Chapter 28 (1/2)
Abby had decided to continue showing Dan around her family's manor in an entirely transparent attempt to avoid her relatives. She dragged him along by his wrist, down the winding halls of Summers Manor. A happy smile danced along her face as she chattered about old memories of her home. The pair passed a set of double doors leading into a dark room, and Abby gestured grandly.
”And this is our theater. It was... Dad, I think, that had it installed. He was a huge fan of Westerns.” Abby tilted her head in reminiscence. ”When we were kids, he made Jason and I watch all these movies from the sixties on the big screen. They were basically propaganda pieces at the time, but I guess he grew up with that stuff.”
She turned to Dan and asked, ”Ever watch any old Westerns?”
”Heh, oh yeah. My parents were big on Clint Eastwood,” Dan replied without even thinking about it.
Abby let out a tinkling laugh. ”Oh, dad loved the Man With No Name series. A young federal marshal putting down bands of outlaws and vigilantes through superior training and wits? They might as well have just printed money for how successful they were.”
That wasn't quite how Dan remembered those movies going. These moments often snuck up on him, the little reminders that he was still far from home. Although...
Abby's smile was radiant as she looped her arm through his. ”C'mon, I've got more stuff to show you.”
The company here wasn't bad at all.
She led him past the theatre into a large room filled with glass display cases. Photographs, trophies, and embossed documents were arrayed throughout inside each case, with bright lights illuminating every item. The cases was bolted to the floor, and the glass was thicker than Dan's thumb.
”This is the gloating room,” Abby announced. She released Dan's arm and gestured dramatically around herself. ”This room is where we store the family pride. Records of every major business accomplishment, pictures of every time a family member has rubbed shoulders with a celebrity or politician, every collector's item that you could think of, we keep it all here.”
Dan took a brief look at the contents of the nearest display: pictures, large and framed. A middle-aged man, brown-haired and hook-nosed, shook hands with someone who greatly resembled Ronald Reagan. In a different frame, a younger Anastasia Summers stood against an endless blue sky. A towering structure of steel and concrete loomed just behind her. Great waves of smoke billowed just out of frame, emerging from the base of a massive rocket. More pictures lay scattered about the room. A smiling couple bundled in warm furs, standing against a broken and graffitied wall. The same hook-nosed man, looking young and spry and happy, with an arm wrapped around Anastasia and drinking champagne with John F. Kennedy. A group of children, one of which greatly resembled Abigail, sitting at the feet of a well-dressed man who Dan didn't recognize.
There was a great deal of history in this room. Dan should probably show some reverence.
”I expected it to be bigger,” Dan snarked with a crooked grin.
”Oh, it extends for about four hundred feet that way.” Abby pointed at an unadorned wall. Unlike the rest of the house, no artwork hung on it. Instead, a thin seam ran down its center. Abby skipped over to the wall and gave it a gentle nudge.
The seam split open with a whoosh, revealing a vast dark chamber. A series of low thunks echoed out from the darkness and tiny pinpricks of light appeared in the distance.
Thunk thunk thunk.
Floodlights turned on, one by one, revealing more and more display cases filled with the immeasurable accomplishments and memories of Abigail's family. Concrete pedestals were interspersed among the shelves; thick and elevated, they housed scale models of buildings, vehicle chassis, and in one case, a space rover tinted red and covered in dust.
”Yeah,” Abby drawled, keenly aware of Dan's gaping mouth, ”we're not a particularly humble family.”
”You don't say,” Dan remarked absently. His eyes were focused on the cabinet just beyond the threshold. Inside sat a photograph, smaller than the others around it, worn and wrinkled by time and lacking a frame. A young man in casual clothes laughed beside an older man dressed in a suit. Dan could recognize the crooked nose of who he suspected was Abby's grandfather. Beyond that, he recognized the face of the teacher laughing beside him.
A narrow face, with thin lips, large ears, a long nose, and a large forehead. His cheeks were gaunt and sunken, though not unhealthily so. His eyebrows were bushy even then, but his hair was combed back and styled, rather than the wild mess that Dan was used to. The expression on his face was the strangest part, wide and hopeful and warm, his eyes lacked the cold detachment that had come with age.
Dan pointed to the photograph. ”What is that from?”
Abby followed his gesture. ”No idea. There's so much stuff in here, nobody actually keeps track of it all. Anytime something new is put in, we just slap a label on it.”
As she explained, she approached the shelf containing the picture. She swiped her palm against the glass, and with an electric hum, the glass slid open. Abby fished the photo out, frowning slightly at its lack of frame.
”Well that's grandpa,” she murmured, peering down at the photo. ”I don't recognize the other guy.”
She flipped it over, revealing a string of sentences on the back. ”Oh. Stanley Summers and Marcus Mercury. 1955.”
She turned it back over, a puzzled look on her face. ”That's all there is. Way to keep good records grandpa.”
Dan snorted. ”That's fine. It doesn't matter.” Just more questions for Marcus to dodge. Dan would have to find the answers himself.
”Did you recognize one of them?” Abby asked curiously.
”It doesn't matter,” Dan repeated, waving his hand dismissively. ”I'm sure that a picture is the least impressive thing in here.”
She shrugged, placing the photo back inside the shelf. ”Probably. I haven't taken a look around for a while, but we've got all kinds of neat stuff. This is where grandpa stashed the old genius upgrade prototypes, way back when.”
”Oh my.”
”I think there's a flying Sherman tank in here somewhere,” Abby added, peering into the hangar sized storage room.
”I need a drink,” Dan replied, turning away from the room and its many shinies.
”Oh!” Abby clapped her hands together and the door whooshed shut. ”I can help with that!”
”We used to keep a full bar in the house, but some of my relatives are a little too fond of liquor,” Abby said as she escorted Dan down the front stairs. The pair had returned to the foyer of the mansion, and their feet hit the first floor right as the front doors flew open.
Both of them flinched as a middle-aged woman wearing a large fur coat pranced into the room. Her long hair was bleached white and a large pair of tinted sunglasses hung off her face. Gaudy jewelry hung off her neck and wrists, even her ankles were wrapped with thick golden bands. Her high heels clicked loudly against the wood floor as she took a stance and spread her arms dramatically.
”Abigail! You've come!” Her voice was even louder than Abby's brother Jason's had been. Her greeting echoed through the foyer, and endless barrage of um um um matching Abby's stuttering reply.
”H—hello Aunt Linda,” Abby replied in a daze. She, like Dan, had all but forgotten that there was technically a family reunion happening somewhere deeper within the mansion. Fortunately, the place was large enough that they could dodge the festivities with relative ease. It was only by blundering around near the front door that they were caught.
”Don't Aunt Linda me young lady! I haven't seen you in years! You've gotten so cute!” The blonde woman zipped forward and pinched Abby's cheeks.
”I've been busy,” Abby replied with a wince. She batted away her aunt's questing fingers, and took a step back.
”Busy hmm?” The older woman's eyes bounced from Abby to Daniel, then widened. ”Oh-hohoho busy!”
Painted on eyebrows waggled disturbingly from behind her massive aviators. Her chortling laughter was grossly exaggerated, like she'd learned how to express herself from a Japanese cartoon.