The Book of the Dead

by Richard Preston

  Aloysius shone his candle into the freshly exposed space. It wasn’t a crypt at all, but rather a large storage room, set into the rear of the sub-basement. The flickering light played off an array of strange contraptions made of brass, wood, and glass.

  “What’s in there?” Diogenes said, creeping back up behind his brother.

  “See for yourself.”

  Diogenes peered in. “What are they?”

  “Machines,” the older brother said positively, as if he knew.

  “Are you going in?”

  “Naturally.” Aloysius stepped through the doorway and turned. “Aren’t you coming?”

  “I guess so.”

  Pendergast, from the shadows, watched them go in.

  The two boys stood in the room. The lead walls were streaked with whitish oxides. The space was packed floor-to-ceiling with contraptions: boxes painted with grimacing faces; old hats, ropes, and moth-eaten scarves; rusted chains and brass rings; cabinets, mirrors, capes, and wands. Cobwebs and thick layers of dust draped everything. At one end, propped up sideways, stood a sign, painted in garish colors and embellished with curlicues, a pair of pointing hands, and other nineteenth-century American carnival flourishes.

  Late from the Great Halls of Europe

  The Illustrious and Celebrated Mesmerist

  Professor Comstock Pendergast

  Presents

  THE GRAND THEATRE AND ILLUMINATED PHANTASMAGORIA

  Of

  Magick, Illusion, and Prestidigitation

  Pendergast stood in the shadows of his own memory, filled with the helpless foreboding of nightmare, watching the scene unfold. At first the two boys explored cautiously, their candlelight throwing elongated shadows among the boxes and piles of bizarre devices.

  “Do you know what all this is?” whispered Aloysius.

  “What?”

  “We’ve found all the stuff from Great-Grand-Uncle Comstock’s magic show.”

  “Who’s Great-Grand-Uncle Comstock?”

  “Only the most famous magician in the history of the world. He trained Houdini himself.”

  Aloysius touched a cabinet, ran his hand down to a knob, and cautiously pulled out a drawer: it contained a pair of manacles. He opened another drawer, which seemed to stick, and then it gave with a sudden pop! A pair of mice shot out of the drawer and scurried off.

  Aloysius moved on to the next item, his younger brother following close behind. It was a coffin-like box standing upright, with a screaming man painted on the lid, numerous bloody holes piercing his body. He opened it with a groan of rusty hinges to reveal an interior studded with wrought-iron spikes.

  “That looks more like torture than magic,” said Diogenes.

  “There’s dried blood on those spikes.”

  Diogenes peered closely, fear temporarily overcome by a strange eagerness. Then he stepped back again. “That’s just paint.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I know dried blood when I see it.”

  Aloysius moved on. “Look at that.” He pointed to an object in the far corner. It was a huge box, much larger than the others, rising from floor to ceiling, the size of a small room itself. It was garishly painted in red and gold with a grinning demon’s face on the front. Flanking the demon were odd things—a hand, a bloodshot eye, a finger—floating against the crimson background almost like severed body parts loosed in a tide of blood. Arched over a door cut into the side was a legend painted in gold and black:

  The Doorway to Hell

  “If it were my show,” said Aloysius, “I would have given it a much grander name, something more like ‘The Gates of the Inferno.’ ‘The Doorway to Hell’ sounds boring.” He turned to Diogenes. “Your turn to go first.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “I went first last time.”

  “Then you can go first again.”

  “No,” said Aloysius. “I don’t care to.” He put his hand on the door and gave Diogenes a nudge with his elbow.

  “Don’t open it. Something might happen.”

  Aloysius opened it to reveal a dim, stifling interior, lined with what looked like black velvet. A brass ladder stood just inside, disappearing up through a hatch in a low false ceiling set into the box.

  “I could dare you to go in there,” Aloysius went on, “but I’m not going to. I don’t believe in childish games. If you want to go in, go in.”

  “Why don’t you go in?”

  “I freely admit it to you: I’m nervous.”

  With a creeping feeling of shame, Pendergast could see his knack for psychological persuasion, already developed as a boy, coming into play. He wanted to see what was in there—but he wanted Diogenes to go in first.

  “You’re scared?” Diogenes asked.

  “That’s right. So the only way we’re ever going to know what’s in there is if you go in first. I’ll be right behind you, I promise.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Scared?”

  “No.” The quaver in his high-pitched voice said otherwise.

  Pendergast reflected bitterly that Diogenes, who was only seven, hadn’t yet learned that truth is the safest lie.

  “Then what’s stopping you?”

  “I . . . I don’t feel like it.”

  Aloysius snickered dryly. “I admitted I was scared. If you’re scared, say so, and we’ll go back upstairs and forget all about it.”

  “I’m not scared. It’s just some stupid fun house.”

  Pendergast watched, horrified, as his childish doppelganger reached over and grasped Diogenes by the shoulders. “Go ahead, then.”

  “Don’t touch me!”

  Firmly and gently, Aloysius urged him through the little doorway of the box and crowded in behind him, blocking his retreat. “As you said, it’s just some stupid fun house.”

  “I don’t want to stay in here.”

  They were both inside the first compartment in the box, jammed up against each other. Clearly, the fun house was meant to admit one adult at a time, not two half-grown children.

  “Get going, brave Diogenes. I’ll be right behind.”

  Wordlessly, Diogenes began to climb the little brass ladder, and Aloysius followed.

  Pendergast watched them disappear as the hinged box door closed automatically behind them. His heart was beating so hard in his chest he thought it might explode at any moment. The walls of his memory construct flickered and shook. It was almost unbearable.

  But he could not stop now. Something terrible was about to happen, but what exactly he still hadn’t the slightest idea. He had not yet excavated that deeply into old, repressed memories. He had to keep going.

  In his mind, he opened the box door and climbed the brass ladder himself, passing into a crawl space above, which turned horizontally and gave onto a low chamber above the false ceiling but below the top of the box. The two boys were there ahead of him, Diogenes in the lead. He was crawling toward a circular porthole in the far wall of the crawl space. Diogenes hesitated at the entrance to the porthole.

  “Go on!” Aloysius urged.

  The little boy glanced back once at his brother, a strange expression in his eyes. Then he crawled through the porthole and disappeared.

  Moving toward the porthole himself, Aloysius paused, peering round with the candle, apparently noticing for the first time that the walls seemed to be covered with photographs shellacked to the wood.

  “Aren’t you coming?” came a small, scared, angry voice from the darkness beyond. “You promised you would stay right behind me.”

  Pendergast, watching, felt himself begin to shake uncontrollably.

  “Yes, yes. I’m coming.”

  The young Aloysius crept up to the round, dark portal, looked inside—but went no farther.

  “Hey! Where are you?” came the muffled cry from the darkness beyond. Then suddenly: “What’s happening? What’s this?” A shrill boyish scream cut through the little chamber like a scalpel. Ahead, through the porthole, P
endergast saw a light appear; saw the floor tip; saw Diogenes slide to the far end of a small room and tumble into a lighted pit below. There was a sudden low sound, like the rumble of an animal—and dreadful, unspeakable images appeared within the pit—and then with a swift thunk! the porthole snapped shut, blocking his view.

  “No!” screamed Diogenes from deep within. “Nooooooo!”

  And then quite suddenly, Pendergast remembered all. It came rushing back in perfect, exquisite detail, every hideous second, every moment of the most terrifying experience in his life.

  He remembered the Event.

  As the memory crashed over him like a tidal wave, he felt his brain overload, his neurons shut down—and he lost control of the memory crossing. The mansion trembled, shivered, and exploded in his mind, the walls igniting and flying apart, a huge roar filling his head, the great palace of memory blazing off into the darkness of infinite space, dissolving into glittering shards of light like meteors streaking into the void. For a brief moment, the anguished cries of Diogenes continued from out of the limitless gulf—then they, too, fell away and all was quiet once again.

  51

  Warden Gordon Imhof glanced around the table of the spartan conference room deep within Herkmoor’s Command Block, microphone clipped to his lapel. All things considered, he felt good. The response to the breakout had been immediate and overwhelming. Everything had worked like clockwork, by the book: as soon as the Code Red was given, the entire complex had been electronically locked down, all ingress and egress halted. The escapees had run around for a time like headless chickens—theirs had been a totally senseless escape plan—and within forty minutes they had all been rounded up and put back either in their cells or in the infirmary. The obligatory anklet sensor check, which ran automatically every time a Code Red was suspended, confirmed that all prisoners in the complex were accounted for.

  In the corrections business, Imhof mused, the way to get noticed was through a crisis. A crisis created visibility. Depending on how the crisis was handled, it created an advancement opportunity or a ruined career. This particular one had been handled flawlessly: a single guard hurt (and not badly at that), no hostages taken, nobody killed or seriously injured. Under his leadership, Herkmoor had retained its flawless no-escape record.

  Imhof glanced at the clock, waited for the second hand to sweep around to exactly 7:30. Coffey hadn’t shown up, but he wasn’t going to wait. The truth was, the smug FBI agent and his lackey had really begun to get on his nerves.

  “Gentlemen,” he began, “let me start this meeting by saying to all of you: well done.”

  A murmuring and a vague shifting greeted this opening.

  “Today, Herkmoor faced an extraordinary challenge—a mass escape attempt. At two-eleven P.M., nine inmates cut the fence in one of the building C exercise yards and fanned out through the inner perimeter fields. One got as far as the security station at the south end of building B. The cause of the breakout is still under investigation. Suffice to say, it appears that the prisoners in yard 4 were not under direct guard supervision at the time of the escape, for reasons that remain unclear.”

  He paused, giving the group around the table a stern look. “We will be addressing that failure in the course of this debriefing.”

  Then he relaxed his features. “Overall, the response to the escape attempt was immediate and by the book. First responders were at the scene at two-fourteen and a Code Red was immediately sounded. More than fifty guards were mobilized for the response. In well under an hour, every single escapee had been recaptured and all prisoners had been accounted for. By three-oh-one, the Code Red had ended. Herkmoor returned to business as usual.”

  He paused for a moment. “Once again, I offer my congratulations to all involved. Everyone can relax, this is merely a pro forma meeting—as you know, a formal debriefing is required by regulation to occur within twelve hours of any Code Red. I apologize for keeping you here past your normal workday: let’s see if we can’t tie up any loose ends quickly so we can all get home to dinner. I urge any of you with questions to ask them as we proceed. Do not stand on ceremony.”

  He looked around the room. “I call first on building C security manager James Rollo. Jim, could you talk about the role of Officer Sidesky? There seems to be some confusion about that.”

  A man with a pour-over belly arose with the sound of jingling keys, adjusted his belt with more jingling. His face had assumed a stolid look of high seriousness.

  “Thank you, sir. As you mentioned, the Code Red was sounded at two-fourteen. The first responders came from guard station 7. Four responded, leaving Officer Sidesky to man the guard station. It appears one of the escapees overpowered Officer Sidesky, drugged him, tied him up, and left him in the nearby men’s room. He’s still disoriented, but as soon as he is lucid we’ll get a statement.”

  “Very well.”

  At this point, a restless-looking man in a nurse’s uniform rose. “I’m Staff Nurse Kidder, sir, in charge of the building B infirmary.”

  Imhof looked at him. “Yes?”

  “There seems to have been some kind of mix-up. Early in the escape attempt, the EMTs brought down an injured guard claiming to be Sidesky, in uniform with his badge and ID. He then disappeared.”

  “That’s easily explained,” said Rollo. “We found Sidesky without his uniform and badge. He must have left the infirmary. And then, evidently, one of the prisoners must have stripped Sidesky after knocking him out.”

  “That sounds logical to me,” said Imhof. He hesitated. “Only thing is, all the escapees were apprehended in their prison garb. None were wearing uniforms.”

  Rollo rubbed his wattle. “The prisoner who stripped Sidesky probably didn’t have time to put on the uniform.”

  “That must be it,” said Imhof. “Mr. Rollo, please record those items as missing: uniform, badge, and ID belonging to Sidesky. I expect they’ll be found in the trash or in a dark corner somewhere. Can’t have them falling into prisoner hands.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Mystery solved. Continue, Mr. Rollo.”

  “Forgive me for interrupting,” said Kidder, “but I’m not sure the mystery is solved. This man claiming to be Sidesky was left in the infirmary awaiting the radiologist while I attended to some of the escapees. He had several broken ribs, contusions, a facial laceration, a—”

  “We don’t need the complete diagnosis, Kidder.”

  “Right, sir. Anyway, he was in no condition to go anywhere. And when I returned, Sidesky—I mean, the guy claiming to be Sidesky—had disappeared, and in his bed was the corpse of the prisoner, Carlos Lacarra.”

  “Lacarra?” Imhof frowned. He hadn’t heard this part before.

  “That’s right. Someone had moved his cadaver and stuck him in Sidesky’s bed.”

  “Somebody’s idea of a joke?”

  “I don’t know, sir. I was wondering if . . . well, if it could be involved with the escape attempt somehow.”

  There was a silence.

  “If so,” Imhof finally said, “then we’re dealing with a more sophisticated plan than we initially assumed. But the bottom line is this: every single escapee was recaptured and is accounted for. We’ll be interrogating them in the days ahead to unravel exactly what happened.”

  “One other thing troubles me,” Kidder went on. “During the escape, a morgue-mobile arrived to take Lacarra’s body away. It was kept waiting outside the gates until the Code Red came down.”

  “And?”

  “When the code was called off, the ambulance came in and loaded the body. The chief physician witnessed the loading and signed the papers.”

  “I don’t see the problem.”

  “The problem, sir, is that it wasn’t until fifteen minutes later that I found Lacarra’s body in Sidesky’s bed.”

  Imhof raised his eyebrows. “So the wrong stiff got picked up in the confusion. That’s understandable. Don’t be too hard on yourself, Kidder. Just call the hospital and sort it o
ut.”

  “I did that, sir. And when I called the hospital, they said our call to pick up the body this morning was canceled right after it came in. They swear they never even sent a morgue-mobile.”

  Imhof snorted. “That damn hospital is always screwing up, a dozen layers of administrators who don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground. Call them back in the morning, tell them we sent them the wrong stiff and they should go look for it.” He shook his head in disgust.

  “But that’s just the problem, sir. We didn’t have any other corpse at Herkmoor. I can’t figure out what cadaver went to the hospital.”