Category: Fiction Factor

With run-of-the-mill haunted houses and standard Halloween parties anywhere and everywhere, Jack Fancher and Jean Dobbler were looking for something different. So, how could they pass up something called “Sam Haynes’ Self Storage Facility of Horror?”

Their walk from the Allantide City Center, where revelers were coming and going from parties, took them to several side streets. And it was a homemade sign staked by the side of the road that pointed to an out-of-the-ordinary establishment.

The self-storage part was self-explanatory; it was, indeed, a row of several units with rollup doors.

As for the horror, well, muffled screaming and pounding on the inside of the steel doors created a cacophony that was more irritating than frightening. And instead of a shadowy figure ready to greet unsuspecting victims, the host for the evening was none other than the rather dodgy-looking Sam Haynes himself.

Bespectacled, wheezing – a lit cigarette dangled from his lips – and topped by a horrendously-bad combover, Sam motioned Jack and Jean to come closer.

“Evening,” Sam said, taking a drag from his Lucky Strike. “Are you two ready for the most horrifying experience of your lifetimes?”

The couple chuckled.

“We were just looking for something new,” Jean said. “We love the name of the place … but we were hoping you could tell us a little bit about what to expect first. Also, how much are you charging for admission?”

Sam thought for a second.

“You know, I really don’t have a set price … it mostly depends on my mood,” he said. “How about this; I’ll take five dollars a head and if you don’t think the Sam Haynes’ Self Storage Facility of Horror experience is the most frightening of your lives, I’ll double your money back.

“Now, you can’t beat a deal like that anywhere.”

Jack nodded in approval.

“Hell, yeah, my man,” he said. “But Jean and me – we’ve basically seen it all, so I’m pretty sure we’ll be leaving here with 20 bucks between us.”

Sam turned and began walking toward the units.

“Follow me,” he said. “We’re going to No. 7 down here.”

The banging on the closed units continued, along with more screams and wails. Jack and Jean assumed there were some pop scares courtesy of Self Storage Facility of Horror cast members, although they had no idea how such theatrics could be done convincingly in something that was basically a small garage.

When they reached the front of the unit and looked inside, there was only a table, two chairs, two pencils, two sheets of paper, a loudspeaker attached to the wall and what appeared to be a drop box.

“OK,” Sam said. “You two step inside and I’ll close up. Then we’ll get this party started.”

Jean balked.

“Wait a minute,” she said. “Is this some kind of condo sign-up thing? I don’t see anything in there that’s scary – unless, of course, it is some kind of condo sign-up thing. We’re not interested in anything like that.”

Sam unleashed a loud, chunky cough, then unceremoniously spat dangerously close to Jack’s shoe.

“Up to you,” he said. “I can give you your money back now or – if your boyfriend here is right – you can leave with twice what you gave me. I ain’t gonna push you into doing something you don’t wanna do, though.”

Jack looked at Jean and shrugged.

“Come on Jean,” Jack said. “Even if it is some dumb gimmick, we’ll still come out ahead.”

The two walked in the stuffy unit, and Sam then stepped back to pull down the door.

“Just go in, sit down and in about a minute you’ll get instructions from the loudspeaker,” he said. “But give me your cellphones first; they can set off some pyrotechnics prematurely and we sure don’t want that, do we?”

Sam took the phones and then slammed down the door.

Jack and Jean, meanwhile, made their way to the table and pulled out the chairs. They glanced at two pencils, fully sharpened, and two blank sheets of paper, glaring under the tube lighting on the ceiling.

Moments later, the loudspeaker crackled.

“Can you guys hear me?” Sam asked.

“Yes, we can,” Jean said. “So, are we supposed to be scared of sharp pencils and paper?”

The speaker crackled again.

“Well, yeah, kinda,” Sam said. “Have either of you ever heard of something called the Riemann hypothesis?”

There was no response, so Sam assumed they had not.

“According to Wikipedia it says here that the Riemann hypothesis is – and I’m quoting – the conjecture that the Riemann zeta function has its zeros only at the negative even integers and complex numbers with real part 12.”

If this was a joke, Jack wasn’t laughing.

“This is ridiculous, man,” Jack said. “You brought us in here to do math? Just open up and give us 20 dollars.”

There was a short pause before Sam replied.

“No, see, I can’t do that,” he said. “Not unless you can solve the Riemann hypothesis. If you can, you need to put your answer in the drop box. If you can’t, then I guess this is your tomb.”

Jack banged the table.

“Enough!” he shouted. “Let us out, or I’m gonna kick your old ass.”

Sam cackled.

“Son, nobody’s every solved that math problem,” he said. “And that means nobody has ever gotten out of Sam Haynes’ Self Storage Facility of Horror … at least not alive. You can yell and bang and scream all you want – all my other victims have – but everybody screams and makes noise on Halloween an nobody thinks anything of it. Help ain’t coming, and you’ll be out of air in a couple of hours.”

Jack and Jean continued yelling and banging against the wall, draining their energy while increasing their feelings of hopelessness.

“Happy Halloween,” Sam whispered through the speaker. “Did I promise the most horrifying experience of your lifetimes, or what?”

Ezra Reuben rubbed his hands together while sitting on the park bench, avoiding making eye contact with anyone in the Living With Loss group.

After his wife of 43 years had died, it had taken him two months to leave the house and a month more to resume any semblance of a routine. Opening up about his loss was an even bigger step, especially in the setting of grief counseling.

“Everyone, please welcome Ezra,” said Debbie, the group coordinator, gently patting the man on his shoulder.

Ezra raised his head slightly.

“Uh, my name’s Ezra, and I lost my wife, Arlene, a couple of months ago,” he said to the other bereaved gathered in the park. “We were married more than 40 years, and I’m 68 so we were together a lot longer than we weren’t. I honestly don’t know what to do with myself now that she’s gone.”

He finally looked around, seeing friendly if unfamiliar faces among those taking part in the outdoor session. He doubted going out in public and sharing his pain would help, but gentle nudges from friends finally convinced him to at least try – and get some fresh air in the process.

“We knew this was coming for a while,  so when she finally passed, I had braced myself as best I could. But you can never prepare for something like that … not really.”

Ezra then forced a smile.

“Right there at the end, we told each other we loved each other, of course,” he said. “But you know what the last thing she said to me was? She said, ‘Ezra, you’ve got to go on because you have to take care of the cats.’ So, I guess now I’m just waiting for the cats to die.”

The couple had no human children, but animals had been part of their world throughout their marriage. Over the years there had been dogs as well as cats – even a ferret at one point. But at the time of Arlene’s death, the couple was down to 15-year-old Barfolomew and 17-year-old Ferris Mewler – both ginger tabbies.

“Those boys miss their mama,” he said. “But they’re good company – and they make sure to let me know I still have to feed ‘em.”

Ezra didn’t expect to spend his sessions on the bench talking about cats, but it made him feel better when he did – and that feeling seemed to be contagious.

One visit to the park led to two meetings of the Living With Loss Group and two evolved into six. It wasn’t long before Ezra was quite comfortable chatting with everyone in his group. And oh, how he loved talking about his kitties.

Three months into his meetings, however, Ezra showed up for a session with tears in his eyes. Ferris had finally succumbed to kidney disease.

“I was taking him to the vet every week to give him fluids,” he told the group. “But by the end there wasn’t any quality of life left for him, so I had to let him go.

“It’s just Barf and me now.”

Ezra knew all too well the trauma of losing a four-legged family member. He had often said the price you pay for spending some of the best years of your life with an animal is having to endure that one horrible day when you lose them. Coming so soon on the heels of Arlene’s death caused the loss to hit even harder.

It was several sessions before he became “chatty” again, but once he did, he expressed concern about Barfolomew.

“He won’t eat,” Ezra told Debbie after a meeting. “I think he misses Ferris … and Arlene.”

The Living With Loss group met each Thursday, and late on a Wednesday night, Debbie got an email from Ezra.

“Barf is gone,” it read. “I went to check on him before I went to bed and found him dead on the bathroom floor.”

Debbie felt horrible for Ezra, but she was also worried; of all the things he had said during the support group meetings it was the line “I guess I’m just waiting for the cats to die” that concerned her most.

She didn’t want to overstep, but she also feared what the widower might do.

“I’m so sorry about Barf, Ezra,” she emailed back. “You’ve had to deal with a lot in a short period of time but please, please come to Thursday’s meeting. Get there early and you and I can talk.”

Ezra emailed back with an ominous answer: “I’ll try, but I have a decision to make tomorrow.”

Debra spent most of the night pacing, wondering if she would ever see Ezra again. He had made so much progress, but the deaths of his cats had surely been a setback.

When morning came, she decided to drive over to Ezra’s house and do a wellness check.

She rang the doorbell, but there was no response.

She then knocked frantically, but again, nothing.

The garage was closed, so she couldn’t tell if his car was there or not.

But just as she decided to call 911, Ezra pulled up in his driveway.

He got out of the car and waved, then walked to the passenger side and opened the door.

He retrieved a cardboard pet carrier and began walking toward Debbie.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I was worried about you,” she said. “What have you got there?”

Ezra opened the box and pulled out a black cat – an old boy graying around the mouth and missing a left eye.

“This is Snake Plissken,” Ezra said. “That decision I told you I had to make? It was either getting a kitten or a senior cat, and the minute I saw this guy I knew he needed me – that we needed each other.”

Debbie reached over and scratched Snake’s chin, and he responded with a vibrant purr.

“Arlene told me to go on because I have to take care of the cats,” Ezra said. “From the looks of the shelter, there are a lot that need taking care of.

“I guess I’ll be here for a while.”

The big glass door at the Meadowdale Diner slowly opened, giving way to the pressure of Henry Brady’s right shoulder push. Once inside, he gave the place a quick once-over.

It was already filling up with the lunch crowd; many of the patrons were dressed in their business attire, having ducked in for a quick bite before heading back to the office.

But Henry?

He was wearing what appeared to be a mylar emergency blanket (with holes for his arms to go through) and light blue slippers.

Patrons began stepping away as he shuffled toward the counter.

“Can I get a cup of Joe?” he asked the young man working the register. “I don’t have any money on me but my co-workers will pay for it. They should be here in another 10 minutes or so.”

There was one small, open table in the corner of the restaurant, and Henry made his way over to it, easing into the hard, plastic chair and letting out a long sigh.

While most of the customers had already stopped staring – if you look hard enough you can see just about anything in the downtown of a big city – the manager kept his eye on the man, who had settled into his spot and had his arms crossed and propped on the table.

“Sir, are you OK?” said the manager after nervously walking toward Henry.

Henry looked up at him, saw that his name tag read “Jim,” and smiled.

“I’m fine, Jim … and I’ll be even better after I get that coffee,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

The manager leaned down on one knee.

“You just look – I don’t know – like maybe you wandered out of a doctor’s office or a hospital or something,” Jim said. “I just want to make sure no one is looking for you.”

Henry laughed.

“Ah, you just want to make sure I didn’t escape,” he said. “Trust me … I couldn’t even I wanted to. And really, I don’t want to … I’m just on my lunchbreak – like a lot of the other people in here.”

He then looked past the manager and out the window facing the busy side street outside the diner.

“That thing across the way … how long has that been here?” he asked while pointing.

“You mean the public parking deck?” Jim said. “I really couldn’t say. It’s been here as long as I can remember … 10, 20 years at least, I guess.”

Henry squinted to get a better look.

“Hmmm,” Henry said. “About 100 years from now … maybe not even quite that long … there’s gonna be what’s called a hover station. It’ll be a place where people can store their gliders. There won’t be any more cars, at least not how you think of cars now.

“But this place will still be here. Well, I don’t think it’s called the Meadowdale Diner anymore and everything is automated, but I can still come here and get coffee.”

Jim knew there was something amiss with Henry the moment he walked in, and his nonsensical rambling confirmed his suspicion. Perhaps he had wandered off from a mental health clinic down the block. Or, maybe he had undergone an outpatient procedure and had yet to fully shake off the anesthesia. There was a hospital satellite office less than a mile away.

“Sir, do you remember where you were just before you came in here?” Jim asked.

Henry nodded.

“Absolutely … I was across the street,” he said. “In fact, I was right in the middle of where that parking deck is – or was. After they started that energy pattern transmission company there wasn’t much need for gliders anymore. And then when scientists decided to mess around with time jumps, these quantum shops – the place where I work – began popping up all over the place.

“It’s been fun for me. Been with  the same shop for about half a century now. As a tester I don’t go to a lot of different places, but I get to go to a lot of different times, which I like better. I get to see how the climate has changed, how people have changed, changes in infrastructure … then I file a report.”

Henry got up, stretched, and waved at the two men who had just materialized near the diner’s exit.

“Well, Jim” he said. “There’s my ride. If you can just give me my coffee to go, one of them will settle up with you. I don’t miss much about the 21^st century but man, you guys did coffee right.”