The Overnight

by Ramsey Campbell

  "Have you tried it since?" Nigel's voice sounds rigid with struggling not to grow shrill. "Couldn't you now?"

  "Who do you think I should call, Nigel? The leccy company to come and mend the fuses?"

  "Nobody."

  "Tell you what then, Nigel. That's exactly what I'll do."

  "I think I know what Nigel means," Angus admits.

  It isn't only his hot moist breath too close to Ray's face that provokes Ray to demand "So who's going to let me into your little secret?"

  "Won't it light up if it's working?" says Nigel.

  His insistent tone makes Ray want to lash out at him. Ray feels so stupid for not realising the phone could provide them with illumination that as he fumbles it out of his pocket he wants it to prove Nigel wrong, which is even stupider. As he feels for the On key, Woody says hugely "Connie isn't getting in. One of you in the office will have to go down."

  Ray presses the key, and the keypad lights up green. He sees Angus begin to smile as the glow pastes his distorted greyish shadow to the door beyond his glaucous face. Nigel leans around him, his panicky expression starting to relax from the mask it must have become in the dark. The next moment the light flickers and dies, and no amount of poking at the keypad will revive it. Ray hears Nigel moaning under his breath like someone unable to waken from a nightmare, and this time he has to fend off Nigel's despair. He knows it's irrational, which ought to save him from being infected, but even once he has stuffed the lump of lifeless plastic into his pocket he feels cut off from Sandra and their baby in a way he has never felt before. Until he drives the notion out of his head he starts to believe that the blind dark means he will never see them again—that the spark of energy remaining in the mobile was his last chance to reach them.

  Nigel

  It's only dark. It isn't solid, however heavily it presses on his eyes. It can't stop him breathing; there are yards and yards of air all the way across the office and the other rooms, even if no more can replace the air through the windowless walls once it's used up. There's enough for him and Ray and Angus and Woody. He ought to be glad he's not alone as well as sightless; he oughtn't to be wishing that he could have chosen his companions. Woody is hardly one, given the immovable door, and Ray seems even less of one after having offered Nigel the flare of the mobile phone, the mocking light Nigel's eyes tried to cling to until it and they were swallowed by the redoubled blackness. As for Angus, he seems to be doing his best to stay unnoticed, surely not by the dark—Nigel mustn't let such fancies stray into his mind. All the same, it takes him a while to recognise that the insect clicking somewhere close is Ray's attempt to regain some light. Then it stops, and Nigel is grinding his lips together so as not to plead with him to give it just another try when Ray says "Looks like it's you or me, Nigel. Which?"

  The dark appears to respond to the question with a sluggish flurry of greyness, but it's surely only in Nigel's eyes. "What are you talking about?" he has to ask.

  "Don't say you never heard him. He wants one of us to go down to the fuses."

  Nigel feels as if the dark almost managed to crowd the memory out of his head, along with most of his ability to think. "Would you mind?"

  "I might. I've worn myself out for a while."

  Nigel's shoulder is still aching from colliding with the wall rather than the door, but he rests it against the wood in case that helps him feel less threatened by losing himself in the blackness. "To be honest, I don't know if I can."

  "Had I better go?" says Angus.

  "No, you better hadn't. It's just as hard for you as Nigel, or have you got a special problem, Nigel?"

  "Perhaps I have."

  "Go on, share it with us."

  "I wish I could give it to you, believe me," Nigel mutters as Woody shouts "Has anybody gone yet?"

  Nigel's feelings speak up without giving him time to think. "Ray is."

  "You're trying to order me about now, are you, Nigel?"

  "No, I'm saying I won't be going. I'm no use in this."

  "Glad there's one thing we can agree about."

  The next moment Angus bumps against Nigel and recoils. Has Ray deliberately pushed him at Nigel? Nigel's stance wavers as if he's about to be sent floundering helplessly into the blackness, and he glances down at the feet he can't see as he plants them apart to steady himself. Though he doesn't immediately understand what's there or why it should matter, he blurts "Ray, wait."

  "Changed your mind? Don't you want to be left alone with Angus?"

  "Of course not. I do, that is, I don't mind. Only what am I seeing?"

  "Can't imagine, can you, Angus?"

  "Look," Nigel insists and feels idiotic for pointing. "Look down."

  When they're silent he begins to grow afraid that he isn't really seeing the faintest trace of grey underlining the door until Ray grumbles "So Woody's got some kind of a light. What bloody use is that to the rest of us?"

  "I think we may be able to get some out here too."

  "How do you reckon we'll do that, Nigel? Is he going to poke it under the door?"

  "Is it the security thing?" Angus blurts as if he hopes to stop the argument.

  "That's it exactly, the monitor. It must be on a different circuit, and the computers will be too. If we switch them all on we'll have plenty of light in here."

  "That'll solve everything, then," Ray scoffs.

  "It certainly should help, wouldn't you agree?"

  "Won't help me see the fuses."

  Nigel is well on the way to feeling Ray is as mindlessly immovable as the dark. "Maybe once we're able to see what we're doing," he says just short of losing his temper, "we can plug some of the computers in nearer the stairs."

  "Good on you, Nigel. You've convinced us. Go ahead."

  "You aren't expecting me to do all that by myself."

  "Did I say that, Angus? We just want you to switch one on, Nigel, so we can see to do the rest. No point in us all falling over each other and bugger knows what else in the dark. If I'm dealing with the fuses, the light's your job."

  "What's the holdup now?" Woody shouts and deals some item of furniture a thump.

  "Nigel's going to switch on a computer."

  "What in Christ for?"

  "To light up the place," Nigel feels slowed down almost to inertia by having to explain.

  "So do it, then. What are you waiting for?"

  "Yes, what are you, Nigel?" Ray murmurs. "You heard the boss."

  The heat that floods over Nigel is anger, and the chill that follows it is apprehension, which he tries to convince himself makes no sense. He relinquishes the handle and slides his right hand off the door, over the shallow frame, onto the wall. He inches his hand over the slippery surface and shuffles to keep up with it, but doesn't care at all for the sensation of offering his face to the dark. Instead he turns towards the wall and presses both hands against it on either side of him. He begins to sidle along it, though its presence so close to his face makes him feel walled in with very little air. His hands progress over it with a series of halting sticky creaks irregularly echoed by the dragging of his feet across the linoleum. He assumes the noises are apparent only to him, since he can barely hear them for his short harsh breaths and the thudding of his heart, until Ray enquires "Are you really going as slow as you sound?"

  "I've got to find my way," Nigel protests, or most of it before the fingertips of his left hand recoil from what they've encountered. It's the wall at right angles to the one he's tracing, and it must feel damp because his fingers are. There's certainly no excuse for him to imagine that anything moist has trailed over it to await him in the blackness. For quite a few seconds manoeuvring around the corner is enough to make him nervous—feeling the walls and the darkness they've trapped closing around his face. Then he has to grope along the second wall, moving yet more slowly for fear of sprawling over some item low on the floor. What would it be? A wastebin, of course, but the obstruction he meets in the blackness jabs his hip. He confines his reaction to a
gasp, still enough to make Angus demand "What's wrong?"

  "Nothing. I'm at the desk," says Nigel, though that's too grand a term for the shelf at which he and Ray and Connie work. He flattens his hands on it and reaches leftwards until his little finger bumps against the edge of Connie's keyboard. He brushes his hand across the keys, which feel like stones unsteadily embedded in a medium as soft as mud and emit an agitated plastic chatter. As the keys grow dormant his fingertips graze the computer monitor, dislodging an object like a dead insect. Just in time not to gasp again he remembers she has decorated the monitor with a metal butterfly. He gropes farther left and knuckles the tower that houses the computer. He runs his hand over the front of the tower until he locates the power button. With his shaky forefinger he presses the button in as deep as it will sink.

  There's a loud click, but the darkness doesn't even twitch. "Was that it?" says Ray.

  When Nigel peers towards the question he can no longer be sure that he's seeing a hint of a glow under Woody's door. "Apparently," he has to admit.

  "It couldn't …" Angus pauses to think, unless he dislikes hearing his voice surrounded by the dark. "It couldn't be switched off at the plug, could it?"

  "It could. Thanks, Angus," Nigel says, only to feel significantly less grateful as he realises he'll have to crawl under the desk. He grasps its edge with both hands and lowers himself to his knees on the cold linoleum. Rather than risk banging his forehead against the desk he ducks beneath it, though he has to fend off the idea that it's forcing him towards some presence lurking underneath. He feels as if he's thrusting his hand into a lair. There's danger enough; his fingertips almost dig into the holes of the wall socket. His fingers retreat to the linoleum and light upon the flex that straggles from the plug. He's attempting to line up its prongs with the holes in the socket when Ray says "What's that?"

  Nigel's nerves almost jerk the plug out of his grasp before he manages to relax. "Just me trying to insert this."

  "Not you for a change. Is it Agnes, Anyes, whoever?"

  Nigel can't hear her. When he lifts his head to try, the rough underside of the desk claws at the back of his neck. He crouches lower and scrabbles at the socket with the prongs until they snag the triangle of holes. He thrusts them home so hard his shoulder redoubles its throbbing. As he extends a finger to the switch he mouths "Please" before pressing it down.

  Dimness springs into view in front of him. Three wastebins stand guard near three plugs in sockets, while two further sockets are unattended even by plugs. He backs out from under the working surface, and a blurred distorted shape crawls after him: just his shadow. As he seizes the edge of the desk and hauls himself to his feet, Ray hurries across the lividly illuminated office to the stockroom door and opens it on blackness. "Agnes," he shouts, "was that you?"

  Nigel is about to conclude that it wasn't when she answers. Perhaps she was deciding whether to respond to the mispronunciation of her name. "I'm in the lift. It's stuck."

  Her shout is muffled and shrunken by distance. If the lift stopped when the power failed, Nigel wonders why she's appealing so belatedly for help. "I'll go to her while you see to the fuses, Ray," he offers. "Let's move the computers and spread some light around."

  "Someone's coming in a minute, Agnes," Ray yells as Woody bellows "What's the situation now?"

  "We can see and we're getting some more light," Angus tells him.

  "That shouldn't take much time, should it?"

  "I'd hope not," Nigel says without striving too hard to be audible as he turns to the desk. Now he understands why the dim glow that clings to everything in the office is grey as fog: the computer screen is. The icons on it look drained of all colour, in danger of losing their outlines and sinking into the depths. He's afraid that if he tries to improve its appearance the terminal may crash. Instead he moves along to his own computer. He's stooping to unplug it when he freezes in a crouch, and the throbbing of his shoulder is imitated by his skull. "Oh, for the love of—"

  Ray pokes his greyish face out of the gloom next door. "What's up now, Nigel?"

  Is he ensuring Woody hears? He's loud enough that Woody demands "Right, what is?"

  Nigel isn't to blame. The holes between the desk and the wall are—holes just large enough for the wires from the computers to pass through. "We aren't going to be able to move these unless we take the plugs off."

  "Who's got a screwdriver? I've not, have you?"

  Nigel owns up to the lack and Angus gestures it while his ill-defined shadow wags its swollen hands behind him. As Nigel pulls out drawer after drawer under the work shelf Ray says "Better try switching them on."

  Nigel presses the button on his computer and more viciously on Ray's. The greyness of the screens turns luminous, and two sets of icons bob sluggishly up. They look too tentative for Nigel's liking. "What's happened to the computers?" he's increasingly anxious to know.

  "The main thing is they're lit up, isn't it?" says Ray. "I can stand how it is."

  The office must be three times as well lit as previously. More to the point, the staffroom has grown brighter, and Nigel can even distinguish the faint outlines of racks in the stockroom. However difficult he may find the next few minutes, Agnes is in a far worse situation. How ashamed would he deserve to be if he neglected to help? "I'll have to," he tells the others and especially himself.

  "Maybe I won't leave you in the dark too long."

  Surely Ray is undertaking not to rather than saying he'll consider it. He props the stairway door open with a chair and leaves the staffroom at a trot before his footsteps start losing their momentum on their journey downwards. Nigel is tempted to wait until Ray arrives at the fuses or even deals with them, but that's too cowardly for him to bear. He hurries through the staffroom, past the table that looks coated with glimmering greyish plastic, into the stockroom.

  The moment he steps through the doorway he's flanked by blocks of darkness that feel solid as earth. He can just distinguish the ends of the shelves they've buried, bony outlines the colour of fog at night and not much less inclined to shift. Perhaps being relieved of most of their stock has left the shelves more capable of movement; as he ventures between the next pair, whose edges resemble ash both in greyness and a tendency to crawl, they begin to jangle as though whatever contents they still hold are inching towards him. He tries to concentrate on seeing ahead, though there's a distraction in that part of the dark as well. The nearly shapeless blotch that's slithering along the aisle to beat him to his goal has to be his shadow, especially since it hesitates whenever he does, but he's surprised that he can even glimpse it in the suffocating dimness. He's unable to make out the third set of racks, but he knows by their stealthy jangling that he has passed between them.

  Now that they're behind him he would expect them to stop vibrating with his footfalls. Once they fall silent he attempts to gain some control over his swift unsteady breaths. He senses as well as remembers that he has reached the space largely occupied by the wooden bin topped with wire mesh where all the cartons of new stock are unloaded. The shelves beyond it are fixed to the walls, and it's surely impossible that he's hearing any movement from them. However surreptitious it sounds, the noise must be under the wire mesh—the feeble squealing of bits of polystyrene that his footsteps have disturbed, though it makes him feel he's roused a nest of insects in the blackness. At least by keeping well clear of it and to the left of it he knows he's within an arm's length of the bare wall. He's stretching out his hand in that direction when he almost drops into an inadvertent crouch, though the dark hasn't seized him and Woody's voice wasn't intending to. "No need to call it quits down there," it says. "No need to call it a day. You can see better than us."

  He's addressing the staff on the sales floor, of course. Until Nigel divests himself of the impression he even thinks he hears a muffled underlying echo, but he's certainly too far from the office. As his splayed fingertips locate the wall, Woody reduces himself to interrogating Angus through the door about th
e latest situation. Nigel's fingers slide over the chill slippery plaster and then, sooner than he was expecting, lurch off its edge to encounter metal. It's the more recessed of the two doors to the lift shaft. He raps on it with his knuckles and calls "Agnes, can you hear me?"

  She gives no indication that she can. He presses his ear against the door, which is so cold it feels like the threat of an earache. If there's any response beyond the door it's blotted out by the savage drumming of his pulse. He runs his fingertips over the door and digs them between it and the frame, where he succeeds in hauling open a gap of a few inches, through which he shouts "Agnes, it's Nigel. Are you all right?"

  He hears his flattened dull voice plummet down far too deep a well, which he hopes is as much of an illusion as the chilly damp it seems to breathe at him. He's wondering if Agnes is refusing to answer because of the way he pronounced her name when she says "I don't know where I am."

  "You're below me somewhere. I'm at the top doors. I'll come down." It's Agnes that he mostly means to reassure by adding "Down the stairs, that is."

  "Can you see where I am?"

  "I can't see a thing, to be honest. Ray's gone to operate on the fuses," he says, only to realise Ray should be more than there by now.

  "Will you be able to find your way?"

  Presumably that's intended as concern, but his nerves don't welcome it. "No question of it. I'm coming immediately," he says, and rather more than that, because the last two words burst into a flurry of extra syllables that bloat them shapeless. "I'm coming now."

  He lets go of the door, which meets the frame with a clunk. As he runs his fingers over the metal a fingernail catches on the edge of the second door. Once he has found the wall again he shuffles sideways until he arrives at the corner. Now he's facing the stairway, and it feels as if the blackness of the lift shaft has been tilted to receive him. He reaches into it with his left hand, lower and lower. At last he touches an object like a stick that someone's holding up for him to find: the banister. He restrains himself to grasping it with only one hand and takes the first step down.