It’s all gone wrong. All wrong, dear God. I say that now with new beliefs. Perhaps there is a God after all. No God that we know, no God to bless us from his cloud-cushioned throne in the sky, no, but something far more sinister, something far more present, and not in the omni sense. It lives in my house. It sleeps again, bloated and satisfied from a hearty feast. It belches still when you walk upon its surface, a small squeak like suppressed flatulence.
Susan and I escaped through the window of Aunt Laura’s house. We trekked by foot across the neighbourhood, past the town line, down the trash littered road known as CR-3, up the piney drive to the vacant husk of my parents’ house. It took us hours and Susan of course whined the whole way. I put up with it because I knew that her sulking was what the floorboard would desire.
There were two police cruisers in the driveway, twin suitors to my parents’ dusty Volkswagens, and this made me pull Susan into the trees beside the drive. She asked me why we were hiding, and I explained that there could be no one inside if we wanted the plan to work. After a few minutes I approached the house, leaving Susan in the trees as a spotter, and I placed my face against the kitchen window. It was silent, not a soul in sight, and from this vantage point I could see into the hallway beyond and to where the stairs landed. Empty.
I came back to Susan and led her to the front door, hoping that the cruisers were left there on purpose to prevent potential burglars from ransacking the empty mansion. There would no doubt be news of my parents’ vanishing act spread all across town with my father’s social status being what it is. There would be volunteers to comb the woods behind the house, and riverboats roaming the banks of the Hardwick River. People will be looking and burglars will be looting.
When we entered the house, I was surprised and thrilled to find it empty. Susan whined and I shushed her, for some reason afraid of breaking that perfect silence, as if doing so would wake some formidable beast from a deep slumber.
We removed our shoes at my request and silently crossed the hall on stockinged feet. It was when we reached the landing that I knew how far over our heads we were. The squeaky floorboard was back in its place, filling the hole in the floor behind the stairs like the final piece of a puzzle, yet this piece was forced, damaged, frayed, a blemish in the symmetry. One of the edges was brighter than the rest, a sliver of fresh skin where a wound was exposed. My own doing.
Five piles of clothing.
My mother’s pyjamas sat in a silky pile in the corner, my father’s work clothes rested in a ragged bunch where he disappeared two days ago, and flanking the floorboard in three separate piles were, to my immediate dismay, blue uniforms. Each uniform was weighed down by a belt loop containing all the typical gear of an officer; baton, pepper spray, cuffs, flashlight, pistol. . .
The two inquiring officers that spoke to me with Mr. Dunbar must have fallen victim to the God in the floor after we departed. How long after? It must have been awhile, because when a new patrol was sent to investigate, he too was swallowed. That was the third pile of blue, and Susan and I must have arrived minutes after the last officer had turned to a pile of rags, because I was still shooting when the third dispatch arrived, and this time they sent an army. Five squad cars swung into the driveway, their sirens inaudible from where I stood, because I was busy emptying the clip from the third and final Glock 45 into that terrible piece of wood. I knew then that it didn’t matter if I hurt my parents in there, or Susan in there, or the police officers, or the Lancasters and their daughter. No, it didn’t matter, because there was no hope for their emancipation. The thing was too ancient, too clever, it would never allow for science to discover its nature. If it ever did end up in a lab, it would simply hibernate until the oceans froze over, or more likely until nothing at all was discovered and it was tossed away like any other trash, only to wake in time to convince some poor bloke into taking it back home with him, to place it unneatly into his floor like the wrong piece in a jigsaw puzzle, to promise him a release from his pain.
I knew this when Susan whined, anxious about the clothes and the guns, and we heard that buzzing whisper, such a nasty sound, and she went towards it as if she found it warm and comforting, and I cried out for her to stay back, no longer wanting to go through with our plan, but she ignored my pleas, oh Susan, poor Susan, no genius she was, but such a sweet and innocent girl. I contemplated heavily, I had only a moment to decide, do I fumble for my phone and capture the inevitable on camera like I had planned, or do I lunge for my little cousin and pull her away from the rabbit hole?
Just know that I tried. Aunt Laura, if you’re reading this, I tried. I’m so sorry for taking her with me as bait. I was certain that she would be okay, that science would rescue her. I did not believe in God. I know better now. It is not some vast deity with a face made of stars, but a particle on the quantum level. A thing that exists between the atoms, too small to see, and its body is made not from stars but from stardust. And do the people inside live happily there? I do not know, but I intend to find out.
Each bullet was gone, not a scuff on the floor. I aimed true. Point blank, fifty rounds straight into that knotted, lumpy foot and a half of wood, every round gone, vanished, drank up like my father’s tears.
And then hands were on me, and the ringing in my ears was the undertone to the head-splitting drone of sirens, and there were voices too, human voices. I turned around and ten guns were pointed at me, but I felt safe in the hands of the officer behind me. I noticed him cast a sideways glance to the area where I was shooting and saw that healthy look of disturbance on his face. Good, I thought. Let them see.
I thought of Max Planck, Father Quantum, and I thought about how the floorboard must have existed in his time too. Would he have believed me? We can split the atom, but can we see between them? Do we know what monsters lurk behind the building blocks? It is conceit that we digress into, because we assume so blindly that if you can’t see it, it doesn’t exist. But it does, it does. It’s there and it knows more than we do. It’s more clever than us and has more to offer.
A floorboard now, but what before? What after? What in between?
I’ve been back there since, and it sleeps. It squeaks when I walk upon it, but that is all. I have pain to share and it won’t take it from me. My Aunt cries all day, she doesn’t speak to me. She hates me, really, and I don’t blame her. She is suspicious of me as well, and I don’t blame her for that either.
I have not been back to school, I’m too ashamed to show my face there. I cannot bear the idea of facing Mr. Dunbar again and enduring that long, sad, misunderstanding look, that look that emanates empathy, but behind that glare is conviction, and what it does is bore its way into my guts, it makes me grit my teeth and bite my screams. They think that I’m a marble short, even the cops that heard me firing the gun, the same cops that picked up all the empty casings, the casings that signified spent rounds, and yet no bullets to be found. It is well known that it’s the high school underachievers that end up serving the law, but I never really thought anybody could be that clueless. They make up their stories, call them blanks or bad rounds, and forget about it. They sleep through the night, because it’s easier to close your eyes and pretend that there’s an explanation to everything than to open them wide and see that things live between the cracks, things we can’t see at all, things that whisper to us in the abrasive, dissonant voices of all the things it swallows. That God is real, and he is not our friend.
I’m not a suspect because I wasn’t present during the disappearance of the three officers. Everyone is scratching their heads at the case, and despite all efforts to detract my tale, no one has gone near the house again. It’s as if deep down, in the smallest parts of themselves, a part so small that they cannot even see it, they know. . . they feel the presence of that God, and they stray from it.
My parents are gone—good people. My cousin is gone, sweet, innocent Susan. It cannot be destroyed so I will enter it like a parasite, and like a hairworm I’ll force it into water where it will drown. My aunt likely hates me, Mr. Dunbar pities me, the world thinks me unhinged, I am truly alone.
I will go back home today, and carry on my shoulders no pack, but a burden just as heavy: the pain I intend to offer up for a life of bliss inside the squeaky floorboard.
A rescue mission.