Feast of Shadows, #1

by Rick Wayne

  The big man glanced at me but didn’t say anything. I mistook his cool demeanor for machismo at first, but that wasn’t it. He was just always flat, like day-old soda. He took the bat out of my hands and put it back.

  “This is Mr. Dench,” Étranger said. “An associate of mine.”

  He slammed the trunk.

  “Who are you people?”

  “Exterminators,” the big guy said. He lifted the gas tanks from where he’d set them on the road and followed the others toward the school.

  It was dark now. The little bit of light that had penetrated to the basement earlier was totally gone. Dench and Milan wore headlamps, and their beams swung about like crossing swords as we moved through the darkness. Étranger walked like he could see clear as day. He stepped lightly across the collapsed floor and was the first to reach the basement. When the rest of us arrived, he was standing in the dark before the altar with his hands in the pockets of his coat. I could barely see. I heard Dench set the gas tanks down. Milan handed him a pair of bolt cutters she had taken from the trunk, and I heard metal scratching metal as he tried to grip the padlock with them.

  There didn’t seem to be anything for me to do, so I stood next to the chef.

  “You know what it means?” I asked.

  He nodded. “The rat without its skin is a symbol of the underworld, a land of shadow and deception.” He pointed to the spires of the spent candle. “Whose Lord is crowned when light is extinguished.” He raised his finger to the deer skull. “In the time before civilization, the stag was revered as a majestic spirit. A swift and powerful animal—difficult to bring down with spears and arrows—with a coronet that rose and fell with the seasons. Chieftains and mages wore the antlers of the stag as a sign of potency.”

  “So this is an altar to a king?”

  “This is not an altar, Doctor. This is a totem. And a warning.” He pointed to the rat. “Whence comes the Lord of Shadows.” Then to the stag at the top of the bonelike lattice. “Who will rise and rule.”

  “It’s been sealed,” Milan interjected.

  The chef walked over and put his tattooed palms on the door. He held them there for a moment while whispering something. Then he stepped back and nodded and Dench cut the lock in one move. It fell with a clatter. Milan slid the heavy door to the side with a grunt and it rumbled in its rusty groove.

  The room beyond was…

  Wow.

  Rusted chains hung from the ceiling of a perfect cube, a remainder from some earlier industrial use. Neon yellow spray paint made symbols on the walls and ceiling, including the ones I had seen before. Dead bodies slumped sideways against each of the interior walls. Their faces had been smashed and there was very little left to identify them. Their hair was gone and seams of liquefied rot ran across their chests, arms, and legs. Their flesh had grown soft and putrid in spots and split open like spoiled fruit. Mushrooms sprouted from the gaps, glowing green.

  The others shut off their headlamps and almost immediately the fungi seemed to get brighter. They struck me as both whimsical and eerie. Iridescent hook-shaped stalks rose from inside the decaying bodies, which were nothing but silhouettes in the dark, and ended in broad caps that shone brightest at their centers. I stared in silence, half-expecting leprechauns or demented pixies to leap from the shadows and begin their soul-stealing reverie.

  Then the stench hit. It had moved slowly in the still, cool air, and when it came, it hung over us like the heavy perfume of too many flowers. It was both acrid and pungent, like a dog waste bin left to bake in a hot summer sun. I covered my nose. But I couldn’t move from the gruesome scene. I was fixed.

  “What do you know of toadstool rings?” Étranger asked me softly, eyes reflecting the green light.

  “They’re an artifact of how fungi grow,” I said through my fingers. “They grow outward in a circle, depleting the nutrients in the soil and leaving a gap.” I waited. “That’s not what you meant, was it?”

  He shook his head. “Early peoples noticed rings that sprouted from the earth where none had been the evening before. Children were warned to stay away, lest they step into the circle and be whisked away to the fairy realms. Those who did were lost. Or returned decades later not having aged a day, all their family and loved ones gone.”

  Dench and Milan began dousing everything in gasoline while the chef watched. The smell of the gas on top of the rest made my stomach boil.

  “A ring of dark light,” the chef explained. “Light that doesn’t come from the sun.”

  “It’s an enzyme,” I added. “Called luciferase, actually. If you can believe that.”

  “This has nothing to do with mechanisms and energy, Doctor. The dark light is born of sickness. And suffering. And death.”

  Dench threw the rat carcass and twig lattice, complete with deer skull, into the room just as Milan dropped a match. The gasoline ignited brightly and with force, and I felt a blast of heat wash over me. The mushrooms shriveled in the heat and went dark. The larger ones started popping, which sent clouds of tiny yellow embers into the air, like fireworks.

  “Who did this?” I asked softly, but the chef simply shook his head.

  The fire grew. Flames rose and bent around the door, licking the ceiling. Smoke billowed. Étranger turned without a word and started for the stairs.

  “If we had time,” he said as we followed him up the steps, “I imagine we would discover many of the properties that lie along your circle have been bought and sold recently.”

  “What do you mean ‘if we had time?’”

  When he didn’t answer, I turned to Milan, but she was on the phone anonymously reporting the fire to 911. I listened to her frantic voice as we walked out of the building and onto the litter-strewn field that surrounded the school.

  “Hold on.”

  But the chef kept walking, hands in his pockets. He didn’t even turn.

  “Wait a minute!” I shuffled faster after him. When I turned to see if the others were following, I caught a glimmer from inside the school. A yellow flicker, rising and falling, backlit a few of the openings, giving the appearance of a hollow skull. I stopped to stare. It was unreal.

  The fence rattled as the others made it over. I turned to join them, but the Jaguar rumbled to life before I made it to the top.

  Red parking lights illuminated the dark street as the chef rolled his window down. “Thank you, Doctor. Your help has been immeasurable. There is much to do.”

  As my feet reached the sidewalk, I got the distinct impression they were about to leave me on the side of the road.

  “I wonder,” the man said, “if you would permit me to call on you again. There are places you can go that I cannot.” And just like that, he nodded and the car pulled away and left me the sole witness to a building fire.

  It was only then, as the bright red taillights turned the corner, that I realized I had just stood idly while they burned all my evidence.

  “Awwww SHIT!”

  I was restless. Unnerved. I slept poorly and set my alarm so I could catch my wife and daughter in the morning before work. After my encounter the night before, I needed something familiar. Safe. Known. They were having breakfast when I called and laughing about something that had happened in my absence, which made it awkward at first, like I was interrupting my own family. We talked a little. Conversations with a three-year-old never last very long. I was just glad to see her and hear her voice. It wasn’t until she set the phone down suddenly and ran off that it hit me. My appointment at the DoH would be up at the end of the month and Marlene and I hadn’t made any plans. We only ever got as far as my departure. Neither of us ever said it, but I think the idea was to let three months apart bring some clarity. But now there were only a few weeks left, and things didn’t seem any clearer. If anything, they were even more opaque.

  “What are we gonna do?” I asked when my wife picked up the phone from the counter.

  “I don’t know.” She said it in a way that made it clear she both gen
uinely didn’t know and genuinely didn’t want to discuss it right then. She jumped in again before I could object. “Please don’t. It took you almost three days to call your mom. I shouldn’t have to come up with a whole plan on the spot.”

  “On the spot? We’ve had almost three months.”

  “I can’t talk now.”

  “Seriously? You don’t have five minutes?”

  “We have to go,” she said.

  I was confused. “Go? Go where?”

  She sighed. “I have to drop Mari at daycare. Before work.”

  Work. That was a punch in the gut. It wasn’t that she was working. It was that I had no idea.

  “Work? What are you talking about?”

  “It’s nothing,” she said. “One of Brenda’s employees quit last month and she asked if I could help out at the shop. It’s just a few hours a week. We could use the money. We talked about me working.”

  Brenda was my sister-in-law. She was the manager of a corporate bakery-cafe franchise.

  Marlene could see the look on my face. “I didn’t mention it,” she said, “because I knew how it would look. With you gone and everything. Like I was . . . I didn’t want you to think . . .” She sighed again. She looked at her watch. “Look. I really have to go.” She waited a second for me to say goodbye. When I didn’t, she frowned politely and ended the call.

  I showered in a daze. I stood there, spikes of too-hot water pricking my skin. I thought about the fire the night before and how it seemed like weeks ago and how I’d never really engaged with the thought of not being a daily fixture in my daughter’s life. How would it work? How did other guys do it?

  Once out of the shower, I was overcome by the tidy emptiness of my room, which seemed to reflect my life. I dressed angry, got coffee in the lobby, and showed up early at the DoH. I was certain I was in deep and that that was why everyone had been trying to get a hold of me the day before. It wasn’t until Dr. Chalmers stopped by my desk on another unexpected visit to The Pit that I realized things had gotten way more complicated. She was cooler with me than she’d been before. I was definitely no longer the golden boy—if I ever was. Before, I had the sense that I at least could’ve been, that she and Ollie had thought I was capable of great things, whether I achieved them or not, and that they’d been waiting to see if I’d step up. That was apparently no longer the case. I’d been right about Tucker, it seemed. He and I had been in an unspoken race. I was the underdog. I lost.

  Dr. Chalmers blamed the repeated phone calls on simple concern. And it seemed like the truth—just not all of it. She said Ollie had explained to her how I had let myself get attached to the little boy and that his death had hit me way too hard.

  “It’s normal for people early in their career.” She handed me a piece of paper. “There’s a funeral tomorrow.”

  I took it. I read the name of the cemetery. Simple graveside service. His family couldn’t afford a funeral home.

  “The first is always the hardest,” she said. “You learn after that. I’m sure it doesn’t seem like it now, but it’s a good lesson. It will help you wherever you go with your career.”

  Wherever you go. That suggested, without specifying, that it wasn’t going to be at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

  I looked at the piece of paper in my hand. What the hell was I going to say to the kid’s mother?

  Dr. Chalmers said I could take some time if I needed.

  “Absolutely,” I said. “Thank you.”

  I didn’t hear from Amber. Knowing her a little, I expected a text the morning after our dinner. That I didn’t get one was a sure sign she wasn’t happy with me either.

  I reached out to her as soon as I got to my desk.

  THANKS FOR GETTING ME

  OUT LAST NIGHT.

  I FEEL A LOT BETTER TODAY

  It was half true. Whatever else had happened, I at least had a path forward. Now I knew I was right, which meant it didn’t matter what Tucker or anyone else thought. And since I no longer had to be in the office, my time was better served visiting a few more townships across the river and building my database into a rock, something not even Ollie could ignore. I had been working backward from victim to source and had gotten almost nowhere. I figured it was time to switch tactics. I picked up the phone and called Dr. Pratt.

  First salvage my career. Then salvage my marriage. I could do it. I hadn’t struck out yet. I had one more swing.

  I spent the morning catching up on whatever needed urgent attention and stepped out just before lunch. I walked lightly through the open foyer of the Department of Health building, feeling strangely good about myself, determined to solve all of my problems, personal and professional, by the time I made it home in a few weeks. I took the subway to the campus of Columbia University, where I met Dr. Pratt’s colleague, the mycologist who had been in the room with him when we spoke on the phone. Pratt had been kind enough to give us an introduction.

  “Dr. Milhoun,” I said, raising my hand as he approached me on the sidewalk. “I’m Dr. Alexander. Thanks for agreeing to meet me on such short notice.”

  “Hard to turn down a free lunch,” he said, taking my hand. “Is this about the stories on television?”

  As much as Pratt was an insecure bully who had found a good place to hide at the ME’s office, Dr. Milhoun struck me as the kind of man who had to have everything his way. He had sent me two requests for confirmation within an hour of our meeting, like his time was the most valuable in the world and he was doing me a favor by parting with any of it.

  “You’re an epidemiologist, correct?” he asked.

  “That’s correct.” I led him across the quad toward the lunch spot I had scoped out on my ride over, something well within my personal budget. From here on out, the department wouldn’t cover anything.

  “Maybe you know Dr. O’Shea,” he suggested, “head of the public health program here.”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Really? I know he’s active in the Association. The one for you guys. What’s it called?”

  “Then he’s ahead of me. I’m afraid I was never very good at networking.”

  “Well, maybe I could introduce you. Where did you do your degree work?”

  “Down south.” I pointed. “I thought we could try that little diner there across the street. Do you know it?”

  “Yes, um. Sure, that’s fine. We can go there. But I don’t know that I can tell you people more than I already have. There really isn’t much published on lucifera.”

  “Well, Dr. Pratt and I are in totally different areas. I’m afraid we haven’t consulted. Maybe you could start by telling me what you—”

  “I wasn’t referring to Dr. Pratt. I had a chat with one of your colleagues this morning. I was surprised to hear from you as well, actually. I thought you sent the woman to ‘get in the door,’ so to speak. I was quite annoyed, to tell you the truth. I felt that I was being manipulated. Such a woman as that was obviously not an academician.”

  “Woman? What woman?”

  “Yes. She showed up after you called. Short hair. Quite attractive. You must know of her. There can’t be that many women with her looks.”

  “Ah, I see who you mean now. There must have been a misunderstanding. I apologize for taking up so much of your time today. What did you tell her, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Yes, well, as I said, you should really coordinate better—”

  “Dr. Milhoun.” I stopped him at the street corner. “People’s lives are at stake and we’re in a bit of a hurry. Sometimes that means the left hand doesn’t always know what the right is doing, if you understand my meaning. If you have news—”

  “No, no, nothing like that. And yes, I know it’s important. As I said, I saw it online. The message boards are all abuzz. That’s why I’m talking to you now. I want to help, of course.”

  “I need to know everything you told my colleague.”

  “Well, as I said, there wasn�
�t much. She was mostly concerned about where she could get samples. For testing. It seemed—”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “Well, I’m getting to that. She wanted to know if I knew of anyone who could grow it, and I said no. It was only found twice in the field, once in Venezuela and once in Peru, but only one sample was collected—by Dr. Wilcox-Carver at Tufts. Wonderful mycologist. And she couldn’t get approval to bring it into the country, so her graduate students—”

  “What about commercial suppliers?”

  “That’s exactly what your friend asked. I told her there weren’t any.” He raised a hand. “And before you object, yes, I’m sure. But you’re both asking the right questions, even if you’re not going about it in a very—”

  “The right questions?”

  “Most infectious agents are species-specific. As I’m sure you’re aware,” he added quickly. “Lucifera sort of ‘gets around’ that with a rather ingenious kind of mucus coat. It feeds off its victim’s blood supply. It’s not an opportunist, like anthrax, whose spores are hardy when they go dormant, waiting for the opportunity to bloom. Lucifera is carnivorous. It’s a hunter,” he said with some relish. “It’s adapted to the most densely-populated biome on the planet—birds, mammals, fish, amphibians, reptiles, insects. More life per square meter than anywhere on the planet. In its natural environment, it’s spoiled for choice. The spores infect living tissue. They need blood, Doctor, and a warm, wet environment to grow. They’re not viable in cold, dry air, like what we have here.” He raised an open palm.

  I scowled. “So, in your opinion, there’s no way exposure was accidental.”

  He shook his head. “There’s no question. Those people were deliberately infected, although I can’t for the life of me imagine why.”