Night of the Furies

by David Angsten

  Of course! I whipped out the knife and pressed the blade between the door and the jamb. Using it like a lever, I threw my weight against it.

  The doorframe bulged and creaked. I pushed with all my strength.

  Suddenly I crashed against the wall.

  The blade had snapped. The dagger fell broken and useless to the ground.

  The door remained locked.

  Phoebe and I looked at each other in fear. All we could hear were the Furies.

  Damiana turned and walked away.

  “Where are you going?” Phoebe asked.

  She flung open the driver’s door. “Jail,” she said.

  We watched in confusion as she started up the truck. She threw it into gear and backed up. Then she shifted with a noisy grind, and suddenly the truck lurched toward us.

  Phoebe and I jumped out of the way. Damiana accelerated, angling toward the door. With a loud crash, the truck slammed the frame. The corner of the bumper burst the door open. The truck’s hood popped, and a geyser sprayed from the broken radiator.

  The engine stalled.

  I hurried over and pulled open Damiana’s door. Phoebe was right behind me. Damiana lifted her head and turned to us. She’d broken her lip on the steering wheel.

  “You all right?”

  She nodded groggily and started climbing out. I helped her down. She looked shaken, but nothing seemed broken. She glanced toward the end of the street. We could hear their shouting distinctly.

  “They’re close,” Phoebe said. “Hurry.”

  We clambered over the mangled bumper past the spewing steam. Inside, the large room was lit with a single overhead light. We all looked toward the jail door, where the whiskered face of my brother gazed from behind the wire-mesh window.

  “Dan!” Phoebe called, rushing to the door.

  He shouted through the glass. “It’s about time!”

  “Here,” I said, tossing her the keys. “You’re bound to have better luck than I did.”

  She immediately started trying them in the door.

  I turned to Damiana. “We’ve got to find the keys to the yacht.”

  She headed to the closet. I went to Vassilos’s desk.

  It was overflowing with a mess of papers and tottering stacks of flies. A small cup blackened with the dregs of Turkish coffee sat atop a magazine—Rolling Stone? There were several official-looking rubber stamps with Greek letters, and a fancy fountain pen that had been taken all apart.

  I searched everything, throwing aside the papers and knocking away the piles. Then I ransacked the drawers. They were filled to the brim with junk. The bottom drawer was a veritable liquor cabinet, complete with shot glasses and tumblers. None of the drawers appeared to hold any keys.

  Damiana was at a closet, searching jacket pockets. She turned to me and shook her head.

  “What are you looking for?” Dan asked. He was standing outside the jail door with Phoebe, who apparently had found the right key. When I told him, he reached into his pants pocket and pulled out the set of keys.

  “How did you get them?” I asked.

  “His pen ran out of ink when he was questioning me. He went searching for the inkwell, and I swiped them off his desk.”

  “Let’s go!” Phoebe said, moving toward the door. We followed her and started outside, stepping over a puddle of radiator fluid as we climbed around the bumper of the truck.

  Phoebe abruptly halted. The Furies were approaching from the end of the street. Their voices rose at the sight of us, and the horde surged forward.

  “Back inside!” Dan yelled. We followed him back through the entrance. “I heard him lock a door at the rear.”

  We raced after him down a short corridor, past a bathroom and a storage room to a door at the end of the hall. He unbolted the lock and peeked through, then stepped out into the alley.

  We followed him as he paused there, trying to figure out which way to go.

  “This way,” Damiana said. She dashed off down the alley.

  We all fell in, running after her.

  “I thought she was one of them,” Dan said.

  “Not anymore,” I said.

  DAMIANA CLEARLY knew her way through the village. I remembered tailing her the day before, when she’d taken a winding alley as a shortcut to the church. Now she raced through the bewildering streets at a speed we could barely keep pace with. Given the deep darkness and the intricacy of the labyrinth, it was a wonder she didn’t get lost—or that one of us didn’t fall behind and disappear into the maze.

  She seemed to be taking a route that would be difficult for the Furies to follow. We could hear their shouts and cheerful cackles drifting over the rooftops. It was impossible to tell where the mob was exactly, but one thing was certain: they were close. From the sound of their voices, coming from seemingly every direction, I assumed they had split up to find us. I half-expected to run across them at every turn we made.

  When finally we emerged from a twisting alley onto the esplanade, we were all out of breath and panting. Damiana paused for a moment, and we looked down the shore and out along the wharf. The ferries were gone, and except for Basri’s yacht, the dock was nearly empty. The boat and the whole of the pier lay in darkness, and the entire shore looked deserted. We again took off running, down the esplanade, past the closed-up tourist stalls, the empty shops and tavernas, the shuttered Orest10ês Café. Up ahead, Basri’s yacht, luminous under the moonlight, seemed to be just waiting to whisk us all away.

  The sound of the Furies grew louder. Suddenly, up ahead, they began pouring out onto the esplanade. The four of us slowed to a stop. The great horde was rushing like a river toward the sea. As they reached the pier, they spotted us, and all at once a cry rose up—a shrill, ecstatic shriek. The noise was electric, and strangely paralyzing. We stood in stunned amazement. Furies seemed to be pouring out from every street and alley. Their numbers appeared to have multiplied; in seconds, they were filling up the broad expanse of the quay.

  We backed away, then turned to run, following Damiana. All of us knew we were fleeing from our only chance to escape.

  Ahead of us a pack of Furies spilled out onto the esplanade from behind the shuttered café. We slowed as they caught sight of us.

  Still more poured out from another street.

  “This way!” Damiana shouted, as she tore off into an alley.

  The three of us hurried after her. Phoebe ran behind Dan and just in front of me. I noticed she was limping—she still had no shoe on her foot. The strip I’d wrapped around it was gone, along with most of the bandage. The sole of her foot was bare and bleeding.

  Damiana turned up a rising street, a wider thoroughfare.

  “Where are you going?” I asked her.

  “The only place we’ll be safe.”

  As we ran up the incline, I glanced back at the Furies. They were pouring out of the alleys and onto the open street. We passed another narrow lane where others streamed to join them. Their shrieks echoed off the stone walls, and it seemed you could almost hear them breathing, like the mad panting of a monstrous beast.

  Phoebe suddenly stumbled in front of me. I tripped on her leg and went crashing down. I landed on the same shoulder that had been clubbed on the truck, and a bright light exploded in my head. As I struggled to my feet, I nearly fainted. Phoebe’s voice sounded like an echo in a void, and I felt her taking hold of my arm.

  “Jack!”

  I turned. Furies were charging toward us.

  They filled the width of the street and stretched back as far as one could see in the dark. A raging mass of wild hair and taut, gaping faces, half-naked bodies in ragged chitons, arms wielding thyrses, throats stretched, filling the air with their voices, a madhouse cacophony of lunatic ravings. Their hysteria seemed only to have increased with their numbers, as if the growing mob was feeding on itself, each new Fury adding fuel to the fire.

  Phoebe and I turned to follow Dan and Damiana and saw that we had somehow lost them. They’d vanished in
to an alley or a side street. On the road up ahead, more Furies were streaming down toward us. I grabbed Phoebe’s arm and we fled into an alley, a narrowly twisting lane that led us into darkness.

  It quickly became near impossible to see. Phoebe limped ahead of me, panicked and in pain. We were forced eventually to feel our way along. The high walls seemed to rise up and merge with the sky. The Furies’ cries echoed behind us.

  “No!” Phoebe stopped, turned to me.

  The alley had curled to a dead end. We faced a stucco wall with a door and a black window, the back of a house or a shop. I tried the door and found it was locked. The window, too, was fastened.

  Phoebe ran to another door, farther back down the alley. When she reached it, I could barely see her. “It’s locked,” she cried. She looked off down the alley, listening to the shouts of the Furies. “They’re coming!”

  I turned and banged my fist on the door. “Open up! Please! Somebody help us!”

  When no one answered, I pounded more.

  Phoebe came up beside me. She shook her head. No one was going to come to the door; no one was going to help us.

  The splintering sound of the Furies’ voices coursed up the narrow lane.

  I went to the window. Four panes of glass in a crossed-wood sash. I slid Phoebe’s pack off my back and held it against the glass. Then I slammed my elbow into the pack. Once. Twice. Finally the frame snapped and the glass gave way. I shoved the pack in to break the pieces loose. When the opening was large enough, I climbed up and through the frame. Shards of glass tore at me, ripping my clothes and cutting a neat little slice in my calf as I fell to the floor inside.

  Phoebe started in.

  “Wait,” I said. I fumbled in the dark for the doorknob. I found it, turned the latch, and opened the door.

  As Phoebe entered, I saw them.

  Two ghostly Furies, ahead of the pack, streaking out of the dark. They screamed as they spotted us.

  I slammed the door and locked the latch, but the square of the window was open. As Phoebe and I moved into the darkness of the room, a blond-haired Fury thrust her face through the window. The woman had streaks of blood on her cheeks. She started climbing inside.

  The room was some kind of storage cellar, filled with Greek god figurines and ceramic souvenirs—the back of a storefront. I tried a door on the inside wall, but it was locked tight.

  “This way!” Phoebe said. She was climbing a stairwell that rose against the wall. I scrambled up after her, and we reached another door.

  “It’s locked!” Phoebe cried. She tried to force it open.

  The blond Fury came screaming up the stairs at us. She’d been cut badly climbing through the window. I turned and kicked her, and she stumbled back, but she grabbed my ankle as she fell. Pulled off balance, I crashed to the stairs. She tumbled down below me.

  The second Fury appeared, leaping over the first. She swung her thyrsus at me. I rolled off the stairs and plummeted to the floor. The woman dove on top of me, and her teeth locked on my hand. In a rage I threw her off me, and she crashed into the shelves. Greek god knickknacks shattered in a thousand pieces around her.

  I grabbed her thyrsus off the floor and hustled up the stairs.

  Phoebe was hurling herself against the door. I joined her and the two of us slammed ourselves against it. The door burst open.

  We found ourselves in a dark apartment. Phoebe whipped the door shut as I raced across the cluttered room and popped the shutters open.

  The street below was thick with Furies.

  I turned. Near a disheveled bed, the shadowy figures of a man and woman stood cowering in the dark.

  I shouted at them, “How do we get out of here?”

  The old man barely shook his head: There was no way out.

  Phoebe leaned against the door. The Furies were pounding on it. I aimed my thyrsus like a jousting stick. “Open it!” I shouted.

  Phoebe let the door fly open, and I charged through with the stick. It rammed into the big woman’s gut, knocking her back against the others, tumbling them back down the stairs.

  “Here!” Phoebe had flung open another door. I raced after her as she scrambled up another set of stairs. It led to a trapdoor in the ceiling. She opened it, and we climbed out onto the roof. I closed the trapdoor behind us.

  We could see again in the moonlight. Rooftops spread out around us—clotheslines, satellite dishes, chimneys. The dark mountain looming. We ran to the back of the roof and peered down into the alley. Furies were funneling into the house.

  The trapdoor banged open. A frazzle-haired Fury began climbing out. I clubbed her with the thyrsus and knocked her down the stairs. Phoebe slammed the door shut again.

  “Run!” I said.

  “Where?”

  The buildings butted up against one another all the way up the street. I ran across and climbed over onto the next roof. Phoebe, limping, climbed over after me. We continued moving from roof to roof.

  The Furies emerged behind us.

  We reached the gap of a narrow alley. A long jump, and Phoebe’s foot was bleeding. I looked for a place to climb down. “Maybe we can—”

  Phoebe suddenly leapt through the air. She landed, painfully, but got up and limped ahead.

  I turned. Half a dozen Furies were racing toward us, flying across the rooftops. I jumped over the gap and ran to follow Phoebe.

  We climbed onto a higher roof, then crossed two more before reaching another gap. This one worse than the last.

  Phoebe hesitated, peering down into the alley.

  I looked around for a way to get down. I spotted what looked like a trapdoor.

  “This way,” I said.

  “Wait,” Phoebe said. “Look.”

  She was pointing up the alley toward a steeply sloping street. Dan and Damiana were racing alone up the incline. Dan kept glancing behind him, as if looking for Furies, or for us.

  “Where are they going?” I asked.

  “There,” Phoebe said, looking farther up the hill.

  Over the rooftops, standing out boldly against the night sky, was the great gold dome with the Byzantine cross.

  “The church,” I said. “They’re heading for the church.”

  25

  WE RAN to the trapdoor. It turned out to be the glass pane of an old-fashioned skylight. I tried to force it open, but it wouldn’t budge. Phoebe lent her muscle to it. Still it wouldn’t give.

  The Furies were heading across the roofs toward us.

  I took my thyrsus and stood over the skylight. I wound up and brought it down hard on the glass. The skylight shattered, raining shards on the wood floor below.

  Phoebe grabbed the stick from me. She could barely put weight on her bloody foot. “You first,” she said. “You’ll have to break my fall.”

  The Furies were racing toward us. I climbed through the skylight, clinging to the rim while trying to avoid the remaining shards of glass. I dropped down and hung there, dangling in the dark. Then I let go and plummeted. I landed on glass, slipped, and crashed, my palms pressing into prickly shards.

  The shadowy apartment appeared to be empty.

  I looked up. No one could be seen through the skylight. I stood and called for Phoebe, but all I heard was the shuffle of feet and the screams and hollers of the Furies.

  I looked around for a ladder, or a table, or something to allow me to climb back up on the roof. The cot in the corner looked too low, and the lamp table too flimsy. I went to grab the mattress to help me break her fall, but the second I stepped away, a naked Fury fell screaming through the air, landing with a horrible thud.

  She lay facedown, perfectly still, a welt from the thyrsus bleeding on her back.

  On the roof, the battle raged. I could hear Phoebe grunting while the prancing Furies raged.

  How could I get up there and help her?

  The woman on the floor started crawling to her knees. I took a step toward her, uncertain what to do. Suddenly, Phoebe plummeted from the skylight, crashing d
own on the woman’s bare back. The woman crumpled beneath her, breaking Phoebe’s fall.

  I helped Phoebe to her feet. A triangular shard of glass was impaled in her thigh. She howled as she pulled it out.

  The woman on the floor lay still. Above us, Furies peered through the skylight.

  Phoebe glared up at them, angry and shaken. “Fuck you!” she screamed.

  They cackled, laughing madly.

  I grabbed the little table and tossed it upside down beside the woman on the floor. I turned the chair upside down next to it. When this happy band of Furies came after us—as I had no doubt they would—their landing would prove more painful than ours.

  We hurried through a doorway and down a pitch-dark stairwell into another shadowy room. I ran to the window and threw open the shutter. Furies were heading down the street below. When I turned back into the room, I heard a tiny voice in the darkness, a squeaky, muffled cry. By a bassinet in the corner, a mother stood cradling her baby. We couldn’t see the mother’s face in the dark. She was wearing a bathrobe and appeared to be fairly young.

  “Is there a way out through the back?” I asked.

  The woman stared at me without answering, rocking the baby nervously.

  Screams and painful yells erupted as Furies crashed to the floor above us.

  “This way, Jack!”

  I followed Phoebe down another set of stairs. We came out into a small restaurant kitchen at the back of a taverna. A cat on a counter whined. At a butcher-block table, an old man in bedclothes sat before an open bottle, sipping from a glass in the dark.

  We looked at him, dumbfounded.

  Another thundering crash upstairs was followed by shouts and laughter.

  Phoebe ran limping to the back. Blood was running from the cut in her thigh. I followed her down a hall to a door that led into an alley. The two of us peeked out cautiously. The narrow lane was empty.

  Outside, we could hear the cries of the Furies coming from the streets around us. They seemed to be everywhere. When we glimpsed a band of them passing by the alley, we took off in the opposite direction. We came out onto a broad, dark street, but were forced into another twisting alley when another pack of Furies appeared. This short alley led us to an empty, sloping street that somehow looked familiar. We started uphill, assuming that eventually we’d find our way to the church. Clinging to the shadows, we made our way up a steep sidewalk of stone steps. Near the top we came to a narrow alley.