Centennial Man

The thirteen-mile drive from the top of Dome Hill to the small town of Newton was a bumpy one for Kylian Murphy. His beat to hell F150 pickup truck shook and shuddered as balding tires slipped in and out of deep ruts made slick by spring rains. The misshapen road reminded the ex-army ranger of the roads in the Korangal Valley, both centuries overdue for repairs.

It was Kylian’s first day on the job as groundskeeper for the old Maitland Estate, and he was driving to town to pick up a few things. Mostly gopher elimination supplies. Upon his arrival at the estate, he’d seen thousands of dirt mounds scattered across the one-hundred-and-fifty acres. The mounds were unusually high, and Kylian reckoned it must be an infestation of really big gophers native to the region. He hoped someone at the hardware store would know.

Kylian didn’t believe in ghosts or haunted houses, but he did believe in his gut. It had saved him many times during his two back-to-back tours in Afghanistan. Upon entering his estate quarters for the first time, his gut told him something was wrong. If he’d been in the bush, Kylian would have started searching for snipers. He searched the room and aside from a few cockroaches, found nothing worrisome. He dropped off his gear and left for town for the gopher elimination supplies.

After pulling over in front of the hardware store, Kylian hopped out of his truck and glanced up at the Maitland Estate. It stood dark and foreboding against the gray sky. He rubbed his hand over his hair, which he still wore buzz cut short.

Tattoos covered his tan arms, most obtained in Afghanistan. Someone in his outfit had brought a portable tattoo gun and painted the Army Ranger logo on his forearm. Something the old man behind the register spotted as Killian pushed a wheelbarrow full of shovels and picks to the wooden counter.

“Army Ranger?” the old man asked with a gravelly voice.

The old man was short and bald with a wiry gray beard that sprang from his chin like a jutting cliff. His name was Rudolph, but everyone called him Rudy.

“What?” Kylian saw him eyeing his tattoo. “Oh, yes, sir. 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment.”

“My boy’s a Ranger, not sure what unit though. You must be the new groundskeeper.”

Kylian tilted his head to one side. “How’d you know that?”

“Picks, shovels, and wheelbarrows. That’s all they ever come down here for. After that, we never see ’em again.”

Confusion was planted on Kylian’s face, the wheelbarrow was loaded with picks and shovels—that’s not what he came for. But now he was curious about what the old man had just said.

“What do you mean, never see them again?”

“I mean never. We only ever see new arrivals.” He rubbed his beard. “Come to think of it, there was one fella. Come back after three years. I didn’t recognize him at first, he was thin as a bedpost and covered with filth. I only knew it was him because he―”

“Bought more picks, shovels and wheelbarrows?” Kylian said with a smirk.

“Think that’s funny, do ya? Same’s gonna happen to you too, fella” Rudy said pointedly.

On the drive back from Newton, Kylian thought about what the old man had told him. He’d lived in Newton his entire life and all he knew about the estate was that it had been built a hundred years before the Revolutionary War when Concord was an English Colony.

That was more information than Kylian got from his employers. Located in Manchester, the temp agency contracted by the estate had reached out to Kylian via email. He had a lawn maintenance business in Aloha, Oregon that wasn’t doing so hot. When they offered him a hundred grand a year, Kylian threw his duffle bag in the bed of his F150 and a keepsake from the war into his glovebox and headed east.

Kylian backed his truck up to the garden shed behind the estate and unloaded supplies from the hardware store: shovels, picks, wheelbarrows, and canisters of gopher-gas. Afterward, he lit up a cigarette using a Zippo lighter with his unit ID tacked to the side. He remembered asking the temp agency why they called him of all people. Surely there were other landscapers in the surrounding area.

They told Kylian that he was asked for by name.

That was creepy. Why him? They gave him very little information about the estate or his duties except that it would become clear once he got there. Nothing was clear to him, especially the thousands of dirt mounds without any holes to explain their existence.

Kylian crushed the cigarette under foot, left the pack and lighter in the shed, and headed for his downstairs quarters located on the east end of the large mansion. Made entirely of limestone, the surface was blackened from age. English ivy covered the entire east end. Only the arched entrance to his quarters had been cut back. Kylian made a mental note to pick up a hedger on his next trip to town.

When he neared the entrance, the ivy’s broad green leaves rattled as if hit by a strong breeze. But Kylian didn’t feel any wind or see any other plants moving. Only the ivy which rustled and swirled in a wide circle as if caught in a vortex. At this point the swirling shrank inward until it reached the dark opening to his quarters and abruptly stopped. The opening took on the shape of a dark cave with cracks along the edges. He’d seen that cave in Afghanistan, and he shivered at the sight of it.

Dark openings triggered PTSD episodes for Kylian. He shut his eyes, sucked in a deep breath, and let it out slowly. When he opened his eyes, the cave was gone. Gathering courage, Kylian forced himself down stone steps covered with slick moss. He turned the knob and pushed open the thick oak door that screamed in agony from a lack of use. When he shut the door, he was swallowed by absolute darkness. Feeling around with his right hand, he found a light switch.

Fluorescent lighting flickered on and cast a sickly yellow hue in the dingy apartment. After washing his hands under sputtering, rust-colored water, he went to the pantry. It was filled from ceiling to floor with franks-n-beans. The previous groundskeeper must have loved the stuff. Kylian had no problem with it. He’d eaten worse during his years in the bush.

As he peeled back the lid on a can, a bright red sauce spilled over the side. While licking the sauce off the side, Kylian spotted a cockroach sitting on the sill above the sink. It was as big as a mouse, had a thick brown body, and long antennae that swooped back.

As Kylian moved about the small kitchen—tossing the lid and getting a spoon—the cockroach seemed to watch Kylian’s every move. Kylian slipped off his shoe intending to smash the disgusting roach. But the creature stood on its hind end and wiggled its tiny legs in the air as if it were begging. Kylian didn’t know why, but he decided to spare the creature. After putting his shoe back on, he sat at a small table and ate his franks-n-beans out of the can.

As Kylian ate, he prioritized the tasks that needed to be done. He was a low-hanging-fruit kind of guy―doing easy tasks first―like hedging the verge before moving on to cutting back the ivy. And then there were the gophers to contend with. Finished, Kylian tossed the empty can into the waste container but then suddenly jumped back.

Tens of thousands of wriggling cockroaches rose from inside the bin and tumbled over like popcorn cascading from a hot kettle. Cabinet doors slammed open and giant swells of the nasty insects slithered across the floor like brown tentacles, moving towards Kylian.

Believing he was suffering a PTSD episode, Kylian closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. But it didn’t help. The cockroaches moved closer. He went back to the pantry hoping to find a can of bug spray, but the pantry was gone. Instead there was a cave opening in the wall with cracks around the edges. It was the cave he didn’t want to enter in Afghanistan.