Mannequin heads greeted us in the dark. Someone had taken them from the cosmetology class and lined them up across the hallway to be funny and creepy. It worked. The electricity had already been cut off and we’d only one flashlight between the four of us.
I already didn’t feel good about breaking into the middle school. The idea that others had already come and messed around made it worse. For Josh, it simply meant there’d be less things to destroy.
And he wanted to destroy it all. To see it, take it in his hands, and then crush it into how he felt. Lakeside Middle School had not been good to any of us, but it’d been especially bad for him and his family.
His older brother, Mark, had just started grade eight when he went missing, never to be seen again. Nasty, baseless rumours circulated that Josh’s father had done something and been behind the disappearance. Josh was in grade six then. His mother lost her will to live and simply left town one day. His dad became distant, a silent pariah isolated from the community.
We’d only gone along with the school break-in because Josh wouldn’t let it go, and we always felt sorry for him. He looked crazy when he told us they were shutting down the school due to mould and asbestos. Too expensive to fix. Better to let the school die, and the nearby forest swallow it, which it would in about fifty years. Fifty years from 1963.
He acted as if he’d been waiting for this news a long time. We were sixteen, and in high school. There were better ways to spend our nights. Nobody could say no to Josh for long, however. He and his pain were indistinguishable, a constant reminder he’d lost what we took for granted: A loving family.
I kicked through the mannequin heads and Josh stomped one flat. Fred and Rex did it too but their hearts weren’t in it. The break-in bored them. They weren’t scared of getting in trouble like I was. I wanted to go home.
“Let’s go to Bolt’s class,” Fred said. “See if he left anything behind.” He made the drinky-drinky gesture in the dark. Nobody laughed because Lakeview had never been a place of joy. Every locker and alcove passed held memories of hidden assaults on our fragile self-esteem and bodies.
Buried secrets we’d never shared; we thought it was our fault. A kid named Todd held a knife behind my ear in the bathroom while I peed and I thought I’d done something to deserve it.
“Yeah, a drink might help,” Rex stated matter-factly. He itched his forearms. Dust and mould clung to the beads of sweat standing out on our skin. There seemed to be a lack of oxygen inside the building. Outside was the cool of early October, and I longed to breathe that fresh air.
Here I held my breath. Not only because of the filth in the interior; I would hold my breath too when moving through these halls when I was a student. Breathing seemed too loud in the austere setting, an oppressive calm full of stoic expectations and suppressed humanity.
Artwork from students was never posted on the walls, which remained bare except for faded photos of humourless classes and staff. We faced a camera like we were in a massive mugshot. Black and white misery, year after year. Not one group held a genuine smile. Not one.
The music classroom, Mr. Bolton’s or Bolt’s as he was known long before we ever got there, had been barricaded with chairs and already rusted instruments. Impatient about something - maybe his friends - Josh rammed his shoulder against the door until we could slip through.
Someone had set up a camp inside, a squatter who had since departed, though the school had only just been set to close a month ago. It’d been a functioning school prior to the summer. That meant it’d been empty for three months tops. How could so much decay and chaos spread in so little time?
There were plenty of empty bottles around a sleeping bag and Fred despaired until he dug around Bolt’s desk and found a large flask full of spoiled red wine. We all took turns forcing down the drink until the nausea in our guts became suppressed by the alcohol.
“Now,” Josh said, “Can we please move on?”
“Where?” I asked.
“The door,” Josh snapped and stalked to the door. He had the flashlight. It was follow or be left in the dark. Even buzzed, nobody desired the latter option. We assumed the squatter had left but there was as much chance they’d hid when Josh started ramming the barricade. They’d have to be insane to sleep inside such a gross and miserable place.
“What door?” I asked Josh once we’d finally caught up to the frantic beam of light. He wasn’t even using it to see.
“The basement,” he said. “This door must remain shut.” All of us but him stopped walking. Josh rounded on us and shifted the end of the flashlight from one face to the next. “Why else did you think we were here?”
I shrugged, even more uncomfortable. We’d forgotten about the basement door and Josh’s obsession with it. Probably because he hadn’t shared it with us until we were about to graduate into high school, a little over two years prior to this moment. He hadn’t talked about it in grade nine or ten. The summer between middle and high school had been about nothing else. We forgot about it. He, apparently, did not.
Josh had blamed the middle school for Mark’s disappearance. He’d told anyone that would listen that his brother had walked with him to Lakeview on the day he’d gone missing. The school, however, said Mark did not show up to class. His teacher, Mrs. Shipman, marked him absent and swore she never saw him.
So Josh had a theory: Mark had been taken somewhere between the front doors of the school and his class. The ideal location to make him disappear was the basement door near the library. This Door Must Remain Shut it said in big painted letters. I never saw it open. Neither had Fred or Rex, or Josh for that matter.
“You think you’ll find something?” Rex asked, the calmest and most resolved of our group. He was often our silent leader because of his detachment. He rested a hand on Josh’s shoulder. “Okay, let’s check it out.”
My guts did a somersault; I blamed the spoiled wine.
Through the dark, down some steps to a landing, and we were already there, faster than I liked. The narrow, worn down stairs suggested frequent passage to and from the door that nobody was supposed to open.
Josh didn’t hesitate. He tried the knob first. Locked. He handed me the flashlight, and I held the beam over the railing, a safe distance away and with two exit strategies: Back the way we’d come or to the right, to another set of steps leading to the main floor and the front entrance of the school.
He started kicking the side of the knob, and became more furious when it didn’t produce the desired result.
“Josh, we should go,” I said. I didn’t like all the noise he was making. It was a big school, and we’d seen maybe a third of it since breaking in. Plenty of spots for someone to be. The mannequin heads and the campsite said there were likely squatters around, and who knew if they were friendly? Maybe they were criminals. Psychopathic murderers hiding from eyes, and eager to kill stupid kids who might reveal their location to police.
The knob bent and hung by a single screw. Josh began to yell and curse as he attacked it with even greater rage.
“Josh,” Rex said calmly, taking the first step down the stairwell. The way Josh looked at him - like a man possessed - made us all back away.
“The light, goddammit! Bring back the light!” Josh roared at me. I was about to when voices from above, somewhere on the main floor, could be heard. I heard the door knob fall and thunk against the rusted drain on the landing where Josh continued his siege of the basement.
“Someone’s there, Josh,” Fred said. “Time to leave.”
“The light!” Josh commanded again. I’ve never heard someone yell so loud. It was pleading and promising together. He needed me. There would be consequences for disobedience.
But then steps started shuffling down from above.
“Josh,” I called once more, shining the beam on him, just in time to see his shoulder breach the door into the perfect dark beyond.
He squinted up at me. “Come on,” I said. But he said it too with his pained expression. Then we went our separate ways: He went into the basement and the rest of us ran from whomever was coming down the steps to the window we’d broken to get inside.
“The light!” I thought I heard him call again from afar.
The three of us fled into the forest and turned off the flashlight and didn’t dare to talk. We could see a police car outside the main entrance and then, a few minutes later, the constables themselves were leaving the school.
They didn’t have Josh, so we figured he hid and would be out shortly. He was not. It was getting very late and we worried what our parents might do.
“I have to get home,” I said to Rex and Fred.
They didn’t say what I was thinking: We should go back in and find our friend. Instead, they became complicit and we walked back to our neighbourhood, each drifting away to our doors as we reached them. I was last. My parents were already asleep and I went to my room and sat on the bed with the flashlight in my hands.
Eventually, I nodded off with it on my lap, but not for long because there came a pounding on the front door. Outside the window, I could see Josh’s dad’s car. My dad came into my room a moment later.
“Josh’s dad is downstairs. Were you with Josh earlier?”
I came clean immediately about everything except the wine. We went down and my dad summarised that evening’s events. Josh’s dad listened without comment or reaction.
He worked on Tour Hill as a custodian and was the same age as my dad. But he looked much older. He smoked a rolled cigarette and rubbed the back of his hand across his forehead. Losing a child is a horror that can’t be explained in words. To also be accused, without evidence, of being the cause of that loss, would break any parent.
“Can you show me where you went in?” he asked quietly, almost like he was shy. “I want to go look… It’s a big school, and in the dark… It’s a big school.” He risked a glance at my dad, who had his arms crossed.
“I’ll get my coat,” my dad said reluctantly. He had work in a few hours too and needed sleep. I felt responsible for Josh and terrible that I could be culpable in his disappearance. If I hadn’t run, or gone with him, this poor man wouldn’t be worried about losing yet another son.
“I’ll go dad. You stay. I’ll go,” I said.
He paused and hesitated and looked at the weary father. How could he refuse? My father never talked about what he thought had happened to Mark. Neither did he declare this man’s innocence. I could see him wrestling with the decision.
“Dad, it’s fine,” I told him. “We’ll be right back.”If he insisted on coming, it would only show what he really thought of the man begging for help.
“Okay,” he said finally.
I got my coat and followed Josh’s dad to the blue Chevy on the street. The gray leather seats were shiny, and the interior smelled like petrichor mixed with soap and cigarettes. A pile of butts filled the ashtray; it was the only unkempt spot I could see.
“Mind if I smoke?” He asked and lit up before I could say if I did or not, so I didn’t answer. We drove the few blocks to Lakeside in silence and I pointed out where we’d gone. We got out of the car. Our footfalls crunched gravel and hissed through slick grass gone wild. When we came to the window, he stared at it and puffed away.
“Why’d you go in there?” he asked as he exhaled another plume.
“I don’t know,” I lied. I didn’t want to tell him it’d been Josh’s idea. “We were bored, I guess.”
He shook his head like he didn’t believe me. “He talk about the basement door again?”
He knew. “Yes,” I admitted.
“He wanted to go in there, and see?”
“Yeah.”
He crushed the unfinished butt under his heel, and seemed to choose his next words carefully. “Thing is… I think he’s right.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, it’s the only way… that day makes any sense. I bet he found something. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t come out yet. Maybe he took it to the police already.”
“Um, did the police ever look down there?”
He shook his head. “They said they did but I heard something different. Nobody seriously looked for Mark. In their minds, they already knew who did it.” A subtle smile appeared on his face, barely visible in the moonlight.
“Sir,” I said, uncertain.
“Call me Joel,” he said.
That didn’t feel right, calling an adult by their first name, so I just went on with the question. “Why do people think you had something to do with Mark’s disappearance?”
Exhaustion and the awkwardness of the moment were behind my asking. I don’t think I would have talked at all otherwise. But we were standing around when we should have been searching for Josh.
“A dumb mistake on my part,” he said. “The day Mark went missing, I went into work and began my shift like usual. Only, I wasn’t supposed to be there. It was a Tuesday. I don’t work Tuesdays. Not unless it’s the busy season. I went in and when people figured Mark’s gone, no one could find me because I’m busy cleaning the haunted house and it’s dark in there even with the lights on. It’s tough to clean the haunted house. Takes a long time. I get home a little late and find out about Mark and how everyone’s been looking for me. Nobody believes I went to work by mistake. Nobody can recall seeing me that day on Tour Hill.”
Joel clucked his tongue as if he couldn’t believe his bad luck. “One little mistake. I only kept my job because my boss is old and not too with it, if you know what I mean. He calls me Joe most of the time.” His hands dug in the front pocket of his shirt for a silver cigarette case.
Before he could light it, I got bold. “We should go and find Josh.” I indicated the broken window.
Joel coughed and his reply came when he was ready. “I’ll get a light from my trunk.” He walked off and flicked open his lighter as he went. A moment later he returned with a flashlight, a tool bag, and a lit cigarette.
When I eyed the bag, slung over his shoulder, he explained. “You said the basement door was locked, and Josh broke it down. What if there are other locks?”
That made sense, but sense and truth are two different animals. I couldn’t blame bad wine for my growing unease. Nevertheless, we climbed through the window and the vandalized mannequin heads were there to greet us.
In no time, we found the busted down door with the warning to keep it shut. Joel didn’t seem to be in any hurry, and I found myself going first even though I didn’t have the flashlight.
Fog from my breath expressed the low temperature. It smelled earthy too, like we were outside. The end of the flashlight beam gradually exposed a small shabby room with a heavy door on the right and an open passage in front.
“Josh!” I called.
“Shh!” Joel hissed in my ear. He was too close and his nicotine cloud clotted my nostrils.
“What?” I asked, sounding more irritated than was respectful.
“We don’t know who else might be down here,” he said seriously.
That made sense too. It was the same worry I had before.
We walked into the open doorway and found a long room full of broken desks and old furniture and something that looked like an exposed dumbwaiter on the far wall. Joel encouraged me to look into the rectangular opening with him and his hand rested against the small of my back. I looked at him, trying to communicate my discomfort, but his eyes were fixed on the shaft below.
“I don’t see anything,” I said.
He found a broom handle and poked down, finding the shaft filled in with dirt and garbage. “He didn’t go down here.”
Back in the other room, we turned our attention to the heavy, red door. It had an external locking mechanism, a bar that lifted when the handle latch was pressed. Josh could have easily walked inside and been immediately locked in.
The sense of a conclusion at hand faded, however, when I opened the door. A low ceilinged passage, a ramp that curved gently to the right, revealed itself to the flashlight, and Josh wasn’t there. I heeded Joel’s warning and didn’t call out again, though I wanted to.
A heavy click came from behind next, and pure dread mixed with my disbelief. I rounded on Joel, who wore a mask of shadow behind the light he commanded. He’d let the door lock us in.
“Oops,” he said. No regret could I detect in his tone. “Good thing I brought my tools.”
I didn’t agree. I couldn’t speak. Something was very wrong here. “Josh!” I yelled. “Josh!”
“Hey, what did I say before?” Joel grabbed my bicep and squeezed and it hurt.
“Josh!” I continued, pulling away.
“You little-”
I took off up the ramp, walking swiftly, afraid that running might serve as an accusation, a trigger. After bumping my head off a low hanging pipe, I sensed the room opening up into a larger space. A draft invited me to the left, and I followed, tripping over some other utility feature of the school basement, and crashing my shoulder painfully into what may have been the quiet and cold furnace.
The beam of the flashlight appeared at the mouth of the hallway ramp, and I crawled away, following my nose toward cool air. Eventually, the surface beneath my hands changed from painted concrete to soil. There was a light up ahead, and an exit.
“Come back,” Joel shouted as if I was being ridiculous. His light had found me and filled the old utility tunnel I’d crawled into. The pipes and electrical looked to have already been removed; they were valuable, so the school board took them first. I didn’t listen but he was upright and fast. I’d only made it to the mouth of the exit when he seized the back of my collar and hauled me onto my feet.
He turned me around to look at him. Joel’s lungs pulled in too much air, and he coughed. He placed the flashlight between his knees, and the beam lit up his face and wobbled while he extricated a cigarette from the silver case.
“I know what you’re thinking, boy,” he said. The pupils in his eyes were so expanded it was like looking at a shark. He lit up the cigarette, and then put a hand inside his tool bag. The muscles in his forearms twisted and stood out; his hand gripped something firmly in there.
Before I could see what, however, I heard, of all things, my dad calling me from afar. I’d forgotten about the other light I had seen when crawling in the tunnel.
Joel’s demeanor changed swiftly. “Hey! We’re over here!”
My dad didn’t respond to the obvious. “I found Josh! He’s here! He’s not hurt.” Joel and I walked together, and, sure enough, Josh sat on the ground beside my dad’s legs. Never have I ever been so grateful for my dad’s existence. I put him between Joel and myself immediately.
Joel knelt down by his son, and seemed to check him out. “You okay, boy?”
“Dad?” I asked and he understood the question.
After Joel and I had left, my dad couldn’t sleep, so he reconsidered his decision to let me go alone. He didn’t know where to look though and eventually heard Josh crying in the woods, near the exposed opening of the utility tunnel. Josh didn’t seem physically hurt.
“I can’t get him to talk, Joel,” my dad said. “I think he got really scared.”
Joel nodded and exhaled smoke, almost into his kid’s face. “The door locks behind you in there. It’s pretty dark without a flashlight.”
Josh began to whisper softly and kept shooting me furtively glances from behind his pulled up knees. Joel stood up with the clear intention of finishing his cigarette.
I crouched beside Josh and rested a hand on his shoulder. “You alright, Josh?”
“Nothing, nothing, nothing,” he kept saying over and over.
“Josh, what are you-”
His dad was suddenly done with his cigarette and pulling Josh to his feet. Arm wrapped around his son, Joel escorted Josh back to the school and the parking lot. My dad and I followed and went to our own car. There were no farewells or see you tomorrow.
We all went home and I didn’t see Josh the same as he’d been again. He didn’t get back to school, and only occasionally appeared outside his house, often at night, wandering back to Lakeside. His family became the target of gossip with renewed vigour and Joel’s fears about his job were realised when his boss died and the new boss fired him the very next day. He turned to drinking more and he, of course, kept up with the cigarettes. He died before reaching sixty and the house was sold.
Life resumed for everyone else. Fred and Rex and I continued school, graduated, went to college, got jobs, got married, got divorced (in Rex’s case), had children, and watched our own parents get old and pass away. Then we were suddenly old too and our children had children, and we found ourselves almost back where we’d started in Bridal Veil Lake: Friends with too much time on their hands.
What we decided to do, one random autumn day,was go for a walk in the woods. What actually happened is we walked directly to what was left of Lakeside Middle School.
The building had been demolished down to its foundation. Currently, all that can be easily found is a corner with a few faucets sticking out of the stone. Trees and grasses have consumed everything else. My grandchildren pretend not to believe me when I tell them I used to go to school there and say I’m so old I went to school in the woods.
We saw a man standing on the path, staring at the foundation corner. It was like he was waiting. Like he somehow knew we would come. Or maybe he’d been coming every day since ‘63.
He was as old as us, and we knew him instantly. Afraid he could disappear if disturbed, we approached cautiously, and didn’t say a word.
When we were standing side by side again, he finally spoke.
“There was nothing down there,” he said. “Nothing at all.”
“I know, Josh. I know.”
——————————
Editor’s Note:
Statisticians suggest a number of serial killers are never caught; their killing only ends because of poor health and death
On the other hand, innocent people are accused and convicted of murder all the time
We who are investigating Bridal Veil Lake and asking for residents to share their stories were a little reluctant to share this one - at first. Was Joel responsible for Mark’s disappearance? Or are we guilty of perpetuating the idea that he was without any hard evidence, if we publish this story?
After speaking more with the author of This Door Must Remain Shut, one thing remained clear: He didn’t know the answer either, but wanted to point out how little the truth mattered. No one knew or knows now what really happened to Mark and who, if anyone, was behind it. If there’d been something in that basement, some answer, then Josh would at last know what to think of his father. Can you imagine the torment of never knowing if your father killed your brother? We can’t. No child should experience that.
So, in the interest of respecting the author , we reserve judgement and continue to pursue any possibilities that arise from your questions and observations.
We thank you for reading and for any insight you might offer in the comments below.
The author will receive inquiries and has asked us to respond on his behalf.