Short Story #4 - Smoke Screens

10 Short Stories Challenge from a friend: She picks the topic/genre, I write it in one day.

--- Secret rooms, passageways, compartments, and/or labyrinths ---

Jacoby had a map. Fat lot of good it was. Three other teams had used the same map and they’d all failed. What he was seeking was hidden in a secret place. It wasn’t on the map. That was the whole point. Still, it had it’s uses. Jacoby would need to delve deep into Logan’s fortress and the map should help somewhat.

Three teams. Groups of experts with supposedly sufficient training to accomplish this mission. Guess not. But Jacoby preferred to work alone and his success rate was beyond phenomenal. That’s why he was so expensive. This job would make him another fortune. If he could find the origin.

He’d been traveling for hours through this maze of dead end corridors and phantom shadows. That huge spider had been following him since early on. The further he went the bigger it got. It was easily as big as a horse by now yet was capable of squeezing itself into the tightest of spaces. It seemed there was nowhere Jacoby could hide from it. Had the spider been the demise of the others? What Jacoby would have given for their notes. He sniffed. The scent was still there. He must be on the right track.

A door up ahead. He consulted the map using a flashlight. The corridors were dark. That was normal. There was nothing in them. Why bother with illumination. That was Jacoby’s business: Illumination. And murder.

Areas of note were clearly marked. What lay behind this door wasn’t one of them. But deduction had led him here and he trusted his gut completely. The spider’s mandibles clacked noisily as Jacoby opened the door. A school room. Normal. Empty. Significant for reasons of it’s own. Jacoby stood in the doorway and peered around with the flashlight. The spider was already inside. A sound from behind a closet door beside the chalk board. It wasn’t on the map. Something Jacoby wasn’t supposed to see?

The closet was tiny, smelled of musk and sweat and something else. Something familiar and yet thoroughly foreign to Jacoby. This wasn’t the odor he’d been trailing and it was so overpowering he couldn’t tell if he’d lost the original. The boy startled the hell out of him. He whispered hotly into Jacoby’s ear.

“Hurry, we only have five minutes.”

Hands on his shoulders pushing Jacoby to his knees. It wasn’t the first time he’d stumbled onto these happenings. What’s the relevance? Why was Jacoby here? He glanced about at knee level, blatantly avoiding what was right in front of him. The scent was thicker, heavier, more familiar. It had never been so close in his life.

Aha! A window off to his right. It looked like a small TV screen. He crawled toward it, leaving the boy moaning, behind. He scrambled through it even though it was nowhere near large enough to accommodate his body and had no business being in the closet to begin with, and found himself on a huge white surface that gave as he stepped upon it like a carpet of snow. There were enormous flower buds, each a different vibrant color at specific intervals all around him.

Interesting secret passageway. The connection was probably evident. Jacoby checked the map. This place was surely on it. In fact it was a huge intersection with precisely forty-seven paths. Which one should he choose. It must have something to do with the broom closet, but what? Should he go back there? Maybe speak to the boy?

The spider was gone. It wasn’t allowed in this place.

Jacoby noticed that he had sunk up to his ankles in white. He pulled his feet out with wet thwacking sounds and scooped some of the whiteness from his pant leg. Mmmm. Butter cream. He slung his pack around so it rested on his chest and rummaged inside. If he knew Logan right, and he’d spent enough time in research that he should, then this place wasn’t safe for very long. His hands found the journal and he snapped it open to the last page with writing on it. He’d followed the information and it had led him here.

It should be long ago. The boy in the closet was a teenager. Too old. What else was going on there beside the obvious. Why the thoughts of birthday cakes? Jacoby flipped pages of the journal, referencing, cross-referencing. Ideas formed in his mind. A picture. A memory. A place he would need to get to. And quickly.

Jacoby noticed the peaks rising all around him before he felt the wind begin to whip. A foul stench accosted his nostrils causing involuntary flaring. Everything around him was rapidly turning a moldy greenish grey. Jacoby pushed the pack back between his shoulder blades and ran. The mushy ground made for difficult terrain and when Jacoby fell his vision went instantly sticky white. He hurriedly wiped his stinging eyes clean and continued his mad dash.

He stopped for a moment to get his bearings and consult the map. There! He located what he hoped to be the proper path. Number three. That’s when the ghosts appeared. Horrid elderly decrepit beings that swooped down spitting a rain of loose bloody teeth at him. The phantasms were scabby and sickly, some grotesquely fat and others so emaciated they may as well have been skeletons. They chased Jacoby with infernal glee emitting one burning mental missive through their hive mind: “YOU’LL BE JUST LIKE US SOON ENOUGH!”

And then he was diving though the doorway and falling, falling, falling into the pool. Damn! He swam quickly to the edge and climbed onto the chattahoochee deck. Thankfully the map was laminated, but the journal had taken some damage. Well, at least he’d be able to wash off some of the frosting.

The patio was awash with toddlers running in all directions. A few weary adults stood guard in strategic positions. Jacoby slipped sideways into a pitch black corridor. The glow of the flashlight lit his steps. It was around here somewhere.

The spider was back. It was even bigger then before. Christ, when did that bite happen? At birth? Jacoby could have looked it up in the journal, but it wasn’t important for this issue. He glanced around. There was nothing in here. He was well off the beaten path now. He checked his watch. One o’clock. He didn’t have much time left. However, if his hunch was right he was close to the origin. A secret passage had to be nearby.

He pressed his face against the wall, feeling it give like a plastic garbage bag. Then he started walking. He watched scenes run in loops. Different ones with each step. This was a little bit of an unorthodox method, but time was running short. There was no guarantee he’d be allowed a second chance if he didn’t complete his mission AND he’d be out a hell of a lot of money.

The spiders jaw clicked and clacked even louder. It was getting closer. Had he gone too far. No, it was around here somewhere. Jacoby could feel it. He could smell it too; the faint acrid scent of smoke. He shined the electric torch slowly along the corridor. There it was; tendrils of smoke. In these parts it stuck out like a sore thumb. Jacoby blew hard into the mist, disturbing the air and causing the fumes to dissipate. He watched closely as they reformed to determine which direction they were coming from and thus which way he would go next.

Jacoby moved swiftly now, confidently, his eyes peeled. He was half bloodhound, half Apache tracker; all business. He stepped through walls, across rooms, spanning unearthly distances and labyrinths of time until he found himself at a door. A secret door. THE secret door, or so Jacoby hoped. It was unremarkable, with maroon paint and multiple rectangles carved in it. Jacoby turned the handle and peered inside.

Jackpot! Smoke. And lot’s of it.

Was it his imagination or did the spider shrink away when he crossed the threshold? Jacoby crept silently through the house. It was well lived in; homey. The color schemes were soft, earthy. Somewhere a television blared. Cartoons. He followed the sound to a living room where a little boy of three lay on his elbows a mere couple of feet from the set. Any self respecting parent would have told him to move further away for the sake of his eyes, but there was no parent in the room. There was only a specter. It was round and bald and red faced. It would have looked somewhat like Buddha if not for the trousers and short sleeve button down shirt that was opened on either side of it’s fat stomach revealing a stained undershirt. The figure was crystalline and cotton candy. It seemed it might break in pieces at the slightest touch and yet was probably the most solid thing in the room, Jacoby included.

Was this it? There was no way to be one hundred percent certain. If he committed a murder here things couldn’t be changed back the way they were. Ever. Not only will he have not completed the mission but he might cause irreparable damage in other areas.

But, hey, that’s why he got paid the big bucks; to make just such decisions for his clients.

This had to be it, thought Jacoby. This was illumination. This was where murder must be committed. This was the origin that was hidden.

He glanced at the child. Was it the boy from the schoolhouse broom closet? Possibly. Probably. It didn’t matter at this point. The kid was laughing under his breath at the show he was watching attempting not to wake his chaperone who was out cold, snoring softly, a lit cigar between his middle finger and pointer held directly over an ashtray, wrist resting on an end table beside it.

Jacoby sat down beside the boy. He calmed his breathing, controlled his heartbeat, altered his mind as his years of training had taught him. He was no longer just Jacoby. He had fully integrated with his client. Momentarily, as if in a trance they shifted to mimic the posture of their childhood friend Skipper. His name was Joseph, but no one ever called him that. They were thoroughly enrapt by the cartoon on the screen. It was the Flintstones and it was not a rerun. An overwhelming sense of happiness swept over them. Safety. Security. All that was good in the universe and then some according to a three year old kid. And Skippers grandpa was way swell as lollipops. In fact, he’d promised a lollipop if we were good and didn’t tell our parents about his secret. What was the big deal anyways? It smelled so great. Jacoby took dominance though they were still together. He inhaled deeply of the aroma of the burning cigar. Heavenly. A memory trapped so far back and hidden beneath a lifetime of others it simply couldn’t be recalled. Yet it was the origin… And Jacoby must kill it. Their hands stole up to their throat. He cleared their mind completely except for the pleasant scent of the smoke, this he let fill every iota of their being. They could taste it, feel it sink down into their lungs and waft out of their pours. There was nothing so wonderful as cigar smoke and it consumed every bit of them.

Jacoby squeezed his hands with all his strength. Their eyes popped open. Choking! Help! Terror! Help!

Skipper’s grandpa slept on. He wasn’t supposed to be smoking around little Joseph and his friends. He wasn’t supposed to be smoking at all since he was dying of emphysema. He would be dead in less then a month, but the client wouldn’t know about it all for many years.

The fear increased until the memory was murdered. No longer would the sweet pungent aroma of smoke be pleasant… Unless there was a memory from before this one that was the true origin.

Jacoby stopped squeezing. He discontinued integration and without consulting the map, exited the premises.

He snapped his fingers and Samantha Logan awoke. She inhaled sharply and sat up on the leather sofa.

“How do you feel?”, asked Jacoby.

Samantha closed her eyes a moment. When they opened, they were full of wonder. “I don’t know. But I’ll tell you how I don’t feel, Doctor. For the first time in 33 years I don’t feel like a cigarette!”

“I want you to use the nicotine patch for a bit, but I think you’ll find that the cravings will be pretty much gone from now on”, said Jacoby.

She shook her head and stood up, grabbing her pocketbook off the floor. “If that’s true, you’re amazing. And worth every penny!”


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