The Waiting Room
~ Chapter Sixty-One
Beyond the Curtain
“What?
What are you doing?” came Sam’s frantic cry. “Why did you do
that?”
Blake gave Sam a dark look.
“Because he
tried to steal my key." The gunslinger held up the skeleton key.
“No
one, I mean no one takes my key. That came from Angee and he tried to
steal it.”
“He wasn’t going to keep it, Mr. Blake. I
know he wouldn’t. He was...”
“He was what, Sam? I’ll
tell you what he was doing. He was being a donkey’s ass. He’s a
pirate and he was doing what pirates do best…steal, lie and cheat.
Well maybe he can sit in there and think about it.” Blake looked at
the door, then with a louder voice shouted, “Maybe he can just rot
in hell in there!”
Sam watched in horror as Blake turned
his back and headed for the kitchen door.
“No, please! Mr.
Blake!”
Sam ran after him, grabbing his arm.
“You have
to set him free. He’s down there…in the dark…he could be hurt!”
Sam recalled that twice the Captain had fallen down the
stairs. He had only heard Captain Sparrow curse once since the second
fall, then there had been silence. He left Blake and went back to the
door.
“Captain? Captain? Can you hear me? Please say
something?”
Sam pressed his ear to the door but not a sound was
returned.
Blake watched as Sam’s concern unfolded before
him. Maybe the pirate was hurt. But why should that be his worry?
Sparrow had stolen his key.
But he had given it back, his
conscious reminded him. Maybe Sam was right. Sparrow had no
intentions of keeping it, otherwise he would have never fessed up to
taking it, let alone returning it.
“Alright,” Blake
relented. “Go fetch a lantern, or one of those flashlight things.
If it’s dark down there, we’ll be needing light.”
Sam
quickly located a flashlight and returned to the door where Blake
waited for his return. He then slipped the key into the lock and
turned, hearing the click as the door unlocked.
Blake gave a
pull and swung the door back, sending the kitchen light streaming
down the staircase. Both stood there, at the top of the stairs,
staring down at the empty floor below.
Sparrow wasn’t
there.
“Damn it.” Blake spat the curse. “Now we have to
go looking for him? That’s not my job. My job was to open the door.
You go,” he told Sam and turned away.
Sam watched as Blake
disappeared into The Room, leaving him standing there, flashlight in
hand. Slowly Sam brought his eyes back to the basement, down the
stairs, his gaze following the yellow-white beam of light to the
cold, cement floor below.
He took a step toward the landing
then stopped.
What if the door shut behind him and then he
and the Captain would be caught. Sam glanced around the kitchen and
found a wooden spoon. With utmost precision, he lay the spoon on the
floor, against the door frame, then pushed the door closed until it
hit the spoon.
Positive the spoon would keep the door from
shutting and locking Sam then let himself into the basement, the door
silently swinging until it was blocked by the spoon, a space cracked
enough that Sam could see the kitchen light beyond.
He then
gave his attention to the basement and his search for the Captain.
One by one he descended the stairs, the flashlight marking his way.
“Captain? Captain?” Sam whispered into the dark. When he
reached the bottom Sam noticed a few of the boxes were askew. Most
likely from when the Captain hit them during his fall. He swung the
flashlight around and still saw no sign of the pirate.
Sam
began to work his way around the piled boxes, a narrow passage way
weaved in and out, growing narrower as he made his way further back
into the basement.
He reached a dead end. Or so he thought.
It took a moment for him to realize that he stood before a black
curtain. With a cautious hand he reached over and touched the cloth,
the material gave way, indicating nothing was behind it.
Sam
held his breath as he gently pulled the cloth back, trembling at what
he might find hidden beyond the curtain.
“Captain! No!”
There in the center of the floor sat Sparrow, cross-legged, a
box opened, its contents spilled out onto the floor. A single bare
bulb glared overhead giving a garish, almost haunting look to the
scene.
“What are you doing? You’re not suppose to be in
the boxes!”
“Look, laddie,” Sparrow said as he turned
the box for Sam to see. On the side of the box were the words
“Captain Jack Sparrow”.
“This is me. This is you.” He
pointed to another box. “Sands. Crane. Wood. They’re all here.
We’re all here. Imagine what we could learn, lad. Imagine…what?”
Sam was in the room, gathering up the contents, the letters,
the objects that were strewed over the floor, heaving them quickly
back into the box.
“No, Captain. We aren’t suppose to be
in these. These aren’t ours.”
“The bloody ‘ell they
aren’t! The got our names on them. I’d say that makes them ours.”
“No, no,” Sam and Sparrow sparred, their hands slapping
at each other as Sam tried to refill the box and Sparrow tried to
empty it.
Sam won as he put the lid back on the box.
Sparrow’s anger boiled to the surface. “Stop putting
those things away! I can use them, I tell ye! I can get meself out of
this God-forsaken hole!”
“No, Captain.” Sam
reprimanded. “These can not help. They are only memories. His
memories. We can not mess with them. We can not touch them or move
them or take them. No one can. You can’t take someone’s
memories.”
“What in God’s name would, or could happen,
if I but take a small piece of something?” Sparrow begged, more
than asked.
Sam furrowed his brow. “I don’t know for
sure, but I just know it isn’t right. Now come on. Let’s go back
upstairs.”
Sam headed back past the curtain but stopped
with an afterthought. He turned back around and reached up to the
bulb, pulling the chain, sending the room back into darkness as he
stepped past the curtain with the flashlight.
“Bloody
‘ell,” he heard Sparrow curse.