The Vaults by Toby Ball Page A

thought uneasily, like traveling through a maze of fire. The withered corn was too high to see over, and he had been traveling for several miles with the plants encroaching on the road from both sides, only occasionally broken by a clearing in front of a decrepit farmhouse.
    The Nash rattled ominously as the wheels found potholes. Even as he approached the farmhouse that was DeGraffenreid’s, Puskis was becoming nervous about driving back to the City at night. He pulled into DeGraffenreid’s dirt driveway and parked behind a rusting pickup truck. The wind through the corn sounded like a light but persistent rain. The sun was no longer visible beyond the close horizon. A rhythmic knocking came from the small, two-story house before him. Probably a shutter out back. Puskis hesitated before walking toward the front door. Each footstep made a complex sound as rocks and gravel were rubbed together under the soles of his shoes. It was a country sound, one he could not recall ever having heard.
    The steps to the porch were bowed in the middle and groaned under his weight. Behind a much patched screen door, the inner door stood open. The interior was too dark to peer into.
    He hesitated for a moment. “Mr. DeGraffenreid,” he ventured. He waited for several seconds, then tried again, a little bit louder. “Mr. DeGraffenreid.” When this again drew no answer, he eased the screen door open and crossed the threshold. Coming from the twilit outdoors, he had to wait for his pupils to dilate in the dark interior. He called out again, “Mr. DeGraffenreid,” but knew now that he would get no response. As his eyes began to adjust to the darkness, he became aware that he was in a large, rather bare room, and that a pile of something lay in the center. There was a strange, sweet smell, too, that he knew right off, even if his mind at first refused to acknowledge it. In an act more of denial than courage, he approached the pile.
    When he was close enough, he saw what, in fact, he had understood was there all along. The knees were tucked under the body, which was bent over so that the shoulders touched the ground and the arms were splayed, as if frozen during some Islamic prayer. But the head was missing, and what might have been a misshapen prayer rug was, in fact, scarlet blood pooling out from the open neck.
    The head, Puskis now saw, was propped on the windowsill, its hair almost completely gone and its eyes bulging. But there was no mistaking that crooked nose from the picture in the file. Puskis had not felt fear in so long that he did not recognize it now in his accelerated heartbeat and the sweat on his upper lip and brow and his shallow breathing. He knelt next to the headless body and felt one of the hands. It was still warm. DeGraffenreid had recently been alive. Maybe as recently as thirty minutes before.
    Then Puskis heard a sound from outside. A shuffling on the dirt along with a clicking noise. He looked up from the body, concentrating on the noise, and saw that something had been written on the wall. It was too dark to make out from where he was, so he straightened up and walked across the room. The message contained only two words, written in DeGraffenreid’s blood: PUSKIS DESIST .
    He stared at it, thoughts racing, for once, incoherently. He reached out to touch the letters, then stopped himself before actually making contact. He shook his head slowly and let out an involuntary moan.
    The noise from outside again penetrated his consciousness, as the strange shuffling and tapping sounds were now close, then replaced by the creak of the front steps and a new tapping sound of wood against wood. Puskis turned to face the door. The only other points of egress were the windows and a door to his left. He didn’t go for them though, and a silhouette appeared in the door.
    “Mr. Reif . . . Mr. Reif, you there?” The man waited for an answer. Puskis worried the man could hear his breathing.
    “Mr. Reif, you there?” The man