Ike Hamill - The Vivisectionist

After Ben and Stephen had gone to the guest room, Jack powered on his computer and inserted the memory card. He made sure his machine was not set to automatically execute anything it would find on the card and then began to explore its contents. It appeared to be empty.

Jack poked around on the device, but couldn’t find any files. Unconvinced, he used some of his recovery tools to see if there were any hidden or deleted files on the card. He was startled by a light tapping on his door. Stephen let himself in.

“Hey,” whispered Stephen.

“Ben’s asleep?” asked Jack.

“Yeah — find anything?”

“I think so,” said Jack, “check it out. There’s a couple of spots with data.”

“What kind of files?” asked Stephen.

“Not files,” answered Jack. “Just data.”

“What do you mean?” Stephen asked.

Jack was accustomed to having to explain computer stuff to his friends and parents. He had an innate understanding of how things worked — it was like a puzzle to him. When he saw something interesting, his brain would keep working at it until he figured out how he would accomplish that same behavior. When he had devised a methodology, he discovered that he could predict behavior and verify his assumptions.

“Think of it like a bookshelf. All the books are really there, but someone has removed all the covers from the books,” explained Jack. “So, if we pull down pages, we can look at what they contained, but they’re not exactly books anymore. And, some might have been partially replaced by other books, so what we find might not make sense anymore.”

“So can you see anything that does make sense there?” asked Stephen.

“Let me look,” said Jack.

After a few minutes, Jack had found something he could recover. “This one looks intact, and I think it’s a PDF file.” Jack extracted the file to his computer and opened the file. His PDF reader launched and they saw a window filled with white pages and black lines.

“Looks like building plans,” said Jack.

“Hey,” said Stephen, “scroll down.” Stephen pointed to the label on the bottom of the page. It read “Level Zero.”

“So, if this is the hotel, then this must be the drawing room,” said Jack. He pointed to a small rectangle on the left side of the drawing. The line describing the right-hand wall had a small star affixed to it. “See, if this is the drawing, then the star shows where the card was.”

“Yeah, that seem about right,” said Stephen. “What’s the next page? Is it level one?”

Jack advanced to the next page of the document, but he and Stephen saw nothing but white. “There’s nothing there,” said Jack.

“Good job, captain obvious,” said Stephen.

“Hold on,” said Jack. He highlighted the page and the background of the area turned a light-blue color. Superimposed on the highlight, white lines showed them the next floor of the building and the words “Level One” at the bottom.

“Ah,” said Stephen, “white lines — tricky.”

“There’s the bishop’s room,” said Jack. “And the tripwire hallway.”

“Holy shit,” said Stephen. “Look at that.” He pointed on the diagram to where the hallway took the short right-hand jog. “That’s where the level two ladder is.”

Above Stephen’s finger the drawing was adorned with a skull and crossbones.

“That can’t be good,” said Jack.

They studied the drawing. The only rooms shown on the floor plan were the ones they had seen. It depicted the bishop’s room, the tripwire hall, the ladder, and the white room, but the rest of the floor was blank.

“Looks like a closet or something in the corner of the white room,” said Jack. He pointed to the lower left-hand corner of the depiction of the well-lit room. “Do you remember seeing anything there?”

“Naw, but I was trying to not get my hand chopped off by that switch thing,” replied Stephen. “I probably wouldn’t have noticed. What’s on the next page?”

“That’s it,” said Jack. “Just the two pages.”

“Any more data on that thing?” Stephen asked.

“Not that I can recover. I don’t think,” said Jack.

The boys set off the next morning into the cool woods. Their backpacks felt heavier with the extra supplies — more clothes, a broken broom handle, chalk, duck tape, a box-cutter, fishing line, and a small mirror. Single-minded, they hiked through the woods silently and quickly. All three stopped and looked up at the sound of distant voices. Jack pivoted and looked back at Ben and Stephen. The voices sounded like they were moving their direction.

Stephen pointed to their right and the boys scurried off the path into a dense cluster of pines. A little rock wall offered them shelter — they crouched behind and watched the path. The people approaching were loud, but the boys couldn’t make out what they were saying.

Finally, the owners of the voices came into view — Smoker and Bag Man. Hunched and tense, the boys watched the two young men pass down the path.

“Did you hear what they were saying?” asked Jack.

Ben replied — “All I could get was ‘They have to live down here. It’s the only neighborhood.’ or something.”

“Do you think they were talking about us?” asked Jack. “Didn’t the sheriff say those guys thought we ratted them out?”

“Yup,” said Ben.

“They could have been talking about anything,” said Stephen.

“Well, still best to keep out of sight,” said Jack.

“No shit,” said Stephen.

“I guess we can find our way through the woods,” said Jack. “It’s not that far from here.”

Jack took the lead and made his way carefully through the crowded pine branches. When they found their way into taller hardwoods, the going was easier, but they had to pick their way through several marshy areas by jumping from frost heave to frost heave.

“This sucks,” said Ben. “Can’t we go back out to the path.”

“I think we’re almost there,” said Jack.

Minutes later, Jack’s prediction came true. A bright spot up ahead marked where the woods gave way to clearing. Pushing through the last of the underbrush, they saw the hotel from a new angle.

“We have to go back to walking up the gully again,” said Jack. He pointed at a worn down path in the grass. They had resorted to this shortcut when they started carrying the stepladder.

“How many times have we been here?” asked Ben. “When did we find this place — last week?”

“Um, today’s Monday and we first found the hotel last Monday,” said Jack. “So about a week. But we haven’t been here every day.”

“And we didn’t get inside until like Thursday or something,” said Stephen.

“So do you think that stomped-down path is just from us over the past week?” asked Ben.

“Sure,” said Jack, “I think so.”

“Yeah, why not?” asked Stephen.

“I don’t know,” said Ben. “Seems like we wouldn’t have made that whole path in just a week. Besides, we went up the gully the first couple of times.”

“Let’s put up something on the path to see if someone goes through there,” Jack offered.

“What, like a camera?” asked Ben.

“I was thinking just a piece of fishing line across the path or something,” replied Jack.

“Oh — yeah, that’s easy,” said Ben.

They circled the clearing and retrieved the ladders from the hiding place. Stephen and Ben carried them up the gully while Jack went up their old path to set the fishing line. He pushed two small sticks into the ground on either side of the trail and then strung the line. He made sure that it was easily dislodged and hoped it wouldn’t be noticeable. When he arrived at the hotel, Stephen and Ben had already climbed onto the porch roof. Jack joined them and they hauled the step ladder up to reach the hatch.