Layla watched where he walked, stepped where he stepped. Her eyes adjusted to the weak light. It came from a dotted line perimeter around the ceiling. The walls were very high, greater than twice the height of a man. The dots of light were wide apart. Layla counted nine of them, including the one over the foot of the stairs.
This room appeared ... clean. Layla looked around in surprise. Shelves held orderly rows of objects. It was too dim to see exactly what they were. The walls were plain, except for some squarish decorations that looked intentional. The only vegetation was a single vine creeping in through one of the corner dots in the ceiling. The floor wasn't covered with garbage.
It was the strangest place she had ever seen.
Chris turned a palm in her direction: Stop. Layla stayed put as he slowly turned a doorknob and eyed the space beyond. He slipped through and was gone for several moments.
Then he reappeared. Layla had never seen him look so happy.
"Tools! Layla, new tools! "
"Oh, my god, you're kidding!!" Her mouth fell open in shock.
He grabbed her hand and pulled her into the next room. Layla clapped a hand to her mouth. "Oh my god!"
The ceiling-dots in this room were brighter; it was easier to see. Stuffed inside layers of plastic were tools large and small of every description. There seemed to be one of everything: a shovel, a rake, a scythe, and others whose purpose was not immediately apparent.
Layla ran across the unobstructed floor to the shelves. With a look of wonder and delight, she touched the dusty packages. She held up a new pair of scissors. "Look!"
Chris was lifting even smaller parcels out of a bin. "Look at this!"
She stepped over to see what he was holding. It was a shiny thing, not as big as her little finger.
"Give me your hand," he said. He twisted the top of the shiny thing. Now it made a kind of vee shape. Layla eyed the silver bird mistrustfully.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you." His smile was reassuring. Gently but firmly he moved her hand so the tip of her fingernail was in the mouth of the object. There was a loud click as he squeezed the tips of the vee toward each other.
"Oooh!" Layla yanked her hand back as her fingernail dropped to the floor. She looked at Chris for explanation.
"It's a fingernail clippers." He demonstrated on his own hand, clumsily at first, then with increasing skill. "See, if you trim them before they break, they hurt less. This works better than a knife."
"Do mine!" she demanded.
They sat on the floor and played with the new toy until all of their fingernails were trimmed to the quick.
"It feels funny." Layla rubbed the newly exposed fingertips. "I wonder if we could do our toes, too?"
"We need a bigger tool for that. I bet there's one here. But come on, now, let's fix the lights before we do anything else."
"How?"
"Look at the height of the ceiling." Chris pointed. "See? The only way this makes sense is if the roof is under the ground, not under the house."
The young woman thought for a second, puzzling it out. "So...?"
"So that means if we find the same place, outside, the light source has to be there. I can't imagine this place has electric power."
"Okay." Layla shrugged and followed him back up the stairs.
At the top of the steps, they held still and listened again, although it was becoming increasingly apparent that the place was deserted. Chris pushed open the door and took point. There was no sign of human life, so they went back the way they came.
Once outside, they made their way around to the back of the house. Part of it sat up on a little hill. He paced, one eyebrow pushed down, while Layla watched and waited.
"Here." Her companion knelt and pushed aside some dead leaves. A hard round thing was underneath. It looked like the back of a turtle, only without color.
"Hmmm." Layla nodded. "So there must be some kind of tube that leads down."
"And probably mirrors," Chris agreed. He lifted an index finger and tipped it ninety degrees. Layla followed the point and found the next dot. She cleaned it off and set about finding the rest, glancing at Chris occasionally for direction.
It was obvious why some of the light-dots were clearer than the others: the dimmer ones were down the hill, where debris had followed gravity's command. Further still down the slope, Layla heard a familiar sound.
She got Chris' attention and waved him over excitedly.
"What is it?" he asked.
She just looked at him and grinned. Under the birdcalls and the breeze, the sound of a running stream carried clearly.
Chris grabbed Layla's arms, and she his. They hugged each other and danced to the ground.
"Oh, Chris. Water."
He held her and rolled his face against her neck. "Is this heaven, or is this Iowa?"
She pulled back and looked at him, confused. "What?"
"Nothing," he chuckled. "My grandmother used to say that whenever she was really happy. I don't really know what it means."
* * *
Not everything in the basement was treasure. Someone had preserved food, or tried to; there were apples, peaches, corn, and many sweets. The glass jars were still intact, but the metal lids were corroded. It was a shame to throw away the maker's good intentions.
There were books, too, but these fell apart so easily, the two decided to leave them mostly alone. Besides, only Chris could read. Once in a while they treated themselves to a story; he would read aloud to her, making up the parts where he didn't know the words.
In the tool room there was one place which Chris warned her very carefully to avoid.
"Hold out your hands."
Ever obedient, she stuck them out. He laid a heavy object in her grasp.
"What is it?"
"It's called a chainsaw. It does the work of ten men."
"Why don't you use it?"
"Look, see this?" He took the thing away from her and placed it back on the shelf. Now he was pointing to a boxy red thing with a yellow nozzle.
Layla nodded. "It's a box."
Chris shook his head. "No. It's gas. It's what makes the chainsaw go."
"So what?" She failed to see the point.
"Layla, listen. This is important. People will do anything for this stuff. They will kill for it. No matter what happens, no matter who ever comes here, no one must ever know it's here. If they find out, any chance we have to live here is over with. Okay? Understand?"
"Okay, Chris." Layla trusted him completely. "But why don't we just get rid of it?"
"We can't. It's poison."
The discussion was over. It was just as well; the chainsaw and the gas made Layla uneasy. She wanted to get away from the damned things.
"I found something else!" she brightened.
The smile returned to his face. "What?"
She dragged him over to a spot near the books. "It's a funny kind of paper."
He took the clear plastic block from her hands and turned it over with awe. Whoever had lived here had wanted to be very sure that the encased paper would be preserved. It was big, about the size of two large books side by side.
"Can you read it?" she asked eagerly.
"I'm sorry, Lay. No, most of it, I can't." He pointed near the top. "This is the word 'ninth.' This must be page nine of something. Maybe we'll find the other pages."
He ran his fingers over the smooth surface, following the long horizontal lines. They marched in groups of five, like wires strung on poles. Little dots and sticks decorated the lines. Repeated symbols curled down the left side at the start of each bar.
His eye fell upon the name at the top left. "Beth. No, Beeth. Oh! I know what this is." He grinned at her. "It's music."
"That's weird, why isn't music written down like words?"
"I don't know, that's just the way they used to do it."
It took several days to drag the muck out of the first floor of the house. Under Chris' direction, they decided to pile it a five-minute walk in the opposite direction of the stream. Undoubtedly it would take months to disassemble the garbage that squatters and looters had left behind. Anything of value would be cleaned and utilized, or stored. Everything else, which would probably be most of it, would be broken down as finely as possible to give back to the earth.
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