A 16 minute read. Note: this is a fictional story.
A fifteen foot U-haul with Wisconsin plates was bumping along South McKinney Street in the fading sunlight. The road was ancient, but a complete repaving wasn’t in the town budget. So it looked somewhat like a crazy quilt, with certain patches higher than others and every one a different shade of gray. Evan, who was driving, winced every time the truck clunked over a pothole.
“Do you think the place will have internet?” Maria was squashed against the passenger door, feet propped on the dashboard, laptop propped on her knees, her face lit up a ghostly white by the screen. She kept misspelling words every time the truck jolted, but didn’t seem to mind.
“What do you think?” Evan asked with a half chuckle. “When’s the scholarship due?”
“Thursday night.”
Milo, who sat between them, looked up from the book he was reading. “Thursday’s my birthday!”
“That’s right!” Evan said. “Let’s see, you’ll be turning… eight?”
“You know that’s wrong!” Milo laughed.
“Aw man. Um, seven?”
“Evaaaan!”
Evan grinned over his shoulder at his little brother. “Okay, ten. Now put your book away, we’re almost there.”
Their destination was a three story apartment building on the edge of town. It stood by itself, a line of trees separating it from the rest of the neighborhood. It had belonged to their reclusive uncle, Argus, before Evan got a call from a lawyer saying that Argus had died of a heart attack and left the building to his favorite niece and nephews. Maria had snorted when Evan told her.
“We’re his only living relatives,” she said. “Who else would he leave the building to? He hated the government.”
They stopped next to a wooden sign that, upon close inspection, said “Hillman Apartments” in green script. As soon as Evan shifted into park, Milo unbuckled his seatbelt and climbed over Maria, his knees gouging into her stomach, her laptop falling to the floor. The door opened and he burst out, limbs flailing. Maria gathered her things into her bag and limped after him, calling for him to wait.
When Evan caught up to Maria and Milo, he was shaking his head at the dark silhouette above them. “What a monstrosity,” he said. “I can’t believe he lived here all by himself.”
“I can’t believe that we’re going to live here all by ourselves,” Maria said.
Evan looked at the sky. “It’s a good investment.”
“Says you,” Maria whispered, but Evan couldn’t hear her.
Milo reached the front door first, and heaved it open. It was wood, and its large window was made of many small panes. The three of them stepped through to the vestibule, Evan catching the door behind him with his heel. Here there was a second, windowless door with a large deadbolt, and a metal keypad on the wall with a speaker beneath it. It was rather dark, and their shadows looked big on the walls.
“What do these do?” Milo asked, and he pushed one of the silvery buttons. It made a loud buzzing sound, and everyone jumped.
“It’s sort of like a doorbell,” Evan said. “That way if someone in their apartment is expecting a guest, they can know the guest is here and let them in without coming all the way to the main door.”
“Oh man, that’s smart.” Milo pushed another button, and everyone jumped again.
Evan put his hand in his coat pocket, and looked at Maria.
“Key?” He asked.
She put down her bag–it was made of canvas with pictures of vegetables on it–and started digging through. Milo, who had pressed all the rest of the buttons and was now bored, turned the doorknob and shoved. The door swung open, and he wrinkled his nose.
“It smells like when you forget to do the laundry,” he told Evan.
The three of them stood in the doorway. Straight across, steep stairs climbed up through the ceiling. To the right and left, dark halls gaped. Milo started to take off his shoes, but Maria stopped him.
“You don’t know what’s been on this floor,” she said, pointing at the carpet. It might have been cream once, and resembled the scratchy side of a velcro in appearance and texture.
Milo’s brown eyes widened. “Do you think there was a dead body in here?” He whispered.
“You never know with Uncle Argus.”
Evan pulled out his phone and turned on the flashlight. He shone it around the doorway until he found the lightswitch, then flicked it on. A single bulb lit up yellow in a fixture that looked like crystal ribs.
“Well?” Evan said, and his voice echoed.
Maria and Milo just stood there in the doorway, Milo clutching Maria’s free hand in both of his.
“Come on, you a scaredy cat?” Evan asked, and he skipped down the hall backward until he disappeared. There was a loud bang and Evan yelled and Milo yelped and covered his ears without letting go of his sister. He looked up at Maria, eyes even wider now. “Did Evan just say a bad word?” He whispered.
Maria nodded. “Take my finger out of your ear,” she whispered back, and then she called, “Evan! What happened! Evan!” She jogged down the hall, dragging Milo behind her. They found him standing in front of a door with a large hole in the middle, rubbing his elbow.
“I tripped,” he proclaimed, smiling wider than normal.
“Way to go,” Maria glared at him.
Evan turned to face the other side of the hall. There was another door, this one still intact.
“Don’t do it without–”
“Don’t worry, I found the keys,” he said, patting his jacket. “Other coat pocket.”
This door was also made of dark, brittle wood, and now Milo’s eyes had adjusted to the dim light he saw the number 103 painted at the top. Evan picked a key and tried to push it into the lock. It wouldn’t go. He found another key, but that one wouldn’t fit either. He muttered in frustration, and Milo scooted forward to see what was going on, sticking his face between Evan and the door.
“Move your head, okay? I can’t see anything.”
“Is there a escalon key?” Milo asked, backing up an inch.
“A what?”
“A escalon key!”
“He doesn’t know what that is,” Maria said.
Milo frowned at her. “He’s the one who told me about it when we were driving. I said, what if a key had gotten lost, and he said, no big deal, there’s probably a escalon key. Stop holding my hand so tight, it hurts.”
Evan looked at him. “You mean a skeleton key?”
“No, a escalon key. The ones that can unlock all the doors.”
Evan pushed Milo’s head to the side. “That’s a skeleton key, bud. You must’ve misheard me. There might be one, lemme see.”
There was a skeleton key. It fit in the lock perfectly, but when Evan tried to turn it the head snapped off and he was left with a pointless silver toothpick.
“Sh-shoot,” he said, glancing at Maria. She closed her eyes and they all sat in silence for a minute. Finally, Evan stood up. “I’m going to have to kick it.”
“Wow, I guess so,” Maria said loudly.
She took Milo’s hand again and stepped to the side and Evan kicked the door just below the knob and it flew open and bright light poured into the hall along with Beethoven’s fifth symphony. Maria jumped back, jerking Milo off his feet, and Evan froze, standing on one foot like a flamingo. The old man in the apartment was frozen too, sitting in a violet robe drinking a pina colada. The pina colada filled his mouth and then ran down his beard, dripping off the end like water off a stalactite.
“I . . .” Evan’s voice trailed off. “I am so sorry. Who–Who are you?”
The old man swallowed hard and put his drink on a table. Then he wiped his mouth on his sleeve and wrung out his beard and looked at Evan’s feet, one of which was still raised. “Are you injured?” He asked.
“What? No!” Evan put his foot back on the ground. “I’m fine.”
“Ah. Good.” The man nodded slowly. For a while, Evan stood in the door and the man nodded and Maria quietly hyperventilated and Milo lay on the floor. Then, still nodding, the man asked, “Why won’t you come in?”
Evan gingerly stepped over the pieces of door jamb on the man’s Persian rug. Maria pulled Milo to his feet and they followed.
“Oh, there are more of you.” The man said, not even sounding a tiny bit surprised. “I’ll get some lemonade.” He stood and walked around the bookshelves that formed a wall between his kitchen from his living room. Maria looked at Evan, eyes wide, and mouthed, What are we going to do? But Evan only wrinkled his mouth like he tasted something sour and shrugged.
Milo’s head turned like an owl’s as he looked at the room. There was a burnt orange couch and two matching chairs. To the right, in front of the curtained window, there was a large cage with two brilliant green and red birds inside. The walls, where they could be seen, were covered with paintings of buffalo and what looked like fifteenth-century British royalty. The rest of the space was taken up by shelves of varying heights that were laden with books, stained animal bones, and jars of birdseed.
“Please, please, sit down,” the man said, returning with three unopened cans of lemonade, and his three guests tentatively obeyed. He looked at Milo, who’s eyes were rather wide, and picked up a large deer skull from the nearest shelf. “I’m a collector,” he said, “not a killer. I’ve been gathering bones from the forest since I was your age. Fine specimens, some of these are. You don’t find stuff like this every day.” He replaced the skull and pointed across the room. “See those? What kind of birds do you think those are?”
“Parrots?” Milo asked quietly.
“Close. They’re Lovebirds, which are a type of parrot. You know why they’re called that? They can’t live without each other.” He sat down.
Evan cleared his throat. “Our uncle used to have lovebirds. He was the one who lived here, before he left the place to us.”
“Your uncle?” The man drew his eyebrows together. “I’m afraid there must have been a terrible mistake–I didn’t leave this place to anybody.”
“What?” Maria looked up sharply, and Evan stared at the old man, a horrible look of recognition on his face.
“I’m Argus–Argus Hillman. Ach, you must be Evan, Maria, and Milo.”
“But you’re dead,” Milo said, his voice barely louder than a whisper. “You had a heart attack picking up a deer and that’s why we got your house.” He looked at the floor. “Now that you’re not dead, do we have to give your house back? I don’t want to go back to Milwaukee.”
“Well, I’m afraid you can’t keep the building,” Argus said.
“Wait a minute.” Evan held up his can of lemonade. “How do we know that you’re actually Argus?”
“How do I know that you’re actually Evan, Maria, and Milo?”
“Okay, fair point.” Evan looked at Maria. “Why don’t we call a lawyer–”
“No!” Argus cleared his throat. “I mean, that won’t be necessary. Lawyers take so long to get anything done, and they’re so expensive–we can work this out ourselves.”
Maria looked at Milo, who had plopped on the floor and was making divots in the rug with his finger. The real Argus was as opposed to the government as a fake one would be, so that didn’t prove anything. They had to get him talking about the past.
“Our dad never really mentioned you,” she said, “except when he told stories about when he was little.
“I remember Leon,” Argus said. “What was your mother’s name?”
“Rachel,” Maria said. She was bouncing the ball of her foot on the floor now.
“Ah, yes. Shame she passed away–she was such a beautiful woman.”
Milo looked up from his divots, oblivious to the way Maria and Evan tensed behind him. “Did you know her?”
“I did.” Argus said. “She met Leon in college–but your brother and sister should be able to tell you that story.” He smiled at Maria.
“I–well–Evan? You tell it best.”
“Okay. Well, um, as you know, Mom and Dad grew up in the same town. They went to high school together–”
“Which school?” Argus asked.
“Reagan College Prep. And, uh, they were at the homecoming–dance?” He looked at Maria. “I’m sorry, I know it’s been five years.”
“Dad was standing by himself,” Maria said, and Argus leaned forward in his seat. “Well, he wasn’t alone, he was with Argus, but the two of them were off in the corner. And she asked him to dance, but he refused. He thought she had a boyfriend or something, so he wanted to keep a distance. But they kept running into each other between classes and during lunch, and Mom smiled at him every time, and when they graduated he realized he wanted to keep her smile around. So he asked her out, and a few years later they got married, and a few years after that Evan was born, and then me, and then a long time later Milo, and then . . . well, yeah.”
“Their plane flew into a mountain when I was five,” Milo said, who had been frowning at Argus for half the story. “Did you get resurrected?” He asked.
“Nobody can come back from the dead,” Maria said, and her voice had a hard edge. “Why don’t we go find your book, Milo.” She stood and went to the door.
“Wait a second,” Evan said. “Argus, what happened? Why–”
Maria yelped. She had opened the door, and Argus was standing outside.
Well, it looked like Argus, anyway. Except he was wearing overalls instead of a violet dressing gown, and was leaning on a stick that had a tennis ball impaled on the end. “Maria,” he said. “Milo. I didn’t realize you were here already.”
Maria stared at him, then turned and pointed at the first Argus. She opened her mouth, but couldn’t make any sound come out.
“I’m really confused,” Milo said, and his bottom lip inched upward of its own accord. Maria sat back down and heaved him onto her lap, wrapping her arms around him like a fence.
“You have a twin?” Evan asked, the last part of his sentence coming out an octave higher than the first.
“We haven’t lied as much as you think,” the Argus in overalls said. “He’s the real Argus. I’m Maximilian. I was hoping to greet you at the door but a little brown bat decided to sleep in front of our security camera and I didn’t see you pull up.”
Maria looked at him. “But Milo buzzed all the apartments.”
“I’m afraid that most of the electric wiring to the second and third floors fell prey to the mice.”
Evan put his head in his hands. “So then the whole death and will was fake.”
“It’s not so hard to impersonate a lawyer.” Maximilian lowered his voice. “‘This is Sebastian Bohn from Bohn and sons legal group. I regret to inform you that your uncle, Argus Hillman, passed away last month.’”
Evan deflated.
Maximilian tapped his walking stick on the floor. “The death was a lie. The will, not so much. You see, we need your help. We’re invested in a delicate matter and there are many things that must be kept secret–for example, that there are two of us.”
“They’re too big of a risk,” Argus muttered. “We weren’t agreed on this.”
Evan looked up. “Why?” He asked. “We sold our parents’ old house in Milwaukee and drove across the country because when do you ever get a free source of income? I’m twenty-five, I should know better than this. Gosh, Maria knew better than this and she hasn’t even graduated yet.”
Maximilian sighed. “Listen to me. We need you to live here. Clean the place up. Make it your home. Argus is supposed to be dead–we’re both supposed to be dead–and we don’t want the government taking this building, or the land. It’s very important to our project. You can use the money left in my bank account to cover all the taxes and fees. We won’t ask you to take part in our little venture, you just can’t tell anyone about it.”
“I–” Maria looked at Evan, then back at her uncles. “What happens if we say no?”
“We were hoping that you’d be willing to help your old uncles out,” Maximilian said. “And you don’t have anywhere else to go.”
Evan asked, “Do you mind if we have a conference outside?”
Maximilian’s face crumpled. “Feel free,” he said, stepping away from the door.
Evan didn’t speak until they were all seated in the dark U-haul. “We have the money from the house,” he said.
“But where will we go?” Maria asked. “What if they find us?”
Evan turned toward his sister, though he couldn’t see her face. “Would you rather stay?”
Milo said, “I don’t like them.”
“You know, they’re kind of a crack job, aren’t they?” Maria put an arm around her little brother and laughed. “I mean, who would do that to people?”
Evan turned the key and flicked on the headlights. The apartment building was suddenly lit up in front of them, the weeds in front of the truck casting tree-like shadows on its facade. As he backed around and drove to the main road, the front door opened and two figures emerged, one wearing purple, the other leaning on a stick.
“Idiot,” Argus said.
Maximilian didn’t say anything.
“Did you really think that would work?”
“Was worth a shot.”
“Idiot.”
In the U-haul, Milo leaned his head against Maria’s shoulder.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
Evan glanced at him. “Where do you want to go?”
“Mars,” Milo said. “The children’s encyclopedia said that there used to be life on Mars. Do you think that’s true?”
“I don’t know,” Evan said. “I guess we’ll have to find out, won’t we?”
Featured image by Lewis Ashton on Pexels.com
Ellen Sheehy 