The Animal Hour

by Andrew Klavan

  He looked at the woman. “Listen, Philippa,” he said tonelessly. He swallowed. “You have to listen to me carefully, all right?”

  “Just go ahead, Oliver,” she said. She was all business.

  “I want you to take the baby next door, okay? Don’t let him see … you know: his mother. Just get him out of here. Get him next door to your place—and then call the police.”

  “Yes, of course,” Mrs. Wallabee said briskly. She blinked her big eyes.

  “Tell the police what’s happened. And then ask to talk to Nathaniel Mulligan. Detective Nathaniel Mulligan. Can you remember that?”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” she said. She jogged the baby gently in her elbow as she fed him.

  Perkins did not look at the baby. “Give Mulligan my name,” he said. “Tell him to get to the Jefferson Market Library as fast as he can. Tell him there’s a woman there who has all the answers, who knows what’s going on. All right? Tell him I’m going to meet her there at eight and keep her there for him as long as I can. But I don’t know how long I can keep her. I don’t know how long before …”He swallowed the rest of the sentence. He did not know himself what he meant to say. He did not know what to think anymore and he did not care. He shook his head wearily. His eyes filled with tears again, and again one fell, ran down his cheek. “Just tell him that, all right? Tell him he has to hurry.”

  The woman jogged the baby. The baby sucked his bottle and caressed its plastic side. Mrs. Wallabee looked at Perkins earnestly. She tightened her lips, but there was nothing she could do for him. “All right, Oliver,” she said. “I’ll do it straight off.”

  “Thank you.” Perkins nodded at her. He turned away.

  The baby pulled from his bottle. “Pah!” he called. “Pah!”

  But Perkins could not bear to look back at him. He ducked under the mobiles, brushing them aside with his hand. He felt the black, batlike thing sitting heavily in his stomach. He felt the whole world had become the black, batlike thing. He walked into the living room.

  Zachary turned to face him as he came in. He was still at the far end of the room, by the door. He smiled nervously at his older brother. The red bag was at his feet, and his hands were deep in his raincoat pockets.

  Oliver regarded him from the nursery doorway. For some reason, Zach looked strange to him, almost like a stranger. His gangly figure hidden by the long coat, his boyish face shadowed by the cap brim—he looked odd, out of whack. Oliver felt distant from him. A confused, floating feeling.

  For a long moment, the two brothers regarded each other like that; silently across the room. Avis lay sprawled on the floor between them.

  Finally, Oliver nodded. He spoke in a near whisper. “All right, Zach,” he said. He hardly knew what he was saying. “All right. I’m ready. Let’s go.”

  The subway car was packed with monsters. A scaly sea thing. A pimple-beaked hag. A green cadaver with blood on its chin. And not a goddamned place to sit anywhere and she was so tired, so tired. She stood in the midst of them, clutching the hand strap. Swaying weakly into their malformed faces. There were spasms of pain running across her lower back. Sharp blades of it pierced her wounded head. She dangled from the strap with her eyes closed, her lips parted. Oh, Oliver … she thought dreamily. The thin bed in his garret was so soft as she waited naked for him …

  The train stopped at West Fourth Street. Cackling, the creatures stormed the door. She was carried along with them before she knew it. Pushed out onto the platform. Surrounded by fangy grins and red-streaked eyes. She was jostled toward the stairs; stumbling with the pack, trying not to fall. They carried her upward toward a violet square of October night. She blinked, shaking her head, fighting to stay on her feet. Vaguely, she heard the harsh jangle of music above her. She crested the stairs, supported by the crush of goblins …

  And then she was swept away.

  An aspic tide of human beings washed her into darkness and noise. Harsh notes of music rained down on her like hailstones. A tangy human stench—hot breath and sweat and beer—enveloped her. The night sky whirled above her, alive with indigo and strobic light.

  What the hell …? What the hell is happening?

  She turned desperately this way and that. Eyes veiled in dominoes darted by her. Grinning rubber masks bore in on her, then swept away. Distorted faces, twisted bodies, spread out around her as far as she could see. Above her, somewhere, on a platform somewhere rimmed with purple neon, a hairy beast was dancing. He was the size of two men. He was gyrating to the rocking brass rhythms. Two women in leotards bent and swayed and slithered upward worshipfully at his sides. She stared at them. She was pushed on, stumbling, step by step, by the inexorable crowd.

  A parade, she thought, breathlessly. It’s the Halloween Parade.

  She closed her eyes hard and opened them. She fought to come awake, to come out of her confusion. The float with the dancing beast rolled past her. The crowd moved after it, traveling more slowly in the same direction. Uptown. They were going uptown.

  No! she thought. No!

  Cornelia Street was right near here. It was just across the avenue.

  Eight o’clock. Eight o’clock.

  She struggled, twisted, in the grip of the tide. It would not release her. Step by step, it carried her uptown. Farther and farther away from Cornelia. Away from Oliver.

  “Let me through. Please!” she heard herself cry.

  But everyone was laughing. All around her people were laughing. Paper horns were honking. Music blared. Her high, thin voice was blown away by it.

  “Please,” she said.

  She shouldered hard against the press of bodies. She tried to squeeze through the spaces between them. It was no good. She could hardly move except to trudge along, step by step, amid the mass. She ducked her head, trying to see where she was. The movement sent cold pain snaking down her spine. Her vision blurred for a moment. But vaguely, in glimpses, over people’s shoulders, around their heads, she saw the marchers, she saw the parade on the avenue. Screeching demons capered by with upraised arms. Wild-eyed androgynes rushed past, their silk capes flying. Dancers ground their hips. Clowns hurled confetti into the night sky. A zombie slowly hunkered along the curb, munching on a severed arm and slavering down at the children.

  She felt her mouth go dry as she watched it. She felt her stomach sink. Everywhere, interspersed with the creatures in the giddy dance, mingling with them all up and down the block, there were stolid men: uniformed men with pale, expressionless faces. With heavy arms. With stares like ball bearings.

  Cops.

  They patrolled the edges of the crowd. They gazed, watchful, from under their black-brimmed caps. They scanned the screaming, laughing faces that pushed in at them over the barricades.

  Jesus. So many cops, she thought. She felt dizzy, dreamy. Her knees were going weak. If she broke out toward the parade, would they spot her? Would they know who she was? Were all of them after her?

  She twisted to the right. She craned her neck. Fought for a glimpse of the rest of the sidewalk.

  But the police were there too. Lined up like staunch pickets, shoulder to shoulder. Cowled in shadow but shaped that cop-like shape. Unmistakable.

  She let out a noise, a sob of frustration. She clutched her hair with one hand, trying to think. Oh, Oliver. She imagined him, stretched on his back, his mouth open, his sad eyes gaping blindly into space.

  Eight o’clock! Eight o’clock!

  She sank down heavily in the viscous tide. Step by step, she was forced along.

  And then, the crowd reached the corner. She was carried right over the curb. She was dropped down into the street. There, finally, between one sidewalk and the next, the mass spread out and thinned a little.

  Without thinking, she wriggled free of it. Elbowing between one person and another. Twisting into the spaces. Gasping for breath.

  She fell out of the crowd, onto the sidestreet. She stumbled into the swift traffic of people heading to and from the avenue. Someone wh
acked her in the shoulder and she reeled back. Steadied herself. Crouched, braced, staring around her like an animal.

  Cops.

  There were two of them. On the southern sidewalk, leaning back against a diamond-link fence. They seemed to be watching her with their ball bearing stares. Breathless, she turned her back on them. Another cop strolled toward her, wandering along the edge of the sidestreet, through the sparser crowd.

  She stood where she was, jostled by the passersby. The cop on the sidestreet came closer. The cops by the fence leaned their heads together and murmured through tight lips. Was everyone after her?

  A shout rose to her over the noise of the crowd:

  “Masks! Electric, blinking masks! Get your Halloween masks right here!”

  She swiveled toward the voice, her knees screaming. There was a panther-man. He was standing at the corner of the sidestreet, where it met the avenue. The spangles in his black vest glittered out of the shadow of a brownstone wall. He was waving a domino mask above his head. It was edged with green and red and yellow lights, all of them blinking on and off.

  “Get your Halloween masks right here!” he cried.

  With a gasp, she limped through the crowd toward the masked panther. She reached into her pocket as she came, bringing out all the bills she had left.

  “Here!” She had to shout. Another brass band was passing. The notes of the “Funeral March for a Marionette” were pounding at her, drowning her out.

  The panther-man snatched the bills from her and handed her a blinking domino in return. She held it to her eyes, fixed its strap behind her head.

  Masked then, she turned around.

  The cop who had been strolling up the sidestreet strolled right past her. He pushed his way through the crowd, onto the avenue; he was swallowed up by the onlookers. The cops against the fence had now averted their gazes from her too.

  All right, she thought, woozdly. All right. Downtown. Downtown to Oliver. All right. What first?

  The avenue. She would have to cross the avenue. Slip through the parade. Then she could head over to Sheridan Square. Angle in to Cornelia without hitting the mob …

  Squinting through the domino’s eyeholes, she staggered wearily back toward the crowd. The current caught her. It nearly toppled her as it tried to carry her back onto the sidewalk, back into the gelatinous uptown flow. But she turned her shoulder against it and fought her way through to the intersection. She stopped there. She tilted her head back, her mouth agape.

  Look, she thought. She was mesmerized. Look, Oliver. A big pumpkin.

  A jack-o’-lantern the size of a house was rolling past her, up the avenue. Its grin flickered down at her as if aflame. Flames danced in the triangular eyes and up through the cap. And up through the cap came a beauty queen, grinning broadly, waving happily through the paper flames.

  A very … very … big …

  She swayed on her feet. The pumpkin rolled on, uptown, as the crowds cheered and threw confetti in its wake. There was a break in the parade. The cops moved in to fill the intersection. They walked back and forth, their hands clasped behind them. A small cluster of people started out of the current to cross the avenue.

  She almost let them go without her. Then she blinked herself to life. Staggered along with them. She ducked down to hide below their shoulders. Passed right under a patrolman’s nose. The little group hid her as she moved out into the center of the avenue. She was halfway across when she turned …

  Good-bye, Mr. Pumpkin, good-bye …

  She turned and looked up to watch the pumpkin roll away.

  And she halted in her tracks. She straightened. She stared.

  What …?

  The cluster of people moved on to the far curb. Only she stood there, alone, exposed, gaping. She shook her head slowly.

  There, against the purple sky, a castle of red brick rose up before her. Round towers rose to peaked roofs. Arched windows with stained glass traced in stone. A gray roof in jagged hips and valleys … She stared and stared and the music seemed to fade away from her. The cheering faded from her and the lights swam off into a dim periphery. She stared—and a cocoon of smoky silence seemed to twine itself around her …

  I know that place. I’ve seen that place before.

  It was the building from her dream. It was the asylum she had dreamed when they were taking her to Bellevue in the squad car. Her mouth hung open. A thin stream of drool hung down from it to her chin. She swayed. She stared. She remembered the long, green, empty corridor inside. The whispers coming to her from behind the doors.

  “Naaancy. Naaaancy.” A chorus of whispers. “Nancy Kincaid …”

  Where had she first heard that name? Who had first told it to her?

  My name is Nancy Kincaid.

  Who was it? Who had said that to her first?

  She stood where she was in the middle of the avenue. Swaying. Staring at the silhouetted library through the domino’s eyeholes. Her stomach roiled, but even her nausea seemed far away. She remembered her dream: the asylum, the long corridor, full of whispers. The granite throne with King Death seated on it. Waiting for her.

  That’s him, she thought. King Death. That’s who I have to find. But whose face was behind the mask? Whose voice had said to her:

  My name is Nancy Kincaid. I’m twenty-two years old.

  Oh, she could almost remember. Someone had sat there before her and told her that. Someone with the face of King Death. A person with a skull for a face had told her:

  I work for Fernando Woodlawn. I’m his personal assistant. I live on Gramercy Park with my mom and dad …

  Me, she thought dimly, it was supposed to be me. Oh, if she could just remember.

  She stood there, staring. She heard nothing of the noise around her. The parade. The cheering crowd. She did not see the policeman who had spotted her now. Who was moving toward her now with his face set, his hand resting on his holster. If she could just pull the mask away, she thought. If she could just see the face behind the face of Death. Her fingers coiled at her side. She could feel the rubbery skin of the Death’s head as if it were in her hands.

  My name is Nancy Kincaid, the skull’s voice whispered to her.

  And then, in her mind, the mask of Death seemed suddenly to come away and she saw:

  There was no head behind it. King Death had no head. Severed arteries and veins sprouted from the jagged neck like wires. Gore spewed in coughing gouts up from the ragged hole. The blood poured down over the front of the creature’s robes. The voice burbled out with the blood, like the blood, thick and liquid:

  My name is Nancy Kincaid …

  She felt the pavement tip beneath her feet. Darkness closed over her. Her eyes rolled up in her head.

  Me. It was supposed to be me. IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ME!

  A frantic skirl of music flew up around her. A shout rose from the crowd. Her eyes went wide and faces—grinning, calling faces—rose and fell like waves on every side of her. She turned, stumbling. A street lamp’s bulb swung overhead. She tipped backward. She let out a terrified scream.

  A Death’s head blotted out the sky above her.

  “All hail!” A shout blew over her like wind. “All hail King Death!”

  She staggered back. She held her head. She stared up at the huge skull that bore down on her out of the night, as if the moon itself had descended.

  “Whoa,” she whispered.

  The thing was just enormous. A human skeleton a city block long. Its grinning skull hovered just above her. Its spine undulated and wavered. Its bony arms waved in the air. Below, on the street, puppeteers in skull masks and black skeleton pajamas held the paper creature aloft on poles. They danced around in circles, making the arms spin, the legs kick crazily. They were heading toward her.

  “All hail!” they shouted, their voices muffled in their masks. “All hail King Death!”

  And the crowd took up the chant. They hurled confetti up under the streetlights. They pumped their fists over the blue bar
ricades.

  “All hail! All hail King Death!”

  She saw him then. He was at the center of the puppeteers. He was right under the great paper icon that rolled and floated over them. He was not at all as he had been in her vision. He was not stately. He was not enthroned. He was a clown. He was capering. Prancing and skipping back and forth, waving the scepter in his hand like a baton. He was dressed in a colored quilt shirt and torn jeans, like a waif, like a vagabond. His head was covered with a skull mask and there was a paper crown wrapped around his brow. He tilted his head from side to side as he galloped up and down under the gigantic skeleton. He waved gleefully to the crowd.

  That’s him, she thought. She staggered again, uncertain on her feet. She felt her stomach roll over, and a lifeless cold radiated out from the center of her. It came into her arms, into her legs, her fingers. She was going under …

  It’s too late, she thought. She grabbed a handful of her own hair, as if to hold herself up. It’s too late …

  “That’s him,” she whispered.

  She stared at the masked, capering little waif. Her other hand rose up again. She pointed at him.

  “That’s him!” she called. Tears blurred her vision. “Look.”

  “All hail!” The crowd’s happy roar drowned her out. “All hail the King of Death!”

  She called louder. “That’s him! That’s him! Oh Christ, it’s already happening.” She jabbed her finger at him. “That’s him! Please! Somebody!”

  The giant skeleton was passing above her now. The puppeteers were all around her, dancing, holding their poles. King Death was capering toward her, spinning, his arms flung wide. She could see the light through his eyeholes when he turned to her. She could see the glint in his dark eyes. He waved to the crowd on either side of her. They shouted out to him.

  “All hail!”

  She covered her mouth. “Oh God! Oliver …”