The Problem with Dreams

Chapter 3 - New Developments

Greg, Zackary and Susan all got up relatively early on Friday morning. They were all finished with breakfast and Greg and Zackary were about to leave when Matt emerged from the bathroom still wearing his pajamas.

"We'll see you later Matt. Good luck with your new job," Greg told him.

"Thanks. Bye you guys," Matt called. He watched them leave before going to the kitchen to make breakfast for himself first while Susan worked, before heading towards the shower.

            c

Greg drove the now familiar route to their new house without much thought, turning onto the gravel drive. However, at the place he normally turned left to park beside the contractor's sun shade, he turned right, following the driveway to the front of the garage. There he was met by a double set of double-wide garage doors, both of which were closed.

"Hello Mr. Abernathy. Hi Zack," Mr. Van Kirk appeared out of nowhere to greet them as they climbed out of the car.

"Hello," Greg answered for them both. "We thought we'd start over here today."

"A very good decision, if I do say so myself. I have something for you," Mr. Van Kirk told them and he handed Greg an ordinary-looking garage door remote control with two buttons.

Greg pressed the button on the left and immediately the door directly in front of them started to open and a light went on inside. Greg and Zackary stepped through the open door as soon as it was high enough and observed that a grate now covered the open, cement-lined slot which carried the utility lines from this side of the property through the hill to the house. Storage cabinets lined the walls of the garage on the sides and at the back a generous workbench had been installed with more cabinets around it. To one side of the workbench, a paneled door was hung on the back wall separating the garage from the tunnel, and there was a light switch on the back wall, below a pair or circuit breaker boxes.

"Does the light switch work?" Greg asked.

"In here it does. Everything connected to the breaker box on the left is hooked up, in place and works. Things going to the box on the right are still being installed, so power to the box itself is still disconnected at the junction box in the floor," Mr. Van Kirk explained.

"Meaning, we can't damage anything by trying out switches," Greg concluded.

"That's right. The electrician was here most of this week, and he got a lot done, but there will be a lot more for him to do in a couple of weeks. I think Cliff has him here next week working on the house, but we won't be ready for him again in here until week after next," Mr. Van Kirk told him.

Greg nodded and tried out one of the switches. Instantly the fixtures in the ceiling came on providing bright, even lighting in every corner of the garage.

"This is wonderful," Greg told him. "It actually does feel like a garage, not a cave."

"That's because it is a garage," Mr. Van Kirk assured him. "It's ready to use too, so you can come in this way, any time you like. That remote control is yours to use."

"Don't you need it?" Greg wondered.

"We have another, which we'll turn over to you when we're finished," he assured him. "Come, take a look at the interior of the cave. Hopefully you'll be pleased with that as well."

Greg tried out a third light switch, opened the door, and the dark tunnel he'd come to expect was now lit too ... not as brightly as the garage, but plenty bright enough to see where they were going and what was there. Here too the notches in the floor had been covered by grates. The recessed areas near the ceiling were now covered by a lens, behind which a light fixture had been installed running parallel to the floor. The notches housing the conduit leading up to them were still exposed, but there were materials stacked up in the tunnel which suggested these would be covered soon too.