William Krueger - The Devil's bed

“What the hell, boy?” He glared at Nocturne and the console.

Nocturne expected his grandfather to hit him. Instead, the old man seemed to notice for the first time all the accomplishments hidden in the dark of Nocturne’s world, all the electrical appliances pulled from the boxes and restored to life. He said nothing, no word of praise or encouragement for a boy who, from books and his own imagination, had unraveled the mystery of the old machines and much more. He simply grunted, turned, and returned to the world above. The next day, Nocturne received another visit. This time his grandfather brought with him a book. In the light of the basement’s twenty-five-watt bulb, the old man opened the book to a page and stabbed a yellow fingernail at a picture. “Can you build this?” he asked.

Nocturne looked at the picture. It was a diagram, a blueprint labeled with words such asdetonator, fuse, andtimer. He recognized it immediately for what it was, a fairly simple device. He gave his grandfather a nod. The old man turned away without another word and left.

That night, the basement door opened and the old man called him up. He handed Nocturne a jacket, and he started outside. Nocturne’s mother cowered in a chair in the kitchen, looking at her son as if she were terribly afraid for him, but she said nothing to stop the old man. Nocturne followed his grandfather across the yard to the barn. They went inside to a room that held a workbench and tools and the book lying open on a stool. The old man pulled a cord and the light came on-a hundred-watt bulb that made Nocturne blink.

“You got everything you need here,” his grandfather said. “Let me know when you’re done.” The old man left him.

Nocturne constructed the device in little more than an hour. He left it in the room and stepped into the barn. He’d been there many times since he’d conquered the laundry chute. To a boy whose only physical recreation had been pipes in a basement, the barn was a great playground. Although it was a dilapidated structure with gaps between the wallboards and in the ceiling, it had beams and rafters and posts and great height, and Nocturne often spent hours climbing and swinging there throughout the night. He knew he was supposed to tell his grandfather he was done with the bomb, but the temptation of the barn was tremendous, and Nocturne gave in, telling himself he would climb once to the roof, then go see his grandfather.

He was on a beam twenty-five feet above the floor when the old man walked in. Nocturne froze. He watched his grandfather cross to the room, open the door, and step inside. The old man came out holding the bomb.

“Boy!” he hollered.

Nocturne didn’t want to answer, but he knew the old man would find him eventually. “Here,” he said in a small voice.

The old man’s eyes rose upward and grew large when he saw the precarious perch his grandson straddled.

“How’d you get up there?”

“Climbed.”

“Then climb back down. Now.”

Nocturne quickly obeyed. He stood before the old man with his eyes downcast. His grandfather said, “Look at me.”

Nocturne did. With his opened hand, the old man struck him hard across the face.

“You do what I tell you, understand? No more, no less.” The old man’s voice was cold, but didn’t sound angry.

Nocturne fought tears, and he nodded.

The old man held the bomb. “Will it work?”

Nocturne hadn’t considered the question before. He saw clearly his grandfather expected an answer, and he quickly assessed the device he’d constructed. “Yes,” he said. Then he added in almost a whisper, “But I would have built it different.”

The old man looked up at the rafter, then down at Nocturne. “Get plenty of sleep, boy, you hear? We got work tomorrow night.” He shoved his grandson ahead of him toward the house.

Nocturne was waiting when the old man came down the next night. His grandfather had a big rolled sheet of paper. He turned on the light and spread the paper on the basement floor. It was a crude drawing of a building.

The old man said, “This is a bad place, and you and me are going to do something about it. That thing you built yesterday, we’re going to put it right in here.” He pointed to a window on the third floor of the building. “You’re going to put it in front of a bunch of filing cabinets-metal cabinets with lots of drawers, understand?”

Nocturne nodded.

“Good. Let’s go.”

They got into the old man’s truck. Nocturne had never ridden in a vehicle before and the sensation was wonderful. It was fall and the night was cool. The old man had the windows wide open, and the air blew through with a force that thrilled the boy. The fields flew by. The yard lights that were all so distant from his grandfather’s isolated house rushed toward them, then past. His grandfather said nothing, didn’t even look in Nocturne’s direction, just kept his hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road lit in the headlights. The device was in a small backpack between them on the seat, but Nocturne hardly noticed. He was out in the world at last.

They came to a place with many houses set closely together. Every corner had a bright light like the yard light of a farm. His grandfather drove down an empty street between brick buildings with glass windows that had writing on them. Stores, Nocturne recognized. Shops and businesses. He realized they were in a real town. Although he’d wandered as far as he could in the nights when he escaped the basement, the farmhouse was so distant from everything that a tiny crossroads called Higgens consisting of a bar, a gas station, and half a dozen houses was the nearest he’d ever come to a community. He wanted to know what town this was but was afraid to ask. They drove past a building of gray stone blocks, standing by itself in the middle of a patch of lawn. Carved into the stone above the door were the words COUNTYCOURTHOUSE. His grandfather backed into an alley and parked facing the stone building.

“That’s it,” the old man said.

Nocturne looked at the building. It was three stories, taller even than his grandfather’s barn. The barn had wood supports to shinny up, but the stone building looked flat and solid. How did the old man expect him to climb to the third floor?

As if he’d read his grandson’s mind, he said, “There’s a drainpipe. See it?” He pointed to a black line that ran down the side of the building from the gutters along the roof. “That’s your way up.” He handed the backpack to Nocturne. “I put a steel pipe in there. Use it to break the window. Don’t worry about alarms. Only the first-floor doors and windows have ’em. I’ll wait here.”

There was no moon. Where the streetlamps threw light, Nocturne ran quickly from shadow to shadow-a trash can, a bench, a maple tree-until he reached the side of the building. The bottom of the drainpipe was lost among bushes, and Nocturne merged with the dark there. His heart pounded wildly. He was so scared he thought he might wet his pants. He reached for the drainpipe. The metal was cold, but it was ridged and easy to grasp. Nocturne looked up. The third floor seemed impossibly far away.

Climbing proved easier than he’d imagined. Hand over hand, he pulled himself up the pipe, using the indentations between the stone blocks for toeholds. Concentrating on his task, he forgot his fear, and when he reached the place where the drainpipe ran beside the third-floor windowsill, he looked around him. He was higher than anything else in the town except the water tower. He felt as if he could reach out and grab a handful of stars.

The headlights on the truck flashed once, reminding Nocturne of his task. Holding to the drainpipe with his right arm, he reached back with his other and drew out the length of one-inch black steel pipe to break the window. The pane shattered with a crash that seemed to break the night itself. Nocturne pressed against the cold stone and waited for something terrible to happen. Nothing did. Sharp, jagged shards were left framing the window. He used the pipe to tap them out, then he eased himself through. Inside, he found the bank of filing cabinets, and he put the device in front of them. He set the timer, then left the way he’d come.