by Dave Shelton
She’d found out who The Writer’s House had belonged to as well. She’d asked a few of her regulars until a half-remembered title gave her enough of a lead to find his name. Then, out of interest, she’d tracked down copies of both his novels in other branches and had them transferred over.
When she read them she recognized the style at once.
The second book to arrive had been published after his death. It was a dark and disturbing story, but it was the “about the author” page that finally shocked her into action.
She drove to the house straight after work. There was no answer to her knock, but the door wasn’t locked when she tried it.
*
She was sure, as soon as she saw him, that James was dead. She stood in the doorway for a long moment, staring at the scene before her, shocked into a strange numbness. It was horrible but fascinating.
Perhaps because of the chaos around it, it was the neat pile of notebooks that held her attention. There was a reassuring normalness to them, order and familiarity (they were the same kind of books Mary had used at school). They looked like something from real life. So she focused on the books, and chose not to dwell on any of the rest of it for now. In a daze, she shuffled over to the table and picked up the books. They were numbered on their covers from three to six. As a librarian, and a respecter of the correct order of things, she dutifully opened up book three and, on an impulse, began to read.
*
By the time she had finished book six, it was the early hours of the morning. She slept briefly before she continued to read, slowly finding some order in the rest of James’s final writings: on loose sheets of paper, the backs of envelopes, paper towels, and elsewhere. James’s handwriting had deteriorated as he went along and this helped her to find the correct order, and told her at once that the writing on the table itself (still reasonably legible) preceded the less-controlled writing on the walls, and that the wild scrawl on James’s own left arm came last.
She had expected an ending. She had, in fact, relied upon it. She had had to steel herself to read (with difficulty) the last words trailed over James’s pale, dead skin, had known she should have stopped long ago, should not even have started. But the writing—the beautiful, elegant, seductive sentences—had compelled her to go on. Now that they had run out she felt sick, twice over: once from gorging herself, and once for still feeling unsatisfied.
There had to be an ending.
She searched the room frantically for some other, previously overlooked scrap of paper that might contain it, checked every surface, ran through the rest of the house in case it might have been set down in some other room.
At last she was forced to conclude that there simply was no ending. James had written himself to death, but whatever madness had forced him to do so, had kept him from sleeping or eating for days, had drained all these words and his life from him, had still not completed its task.
Back in the kitchen, dawn’s light breaking through the window, Mary sank, exhausted, to the floor. She glanced resentfully at James’s body sprawled across the tabletop and then, appalled at this reaction, shook herself into recognizing the awfulness of what she had done. What had she been thinking? She would go now, return to town, and telephone the police. Or should she call for an ambulance? She wasn’t sure. But she would go and belatedly do what was needed. She couldn’t believe how the writing had gripped her, nor how overwhelmingly she had felt the need for an ending to the story.
Well, there could never be one now, so there was no point thinking about it.
Unless …
A thought occurred to her. She had a notebook and a pen in her pocket. And there was a larger notepad in the car if she needed it. She was already onto the second page of the notebook, her writing dense and neat and flowing quickly.
James and the world fell away, and all that was left were words.
Frances Crane sits still for a moment. She is leaning forward, propped up on one arm. Her head is bowed. She looks drained, as if the telling of her story has sapped all the energy from her, wiped away her playful smile.
“Are you okay?” says Jack.
Frances looks up at him. “Yes,” she says hesitantly. “Yes, thank you.” She throws him a cursory smile. A weak little thing that dies in a second. “That one affects me more than most for some reason, but I always forget. Maybe it’s because it reminds me of what happened to my writer friend.”
“What was that?”
“In the end he did run out of ideas. Suddenly couldn’t write anything more. And then, well, then I’m afraid he killed himself. And nobody saw it coming, because he always seemed so happy. That’s so often the way, though, isn’t it? Nobody sees.” Then she manages another smile—a narrow, flat kind of a thing—before she blows out her candle and backs away into the thickening darkness.
“Thank you,” says Mr. Osterley.
Three flames left now: Mr. Osterley’s, Mr. Randolph’s, and Jack’s, and the candles are burning low.
It doesn’t surprise Jack when Mr. Osterley calls upon Mr. Randolph to take the next turn. He had begun to suspect that this strange ritual must end with Jack and Mr. Osterley facing each other alone in the light. But nor is he relieved. Because Jack is beginning to realize what his story must be when his turn comes. And while he is scared to tell it, he will not run, because the other story—the story of this night of stories—is not yet over. And he wants to know how that story ends.
But first there will be Mr. Randolph’s turn.
“This is my own story,” says Mr. Randolph.
He closes his eyes for a moment, and when he opens them again it seems to Jack that he has taken himself away somewhere, to another time and another place. And just for a moment there is a trace of a smile on that cold face of his.
Jenny, my sister, gave me a snowstorm. You know, those toys with a scene in a glass globe full of water, and when you shake it up it snows? One of those. Got it for me as a parting gift, when she heard that I was going to the Antarctic for six months.
Pretty good joke.
She made another joke, too. She said: “It’s a long way to go just because you’re scared of the dark.” Because I had been, a bit, when we were kids, and because when I got to Oates—the Captain Oates Research Station—in October, the sun would have just come up. And it wouldn’t be going down again until March. That’s how it is there: a day that lasts half a year. They warned me about it at the job interview. Apparently, it sends some people a bit crazy, but I wasn’t worried.
Didn’t think I’d mind being there with so few people, either. Never been what you’d call sociable. Thought being in a remote place with only a dozen other people would suit me. Thirteen of us. But even with only a small crew, there can still be someone who’ll drive you mad. Drive me mad, at least. Most of them did a bit, from time to time, I suppose. But the worst of them was Jim Bailey. Bloody Jim Bailey. Jim Bailey, who thought he was funny, but wasn’t.
He thought he was funny because he was always telling jokes. Didn’t bother him that he only knew three. Didn’t notice that no one ever laughed.
These were his “jokes”:
Whenever anybody left the station he’d say, “Better wrap up warm. It’s cold out.”
Whenever he got anyone a drink he’d say, “Do you want ice with that?” Even if it was tea or coffee.
Whenever he went outside he’d say, “I may be some time.” Only, unlike Captain Oates, he always came back.
At least, for the first five weeks he did.
Then one morning he went out on one of the ski-doos (the snowmobiles we used) on his own. You’re not meant to do that. It’s stupid. It was especially stupid for Jim Bailey because he rode a ski-doo like a maniac. And it was particularly stupid just then because our radios had been down for a couple of days. Some kind of atmospheric thing, we thought. At least, Deeta—our radio geek—couldn’t find anything wrong with the sets themselves, so we assumed it had to be that. Couldn’t contact the other bases,
couldn’t talk to Jim Bailey out on his own on a ski-doo and ask him what the hell he thought he was doing.
And this time he really was quite some time. Long enough that something must have happened. Long enough that he’d either broken down or crashed. And I knew he hadn’t broken down because I was the one who looked after the ski-doos, and I was good at my job.
But then a crash wasn’t likely, either, because there isn’t really anything to crash into out there. But this was Jim Bailey. If anyone could find a way of crashing in the middle of a big, flat expanse of featureless ice with nothing to be seen in any direction for miles, then it was him.
And if he had crashed, or broken down somehow, then most likely he was dead. Because Oates was the newest and southernmost of the UK Antarctic Survey’s bases, and we were too far away from any of the others, or the nearest US base, to reach them. But there were a few derelict facilities dotted around the area. So it was just possible that Bailey might have found his way to some hut half buried in the snow since the seventies or something. And if he’d done that, then it was just possible he might still be alive.
So we had to go and look for him. And as the radios were out of action, it was decided that the guy who could fix the ski-doos had better be part of the search party.
I was not happy.
There were three remaining ski-doos, so two others from the crew went out with me: Ambler and Cole. They were all right, that pair. Knew each other from working together at another base before. Cole was a big fella, and funny. Used to sing to himself without realizing he was doing it.
Used to.
Ambler was a scrawny-looking sort of bloke, and a bit of a worrier. Only ever seemed to have time for his work and nothing much else. But, like I say, he was all right. Anyway, we wrapped up warm and we set off. The rest of the crew saw us off. Or at least they stood about watching us go out the door, but nobody said very much. I don’t think anyone expected it to go well.
At least we had a trail to follow. Deeta had seen which way Bailey had headed off, and no one else had gone that way lately, so there was a clear set of tracks. And, it being the summer after all, the weather wasn’t so bad: it was only −40°F, and visibility was good. It wasn’t snowing, but that’s rare anyway. Apparently, technically speaking, it’s a desert out there: it’s all about the amount of precipitation, nothing to do with heat. Jim Bailey told me that, I think—it’s certainly the kind of thing he would say.
Half an hour out from the base and we realized we didn’t need to follow the tracks anymore. Ambler saw it first: Bailey’s ski-doo, abandoned. At first glance there was no obvious damage to it. Close-up it was just the same. I tried the engine and it started the first time, as I’d expected. There was nothing wrong with it, not a mark on it. The engine just purred beautifully, until I turned it off.
We took a look around. We were on a flat, featureless plain of blue-white ice, with good visibility in all directions, a clear view right to the horizon, and we were looking for a man in a bright red coat. If he’d been there, you’d have to figure we’d’ve spotted him.
But there was no sign.
“Who leaves a perfectly good ski-doo and decides he’d rather walk in this place?” Cole said.
“An idiot,” I said.
“Uh-huh. Okay,” said Cole. “But which way did the idiot go?”
“Are we near anything here?” I said.
“There was an outpost …” Ambler was looking at a map and a compass and slowly turning himself around on the spot. Then he stopped turning and looked up, out across the big white nothing, frowning. “About three miles that way.” He pointed. “Finnish geophysicists back in the seventies. But it’s likely buried by now, and I doubt Bailey even knew it was there.”
“No,” I said. “But it’s the place we should look.”
“Why?”
“Because if he’s anywhere else then he’s dead anyway.”
There was no wind. No sound except our breathing and the crunch of the ice beneath our feet as we shuffled and shifted our weight from side to side. Keeping warm, or nervous; I’m not sure which.
Ambler nodded. “OK. Let’s go.”
It took us about fifteen minutes on the ski-doos to get to the right spot, then fifteen more before Cole spotted the nearly buried outpost. The entrance was just visible above the surface of the ice, a slit of darkness gaping up from the whiteness, like the mouth of a drowning man gasping for air. We parked up and looked in.
The snow had piled up, forming a natural ramp up to a mailbox-sized gap into the small domed building. No answer when we shouted in, and no footprints leading up to the entrance, so we knew there couldn’t be anyone in there. But we decided that one of us had to go in anyway. And Cole and Ambler knew each other from before, so I got outvoted.
I scrambled up the slope, and had to crawl through the gap on my belly because it was so narrow. While I was trying to squeeze through, Cole started giggling, watching me struggling and flailing about, and that set Ambler off, too. Don’t think I’d ever heard him laugh before. Just a nervous reaction, I suppose, but it made me angry at the time. I was just about to shout at them to shut up when I finally managed to haul myself through, and dropped.
The snow sloped down sharply inside, so I slid down hard and fast, yelling out in surprise and setting the other two laughing even harder. I came to a standstill with a mouthful of snow, my cheeks burning with cold and embarrassment. I could hear the other two laughing outside. I shouted and swore at them to shut up, but the angrier I got, the harder they laughed. And the harder they laughed, the angrier I got, so eventually I decided to ignore them and get on.
There was hardly any light getting through but it was still enough to see that there was nothing and no one there. It was a tiny space and the Finnish team had done a thorough job of clearing it out. I turned the flashlight on anyway and kicked around in the snow on the floor for a while just because, well, we’d gone a long way to get there and it just seemed right to take the time. But there really was nothing.
I realized as I moved to make my way back out that Ambler and Cole had stopped laughing, but then the silence was broken by another noise.
A dull thump, then a quiet cry. Then a moment of muffled conversation that I couldn’t make out.
I shouted, “All right out there?” No reply.
I made my way out again, lumbering up the slope, cursing, and posted myself back out into the light. The glare off the ice did my eyes in for a second. Everything was nothing. Then when I could see again, I realized that Ambler and Cole were gone.
I trudged down the ice slope to where they’d been standing, shouted out their names. No answer. And there were three small splashes of blood on the ice.
Then I saw the footprints leading off around the shelter. Well-spaced, long strides—Ambler and Cole moving quickly. And another drop of blood every other footstep. Once I was around the dome I could see them, orange specks on the snow at the end of a line of footprints, too far off to hear me shouting. They were walking away from me, Cole ahead, walking really purposefully, Ambler behind, waving his arms about as if he was trying to get him to stop. If I’d been thinking straight I’d have gotten on a ski-doo to go after them, but instead I ran. Well, not much of a run. The clothing you wear in those parts isn’t exactly built for speed. But I took long strides and swung my arms, like a child pretending to be a giant, or an astronaut bounding about on the moon.
By the time I caught up with them, Ambler was in front of Cole, facing him, bracing himself, ready to physically block his path. He was barely half Cole’s size so he’d’ve struggled to manage it, but Cole had come to a halt anyway. He was hunched over, like the air was leaking out of him, and he was staring up at Ambler, looking dazed, like he’d just woken up and didn’t know where he was. Took a while before anyone said anything.
“He thought he saw someone,” Ambler said to me. He had a thin, bloody, snotty icicle trailing down from one nostril over his beard.
; “Bailey?” I said.
Cole said, “No.” He was staring off into the distance, squinting in confusion, and then wide-eyed and surprised. Then he blinked once and turned his head my way, looked me straight in the eyes.
“It was a boy,” he said.
I looked at him very closely. I didn’t know what to say. It couldn’t have been a boy. And Cole must have known that.
“I know it doesn’t make any sense,” he said, clear and calm, and still looking me straight in the eye. “I know it can’t have been. But it was. It was a boy. Maybe … twelve, thirteen years old.”
I turned my head, looking off over the white expanse in all directions. Obviously there was no boy. And there was nowhere for a boy to be and not be seen. But I didn’t say anything.
He said: “I know. I do know.”
I glanced at Ambler and he shrugged back at me, overacting it so that the gesture was still clear even through the thick padding of his coat.
I pointed at the messy frozen blood in his moustache and beard. “What happened?”
He said: “Cole bumped into me when he set off after this boy he says he saw. Kind of headbutted me by accident.”
“So he’s had a bang on the head?”
“No,” said Cole. “Well, yes, a bit. But after I saw the boy. It wasn’t a concussion, if that’s what you’re thinking.” He scowled. “I just … saw something impossible … that no one else did, that’s all.”
We all stood there for a minute. Ambler wiped the back of his glove under his nose and most of the icy, bloody snot there broke off and fell to the ground.
I said: “Let’s get back.”
And they didn’t take any persuading. We walked back to the ski-doos, along the trail of our footprints. And there were only our footprints.
The cold had gotten into us by the time we got back to the base. We trudged up the steps in silence. I was thinking about Bailey. Feeling sad about him, but not only sad, because I really hadn’t liked him. So I also felt guilty about the fact that he was almost certainly dead. As if it was my fault somehow. And I was wondering how the others would take it, too.