The Darkest Place

by Daniel Judson

  “I wouldn’t roll over on you,” Kane said. “Just so you know.” It seemed the thing to say.

  “We’ll make sure it doesn’t come to that. But if you help us, then maybe we can help you. Clay told me you had some trouble at your apartment yesterday.”

  Kane nodded. “Yeah. Someone broke in.”

  “And nothing was taken?”

  “No, not a thing, not that I can tell, anyway.” Kane thought then about telling Gregor about the scotch, about sleeping away sixteen hours after just two glasses. But he decided not to, not yet.

  “Listen, maybe we can help you with that,” Gregor said.

  “You mean if I do this for you.”

  “Even if you don’t.”

  “Why would you want to help me?”

  “Because you’re a friend of Mercer’s.”

  Kane looked at his watch. It was seven-thirty. Forty-eight hours ago he and Meg were starting their night together, starting off with wine, then moving on to vodka when that ran out. They had fallen together onto the bed in her front room even before the moon had begun to rise. He kissed and bit her neck. She was laughing in his ear. It seemed so long ago now. Long ago and far away, and getting farther away still. It seemed to Kane that it would be forever before he got to do that again, got to hear her laugh, feel her cool skin, fall with her onto the soft bed beneath the tall windows of her front room.

  Kane looked up at Gregor then. He’d heard enough. He was shaking, his entire body fighting against the grip of that bitter cold. It had to be zero degrees now, probably even below that. Dark and cold and deadly. Like a cave, he imagined. Like an underwater cave, the entrance to the underworld . . .

  Kane held Gregor’s steady eyes. They were still silvery. Maybe not a trick of the darkness after all.

  “So how exactly would I go about making sure no one knows I went out there?” Kane said.

  He parked in the empty lot outside the Fine Arts building. Classes had been over for hours. Only the art studios in the other wing of the building were in use now. They would remain open till eleven, after which all the doors of the building would be locked tight by security. That left Kane an hour to get done what he had come to do.

  He hurried inside the building, unlocked his office, stepped in, and turned on the light. He was carrying a black canvas knapsack. Gregor had given it to him. He lay the bag on the floor, opened it, and pulled out a pair of black shoes, then sat in his chair. He took off his sneakers, stuffed them inside the bag, and slipped on the black shoes, first the right, then the left. They were a size or two too large. Back in the empty parking lot, after he had instructed Kane on what to do, Gregor had pulled these shoes, along with the canvas bag, from the trunk of his Grand Prix. Kane noticed that there were several different sizes of the same kind of shoe in there, but he didn’t ask why. This pair was the closest to Kane’s size that Gregor had. But they fit well enough, and anyway, Kane would only need to wear them for a short time.

  Kane waited for a moment, gathering himself. When he was finally ready, he pulled on a dark wool cap, zipped up his coat, and stepped to his door. He remembered that the videotape of Meg was in the pocket of his coat. He had figured it was safer on his person than in his apartment. He decided to stash it in his office for now, looked around for a hiding place. He went to his bookshelf and hid it behind a stack of literary magazines that were stored in his office. Then he left, the bag over one shoulder, locking the door behind him. He’d left the light on. That was part of the plan, part of his cover story. Though he knew his side of the building was empty, he looked down the dark hall before heading toward the exit. No one in sight, no one to see him leave. Once outside he started across the eastern edge of the campus, heading for the gym.

  The campus felt deserted. Not much on this side, no reason for anyone to be here, especially in this cold. He walked behind the library, then behind the science building. In the shadows of the buildings, he felt as safe as he was going to feel. But then the shadows ended. Before him was the openness of the lacrosse field. But there weren’t any lights, and the clouds had thickened in the past hour, blotting out the moon. He crossed the field as quickly as he could, came to Tuckahoe Road. No cars, not on the road or in the gym parking lot. Kane hurried across, walked behind the building, then stopped. Really, had no one seen him? He hadn’t seen anyone. That wasn’t unusual—the weather, the time of night, this being the desolate side of campus, he didn’t really expect to see anyone. Still, he felt a little like he was alone at the edge of the world. He may as well have been out walking on the moon.

  It took Kane two minutes to reach the chapel. He walked alongside a dirt road that had been made over the years by the maintenance trucks that were once used to transfer equipment back and forth between the chapel and the gym. The dirt road was really just two tire tracks that ran where the sandy ground was firmest. It clearly hadn’t been used in years, was almost as overgrown as the rest of the field. Kane only found it because he knew it was there, had followed it years ago when he was a student out looking for diversion, for rules to break, for mischief to claim.

  He removed a flashlight from the bag, a foot-long Maglite, and circled the chapel, aiming the light at all the windows, making certain they were indeed boarded up. They were. He stood then at its door. It was made of wood, ornate but badly damaged by years of exposure to the elements. Kane wouldn’t have been surprised if the wood was rotted through. The door was held closed by a latch. Kane had been told to expect a padlock. A bolt cutter, for that reason, was in the bag that hung over his shoulder. But there was no lock. The latch was closed, the eyebolt turned. But no lock hung from it. Kane shined the light at the ground near the base of the door. There something shimmered in the bright circle. It was a padlock. New. Its U-bolt had been cut. Kane looked up at the latch again. Then he turned his head and looked over his shoulder. It was reflex. He saw the overgrown field to the south and the row of dark border trees to his immediate left. He turned his head and looked the other way. A hundred yards to his right was the gym. Another hundred yards beyond that stood the campus. He detected no motion at all, anywhere, and no sign of life on the campus except for the dull lights that lined the narrow road that wound through the grounds. Everyone was inside, keeping warm. He thought about Larry Foster’s roommate somewhere on the campus, in one of those dorms that were long overdue for the wrecking ball. What degree of loss was that kid feeling right now? Had he and Larry become close friends?

  Kane turned forward and aimed his light at the door again. Whoever had cut the lock and entered wasn’t waiting now inside. They couldn’t be. The eyebolt had been turned, and that could only be done from the outside. Still, his heart was pounding as he undid the latch and eased the door open. He was wearing leather gloves—they, along with the wool hat, had been given to him by Gregor as well. Kane wasn’t worried about leaving fingerprints or small hairs or flakes of skin. He wouldn’t have known to worry about that till Gregor had pointed it out to him. Kane’s jeans were Levi’s, very common. He was told not to worry about any fibers that might remain after he left. Just do everything Gregor said, and it would all come out fine. He clung to that. It was all he had.

  The door was lighter than Kane had expected it to be. It swung easily on its hinges. He shined his light in, swung it around the room quickly, just to be certain. No one was inside. What would he have done if someone had been, if his fast-moving light had crossed someone just standing there in the darkness? Or worse, someone stretched out on the floor? He cleared his mind of that and slipped inside, closing the door behind himself. He swung the bag off his shoulder and placed it between his feet and crouched down. He opened it, pulled out a small camcorder, found the switch for the small floodlight that was built into the camcorder and flipped it on. The light it cast was weak, didn’t illuminate much beyond what it was aimed at, and even that was more ghostly than bright. But it would do. He turned off the Maglite, stuffed it into his back pocket, then picked up the camcorder and pre
ssed the record button. His heart was in his throat. It felt like a fist, closing and opening, closing and opening . . .

  He stepped away from the door, brought the camera to his face, and looked through the eyepiece. The chapel was the size of his classroom, give or take. The marble altar had long since been removed. Kane knew that already, from having been there before. No one knew where the altar had gone. The window glass had been removed from the long rectangular windows long ago as well. Some of the panes of glass had found their way to the door of the chancellor’s office. Handblown and lead-lined, the glass was supposed to have dated back a hundred years. The college itself, having been founded in 1962, was only forty years old. Old things, here and there, lent an air of heritage that the college otherwise lacked.

  The chapel was empty now. It had been gutted since Kane was there last. Gone was the athletic equipment that had stood in piles all around. Gone, too, were the pews that had once been stacked along the wall by the door, and the hand-carved beams that had once decorated the vaulted ceiling. Perhaps these, too, had been recently installed somewhere inside the administration building. The room was just open space now, cold and echoing, a dark, gaping mouth without a single tooth.

  Kane began to make his survey, to take note now of more than just what had changed since he had last been there. He wanted to get the job done and get out of there. He had come this far without being seen. He didn’t want his luck to change, didn’t want to push it. He only saw things as the light from the camcorder fell upon them. All else around him was just darkness, a curtain void of detail. His peripheral vision caught nothing at all. It was like having blinders on.

  He began by the door, sweeping right to left. At first he saw nothing, just the square, gray stones of the wall. Damp, they glistened. Kane was halfway across that side of the room before something unusual appeared within the weak circle of floodlight.

  He saw a design. He couldn’t make it out at first. Then he saw it clearly. A circle with a slash through it. It was red. Kane lingered on that for a moment. His heart was racing now. He felt his breathing change. He moved the camera a little to the left. Just wall again. Then, something else. A pentagram, crudely drawn. It, too, was red. He held that in frame for a moment, then moved a little more. That was when he saw writing. Latin phrases. He held the camera on each phrase. His hands were sweating inside the leather gloves. His mouth went dry.

  He moved the camera till it was aimed at the front of the chapel, where the original altar had once been. There he saw two stacks of milk crates supporting a long plank of wood. He knew right away that it was a makeshift altar. It could be nothing else. He held the camera on it. After a moment he moved his line of vision down to the floor. He saw something and stepped toward the altar.

  Stains on the floor. A red trail of droplets. He zoomed in. Blood? He couldn’t tell. Maybe just red paint, splashed from the writing on the walls. Hard to be certain. He knelt, moved the camera away from his face, was looking at the stains now with his own eye. He leaned close. He thought maybe that he should scrape at one of the stains, see if something would rub off. He thought of using a coin or something. He could bring enough of it back for Gregor to send out and have analyzed. It seemed the thing to do. Still, a thought was one thing, an action something else altogether. He wasn’t made for this kind of thing, for handling what might be spilled blood, for creeping around in the darkness. He didn’t want to get any closer to blood than he already was. Had someone been murdered here? On this spot? The thought sent adrenaline into his blood. What was he doing here?

  He stood up as a chill spiraled up his spine. He shuddered, felt a slight pull in the muscles beneath his shoulder blades. He aimed the camera once again at the stains. After a moment he rubbed the tip of his shoe against one of the drops. He couldn’t help himself. He dragged the edge of the sole back and forth across the stain. Nothing came off, from what Kane could tell, anyway. But that told him nothing. He thought maybe it would but it didn’t. Still, this was as close as he was going to get. He rubbed the edge of his shoe across the floor, to get rid of anything that might have come up, that might have gotten caught on it—just in case.

  It was then he heard a noise. From somewhere outside. He stopped and listened, looking toward the door. After a few long seconds he switched off the camera and floodlight. Total darkness crowded him now. He couldn’t even see the camera in his hand. He stayed there for a while, listening, waiting. He thought his eyes might adjust to the dark, but they didn’t. Blackness remained around him. He was lost in it, a part of it. He heard nothing, waited some more. A minute passed, maybe two. He hadn’t moved a muscle, just stood there, listening, breathing, blind. Then finally he decided it was time to get out of there, whether or not he really had heard something outside. He’d gotten enough of what was here on tape. More than that, he’d pressed his luck as far as he dared.

  Very quickly, though, Kane realized that the total darkness had completely disoriented him. He had no idea now where the door was. He had been looking at it when he shut off the light, but that didn’t help matters any. He’d lost track of where he’d been looking. He hadn’t moved, hadn’t turned, and still he had no sense of certainty about which way to step. Doubt paralyzed him. Though he knew the floor was clear of obstructions, he found himself hesitating at the idea of taking a step. His feet felt heavy, his legs weak. The doubt only deepened. It was as if he had no confidence that, though he could no longer see it, the floor was in fact still there around him. He had to will his feet to take a step, command his legs to move. It took nothing less than that for him to start walking.

  He headed in the only direction that made sense, straight ahead, moving slowly, one step at a time. Each time he felt floor beneath the soles of his shoes he felt relief. He extended his left hand outward, the camera in his right, held close to his stomach like a football. Eventually he touched something solid. Though he was wearing gloves he knew it was the stone wall. He had missed the door entirely. Panic rushed through him. Somewhere inside rose the irrational fear that he would never find the door, that he had somehow disappeared. His mind was racing now. He just wanted out of this blackness. It was all he wanted. He fought the panic as best he could, felt to his left a few feet. Nothing but the smooth stone. Wrong way, wrong way. He moved back to his right, step by step, still not believing fully that the floor would always be there for him. Finally, though, his hand found the door. The panic diminished, but only slightly. Still, it was enough for him to think straight. He felt around with the toe of his shoe till he found the canvas bag. He crouched to it, fumbled with it till he got it open. He should have turned on the floodlight, or used the flashlight in his back pocket. All the windows were boarded up, he had made certain of that, and the door closed. If anyone was standing outside, which he doubted now because he hadn’t heard the noise repeat, there was no way that any light inside the chapel would be seen. Still, Kane wanted to be careful. He’d come this far. He slid the camcorder into the bag, pulled on the drawstring, then stood, swinging the bag over his shoulder. With his left hand he reached back for the Maglite, removed it, and felt along the door with his right till he found the heavy brass handle.

  He was almost out now. All he needed was to make it back to his office without being seen. He could do that, easy. It was late, it was cold. No one would be around. He was more than halfway home now.

  He pulled on the brass handle and the door swung open, moving even easier than it had before, when Kane had entered just minutes ago. It took only a split-second for Kane to understand why that was, why the door was so much lighter now, why it was opening so much easier this time around.

  But of course by then it was already too late.

  In that split-second a sliver of pale light crossed Kane’s shoes as the large door swung open. He had been looking down, still wary of where he stepped, and saw that weak light rush into the chapel like moonlit water. He felt then free at last of the complete darkness that had clung to him like a glove,
free of the disorientation it had caused him, the panic and fear that had run through every part of his being as he stood lost in it. Kane lifted his head, ready to step into the open outdoors, into the cold, arctic wind. Though the night sky was significantly overcast, that darkness had nothing on the darkness that had surrounded him for the past two minutes. He expected to see clearly by contrast, see the open field and the border trees and the low-hanging clouds that covered the broad Long Island sky from end to end. But he didn’t see that, didn’t see any of it. All he saw was the figure of a man—a giant, really—standing before him, all but filling the doorframe. It was then that Kane realized that this was why the door had swung open so easily, that this shadowed man had been pushing on it at the same moment Kane had been pulling on it. But before he could even think another thought, before he could do more than look up and glimpse the faceless shadow, something hit Kane in the chest, hit him with tremendous force. Not a punch but a shoving motion, maybe the broad sweeping of a powerful arm. Whatever it was, it was enough to send Kane off his feet and backward into the darkness of the chapel.

  He stumbled, losing the canvas bag and flashlight. Next thing he knew he was flat on his back. The door swung closed, slammed, then bounced open again, but only slightly. A small amount of pale light made it through the gap that existed now between the door and its frame. That narrow, silver beam lay across Kane till the giant crossed it, blotting it out. Kane saw only darkness then, was back in it again, lost in it. But the beam of light reappeared a few seconds later. Kane quickly realized that the giant had moved around him and was standing now at Kane’s right side. He could see only the shape of the man above him, couldn’t see his face or even what he was wearing. The largeness of the man, the way he had filled the doorway, reminded Kane of Clay. But this couldn’t be him, could it?