The Ready Guardian, Page 2

steel double-doors at the end.

  There wasn’t much of note: just an old storage room and a dressing room equipped with a shower and decorated in water stains and dark mold. That is, there wasn’t much of note until the double-doors at the end, and Daniel regretted venturing there. Pushing them open, he struggled to believe the information from his eyes, but his stomach reacted more quickly than his brain and twisted itself into knots. There in the gloom, throwing up a large shadow onto the wall behind it, was a large, charcoal-grey sarcophagus. Its cover was slightly askew and leaned up against the front of it was a skeleton in medieval rags.

  Unable to bear that strange room any longer, he stepped back and pushed the doors shut, a shiver rippling from his toes to his scalp. What kind of a place would hold a sarcophagus and a dirty old skeleton? A museum, you dolt—said the voice of his mind. Of course it was a museum; he had overreacted and who wouldn’t in the face of such dark things in such a dark place. That was over now and he was pleased to have solved the riddle. Except… shouldn’t a museum have other artifacts or displays?

  “Nuh-uh,” he chastised the timid voice of his anxiety, waggling his finger at the double-doors as if the voice in his mind had personified before him. “Lack of displays…” he muttered, “that just means it’s not an artifact or a relic. It’s uh… props, maybe, or some kind of set-piece.” Daniel didn’t understand where he was, but he was convinced it was a theatre hall or the worship house of some religious denomination or another, and the sarcophagus was in some way this troupe or sect’s equivalent of the Nativity scene or the Stations of the Cross.

  He didn’t really believe it, not really—but he thought he did.

  In wholeness of mind, he looked at the double-doors and forced a fake smile. He was altogether urging himself to believe the conclusions he’d reached, but even such a temporary imprisonment had already begun to weigh on him. Daniel went back upstairs and stopped the flashlight on his phone.

  Now he was officially late for work, and he wondered how long before they tried calling him. He spent a couple minutes searching for a signal and then gave up. Perhaps it was desperation that inspired his next idea, or maybe it was logically-reached—whatever the case, Daniel had a new plan. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he picked up a wooden chair in the cafeteria and took it over to the window.

  “I was only throwing a ball for my dog,” he imagined himself saying to the proprietors later on. “I’m sorry my aim was lousy. Let me pay for the repairs.” Of course he didn’t actually have a dog, and there wasn’t any ball, but they didn’t need to know that. It was a need-to-know kind of thing.

  With a dramatic grunt and a heave of effort, Daniel hurled the chair at the window and cringed as the legs struck the glass first and broke free of the seat. He couldn’t believe his eyes: the chair lay in pieces upon the floor and the window remained utterly intact. Now he’d gone and ruined their chair for nothing and the skeleton in the basement flashed through his mind.

  “No!” he lamented, retrieving one of the chair’s legs. Then, wielding it as a club, he bashed upon the window. “I’m. going. to. be. late. for. work!”

  Nothing.

  The thin glass shook in its frame but wouldn’t shatter or crack. Something about the window’s blatant disregard for physics threw Daniel into a passion and he pounded on it with both fists, then grabbed another chair and swung it with everything he had. The weaponized-chair collided with the glass, breaking apart as the first had done and Daniel stopped. He was stock-still and listening closely.

  He thought he’d heard a noise from the main hall, a bang or something.

  Only then did he collect himself enough to realize the chaos he’d wrought upon the cafeteria. There was blood on his hands in the form of dust and splinters and all about him lay dismembered limbs… of chairs.

  He really hoped they weren’t expensive chairs.

  There was nothing from the main hall now, so it might’ve been just his imagination. He thought he’d best check it out anyhow and headed for the door he’d previously left ajar. Rubbing his throat, which was a little sore and warm from the exertion, Daniel breathed deep to recover his breath and peered into the dark room. His eyes were much more accustomed to the darkness now and he made out all aspects of the room rather well—well-enough to determine it was empty.

  It was deflating and Daniel slumped down on the floor in the cafeteria and lounged against the wall. He closed his eyes and breathed deep, hoping to relax the tension in his chest. He didn’t really feel like breaking any more chairs, though he was tempted to give the other windows in the room a try—and cursed himself for focusing on only one before—and he certainly didn’t want to break any of the larger, stained-glass windows in the main hall. And, because there seemed to be no other entrance, he felt like he was out of options and resigned to wait it out. At least there was food and water, but he really wondered how he would explain all of this to his boss.

  “I’m sorry, I tried to call but I was trapped in a temple with a skeleton and unbreakable windows—well, one unbreakable window for sure,” he imagined himself saying, then shook his head in disbelief. Why the hell did he even enter that place? He wasn’t curious about architecture, so why?

  He’d seen it before, on his way to work. He’d seen it almost every day in fact. For three years—four?—he’d seen it, never even crossed his mind to stop in before today. Or had it? Had the temple been there, stewing in the back of his mind all this time?

  It wasn’t like any other religious building he’d ever seen either. It was monolithic, dark and light, foreboding and tempting… a gothic treasure atop a mountain of stairs surrounded by glistening skyscrapers in the heart of a downtown that crowded around the temple condescendingly. It had no place in the middle of a modern town and the other buildings knew it.

  So why was it there?

  Daniel didn’t know the answers, but he was scared, and all that fear sapped the life from him. He moved about the cafeteria that afternoon like a lumbering herbivore, munching on cherry tomatoes from the refrigerator and another sandwich. Finally, just before the onset of evening, he tried his cellphone one last time. There was no signal and no messages or calls had come through. Turning it off to save the battery, he curled up against the wall and tried to have a short nap, his eyes lingering over the door leading to the cot in the back. Unfortunately, he was nervous about the reaction if he was caught using someone’s bed—let alone trespassing and vandalism and snooping—so he grimaced and closed his eyes. Within moments, Daniel was asleep.

  No one came that day to let him out, and he slept right through the night.

  He was not troubled by his dreams.

  Some people wake up in the morning energized and ready-to-go; others wake up feeling dozy, their mind in pieces. Daniel had always been among the latter, but on this particular day it worked to his advantage. His brain was simply too tired to overreact to his oppressive circumstances and so, when he did open his eyes and find that his situation remained unchanged, he sighed and closed them right back up. He daydreamed, lingering on the floor awhile though his back was in outright revolt over it. While he daydreamed, his thoughts glided over the things that he’d missed out on during his day away from the world. He thought about his television and a couple of the people that were close to him. In the midst of these imaginings, these memories, a sudden flush of colour sounded off like an alarm in his mind and his brow twitched.

   “Stay calm,” he whispered to himself, shifting gently on the floor and trying to keep his breathing steady. “Stay… calm…” He inhaled slowly through his nose and when his lungs were full, he released the breath through his mouth.

   “Don’t freak out.”

   It worked… sort of. Of course he was still afraid of the dark surroundings, afraid of the skeleton in the basement, and worried that he wouldn’t see his people again, but he was now able to approach those thoughts in a more calculated way. He could pick them up, turn them over and analyze them—witho
ut the fear of a meltdown. When he felt ready, Daniel opened his eyes and found that he could apply this technique to the physical world as well. Rising, his bones sounded off like firecrackers. It was painful and relieving.

  Daniel took in the darkness and stretched. He couldn’t tell what time of day it was by the light because his eyes were more used to the dark than they’d been yesterday. Poking his head into the main hall, he counted the pews and studied the large columns supporting the high ceiling. All of this left him feeling empowered and he was ready to take another crack at tackling the mystery of the temple. Hopefully with stronger control than yesterday, he reminded himself, casting a quick peripheral glance at the two broken chairs by the undamaged window. Still, he was able to smile about that now because he was no longer worried about the price of replacement, which wasn’t a surprising attitude to take given a night of entrapment.

  “Breakfast of champions,” Daniel smiled, heading for the refrigerator. He was eager to continue his temple investigation, deluding himself into a sense of optimism, but for the sake of his psychology and brainpower he thought he’d best indulge in that oh-so-important first intake of the day.

  The refrigerator was fully stocked with food and drink.

  His smile fading rapidly, Daniel closed the door and gritted his teeth. Don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t panic. Closing his eyes, he went through his breathing exercises and then he opened the door.

  The refrigerator was fully stocked with food and drink.

  But how could that be? Yesterday he had most definitely eaten one—no, two!—sandwiches and uh… um… right: cherry tomatoes! Yet the package of cherry tomatoes was replenished—or was it a completely new package?—and the stock of sandwiches had been replaced. He knew they’d been, it was obvious, because there were no empty spots. He’d eaten two, so there should have been at least two empty spaces.

  Daniel shut the door but didn’t remove his hand from the handle. In silence he stood there, staring off into the gap between dimensions, his mind empty, his stomach nearly empty, his jaw hanging open like a zoned-out child in front of a television, and the fear gnawing its way to his core like flesh eating bacteria in fast-forward. The air crackled with static electricity. The hairs on his body were vibrating.

  Whistling a ditty, Daniel opened the refrigerator door and grabbed out a box of orange juice and a carton of milk. He left the fridge behind and went to the cupboards where he found a bowl and another cupboard replete with foodstuffs not requiring refrigeration. He grabbed a couple slices of bread—which he dropped in the toaster—and a package of oatmeal, though he’d been hoping for cereal. Now, humming to himself with a carefree smile plastered across his face, he put the electric kettle on and continued to prepare the rest of his breakfast. When all was said and done, he had himself a bowl of oatmeal mixed with some milk, a couple of slices of peanut butter toast, orange juice, black tea, and—he popped back over to the fridge—an apple.

  “Breakfast of champions,” he smiled and dug in. It was one of the most delicious breakfasts of his life; it was chock full of the sinister air of the temple. A lone tear carved a valley down Daniel’s cheek, but other than that he consumed the meal like a loopy automaton, and when the last spoonful was eaten and the last drink was downed, he stopped moving. As it had been when he stood before the refrigerator door, frozen in time and space, so it was now, and he sat there stupefied and petrified.

  Before long, however, his thoughts and emotions all came together again and he was filled with many, many things. But, even as these things filled him, he continued to sit there mulling them over, carefully plotting against his unseen abductor. Yes, among the many things that filled him was the acceptance that a certain someone had abducted him—to what end? Who could say? But the well-stocked refrigerator made the reality of his situation abundantly clear. He was a prisoner, for someone had come in the middle of the night to replenish the provisions and would’ve had to step over Daniel’s legs in order to reach the fridge.

  Unless it was the skeleton…

  Pfft—that was ridiculous and he really ought to avoid such thoughts: he was having a hard enough time remaining calm.

  But what to do about these new discoveries?

  When he thought about it, there didn’t really seem to be many options. In fact, he worked it out such that there were only two. The two were: do nothing—eat, sleep, drink, see if there’s anything to read… basically, wait for something to happen—it was a non-option if ever there was one; and seek escape. To his mind, “seek escape” was the only option, though it wasn’t as simple as that. Sure, the action was easy enough—he could start right away—but what he needed to think about were the potential results of his activities.

  Since he was convinced that someone was keeping him there deliberately, against his will, Daniel needed to be prepared for the possibility that whoever it was might object to the escape attempts and show him or herself. If such a thing occurred, Daniel would need to be ready for a confrontation. Of course, if his captor had a firearm, there was little he could do in defence. Barring that possibility, he needed to consider his weaponry. His eyes went to the jumbled pile of chair legs. It was an easy choice. Maybe he’d find better implements later but for the moment those would do.

  On the other hand, perhaps his captor or captors would never reveal themselves. They might just poison Daniel and be done with it. There was nothing he could do about that either so he put the thought away and moved on. They might just let him go, he considered, if he earned it. Some sort of strange game like the serial killers play in movies, he imagined. It gave him a shiver, but was still better than being shot or poisoned or trapped in the temple for the rest of his life. At least that option allowed him a hope of escape, and besides, it’s not like they weren’t feeding him.

  Daniel was still just sitting there in his chair, staring straight ahead, but it was reaching the point where he realized the consequences of escape were just too vague to think about. He had to move forward or stay still, and he didn’t know enough to draw conclusions about either option so he was forced to stumble forward blindly.

  But how?

  His first guess was to continue where he’d left off yesterday, only this time he’d check the rest of the windows and he’d use a broken chair leg to do it… otherwise he’d end up with nowhere to sit. It didn’t work out. All of the windows in that room were impervious to damage. That was only the first trial: the day proved to be one of exploration and Daniel became well-acquainted with everything above ground. He avoided the basement.

  He was able to examine the main hall more fully, now that his eyes were better trained to the dark. The heavy front door that trapped him inside now became his object of study and he wondered how he might get open a door that refused to open. He toyed with the lock, studied its exterior and wondered if there was a method to dismantle it. Daniel might well have ventured into the basement in search of a tool kit had there been any discernible screws, bolts, or fixtures holding the door in place. Any manner of removable apparatus would have done for him at that point, but it seemed the only way past the door would be to smash off the handle. But Daniel would not risk destroying the handle, not on this day, lest he doom himself further by ruining the contraption and mashing it into an immovable form.

  He checked the stained-glass windows, studied them closely. The red and black images adorning them were sequential from one window to the next, but he didn't recognize any of the scenes so he assumed the church must either be some new age magic or something from the East. There didn’t seem to be any way to open those windows either and he was worried about breaking them because, if it turned out to be a misunderstanding, they looked expensive to replace. Leaving the windows temporarily, he went up the speaker’s platform and saw a table behind the podium. Laid out on the table was a heavy sceptre of gold and Daniel saw that as a sign, a godsend, and he changed his mind about the stained-glass windows.

  Armed with his ceremonious club,
he tried hammering out the lower portion of the first stained-glass window. The window refused to shatter and desperation reared its ugly head. Before long, Daniel was rushing about the main hall, smashing the dinted and scraped head of the powerful religious artifact against the expensive stained-glass windows—but none of them would give in.

  The sceptre clattered to the cold tile floor, sending out a thousand echoes. Daniel collapsed in defeat. He tried hard to collect himself, to compose himself, but it was more than difficult. One thing that helped was his cellular telephone, which he turned on hoping for a signal. There wasn’t one, of course, but there were pictures stored within its memory: pictures of his family, friends, and of himself; pictures of work and games and random things that didn’t seem to make sense to him anymore but must’ve made sense somehow at the time of the picture being taken; pictures of a previous life taken for granted.

  Was he being melodramatic? He felt sure he was and that it would still somehow come out that this whole thing was just some sort of mix-up, a terrible oversight that had nearly cost a man his job. He felt sure, but he didn’t know. That’s what really did him in: not knowing. He thought he could handle the truth much better than he could handle the uncertainty, and he probably could have. Everything in his life before this point suggested he was much more sure-handed and strong-footed when he knew the situation—no matter how flustering it was. His greatest periods of strife and stress always involved the shadow of doubt, not knowing what was really going on, not knowing when it would end. There was no reason for Daniel to think now was any different.

  He switched his phone off to save the battery and sat alone in the darkness.

  At the end of the day, when Daniel was tired and at the limits of emotion, he thought he could save himself best by sleeping—to rest his thin and tense mind before it snapped. But before he did he started an experiment: opening the refrigerator, he ate and drank as much as his numb body could take in, paying extra attention to foods he could finish off. If there were few cherry tomatoes remaining, he finished what was left in the container; if the orange juice was nearly gone, he finished the box; if there were half a dozen eggs left, well, he was getting rather full because he’d already had some sandwiches too, so he broke the eggs and washed them down the sink.

  It was a terrible plan.

  Possibly, it might’ve been reasonable to drink up all the orange juice or