The man next door

I was the first to arrive, but at the time I didn't realise how lucky that made me. With something approaching mild bemusement I slipped the silver key into the lock and turned it. There were the faintest of clicks, and the wall of scepticism my mind had built concerning this whole situation came tumbling down.

I was in my neighbour's basement. I didn't like the idea of being here, but Mister Harrison had insisted and I was in no place to deny what could well be a dying man his last wish. I hadn't been able to come up with an explanation as to why I had been entrusted with this task; I barely knew the guy. We had spoken maybe three times, half a dozen words in all since I had moved into the house next to his and most of those had been 'Hello', or some version of it. However, before the paramedics could load him into their ambulance he had pressed his keys into my hand with such vigour that his old grip had actually hurt. He told me to unlock the basement before it's too late. I figured he had animals that would starve to death in his absence, or something. I couldn't have been more wrong.

The door was polished steel six inches thick, and it yawned open with a solid quietness usually found in a mausoleum or bank vault. The air beyond held no stench of disuse, but the darkness was thick and impenetrable. My right arm hooked through the threshold, fingertips brushing the wall at chest height. It took no time at all for a finger to apply pressure to the nipple of plastic I found. With furiously batting eyelids, I saw a long strip light flash into life. Then another, and a third. Four more blinked on and off as if allowing some distant aircraft to land. Then more. All in all there were nine, three rows of three, illuminating a metal box perhaps sixty feet long and twenty feet wide, its walls and ceiling corrugated and ugly. The floor was sheeted in wide strips of bare wood. I though of the containers you might find on board cargo ships, but if this were such a thing I never knew they were this big.

I stepped in and closed the door behind me. I considered locking it, but discarded the idea almost instantly; I didn't think I'd be staying long, certainly not as long as I ended up staying. A few minutes to look about the place and check what the old man wanted doing. He said I would know, but there was nothing here except false daylight and two doors. The one that I'd just come through and another identical one at the far end of the metal corridor.

My passage to the second door was marked by the dull clonk of work boots on thick wood. My tan Caterpillars always were very comfortable. The only downside was that my socks tended to end up damp after wearing them all day, but for the solid ruggedness of firm footwear I had no better pair. I also had my tough blue denim jeans on and a white tee, with hi-vis orange vest over the top; the usual outfit I wore for my simple forklift job at the warehouse.

I got to the second door and tried the gold key. It turned just as easily as the silver one had done in the first door. This door opened just the same, and was just as thick. I had no idea why the old man had such an elaborate set-up in his basement - or how he even had a basement when my house didn't - but I went along with his instructions with a sense of curious duty.

Again, I fumbled for a light switch, this time with more ease as I grew accustomed to the unusual surroundings. Again, as if Mister Harrison had known I was coming and accommodated accordingly, I found the switch with no difficulty.

The gold door permitted me, open-mouthed, into a large chamber that could only have been described as homely. The bleak welcome of the previous area was left behind completely, for the walls were solid and papered, thick, padded patterns tasteful and modern. The floor was heavy pile carpet, stretching from one wall to the other, and swallowed the noise of my clunky footsteps with ease. I didn't even hear the gold door click shut.

Immediately in front of the door was an expansive suite, opulent and decadent in cream and brown leather that promised softness and comfort in the same way a woman's eyes did. Crimson velvet scatter cushions were fixed in positions that drew the gaze in and held it steadily. I wasn't tired in any way, but I instantly felt like I needed to sit down.

Fixed to the walls were a number of paintings, some that I felt I should recognise and probably belonged in the Louvre. Mirrors had been strategically sited to let the glow from the many small up-lighters bounce around the room in the most optimal fashion, but I didn't take much notice of them.

A flat screen television had captured my attention. It was maybe a hundred inches of black glossy plastic, a lovely slab of entertainment engineering. I was dying to turn it on and check the quality of the picture.

Below the TV, embedded into niches in the wall, were all the latest in gaming consoles. Xboxes, Playstations, and shelving stretching away on either side with enough space to house a copy of every game ever made for them. Above the ranks of games were Blu-Ray cases. Hundreds of them. Shelves against another wall housed a small library of novels. I recognised only a couple of titles and authors, despite being an avid reader myself, and I wondered what the selection criteria had been based upon.

I had always thought old man Harrison lived alone, but maybe this was for visiting family. It had clearly been built to accommodate a good number of people. Toward the back of this vast living room was an open-plan kitchen, with a wide passage that extended further into the earth. I guessed that sleeping arrangements and toilet facilities lay somewhere down there.

Mister Harrison had told me I would know what to do when I got here, but nothing had leapt out at me so far, so I continued into the kitchen for deeper exploration and found the area equally well-equipped with all the modern conveniences. A long table of frosted glass held aloft by bright steel tubes separated the kitchen and living room, easily ten feet long and three wide. The carpet ended here, a simple but effective boundary to highlight that I was entering a different area. Polished wood stretched between the walls now, and I could tell it wasn't the cheap laminate you get from a DIY shop, the kind of stuff I had resorted to in my own house. This was expertly crafted and perfectly fitted.

I looked around again, the whole place radiating newness in that special way untouched items do. If Mister Harrison's family were to stay here, they hadn't done so yet. That thought gave me some measure of pride. Was I the first person to see this after Mister Harrison and his builders?

Continuing my self-appointed tour, I pulled the handle of another door, this one off the kitchen. It was unlocked and opened easily, giving a waft of cool air. The freezer room was perhaps as big as the container passage that I had seen first, but had obviously been converted to its fulfil its current role. The shelves - and there were many - were packed with consumables of all kinds. A section of wall was hidden behind four-litre bottles of milk, another wall of shelving held bottled water. Hundreds of litres of fluid, all frozen for future use. Carcasses hung from massive hooks, ready for a cleaver's touch. Baskets carrying fields of vegetables. Enough for a large family for a very long time.

I closed the door to keep the temperature contained, hardly daring to wonder how much power this underground complex consumed, or how much money had gone into it. I turned to move down the wide passage I had seen earlier, to see where it would take me. If the rest of the place was as well appointed as the living area and the kitchen, Mister Harrison had spared no expense. Maybe that was why his house on the surface was so dilapidated and scruffy. He had spent everything he had on being underground.

I was just about to ponder the reasons behind someone wanting to do that when I saw it, laying only a foot away to my left.

The box was maybe twelve inches by eight and had been wrapped in brown paper. It was such a mundane item that had I seen it anywhere else I probably wouldn't have given it a second thought, but something so basic among such extravagant surroundings raised my suspicions that this was what the old man had been directing me toward.

I lifted the box off the shelf in the kitchen island and took it over to the table, where I sat down and stared at it. Was I supposed to open it? It wasn't labelled, nothing to betray what it contained. To Hell with it.

The paper was thin, but I was careful not to tear it too much in case I needed to put it all back together again. The tape holding the paper securely in place at the box's ends were another matter altogether, and there was no way I was going to get through those without causing some damage. In for a penny.

I found some scissors in one of the kitchen drawers and snipped open the brown paper. I must admit, there was an element of excitement to the task. It hadn't rattled when I carried it across to the table, but it had possessed a certain weight that suggested there was something important, possibly valuable, inside.

When I opened the box the paper covered, my heart leapt into my throat and my breath sped through my lungs with a charge of adrenaline even as my limbs froze. I stared at the solid, matt black shape trapped in walls of blue foam with a cold dread settling over me.

Careful fingers pried it from its soft prison, allowing my palm to close over the hand grip, the metal cold against my skin. My finger glided onto the trigger without any conscious effort, and despite the devilish urge to squeeze I did not. This was not a fake. This was no air pistol. It was the real deal. It would fire real bullets into real people and hurt them, maybe kill them.

I had seen plenty of guns before, in movies and comics, that kind of thing, and I had never thought I would react like this; hands shaking, palms sweating, heart rattling against every rib. Maybe it was the fact that films were not real, so in an odd kind of way it was like guns were not real, either. Except the really real guns you saw on the news, the ones in the hands of police, and freedom fighters, and the army. You never saw them firing, never saw them shooting people down. I could feel an awesome sense of power and superiority pulsing heavily through my veins as I cradled the weapon in my hands. My eyes fixed upon the barrel, and I had to fight off the urge to look down it.

I had no idea what kind of pistol it was, some kind of automatic, or how many bullets would fit in its magazine, or even if it was loaded. I knew there was a safety catch on it somewhere, at least I presumed such a thing was a feature on all firearms, but I didn't have the faintest idea what to look for.

Then the gold door started to open.