“Where you been?” Edgar says as Jack clumps down the stairs. “It’s almost midnight!”
“Where’s Front-Page?” asks McCoy Brewer.
“Right now?” says Jack. “Right now I’d say he’s catching up with someone he’s been missing for a long time.”
“Where’d you leave him?” asks Bills Williams.
Jack walks across to the counter and lifts the hatch. “In the park.”
Bills smiles. “And I bet I know where,” he says.
“Coffee anyone?” asks Jack. “It’s been a long—”
Suddenly the lights flicker.
A wind blows down the stairs and swirls around them, a wind so strong that the five of them shield their eyes.
Then, as quickly as it appeared, the wind drops.
The lights return to their full intensity.
And a solitary shimmering figure stands at the foot of the stairs.
“Someone call me?” asks Dawdle O’Rourke.
SIMON STRANTZAS
* * *
It Runs Beneath the Surface
SIMON STRANTZAS WAS BORN in the harsh darkness of the Canadian winter over thirty years ago. He is the author of two short story collections – Beneath the Surface (Humdrumming, 2008) and Cold to the Touch (Tartarus, 2009) – and his work has not only appeared in such award-winning magazines as Cemetery Dance and PostScripts, but also in the previous volume of The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror.
He is currently working on a third collection of weird fiction; after which he plans to catch up on a voluminous amount of reading, and then perhaps begin work on a short novel.
“There is something about city life that fascinates me,” explains Strantzas. “I find myself musing to no end about the effect it has on its inhabitants. I know I’m not alone in that regard – some of the greatest examples of the urban supernatural are in the work of Fritz Leiber, especially in stories such as “Smoke Ghost” and “The Black Gondolier”. Both these tales no doubt infected my mind when I was dreaming up “It Runs Beneath the Surface”, but it was an inchoate mess until I chanced to hear a stray line from an unassuming pop song. Suddenly all my disparate thoughts coalesced and I knew exactly what the tale was about, what should happen in it and, most importantly, how it should end.
“On reflection, I’m particularly proud of the dot the final line puts on things.”
THE SUBWAY CAR PIERCED the darkness, rattling along its thin track and filled with faces carrying a burdensome weight. Pale, sallow, as if the city had drained them, the passengers shook quietly, packed together in the tiny metal box.
Philip Kirk had managed to find a seat for the ride in but he regretted taking it once bodies filled the space around him and stole oxygen from his lungs. He adjusted his rumpled jacket, trying to alleviate its restrictiveness and find a few extra inches in which to move. The yellow lights of the car buzzed and flickered intermittently with every power surge, and they drew the shadows that confined him closer.
The jittering train came to a stop at Carlton Street Station. Philip peered through his window at the sullen people moving like automatons across the opposite platform. They seemed to have already conceded failure; it was in their stances, in the way they walked.
An eruption of movement caught his eye. A vagrant covered in grime ran erratically across the platform, clutching at himself, ripping his tangled beard and unkempt hair. He screamed, his mouth a dark and bottomless pit, but the noise was ineffectual; no one but Philip appeared to notice, and even then it was inaudible over the roar of the train unsteadily moving forward. The filthy man reached the end of the platform just as the train passed before him, and Philip only caught a glimpse of arms from the shadows stretching to catch the man.
When Philip finally arrived at the Eastside Mission he found he had the place to himself. He sat at his desk and ran wrinkled hands over case reports and worn files, re-reading the data that he had already memorized. The grey words of each report read the same: there was nothing more that could be done for any of them, no magic wand to be waved that assimilated his clients back into the world they left so long ago. No one wanted to bear the trouble. No one wanted to do anything but forget.
“Sorry,” Philip heard, and looked up to see Allan picking his blue topcoat free of lint before hanging it on the shared rack. “I had to make a stop.” Across the back of his pressed trouser leg was a large smear of mud. Philip noted it with suspicion but said nothing.
Clients arrived in a steady flow, their amorphous shadows darkening the translucent window to the waiting room. The two men took turns using the counselling room that sat through a door on the right wall, though Allan’s sessions often ran overlong. He was still enthralled by all the pains and troubles that flowed through his clients like darkened blood, but for Philip they were merely further evidence of a rotted world that tainted its cowed populace. At the end of every session he felt soaked through with despair and secretly he envied Allan and the hopes the young man still held in his clear blue eyes.
Those eyes clouded, however, upon the conclusion of his afternoon session. Philip had observed Allan’s new client but briefly, and – though he was perhaps less kempt than the rest – there was nothing beside his height that marked him as different. Even that wasn’t very peculiar, yet Allan appeared disturbed.
“I’ve never spoken to someone that far gone before.”
Philip’s eyes did not move from his work. “How so?”
“What he said didn’t make any sense. He just kept warning me about something. I’m not sure he ever told me about what.”
“You’ll get used to that,” Philip said. “They all imagine some disaster is happening.”
“I suppose.” Allan trailed off, looking out the window for a long time. Philip noticed and turned, but saw only amassing rain clouds through the glass. Allan eventually excused himself, rubbing his eyes. By the time Philip finished with his last client Allan and his topcoat had already disappeared for the day. Philip left a short time later.
His ride home was not as cramped as the morning’s commute, but even so an empty seat eluded him. He stood near the doors, looking for some respite from the crowd, and too late he realized the pole he grasped for support was soiled by a murky slick film. He was revolted by the filth that seeped from those around him and fouled everything they touched.
He scrubbed his hands raw once safe within his dingy apartment, watching the bowl of the sink tint pale brown as the world washed away from him, but nothing he did could remove the feel of grease that had crept between his fingers.
The lumps of his bed resisted his weight as he lay down, but he was far too tired to fight them. His head throbbed from exhaustion, and he closed his eyes to avoid seeing the walls he could not escape.
He dreamt of himself fixed to a seat at the end of an empty subway car, watching passing stations flicker in the windows like a silent film. Their light illuminated the entire car, exposing the mosaic of muddy footprints, thick and dark, that were scattered along its length. Murky shadows gathered at the opposite end of the car and Philip noticed wisps of movement within the darkness, like a black pool beginning to swirl. Two pseudopods gradually formed from the shadows, then grew larger and stretched across the floor towards him. He struggled, but his feet were caked in black muck and fused to the floor. The shapes formed a pair of figures that closed in as the subway sped faster. They raised their hands, their fingers becoming long tendrils that crawled towards his face, and just as they made contact Philip found himself awake and panting in his own bed, his skin burning and covered with sweat.
Philip’s first session ran long, and thus he was unaware of when precisely Allan arrived at work. The young man was simply there, sitting at his desk uncharacteristically withdrawn and contemplative, seemingly unaware of Philip until he spoke.
“You still have your coat on.”
Allan jumped in his seat, and then, after Philip repeated himself, looked at his blue topcoat.
“Yeah
, I guess I do,” he said. “Listen, can I ask you something?”
Philip shrugged.
“How do you do it? Deal with all of this day after day after day?”
“You’ll get used to it. You’re young.”
“I don’t know. I keep thinking about everything the clients say. Sometimes I find myself lying awake at night thinking about it.”
Philip’s nightmare subway sped through his thoughts. “You have to learn to forget it. Forget it all.”
Allan sat silent, weighing the words, his furrowed brow working them like a bone. Philip sighed and regretting what he was about to ask.
“Do you . . .” he said. “Do you really want to know how it works?”
Allan turned his desperate blue eyes to Philip, and the older man almost reconsidered.
“Everybody,” Philip said as he turned away, “starts this job thinking they’ll make a difference. Yet no one does. All you’ll be doing is passing time. At best, you’ll help a few people to suppress their fears and pains and desires for a little while, but soon it will all come bubbling back up stronger than before. Your only job is to get them in and out with as much paperwork as possible.”
Allan sat stunned, as though Philip had reached in and twisted his soul.
“It’s true. You’ll see for yourself once you’ve been around a little longer.”
Allan sank, inspecting his hands and muttering in disbelief. Philip returned to his paperwork and pretended not to notice the young man’s pain. Allan would have to make a choice: either accept it or burn out trying to change it. There wasn’t a third option.
The ring of Allan’s telephone interrupted the silence. He answered it and put the receiver to his ear. Then, after only a minute and without saying a word, he hung it up again. In his hand he held his blazer, and it trailed behind him as he darted out of the office, the door closing firmly in his wake. His dark shape faded in the translucent window, and then rematerialized a moment later with another. The two shadows moved to the right and disappeared into the counselling room. Their mumbling soon penetrated the walls.
It was unlike Allan to act so secretively about a client, and Philip feared he had pushed him too far.
He approached the counselling room with care. He wanted to hear the session without betraying his presence. Allan’s voice, dry and shaky, spoke only briefly, interrupting the fragments of babble delivered by his client.
“. . . can’t keep . . . contained . . . oozing . . .”
“. . . liquid . . . fills my . . .”
“. . . hot . . . tar . . . do you understand?”
Philip took flight when he heard the sound of scraping chairs. He reached his desk just as Allan emerged from the counselling room, and realized immediately that he had forgotten to close the door between them. Philip could feel the error had been noticed, but he refused to acknowledge it.
Allan and his towering client stood in the waiting room and spoke quietly. Philip now recognized the man from the previous day, yet in that time he seemed to have acquired a year’s worth of filth. His pants were torn completely away below his right knee, exposing a leg smeared with dark grime. His coat, too, held together only by dried stains, hung from his shoulders as though soaked through. From where Philip sat an odour, like ammonia, burnt his nostrils.
Finally, the tall man left. Allan still seemed agitated, wiping his hands repeatedly with a handkerchief. He took his seat, exhausted, eyes red and puffy as though he had just been crying. Philip felt awkward and discreetly left to fill his mug with water from the waiting room cooler. Once there, he saw the series of dirty footprints that made a trail across the carpet and into the hallway.
Familiar faces crowded the subway home, each passenger staring ahead with dull dark eyes as he or she passed the time without a word. Upon their collective sagging shoulders was borne the weight of all their troubles, and Philip felt the same heaviness as it coursed through his withering veins and wrapped around his soul.
Hidden among the sex-shops, his building stood squat and lifeless, its bricks stained by the filthy air. Soot clung to his hands as he pushed through the entrance and he wiped them clean against the side of his trouser leg.
He discovered the broken light bulbs as he emerged from the stairwell. They left the entire corridor in darkness, yet what seemed to be his shadow remained cast on the wall at the opposite end, traced impossibly by the remaining lights behind him. He watched the uneven mass roll towards him as he approached his apartment. It seemed wrong somehow, as though it were actually growing as it advanced toward him. He stopped at his door, but for a moment thought the shadow continued, its movements slightly out of time with his own through some illusion of the lowered light. He felt a chill but he shook it off, and inserted his key into the lock.
He woke the next day with his head throbbing and his stomach burning its way into his throat. He struggled to the washroom and took a long drink from the rusted faucet, replacing one sour taste with another. His yellow, sagging face stared at him from the mirror, and with clarity knew that he had been forsaken. His hopes and dreams had been surreptitiously drained, leaving nothing but sorrow to fill the void. He stuck out his tongue and was horrified by the grey filmy protrusion.
Just above the reddish stubble that outlined his cheekbone he found the mark. Black, about an inch in length, it stretched further when Philip put his thumb to it, leaving a greasy smudge across his cheek that soap and water could not completely eliminate.
Philip stepped aboard the subway train amazed – it was barely half-full. The passengers there were pressed into the far end of the car. Between him and them lay the bulk of the seats, empty and coated in a brown viscous substance that infected the entire car with a foul stale odour he could not stand to breathe.
When the next stop arrived, he hurried off and stood gasping for air on the edge of the platform as he watched the subway train leave the station, the hazy shadows of its passengers fading into the darkness.
The platform was nearly as empty as the train. Only a few commuters were left along the narrow stretch of concrete, their faces weighted down, eyes cast blankly upward. Along the periphery, Philip saw shadows disappear quickly behind the commuters, those new arrivals looking for a place to stand. He could feel eyes from the small crowd upon him, but when he turned he saw nothing but blankness.
The next train could not arrive soon enough. When it did, he was relieved it was uncontaminated by the odour, though he found its passengers gave him a wide berth. He sniffed his sleeve and coughed. His jacket smelled foul.
He aired it out as best he could at the office, but the odour proved too resilient. Just a whiff of it sent his stomach churning.
Allan’s desk was vacant, his coat-hook bare. Philip frowned. The man was becoming increasingly tardy and unreliable.
Fortunately, Philip had no trouble handling things alone; his morning was devoid of clients. They simply failed to show up. Instead, he caught up on paperwork still pending. A fine drab mist covered the streets outside, making uneasy shadows of the obscured pedestrians.
Philip began to get fidgety by noon, his anger over Allan breaking his concentration. Unable to sit still any longer, he paced the room, growing more enraged by Allan’s unexplained absence. He swung open the office door, half-expecting to see the young man there with an arm wrapped around the water cooler and acting as if he’d been at the office all along, but instead Philip found the waiting room empty. The door to the counselling room, however, was closed, and its tiny window was lit.
Within the room, pressed into the far corner, sat Allan’s bearded client, dirty and bloodied knees pressed tightly to his chin. He shook as if with fever, head pressed sideways into the tatters of his blackened clothes, the grime of his face streaked with tears. He blubbered uncontrollably.
“Are you hurt?” Philip took a hesitant step forward.
The man’s head turned, his one exposed eye bloodshot and filled with terror. The room became startlingly quiet. The ent
ire left side of the man’s face was covered in a thick oily mud that clogged his orifices and disguised what lay underneath. It caked his greying beard and stained his clothes and skin. Philip retreated to the door as the man scrambled to his feet, leaving marks across the wall while sounds gurgled from his fouled lips. He pushed past Philip, leaving a long smudge across the counsellor’s chest, and Philip could do nothing but watch him escape. After he’d gone, Philip retreated to the office shaken, and sat quietly at his desk.
He’d never seen anything so bizarre and upsetting before. His hands shook and he placed them upon the desk hoping to steady them. Underneath his fingers, Allan’s files stared up and the sight of them began to transform Philip’s fear into anger. Where was Allan? Of all the days to skip work, he chose this day? Philip dialled Allan’s home number and at the sound of the answering machine hung up. Loathing filled him.
He was relieved at the end of the day to find the train home nearly deserted as he wanted only solitude. He sat facing the front window, and watched the dark tunnel advancing upon him. Lights ran across the few passengers who sat like gargoyles, heads hung low, waiting for life to pour from their drooping mouths. Each door opening brought a glare that blinded them, and they squinted until their stop arrived. They then trudged with difficulty onto the cold platform, leaving Philip further alone.
He looked back through the rear window along the line of cars behind him. They all seemed empty, passengers having departed them one by one until only Philip remained. As his train took the turn at Union Station and Philip realized he was wrong: near the other end of the train, he saw the briefest shape of someone sitting. Immediately the figure was gone, hidden behind so many empty cars.
The distance between the penultimate stop and his own stretched for an eternity. When Philip stood to collect his things he noticed, upon his seat, a black gelatinous streak. He craned his head, looking for a stain upon his clothes and found it spread across his leg. Brushing only made it worse. He stepped from the car annoyed.
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