Teymour Shahabi - Someone in the Walls

SOMEONE

IN THE WALLS

Book Two of The Surway Fortune

Teymour Shahabi

PageWing, LLC

NEW YORK, NY

Copyright 2019 by Teymour Shahabi.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

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New York, NY

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Publishers Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the authors imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

Book layout adapted from 2013 BookDesignTemplates.com.

Cover design by Kerry Ellis.

Someone in the Walls/ Teymour Shahabi. -- 1st ed.

ISBN 978-0-9978760-2-4

To everyone who read The Secret Billionaire,

Every one a dream come true

And to Mrs. Pari Saidi Akhavan, who never read it

Contents

The Metropolitan Times

At four oclock this afternoon, approximately sixteen hours after the printing of this editionand several decades after the start of this story in older pages of this newspaperthe mystery of the Surway fortune will finally be resolved. We expect that our readers are anticipating four oclock as eagerly as we are, whether near us in the City, up and down the Coast, or across the country and around the world. Wherever we are, from whatever place we consider home, today we are all citizens of the beautiful little town of Spring Forge, down the river, where the mystery began. This quiet community was not made for fame; every hotel room within fifty miles has been booked for several months. As we covered in yesterdays edition, the train service along the valley has declared this the busiest week in thirty-nine years. And for the past few days, those of our staff reporting from Spring Forge have had to drive there in the morning and come back at night.

At four oclock this afternoon, the heir to the fortune left by Lyndon Surway, the late industrialist and billionaire, will introduce himself to the public. Though the man is yet unknown, his name is famous all over the globe. We first wrote about Lucian Baker many years ago, after Mr. Surway disappeared while flying one of his aircraft, leaving behind no known living relatives. As the sole heir designated in Mr. Surways will, Mr. Baker inherits one of the largest fortunes in our countrys history and likely the history of the world.

For decades, Mr. Bakers whereabouts were unknown. But he has come forward, he has confirmed his identity, and today, at four oclock, he will make his long-awaited appearance from the balcony of the Surway House, in the foothills of the mountains above Spring Forge. Mr. Bakers new home, which has been uninhabited since Lyndon Surways disappearance, is estimated to be the largest private residence in the Northern Hemispherethough the dimensions of the construction and even the structure of its foundations have not been conclusively documented as of this writing. Additional miles of secret passages concealed throughout the Estate remain a matter of debate. For the completeness of our reporting, we are compelled to mention a rumor that has gained currency in recent weeks, the rumor that someone else, as yet unidentified, is already living inside the House. But as a matter of policy, we at The Metropolitan Times do not comment on rumor.

The Surway House may have been empty, but the Surway Corporation has continued to grow over decades of expansion across industries around the world. In addition to his other assets, Mr. Surways will leaves the sole ownership of the Corporation and all its subsidiaries to Mr. Baker. At this moment, before the opening of the Stock Exchange, no announcement has been made regarding his role in their operations. We refer our loyal readers to the business pages of this paper over the coming days and weeks.

Our newsroom and our editorial staff now wish to thank you for your faithful readership through the years. It has been our privilege to share with you our chronicle of the Surway inheritance. None of us could have guessed the end, and we will discover it together this afternoon. Whatever answers we may get and whatever new questions arise, at four oclock today, Lucian Baker will stand for the first time in the daylight for all to see.

We confide to our dear readers that we do not yet know what he looks like.

Chapter One

A New Day

Andrew Day hurried but he didnt run. He clutched the straps of his backpack and stepped softly over the marble floor, which he had never trodden before. He guessed that he was early, but he couldnt be sure. Elders directions told him where to go but not how far it would be.

Everywhere is far here.

The House around him was silent. It was dusty, but it wasnt dirty, like the underbrush of a forest. He had just come in through the woods, over the hills above Spring Forge, and the dawn advanced through the edifice with him. Shafts of pale sunlight slashed his way, but the walls away from the windows were dark, wrapped in a nighttime of their own.

He didnt want to startle these walls, to jostle them. He was grateful to them for their steadiness, for their strength, and for all the paintings they had held up, year after year, and all the winters they had waited for someone to keep warm. He looked up at the chandeliers. He tried to count their candles as if he were counting stars, and they seemed to twinkle already and wink at him. He peered into vases where small gardens could have fit. He brushed against tapestries as tall as buildings, and he wished that he could stop and roll over them, or stare at them from far away to learn what scenes they depicted. He climbed up stairways that were wider than streets and scuttled down others that wound around pillars. He halted in hallways to determine if the brightness above him was the ceiling or the sky. But whenever he realized where he was, he struggled to recognize himself, who dared to trouble such splendor. Only a few days ago, he wouldnt have known how to imagine it. Only a few days had passed since he had learned his part in ithis part of it. And wherever he went, he repeated to himself without understanding, like a prayer in a foreign language, that everything that had once belonged to Lyndon Surway now belonged to him.

Why me?

The question sprayed along the archways and dripped down on his shoulders. And yet every room opened its arms of stone for him, and the morning sun expanded. The House that had been alive long before him was still asleep; and as he wondered, not where he was, but why he was there, it smiled and said nothing.

Then he came upon a wall and jumped.

A face.

The figure in front of him was still. And it had no body.

A painting.

He looked at the face and he knew it wasnt real, but his heart went on pounding.

A monster.

Its hair was made of foliage, and its skin had the cracks of bark. Its beard flowered as it flowed and the horns on its head broke into branches. It was a demon of the forest. And it gazed back at Andrew with eyes that were empty, that had no pupils and no eyelids, two holes of sinking dust, like quicksands of darkness.

Dimly at first, then more distinctly, Andrew asked himself if there was someone else in the House. His mind flicked through the hundreds and thousands of corners where somebody could hide, behind a statue, behind a door, under a staircase or under the floor, behind chairs where no one sat, and inside of rooms where no one went. Then he thought of the