Hark! the Herald Angels Scream

by Hark! the Herald Angels Scream (retail) (epub)

  Not behind her—she definitely would have heard the bells before now. And certainly not from that arsenal of construction equipment. And the opposite side of the road consisted of nothing but block upon block of shabby shops and crumbling council flats.

  No, the church must be somewhere not too far from where she stood.

  She felt her heart lighten—a church on Christmas Day wouldn’t be empty. If she hurried, she might find a service in progress, or a nearby rectory where she could ask for directions. She quickened her pace, and after only a few steps saw a narrow alley to her right. The building on the corner looked like an abandoned warehouse or factory. Past it, she couldn’t see any houses, or anything that might be a commercial establishment. But she was certain that the sound of church bells had come from here.

  She shoved her hands deeper into her pockets and started down the alley. Beneath her feet, the cement sidewalk gave way to mottled brick, and the paved roadway to cobblestones. A few yards ahead, a hazy glow surrounded a solitary streetlamp.

  Melanie blinked and looked up at the sky, where the silhouettes of looming buildings faded into near-darkness. She hesitated, then turned and walked back to the corner, stopping to squint at the sign posted on the side of the broken-down warehouse. Farrow Street.

  She consulted her map. She saw no Farrow Street near the road she’d been following, or anywhere else for that matter. Not that it was a very extensive map. She leaned against the warehouse wall, debating whether searching for the church would be a fool’s errand. She could try to retrace her steps to the hotel and from there make her way to Euston Station. At this point she’d settle for another Egg McMuffin.

  Shivering, she glanced down the alley. Past the solitary streetlamp, on the other side of the road, a shaft of golden light streamed across the sidewalk, burnishing the old brick. The light seemed too bright to come from a residence. A restaurant, maybe, or a pub or bar.

  Melanie stuffed the map into her pocket and headed quickly back down the alley, avoiding gaps in the sidewalk where the bricks had dislodged. On each side of the narrow passage rose a deserted warehouse. If there had been any sunlight, these derelict buildings would have blocked it. A tarry substance seeped from beneath many of their windows, staining the walls and in spots covering the sidewalk like black lichen.

  As she drew closer to the streetlamp, she saw that it had begun to snow, minute flakes like glittering sand that shimmered in the diffuse pale light. Perhaps twenty yards farther on, the unseen building’s buttery glow grew more intense, making the snow flare like a bonfire.

  Melanie pulled her hood tighter and ran to the other side of the alley. Her feet slipped on the greasy cobbles, but she didn’t care. Already she saw herself sitting at a candlelit table with a steaming plate in front of her, and a glass of wine. Maybe an entire bottle. A few more steps, and she reached the light’s source.

  Tucked between the warehouses was a four-story house, built from the same old yellow brick as the warehouses and sidewalk. A tracery of ivy covered its facade, rather than the black mildew on the warehouse walls. Stone steps led up to a door painted dark green. To one side of the door protruded a bow window, and it was through its panes that the welcoming golden light fell to ignite the sidewalk and the alley.

  Melanie stopped and stared at the house, enchanted. Long curtains had been pulled back from the three windows: she could clearly see a round bull’s-eye mirror on the opposite wall, the corner of a white fireplace mantel. A lit white taper in a silver candle holder sat atop the mantel, its flame throwing jagged shadows on the wall behind it. Larger shadows moved about the room, and she glimpsed a blur of crimson, a dress or suit jacket, a shock of dark hair.

  As she stared, the door opened, loosing the sound of faint music into the frigid night. A woman in a knee-length beaded shift stepped out and looked measuringly at the sky before glancing down at the sidewalk.

  “Oh, hullo,” she said. Her close-cropped dark hair had been slicked back, exposing a long white neck and chandelier earrings that flashed scarlet and emerald in the light that spilled around her. “Are you looking for us?”

  Melanie shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said, then hastily added, “I’ve been walking all over, trying to find a restaurant that’s open. I don’t have a phone, so I couldn’t—”

  “Come on in.” The woman cast a swift look over her shoulder, turned back to Melanie and nodded, beckoning her. “Please, you look half-frozen.”

  Nodding gratefully, Melanie hurried up the steps. The woman moved aside and gestured into the hallway. “Someone will take your coat.”

  “Oh, no thanks, I’ll just—”

  “Suit yourself,” the woman said.

  She peered at the street one last time before closing the door, turned to a marble-topped side table, and picked up an old-fashioned key from a porcelain dish. She locked the door and gazed past Melanie into the living room. “Some of the others are in there, the rest are scattered around the house. Help yourself to anything you want.”

  “Thank you,” Melanie said. She looked down at her plain wool coat and pleather boots. “I don’t know if I—”

  But the woman was already walking down the hall, toward a staircase leading to the next floor. Melanie watched her go. Music drifted down from an upper room, a fiddle playing a vaguely familiar tune. She didn’t know the song’s name, but she’d heard it before, probably in an old movie.

  She wondered if she should follow the woman upstairs. Instead she took a deep breath and stepped into the living room. A susurrus of conversation abruptly ceased, as a dozen or so people turned to regard her. Most were standing, though two elderly women perched on a settee upholstered in sky-blue fabric. One of the women wore a drab brown sweater and matching skirt, heavy black stockings and chunky shoes, which made Melanie feel slightly better about her own attire.

  But many of the other guests appeared dressed for a costume party. One man sported green plaid knee breeches and an embroidered waistcoat; another wore a baggy herringbone suit, with a gaudy stickpin in his tie and cuff links shaped like scarab beetles. Several of the women wore elaborate dresses that grazed the floor, one with a bustle. Another woman sported a large hat festooned with crimson and white ostrich plumes. A teenage girl with a brightly lipsticked mouth and a blonde pageboy lounged against the fireplace mantel, her tartan skirt falling just below her knees. Beside her, a middle-aged man in an old-fashioned bobby’s uniform repeatedly attempted to light a cigarette with a lighter.

  “No spark,” he said, and looked accusingly at Melanie. “Or butane’s gone.”

  “I’m sorry,” Melanie replied. She smiled wanly, waiting for someone to welcome her or introduce themselves. When they remained silent, she went on, “I got lost, and your hostess asked me in. So I’m sorry, I don’t know anyone.”

  She smiled again. The other guests stared at her without speaking. After a moment, the old woman in the brown skirt gave a hooting laugh. No one else spoke.

  Melanie felt her face grow hot. She’d always thought people in the United Kingdom were more polite than their American counterparts, but obviously this wasn’t the case in London, where rudeness seemed to have become a spectator sport. She’d rather spend the night walking alone in the cold streets than be treated this way.

  As she steeled herself to turn and leave, her gaze fell upon the fireplace. Flames flickered behind the screen, and almost without thinking she walked toward it, crouched, and held her hands up to the blaze. Screw these people: she’d warm herself before going out again.

  The fire gave off little heat. She was tempted to remove the fire screen so she could move even closer. But that might annoy the others, or cause that awful old woman to laugh at her again. After a few minutes she straightened and turned to face the room once more.

  The other guests hadn’t moved from where they sat or stood. The bobby still flicked hi
s cigarette lighter. The blonde with the lipstick-red pumps and tartan skirt adjusted a corsage pinned to her sweater, red roses and a sprig of holly.

  “We should go up soon,” pronounced a dark-skinned boy who looked about ten. He wore a red hoodie and sneakers and huddled on the floor in a corner by the bow window, which was why she hadn’t noticed him until now.

  “Upstairs?” asked Melanie.

  The boy stared past her into the fireplace but remained silent. Was he afraid?

  Melanie took a step toward him, then stopped. For the first time, she noticed that there were no electric lamps in the room. Solitary candles or candelabras stood along the mantel, atop side tables and ranged along a shelf above the wood wainscoting. A large oriental rug covered the floor, its pale swirls of mauve and powder-blue and rose counterpoint to the walls, which were painted a deeper blue. Empty or near-empty wineglasses stood on the tables, along with glass decanters that still held a few inches of what looked like red wine. On a low console by the window sat a silver platter covered with half-eaten tarts and a handful of grapes clinging to a desiccated stem. She reached for the platter, glancing over her shoulder as she did.

  The woman in the feathered hat was staring at her. Almost imperceptibly, she shook her head. Melanie frowned. The gesture struck her as more disapproving than warning, and she no longer cared if anything she did might be perceived as rudeness. Pot calling kettle black! She was famished. She picked up a grape and popped it into her mouth, grimacing as she bit into it. Sour.

  Yet there might be more food in another room. She looked at the boy sitting in the corner. He seemed by far the most normal-looking person in the room. If she caught his eye, she’d motion for him to accompany her. But he just fiddled with the zipper of his hoodie and gazed fixedly at the floor.

  Melanie licked her lips, trying to dispel the grape’s acrid aftertaste, and crossed back into the hall. From upstairs echoed that same faint fiddle music, the sounds of muted voices and footsteps walking up another set of stairs.

  More voices came from the end of the hall. Candles guttered in sconces, the wax pooling in dark streaks on the floor beneath them. Melanie walked past the staircase and several open rooms, all set as for a party with lit candles and trays that held the remains of food, empty wineglasses and decanters. In the dining room, its table draped with a damask cloth and resplendent with silver candlesticks and place settings for twenty, two men in work clothes stood with their backs to her, staring out a window into the darkness. Melanie paused to watch them, clearing her throat in hopes they might turn and see her.

  They did not, nor did they speak to each other. She sighed and walked on until she reached the back of the house. She’d expected to find a kitchen here, and maybe a bathroom. But there was only a small, rather utilitarian-looking room, with a single plain wood table, a very small window, and a door that opened onto a set of stairs leading into the basement.

  Melanie stood, listening to determine if she could hear any activity from the basement. There was nothing save a draft of cold air with an underlying scent of wood smoke. Of course: back when this house was built, the kitchen would have been downstairs. But why hadn’t it been converted since then?

  When she’d been researching things to do in London over the holidays, she’d come across an article about Geffrye House, where visitors could tour rooms done up in the style of bygone years and centuries. The staff wore period clothing and, in the days leading up to Christmas, held holiday gatherings inspired by Dickens’s work.

  That must be the sort of place she’d stumbled upon—maybe Geffrye House itself. Perhaps she’d come across a private gathering, a group of friends or employees who’d booked the building for their Christmas party. That might account for the cool reception she’d received, also the matter-of-fact manner in which the woman she’d first encountered had greeted Melanie.

  She stood there musing, starting when once again a church bell began to toll. She counted each stroke—eight, nine, ten…

  It couldn’t possibly be that late! She walked to the room’s single window and tried to peer out. It was so webbed with filth she could see nothing. Somewhere outside, the bell continued tolling. Not until it struck eleven did it stop, the reverberation of its final note lingering in the room around her like a foul smell.

  A sick feeling came over her, the kind of pure, visceral fear she experienced when encountering turbulence on an airplane flight. It had been barely past five when she entered the house. She knew that five or six hours hadn’t passed, just as she knew this wasn’t a museum or private Christmas party. She hurried from the room and back down the corridor, clutching her handbag as she tugged her coat tightly around her.

  The two workmen she’d seen in the dining room stood in the middle of the hall, gazing at the stairwell, their expressions blank. The fiddle music had fallen silent. One of the men shook his head. He headed up the steps, the sound of his hobnailed boots echoing through the house. The second man stared after him, then glanced aside at Melanie.

  “Almost time,” he said, and followed his colleague upstairs.

  Throat tight, Melanie nearly ran toward the front door. Several of the other guests straggled from the main room into the hallway, the boy in the red hoodie among them. She slowed as she drew near him, her lips parted to speak. He glanced up at her, his dark eyes glittering in the candlelight, looked away, and slouched past. Behind him walked the young woman in the tartan skirt. She glanced at Melanie, lifting her hand. For an instant it seemed she might speak.

  But her long fingers only brushed the holly leaves, adjusting her corsage before she, too, headed for the stairs.

  People now crowded the entry to the living room in their haste to leave. Melanie hesitated, desperately scanning faces. The woman with the ostrich plume hat held up her long skirt and brushed past her, close enough that Melanie caught the sickly scent of tuberoses and lilies, and heard her speaking to herself.

  “…to be late. Never, ever…”

  Melanie darted past the others to the front door, grasped the brass doorknob, and turned it. Locked. She twisted it again, harder.

  It didn’t budge. She turned and raced to the marble-topped table where she’d seen the woman retrieve the key earlier. The porcelain dish was empty. She moaned softly, looked up to see the woman in the brown skirt staring at her with small beetle-black eyes. Once more she gave that harsh hooting laugh and hurried on to the steps.

  Melanie leaned against the wall, forced herself to breathe deeply in an attempt to remain calm. Should she scream? Break a window and jump outside? Grab someone and insist they help her?

  But when she looked up, the hallway was empty. She caught a glimpse of green plaid knee breeches, the flash of red satin. That was all.

  From upstairs the fiddle music began once more, livelier this time. Melanie took a deep breath and walked to the staircase. She took the steps slowly, glancing back and praying that she might see the woman she’d first met. When she reached the second-floor landing she paused. A single candle burned in a blackened sconce, casting a pallid glow on walls papered in a fleur-de-lis pattern. Ahead of her, a corridor only a few yards long led to another stairway. She could hear footsteps from the next floor, a shriek that might have been a whistle, or a woman.

  She cast a final look behind her. A feather of candlelight touched the floor at the foot of the stairs and faded into darkness. She turned and walked down the hall to the second set of stairs, placed her hand on the railing, and began to walk up. In the dying gleam of the single candle, she saw that what she had mistaken for patterned wallpaper was a delicate filigree of mold, threadlike filaments that moved as she passed, like maidenhair seaweed, until the encroaching shadows swallowed them.

  Above her the fiddle music wavered and swelled, the sound of waves on the shore. With each receding note, the darkness grew, until she could see nothing. She heard a church bell, impos
sibly distant. She counted each stroke: twelve, one for each step.

  She reached the third-floor landing, where a tendril of reddish light seeped from beneath what must be a door. As she approached, it swung open. For an instant, Melanie saw the woman who’d beckoned her inside, now armless, legless. Her beaded shift slid from her like rain, along with her eyes, nose, hair, teeth; and Melanie gazed into a formless face, devoid of any features save a slack, immense mouth surrounded by myriad minute tendrils that rippled softly as they welcomed her.

  DOCTOR VELOCITY

  A Story of the Fire Zone

  JONATHAN MABERRY

  1

  Destroyer stood back from the canvas and he was a perfect study in total disgust.

  From the defeated slouch of his shoulders to the self-defiant turn of his hip to the white-knuckled clutch of his fist around the handle of the palette knife, he was a man who reeked of angry despair. He tilted his head this way and that, trying to find an angle from which the painting looked like it possessed intensity and passion rather than desperation and confusion. The colors and movements he saw looked inflicted rather than wrought.

  “Pathetic…,” he murmured.

  Destroyer’s defeated, disgusted posture was at odds with the music playing from the eight speakers mounted high on the walls of the big loft. The song playing was “Videte Miraculum,” performed by a local group called A Choir of Ghosts. Beyond the wall of big picture windows the night sparkled with holiday lights in bright primary colors. Everyone seemed to have gone out of their way to be ostentatious with them, draping every window, every balcony, and lining their roofs. It all looked so goddamn cheerful. The Italian restaurant directly across from him had so many lights that it was impossible to make out any details of the building’s actual shape. There had to be two or three hundred thousand of them. The less flamboyant French restaurant to the left of it merely had “DITTO” spelled out in white LED lights. It was the only part of the Christmas cityscape that Destroyer did not actively hate. Normally he loved holiday lights, but that was so last year. This year he wanted to burn it all down.