“Buddy, look,” she said. Her light had caught the glint of something on the wall. She got closer but didn’t have to. I knew what it was. “Ink,” she said. She traced it with her flashlight down the wall farther away from us. The light grew and revealed thick trails of ink, like a hand had been dragged along it, but bigger. There were larger spatters toward the end of the wall, like someone had thrown buckets of ink at it. Dumped it on the ground and splashed it everywhere.
“No wonder they shut everything down. I don’t even know how they’d start to clean this up. This is someone who’s angry,” said Dot.
“Do you think Sammy did this?” I asked.
“Who else?” She started walking again.
I didn’t think Sammy did this.
I was feeling more sure by the moment. Sammy hadn’t done all this and then just disappeared. Something else had done this … and then done something to Sammy.
Just as I had that thought, I heard it.
Now I wonder if it did actually happen that way. That I thought it and then heard the breathing. Maybe I had heard the breathing first. That would make more sense. I’m not that clever.
At first I thought it was my mind playing tricks on me. Like the ink slipping down the paper. But then Dot stopped and said, “Shh.” And I knew. I knew she heard it too.
We stopped walking and stood in complete silence.
Except we couldn’t stand in silence.
Not with the sound of wet breath stalking us from somewhere behind. Not with the sudden thump on the ground. And another.
I noticed then the light of Dot’s flashlight was dimming. What a moment for the bulb to die. I turned to look and saw Dot’s face illuminated by the glow, staring in horror as the shadows started to creep into the beam. It could have been water pooling around us but I knew it wasn’t.
Another thump and another.
The breathing got louder and louder.
The light got dimmer and dimmer.
“Run!” I whispered loudly, and gave Dot a push. I didn’t even think about it, I just did it. And she ran. Didn’t ask why, didn’t try to come up with a better plan. She just ran. And I ran.
The light that was left bounced off the walls, making it hard to tell which direction we were going. It glanced off a poster and suddenly Bendy was grinning at us like he’d jumped out from behind the corner. I gasped, but the poster was soon behind us. Just like the breathing that was getting louder and louder. Panting. A large heavy animal chasing us. And catching up.
I barely saw the word “Music” before Dot called out, “Over here!”
We launched ourselves at the door to the Music Room and—however we got inside, however we got through—we were in, and the door slammed shut behind us. I leaned hard against it, out of breath, terror flowing from every pore.
“Buddy, look,” said Dot quietly but urgently. She was pointing the flashlight at my feet. I looked down. The shadows were seeping their way under the door and her light flickered again.
I pushed myself away from the door fast, tripping into the room and into Dot, who stumbled a bit. I grabbed her hand instinctively, to keep track of her. She didn’t fight me. Her light flashed up to the wall, still flickering.
More ink.
Then she turned to shine her light on the room.
Broken chairs and stands. Instruments scattered all over the place.
And ink.
Ink everywhere.
“Can you hear it?” she whispered. “I can’t hear it.”
I strained my ears to listen for the wet breathing, for the footsteps.
“No. Aim at the door again,” I whispered back.
She did and gasped. We both staggered back instantly, still holding on to each other. The black shadows were even longer and seemed to be reaching now, almost like they were climbing up the beam of the flashlight. Like fingers trying to grab us.
“Turn it off, turn it off!” I said in a panic.
I could hear her fumble with the flashlight and then there was a click. We stood there, in the pitch dark. The only breathing I could hear was hers and mine. I clenched my body tight, bracing myself for the shadows to find us, to wrap themselves around us.
Nothing happened.
“What was that?” Dot asked in a frantic whisper.
“It was the thing. It’s the thing from the Infirmary,” I whispered back, trying desperately to answer and also not make a noise.
“I don’t understand,” whispered Dot, her hand shaking in mine. “It doesn’t make sense. The shadows, the sounds.”
“Shh!”
She was quiet instantly. I didn’t know what I’d heard, but something, something, had sparked my senses. I closed my eyes. Even though it was pitch-black, I closed my eyes. Trying to hear through the darkness, as if the darkness itself was thick and muffling sound.
So quiet.
Too quiet.
“Do you think it’s gone?” asked Dot.
Crash.
We both screamed.
“Turn on the light!” I said, and there was a panicked movement from behind me as Dot fumbled with the flashlight. The beam was dim, so dim, as it fell upon the floor.
But there was enough to catch the figure covered in thick ink on the ground in front of us.
“Buddy,” gasped Dot.
I leaned down. I had done this before. I was experiencing the same thing before. In the Music Room. Bending over a figure covered in ink.
The head jerked and I fell back into Dot. She stumbled and the light wavered for a moment.
I stared at the figure.
It was propping itself up by its hands, its elbows bent and shoulder blades protruding. A curtain of hair fell over the face, dripping now in ink, like the hair itself was ink.
I knew that hair.
“He’s here,” rasped a familiar voice.
The head twisted suddenly and then its body collapsed in a sickening thud against the wood.
“What is that?” asked Dot, her voice high and shaking.
“The violinist,” I replied, barely able to get the words out.
“Who?”
I reached toward Dot; I needed the flashlight. I needed it. I was in full panic and all I knew was he was here. It was here.
Somehow Dot understood and put the flashlight in my shaking hand. I aimed it around the room wildly, barely taking a moment to see that the corners were empty, ignoring the reaching shadows, the dimming of the light, the flicker. Every direction, every way possible. I aimed down, and all around, and back to the door, and the chaos in the room just made it all like a fever dream, like I was dizzy.
Nothing. No one.
I stopped, the faint beam landing again on the violinist.
“Where did she come from?” whispered Dot. “She couldn’t have just appeared.”
I shook my head. No idea. “It’s like she was just …” I didn’t finish my thought.
There was a pause and then Dot completed my sentence, “… dropped.”
Slowly and with a deep intake of breath I turned the flickering faint beam up above us and looked.
Something wet. Black. Dripping. A figure. With something sharp that glinted in the light. Like teeth.
And then the flashlight died in the shadows.
The wail. That same wail from the Infirmary, but this time almost more like a roar. It ripped through the darkness, pierced my brain, and I felt that familiar paralyzed feeling come over me. I was trapped. This was it. This was it. Dot took control and pulled my arm hard, and forced me to move, to follow her mad dash across the room, as a loud thud and sounds of scraping and wet panting filled the room. We kept running, away from everything, not knowing what was happening or where we were. We crashed into the lip of the stage hard, falling into the music stands, dropping the flashlight, and I grappled to pull myself forward while still holding her hand.
“Buddy, stop, stop, listen,” she whispered hard into my ear.
I couldn’t stop, I didn’t dare stop. We h
ad to get away, somehow.
“Listen.”
I scratched at the stage, feeling splinters under my nails.
“Stop!” She shouted it. Out loud. Loud so anyone or anything could hear.
I stopped. I stopped even though my whole body was shaking. Even though everything in me was demanding I flee.
Silence.
Not the terrible silence from before.
A different kind of silence.
I heard Dot in the silence. I heard her searching for something and then … A solid beam of light.
I turned to look at her, at her face still in shadow but now visible in the fringe of the light. It was so good to see her face again. She nodded at me, to tell me she was okay, and then turned the beam.
The violinist was gone.
The thing was gone.
All that remained was a black inky stain.
Dot shone the light up.
Nothing.
Just more ink. Dripping a little. Now I could hear it. The faint single drip every so often.
She searched the room with the flashlight one more time, but even as she did I knew we both knew that whatever it was, whatever that thing was, it was gone. The shadows were gone.
Finally Dot turned, the beam aiming down again, and said, “Are you okay?”
I didn’t know how to answer that question. I wasn’t hurt. But the fear, the horror of what we’d seen. It felt like I was. Like I was on the inside. Like when a person is bleeding on the inside.
Light suddenly blasted through the room, blinding me. I held up my hand to my face. What was happening now? My heart was racing and I couldn’t swallow. Terrified of the beast.
“Norman?” called out Dot.
I moved my arm away from my face. It was still too bright to see much, but I could make out Dot beside me looking up toward the back wall. So I did too. All I could see was a bright white circle of light above me. Glowing.
“Norman, is that you?” Dot hollered again.
“Hey, little lady,” said a familiar voice from upstairs.
“What on earth are you doing here?” She shielded the light from her eyes, so I did the same.
“Well, now, I could ask you the same question,” he said.
I stared at the bright light. It felt wrong, almost like we were talking to the projector and not a real person.
“Did you see it? Did you see what happened?” asked Dot.
There was a pause.
“You two alright?” he replied.
“We’re alright. Did you see what happened?” asked Dot.
“Not this time,” he said. “Heard it though. That’s why I came.”
Dot turned to me. “Let’s go talk to him.” I immediately shook my head. The entrance to the Projector Booth was outside the door. No way. No way was I leaving this room, not now, not with that something out there. “Come on, it’s safe,” she said in a soothing voice. “We just need to watch the light.”
“Safe?” I asked. I couldn’t believe it. “Are you kidding me? We have to get out of here!”
“You two should probably wait a bit before heading back to the elevator, just in case,” said Norman. “She’s right about the light.”
“How do you know?” I asked, turning abruptly. I shouted it at him, angry. What did any of us really know about that … thing? It didn’t make sense in the first place, so how could they know we’d be safe out there?
“I know,” said Norman.
“Come on,” said Dot. I shook my head again but of course I couldn’t hold Dot back. And I was definitely not staying behind. I followed her to the door and she opened it carefully, shining her flashlight around the corner. She looked back at me. “All good, steady beam.” And then there I was, heart in my throat, racing out of the Music Room following Dot, up the stairs and into the small balcony area that served as Norman’s Projector Booth, slamming the door fast behind me.
A wave of relief washed over me, but in place of the fear, the reality of everything that had happened to us really hit me. That thing. That inky thing. The violinist. Her body on the ground. Lying there. It was too much, too much. I stared out of the booth at the room below, holding tightly on to the railing. The flashing, blinding light of the projector made a perfect rectangle on the back wall of the Music Room. It flickered and lit the room, revealing the chaos in even more detail. The ink on the walls, the floor.
That spot on the floor. Where the violinist had been. I leaned over the railing and looked closer. The ink stain looked smeared, like her body had been dragged … somewhere. Until the ink got fainter and fainter and then vanished.
“Hi, Norman,” I heard Dot say. She sounded as exhausted as I felt. I turned and watched as she sat on a box filled with metal film reels. I had nowhere to put myself, so I leaned uncomfortably against the railing.
“Y’all happy with yourselves now? See what happens when you sneak around all the time? You two and your sneaking,” he said, shaking his head. He took a sip from a mug, but I wasn’t certain it was coffee in there.
“You’ve been watching us?” asked Dot.
Norman laughed to himself. “Never seen a pair of teenagers sneak around so much like you two and yet not fool around at all.”
I choked on nothing then and started to cough.
“Sensitive boy, ain’t he?” asked Norman, looking at Dot.
“That was a pretty rude thing to say though,” she said back.
Norman shrugged.
“Do you know what’s going on?” she asked.
Again he shrugged.
Dot sighed hard. “Norman, you invited us up here. I thought you wanted to talk.”
“Well,” he said, slowly taking another sip from his mug and leaning back in his chair. It seemed so casual and not at all how I was feeling. And it only made me get more tense.
Norman thought for a moment, and in that moment I realized how much he looked like a character from a comic strip. An old gentleman sitting on his front porch. He had a cravat instead of a tie. “If I say you’re right, what happens next?” His lined face glowed in the flickering projector, and his bushy eyebrows had such a steep point in the middle it made him look almost devilish.
“Next, you tell us,” said Dot.
Norman glanced at me, gave me the once-over. Like people did that first week I was here. But it was like he hadn’t really looked at me before now. “Is that what you want to know?” he asked me.
“Of course.” It was an easy answer. I felt tense, and pretty sure we should be getting out of here immediately, but still, if we were going to wait this out until whenever, then, yeah, of course we wanted to know what the heck was going on.
“Of course,” Norman said to himself. He took another sip. “He says it like that, knowing that he’s the one who brought this creature upon us. Of course. Of course.”
I felt cold then, like the temperature had dropped and it was winter. Like if I talked my breath would freeze. “What do you mean?” But I knew what he meant. He meant the Infirmary. The thing in the room with the locked door. The door I’d opened.
I’d let it out.
Me.
It was all my fault.
“What do you two know about the ink?” Norman asked instead.
“We know Sammy is obsessed with it,” said Dot.
“So not much then,” said Norman.
“How much do you know?” I asked, trying to hold it together.
“Everything.”
Dot shifted in her seat, and I couldn’t tell if it was because she was excited to get the truth or annoyed he was being so cagey.
“Tell us,” I said.
“How much?” he asked.
“All of it,” I said.
“Yes,” said Dot with an edge to her voice.
“Okay, okay, calm down. You’re acting like you’ve somewhere to go. When we all know no one here in this studio has anywhere to go.”
I didn’t know what that meant.
“The beginning, Norman,�
� said Dot.
Norman nodded. “The beginning.” He leaned back with his mug and put his feet up on the edge of the table holding the projector. “How familiar are y’all with Henry?”
Henry.
The name that had been haunting me since day one. The name etched in my desk. The name Mister Drew had called me when we were trying on tuxedos. That name I’d just assumed was some former employee, and who really needs to know about that anyway?
“Mister Drew’s former business partner,” said Dot. “Helped fund Joey Drew Studios. He created Bendy.”
“He created Bendy?” I said, shocked. “I thought … I mean … I always assumed …”
“A lot of people assume that,” said Norman. “It ain’t like Mister Drew corrects them.”
That made me feel uncomfortable. The implication there.
“He created the big three, didn’t he?” asked Dot.
“Bendy and Boris. Even Alice, though they didn’t start featuring her until after Henry left. Yup. He was a gifted artist. Decent fellow too. As far as people go.”
“Coming from you, that’s quite the compliment,” said Dot.
Norman barked out a laugh. “I guess.”
“But what does Henry have to do with the ink?” I wanted to get on with the story, I didn’t need to know about Henry and Mister Drew.
“Well, Henry left. Y’all know that. He left, wanted to spend more time with his wife, Linda. You get that, this job can be … consuming.”
“Sure,” said Dot.
I nodded, but swallowed hard. I thought about all the late nights. I thought about trying to prove myself. I thought about how I hadn’t had a good conversation with Ma in a long time.
“How do you think a man like Joey Drew takes that?”
“Takes what?” I asked.
“The leaving. Mister Drew had the vision. But Henry, he had the talent. Talent’s gone, what now? It ain’t personal, but maybe Mister Drew takes it like it is. Maybe he decides he don’t need Henry. Never did. Just needs the talent.”
None of this was making any sense, and with everything that had just happened, the thought of some monster outside the door, and this feeling, this pit-in-the-stomach feeling hearing the word “vision” … I just couldn’t put it all together.
Dreams Come to Life Page 15