you stink and are undoubtedly infested with fleas and ticks. No way you’re coming with me. Should give you a name though.”

They studied each other. An obscurity oozed up. “Mastema. I’ll call you Mastema.” The cat stared at him for another second, then turned and padded back into the house.

Robbie drove off. He avoided most of the greasy food on the diner menu, got back into his motel room and called Janet. After some long-married shorthand he said. “Sweetie…”

“You only use endearments when you’re going to ask me to do something crappy. What is it?”

“The house is around a hundred forty years old. Could you use your internet magic and find out who built it and who’s owned it since it was built? Oh, and what was on the land before the house was built?”

“Next you’ll want me to sacrifice my virginity,” she sighed. “Okay, I was going to misspend some free time, but I’ll do it. Providing once you’re back you do the cooking and laundry for two weeks.”

“That’s harsh, but okay.”

*****

After his usual pre-sleep shower, Robbie pulled out the architects plans and yet again scrutinized them. There was something peculiar about the layout of the ground floor rooms. His aching muscles held him awake long enough to realize what it was. The center, the core of the house, had three little rooms that looked like they belonged in a much smaller cabin or farmhouse. They had carefully kept the configuration of an earlier structure. But why?

He was back at the house shortly after 7am and went immediately to the three rooms. The radar revealed that the interior walls were both thick and dense, probably stone on stone under the plaster and lath, so thick that something small could be concealed in them without being detected by radar.

He realized that breaking into those walls would take much more time and effort than he and Hector could devote to it. Shit, he thought as he walked over to yesterday’s chair, and sat down. He segued inside himself and moved back to the three rooms. There was a tactile unpleasantness on the stones inside the finished walls, a sense of aged, repugnant history, but nothing within them that could have been a mahogany box.

After he came back out of himself, he called Janet. “Me. Find out anything?”

“I did. The place has considerable history, all bad.”

As Janet was speaking, the black cat came back into the room and settled in front of Robbie’s feet as he sat on an old, plush chair. Robbie had the uneasy feeling that Mastema could hear both sides of his conversation.

“Robbie?”

“Still here.”

“Anyway, there were only four owners of the house since it was built, two couples and two single men. All but one lived to advanced old age and died unspectacularly. What’s interesting isn’t what happened in the house, but near it. Way more divorces, thefts, arsons than usual for a quiet town, even several murders. It’s like the house is the vortex of really bad stuff happening around it. What kind of vibe are you getting?”

“Just got a hint of that this morning, but if it’s here it’s well concealed.”

“And you were right; there was a little croft on the site before the house was built, with a stone and mortar cottage. Somebody, rumor said the neighbors, burned the place, leaving just stone walls. They also reportedly burned the owner who lived that at that time. This happened back in 1938. The house was rebuilt afterwards, but that stone foundation you found is the original.”

“That’s extreme. I hope someone got arrested. Good on you for finding that out so quickly.”

Janet’s tone got serious. “Walk away, Robbie. Just tell Septimius that you couldn’t find it. You could even tell him what I’ve found out, but I’ll bet he already knows.”

“A deal’s a deal, hon, I gave my word to make a sincere effort.” He segued before she could further protest, “But I’ll chew on what you said.”

An hour after they hung up, Septimius called. “What’s the progress?”

“None, I’m afraid. There’s a dead something or other in the back garden I’m not going to dig up, and it looks like the house was built around the bones of an older cottage, but no indication at all of a mahogany box. It would help me to locate it if I knew what was in that box.”

“I can’t tell you that.” Septimius’ tone was brusque, as if he either didn’t know himself what the contents were, or was deathly afraid of the knowledge getting out.

“Then I’ll give it three more days of all out searching, but I have to advise you that it’s not looking promising.”

“That could be most unfortunate for you, Robbie. Most unfortunate.”

Robbie shifted in his seat. “That sounds remarkably like a threat.”

“I just want that box,” Septimius said and hung up.

Robbie paused. Septimius had just threatened him, a sign of his desperation or malevolence. Either way, he didn’t like it. He sat and thought about it for a few minutes, then decided he had come this far and frankly, he and Janet needed the money.

Get back on problem, he thought. Too close a focus maybe.

He stood up and walked around the room for a moment to unwind. Then he went back to the dust chair and sat. Once back inside himself, he projected himself a hundred feet above the house and instead of trying for close in on images, he tried for vague overall impressions; for tinged hints. There—maybe—just maybe…

He roused, went back into the three original rooms and stared at the stone fireplace. “I wonder,” he said aloud. He knelt, grabbed a bent, brass gone-green poker, and stirred the ashes. Under the ashes was a cast iron plate that once removed would let the ashes be swept down a chute to some kind of storage kiln. “I wonder.”

He retrieved a flashlight, went back to the kitchen, opened a solid oak door, and went down the cellar stairs. The only lighting was a low-watt naked bulb that did a better job defining deep shadows than it did illuminating the space. Robbie had expected to see piled up, moldy bric-a-brac, but it was empty, as if waiting for its next event.

Mastema was also waiting for him.

“How the hell did you get in the cellar? Solid oak door and stone walls…what rat hole did you find?”

Robbie pointed the flashlight at the footing for the fireplace, massive rocks mortared together. Mastema made his first sound, a harsh chirring.

“Am I getting too close for comfort?”

Robbie found the hatch door for the ash scuttle and, using a large screwdriver, pried it open. The dusting of ashes on the stone floor swirled as he looked at it. “Nothing to see here.”

He turned around and swung the flashlight around the cellar. No other doors or lids; not even any spider webs, as if they’d been warned off.

There was nothing to sit on, so he knelt down on the concrete. He didn’t want to but knew he had to, and went under.

*****

In a tainted color way, the cellar was brighter now than it had been with a bulb and flashlight.

Mastema gave off an infernal glow. Suspicions confirmed, Robbie thought. No real cat acts like this one does. Maybe ghostly but probably demonic.

He focused his internal laser beam on the foundation of the fireplace, moving down forty feet, almost to bedrock when he sensed it. It felt both animate and inanimate, and immensely powerful. He sensed an almost human-like anthropomorphic character. It was…indifferent, abiding, ruthless…waiting. It both sensed and dismissed him.

Robbie, as fearful as he was, was encouraged by the indifference. He felt like a bird picking bugs off a rhinoceros, too inconsequential to be menaced by it. He had a hazy image of the box containing it, but the box was merely a buried manger for something transcendent.

Mastema scratched him, and Robbie was pulled roughly back out of himself. The cat stared at him as he refocused. Thoughts swirled in dust devils. Who had buried the box under tons of rock and house? How could they ever get at it without major excavation? What was the purpose of all that foreboding power that he sensed in the thing?

He needed to sit. Mastema cat-footed up the cellar stairs alongside a shambling Robbie, who flopped down in the living room chair. He realized he had to report that he found something, but had no way of getting at it. He also realized that since the box was inaccessible, Septimius was going to be dangerously displeased.

Suddenly the unlocked front door popped open and Septimius walked in.

“Hello, Robbie. Sorry to interrupt you but I watched you in the cellar. What have you got?”  His tone was brusque, his expression both worried and foreboding. Robbie felt something else emanating off of his employer; was it fear?

Robbie cleared his throat, trying to find the words that would keep him alive and solvent. As he opened his mouth with no idea what he was going to say, Mastema padded into the room.

 Septimius put his hands in front of his face. He seemed afraid of the cat. Words jumbled out of him. “I didn’t mean…Please, lord, do not…”

The motionless cat seemed to silence him with its stare, then held his eyes. For a few seconds, the only sound was ragged breathing. Robbie stayed still in the living room chair; not sure of what he was witnessing.

Then the man’s mouth opened round like an Edvard Munch Silent Scream. His body began to sag and shrivel, acrid smoke wafting out from under his collar and pant-legs. The body crumpled into itself like fireplace embers, the clothing the last to char and burn.

Robbie stood in shock, his mouth as gaping as Septimius’ had been. He turned to run. He had to escape!

Robbie ran to the front door, which refused to unlock. He spun to run toward a window, but his muscles cramped as if his blood had coagulated. He tottered in slow motion until, spent, he sank to the floor next to the front door. He breathed deeply, trying to calm himself. What now?

The shuttered windows offered no outlet, and the back door was already locked. muscles screaming, he staggered up and lurched toward the back door, hoping to break it down.

And then suddenly the cat was right in front of him on the floor. Mastema stared into Robbie’s being, and pulled Robbie unwillingly back outside of himself then conducted him, like a matron with an unruly child, down to bedrock, down into the mahogany box. The radiant heat was intense, painful. The light was—other—somewhere on the spectrum that Robbie normally couldn’t see.

The thing was equally wordless, probing Robbie harshly but impersonally, as if buying a cart horse. It rummaged through his capabilities like a petulant child with a toy box- loves, hates, capabilities, ethics. Robbie saw his being laid out like cuts of meat at a butcher shop.

He stopped struggling and noticed that the thing—the being—was of no sex and yet all sex; a multifaceted hermaphrodite. It took no notice of limited human intelligence, its awareness so all pervasive that questioning was unnecessary.

It began to display visions to him, long potential life segments where Robbie would do wondrous, terrible things, responsible for wrenching changes and deaths, and ecstatic frenzies, and gratifications of senses he was as of yet unaware. The thing was communicating that all of this Robbie could have—could be, could do—if he chose to be of service to the thing laired below the house.

Mastema, bone-crackingly protective of this nameless being, could not act as Robbie could, as the interface of a being that would eventually rise and shatter existence. And Robbie knew, expecting death, that he had to decline the offer. He was capable but not suitable, not willing to do the horrendous things required.

The being knew his decision as soon as Robbie thought it, but for some reason, it didn’t kill him. Not, Robbie realized, from any sense of morality or fairness, but from some unknowable cosmic sense of equity. Instead, it compensated him.

*****

Robbie resurfaced two hours later, back on the floor in next of the front door of the house; surprised to still be alive. Mastema was absent.

His saw that his clothes were soiled and the skin underneath was so sunburned hat he teared up, moaning. He unsteadily rose to his feet. He tested the front door and this time it opened easily. He went out to his car, and called Janet. “It’s done, hon.”

She heard the quavers in his voice. “Are you all right?”

“It hurts like hell but once the old skin sloughs off, I should be okay.”

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

“We have no words, and I am bound to never try and explain it. But I know where to find enough gold to buy a couple expensive cars. And you needn’t worry about Septimius.”

“You sound shaky. Can you drive?”

“I think so.”

“Come home; drive slowly. I’ll cook dinner.”