by Simon Clark
”Benedict. Quit brooding. Start searching.”He climbed out of the car with his father's old gas lamp. Despite his attempt to catch hold of the shoe heels of reality, his eyes still roamed over the face of the Egyptian-esque building with its hieroglyphs and dog-headed statues.
Then he paused. He hadn't noticed that before. A gleam of a metallic surface caught the beams of a distant streetlight. He took a few paces to his right to grab a good look down the side of the building.
”That's bombed it,”he whispered to himself. ”So who do you belong to?”
There, sitting in the night shadow of the building, was a Ford coupe, a fancy model at that, to be here all alone in the lot of a redundant building. Maybe a couple had driven here to make out somewhere quiet?
Seemed likely Or maybe the car had been dumped after kids had taken it for a joy ride. Also possible. Although car-stealing kids tended to be shy of parking neatly in painted bays. What's more, they tended to flick a lighted match into the car so they could watch the poor machine burn its heart out.
He wasn't sure whether the car was occupied (seats reclined? Possibly) or the occupants had decided to take a midnight stroll around the Luxor. If that was the case, it would only complicate things if he went blundering in there with his father's old campers lamp hissing light all over the freaking place.
Shoot. Probably best to kill the lights of his car than sit tight for a while in the hope that they'd get bored and quit the place. Also better to be discreet. After all, he was technically trespassing with intent to steal. Even if he was only entering an abandoned building that was destined to die beneath a wrecker's ball. And what he intended to steal would have a value of less than ten cents, if that.
Benedict sat back in the car, started the motor, then eased it slowly and quietly to the far side of the lot where the fringe of trees that separated the blacktop from the river cast a protective, and secretive, canopy of branches over his car. There he'd wait. He'd give the sightseers an hour to leave the Luxor. If there was still no sign of them he'd go home and try again tomorrow night. With the engine and car lights off he sat there in silence. This area was an eerie, desolate place. Even though the towers of downtown Chicago were little more than half an hour away, he could have been sat on the far side of the moon.
Here there were no people, no houses, no traffic. Years ago this had been an industrial zone. Factories, warehouses, smoking chimneys, trucks, goods trains-the works. Now industry had shut down in this part of town. The last factory to close had been three years ago when its owners had transferred the manufacture of computer monitors to Vietnam.
Labor costs were lower there.
”So, welcome to Dead-Endsville,”he murmured as he unwrapped a stick of gum.
As Benedict sat with the window down to admit the warm night air, he noticed a flake of sooty material drift down in front of the windshield to settle on the hood.
He allowed his eyes to rest on it for a moment, but it seemed nothing of interest or potential harm to the car's paintwork, so he skimmed his gaze back to the Luxor. The place looked as deserted as ever. Maybe he should risk a peek inside? The owner of the coupe parked on the far side of the building might be snuggling up to the love of his or her life in the vehicle after all.
A scrap of black spiraled down from the trees above to alight on the windshield. Another joined it. Then another slid down the glass to the wiper blade. He glanced sideward out the open window. Black motes spiraled earthward. A couple more fell whisper-silent in slow motion onto the car's hood.
Black snow? Benedict leaned forward to take a closer look. More flakes of black stuff rode the warm, stifling air. The sight was uncanny.
Frowning, he shook his head, trying to makes sense of the freakishly dark snow.
Black snow that isn't black snow, he told himself. It must be flakes of soot from a fire, or… He held out a hand through the window to catch one of the flakes. Then pulled it close to examine it.
”I'll be damned… a feather. But where are you all coming from?”
Flipping down the glove compartment hatch, he pulled out a slender penlight. Then he leaned his head out through the window while shining the thin beam of light upward into the canopy of branches.
A deep grunting told him he'd disturbed something that didn't want to be disturbed. Dark shapes moved on the branches, ruffling wings, sending more feathers spiraling down. Tiny eyes like splinters of sharp glass blazed at him.
”Good God,”he breathed. ”Crows.”
There were hundreds of them in the trees. Big black crows. Restlessly, they shifted on their perches. Feathers dislodged from twitchy wings drifted down in that black magic snowfall. What on earth were those birds gathering here for? They could've been assembling for the biggest crow party of the year. Only there was something so antsy about them. They couldn't sit still; they shuffled, some used their wicked yellow beaks to tug a feather from their breasts or even from their backs of their tightly packed neighbors. And, sweet Jesus, crows are satanic-looking things this close up.
So what's the deal? Why the mass gathering? And what's the collective noun for a bunch of crows? A murder? Yeah, that's it. A murder of crows waiting impatiently for the big event.
Then, as if a play button had been touched in his mind, he remembered the videotape shot by Lockram, the owner of the Luxor. The old guy had stood in the parking lot, talking to the video camera that he'd set to run by itself. Lockram had discussed the history of this plot of land and how a sawmill had once stood on the site of the Luxor. The man had repeated an old legend that hereabouts people once believed having a flock of crows coming to roost in trees nearby, and on the house itself, was an omen with lethal implications. The gathering crows-a murder of crows-were a sign that someone in the house would soon die. Legend stipulated that the crows waited for the death of the victim so they could catch the soul as it left the body. If they failed to grab the departing soul, the birds would fall into a glum silence before dispersing. If they captured the soul for the devil they'd caw and scream excitedly, and wheel in huge flocks above the house-an airborne victory dance, celebrating the soul's seizure.
Benedict's eyes flicked from tree to tree, at branches swollen black with the sinister birds. ”Okay, I know why you're here, guys,”Benedict breathed. ”So who's going to die tonight?”
***
After the silence…
The stranger repeated the words: ”Why don't you stay here?”
Robyn rose from the chair. She looked about her, searching the shadows for the source of the voice, and all the time she thought of the monstrous figure in the dressing-room doorway How those bulging eyes had blazed at her as she'd run by ”You can stay here.”
Noel clutched her by the elbow as he swept the light through that cavernous room.
Good God, she thought, in wonder as much as fear. There was something about that voice… it seemed to ghost here from another world.
Noel bristled aggression. ”Who's there?”
A sound came, an intake of breath, as if the unseen man tried to speak but couldn't all of a sudden.
”Stop jerking us around,”Noel snapped, still searching the corners with the light. ”Come out here where we can see you!”
”Ah… I…”
Robyn heard strange inflections in the start of the failed sentence.
Could such a voice come from that weird configuration of a mouth she'd seen on the figure earlier? With lips like the overlapping petals of a blood red rose. She looked around the dance floor, expecting at any moment to see eyes burning with a cold fire.
”Hey, buddy!”Noel's voice sharpened with anger. ”Better show yourself.”
”I'm…”That's all the stranger said, but the sound of a foot scraping against the floor made both her and Noel spin to face the doors to the lobby. Noel aimed the flashlight at a bulky pillar. A figure stepped from behind it.
That was the second the flashlight failed again.
”Blast the thing.”
/>
Robyn heard Noel twisting the battery cap, then slamming the flashlight against his hand to get it working. It stayed dead. That all-encompassing darkness pressed hard against her eyes. She could see nothing. When she stared in the direction of the pillar from where the figure had stepped, she saw nothing but black. Struggling to force herself to see only produced purple blotches flecked with crimson to bloom in front of her, phantom images produced by an optic nerve striving to catch a glimpse of the figure.
But just before the light had failed, she'd glimpsed the stark, white face. Two wide eyes had fixed on her.
She reached out for Noel but he must have moved a step away from her as he struggled to fix the light. But which way did he step? Heart thumping against her ribs, she reached out to where she thought he was. All her fingertips touched were cool currents of air. Noel muttered, cursing the flashlight, but the acoustics of the hall bewildered her. ”Damn light…” The words came from behind her, while his ”Stay close to me, Robyn,”floated from some distance in front. She turned around, taking three steps forward with her hands out, but her eyes registered nothing.
”Noel?”
”Damn… I dropped one of the batteries.”He sounded preoccupied with his problem now. Probably he was on his knees searching.
From somewhere in front of her came a steady footstep. She caught her breath. The beat of her heart grew fiercer against her chest, for she knew that the figure with the starkly white face walked across the dance floor toward her. She could hear the slow but rhythmic step of his foot.
Her mind whirled back to seeing the figure in the dressing room. The monstrous face set with eyes like glass balls, the red mouth that looked like the freeze-frame of an explosion. And those arms? They were long and tapered. They tapered to pointed tips, not hands. If he should reach out and touch me with one of those? ”Noel?”She clutched where she anticipated he might be in the darkness.
Nothing but air… cool, moist air that sent a shiver up her bare arms.
Noel? Now she could no longer bring herself to utter his name out loud, because she knew it would erupt from her mouth as a piercing scream. The footsteps were closer. Slow, methodical, almost clinical… the touch of the alien limb… a tentacle that would caress her lips… It would happen soon, she was sure.
A blaze of light exploded in her face. Beyond the tongue of flame that created it, a pair of eyes stared into hers.
Now the scream did burst from her lips.
”Robyn… Robyn!”
Noel's shout sounded too far away She must have wandered away in the dark.
Behind the flame a mouth opened. ”Ss-sss…”
She blundered back, trying to move away from the figure with the light.
The back of her legs hit the armchair and she knew she could retreat no further.
***
”Sss-ssss…”came the hiss. ”Sorry, I didn't mean to fffrighten you.”
The figure lowered the flame. Robyn met the eyes of a man about her own age. Faint bruises marked the side of his face. His right eyebrow was parted vertically by what had been a cruel cut.
Noel lunged out of the darkness. ”What the hell were you playing at, you creep?”
”N-noth-nothing… I'm not p-playing.”
”Shit, man.” Noel stopped short of punching him out, but he came close. ”You were playing some weird fucking game.”
”No… no… I… ah…” The words lodged in the stranger's throat. He blinked and bobbed his head.
Robyn noticed the sheer effort on the man's face as he tried to speak.
”I didn't… Ah, I-I dee…” He gave up on the sentence as if it knotted his vocal cords. Instead he switched to what seemed a passably practiced statement of fact. ”Hmm-my name's Ellery.”He sighed, relieved at getting at least those words out.
”Ellery;' Robyn echoed. She tilted her head to look at his face in the light of the cigarette lighter he held. That face… there was something familiar about it… familiar… so incredibly familiar it sent a rush of shivers down her spine. I've seen him somewhere.
”I don't give a fuck what your name is. I should rip your head off for trying to scare the crap out of us. Now go away!”
”Light…”He gestured at the flashlight in Noel's hand. The batteries were in Noel's other hand. ”You nneed…” His head bobbed while a look of pained frustration returned to his face, as the word failed to find form on his lips.
”He's right,”Robyn told Noel. ”That thing won't help us, will it?”
”Shit.”Noel spat the word. Then grudgingly, ”OK. Will you hold the lighter so I can see to put these back?”He slipped the batteries into the cylinder, then screwed back the cap. He thumbed the switch. Light blazed instantly from the bulb.
”Thanks, Ellery!”Robyn flashed the man a smile. He was certainly not the monster she'd seen back in the dressing room. In fact, there was delicate beauty here. The bone structure of his face had the lightness and fragility of a bird's.
”Yeah, thanks,”Noel muttered, looking at his watch. ”Robyn. Nearly midnight. We need to be making tracks.”
Robyn flashed Ellery a bright smile. ”Thanks again.”She turned to follow Noel, but then Ellery's first words struck home. ”Wait a minute, Noel.”She looked back at the teenager who stood there holding the cigarette lighter. ”You said we could stay here? What do you mean?”
Ellery's face broke into a smile. ”F-ff… follow me.”
He turned to walk toward the doors that led to the lobby. Robyn went, too; the lighthearted skip returned to her step.
Behind her, she could hear Noel's voice rise in disbelief as she carelessly followed the stranger. ”Robyn?”
CHAPTER 11
Noel's voice came as a hiss of disbelief. ”I can't believe you're doing this.”
”Wait and see what he has to show us.”
They followed Ellery through the doors by the glass walled ticket booth, to a door painted the same color as the walls. In its top panel, a fan pattern of frosted glass radiated from a sign that ordered: no admittance. Ellery pulled a key from his pocket, then unlocked the door.
”I overheard y-you… you were looking for somewhere to st-stay… I can help.”
”Help us?”Noel still shook his head in disbelief. ”Believe me, buddy, we're not planning on snoozing in a derelict building.”
”It's not derelict, Noel,”Robyn answered. ”Look, it's clean.”
”Its a dump.”
”It's just been mothballed, that's all.”
”Thar… thar… that's right.”The stranger looked back at them with large soulful eyes. ”It's… hibernating. That's all. Hibernating.”He held out a hand, inviting them through the door.
”You first.”Suspicion hardened Noel's voice.
Does he wonder if Ellery's leading us into a trap, Robyn asked herself.
No. Ellery has an aura of childlike innocence. The stutter crucifies him, but he's not bitter or cruel.
Ellery led the way up a flight of carpeted stairs. ”I found the keys in the box office. They… they'd been overlooked by who… whoever… giss…”He shook his head when he couldn't finish the sentence and left it at that.
Noel walked in front of Robyn, lighting the way. She heard him mutter, ”This is still madness.”
”You… you can stay he-here if you like. No one will know”
”Where?”Noel sounded short on patience.
Ellery turned the key in a lock, then pushed open the door. ”Here.”
Robyn hung back no longer. She walked between Ellery and Noel into the hallway of an apartment. The place was a sixties time capsule with wallpaper screaming out in wild purple swirls. ”Eye-catching.” She pushed open a door to a small guest bedroom piled with redundant furniture, including a child's crib.
”Please…”Ellery dipped his head and smiled shyly, while pointing to a door with frosted glass.
Eager now, she opened the door to a pleasant living room. The air smelled fresh. No cobwebs or dust bunnies in sig
ht. Again that flower-power sixties look. The sofa and armchairs were covered with a nylon fabric that boasted a hell of a vibrant paisley pattern in shades of delirious green. She looked around, liking what she saw. My God, this is all in fashion again. What goes around comes around. Those drapes with the noonday sun design on a brown background were totally hip-chic stores were charging fortunes for them downtown.
”Some place you've got here, Ellery”
”It… it's not m-mine.”
She smiled. ”You just woke it from hibernation?”
Ellery smiled back, nodding. He looked pleased, as if she understood him.
Noel became uncomfortable. ”We're trespassing.”
”Like who'd know?”she asked.
Ellery indicated a set of glass shelves. ”Candles. Matches. G-gas. I found the main's lever.”
”Electricity?”
He shook his head.
She sighed regretfully in the direction of an antique TV. ”I'll catch up on my books.”She looked back at Ellery. From his hopeful expression, he longed for them to like the apartment. ”It's wonderful, Ellery. We'll take it.”
”Robyn?”Noel didn't believe his ears. ”Live here? You can't be serious.”
”I am. Deadly serious.”She spoke to Ellery, ”Are you sure we wouldn't be in your way?”
”Oh? No, no… I'm… I live…”He pointed through the window at some point across town. ”Th-this is yours… private. I live with my f-f-family”
Robyn scrunched her shoulders apologetically. ”I'm afraid I don't have much money…”
”No, it's not… not for me to charge anything. Ss… yours.”
In less than two minutes Robyn had examined the apartment. Ellery had been right. The stove worked. The heating, too. They ran on gas. Even though there was no electricity, there were plenty of candles. The place was clean. Ellery had been thorough. It's almost as if he knew a pair of young runaways would show up needing somewhere to stay she thought. Well, the guy had certainly saved the day.