The Birth of Bane by Richard Heredia Page B

protected to the point of insanity, shielded by all that
was bad in the world. And yet…
    God, you’re such
an asshole, Dad!
    … He got hit for
no reason. Life shouldn’t have shown its’ ugly face as early as it
had for my beautiful, little brother. It seemed so
unfair.
    My
m om was staring into one of the
shelves, unmoving.
    To this day, I
don’t know how I was able to see the tears fall from her eyes,
stream briefly onto her cheek and then tumble into the wooden bin
below. Maybe the light of the flashlight was angled in such a way I
could see them – clearly. Maybe they were bioluminescent. Maybe,
they were magic.
    I like to think
it was the latter.
    I answered for
her. “I think that would be great, Eli.”
    “ Yeah, it
would.” He sounded like a seventy-year-old man.
    “ Hey, what’s
this?” wondered my Mom. She wiped her eyes, her hands disappearing
over the edge of the drawer-like shelf she’d been gazing into as
she wept.
    We boys moved
closer.
    I could see the
muscles in her arms straining. Whatever it was, it was
heavy.
    “ Want me to
help?” I asked.
    She grunted,
“Yeah.”
    I used the edge
of a lower shelf as Eli had minutes prior, my perspective changing.
I looked down into the bin and realized it was ladder - about nine
feet long, sturdy, with metal braces on one end and some sort of
bracketry on the other. “I wonder where this thing
goes.”
    Together we
yanked it up and out of its’ resting place.
    “ From the way
its’ made, it looks like it fits in the ground somewhere.” My mom
peeped over her shoulder at Elijah. “Son, grab the flashlight and
see if you find any metal stuck into the ground.”
    “ Ok,” he replied
dutifully as we brought the ladder down, setting it against the
one-time nefarious receptacles.
    It didn’t take
him long. “I found it!” He had traversed to the far wall of the
cellar.
    We rushed over.
Sure enough there was metal in the ground. To be precise, what my
little brother had found had to be the only place the ladder would
fit. It was the only place on the ground where there was concrete.
Within it, spaced about the same width as the ladder, were two
identical depressions. Within each of them was the “female”, or
receiver, bracket.
    I gazed up and
saw two loop-like, metal hoops secured into a similar concrete
blocks near where the edge of the chamber met the
ceiling.
    I felt my eyes
widen a bit. “Mom, there’s a trap door in the ceiling.”
    “ Are you
serious?” she queried, awestruck.
    “ Yup.” I pointed
as she came near.
    Eli was kind
enough to light the area with the light-stick.
    We could all see
it. A bout two feet higher than
the ceiling itself, snug within heavy-duty framing, forming a
duct-like tube large enough for a man to pass through, was a trap
door. It was a simple thing, using gravity and a thick metal ring
for opening and closing.
    “ I wonder where
it leads.” Now my interest was piqued.
    I quickly went
back and grabbed the ladder, which was much easier to hold in an
upright position. I set in the slots on the ground and was
satisfied to see it snap into the loops higher up on the wall.
Without waiting, I climbed up a few rungs necessary to access the
hatch above. I reached up and gave it a push, but it didn’t budge.
I ascended higher, so I could use my shoulder as my point of
contact and have the full use of my legs. This way my leverage
increased at least fourfold.
    I heaved hugely,
my eyes at the same level as the edge of the portal. It came up
about two inches, then stopped. I could see there was some sort of
heavy fabric covering the top of the trap door. I knew it wouldn’t
open more than that. There was something on top of the fabric as
well, something heavy.
    I turned to look
down at my mother and Eli. “It won’t open from this end. Wherever
it does open, there’s some kind of thick material covering
it.”
    Surprisingly, my
Mom laughed. “Like a rug or a carpet?”
    It hit me
quick. She knew! “Yes!”
    She