The Rope

The air smelled of stale smoke and cinnamon. Patrick Bates walked along the dirt driveway that ran from SR 667 to what used to be his grandfather’s house. A large rectangle of broken cinderblocks outlined the ghost of a home, that miserable home where uncomfortable summers and awkward Thanksgivings still lingered in Patrick’s mind.

Grandpa tore down his house some ten years before he went into a long term care, but Patrick never had a reason to return here until now. “I give, devise, and bequest my 20-acre parcel of land to my grandson, Patrick Bates” was how Grandpa phrased it in his Will. Patrick had only come down to Thomasville for the reading of the Will. At Slagle & Beakman, in the most sterile of conference rooms, either Slagle or Beakman read Grandpa’s Will to an audience of one. Apparently, this tract of land was Grandpa’s sole asset. Either Slagle or Beakman ended the reading promptly, and abruptly, at 5 pm that Friday afternoon.

Patrick wanted to visit the tract before it got dark. Thomasville was different now and expanding, what with the new auto plant. On the drive to Grandpa’s, Patrick thought more about the money he could fetch for the tract than about any sort of legacy Grandpa may have been trying to impart upon him. With the cash this lot could sell for, he could buy a decent place back in Chicago.

Leaves crunched as Patrick walked around the perimeter of the broken cinderblock foundation. He paused at the rear left corner. “Can you reach it, Patrick?!” he heard Grandpa shout in his memory. Grandpa sent him under the house to collect some rust that had gathered along the pipes. As an 8 year old then, Patrick was under four feet tall and was the only one who could possibly slink through the dank dark crawlspace. When presented with the rust specimen, Grandpa ran wild with excitement to get a baggie and then placed the yellow flakes with the rest of his collection, a melange of red, brown, and black rust baggies.

From the space that used to be the backyard, Patrick looked toward the extreme rear of the property. Grandpa had also demolished his workshop, which used to lay in the barren field about 30 yards from the house. Pumpkin colored leaves covered the entirety of the of the back yard of the house. A bright red fallen oak leaf caught Patrick’s eye. He walked toward it, picked it up, and traced its intricacies with his eyes. He let go of it and the light wind carried it a ways into the field. But on the ground, just below the red leaf, Patrick found a six inch piece of thick rope.

“What the?” he said aloud.

Patrick tried to pick up the rope, but it was connected to something in the ground. He tugged at it, partially in disbelief and partially with the insatiable curiosity that was often the cause of most of Patrick’s problems. The rope didn’t budge—not one inch.

Patrick pushed the leaves aside, forming a circle around the six inch protrusion of rope. Patrick hadn’t seen a rope this thick since losing tug-of-war at summer camp. He was the front line of the blue team and fell head first into a giant puddle of mud when they lost to the reds. Damn reds. The clay dirt around the rope budged a little when he dug into it with his hands. After ten minutes of digging by hand, and as his fingernails became caked with black, he stood and wiped the sweat from his brow. A magpie landed on a branch nearby and squawked.

Patrick looked at the red skyline and decided to retire for the evening at a motel back towards town. He slept for only a few hours because thoughts of the rope stirred about in his mind. Curiosity refused sleep.

The next morning, after a brief stop at a hardware store, Patrick returned to the 20-acre parcel armed with a shovel. He found the rope and pushed away the leaves that had trespassed over night into his handmade circle. The clay soil was firm, but much easier to manage with a shovel. After an hour or so of digging, he saw that the rope extended into the ground toward the barren field at a shallow angle, and, to uncover the rope, he would need to dig a trench of increasing depth.

By the time the autumn sun was overhead, Patrick had outlined a trench extending to the edge of where the leaves stopped and the barren field began. He had dug as much as he could before the shovel became slick and difficult to hold. His hands were bleeding. He didn’t even notice that his hands had blistered and the skin of his palms had rubbed off. Knowing his palms were raw made them sting all the more. He removed his flannel shirt and wrapped his hands with it. The wind threw a chill over his sweaty undershirt.

Patrick sat by the trench and dangled his legs over the edge at the farthest point. He looked at the 10 yards of rope he had uncovered. The rope extended out into the field in the direction of where Grandpa’s workshop had been. Patrick remembered sitting near this very space some 30 years ago, less the trench of course. His mother told him to never go out to the workshop when Grandpa was working and that Grandpa needed his privacy.

One morning, during one of those particularly dreadful summers, Mother went grocery shopping. Grandpa had been tinkering in his workshop for hours and Patrick was the only one in the house. From the kitchen window, Patrick saw something flash in the workshop. He creeped outside, stood on a tire iron by one of the workshop windows, and peered inside. Grandpa maneuvered a giant torch in one hand and a mass of something else in the other. He welded together the torso of what looked like a broken metal mannequin. Patrick tried to look closer, but the whites of his eyes were almost touching the window. Still, his curiosity pushed him even closer. Then, he slipped and caused a loud crash. Patrick’s fall startled Grandpa. The old man dropped both the torch and the mass of whatever he held in his gloved hand onto the ground. Then, the metal torso hit the floor.

Patrick busted his lip on the window sill and bled.

“Goddammit, Patrick! You aren’t supposed to be out here! Get out of here! Go back inside!” Grandpa pointed with his gloved hand toward the house. His glove was covered in gold.

The Patrick who sat thirty years in the future tongued the scar on his bottom lip. He unwrapped his hands from the flannel shirt, took a swig of Dasani, and looked at his watch. “Three O’Clock! How is it three already?” he said aloud. Patrick knew he would never get this trench dug before he had to leave on Sunday. His back hurt. His hands were ruined; it would take weeks to grow back the skin on his palms. But he had an idea.

“Where do you want it?” the driver of the roll back truck said. It was early Sunday morning.

“Right here is fine.” Patrick pointed to the gravel road, ending the short negotiation of where the medium sized excavator would be delivered. The driver wore a mechanic’s jumpsuit with a name patch on the left chest that read “Cletus.”

Cletus lowered the bed of the truck, unchained the excavator, and climbed in the drivers seat. He maneuvered the exactly to where Patrick asked for it.

“667. That’s pretty close don’t ya think?” Cletus said.

“Close? Close to what?”

“The devil’s number. County should rename it.”

Patrick stood agape for a moment and then continued. “Are you also the operator?”

“Me, no. Operator’s Jimmy.”

“When will he arrive?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? But I need to finish this today.”

“It’s the Lord’s day. Can’t work today.”

“But you just delivered it?”

“Just leave it out by the road when you’re done and I’ll pick it up.”

“But how do I operate it?”

“Well, you’re smart enough, city boy. Why don’t you put that noggin of yours to some use.”

“But—“

Cletus drove off.

An hour later, Patrick had navigated the excavator down the gravel drive and to the trench he had dug by hand. Driving the thing wasn’t the hard part—it was figuring out how to turn it on that took more than half of that hour.

The excavator was powerful but clumsy. He had to line up his digging strokes broadly and then work toward the middle line, lest the power of that machine tear through the rope. After a dozen firm scoops of clay, Patrick stepped out of the excavator to examine his work. He eyed the path of the rope through what he had dug. He grabbed the shovel with his bandaged, gloved hands and removed the loose clay dirt.

“Patrick, will you go upstairs and tell Grandpa that lunch is ready?” his mother said in his memory.

He looked at his mother in disbelief. He knew, and she knew he knew, that he was wise to be on high alert when retrieving Grandpa from the depths of the house.

“It’s ok, hon, he knows lunch is about ready. It’s BLTs. He loves BLTs.”

The old wooden steps creaked as he ascended to the second floor. He walked down the hallway, which had just one picture hung along its path--an old wedding photo of Grandpa and his bride, who died before Patrick was born.

Patrick reached Grandpa’s bedroom door and knocked.

“Grandpa?” Patrick said. “Lunch is ready.”

Silence resonated through the hallway. Patrick knocked again.

“Grandpa?”

No reply.

The door creaked as Patrick opened it. He looked into Grandpa’s room, first to the empty twin bed and then across the darkness. Curtains draped the room and very little daylight broke through.

“Grandpa?” Patrick called into the darkness.

A zippo lighter chimed open and sparks flicked. The smell of lighter fluid breezed past Patrick as he saw Grandpa seated upright in a straight back chair.

“Patrick! Please come in and have a seat.” Grandpa motioned to the empty straight back chair to his right.

“Grandpa, lunch is ready. Mom made BLTs—“

“Sit down!”

Patrick fumbled in haste to the empty chair and did as he was told.

Grandpa ran his thumb over the pages of a paperback novel.

“Yes, sir,” Patrick said.

“Have you read this?” Grandpa handed the book to Patrick.

“Frankenstein? By Mary Shelley?”

Grandpa nodded.

“Um, no, but I saw a movie one time where this mad scientist had sewn all these body parts together and zapped the corpse with lightning and it came to life.”

“What’s the monster’s name?” Grandpa asked.

“Uh, Frankenstein. The monster is named Frankenstein.”

“Incorrect,” Grandpa said. “The scientist is named Frankenstein. The monster has no name.”

“Oh,” Patrick said, befuddled.

“In Shelley’s work, no lightning storm brings any collection of cobbled body parts to life. Rather, Victor Frankenstein discovers a way to animate matter. He uses this method to create life.”

“How does he do that?”

“No one knows. Shelley didn’t clarify those details. But, her story is so rich with vitality and meaning that one has to believe there’s a way to do the things she contemplated. Right, Patrick?”

“Uh, I guess so.”

“I know so. Do you remember when you were a kid and you saw me working in my workshop?”

Patrick ran his finger over his lip. “How could I forget?”

“I’ve discovered the process, Patrick. Just like Shelley dreamed about. I’ve done it.”

“Well, what is it?”

“I take,” Grandpa said, pausing as if something were stopping him from talking. “I take. I take. I—“

The right side of Grandpa’s face began to droop. He leaned forward and fell to the floor with a resounding thud.

“Mom! Help! Something’s wrong with Grandpa!”

As the sound of Grandpa’s stroke echoed through Patrick’s memory, the excavator hit something solid and permanent in the earth. The morning turned to afternoon. Patrick made a ravine of neat lines with the excavator scoop. The gulch tilted down into the ground, and the rope lay across the top of the bottom most part. The weight of the excavator helped pack the clay earth down below the rope. At eight feet down, Patrick scooped away as much dirt and clay as he could with the excavator, but the harsh sound of steel on concrete partially dissuaded him.

After a time, Patrick outlined a 10 foot by 10 foot concrete slab in the ground, but the rope continued downward into the ground.

“It’s a room,” Patrick said aloud.

As the sun set, Patrick had finally scrapped the clay dirt away from the top and front of the 10 foot cube. He peeked at the time on his phone. 5:35 pm. He wasn’t going to make his 7 pm flight at this rate, but he was in too deep, both figuratively and literally, to turn back now.

The rope terminated into what looked like a wooden door on the front of the room. He tugged the rope with all his might and the door didn’t budge. But when he pushed the rope toward the block, the rope moved into the room.

“A knot,” he said.

Patrick grabbed a stick from nearby and traced the perimeter of the door. The half inch space was caked with clay. As he freed the door from the dirt, Patrick saw a compartment in the front of the door near where a handle would be. He opened the compartment. He saw a knob and a rolled up piece of paper. He withdrew the paper and read it.

Dear Patrick,

If you’re reading this, you have no doubt found your way to the room I buried deep beneath the earth. I know you are curious to open this door, but please, do not open it. I have created an abomination, an unstoppable evil. It must remain locked away underground. Keep this wretch buried. I am sorry.

Enjoy the land.

Love, Grandpa

Then, something moved inside the buried room.

“Hello?” Patrick said.

Something moved again, this time with more clamor.

Patrick turned and walked up the grading to the top of the 30 yard long, ten foot wide hole in his newly acquired land. He looked at his phone. 6:29 pm.

“I should get back,” he said under his breath.

He took three steps toward the road and then some irresistible urge from within pulled him back to the hole.

“I gotta know,” he said aloud.

He turned on the light on his phone and made his way to the door. He reached in to turn the knob. It turned. He opened the door.

Inside he saw the figure of a man sitting in a chair, much like he saw Grandpa on the day he had that awful stroke. Even with the phone light, Patrick had trouble seeing.

The figure motioned to its right for Patrick to sit in the empty straight back chair, there.

“Grandpa?”

The figure stood, grabbed Patrick by the shirt, and threw him down to sit in the empty chair. Patrick smelled baked rust. The figure headed for the door and looked back at Patrick. He was not Grandpa. He wasn’t really a man either. He was a rusted metal frame of a man. The moonlight shone on its torso and revealed that the figure was a hodgepodge of rotting iron held together by molten gold. It was tall. It had to duck to leave the standard sized door.

The figure looked back at Patrick, who sat frozen in the chair.

“I take,” it said. It slammed the wooden door, clasping it shut. Patrick heard it run up the grading and out into the night. The air soon smelled of fresh smoke and havoc.