Lot 72

17

Jake motioned for me to slip my feet into my father's boots as he put on his own, despite the fact they must have still be quite damp. The door squeaked when he pulled it open and I shot a glance back over my shoulder to see if my father would appear.

"Go, hurry up," Jake whispered. He sounded like a boy, and the little girl in me responded immediately to her big brother's commands. I dashed out into the night. Fresh air filled my lungs and it was as if the cobwebs being spun in my mind while I lay in bed were blown away on the chilly breeze.

My brother's fingers wound between mine and we half walked, half jogged to the barn. Jake grabbed an electric lantern from a shelf near the door. The hayloft ladder was at the far left end from the entrance, and we went that way and pulled ourselves upward, climbing the splintery rungs. The wood was solid and reassuring beneath my weight, hardly what you'd expect from something so old, but then again, old things were made to last a long time. If we'd bought this ladder from a store ten years ago it would already be broken. The man who built it with his own hands a century earlier didn't want to need to build a second time.

The smell of hay tickled my nose. When I sneezed, some small creature in the rafters skittered away from us. I glanced back at the house.

"He didn't hear you sneeze from his bedroom, Jess."

"He might have." I was only half kidding. "What are you doing?" I asked my brother who was thrusting his arm between hay bales. By way of an answer, he yanked a half-full bottle of bourbon out its hiding place and held it up triumphantly.

"I hid this hear last time we came."

I laughed, in spite of myself and we settled down into a little hidden nest within the stacks of hay with the dim orange light between us.

"How'd you know I was going to get up?" I asked.

"I had no idea," Jake said. "I couldn't sleep. I thought I'd come out here and see if I could find this and use it for medicinal purposes." He passed the open bottle to me and I drank too much. It made me cough and sputter. My eyes watered.

Jake laughed. "Take it easy." He took the bottle back and drank from it. When he looked at me again, his expression was solemn. "You said some crazy stuff today."

"I'm not crazy." The words were easy to say and harder to believe.

He drank again and passed the bottle back to me. "I didn't say you were crazy. I said you said some crazy things."

"It was a crazy day." My second drink went down easier. Already I could feel the smoldering warmth unfurling in my belly. "I was laying in bed trying to make sense of it."

"And how'd that go?"

My grin felt heavy and strange. "About like you'd expect." The third drink was downright smooth. I passed the bottle back to my brother and lay my head back against the prickly bale. My gaze roamed the ceiling. No cameras that I could see. Nothing looked strange or out of place. Everything was exactly as it had been when I was a child.

Jake shifted his long legs so they were twined together with mine. "Let's talk about normal people stuff. Tell me about the guy you're seeing."

"I didn't tell you I was seeing anyone."

He laughed. "Come on, Jess. I stand in line next to the magazine rack in the grocery store, just like everyone else. Adrian something?"

"Aiden." I stared at a spot to the left of my brother, unable to look him in the eyes.

His hand on my shin was warm enough to burn through the layers of fabric that separated us.

"I don't want to talk about Aiden," I said.

"Why not?" His voice was as smoky and harsh as the bourbon. "If I'd been with anyone, I'd tell you."

As if by magnetic force my eyes were drawn to his. "You should find someone."

He drank deeply and looked away. The dimple on his right cheek deepened. "You make it sound easy."

"You're a handsome, successful guy, Jake. It should be pretty easy."

"Is it easy for you, with Aiden?"

Every day I stepped carefully, not willing to let Aiden know the whole truth, but not exactly keeping secrets, either. "No. It's not easy."

His sigh spiraled upward and danced in the darkness over our heads. "I meant it when I said this is the last time I'd come here."

"Me too." A tiny giggle burbled up out of my chest and popped out from between my lips. Something larger followed behind it and in a moment, I collapsed on my side in a fit of hysterics. Laughter shook me and stole my breath and turned into something ugly and hurtful that felt similar to crying but not exactly the same. When I caught sight of Jake's bemused expression, I only laughed harder. By the time I'd fully collected myself, I was lying down with my head on my brother's thigh. With his fingers, he combed my hair back from my forehead.

"I think I'm going to die here, Jake."

The remaining bit of liquid sloshed against the glass as he lifted it to his mouth. "I'll do anything to keep you safe, Jess." Then, "Will you tell me what Mom said to you that night?"

"No."

"Did she tell you she was murdered?"

Pushing away from him and propping myself upright made the world swing crazily in front of my eyes. "Everyone says it was natural."

"What did she say?"

"She'd been sick and they put her on those blood thinners. Maybe she'd even taken too many, and when she fell she just..." Alcohol turned to hot acid in my stomach and I swallowed hard to keep from throwing up. Her blood ran so slick and warm over my hands. There was so much blood. People have no idea what more than a gallon of blood looks like. If a gallon of milk burst on your kitchen floor, you'd think the kitchen was flooded. If a person bursts open like a broken balloon... I gagged and coughed.

Jake watched me and drank. His eyelids drooped low. He waited for me to catch my breath. "You ever read about what rat poison does to the human body?

I nodded.

"What did she say, Jess?"

I peered into the darkness over our heads. "Do you think Dan Tanner is watching us right now?" I asked, and I was suddenly certain that he was. It was so easy to picture him in his creepy little lair eating slightly burnt popcorn and drinking cheap beer.

"Why do I care?"

When I was sober, making sense of my thoughts was like trying to reassemble shredded paper. Once I was thoroughly drunk, it all made much more sense.

Your big shot brother already told you what it is. It's a contained environment, a sound stage measured in miles, and still under construction. Far as I know, this here World War Two bomb shelter's the only place in this town that ain't part of the show.

"Where's Lot 72, Jake?"

A slow, cynical grin spread over my brother's face. In that moment, I saw a resemblance to my father that turned my blood as cold as the river water he'd saved me from.