I stared at the wall. From floor to ceiling it was covered with faint scratches: letters, initials, Roman numerals. The marks of prisoners, who had lived and died here….
“Lucy…”
Out of the darkness, somewhere straight ahead—that voice!
I cursed under my breath. It figured. Well, I might as well finish everything at once. “All right,” I said. “Keep your hair on. I’m coming.”
Shuffling like an invalid, holding the candle first high, then low, so that I could judge the uneven ground, I proceeded down the passage. I took care not to touch the walls again. White roots protruded between stones, and the walls glistened with moisture. Puddles appeared underfoot; for a few steps I was splashing through pools of shallow water, then the floor rose, and I walked once more on solid rock.
I was at a cross-junction; two other passages extended out from my corridor, to left and right. The one to my left was immediately blocked by a set of metal bars, rusted, twisted, blackened by age. To the right, my candlelight reflected on steps that disappeared into a solid expanse of foul-smelling, jet-black water. I ignored both side passages and continued straight on, and almost immediately stepped out over a pile of shattered wood into a larger space.
Somebody was whispering up ahead. When I lifted the candle, the whispers went still.
“Don’t be shy,” I said. “Speak up.”
I laughed. They were shy. They were very quiet. The ground was tilting in front of me again. My head hurt, and for a moment my vision blurred; then things cleared and I could see well enough who’d been doing the whispering. They were right there in front of me, lying in piles around the side of the room. Maybe after all my splashing around in that passage I had water on the brain, but it seemed to me that they looked like the driftwood that piles up on riverbanks after a season of floods and storms. Trees stripped bare: all spindly white twigs and branches, lying on their sides, broken and intertwined.
Only they weren’t trees, of course, but skeletons.
Some of them had bits of cloth still on them, but most were nothing but whorls and spars of bone. They were a mess of bony apostrophes, commas, and exclamation marks brushed off some giant’s notebook into a tangled, ungrammatical heap. I could see skulls, and mandibles with glinting teeth, and ragged remnants of feet and hands, with most of the little bones lost or dangling. Ribs rose in spikes like clumps of shore grass, or broken racks for bicycles outside an abandoned station. In places the heap was thigh-high. It was a big, rectangular room, and the bones nested against all the walls, save at the far side, where a slab of gray blankness indicated another exit.
I walked slowly to the center of the chamber, shielding the candle’s brightness with a cupped hand. I did it out of courtesy as much as anything. So many bones…
And the proprietors of those bones were all right there.
Hovering above the bony driftwood hung a multitude of white shapes, almost like candle flames themselves. Very still and very faint, like teardrops falling upward and glowing with their own peculiar light, they had no definition except for dark round notches where the eyes should be. They floated there and stared at me. And as I stood in the center of their room, I felt the full force of their inspection, and with it their centuries-old misery and hate.
“It’s all right,” I said to them. “I understand.”
What had George said about the history of the prison? How it ended up being more of a hospital than a jail. The final inhabitants were lepers and people with other terrible illnesses. No one went there, everyone despised it. In the end the Tudor kings had driven them out and razed the place to the ground.
Driven them out…
I looked at the ring of broken skeletons.
Only they hadn’t actually bothered, had they? They hadn’t driven them out at all. They’d just trapped them underground and sealed them in, and pulled the prison walls down on top of them. Left them in the dark to die.
Simpler. Tidier. Solved a couple of problems at once. They were criminals and they were infected. Who was going to care?
Was it any wonder that this little room was the source of so much energy and rage?
“I understand,” I said again.
The shapes flickered, their dark eye-notches fixed on me, unblinking. I projected my sympathy outward as best I could. Whether they would comprehend the emotion; whether—if they did—they would readily accept it, after so long lying buried and forgotten, was impossible to say. So many hundreds of years, with no one any the wiser as to their existence….
Well, I wouldn’t blame them either way. I looked down past the dying candle and caught sight of something on the floor. I squatted down, not without a stumble (if only the floor would stop spinning!), and glared at it. It took me a moment to realize what it was—and that the skeletons were not themselves the deepest mystery of the room.
The flagstones where I crouched, unlike the corridor I’d come up, did not have dust on them, though dust was piled up thickly in and around the bones on either side. On the surface of one stone, not far from my left boot, something was lying, a cylindrical fragment, both white and brown. At first I thought it was a piece of bone, but as I lowered my candle close, I realized the truth: it was a cigarette end.
A butt from a modern cigarette….
I stared at it, frowning, head throbbing, trying to make sense of it.
Around me, movement. When I looked up, the ring of pale white shapes had moved inward toward me. I held up an impatient hand.
“All right, all right,” I said. “Give me a minute. I’ve just got something here.”
I stood up. Now that I thought about it, I could see that the whole center of the room was remarkably clear—of bones, of dust, of debris of any kind. It was like it had all been swept out to the sides. Someone was very keen on housekeeping. You’d think Holly Munro had been at work.
The thought made me giggle, and the giggle instantly woke me up. I frowned at the incoming ring of shapes. “You need to give me some space here,” I said. “You’re putting me off. Stand back a little, please.”
I went into the middle of the room, and after a moment to steady myself—everything was swaying in front of my eyes—bent down to scowl at the flagstones. I saw scratch marks in the stone, and here and there what I thought were splashes of candle-wax. I put a finger out to touch one of them, and almost fell over.
“You are seriously annoying me now,” I said. The glowing shapes had drifted closer and were no longer hovering above the mess of bones. Now they formed a circle around the edges of the cleared area. I could feel the force of their attention, the anger directed at me. “I’m not supposed to talk to you,” I said. “And I certainly won’t do it if you don’t step back. Go on!” The shapes retreated. “That’s better. What have you been doing here,” I said, “with all this wax and stuff? What are these circular scrapes? And this black burn mark here, right in the center? Have you been naughty? Have you been setting fire to something?”
The shapes said nothing, but echoes of the atrocity that had occurred here rose up black behind them; I could feel it welling above us, seething and dreadful, like a sandstorm about to snuff out a desert town.
“I’ll get you all a decent burial,” I said. “Proper coffins, proper rites. None of that furnace stuff. Don’t worry—I’ll talk Lockwood into it. He’s a little cranky when it comes to your kind, but I can fix it. Don’t worry. Lockwood will sort you out….”
At least he would if he was actually alive and well.
Out of nowhere, the thought came suddenly that he wasn’t. More than a thought—a conviction. What was I doing? What was I doing, talking to ghosts when Lockwood had been pulled away into the storm? Pain lashed through me. My head pounded; I almost sank down to my knees.
Was he back there, under the rubble? Maybe he was! He would have come for me ages ago, otherwise. My fear lapped out against the edges of the room in great almighty swells. All at once I could hear the figures whispering together again.
“You’ll have to speak up,” I said sharply. “Like I told the old guy in the armchair, this is your big chance! People like me don’t come along that often. Speak up and speak clearly….”
It was then that I saw that my candle was burning low.
That was okay. I had another in my pouch….Only, actually, I didn’t. Somewhere, back at the fall of rubble, maybe, I’d dropped it. No—I remembered setting it carefully down on the floor. I rolled my eyes at my own stupidity.
It was okay. I’d have to go back and get it.
When I turned around, the shapes were blocking the way.
“Now,” I said, “you need to just let me—Ow!” Hot wax had burned my fingers. The candle was so low, the molten stuff was sloshing out. I set it on the floor between my feet and reached for the match box. Striking another match, I looked around for something else to light. Maybe the ghosts had candles. They’d clearly been using some recently.
“Do you want to move back, guys? I can’t see where you keep your—Hey!” One of the shapes had swept forward, more decisively than before. I got a glimpse of pale ribs within the shining body and outstretched arms; the eyes were flickering black flames—then I pulled a tin from my belt, ripped off the lid, and scattered salt in a blazing emerald arc to keep the form at bay. I’d done it so fast I hadn’t even thought about it; it was the old agency training kicking in.
“I’m sorry!” I said. “I’m on your side. You just need to keep back, that’s all.”
A ripple of disquiet ran through the shapes; their glow darkened, their outlines seemed to grow, become more angular and jagged. I cursed, threw my match down and, with shaking fingers, lit another. The candle at my feet was almost out. Light was dimming in the chamber. I held the match low, and over its bulb of radiance glared around at the encircling ghosts.
“What is it with you?” I snarled. “I want to help, and you always just end up trying to kill me….”
Another splash of salt, a ring of bright green fire; again the shapes drew back, whispering sadly to themselves. I could feel my panic rising; it was no good. I couldn’t control them. Individually they were weak, and I could bend them to my will; collectively, no: their anger was too strong.
What did I have? A bit of salt, hardly any iron—all used up in Aickmere’s. Just one magnesium flare. I scrabbled at my belt and, in doing so, dropped the match. By the last light of the candle, I reached for the match box, but my fingers shook too much; the matches spewed out of the box, spilled uselessly on the floor. I gave a cry, bent down to retrieve them—and saw the ghosts come sweeping in toward me.
That was the moment when the nub of candle chose to finally go out.
I would have thrown the flare then, just chucked it out at random and blown a few of the shapes to smithereens—the act would have given me a final spark of satisfaction, even as the others fell upon me and bore me down. But I did not throw the flare. Because though the candle’s light had gone, another now replaced it—a pale encroaching light that stole out of the passage I had not yet entered, spreading across the slimy stone. It was not a light of the living, but a corpse-light, cold and faint, that gave no nourishment to what it touched. Still, it made me pause, and the effect it had on the ring of ghosts was no less definite. They at once stopped their advance, hesitating, looking back toward the oncoming glow. Their outlines grew tremulous and disturbed.
The light spread out into the chamber, pouring like milk through the heaps of tangled bones. Blood pulsed in my ears. The quality of the air had changed. The ghosts began to shrink back toward the walls.
The passage seemed to distort; the walls flexed and fluttered. A cold breeze blew toward me, carrying that same soft dry voice I’d heard in Aickmere’s.
It called my name.
The ghosts sank away, flowed down into their heaps of tangled bones, and vanished.
I waited, clutching my flare.
From the darkness, of the darkness, untouched by the other-light through which it passed, a shape was crawling toward me down the corridor.
Up in the store, I’d run from it, but there was nowhere for me to run now.
The flare was slippery in my palm. I held it without hope or expectation. More even than the fearsome energies of the Poltergeist; far more than the twittering prison ghosts tied to the skeletons, I knew this apparition emanated from the very center of the Chelsea outbreak. Powerful as a flare might be, this thing was more potent still.
The cold breeze died away. I stood at the center of a bulb of silence. The shape came out into the chamber, and there was nothing between it and me.
As when I’d seen it near the elevators, it crawled awkwardly, in rolling leaps and jerks, as if its joints were misshapen or put on back to front. Its head was bowed; long hair—at least, I thought it must be hair, despite the way it waved and coiled so oddly—fell down across its face, so that it was hidden. But I could see enough to know how painfully thin it was, the skin black and shrunken on the bones, like those mummies they used to have in museums before DEPRAC closed them all down. It was tight and dry and desiccated-looking; you could hear the fingernails clacking on the flagstones, see the skin on the arms shearing tight with every swing, the wrinkles creasing so deep, you’d think they’d split in two.
Ahead of it, an advance guard of spiders: shiny black and scurrying.
The figure drew close and, with a single mysterious fluid movement, raised itself; now it shuffled forward on its back legs, arms twisting and jerking as if still pushing it along the ground. I couldn’t see the face, but teeth glinted beneath the lankly swirling hair. The outline was hazy, almost fibrous, like the rough edges of an unfinished mat or carpet. As I watched, these fibers sank away; the shape grew solid, its edges more defined. And as it swelled and altered, I felt a corresponding opposite sensation. It was like the inward suction of a bellows, or a hatch opening beneath me—I felt my strength drain out. It poured away.
My head spun; everything went black. I closed my eyes.
“Lucy.”
And opened them.
I was still on my feet in that same forgotten place. The other-light had faded, and a different shape stood before me in the dark. I stared at it, frowning.
“Lucy.”
And all at once my legs buckled with joy. Because I knew it! I knew the voice. It was the one I wanted to hear more than any other. I felt I would dissolve with relief. My heart leaped within me. I had the flare still in my hand. I lowered it and stumbled forward.
“Lockwood—thank goodness!”
How could I have been so stupid as not to have recognized him instantly? The shape at first had seemed so dark and oddly insubstantial. Yet now I saw the slim, high shoulders; the curve of the neck, that familiar buoyant flick of hair….
“How did you find me?” I cried. “I knew it! I knew that you would come—”
“Ah, Lucy…Nothing could stop me from doing that.”
I could tell from the outline of the face that he was smiling, but the voice was so sad that it brought me up short.
I peered at him, trying to pierce the darkness. “Lockwood? What is it? What’s the matter?”
“Nothing could keep me from you. Nothing in life or death….”
A cold shaft opened inside me. It was a well, bottomless and black.
“What—?” I said. “What are you talking about? What does that mean?”
“Do not be scared. I cannot harm you.”
“Now you’re really frightening me. Shut up.” I didn’t understand; even so, I felt my bones turn to water. I could barely speak. My tongue felt tied to the roof of my mouth. “Shut up….”
The figure stood there in the shadows. Now it said nothing.
“Come closer,” I said. “Come into the light.”
“It’s best I don’t, Lucy.”
It was then that I saw how frail and wispy his substance was. How—though solid seeming at the head and torso—the legs were faint as gauze, and tailed off into nothing. He ho
vered above the flagstone floor.
My own legs gave way. I sank to my knees. The flare cracked against the stone.
“Oh, no,” I whispered. “Lockwood—no….”
The voice spoke softly, calmly. “You must not be sorry.”
I slapped my hands against my face. I kept them there, blocking out the sight.
“It is not your fault,” the voice said.
But it was. I knew it was. I curled my fingers, raking the nails into my skin. I heard a strange and awful cry, like some desperate, wounded animal, and realized it was me.
Coherent thoughts did not come. Images only. I remembered him throwing the chain net across the attic between the grasping ectoplasmic coils; leaping between me and the black-dressed woman at the window. I remembered him running along the tops of the carnival floats, dodging the bullets of the enemy; and at the Wintergarden house, launching himself across the stairwell to strike the murderous ghost and save my life.
Save my life again….
I also remembered the photograph from his sister’s room—that impatient, blurry child.
I rocked back and forth, tears pooling against my palms. I was a huddling, crumpled thing. This wasn’t right. It couldn’t be right. None of this was happening.
“Lucy.” I lowered my hands. I could not see the shape; my eyes were awash. But I could hear, and he was speaking, clear and calmly, that way he always had. “I did not come to give you pain. I came to say good-bye.”
I shook my head, my face wet. “No! Tell me what happened.”
“I fell. I died. Is that not enough?”
“Oh, God….Trying to save me….”
“It was always going to be this way,” the shape said. “You knew it in your heart. My luck couldn’t go on forever. But I’m glad I did it, Lucy. You’ve nothing to be guilty about, and I’m glad you’re safe. Safe….” the voice added drily, “with barely a scratch on you.”
I gave a wail at that. “Please—I’d have done anything for it to be the other way—”
“I know you would,” Again I could tell that somewhere in the dark he was smiling a sad, sad smile. “I know. Now…” The form seemed to shrink back. “I have been here too long.”
The Hollow Boy Page 27