Free Ashes of Foreverland by Tony Bertauski Page B

behind him, the glare no longer in his eyes, but it was still blazing hot. No one was doing much of anything outside. Every thirty minutes, a stringy woman would come onto the porch to smoke. She’d stare at him until she finished, flick the butt onto the lawn and go back inside.
    All the deals he put together in Valencia had fallen apart by now. Santiago would try to delay the inevitable and convince the investors their millions of dollars were in good hands. But Danny had turned off his phone and left everything behind when he flew out late one night.
    The emaciated woman was coming out for another smoke, her tenth of the day, when Danny opened his door. Cicada song welcomed him to the summer furnace. He locked the doors and walked down the cracked sidewalk, feeling the eye of a neighborhood watch sign follow him to the corner house.
    The neighborhood had the smell of trash—sour beer and rotting eggs. Beneath it all, he noticed the faint hint of lilac. It reminded him of his villa off the coast of Spain.
    He climbed the porch and walked to the staircase built into the side of the house. The wood was relatively new, the steps leading up to a platform on the second floor and another on the third.
    His heart rate grew louder.
    The door on the second-floor platform was locked. There was a peephole but nothing for Danny to see inside. He looked around before lightly tapping with a knuckle. He waited a full minute before doing it again and thought about trying the third floor when he noticed the digital lock.
    It was brand new.
    He rapped one more time, staring at the distorted reflection on the numerical pad. Someone had scratched four letters into the gold-plated trim.
    GRAD.
    Danny punched the numbers that corresponded to the letters. Nothing happened. He rubbed his finger over the etching, the lines smooth and tarnished. Someone had done it quite some time ago. Assuming it was Reed, why would he put that there?
    Was it a clue?
    Grad was short for gradient, such as slope. That could be converted to a number, which could be the combination. Reed’s letters led him here with clues from the island, but there was nothing that corresponded with slope—nothing on the island or anything since. He couldn’t even guess.
    Grad could also mean graduate. Or graduating .
    Back on the island, when a transition was complete, when one of the boys had permanently vacated their body, the chimney would smoke. That was when the old men said someone graduated from the island, that they were healed.
    They got SMOKED.
    Danny punched the corresponding number: 766533 .
    The lock whirred. Warm, stale air seeped out—
    â€œWhat are you doing there?” A man stood on the bottom step. He was wearing flannel bottoms and no shirt, his stomach overhanging the drawstrings.
    â€œLooking for a friend.”
    â€œAnd you just walk in?”
    â€œHe gave me the code.” Danny pushed the door open.
    â€œDon’t mean you can walk in.”
    â€œI’m meeting him. He gave me the code so I didn’t have to wait in the sun, you know.”
    The man pushed his fingers through oily black hair.
    â€œIs there a problem?” Danny added.
    â€œI don’t know, is there?”
    â€œMy friend up here making noise?”
    â€œWhy?” The man’s second chin jiggled.
    â€œHe doesn’t pay his rent sometimes.” Danny reached for his wallet. “Do I need to square up for him?”
    â€œYeah, sure.”
    â€œLook, is he paid up or not?”
    â€œNone of your business.”
    The man looked away. Reed was paid up, but it was hard to tell if he was the landlord or a nosy tenant.
    â€œHave you seen him?” Danny asked.
    â€œNot in a while.”
    â€œLike a week? A month?”
    â€œSomething like that.”
    â€œWhich is it?”
    â€œWhat do you want with him?”
    Danny grimaced. “I’m worried about a friend, that’s all. He doesn’t feel good most of the