John Manning - The Killing Room

Sitting at his desk, looking past the blueprints and gazing out his twentieth-story window onto the city below him, Dean thought of his sister. What if it was Paula who was chosen? How could he let her walk in there by herself? He adored his older sister. He had ever since he was a little boy, and asthma had prevented him from playing ball or running too fast. Paula had always been there to protect him when the other boys picked on him. Once, when it looked like they’d miss the bus to school, Paula had swept up the six-year-old Dean in her arms and carried him as she ran, knowing full well he’d never have been able to make the exertion himself. In Dean’s mind, that symbolized their relationship. Paula had literally carried him through some of life’s roughest moments.

And, he hoped, he’d done the same for her now. He felt terribly bad that the family curse had ended Paula’s relationship with Karen. How many lives would it destroy?

He’d spoken with Uncle Howard yesterday. The old man had sounded optimistic that this new investigator might come up with something. Dean wasn’t so sure. The investigator, a Carolyn Cartwright, had only been located in the last couple of weeks, at the eleventh and a half hour. “What can she do between now and the lottery?” Dean had asked. “Other people you’ve hired have had years, and they never found an answer.”

But Uncle Howard had retained his optimism. It may have been largely an act, Dean surmised. He has to try to give us some hope, he thought. But Uncle Howard did keep returning to the fact that Carolyn was a woman. “That will help,” he insisted. “I believe that will help.”

How Ms. Cartwright’s gender could benefit them remained unclear to Dean. But he was encouraged at least that she had good credentials. And that someone-anyone-was trying to find a remedy for them as the date of the lottery drew nearer and nearer.

“Mr. Young?”

His secretary’s voice started him as it came through the intercom.

“Yes, Sondra?”

“The image that you asked to be digitized is ready. Should I have them e-mail it directly to you, or should I have it printed out?”

“E-mail it to me, please,” he said. “I’ll print it.”

His mind snapped back into sharp focus. But the image had nothing to do with the plans on his desk. It had everything to do with the thoughts that were consuming his mind this morning.

He heard the little ping on his computer that announced the delivery of a new e-mail. He instantly clicked on it, opening the e-mail and downloading the attached file. As he’d requested, it was a big file. The image had been scanned at a high resolution by the firm’s production department. Dean was very curious if such enlargement might allow him to discern something he had long wondered about.

When he and Paula had been young, probably no older than eight and ten, they had broken a very strict rule of Uncle Howard’s. While visiting him one weekend, they had snuck down into the basement. That was the one part of the house that was forbidden to them, which of course only made them want to see it more. They were innocent back then, unaware of the dangers and the tragedies of that locked room. But they’d found a set of keys, and while Uncle Howard was in his study, they’d unlocked the door in the foyer that led to the basement and crept down the stairs. They discovered many rooms in the basement, only one of which was locked. All of the rest were open, packed high with crates and boxes. In and out of these rooms Dean and Paula had tiptoed. Nothing exciting to be found. But perhaps in the one room that was locked? The key ring in Dean’s hand jingled. They decided to see if they could find the key to the one room they’d been unable to explore. And, after four tries, they’d found the key that fit…

Dean opened the image on his computer.

That day in the basement, they’d recorded their undercover work with a Polaroid camera, a gift Dean had recently gotten from Mom and Dad for his birthday. They’d snapped pictures of the basement staircase and of the various storerooms. They wanted proof that they’d actually made it into forbidden territory. As each photograph slid out of the camera, Dean would hand it to Paula, who would hold it as it dried and the images took shape. But as the door to the locked room creaked open before them, they heard footsteps from above. Uncle Howard was emerging from his study. They would have to forget about exploring the room and hurry back upstairs-but still Dean had time to snap a fast picture of the inside of the room before locking the door again.

That image revealed itself on his computer screen now.

It looked just as it had that day when they’d taken the Polaroid back to Dean’s room to look at it. A sofa, a table, and lots of cobwebs. But there had been something else, too. An image in the upper right corner. As kids, they’d enjoyed scaring themselves into believing it was a face. After they learned about the secret of the room, Dean had told investigators about what they had done and what they thought they had photographed-but by then, the relics of their childhood had been lost. Who kept old toys and forty-five records and comic books and Polaroids? The picture was gone, lost. Without it, none of those who tried to end the curse could ever say definitively what the image was. But a couple of weeks ago, going through a box of old school papers, Dean had found the Polaroid. He didn’t tell Paula. He didn’t tell anyone. He just brought it to his production department and asked them to scan it for him.

He hit the button on his screen to enlarge the image. And then he enlarged it again.

Dean sat back in his chair, his heart thudding in his chest.

All those years ago, he and Paula had been right.

Their childish imaginings had been absolutely on target.

The image in the corner of the photo was indeed a face.

The face of a crying baby.

Douglas watched with mounting annoyance as his cousins fluttered around Uncle Howie. Chelsea was adjusting the pillow behind his back as he sat reading in his chair. Ryan kept asking if him if he’d like a brandy, or maybe to share a cigar. They were wide-eyed and attentive to all his stories, asking him to repeat old tales about the family that they’d all heard dozens of times before, acting as if the stories were fresh and new, laughing and telling Uncle Howie how funny and how brilliant he was. It was making Douglas sick.

He knew why they were behaving that way. The old man’s will. They had rushed up here when they heard Douglas had arrived. They were afraid that Uncle Howie was going to leave everything to Douglas. They didn’t want to get cut out. So they were doing what they always did whenever they visited. They were kissing major ass.

Stretched out on the couch, Douglas just shook his head and went back to reading the notes Carolyn had left for him. He would have thought that finding out about the room-about the lottery, about the ten-year cycle of deaths-would have shaken some sense into Ryan and Chelsea, convinced them that some things were more important than money. Hell, who was to say that either of them would even be around to inherit anything Uncle Howie left them? What if one of them was chosen to spend the night in that room? So much for the old man’s will then.

But, no. Ryan and Chelsea went on as if unfazed. Oh, sure, that day when Uncle Howie told them the whole story, they had been terrified. Both had seen things that convinced them what their uncle was saying was true. Ryan babbled on about how the man with the pitchfork had tried to kill him. Both of them were shaking like the last leaves on a maple tree on a windy October day. But then they’d run outside to call Daddy on their cell phones. An hour later they’d come back inside with a sense of calm. “We trust you, Carolyn,” Ryan grandly announced, kissing the lady’s hand. “We trust you will deliver our family from this terrible curse.”