The Space Between by Erik Tomblin Read Free Book Online Page A

him a ride to the hospital. He declined; the dizziness had passed and there was only the slightest sting coming from the area of impact. He made due with an ice pack, which he held over the lump until the pain had been numbed away.
    Isaac was signing a form stating his refusal of transport to the hospital when the two firefighters returned. They'd asked him a few questions, and he told them exactly where he'd passed out. The two men went back in, only to return a few minutes later to say the house was clean of any such deadly gases. One of the two, a man not much older than Isaac, stated it was unlikely that there would be any, considering all of the appliances were electric and no gas line ran down this particular road.
    "What about hallucinations?" Isaac had asked him.
    The young man looked up from his clipboard. "What about ' em ?"
    "I don't know," Isaac hesitated. "Could something in an old house like this, something from asbestos or old paint cause hallucinations?"
    He didn't miss the quick grin exchanged between the two men. The older of the two took over as the paramedics looked on, stifling their laughter.
    "I don't know if you've noticed, but this house has been renovated somewhat recently. As long as you're not gnawing on the walls or any other illicit substances, you should be fine."
    Isaac started to stand, but a wave of vertigo pushed him back down. "Look, there was something upstairs. A door. It came out of—" but he stopped, unable to ignore the obvious ridicule the men surrounding him were enjoying.
    "A door?" the firefighter asked, smiling.
    Shaking his head and trying to massage away the throb, Isaac shook his head.
    "No, never mind. It was probably nothing."
    " Mhm ," the man grunted, nodding to his partner who followed him down the steps and back to their vehicle.
    After they had left, Isaac struggled up the stairs and into the hallway. A cold sweat had broken out across his brow as he approached the bedroom door. He stared at the wall just to the right, waiting for some aberration to appear. He shuffled about the area, keeping his eyes glued to the space where he was certain he'd seen something the night before. When nothing out of the ordinary happened, he breathed a small sigh of relief, grateful to be proven sane, if only for the moment.
    Back on the porch and sitting in one of the rocking chairs, he occasionally probed the tender spot on the back of his head and sipped coffee that was already lukewarm. Isaac deliberately avoided thinking too much about the results of the firefighters' inspection. Instead, he began to plan his day, wanting to get as much done as necessary to make his trip here as short as possible. It seemed like a nice enough place, but if his first few hours were any indication of what living or vacationing in this house would be like, he'd soon be contacting a realtor.
    "Busy morning?"
    When the voice cut through the lingering chill in the air, Isaac dropped his styrofoam cup, and the last few tablespoons of caramel-colored liquid splashed across his boots.
    He jerked his head up, rousing an echo of the pain from earlier. A man stood roughly eight feet in front of him, in the grass and to the left of his car. The stranger was maybe an inch taller than Isaac's five-foot-eleven. He looked sixty, sixty-five, and wore a long-sleeved plaid shirt under a faded pair of overalls. He was thin, with long, gangly arms. His legs may have been just as wiry above his well-worn, leather work boots. A straw hat completed the Norman Rockwell- esque image standing there.
    "You okay, sir?" the man asked when Isaac didn't respond.
    Once it landed there, Isaac couldn't pull his gaze away from his face. His eyes searched over the old man's features, and he had the sensation he was looking at a map of a familiar road. Though sure he'd never met the man, Isaac felt he'd seen him before, or seen someone like him. Some movie star from an old Western maybe?
    " Fella ?"
    Isaac stuttered out a few syllables