Tim paced the hallway under the yellow electric glow of after-hours lighting. NPI Security at its finest, ladies and gentlemen. Walkie talkie on green, blue blazer on black pants uni on point, complete with his new clip-on tie and white button down. The techno in his earbuds made him wag his butt a little. As one does. Especially at eleven whatever on a Friday night, walking his late-night rounds.

“Hi-yah!” Tim snap kicked through the heart of the entry to this wing’s mini-kitchen, followed by an elbow to the fire detergent. “Bladow!”

He popped a punch like sensei taught and wound into the next move when his radio antenna caught the inside pocket. In his overcorrection, he tore a stitch and landed off balance. His elbow nudged over a pile of paper cups. Tim’s swipe caught half, while the others peppered the worn carpet. “Bla-dow,” Tim said with a sad horn tone.

An office door clicked open nearby.

Tim re-tucked his shirt and bent to wrangle the herd of cups.

The familiar jingle of Jason’s keychain eased Tim’s fear that one of the VP’s would ask what he was up to, making a mess at this hour. It was an irrational fear considering everyone but the help had left. Nonetheless, some made it their sworn duty to shepherd the flock, with one end of the staff or the other.

“You know our exercise facility has those same cups.” Jason leaned his heavy frame on the doorway and gave Tim a shot of his baby brown eyes. “If you make a mess there, at least I get to watch the TV while I’m cleaning.”

“My bad, Jay. I’ll throw a bag of popcorn on the weight wrack and kill two birds with one stone.”

Jason blew out some exhaust. “Oh, that’s cold.”

“I’m sorry. I’m a bit frosty today.”

“Yeah, you are.” A moment’s glance shared Jason knew more of the context of why Tim might be a little on edge today. In a blink, he went from sympathy to changing the topic to something more present—more, move on with your life, friend. “How’s your mile time? Is that what you have to run for the PT test?”

“Mile and a half. And not great. I’ve been dealing with sore hips whenever I start pushing it. And after my ride along, I don’t know if my back can handle it.”

“Oh, you’ll be fine. You can’t back out before you try.” Jason paused with the fridge open. His older brother glare laying it high and heavy Tim’s way.

Going through with the application felt too big for him. As if putting it on would drag him down into a crack and bury him. Sure, he didn’t have anyone to go home to, so the risks were mainly pain management and potential disability retirement. “The officer I rode with got pinned between the bad guy’s car and hers. I don’t know how she keeps going but that would’ve been it for me.”

“Alright, Mr. Glass. If you say so.” Jason let out a light moan as he reached for his two liter of Mountain Rain. “Not that I have much room to talk about exercise if you know what I’m sayin’. If I had your head start on that trim body, I’d be running like my pants were on fire.”

“It’s not that simple. I’m trying.”

Jason’s finger tapped his pants as he studied Tim. “Uh, huh. Looks to me like you’re practicing Tae Kwon Do against a bunch of harmless cups. I’ve got cats trying harder than you to make a difference. Hey, if you ever need someone to chase you? I’ve got a bullhorn and my Bronco. We can go to the back parking lot and have you running like Creed from… Creed.”

“Thanks Jason. I’ll keep that in mind.”

Jason nudged the fridge door with his hip. “You’d make a great cop. Especially once you get your first bloody nose. I can’t wait to see that tiger come out.”

“You can’t, huh?”

“Take the test. Get out there and run. Have faith in the feva,” Jason said, adding a bit of Jack Black sing-song to the enthusiasm. “When that adrenaline gets going. Your fight-or-flight instincts kick in. You’ll know what’s right. You just gotta do it.”

“Speaking of what’s right,” a familiar voice issued forth from the shadows. “Do you guys still pay your security guards? Because…”

Tim’s younger brother Chris sauntered up with a smile as bright as his shades. His fashion jeans and designer zip hoodie and prescription blend wrap-arounds made cool look like a way of life. That or the Burger King parking lot lost a stray.

“How’d you get through this time?” Jay asked.

Tim had stopped trying.

“You know you’re my boy,” Chris said and blasted a fist bump with Jason. “But you know better than to ask a magician his secrets.”

“Everybody has their price,” Jason said.

“That they do.”

“How about you wait in the lobby next time or I make you pay said price.” Jason’s smirk evoked the Bad Cop as well as Adam Sandberg playing straight face in a Winnie the Pooh costume.

“I told you guys,” Chris said, “build a system to keep me out and I’ll gladly wait.” He dialed the smile up a notch and spread his hands out to motion Tim in for a hug. “Hey, big brother.”

Tim had stopped being the big brother in stature long ago. Chris might have him by twenty pounds in muscle alone.

“Hey, butterface. They sell razors wherever you’ve been this time? You look like the Unabomber.” Not quite. His beard wasn’t that long, but it was secluded, crazy-guy certifiable. Tim wished he’d said that one out loud. Now they were hugging and it missed the timing. Oh well. Time to enjoy their once-a-year hug.

Silence even just for a second allowed the darker side of today to slip in like a ghost, hungry to haunt. The sighting reinforced the truthfulness of the reason for his visit—the anniversary of Tim’s darkest day. That he came, and always had for ten years straight meant so much. Having lost their parents when Tim was twelve, and he nine, they formed a unique bond in the shadow of grief. It touched Tim’s heart as fast as it always did, yet every time it hit him like a snake bite.

“It’d be nice if this weren’t the only day of the year you visit,” Tim said, unsure how to be anything else but off the cuff. His heart was an open grave, baffling him at times as to why he was still alive.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Chris flexed and started to torque Tim in a jiujitsu move. “Are you sure you could handle this—"

“No, please,” Tim said. “My back. My—”

“My back?” Chris asked, chuckling. “Is that in the new police manual for self-defense? Wait. No. My back. Is that before or after you identify yourself as law enforcement.”

Chris laughed all the way to the front door. Like a jerk.

It felt good to find some humor in this day. Tim signed onto his computer and the monitor lit with a screen split between cameras and data.

“All clear along the western front, or some such thing,” Chris said.

The hallways and parking lot shots were a dark wasteland with only the whistling Jason and his twirling key chain to say otherwise.

Tim found the most recent scan was his badge in the basement ten minutes ago. “How’d you get in again?”

Chris blew a raspberry. “Badges? I don’t need no stinkin’ badges. Like I said—”

“Yeah, yeah. Quit your braggin’.”

Tim glanced at the cameras to survey the shadows outside. All was well at Hy-Vee Corporate. He could not be here and nothing would be any different. Except he’d lose his job. Not that he would mind, save for the whole not wanting to live on the street. Iowa was cold and he didn’t think he was capable of doing anything better. His efforts over the last year of training to become a police officer said more about his disabilities than his abilities. He didn’t know what direction he was going, or if there was any progress. Like walking circles in the woods just to move your legs.

“Thanks for coming,” Tim said, ultimately. Thankfulness came in small sips these days, so he took one when he could.

“Hey, my pleasure.” He patted Tim’s back, then pointed at a camera facing a side street entrance. “Take me to that pond.”

“What? No, that’s off-property. I need to stay here until my shift ends at midnight.”

“Oh come on. Jason can handle this bastion of national importance. Besides, you have your radio.”

“I need to be back by ten till or Eric will have his spear ready to harpoon me to the wall.”

“Eric?”

“He’s just a guy. Running for local office; takes things way too seriously.”

“Says the guy unwilling to go for a little walk because he’s afraid of a guy named Eric with a bunch of vote for me signs in his trunk. Please. Are you coming?”

“Is this far enough?” Tim asked. The pine trees behind them cut off his view of the corner west-wing camera across the street at Hy-Vee. “Eric can’t see us past here.”

Chris examined the manufactured pond beset on both sides by new concrete paths and maroon stone walls. “We could open this in there. Really baptize the experience.”

Had he heard Tim? “I’m gonna baptize your head with a knuckle sandwich if you don’t get to it already.” It was clear whatever Chris had to show him was most likely illegal, otherwise why show him at 11:45 Friday Night on a walkway between office plaza’s long empty for the day?

“Ah ah ah. I think the rarity of the gift I’ve brought allows for a little preamble.” A look of sympathy passed over his brother’s face. Also, relief. The former Tim understood as they both knew who’d had the better life, but the latter confused him. How could this gift provide the kind of relief he seemed to think it could with that look?

Chris’s smile touched his eyes with a welling of tears. “Man, you won’t have to worry about Eric, your stupid bosses, or even that bum back of yours anymore.”

Tim waited for his brother’s gaze to falter into humor. It didn’t.

Chris folded his arms and rested his back against the parapet branching the sidewalk to the pond. He took in the view with a breath older than his age by decades. “I don’t think either of us are going to miss this.”

Tim bent his brows at his brother. He didn’t look high. But he’d told enough stories of meeting colorful characters in their element and partaking of the same. “W—”

Chris took a velvet pouch out of his pocket and put on his performer’s smile. “I’ll have plenty to explain after. It’s cold and you wouldn’t believe it anyway until you see for yourself.”

“See what?” The object inside the pouch was small enough to fit his thumb and forefinger around. What about that would defy explanation?

Chris swallowed. His gaze took on a closeness reminiscent of some of their hardest conversations. “I would ask, but…” he shook his head slowly. “You’re just gonna have to trust me. This is for both of us. Rachel and Lia…” A tremor shook through Chris as though he were the baby’s father. Tim loved his heart so much he needed a second to hold the weight. “Mom and Dad,” Chris added. “They’d want this too.” His voice barely made it to the end. He cleared his throat. “Sorry. I know now isn’t the time to break down.”

Chris opened his pouch and retrieved a replica door small enough to fit topside up on his palm. Light from the sidewalk lantern provided help as Tim admired the worn white marble doorframe. The smoothing over of the marble and fading of the dark wooden doors indicated unfortunate wear and tear on the once fine sculpting and woodwork. On either side of the dark double doors were sidelites made of the same dark brown wood and filled with crystal blue glass, the same as was used for the transom mounted above the doors.

In the head jam, an inscription in Arabic didn’t need to be smudged out in parts for Tim not to know what it said. “What’s that?”

Chris looked him in the eye. Blinked, twice. “I know you think I’m living life like a fly on uppers, but there’s been a reason for a long time. Through this, I can show you.” His attention drifted. “I sold everything to get this. And I want to share it with you. You deserve it. You always answer my call.” He took a pose like Elvis pointing a gun and cocking his brow. “Whenever I’m in over my head, you…”

Chris shrugged in a sheepish way that frightened Tim about what this treasure truly cost. Aside from “everything.”

“Are you under duress?” Tim asked, whispering as though more concerned about who might be watching from dark plaza windows.

Chris caught this side-eye and chuckled. “Am I under duress? Man, you watch too many cop shows. All I’m saying is, I couldn’t have this without you. If I couldn’t have you, it would probably kill me. Like, worse than when mom and dad were around, and you smelled like ass and axe spray.”

Tim sighed, pressing his lips together to suppress his grin. “Man, you’re really buttering me up. Would you get to the point? I hope you’re not on acid and expect me to hop in this thing with you. On our way to Wonderland, are we?”

Chris’s gaze didn’t break. “I didn’t believe it was real, either, but the price sure was, and I think it’ll be worth every penny.”

Tim hated how well his brother was hiding the punchline. He wasn’t in the mood for a practical joke. Not tonight. “Look, Chris.” He warmed his hands in his coat and looked his brother dead in the eye. “I don’t know what you’re up to here, but I’m sorry. I’m just not in the mood. If you’re messing with me, please stop.”

Chris squeezed Tim’s shoulder through the coat’s thick insulation. “For the sake of every ounce of love you hold for your wife and daughter…”

Grief tensed the muscles in his cheek and bit with heat at the back of his eyes.

“Take this gift.”

Tim swallowed. His thoughts strained to escape the memories of their death. Of the nurses pressing his shoulder as they forced him from the hospital room. Where he never went back. Sadly, he never needed to. Life was meant to greet him from that entry, but instead, it became the prison door that locked him inside with his grief and a burden with two faces.

Blasted warm tears brimmed in his eyes. If letting the emotions ride through him again meant this difficult moment could pass… he picked the door out of Chris’s palm. As he turned it to check the back for an inscription, its weight dropped anchor. The corners cut into his palm, drawing blood to stain the marble.

Chris didn’t seem perturbed in the least!

A tendon snapped in his forearm as he struggled not to drop it. Just a pop to say, hey, I’m working over he-a. Another pop echoed from his wrist as he strained to keep it upright. Why he didn’t want to throw it at his brother’s face, he didn’t know. Perchance his attention was too locked on the door shaking in his hand.

“What is this?” Tim asked.

The energy pulsing from deep within the doors created a suction in Tim’s skin around its frame. His arm trembled as invisible pins and needles stabbed him in increasing intensity, up his arm, and web-working its way across his chest.

“Open it.” his brother said unironically. Neither did his eyes betray anything but steel and purpose. Fear and Surprise showed up to the party as well.

What did Tim have to lose? His security job? Passing a push-up and sprint test? His brilliant third-place ranking in his Fantasy Football League? His pride?

Next year’s Fantasy Football League?

Tim laughed in the face of stupidity. He unclipped his tie—because if he were going to die, it wouldn’t be with that ugly thing on his neck—and pushed into the center of the doorway.

A brilliant white line filled the space and sucked them into its bright vacuum. Tim didn’t have to wonder how he’d fit in the door.

He already had.