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Chapter 5
You have just scaled down the grassy wall of the canyon. Your arms and shoulders are sore from climbing, your shoes and hands are wet from the grass, and your lungs are devastated by the act of physical exertion. This has been a long and grueling process. Because of the depth of the canyon, jumping was not an option, and because of the wet grass, reliable footholds were scarce. It was all worth it, however, now that you have reached the base of the canyon. Up close, the small town looks bizarre and almost unintelligible. The canyon holds about twenty buildings, mostly residential, all covered in almost every kind of flora. The dilapidated town has three intersections, each with at least one fallen stop sign. Marching forward, you notice the yellow lines of a street beneath all the grass. Obviously that this place has been abandoned for many years, and nature has taken the land back from the previous tenants—whoever they may have been.
This must have been a contaminated work site. Or someplace hurt by government testing or experiments. Something like Chernobyl. A neighbor once mentioned places like this: odd areas where governments experimented on entire towns and peoples. Back then, you thought it was just random paranoia, but this proves it.
The only thing you can’t figure out is where you are. I have to be somewhere in Europe. I was in Turkey, after all. Like many Westerners, you classify Turkey as an exclusively European nation. Or maybe I still am. Impossible to know now. Your confusion grows as you notice the cars. These cars look small, and don’t seem to have any antennas.
Must all be foreign models. Or I suppose they’re native here. Walking down the block, you notice another feature of these cars. This feature is a bit more suspicious than a lack of an antenna, because it defies your urban concept of security: all the cars have keys in their doors. Curious, you walk up to one of the cars. No, this can’t be right. You turn the key. It is right: the door indeed opens.
“What?” Confusion yields to giddy surprise. You look to the other cars with matching keys and doors. Joyfully you run across the street opening random car doors, only stopping when you spot more keys in the open. It isn’t just the cars that have keys in them, but the entire town. Every door, every lock, every security seems to have a key sitting inside of it. The fun continues by opening more car doors, gates, and even circuit breakers. What was once private becomes defenseless with the turn of a key.
One after the other, doors open to you with zero impunity. Drunk with the power of a key-lord, you laugh after the submission of every lock and the swing of every door. The unknown restrictions of locks have never been more apparent now that they have been completely removed.
For twenty minutes, you move along the tiny street, unlocking doors at every opportunity, stopping only at the sight of the nearly sunken sun beneath the horizon. I suppose I can’t just keep opening doors all day. Although, it wouldn’t be impossible to do this all day. Hot damn, who knew I would love opening doors like this? When God closes a door, he shouldn’t open a window, he should hand out keys. Without any restrictions, the nearest building becomes a refuge for the night. The two-story building you choose has a great amount of greenery around it and requires several shoves to open the door. Once inside, it doesn’t take you long to realize that the building was once a small clinic.
The entrance leads to a small waiting room full of old chairs, a large television, and a little coffee table. To the right of the entrance door is a receptionist desk made of brown oak. The desk is covered in dust, and just behind it sits three equally dusty file cabinets. You walk past the desk towards the waiting room, and find a small hallway to the left with many doors and a vending machine at the end of it. Just like all the other doors outside, all the doors inside hold their correct keys in their keyholes, even the one in the vending machine. After a few laps around the small building, you decide that this will make a fine home for the night.
After entering one of the rooms in the hallway, you wheel a hospital bed out into the waiting room and bring every blanket and pillow you can find. The waiting room seems like a better roosting spot than any other. I got a big European television for relaxing, and easy access to the door if I need to bolt. Better set-up than I had with Aydin. Now finished with constructing your nest, you decide to turn on the only television in the building, only to realize that there is no electricity. Right, the place is abandoned. After failing with the television, you rifle through the old vending machine in the hallway. All the candy bars and chips inside look extremely expired. However, because you once heard that honey never expires, you take a Honey Yummy Bar. A candy bar that holds a tiny jolly bee on its wrapper that shrugs and claims the bar to be, “90% Honey, But 100% Delicious!”
You are surprised with how true this statement is. While eating the sugary treat, you return to your nest in the waiting room. There you sprawl yourself atop a heap of blankets and pillows and comfortably continue eating. Occupying yourself with candy, you notice all the English pamphlets the waiting room seems to hold.
I might be in Great Britain, or maybe Ireland. Where else would one find exclusively English pamphlets in Europe? Staring at a pamphlet for Restless Leg Syndrome, the nation of the pamphlets origin becomes irrelevant. Regardless, England, Ireland, wherever. At this point not knowing is the same as knowing if there aren’t any people around. Thought I’d meet this Fisher person, but he isn’t anywhere near here as far as I can tell. You finish your third Honey Yummy Bar and snuggle in for bed. Settling in to sleep, a plan for tomorrow formulates itself. Tomorrow I’ll leave this godforsaken town and walk towards the nearest city or town with electricity. If I’m lucky I will be in the States within a week. And if I’m luckier, an Englishwoman before that.
You snort at your joke and fall fast asleep. Soon you slip into a dream. The dream is a common one. It features a dancing woman in yellow with beautiful blond hair. Then you hear a voice in your slumber.
“You’re with them, aren’t you?” asks the voice.
You assume that the voice is a part of the dream you are having. “No, no just us, yellow lady,” you sleepily respond to the dancer. She laughs. Grasping your pillow tighter she winks and continues dancing in the dream. That is, until you are startled awake with a strike to the head.
“Get out!” screams your attacker.
You awaken as a leaping, stumbling mess. The reaction lands you on the floor just past the bed. In the darkness, heavy-laid footsteps circle from behind, revealing a man’s figure looming in the dark. His last step pushes him into a swath of light coming from a window. While not completely clear, the light exposes segments of his body. He wears thick brown boots, baggy blue jeans, and a tattered blue shirt with the line “Legalize Gay” printed on it. Just below the collar of the strange shirt, a key hangs from the skinny line of a necklace. It’s not the greatest of ensembles.
“Who are you?” you scream from the floor. Your assailant takes another step, and the moon illuminates his face. Long black hair matches a wild scruffy beard. His hair contrasts starkly with his pale white skin, which looks covered in faint, scattered scars.
“The name is Fisher Price, owner of the Green Gash!” the man replies. You are remarkably confused with a myriad of things: first, with his shirt; second, with his name; and third, with the name he applied to this land.
“What?” you blurt.
“I’ll kill you!” Fisher screams as he rushes into a forward tackle. From his position, Fisher’s lunge is awkward and ill-timed. Rolling out of place, his initial attack misses and he hits the bed in the darkness. Taking the opportunity, you lift yourself off the floor and break for the door. With three steps out, freedom is near, but quickly lost as soon as Fisher grabs your lower half in a second leaping tackle. Falling in the dark your head hits the door and blood is felt at the bottom of the struggling spill.
“No! No, please!” Begging has no effect on your attacker as he grapples atop you on the floor. Waves of visibility appear in the struggle. Through the sense of self, the tussle is understood. Fisher tries to roll you over to have a better angle for strangulation.
His grabbing hands slip and grapple against your shoulder, mouth, and neck in his repeated attempts to move you. Though you resist with all you might, your body flips over onto its back. With no time to even beg he places his knee atop your chest and chocks you.
Above, a light from the outside peers through the window of the door of the clinic. You see Fisher’s forehead furrowed with hate. This man is going to kill me. He’s going to kill me! He’s going to kill me!
“No! Noooo!” Fearfully enraged, you kick and struggle in every way possible. From your position, you easily slam your knee into Fisher’s back. He roars at the strike, but does not fall. Angrier than before, his grip tightens around your neck. Again and again you attack, rocking his body back and forth with yours in the rhythm of your blows. They hurt, but not enough to end his mayhem. Every moment grows bleaker as the darkness of midnight slowly morphs into the darkness of death.
Fluttering about with what little space your position affords, somethings finds your hand. Grabbing the familiar something, you distinguish a target beneath Fisher’s visible eyebrow and stab him in the eye with the foreign object. The pain is greater than his resolve and Fisher falls to the side grasping his right eye and your weapon: a leftover Honey Yummy Bar.
Throwing the treat aside, he rockets up from the floor and so do you. With both of you now standing, Fisher cocks his arms ready. Instinct forces you likewise, following the pedigree of all men; war, chaos, and death feel organic in the moment. In the standstill of the night, he and you remain still, waiting for the instigator of the second round. Two beats pass unnoticed, when Fisher spits. Your body jumps at the splat of his phlegm. His right-hand streaks through the unknown darkness of the room, just passing your head in a miss. Meanwhile you connect with a jolting right hook to his nose. Hypocritical hurt is the main award for the blow as you watch Fisher fall back against the receptionist desk in pain.
People have a habit of hyperbolizing fist fights. Ordinarily this isn’t much of a problem, but because of this, many people, like yourself, who get involved in fist-fights soon realize that punching hurts both the victim and culprit of the blow. Which is why, after the aforementioned “jolting right hook,” your hand quickly crumpled. Falling to the floor, you grasp your wrist, hoping to relieve hurt in the hand. Fisher sits up, back against the oak desk, hand against his bloody nose. The fight is over. No one has won. The pitiful situation has left the both of you staring at each other with nothing more than a few out-of-breath pants.
Now what? Do I leave? Well of course I leave, but do I leave before or after him? On the one hand, I’m the one that beat him, so he should have to go. On the other hand, I didn’t technically beat him as I was just the one of us to land a punch first. Jesus, my hand kills. Who knew fighting like this could hurt your hand so badly? Popeye never talks about how painful punching Bluto is. Why isn’t this common knowledge? I would have kicked otherwise. Wait, does kicking people hurt your feet?
“Who are you?” The question breaks your train of thought. Fisher’s voice is raspy and attention-grabbing. Even as your enemy, his power commands respect.
“I’m, Icarus Holmes. Who are you?”
“Fisher Price, owner of the Green Gash.”
What do I even say to that? ...Oh, right. Hearing Fisher’s name has activated a memory in you. The thought is clear. Pushing your hand into your tight denim pocket, you retrieve the key. Should I give this to him? Where does it even go in this town? Deciding that the key is irrelevant to the current situation, and your situation in the grand scheme, you decide to follow the mystery message from Cemone and give Fisher the key.
“I think I have something for you.”
“What?” Fisher’s confusion seems to be the perfect cue to toss the key over. With a light thud, and then a clink, you hear the key land into him and then the floor. He scrapes the key off the ground. Silence follows.
“I think—I mean, I was told to give you that.”
No response. Instead, Fisher stands. From his angle his face is unknowable in the dark room.
“Get up,” he finally says. Preparing for the worst, you stand. Up close, you find Fisher’s murderous scowl has melted into a contented smile and now a gleefully laugh. “Thank you. Thank you so much. I’ve been looking for this for I don’t know how long.” With tears in his eyes, Fisher pulls you into a hug. He shakes you back and forth during the embrace. “How did you find this?”
“I found it on the floor of a room. I was told to give it to you by some woman named Cemone. Do you know who she is?”
Fisher pauses to think. Thoughts come and go in his changing facial expressions. “Not a clue, but I’m not allowed to leave the Green Gash. I don’t meet a lot of people. I’m so sorry for attacking you.” Fisher releases you from his hug and wipes the tears from his eyes before shaking your good hand in gratitude.
“I’m sorry I trespassed, Fisher,” you awkwardly reply. “I had no idea people weren’t allowed here.”
“That’s fine. I just thought you were a vagabond. They always creep in before they reach The Solstice.”
“Oh, well, I’m not a vagabond. In fact, I think I’ll be leaving now.” You attempt to casually (or as casually as anyone can after such an interaction) escape before things get any stranger, but Fisher stops you before they can.
“Oh wait! You gotta help me find where this goes.”
It’s now obvious that Fisher is the one responsible for the town full of keys and that helping continue this obsession could take a great amount of time. “Fisher, as fun as that sounds, I really don’t have time to—”
“Don’t worry, there are only two places this could fit. We’ll make The Solstice, I promise.”
Chances are, if I say no he’ll attack me again. Besides it can’t hurt if there are only two possible key holes for the thing. And it doesn’t hurt that I did technically ‘Find Fisher.’* Cemone’s order is the last motivator needed. Finally, you respond, “Yeah, alright. I’ll help you find where it goes.”
Fisher jumps around the room before he runs out of the clinic. You follow him out into the darkness and use the light of the full moon to find him. Outside Fisher pulls a small red flare out of his back pocket. He removes the cap and the flare sparks bright red.
“C’mon. Follow me.”
You begin following Fisher before you decide to ask him a few questions. Through the town, shadows swing past light posts, cars, and other figures blessed with the red of light of the flare. The light might be menacing in the abandoned township, but it’s clear that whatever could have lived here would have been killed or removed by Fisher some time ago.
“Fisher, can I ask you something?”
“You can ask me anything, man.”
“How did you get your name?”
“Mother gave it to me.”
“Your name is really Fisher Price?”
“Yup.”
“Are you related to the founder of the Fisher Price toy company?”
“I don’t know what those words mean, Icarus.”
“Which words do you mean, Fisher?”
“What does ‘toy’ and ‘company’ mean?”
Because of Fisher’s bewildering response, your line of questioning ends there. Past more of the town the two of you walk in silence.
“We’re here.” Fisher has taken you to an abandoned storage lot near the edge of the canyon, not five blocks from the clinic you were staying. At the end of the lot, you see a few buildings that would exist if not covered by the natural wall of the canyon. This part of town is also covered in greenery, but many of the garage doors that the lot holds still have visible numbers on them. The one Fisher has taken you to has a very visible blue two on the front, and a very faint five to the right.
You quickly remember that the key you gave Fisher held the number fifty-two on it, and understand that this is clearly the wrong garage. Fisher walks towards the garage and tries to open the lock belonging to a small panel to the right of it. He wriggles the key a few times before he stops trying the lock. “Not the one for this key, Icarus.”
“That’s a real shocker, Fisher,” you sarcastically reply. Fisher motions you to follow him even further, and as the two of you walk past the twenty-seven other garages you see the light of the morning sun. Fisher must also see it as he immediately throws away the flare. Once you reach garage fifty-two, Fisher tries the lock. Even though you can’t see the lock, you know from Fisher’s giggle that he has successfully opened the lock guarding the control panel.
“Well it looks like we found it, buddy,” you say. Fisher makes a sigh of satisfaction at the sight of the lock and key together. He stands for a beat, simply enjoying the moment. “Let’s get moving.” At the suggestion, Fisher starts walking away from the garage, despite the success he just found.
Is he even going to open it? “Wait.”
Fisher stops. “What for?”
“You’re not even going to look inside? You spent all this time trying to find the key, and you’re not even going to open the garage?”
“It’s not about what’s inside, it’s about the key finding the lock. It’s about closure.”
The irony of a key finding closure in a lock is not lost on you, but it is apparently lost on Fisher. You try to explain why that is, but stop yourself before even starting. I suppose if he doesn’t want to open the thing that’s his, probably insane, purgative.
“Do you wanna open the garage?” Fisher asks. Seeing as you don’t decline, he turns his body as to present the panel door so that you may open the garage. You take three steps forward and see a now-visible red button in the panel. The button resides next to two deactivated lights of differing bulb colors; one red the other green. Without a second thought, you thrust your thumb forward and press the button.
Really, Icarus? Again with this? You remember again that the town has no electricity, and that pushing the button is only effective in demonstrating your lack of forethought.
“It doesn’t work, Fisher,” you dryly announce.
“Well yeah, of course it doesn’t. Let me help you.” With eager strength, Fisher snaps down and lifts the garage door. The ancient door screeches as it begins to rise. A rolling cloud of smoke flies out of the garage once it opens, screening your view of its contents and forcing Fisher backwards, coughing. When the impairing smoke passes, you are angered to see what’s inside. Like a slap to the face, inside the open garage stands a large mirror displaying another blood-made message.
Well. That’s just rude.
@tippy vote