Chapter One - Goudafellas

ON THE CORNER sits a cheese shop full of painful memories, dark shadows, and the unfortunate name of Goudafellas. I try to muster a small chuckle for the pun my great uncle would have been proud of, but it fails in the gloomy rain. Winds tear at the umbrella in my hand. I cinch tighter, causing the mass of keys to jangle.

Two planter boxes made from old cheese crates sit astride the glass door. Tufts of brown grass and leaves tumble from them. In three months no one's bothered to clean any of it up even though it's on the street. What horrors will I find inside?

Taking a breath, I approach the door. Peering through the dark window, I spot a hint of display shelves inside from waist-height down to the floor. Two great beams bisect the floor, giving the place its charming industrial feel. A long banner stretches between them. Back in the corner rests the counter where I'd spent a couple of summers pretending I ran the store. Tourists found the girl in pigtails counting back change hilarious.

My hazy memories turn to mold as I remember why I'm here. Someone stuck a white envelope to the door with my name on it. The damp air has undone most of the tape. It falls open in my hands.

Ms. Violette Reely,

Per the arrangements of the will, all of the paperwork to transfer the sole proprietorship of the store known as Goudafellas into your name has been completed. Please contact my firm if you need any more assistance.

Thunder claps and I yelp. Nervously, I peek over my shoulder. No one cares I'm here. Cars slush on past washing filthy water up the curb toward my shoes. Maybe wedges and a boho sundress weren't the best choices for today.

There's no more putting this off. Uncle Mateo's been in the ground for months. I stick one of the dozen keys in the lock and turn. The lawyers told me no one's been in here since his death. I hold my breath and walk into my childhood.

A loud ring bursts from behind me. I spin back, expecting to come face to face with an alarm system I accidentally triggered. Then, another more incensed ring rises from my back, and I sigh. "It's your phone," I say to calm myself and answer it without checking.

"Vi—"

"Hi, Mom." I bury the exhaustion in my voice.

"Have you finished yet? I haven't heard from you for hours."

She isn't going to like this. I blink at the dark store while seeing my mother, red claws clutching her landline as she tears a vitamin packet with her teeth and dumps the pills into her smoothie. Steadying myself, I say, "The plane was delayed. I'm afraid I just got there."

"What? But it's almost nightfall!" Panic doesn't so much seep into her voice as ram it with a truck.

I pass the phone to my left hand and hunt for a light switch. "I know, Mom."

"You're in the city. There could be killers anywhere!"

That was one of the reasons she'd given me when I couldn't spend my summers with Uncle Mateo. The others were more convincing lies.

My fingers brush up a wall. I swear the switch is right around… "Ahh!" My heart bursts and I wrench my hand away. Sticky spiderwebs twist about my fingers.

"Vi, what is it? Are you being stabbed?" my mother screams.

Biting down my shrieks, I swipe the cobwebs across my chest. The spider silk lands in a glob on my left breast. It kinda looks like…

My face burns at the dirty thought taking up residence in my mind. If my mother could read minds…

That's more terrifying than her thinking I got cum on my chest.

"I touched a spiderweb."

"Wash your hands," my mother commands. "They could be poisonous."

Wash your hands echoes in my head, threatening to grow louder than thunder. I close my eyes, finally pinging the light switch. A low hum shivers through the shop. Then, one by one, the industrial lamps come to life. An otherworldly yellow glow radiates around the store like a fluorescent angel.

The refrigerated sections have been cleared, but mummified cheeses dried onto the shelves in alcoves cut into the walls. So many of the massive wheels have sunken in, becoming crescents instead of circles. Curious, I ease closer to one that's the color of the sky just before a storm. What type could that be?

I almost place my finger on the rind before I realize that it doesn't have a rind. Oh, that's mold.

"Vi? Are you done?" my mother insists.

"Mom, I just got in." A laugh flits in my throat but I swallow it.

"I don't know why you're bothering. Leave it for the rats. Come home, already. I miss you."

"I miss you too," I say, not even blinking at the lie. This is the first time I've been away for more than three hours since college. "Mom, that realtor I talked to thinks if I clean this place up I could get some real money."

Enough to finally move away from you.

I stomp that thought so deep down, I can't even hear it, but the taste lingers in my mind like strawberries and champagne.

"What do you need that for? You get all you need from me and your father."

Stepfather, but that's a whole other mess.

"Vi, I'm checking the weather and there's talk of storms. You need to get home right now before you're struck by lightning."

"I'm inside," I argue before wincing.

Her voice turns colder than any blizzard. "And you think you know better?"

"No, Mom."

"There are murderers waiting to take your kidneys right now. They could be outside that door, and what would stop them? Hmm?"

My head swivels on its own, and I peer through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows. The street is dark, the storm picking up to a deluge. If I do what my mother wants, I'll have to risk drowning to trudge through it. No kidney-stealers rush in to take them. Only a spray of rainwater seeps under the door.

"Mom, it's safe. I assure you."

"How would you know?" she counters.

Because I'm twenty-five and can make my own decisions. My tongue clenches wanting to throw that in her face, but I lower my head. "I don't."

"Of course you don't. You're a child, I'm the parent. You do as I say. I'm booking you a return flight for tonight. You'll need to get to the airport before they ground the planes. Vi?"

I don't respond.

"Violette Aria Reely, do you—?"

The sky scorches white and thunder shakes the entire block. I shriek at the close lightning strike. The lights flicker but don't go out. Shaking, I place my hand on a counter to catch my breath, only to kick up a massive cloud of dust.

My mother's order to wash my hands rings in my head, and I remember her threat. "Mom?" Instead of her ever-present voice, static answers me.

Even though I don't want to talk to her, I try calling her back. Nothing. That lightning must have hit a cell tower. Ignoring the fact that if there is a dangerous murderer sneaking about in here, I have no way to get help, I slip my phone away and resume inspecting the shop.

While the cash register is toward the back of the shop, my uncle always held court on the counter in the center. Here he would cut off slices of all kinds of exotic cheeses. He'd challenge people to try to guess them blindfolded. I got so good at it, he would then bet adults they couldn't beat me. No one ever did.

Great Uncle Mateo was a big strawberry of a man. His face was always red from a sunburn even though he never went outside. I remembered his wide shoulders and belly most. Every time he walked through the tight shop, they'd catch and twist everything in place. It was my job to run around and put them back. I was his little cheese pixie—a title I wore with pride.

On my uncle's counter sat a sign. In his exuberant hand, he'd written ‘2 for 1 Cheese Curds Today Only.' That must have been the last special he ran before dying. I hadn't seen him in years. Decades. Learning that my strawberry uncle withered to a green bean in his old age shocked me to my core.

There's a good chance he was sick when he wrote that sign, working himself to death even while dying. I reach over to remove it but pause. Instead, I gather up old placards left rotting on the case.

"Good thing I have a trash bag," I say to no one and pull it out of my purse. My voice sounds hollow in the empty store. I've never been here at night. The shadows stretch in weird ways from the overhead industrial lights. Old shelves turn into a forest of broken trees and the cheeses are the monsters lurking within. My eyes keep slipping to the sides as if I expect to find someone watching me.

Maybe it's the ghost of my uncle coming to make sure I don't eat all of his cheese. I chuckle at the idea and bend down. Throwing away the trash is easy. Though, I do wad the bag up in my hand to pick up the mummified cheeses. As I lift them away, some crumble to dust, others are glued to the peeling wood.

The realtor I spoke to told me it'd be best to remove all traces of the shelves. I guess the land is hot while the shop is not. Stains linger in the alcoves as I hurl rocks of cheese into the bag. It'll take a lot of elbow grease and serious solvents to clean them.

To distract from the lingering ghosts of dead dairy, I hum a tune. I can't sing to save my life, but humming is easy enough. It helps me zip around the room, remembering the good old days before Dad left. When Mom didn't bat an eye about me spending my summers with my eccentric uncle.

He never married, never showed signs of caring about anything other than his cheese shop. That made the rest of the family suspicious like they expected to find bodies in his basement. Ha. Uncle Mateo was Santa Claus if jolly old Saint Nick left cheese in your stockings instead of toys or coal.

A hearty smile, earth-quaking laugh, and…four ridiculously hot men beside him. I jerk so hard in place, it wrenches my neck. Gasping from the pain, I stare at a black-and-sepia-toned picture on the wall of memories. Dead center is my great uncle with a huge mustache and sideburns. Even with my not having seen him in twenty years, he's so young-looking I have to check again. He's standing by the back wall of his cheese shop. Nothing much has changed since whenever that was taken. Even the signs about the cheese varieties are the same.

Around him stand four men I've never seen before. Leaning on Mateo and waving to the camera is a man with light hair. His hard, chiseled body, lantern jaw, thin lips, and gnarled nose bridge all point to a dangerous man, but his eyes crinkle so deep with laughter he has to have smiled every minute of the day to form them.

Beside him stands another man with a finger curled up beside his mouth. He is the complete opposite. Instead of pale hair, his is black as night and down to his shoulders with a soft curl to the ends. Everything about him is sharp from his chin, to his long nose, to his dark, mysterious eyes. His lips are lifted as if he's hiding a secret. Just staring into the flat, faded picture of his eyes causes my toes to curl.

Slightly to the back and right of my uncle is a man who doesn't look at the camera. His face is obscured by dirty pale hair, at a guess either honey blond or copper brown. It's a startled scarecrow mop, but the fringes frame around a startling eye so pale in the picture that it almost looks white. I can't make out much of his body as he's hiding behind not only my uncle but the final man in the photo.

There's no missing him. I remember my uncle towering above me, but he dwarfs Mateo by a good foot. He has his hands behind his back, his gaze slightly above the camera. Steel is all I can think of. I swear, even his hair in this black-and-white picture looks like it's made of metal. His height masks his width, which is nearly double that of the shy blond man. A pair of old, oval glasses perch on his wide nose, but they do little to disguise the leg-trembling stare below them.

Well, whoever they are they're either dead like my uncle or gray-haired old men. Though, something tells me Steel-eyes would be Christopher Plummer hot in his old age. Shaking off the thought, I move to return to the picture back to the wall.

"Wait."

I focus on it again. There's the wall, the old sign my uncle got from a dairy built in the eighteen hundreds, the shelves advertising discount cheeses. But what's that gap in the floor?

Lifting the picture, I try to compare it with reality. Over the mystery gap from some fifty or so years ago now stands a crate with a display for free samples. Curious, I tuck the picture into my purse, then push on the crate.

"This is silly. There's nothing here. I'm just… Oh my god."

The last inch of the crate slides off of a metal door built into the floor. I peer at the latch, half expecting to find it padlocked, but it's open.

So my uncle had a secret cellar in his cheese shop. People have those. For wine reasons? And not just to hide bodies he might have chopped up in his spare time.

I peer back outside like I expect an FBI detective to come running in screaming that I've solved the case. Laughing at my runaway imagination, I move to touch the latch. What about fingerprints?

Slipping my hand around the trash bag, I use that to yank the lid open. The door flies up and over as if it's been used. A lot. Not creepy at all.

Using my phone as a flashlight, I make my way down a metal ladder. My steps clang and an echo answers them. I can't see much beyond the brick wall as I hug tight to the ladder. When my foot hits the floor, I turn.

"Wow…"

This can't be good. Massive vats of wood, like cups for giants, take up most of the room. On one side are trough sinks with a long line of hooks above them. A piece of flimsy white cloth dangles off of one of the hooks. Two cabinets that stand on either side could hold tools. Or worse.

"It's not a murder basement," I keep repeating to myself.

In all of this though, the strangest is a mysterious chest sitting dead center on a table before the vats. I ease closer, listening for any voice or cries for help. Silly, my uncle's been dead for months. If anyone was down here…

Why am I so morbid?

No blood stains, so that's good.

Curiosity getting the better of me, I put down my flashlight and reach for the chest's lid. It won't budge.

Inspecting closer, I find a lock more like what I expected on the door itself. So the basement isn't worth locking up but this is. Cool. Cool.

I'm so gonna lose a kidney.

No. I can do this. And think of what a secret basement will do for the listing. It'll double the square footage.

Bracing myself, I begin to dig through the jangling mess of keys. I flip through each one, finding none that will fit until I come across the last and weirdest. It looks like an old skeleton key from a haunted house but with a mysterious C at the top.

Either this will work or I have to break the chest open with a hammer. The strange key slips into the lock and turns. I laugh, shaking at the echo down the corridor. With trembling nerves, I lift the lid a teeny tiny millimeter and peek inside.

Confused, I lift the lid again, then I toss it back. Grabbing my phone, I beam the light on four cheeses sitting inside the chest. They're carefully laid on top of each other with a flour towel between each layer.

One by one, I lift them out. The first is obviously a cheddar, white and as hard as the brick it"s shaped like. I'm tempted to take a sniff of the aged cheese but set it down. After that are two softer cheeses with rinds, though one is thicker and heartier than the other. The last one catches me off guard.

The piercing smell hits me first, pungent in a way that turns some stomachs but sets my mouth watering. I spot the rich veins of blue running through the white cheese that's so hard it's like holding steel.

Is this what my uncle was hiding—fancy cheeses?

A giggle breaks out at my leaping to conclusions. He wasn't a murderer, he was making cheese, of course. He loved the stuff. Why wouldn't he try to do it himself? I stare back at the industrial vats wondering how much I could sell them for. Or how to get them out of the basement.

My phone rings. Damn it. They must have fixed the cell tower. Answering it, I make my way back up the ladder. "Hi, Mom."

"Where are you?" she shrieks.

"Still in the store." It's only been fifteen minutes.

"What? It's night there."

I move to close the basement door and stare out through the windows. Sure enough, it's slightly darker than it had been during the storm. The sun must be down.

"I'm not scared of the dark."

"You should be. Do you have any idea who's hiding in that dark just waiting for an opportunity to slit your throat?"

I fight back rolling my eyes at her hysterics.

"Did you even remember to lock the door?"

My heart leaps. Guilty, I stare at the lock to the only entrance left wide open. Anyone could have strolled on in and I wouldn't have noticed. "No, Mom," I mumble and juggle for the keys.

"Then do it," she orders before tacking on, "Don't be weird about it."

Don't be weird. I've got it. I can just put the key in and turn it once.

Again.

Just the one time.

Do it again. Turn it. Five times. If you don't, this place will burn down. You'll die.

I should make sure it's actually locked by unlocking it, then locking it again. I turn the key quickly back and forth, but the voice grows louder.

Five times. It has to be five or else…

My hand starts to shake, rattling the key chain. An exasperated sigh echoes down my ear. My mother's heard that I lost to myself. I know it's stupid, that a fire won't start just because I didn't lock the door enough times. That's logic.

But logic never works against the gremlin in my head.

Two more. After that, you're done. You're safe.

I grip the key and twist it toward the left.

"I could piss for days."

My entire body freezes. "M…m…mom?" I ask even though that disembodied voice was very masculine.

"How long do you think we were out?" another man inquires.

I'm imagining this. It's my brain gremlin. Somehow, it learned ventriloquism.

"Has to be a few days at least," a third voice answers.

The final one damn near growls from deep in the basement, "That wasn't the deal."

There are men in my basement!

What do I do? Call out to them? Ask them to nicely leave? Run away and never look back?

"Vi? Why aren't you talking?"

What if it's all in my head? What if my mom's right and my brain is broken? What if she tries to fix it again?

I pause to find I'm halfway down the ladder. My thumb slips over my phone, ending my call, then I silence it. Moving like a bag of sand, I slip down the ladder and land.

There's no one here. I'm hearing things. My brain's making people up out of crushing loneliness. That's a normal thing, right?

Clicking on my flashlight, I focus the beam on the ground. Nothing out of the ordinary there. Taking a breath, I sweep it upward. Two thighs appear out of the darkness—two naked, bulging thighs. My mouth drops. My body slips into a catatonic state, but my hand somehow keeps going.

It swings the light higher, revealing two naked chests—one with a jagged scar, the other pale as the moon—before stopping on faces. Four men, four naked men blink in my light and stare at me.

This isn't real. This is a dream. I'm not even in the shop. I'm back home dreaming all of this.

One of the, I have to stress this, completely naked men raises his hand. My heart stops dead, my body pinned to the wall by eight piercing eyes. With a jolly smile, the man shouts, "Hi."

A feral roar rips from my throat. In a blind panic, I turn.

Flee. They're murderers here for your kidneys.

Get out.

My body rushes me forward, slamming my forehead into the ladder. The pain is so jarring I fall back, hitting the brick floor with a loud groan.

Four men peer down at me from above. I struggle to focus, my vision blacking out.

The blond one turns to the others and asks, "Was it something I said?"