Her fingers might not have been working properly, but her mind was sharp. She was working smart. She skipped over inputting the troublesome item. Now that she’d put all the distractions behind her and was concentrating, the work went smoothly. Before she knew it she was almost finished. Just one more item to go. The work had taken a few hours longer than she’d anticipated, but she’d done it. She congratulated herself on making it through the difficult evening. She began the last entry, keying in the first few letters to the accompaniment of footsteps behind her. The phantom had returned. She debated about turning around and checking the room once again, but decided against it. How many times can you look around an empty room before you believe it’s empty? Besides, every time she took her eyes off the keyboard, it meant a few seconds taken finding her place.
She ignored the soft patter of shoes behind her – feeling good about doing so. She wouldn’t let a ridiculous overactive imagination waylay her best efforts. She yawned and stoically remained hunched over the keyboard, her eyes locked on the computer screen, hearing the footsteps closing in on her. Try as she might, she couldn’t filter them out. It sounded as if someone were sneaking up behind her. Tiptoeing with whispery steps that delivered the faintest of sounds.
The clacking of the keyboard interfered with accurately detecting the shadowy steps. She slowed her typing down, and then stopped entirely so that she could properly listen. She’d finally isolated the soft patter. It wasn’t her imagination. They were very real. And there was more, for she now felt a presence – a presence so close she could hear it breathe. A chill washed over her. Someone was standing directly behind her. The realization hit her full force – she wasn’t alone.
She sat bolt upright, bringing her rigid hands straight out in front of her in case she needed to spring from the desk. She braced herself. She heard the faint shuffle of a heel on the ground and just as quickly felt the spectre’s touch on her shoulder. The touch of someone’s hand on her shoulder was more than she could bear. She whipped her head around – letting out a soft cry of anticipation. She was fully expecting a confrontation with an intruder. Instead, she saw nothing. No one was there – human or otherwise.
She put her hand over her heart, quelling the pace. She waited until it resumed its normal rhythm before she turned back around and began typing the last few words. She felt like an idiot. She didn’t like behaving like an hysterical schoolgirl. She was too dependable – too reliable for these sorts of mind games brought on by working late. She took a deep breath and dug into the last few words. She was finally finished. No she wasn’t. She’d forgotten about that stupid item she’d skipped – number 23. She looked at her watch and saw almost four hours had passed since she’d begun. It had never taken her that long to complete a goddamned spreadsheet. Luckily, she wasn’t scheduled to pick up Velvet tonight. She rubbed her eyes and planned out what was left of her evening. She didn’t feel like cooking. She’d stop for something to eat on the way home. That would save a few minutes – not that she was hungry anymore – not since the hiring of Jake Monroe. He’d taken away her desire for food. How could she work up a healthy appetite when she was in a constant state of aggravation at work?
She wound the shawl more tightly around her before getting up from her desk. Just one thing left to do and, the sooner she did it, the sooner she could go home.
She hurried through the narrow passageway created by the unloaded shipment – right past the crate marked 23. She headed directly to the room down the hall. It was where the exhibitors worked. There were all sorts of spare tools lying around. She flipped on an overhead light. She spotted a small crowbar and hammer. Grabbing both, she turned off the light and made her way back to her office, tools firmly in hand.
She looked up at the transom and saw a sliver of the moon. It was dark now – the moon had risen high up in the sky. She usually liked to watch the moon, but not tonight. The moonlight unsettled her. She kept her eyes trained down upon the floor as she stealthily approached the old crate. It seemed a bit slanted and off kilter from where she remembered it positioned. She could have sworn it was facing the other way. She must be mistaken because old crates didn’t move on their own accord.
Unless the person walking around moved it.
She bit down softly on her tongue. It wouldn’t do to keep imagining things. There was no person walking around. She was alone – alone with a big, dumb crate that needed opening. There was no crying over spilt milk. It needed to be done and all part of correcting her silly mistake. Worrying about an intruder was ridiculous – and it couldn’t be an employee. When employees entered and left the museum, they swiped their cardkeys. It was an accurate way of keeping a record of their hours. It was also a reliable way to keep track of who was in the building. In between entries, Rachel had used her computer to check the employee log and saw no one had entered. No one was there –except for her. Since her name was correctly recorded, she could only conclude that all systems were go and that the elaborate security system was functioning properly. In terms of someone sneaking in, that also was impossible. The system was automatically activated as soon as the workday ended. That meant no one got in or out without their card. If anyone tried to enter without one, they’d set off the mega alarm. Since a SWAT team hadn’t arrived, no one had snuck in through a broken window – or a crack in the door. She needed to face the fact that she was alone.
She knelt down and jammed in the crowbar between the seam holding the lid to the base. She hit the end of the crowbar a few times with the bell face of her claw hammer. She stood and placed her foot on the handle of the metal jimmy. She used her full weight to press down. She heard a soft tearing sound that told her she had loosened the lid. She pulled the jimmy out and walked around applying the same pressure a few inches away. She continued until she saw the lid was no longer attached to the bottom of the crate. She lifted the lid and when she did, she was hit in the face by a cold of glacial proportions. It had been the damned crate, but why? It really didn’t matter why. With the removal of the lid, the air was now so abnormally cold that it hurt to breathe. She threw the lid to the side as she wiped at the tears forming in her eyes. They were caused by the violence of the frigid air. They were not only annoying, they were blurring her vision.
She grabbed at her shawl, gripping it around her. She was startled when she realized she could see her own breath. She ran to the temperature gauge located in the exhibitor’s room. It registered a mild temperature of 68 degrees. She wondered how, but then realized it was positively balmy where she stood. It had to be the crate. Maybe it contained food products – something perishable. The packers could have used dry ice. Could that account for such a dramatic temperature fluctuation? She didn’t know. Perhaps it had to do with how much was used.
Rachel slowly made her way back to the partially opened crate. She didn’t savor the thought of again being caught in its icy grip. She warmed up a bit more by standing outside the periphery of the territory claimed by the casing. She rubbed her fingers and blew on them several times. When the feeling in them returned, she re-entered the Arctic Circle. She looked down and saw the freshly plucked nails dotting the floor. She brushed them aside with her foot so that no one would accidentally step on them and injure themselves. She walked to the rim of the crate feeling the cold overtaking her once again. She lifted her shawl and swathed her lower face in its fold. It was a trick she learned from growing up in Minnesota and withstanding the harsh winters. She’d found that if her mouth was covered, she only breathed in warm air. It always diminished the effects of the harsh winter weather. Rachel found that tonight it didn’t. Her teeth started to chatter.
She bent over and looked down at the quilted material used as filler. She lifted off a sheet of it. There was a sharp intake of air as she realized the object that had been packed was a coffin – an old pine one.
Now she was shivering in earnest. Her legs were moving on their own – trembling. She was rubbing her arms trying to bring some sense
of comfort to her body. As she peeled off the rest of the filler, her sense of anxiety increased. She knew there was nothing she could do about her thoughts – her head was spinning with them. Why a coffin? It was supposed to be a pair of candlesticks. How had that shipment been transposed? And why was it so damned cold? Those questions were merely starters – Rachel’s mind was swirling with thousands more.
Once uncovered, she innately drew back from the pine box. She didn’t know exactly what was causing the immense revulsion – she only knew that she didn’t want to be anywhere near it. And yet, she’d have to look inside. What other way did she have to determine what was in it? Jake would be all over her if she didn’t straighten this out – tonight. Fuck! If only she hadn’t signed for the damned shipment! If only she’d had Pat Timmors check to see what was in it. It would have been so much nicer to have him do it in the dazzling light of day. Bet it wouldn’t have been freezing then.
She again blew into her hands and rubbed them together. She only found herself getting colder and colder. She walked over to retrieve the hammer and crowbar where she’d dropped them. She found it was harder to move – harder to think. This cold was paralyzing. She tried to motivate herself by giving herself a pep talk. She tried like hell to convince herself that the work would help fight off the cold.
Since the accursed box was inside the crate, it would make the logistics of prying it open difficult. There was no way the narrowness of the walls would let her get a proper angle on prying open the lid with the jimmy. Why the hell did it have to be nailed shut? The outer crate had been sealed, hadn’t it? Why the extra precaution? She stopped the mental gymnastics. There was no way of knowing why anything was done – nor did it make a difference. The end result? She’d have to remove the damned nails – one-by-one. She climbed up – balancing her feet on the ledge. She lifted her skirt up, placing a foot down on either side - until she was straddling the pine box. Maybe that’s all it was, but it certainly looked like a coffin. It being beneath her wasn’t helping. She didn’t like the feel of it between her legs. Plus her feet had no place to move – there was just enough room to wedge her legs in. She felt the cold rise up her skirt and burn her thighs. She laid down the crowbar on the lid of the box and started to work.
She saw the old reddish nails peppering the outskirts of the pine box. They looked to be copper. She bent over at the waist and began pulling them out. She was happy that they were coming out easily. She had thought it would be more difficult – but the difficulty was in the circumstances surrounding what she was doing.
She examined the nail still held in the claw end of the hammer. It was crooked and looked bent with age and not because she’d pried it free. She noted loose brown and black specks. Was that dirt? Had this coffin been buried? She wanted to jump out of the crate and abandon the search. She wondered what she’d do if it were a body contained in there. She caught herself and realized she was being ridiculous again. How could a body that had been buried be marked and catalogued with Perry Antique hangtags? There was Number 23 clearly on the outside of the lid.
She let the nail drop on the outside. The morning crew could clean up the mess. At the moment, her plate was full. As she heard the soft ting caused by the nail hitting the ground, the side of the coffin seemed to tap against the inside of her ankle. It was almost as if it’d been repositioned. She stood stockstill not sure what to do. She hadn’t moved and if she hadn’t moved, how had it hit into her? The floor in the museum was level. That was one thing she knew for sure. She looked down at the coffin. She felt a blast of cold air blow up her skirt. Her waistband prevented it from going up any further. Then came the old, shrill voice.
“Hurry, Rachel! Hurry!”
Rachel stopped not sure she wanted to continue. Now she was hearing voices – old ones at that. Calling her name and telling her to hurry. She wanted to climb out of the crate. Climb out and go home. She could finish tomorrow morning. Finish it with Jake standing to the side berating her and calling her stupid for not taking care of it the night before. Anything would be better than this.
“Ra-a-a-a-chel! Hurry!”
The voice filled Rachel with its monstrous proportions. The urgings continued as the abhorrent tone overtook her will. The voice became sacred – something to be worshipped. She had to do what it commanded – follow it to the ends of the earth if need be. She had to get him out of this prison unworthy of the one it held. He’d been in there too long. It wasn’t fair. He needed to escape before …
She dug in – intensely trying to rid him of his pine cage. The nails slid out effortlessly. Two, three and then four. Rachel continued – only she was no longer working overtime. No longer in the basement. Rachel wasn’t anywhere – and yet she was everywhere. She was so cold and yet she wasn’t because she wasn’t consciously aware of anything except of her name being called. It kept being repeated in order to urge her to finish her mission. He was almost free. She jammed the claw under the last nail – the 13th – and pulled. It came up more quickly than the rest. She knew it did because someone on the inside was pushing. The dead body that had been dug up so that he could be sent to America was anxious to be freed. And although he had been sent to Fairfield Museum – he was here only for Rachel.
The lid lifted up. Without her touching it – it was lifting. In the distance, she heard the last nail hit the tiled floor. She lifted one leg – moving herself to one side in order to give him an unencumbered exit. The lid rose up and fell over the side of the crate crashing down to the floor. And then …
Rachel drifted off surrounded by blackness – the likes of which she’d never known. It was so different from the kind she’d encountered each night when she’d shut off the lights and go to sleep. Those nights were comforting as silhouettes could be distinguished in the hollowness of space. Objects were visible assuring her the world was still in place – waiting for her to rejoin it. This blackness was the complete absence of light. It was like a shroud. A black velvet night. A curtain to a stage that you could hide behind – or in – and become lost. It was a cloak or a cape you could abandon yourself in and lose all traces of what you thought you were. You could disappear. It was the kind of black that acted to highlight incandescent beings. And faces. Faces that looked as if they were lit within by a flame.
She didn’t remember everything, but she remembered a coffin. Where it came from, she didn’t know. The lid had opened and then … a face. A horrible face. A withered face that was deadened with age and lined with years. Its eyes blackened from eyebrow to cheekbone. The black followed the socket of the eye and made it seem as if the eyes were hollowed out – so sunken that they’d shrunk and become part of the skull that had absorbed them. Drank them in. The lips were red. A wanton red. The red of fresh blood. Or the color of a freshly-opened gash. The lips were pursed and accompanied by deep lip lines that hugged the malevolent opening. The hair was white and floating outwards. The face belonged to a body that she couldn’t see. Something hit into her and she fell to the floor smashing the back of her head on the stone floor. Sounds of scuffling and then she again became lost in that complete darkness until she opened her eyes and saw another face.
She’d felt the pressure on her body – the pressure that comes only when someone lays directly on top of you. Rachel had felt it before. She’d felt it with her last boyfriend every time they’d been intimate. She would lie down on the bed and he would crawl on top of her and start kissing her neck – her face – her ears. That’s what it felt like. As if she were still with Jason and he were about to make love to her.
“Jason?” she murmured as she opened her eyes. Only she didn’t see Jason. She saw a stranger. A man with high cheekbones and icy blue eyes. He had a piece of the night wrapped around him. He spread his arms and she saw it was a cape.
She stared at his face – at his clear white skin. His lips were thick and looked tinted. It was the contrast that made them seem that way. They were so much darker than his skin – so red while his skin w
as so pale. She realized his skin had no color at all. It looked like marble. A piece of beautifully carved marble.
“Rachel.”
He sang her name smiling, showing such beautifully, even front teeth. He was leaning over her. He reached back and loosened his long blonde hair. She hadn’t realized it was pulled back, but it was. Held by a smooth, shiny satin ribbon which he unfastened and dangled before her. He ran its end over her face as his hair spilled forward onto her and covered her face as if it belonged to her. It felt silky smooth – soft and sensual. She wanted these magical strands to be rubbed all over her body. She wondered if they could heal her. Make Jason come back so she could be happy. Yes! Those locks could give her the happiness she’d always sought and yet never attained.
She wanted to ask him who he was. How he knew who she was. She wanted to push him off of her and tell him that she didn’t think it was proper for him to be lying against her. Smiling. Laughing. Staring at her. Making her want him. Making her long for his touch. Would he touch her? She hoped he would. Soon. She felt his pelvis press into hers. She half-closed her eyes and moaned.
He read her thoughts and rubbed her body. He started at her throat and unwrapped her shawl. She lifted her head and let him strip it from her. He threw it aside and unbuttoned her jacket. He pulled her blouse out from her skirt and slipped his hand underneath. She groaned loudly as his hand stroked her skin. His hand traveled up her side resting under her breast. She moved her pelvis underneath him. She felt him stir and become aroused. She wanted to pull him to her, but couldn’t move. She didn’t care that he was a stranger and that she didn’t know his name. She wanted him.
Adduné (The Vampire's Game) Page 12