by william Todd
Another minute of shuffling through the contents on the chest of drawers revealed nothing of any significance to his search.
He next searched the wardrobe, but that, too, was fruitless. Wendell was about to inspect the space under his father’s bed when an unexpected noise from downstairs drew his attention away from his exploration. He could hear a door creak open and the old servant couple bickering—something about too much salt on the perch. Miss Betty vehemently disagreed (she did everything with vehemence).
Wendell cursed under his breath; they were done with lunch early and were beginning the afternoon phase of their daily sacramental—they would go through each room one by one to make sure no dirt or dust had settled on what they had vigorously cleaned in the morning. They would soon be upstairs. They always started on the top floor, usually in Father’s bedroom, and worked their way back downstairs.
Wendell hastily retraced his steps to the window, quietly reclosed it once outside, and descended the old oak to the safety of the yard below, cursing the entire way at coming away with no better an idea of what that dark monstrosity was that had directly or indirectly killed his father.
3
Wendell walked into the Reed House hotel like he owned it. He strode with confidence over the polished floor to the wall length, mahogany counter and said to the wellcoiffed desk clerk, “I’d like a room, please.”
The desk clerk eyed Wendell suspiciously, looked him up and down, taking in his shabby appearance. “I think you want the Clarendon down by the docks.”
His face gleamed with a wry smile. “No, no, my good man. This will do just fine.” He pulled out the money Arnold had given him and waved it in the young man’s face. “I’ll be here for a while, but I’ll pay for just three days in advance. Give it a bit of a go to see if it’s worth any more than that,” he teased. “If not, I may have to try the Ellesworth down the way.”
The desk clerk sighed in exasperation, as he eyed the money being waved about. “Sir, may I suggest that if you are going to stay here that you at least . . . update your wardrobe?”
“Part of my master plan, you see, but first things first: I need a room in which to put my new wardrobe.” As Wendell signed in the hotel registry, the desk clerk pulled a key from a mahogany wall behind him. “May I suggest McWilliams Clothier next door?” he advocated, as he handed Wendell the key.
Wendell handed him three days’ payment. “You may. And I will, thank you.”
With a tangled look on his face, the clerk was about to say something but stopped short. Reading that querying expression, Wendell said as he turned to leave, “I was thrown into a water trough. Don’t tell me that’s never happened to you.”
. . . . . Wendell bought three changes of clothes, washed up and, thus looking like a proper gentleman, now lay on the bed in his hotel room, looking like a well-dressed ass, as he picked at some fuzz on his newly-creased pant leg. A loud sigh filled the room. He had failed at finding anything of note in his father’s house and was now unsure of what to do or what to think, which was rather disappointing. A sleuth he was not.
What had transpired in his father’s hospital room was otherworldly. Things don’t just materialize from thin air. Yet he was as sure as rain on Sunday that what he saw was not a figment of his imagination. He was also fairly certain that shadows don’t move about on their own, and they certainly don’t have the capacity for seeing. Yet that shadow in the room roiled like bubbling tar, and its jaundiced eyes— eyes that should not have been there—peered right at him, almost seeming to look into his very being. He didn’t believe in hocus pocus religious tomfoolery. Yet…
With no conscious thought, Wendell suddenly leapt from the bed and raced to the window overlooking the Diamond. His hands now trembled terribly, as he tried without success to gain access to fresh air. His mouth seemed lined with cotton when he tried to lick his dried lips back to life. An anxiety had abruptly overtaken him. It wasn’t an apprehension born from fear, necessarily, though fear, no doubt, was a component. No, this was his body’s way of saying it needed more opium. As his body got used to the drug, it craved it more and more to acquire the same level of bliss Wendell couldn’t attain in any attempt at a normal life.
He sighed, for he always—and usually gladly—fed that hunger. He would have to now, as well, if for no other reason than to keep his body satisfied while he tried to figure out what it was he saw in his father’s room.
Wendell turned from the window, as he flexed his shaking hands in an attempt at calming them, grabbed the remaining money from the night stand next to him, and headed to a place known to only a few and attended by still less.
. . . . At the east end of the docks along the shores of the bay was a line of fishing supply shops. The last
establishment in this line was a nondescript structure, much the same as the rest. Its only difference was a solid door instead of a glass front and no windows.
A wooden walkway serviced these small
establishments, and it was in dire need of repair. Wendell mooched carefully along, making sure he stepped precisely, fearing a misstep would cause a spill and the ruination of his new clothes.
A line of small boats tapped an odd syncopation against their moorings, as waves lapped between them along the shoreline to his left.
After winding his way along the water-warped, splintered boardwalk, Wendell stopped at the last door, hesitated briefly, and knocked.
A small rectangular opening appeared and two dark, glassy eyes stared out at him. “What you want? We closed,” said a squeaky, oriental voice on the other side.
Wendell replied, “I find myself in dire need to chase the dragon.”
The eyes bounced left then right nervously. “We no do that here. Go away.” The man on the other side of the door was about to close the peep hole when Wendell pulled out his money and waved it in front of him. “I regularly chase at Imau’s down on Parade, but I find myself here at the moment.”
“No like Imau. He take business from me.”
“Then consider me restitution,” Wendell replied with a smile. The two beady eyes looked around again from their peep hole. The money finally won out over trepidation. “Fine. You come in. Quickly, quickly.”
When Wendell slipped inside the door, the man relocked it behind him and led him past fishing supplies to a back room behind the counter. He could see why this establishment was losing out over Imau’s. It was a small, dirty room. The walls were stained with smoke residue, and no pictures or tapestries adorned them, as they did at Imau’s. Three threadbare couches in a U shape around a long rectangular table were fixed on the left side of the room. There was a lit oil lamp in the center of the table with opium pipes placed all around. These were currently being used by slovenly men, all at or near unconsciousness.
At the other end of the room were three tattered rugs, ill-lit by candlelight. Two men were inhaling deeply from their pipes, one rug and pipe lay empty. The little oriental man pointed to it. “You sit there. All ready to go. You pay me now.”
Wendell paid the man, sat at his rug and lit his pipe. Soon, he was feeling much the way he’d felt before Arnold had so rudely awakened him from his reverie earlier in the day. He felt light, calm, and his body tingled in that funny way it does when the opium takes effect.
His first hazy thoughts, like heat-induced ripples off a summer macadam, were of Verity and the twins, little Abel and Becca—his would be family. The guilt he carried of his absence from them was monumental. He had never wanted to leave them. He wanted even more to be that man that Arnold had said he refused to be. Just as he did with his father, he cared for them and loved them. He somehow just didn’t feel worthy of them. It was an emptiness he had carried about for as long as he could remember, like a great weight that constantly tried to pull him under the waves of irrelevance.
Then poof, they were gone, evaporated into the air like the smoke that escaped his inhalations. Next was his mother: her sandy, wild curls; her everpresent
smile that stretched into forever; her hugs, so strong he thought he’d be smothered in their embraces, yet that strength was more soothing than anything he could put into words.
Then poof, she was gone, as well. Lastly was his father, however these thoughts were not fond memories of halcyon days but more recent in origin: they were of the hospital room earlier in the day. His recollection now, though, was slightly different than what had actually transpired. When his father had told him to dowse the candles in his hand, every wick in the room lost its flame. He was plunged into darkness. A darkness so complete that one would think that light did not—could not—exist in the void around him.
Wendell called out to his father but the silence in return was deafening. Wherever the light went, sound seemed to follow behind like an obedient dog.
Out of the empty silence something thick, cold, and wet locked around his neck, cutting off a scream. He found himself suddenly off his feet and landing on an icy, hard surface that knocked the wind from him.
This was like no other opium dream Wendell had ever experienced. The fear he felt seemed real, not imagined. The pain he now felt was very real.
A light that had no origin appeared above like a spotlight, shining down on him. Nothing about his surroundings, however, came into focus.
He had somehow lost his new clothes and now lie naked, outstretched on a cold, slick slab of waist-high stone. The chain linked cuff around his neck made it almost impossible to breath, and now cuffs materialized around his feet and wrists, as well. These, however, seemed laced with barbs for they cut into his skin. Drops of blood dripped into the grave-dark spaces beyond his peripheral vision.
“Hello, Mr. Wiggins,” came a voice from the shadows. It seemed everywhere but nowhere. It was deep, gravelly, cumbersome, as though it had more teeth than could fit in its mouth. It spoke slowly, with deliberation, in a decidedly alien inflection “We finally meet. Your father told me many things about you, which made me long for this moment.”
He struggled in the chains to no avail. His head throbbed mightily and the back of it felt sticky. His racing heart exacerbated the pain. “What do you want?” he cried out.
“For the moment just to enjoy this.” Another chain propelled forward from the shadows by an unseen force. At its end was a large, razor-tipped hook. Before Wendell had time to react to its presence, the hook lodged itself into then through his left side and pulled itself taught, stretching his skin. Blood pooled in the puncture then spidered down his side.
Wendell screamed in agony. He wanted to struggle to free himself, but he already felt as though he was stretched to the point of being torn apart.
As the thing in the shadows laughed, a grotesque, phlegmy gurgle, a second hooked chain flew from the shadows and lodged itself in Wendell’s other side, stretching his skin to the point of tearing.
He cried out a second time, face contorted in an admixture of excruciating pain and abject terror.
“Please! Please stop!” Wendell begged between struggled breaths. “Wh-what do you want from me?” “I’m old,” it said mockingly. “I get very little enjoyment in my old age. Let me partake in this one small pleasure first then we shall chat.”
The inky space to his right began to churn, like boiling pitch. From within this slithering mass, sickly yellow eyes suddenly materialized. Wendell recognized them—they were the eyes from his father’s hospital room.
The formless mass began to take shape as it inched toward the light. Wendell tried to blink back a pain that put him on the verge of unconsciousness. He could not force his eyes into focus, but the thing had a definite humanoid form. He could make out through blurred vision a massive body with bosselated outlines.
The creature stopped just on the perimeter of the cone of light. Its unblinking eyes looked him up and down, seemed to be considering Wendell’s predicament with sadistic intent.
Suddenly, the stone platform he had been laying on was gone, and he remained in position only by the cuffs and hooks in his side.
Wendell screamed impossibly louder, as the tension became almost too much to bare. Blood streamed from each wound as punctures stretched and barbs cut deeper. He screamed and screamed.
Still staying within the shadows, the thing slowly walked the perimeter around Wendell’s outstretched body. It whispered in low tones—which sounded not unlike the buzz of angry hornets—a language that Wendell did not know. When it reached Wendell’s head it lowered itself while still staying hidden in sepulchral darkness and whispered, “Now we shall talk.”
Blinking back tears, Wendell stuttered, “Wh-what is it y-you want from me?”
“I want you children. Give me your children and your suffering will stop.” Without warning, all the chains retracted back into the darkness with the force of being pulled by draught horses, ripping skin and dislocating joints, before several pops sent Wendell into a cold, quiet blackness.
4
“Hey. Hey! You scaring the customers!”
Wendell shot up from his nightmare to the little oriental man angrily shaking his shoulder.
“You go. You scare the customers.” Wendell reflexively felt around his neck, as he tried to calm his hyperventilating breaths. He then moved quickly to his arms and legs—all intact. He pulled up his shirt and looked at his sides, expecting puncture wounds from the hooks, but there was no sign at all that he’d been impaled.
Wendell looked around the room. All eyes were on him, all tinged with dope-mingled fear.
“You go now. No more,” implored the little man as his pulled Wendell up to his feet. “The dragon no like you.” Still trying to shake off the high, not sure what had just transpired, not sure what was happening now, he staggered forward at the firm insistence of the store owner, who seemed stronger than his stature would suggest.
Before Wendell had a chance to even form a reply or rebuttal, he was back outside, and the door slammed closed behind him.
Trying to rub sobriety back into his eyes, Wendell looked around him to see if anyone had seen the abrupt display. Boats were meandering back to the docks, and those that had already made it in were too busy buttoning up and taking inventory to take any notice of him. At the moment, he was the only one on the bay front not engaged in some sort of meaningful undertaking.
Noticing the sun bleeding onto the treetops to the west, Wendell figured it was nearing 6:00 p.m. That meant it would be dark soon. Having seen what the thing could do in his dreams, he was in no hurry to see what it would do in the coming darkness.
He picked through the rotting walkway faster on the return trip, not caring about whether or not he took a spill. He needed to get to his room and get it lit.
As he rushed back up the hill to his hotel room, Wendell began to favor his sides; though no wounds were present, they still pinched painfully.
. . . . . The desk clerk was thumbing through the newspaper when Wendell rushed up to the counter. “Can I send a message over to St. Patrick’s and have Father, uh, what’s his name—”
“Casey,” the clerk interjected, not looking up from his reading. “—yeah, Casey. Can you send him a telegram to have him come over here, to my room in 313? Wendell Wiggins. He’ll know the name, I believe. The last name, anyway. It’s urgent.”
Glancing up only momentarily to make sure the interlocutor wasn’t kidding, the desk clerk offered, “You do realize the church is literally just two blocks away,” and resumed his reading.
“Yes, but it’s getting dark out.” The clerk’s paper perusal stopped, if only for a moment, as Wendell gave his rejoinder. He never looked up, only stared blankly at the newsprint, as if trying to process how a lack of light had any bearing on the church’s location. Not finding an adequate response to this, the desk clerk’s head resumed its slight back and forth motion as it followed his eyes along the page without offering up a reply.
“I’ll pay for the telegram,” Wendell added, as he reached into the inner pocket of his suitcoat—and realized his clip and the money it
held was missing.
“Sonofabitch!” he cursed under his breath, as he checked his other pockets to no avail. The thieving, little china man must have removed it from his pocket when he was being ripped apart in his opium dream.
Yet another reason people were going to Imau’s to get high.
“Never mind,” Wendell said as he rushed back across the large foyer to the double front doors of the hotel. The clerk looked back up from his paper, watching Wendell run. He repeated to himself with a note of confusion, “It’s only two blocks away. Literally. Two blocks.”
He shook his head disparagingly and returned to his paper.
. . . . . The sky was a deep blue, bruising to purple, but there was still enough light to cast long shadows that stretched across the walkway. However, in the deeper shadows, between houses or the inky spaces between closely spaced trees, the darkness moved. Wendell could see it come alive from the corners of his eyes. It writhed like slow-moving lava, but he kept up his run, stumbling occasionally over an upheaved brick or root peeking between them. If he stayed within the lighter spaces he figured he’d be safe—but not for much longer.
Finally, at the corner of East Fourth and Holland Streets stood St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church, its brick edifice stained in the twilight.
Wendell would have to have some words with that desk clerk when he returned; it was actually four blocks, not two.
He climbed the steep steps two at a time, opened, then disappeared, behind the large wooden doors. Never having been in a church of any variety, Wendell went where instinct told him. He saw flickering light through the archway of the narthex and quickly crossed it and ran down the center isle of the nave. The left of the altar was alight with a massive display of votive candles arranged in a semi-circle around a white marble statue of the Blessed Virgin.