Are You Haunted (part thirty-nine)

Are You Haunted

(part thirty-nine)

He listened, following the green second hand around his watch face. He heard no other sound. Maybe they were willing to leave him…when the Big Push came, just roll off, Kenzie marked AWOL…

Kenzie marked a deserter, available to be shot. But he felt stirred up, bothered by a thing he kept smelling. By a tiny thin whisper. He scooted on his back a foot or two nearer the halo, where a pipe came in from outside. Someone had plied a wrench to the coupling, leaving a ring of shining copper beaded with condensation.

An odor of inferior coal-gas was the thing that whispered, a pulse of stink stink stink.

So long as the cellar was left alone, the gas could dissipate. At any time, under the guise of ordinary work, the pipe could be sealed, the infernal device disabled.

But yet again, if they wished to use what they’d arranged, they had only to employ some hapless stooge, another Powell, under the thumb of another Breedman. He would board over the broken windows, plug the holes in the foundation. Because he’d been told to, and no one watching would think anything of his doing it. The gas would balloon from the cellar to the lobby. A cigarette might set it off.

Telling himself he was stupid, but feeling panicked, Powell heeled back to the drain. Worries tumbled over and resolved. The first idea, that they would not hate him if he reported what he’d found, he rejected.

They would find a way to make it his fault.

And as his feet touched the cellar floor, he knew. He threw up a hand against the light, seeing, when Miller lowered this, that he had waited alone.

“Jesus Almighty, Kenzie, look at you! I knew you were in there. You raised a cloud of dust, moving around.” Miller grabbed his arm, hustled him along. “When you get upstairs, you gotta clean yourself up. Use your canteen.”

On the landing, Miller stared into Powell’s face, his own amazed and pitying. He decided not to trust the idiot, keeping his grip going up the next flight. “We agreed we’re not gonna say anything. It’s okay. Powell Kenzie, we are all in the shit pile together. You bear that in mind.”

The shock was prolonged this time.

He was paralyzed, he thought, or he would lift a hand to shade his eyes from the glare. The headache was a jackhammer at the base of his skull, the light a fog filling the room. He was cold, where before the attic had seemed too hot for a blanket. He needed to wake from this dream. He might not be as sick as he felt…that too could be an illusion.

39

Haunted
Are You Haunted (part forty)

(2019, Stephanie Foster)