Get Me To A Church

CHAPTER 12: DISCOVERY

           "Hey guys, come look at this!" Ash hollered.

           She was standing atop the table with the radio on it and had pushed the painting of the barn off the wall. There was a metal trash chute where the painting once was.

           "There's some kind of trash chute hiding behind that painting," Ashley said.

           "That's weird, this building doesn't have trash chutes," Larry said. Why would it be built into the apartment? Where could it lead to? Surely Mrs. Packerton couldn't have installed this by herself.

           She precariously shifted her weight and leaned over so she could look inside the trash chute. "It doesn't look like it goes outside. There's no light coming in."

           I instinctively put my hands out in front of me, as if I could somehow steady her. "Be careful, Ash," I warned.

           She leaned even further over, put her knees on the chute door, and stuck her head in. "I wonder where it leads to..." she continued. I stepped closer and was about to open my mouth to tell her to stop when she slid down the chute and shrieked. Larry ran towards the chute and I climbed on the table, looking down the filthy hole.

           "ASH!" Larry screamed.

           "ASH! ARE YOU OKAY?!" I hollered. No response. My breathing became shallow. "AAAASH!"

           Larry put his head in his hands. "Oh no, oh no — this can't be happening."

           I squeezed my eyes shut right. "Please let her be okay," I whispered. "We have to find where this leads to," I said desperately, sticking my head further into the chute.

           "How are we— what are we—"

           "I'm gonna shimmy down. It's the only way—"

           "Dude, no!" Larry cut me off. "You're not thinking straight. What if you fall too? Or land on her? If she's... still... alive... that could kill her."

           I slowly took my head out of the chute and hopped down from the table. "Okay, yeah. You're right. Let's think—"

           Remember how I said I had gut feelings that were usually right? Some of my best conclusions came from when I... kind of... fainted... and appeared in a white, glowing room. This voice... would tell me something I shouldn't have been able to understand — gibberish, basically — and suddenly, I would "glitch" back into the real world and know the answer. It was always weird as fuck, and maybe I was a little bananas, but it was insanely helpful.

           "I know where it goes!" I exclaimed.

           "What? How?" Larry asked.

           "Never mind, just go get Todd and meet me in the basement." Yeah, maybe I was more than a little bananas. I wondered about what Larry, Todd, Ashley, and Travis would think when I told them about my odd glitch.

● ● ●

           "What's going on?" Todd asked. "Sal, what did you see? Is Ashley alright?"

           I let Todd — and Larry — in on what happened in Mrs. Packerton's apartment. Larry and Todd were both equally confused about my "dream," but were trying to comprehend it nonetheless.

           "Everything is going to be okay," I promised, although I was more reassuring myself. "Come help me with this."

           I gestured towards a locked apartment door behind some steel storage shelves. We all pushed the shelves out of the way together.

           When the door was visible, Larry said, "No one has used this apartment in a long time. It's in rough shape, but Addison can't afford the renovations it needs. Just like the fifth floor." Our apartment complex — Addison Apartments — was owned by Terrence Addison. He never left his room, which was pretty strange, but I supposed that almost everyone else living in Addison Apartments was pretty strange, too.

           "Is this what you saw in your vision, Sal?" Todd asked.

           "It doesn't work exactly like that," I admitted. "It's more like a feeling of heightened intuition."

           Todd stared blankly in his own Todd kind of way. Todd never looked blank, just stare-y when he didn't understand something but didn't want to admit it. He was silent for a second before he spoke: "Alright, you lead the way. Larry and I will offer support however we can."

           I jiggled the doorknob. "It's locked."

           "Wait, one of those keys from Packerton's looked like one of the old apartment keys," Larry suggested. "Try that out."

           "Oh yeah, I almost forgot about those." I took out the keys Larry handed me earlier and pushed the one he said looked correct into the keyhole.

           The lock clicked satisfyingly. "Perfect," Todd smiled.

           We cautiously walked inside and looked around. It was blandly normal: yellowed wallpaper, green carpet. No furniture.

           "There's nothing in here," Larry said.

           I huffed and wiggled my fingers nervously. "Give me a minute to look around," I replied.

           The first bedroom was empty, with the same yellowed wallpaper and green carpet. The kitchen had black and white tiles — normal — and was not furnished sans a fridge and some counter space — normal. I examined the second bedroom. Yellowed wallpaper, green carpet... suspicious rip in the floor.

           There's a tear in the carpet, I thought. "It looks like..." I mumbled. "Hmm..." I rolled up the greasy carpet and stepped back. "Guys! Come check this out!"

           Todd and Larry came bursting into the room. There was a massive, medieval-looking, wooden trapdoor in the floor. We all stared at in awe.

           "Duuude," Larry said.

           "There must be an undocumented sub-basement level," Todd decided intelligently. Per usual. "It's definitely not in any of the blueprints that I've seen. Perhaps an old dirt cellar or something of the like."

           "I had no idea this was here," Larry admitted honestly, which was nuts. He'd been living here for forever.

           I compared the keys in my hand with the keyhole of the trapdoor. "The third door from Mrs. Packerton's fits in this door. Ash must be down there. It's the only place that chute could lead to."

           I unlocked the trapdoor, which made an awful, slow creaking noise when I opened it. "Let's go..." I said solemnly, so we stepped down the stairs.