Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Call

by P. T. Dilloway

  As was their style, the police had left the office a complete mess. “Goddamned cops,” Connie muttered as they set to work on cleaning up.

  “Thanks for sticking up for me,” Becky said.

  “It’s all right. I know how these people are. Bunch of cowards.” They finished cleaning up around their desk in silence. Then Connie asked, “You want to get a drink after work? I could really use one after this.”

  “I’d like to, but I can’t. I’m meeting a friend for dinner.”

  “A boyfriend?” Connie asked with a mischievous grin.

  “No, my friend Emma. She’s my roommate now too.”

  “She could come with us.”

  Becky shook her head. “Emma doesn’t drink. And she wouldn’t like me drinking either.”

  “She religious or something?”

  “Nothing like that,” Becky said. She tried to think of how to explain it. “She’s nice, if you know what I mean.”

  “Kind of a goody-two-shoes?”

  “Yeah, I guess you could say that,” Becky said. “She’s kind of shy too. She wouldn’t like it if I sprung a stranger on her.”

  “That’s all right. Another time, then.”

  “Sure,” Becky said and then they got back to work.

  ***

  They met at a restaurant in Rampart City’s Chinatown. Emma wasn’t strictly a vegetarian, but she avoided meat because of the fat and calories. So while Becky ordered a plate of cashew chicken, Emma ordered stir fried vegetables and rice.

  Becky took a sip of her Pepsi and then said, “The police paid Lintner’s office a little visit today.”

  Emma nearly spat out a mouthful of tea. “The police? What for?”

  “I’m not sure. They weren’t too forthcoming.”

  “Was anyone arrested?”

  “Not yet. This apparently was more of a search and seizure thing.”

  “That’s terrible. Are you going to quit?”

  Becky shrugged. “I doubt it. I have to stick this out until the end if I want those credits.”

  “Maybe if you talk to your professor you can still get the credits, or you can work for someone else. There are other candidates, aren’t there?”

  “It’s a little late for that.” Becky took another sip of her drink and then smiled. “Hey, don’t worry about it. It’s not me they’re after. And I doubt Lintner is going to shoot it out with them.”

  Emma tried not to let the awful memories surge back to the surface. “No, I suppose not.”

  “How about we talk about something happier? How are things going at the museum?”

  “Fine,” Emma said. She forced a smile to her face. “One of my coworkers asked me to go with him to a presentation on Saturday night.”

  “Like a date?” Becky asked.

  Emma’s face turned warm at this; she tried to calm herself with a sip of tea. “It’s not a date. We’re just going as colleagues.”

  “But you’re going together?”

  “Yes.”

  “And will there be dinner and dancing?”

  “Maybe dinner, but I don’t think there will be any dancing.”

  “Still sounds like a date to me.”

  “It’s not like that. Dr. Dreyfus and I are colleagues.”

  “So why did he ask you to go with him? Is he married or something?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Do you like him?”

  “He’s a very nice man.” The realization of what she’d said set in as Becky grinned. “But it’s not like that!”

  Becky reached across the table to pat Emma’s arm. “Come on, I’m teasing. I think it’s great you’ve got a friend—or colleague, whatever you want to call it.”

  “Thanks.” They ate their dinner with some idle conversation about the election and the museum. They stayed away from the police raid and the presentation to avoid any more awkward moments.

  They took the bus home, Emma too tired to go out to Parkdale to visit Aunt Gladys and Mr. Graves tonight. Though she usually didn’t watch television, she sank into one of the beanbag chairs in the living room, Becky in the one next to her. They watched An Affair to Remember, an old movie they had watched a number of times growing up. Only this time Emma cast herself as Deborah Kerr and Dr. Dreyfus as Cary Grant. Becky fell asleep halfway through, before the final kiss at the end. Emma closed her eyes and imagined what Dr. Dreyfus’s lips would feel like when pressed to hers.

  Chapter 4

  Emma wheeled the object out of the closet, to arrange it in the best light possible in the office. She bent down with a disposable camera to take some pictures that might help someone else identify it for her. She snapped one picture and then advanced the film to take another. As she did, she whispered, “What are you?”

  “I am the one who can give you what you’ve always wanted,” a voice hissed.

  Emma looked up, but the door was closed. She put her head to Dr. Brighton’s door, but heard only his snoring. She shook her head and then bent down beside the object again. “I must be hearing things,” she said.

  “It’s not your imagination,” the voice hissed again. “I am here, right in front of you.”

  She stared at the object, but didn’t see anything except her face reflected in its glossy surface. “Is this some kind of trick? Who’s doing this?”

  “I do not need to rely on tricks.”

  Emma put a hand on the object, its surface as cold as before. From what she could tell, no one had tampered with it. Had Dr. Dreyfus or someone else hidden a microphone in it? “Whoever’s doing this, it isn’t funny.”

  “It is not a joke. I am very real.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want what you want.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Justice.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I can tell you who killed your parents. I can help you destroy them.”

  “I don’t want to destroy anyone.”

  “Of course you do. I can feel it within you: the constant pain you hide with this pretense of being a scientist.”

  “It’s not a pretense.”

  “You can’t fool me. I know you’ve dreamed of killing them, of making them pay. I can make those dreams a reality.”

  “What are you? Some kind of evil spirit? A ghost?”

  “No. I am much more than that.”

  The sides of the object suddenly came to life with demonic silver faces that all grinned evilly at her. Emma screamed. She backed away from the object. The demon eyes all turned to her; she closed her eyes, but she could still see them. “I can give you the power to bring them to justice. You only need to take it.”

  “That’s not justice. That’s murder!”

  “Perhaps I have misjudged you. Think it over. You know where to find me.” The demon faces laughed; the sound of it prompted Emma to shiver.

  When she opened her eyes, the black object’s sides were completely smooth again. She looked around the room, but didn’t see anyone else around. What had happened? Had she imagined the whole thing?

  She finally gathered the courage to stand up. She went back over to the object, to wait for it to speak or show its hideous faces again. It did nothing. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves and then pushed the thing back into the closet. One picture ought to be enough, she told herself and then went back to work.

  ***

  In the dream, she’s eight years old again. It’s a sunny day and she’s playing in the sandbox in the backyard. She’s designing a replica of Notre Dame Cathedral, complete with flying buttresses. Art has never been her strong suit, but this is more like science than art. With a finger she brushes some excess sand away from one of the towers, biting down on her lip as she concentrates on getting it right.

  “Mommy, Daddy, look!” she shouts happily, pointing to what she’s made.

  Mommy is there first, squatting down next to her. “It’s beautiful, baby,” she says. “Almost like the real thing.”r />
  Daddy comes out a minute later, the newspaper still tucked under his arm. “What’s going on here?” he asks. Then he sees the sand cathedral and his face brightens with a smile. “Did you make this, kiddo?”

  “Yes,” she says.

  “All by yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, look at that. My little girl the sculptor.” He tousles her hair, but not very hard. “Are you going to be an artist when you grow up?”

  She shakes her head. “No. I’m going to be a scientist at the Plaine Museum.”

  “That’s good, baby,” Mommy says. “You’d better come inside now. It’s time for dinner.”

  “But Mommy, what if it falls down?”

  “Now, Emma, you can’t live in the sandbox forever,” Mommy says.

  “Can’t I stay a little while longer?”

  Mommy looks over at Daddy and then back at her. “How about if Daddy gets the camera? Then he can take a picture of you with the pretty sand church so you can always remember what it looks like.”

  She thinks this over for a moment and then nods. “All right, Mommy.”

  While Daddy goes off to get the camera, Emma turns back to her sand cathedral. She scrapes a little excess sand away from the top step, so it’s perfectly level now. Before Daddy takes the picture, she wants everything to be perfect. She wants it to stay that way forever.

  Daddy returns a few minutes later with the camera. “All right, honey, get right up beside it, but not too close.”

  Emma squeezes in as close to the back of the cathedral as she can. Daddy aims the camera at her with Mommy standing beside them. “Smile,” he says.

  Before Daddy can squeeze the button, Emma sees two men coming up behind her parents. They’re much bigger than Mommy or Daddy, wearing black ski masks so she can’t see their faces. She tries to cry out, but no sound comes from her throat.

  She can only watch as the men in the ski masks raise their pistols and fire. Bloody holes form in Mommy and Daddy’s chests. They pitch forward onto the grass, where they lie unmoving. The murderers stare at her with their hate-filled eyes. She wants to run at them, to make them pay for what they’ve done, but she can’t. The sandbox has become like quicksand, keeping her pinned in place.

  As she thrashes around, the sandbox begins to shake as if from an earthquake. The sand cathedral collapses into a mound, from which springs a black rectangular object. Emma stares wide-eyed at the object, at the legion of demonic faces along its side that glare at her. “I can give you the power to make them pay,” the demons say.

  Emma woke up to Becky shaking her. She heard someone screaming and needed a moment to realize it was her. “Emma, wake up,” Becky said. “It’s just a dream.”

  Emma blinked her eyes; she recognized the bedroom of the apartment she shared with Becky. She held up a hand and saw it wasn’t her tiny eight-year-old hand, but her larger nineteen-year-old one. Then she looked up at Becky, at her friend’s eyes that were stained with tears. “I’m sorry,” Emma said. “I had a bad dream.”

  “I know,” Becky said. The bed creaked from her added weight as she sat down. “Was it about your parents?”

  Emma considered this for a moment and then shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

  “Come on, Emma. Don’t lie to me.”

  “I’m not,” she said, though it didn’t sound convincing even to her own ears. “I really don’t remember it.”

  “Emma, please, don’t shut me out. If something’s bothering you, we can talk about it. Did something happen at the museum today? Was it something Dr. Dreyfus said?”

  “No, he didn’t do anything. It’s a bad dream. That’s all. Whatever it was, it’s over now.” Emma forced a smile to her face. “Thank you for worrying about me.”

  “Someone has to,” Becky said with her own tired smile. They shared a brief hug and then Becky got off the bed. “If you need anything, I’ll be right across the hall, all right?”

  “I know. Thanks.”

  Becky closed the door after her, to leave Emma lying on the bed alone. She remembered the nightmare in vivid detail. She also knew it was no random dream. That awful thing in the storage closet was trying to talk to her again.

  Emma leaned over her bed; she opened the drawer of the nightstand. Inside she had an album of photographs of her parents. She seldom looked at these, not wanting to spark the old memories, but she liked to know it was close by. She flipped through the pictures, until she found the one she wanted. She sat in the sandbox in front of a near-perfect sand replica of Notre Dame cathedral. Just as in the dream, Mommy had asked Daddy to take a picture of it. Only unlike the dream, no masked killers interrupted things. Daddy had taken the picture and then they’d gone inside for dinner. The cathedral collapsed later when it began to rain. Emma had cried at its destruction, not understanding how impermanent things could be yet.

  She closed the album; she cradled it to her chest as she fell asleep again. She hoped the spirits of her parents would ward off any more nightmares.

  Chapter 5

  The next morning, Emma decided to leave the black object locked in the storage closet. She had the picture from the camera developed; it wasn’t the clearest shot, but it should be good enough. After she scanned the picture, Emma composed an Email to detail her findings and then sent it to other geology departments.

  By lunchtime she had everything finished. There was nothing to do now but wait for someone to answer her query. Maybe one of them would be able to identify the thing. “Maybe one of them will take you off my hands,” she said.

  “You are a fool to waste this opportunity,” the object hissed.

  She ignored this, as she planned to do from now on. The object could talk to her and give her nightmares, but it couldn’t control her. She was still in command of herself and she would not give in to the object’s demands to become a murderer.

  At lunchtime, she dressed in her running clothes. Dr. Dreyfus wasn’t out by the bench where they usually met. Was he sick today? She thought of that horrid thing in her office; had it done something to him to try and make her give in?

  With this thought in mind, she dashed back into the museum. She was about to get on the elevator when she heard his voice behind her. “Wait up!” he called out.

  She turned around to see him unharmed, but not in his running clothes. “Are you jogging later today?” she asked.

  “Sorry, I can’t today. We’re putting the finishing touches on the exhibit.”

  “Oh, I see. That’s all right.”

  They looked down at the floor simultaneously. Dr. Dreyfus raised his head first and smiled at her. “Would you like to see it?”

  “I don’t know, would your supervisor get mad if he found out?”

  “He won’t mind—so long as you don’t go telling anyone.”

  She smiled slightly at this. Besides Becky and Mr. Graves, Emma didn’t have anyone she could tell. “I don’t think that will be a problem.”

  “Great. Come on.” He took her by the arm and then led her across the hall, to the door that had been sealed shut when she first came to the museum. As she found out, this door was a temporary front to keep any visitors from seeing inside.

  Inside, she saw Dr. Dreyfus and his team in the process of transforming the exhibit hall into Karlak II’s tomb. It was much brighter than a tomb at the moment, with industrial-strength lights that made it about as hot as the Egyptian desert. “We’ll have the lights down to ambient levels once we’re done,” Dr. Dreyfus said.

  The exhibit hall had been split into two chambers. The first was shorter and narrower, the entrance to the tomb itself. The walls here had been plastered over to resemble limestone, into which were carved hieroglyphics. Dr. Dreyfus helpfully translated these for her.

  “These record his mighty deeds, kind of like an obituary,” he said. “It talks about how he succeeded his father, Karlak I, as chieftain and then united the Upper and Lower Kingdoms into one. There’s also some talk about his heroism in
battle and how he provided many years of prosperous fields to feed the people.”

  “That’s amazing,” Emma said.

  “We’ll have signs tacked up to do the translations for people, although I’m going to give some tours as well.” At the end of this part of the hall was a bank of television screens, which at the moment were blank. “We’re about done producing a video of the dig, with footage of the real tomb in Egypt. There’s also some talking heads—including Yours Truly—detailing the importance of Karlak II for laying the foundation for the Old Kingdom, the one with the pyramids and such that people are most familiar with.”

  “I’m sure that will be fascinating.”

  “Probably not for the kids, but that’s what the next area is for. Come on—but watch your head.” He had to bend down to get through the opening to the main chamber of the tomb. The walls here were in the process of receiving the same treatment as those in the entranceway. Where they had been finished, Dr. Dreyfus’s team was putting up glass cases containing artifacts taken from the tomb. These included bits of pottery, a spearhead, and a horse bridle. “We had a lot more stuff, but most of it hasn’t turned up since the freighter went down.”

  “I heard about that. It sounded terrible.”

  “I know,” Dr. Dreyfus said. His smile faded for a moment. “But at least we have the most important thing.”

  The sarcophagus was in the center of the chamber, covered at the moment by a tarp so nothing would get on it. Dr. Dreyfus pulled this aside for Emma to have a look. She ran a hand over the heavy top of the sarcophagus, with its crude carvings of a human form and more hieroglyphics. “Is he really inside there?” she asked.

  “He is. You want to see him?”

  She shook her head; she thought of her parents in their coffins and then her dream last night. “I don’t think so.” She tried to smile gamely. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “He’s pretty much bones and rags at this point. He wasn’t mummified like the kings who came after him or the pharaohs. We thought there would be more bodies in the tomb since they practiced human sacrifices back then, but we only found him. If they sacrificed any of his servants they were either destroyed or stolen.”