by Clea Simon
THIRTY-ONE
This time, I am prepared. The hellish klaxon will not catch me unawares. Will not shock me into senselessness, as it did once before. The girl beside me prepares as well. As we make our way around the side of the building, she pauses, ducking down behind an outcropping of trash. And when I see her cover her own ears, I steel myself. Somewhat removed from its direct blast, when that hideous noise lets loose, it does not this time overwhelm me with its cry of death and horror. And yet, it pins my ears flat, and I must exert all my self-control to refrain from bolting. As it is, my claws extend to clutch at the pitted stones beneath me, and, cowering, my eyes see naught. That I do not run, that I retain some semblance of myself – my dignity – is a victory of sorts. This form, with all its heightened senses – is not entirely bereft of discipline. Is not devoid of all control, even when faced with such hideous volume. Yes, I pant as the echoes die, revealing the thudding footsteps of the workers who flee – no, I realize – who are herded at the behest of that fiendish sound. But as I look up, alert and ready, the girl smiles down at me, and I am amply recompensed.
It is not yet dark as we once again approach the building, and the city is humming. Nocturnal life of all sorts has begun to stir, from the sickly raccoon whom we disturb as she rooted through the day’s trash, to the young hustler who will do his own version of the same, as he summons the strength for another night on the game. He eyes the girl as she passes, dismissing her as a client – and then as possible competition as she moves swiftly past.
Only when we return to the Dunstan’s gate does she stop moving, holding herself back as the shadows reach and fade into the dark. She’s counting; I can hear it under her breath, and soon I see why. Above, in the windows, a figure passes from one to the next. A watchman, probably, as the building appears to have emptied of its other occupants, he makes his way from one window to the next and then, after an interval, reappears on the floor above. And she begins once again to count.
Once I have discerned the reason for her watchful murmurs, I begin my own calculations. That the girl intends to enter, to conduct some kind of clandestine inquiry, is clear from her actions. What my role can be is less so. First, I must attain a means of access: if the girl plans on once again climbing through a window, I will need a different entry, as I do not believe she will now accept or allow any attempts to accompany her.
I follow her around to the alley. The bin has been replaced with another of the same stout build, and once more she drags the heavy thing over to the closest window. Only then do I make my move. I sensed water nearby, slow-moving but alive, when we were here before, and the soft earth of decay around it. It is the work of minutes to find its source: a drain from some gutter that has long gone unrepaired. As my superior senses have indicated, the disrepair has led to rot, and that in turn has opened a pathway for creatures smaller than myself to make ingress, scraping and gnawing at the softened brick and sandy mortar. I can smell them here, those burrowers, and were circumstances other, I would hold back, waiting until habit and hunger accustomed them to my own scent. Then I would feast. But now is not the time for such prudence, nor is it my own need that drives me. Instead, I dive in, feeling the damp mortar give way further to my own claws, even as I push my way through the rotted brickwork.
The walls press dangerously close. I do not like enclosed spaces. As does any creature of sense, I fear the trap. The cage. And as I push further, I am aware at all time of my whiskers brushing against the damp walls. Through them, I sense the patterings of the original architects of this entry, scattering in fear as they pick up signs of my approach. Through my whiskers I am made aware of other movements, farther away. That guard whose slow and measured tread has not changed, and somewhere, closer still, the louder scrape and scramble of the girl. The window jamb is wood, not brick, and she works it with her knife. Through the wall around me, I hear the click of the latch giving way.
As she wriggles and kicks her way inside, a dribble of clay dust descends on me. I flick my ears in irritation and feel them brush the top of this passage. This place is close, and I need to be through it, both for my own ease and to catch up with the girl. She has won her way, though with less grace than I would have hoped. Despite the growing urgency, I pause and listen. A moment passes. My heart beats. I hear no change in the night guard’s measured tread. She has not been detected.
As she lowers herself to the floor, my breath catches in my throat. The close confines have begun to take their toll. I have grown glossier in recent weeks, but I am not young. I feel the stiffness in my leg as I claw the softened brick and push myself forward. The dampness has gathered here. This far inside the structure, it neither drains nor evaporates. I feel it seep into my fur. The air is thick with rot, with the wet and the droppings that collect between my pads. I taste their musk on my tongue, for I am panting with the effort. With the pressure of the building bearing down. Above me, a rumble – the girl is walking – and more mortar falls, damp pebbles on my back. I start as they hit me, surprised at the sudden touch, and slip, the leather of my paws gaining no traction in the slime. I clamber up – and slip again, as the clay dissolves beneath me, falls around me, filling the very air. I breathe in mud. I taste it. My tongue grows clogged and dulled. I cannot see, but still I hear. All around me, the scrapings of curious creatures. They come to see their foe brought low. They wait, and they will feast.
My eyes are closing, and my chin comes down to rest upon my paws. Such is the nature of life, and I cannot resist. I have lived long. I have been pulled from danger before. I have—
‘No!’ A voice breaks through, faint but clear – to me, at least. A syllable spoken aloud when stealth was the goal. Is she in trouble? Has she been caught? I sigh, my head, which bobbed up at that sound, begins to dip again. This fight is beyond me now. I have done what I could.
‘Friends who will care for them.’ The voice is not one I recognize. It echoes through my mind, even as I drift. ‘Friends who will see them right.’
‘It can’t—’ Care’s voice, the girl’s, and right nearby. I see no light, no exit. My eyes are blind here in this airless dark. But still, I rouse myself. I kick. I push, my whiskers pressed too close, the clay against the wet fur on my brow. And, with one more surge, I am through, the last cheap patch of mortar collapsing out to reveal a room. And air, and standing by a cabinet, the girl, alone.
I take a breath, what feels like the first in a very long time. The creeping terror of that passage, and my concern for the girl, begin to fade, replaced by relief at my release. And then, as is my wont, I sit, twisting to groom the foul wet earth from my fur. Only as I do, I realize I have indeed been blind. For as she stands, gazing into an open drawer, she does not realize what else her voice has summoned.
There is a shadow in the doorway that is not cast by the opened door, nor by the cabinets inside. It is still, but not still enough. I have seen it move, even as I twisted back to clean my fur. Waiting for its moment. The guard is watching.
THIRTY-TWO
I do not spring with claws extended. I refrain from the howl and hiss. These are not the tactics of a hunter intent on flushing out his quarry. Nor, I confess, would they be wise for any prey animals intent on living. For such are we now, and so I remain still and quiet, waiting for a moment of vulnerability. Anticipating the point in time when I may best effect the girl’s escape.
He is watching her. Now that I have spied him, standing in the darkness of the hall, his strategy is clear. Lurking in the shadow of the hall, he believes he has her trapped. Indeed, I see no other door. And so he waits.
He must, it occurs to me, be curious as to her motive. Buildings like these are made to contain people more usually than to keep them out. It cannot be common for someone to break into such a fortress of thick and enduring brick. The girl’s age, and her slight figure, must add to the confusion. She is no streetwalker, seeking a quiet place to ply her trade, nor a desperate street rat, looking for an easy score. Now that
I am aware of his presence, I can hear his breathing, its slight unhealthy rasp. It has speeded, even as he stands there, apparently at ease. He is curious, maybe even a little afraid.
‘And more?’ The girl has removed a sheet of paper from the drawer, the file that held it lies flat upon its peers. She is speaking to herself, so taken by what she reads that she has forgotten where she is. Forgotten caution. With no interruption to remind her, she peruses further, pulling one and yet another page from within the file.
She stuffs them in her bag, and I hunker down. This is when the confrontation will take place. This is what the watcher has been waiting for. She will be trapped and taken. Documents from this place will be found upon her person, incriminating her. Sealing her fate.
I do not waste my time wondering what her punishment will be. We have seen what violence may be perpetrated on the vulnerable, what forms it takes. It matters not, for I will not let it happen. Even as she maneuvers the papers within her bag, even as she pulls it up onto her shoulder, I crouch in waiting. I ready myself. Hindquarters twitching, all my stiffness, any soreness is forgotten now. I will leap on the intruder. I will howl and bite, and with all the commotion I can muster, I will buy her the time she needs to evade him. The time to escape.
I am a coiled spring. I am—
She turns, and I blink up in surprise. From her sudden movement – the way she holds herself now, breath itself at bay – I know she is on the alert. Some movement has broken through her ill-considered absorption. Can it be that I have betrayed myself? That after my ordeal, I have lost the capacity for silent motion – the mastery of stealth?
Daring a subtle shift, I move my ears and pick up, yes, that hoarse intake of breath. It is not I who have betrayed myself, it is the guard. The girl has heard him in the doorway, although surely she sees him not.
‘Who’s there?’ Her question, soft and low, is barely voiced. And yet I hear the sudden gasp of a response. ‘Who is it?’
I watch her with wonder. Surely, she must know what manner of man is waiting. She saw the watchman. Timed his passage. Is this some play that I have not foreseen? I resume my pose and ready for the leap.
Footfall. Heavy, booted. A man. I gauge distance, gauge his height as he steps into the doorway and pauses. He is big, this man, with shoulders that nearly touch the frame. And although his clothes hang on him, hang from the arm that holds the heavy light, I do not doubt his strength.
I will have one chance with this man. He is tall, but I will launch myself up at his face, with all my strength. If I can reach it, I can hold him. He will tear at me, pull me from him by my fur and my limbs, but in that struggle, I will draw him from the doorway. I will win her egress. Win her freedom no matter what the price.
‘Are you an inmate?’
My ear flicks back. She is still talking, her voice still soft and low. It is a strategem I had not considered. Distraction, maybe, or a lure of sorts to reel him in.
‘You can’t—’ His voice as rough as that breath and, even at this distance, foul. He has a sickness. The air rots within him, and I feel myself relax. This man is large, no doubt, but he will be unable to pursue her. I understand now his hollowed frame, the slow and measured pace with which he made his rounds. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘My father was an inmate,’ she says in response. He shakes his head, his query still unanswered. ‘He also wasn’t strong,’ she says, her voice hesitant as she chooses her words. She, too, must sense the sickness in this man, or see it. Now that he has stepped into the room, the faint light from the window rakes the gouges in his face. The hollows beneath his eyes are dark as mud.
One false move, and I will aim for those eyes, as deep set as rodent holes. I will make him blanch. I lean back, readying for the spring.
But it is she who steps forward, one hand outstretched. ‘He worked here, too,’ she says. Her palm is up, as if she would take his hand. Or, no, the heavy flashlight that hangs still by his side. ‘His sentence was for debt.’
Another step, and my fur rises. She is too close. She is within his grasp and, worse, now stands between me and the hulking guard. My ears go back as I take in the changing scene. My angle for attack, and hers.
‘I found the files he was working on,’ she now says. ‘The accounts he was in charge of. Work release, they call them.’
She chuckles, an odd, sad sound in this darkened space. Her voice, though soft, is clear, its warmth at odds with the cavernous room. Even the small beasts within the walls take heed of it. I hear them settle, their frenzied scrabbling pause.
I look at her, then, and see her as he must. The moonlight shows her youth. Shows as well, the strange half-smile that plays about her chapped lips. ‘Work release,’ she says again.
And then I hear the oddest sound of all. A sigh – or, no – another rasping breath. A wheeze. The guard is laughing, too. His thin shoulders heave up with the effort, as if they have shared a joke. But then he doubles over, coughing. The flashlight hits the floor, and I turn to her. This is her moment. Her chance to run, to leave this place. I race toward her as she begins to move – and freeze, as she wraps her thin arms around the big man and helps him to sit against the wall.
THIRTY-THREE
‘Poor old Dingo, he never did have any luck.’ The guard – ‘call me Terry’ – shrugs, those big shoulders jerking his scarecrow jacket up against the wall. ‘Maybe he got greedy.’
He and the girl have been talking for a while now, their voices low and urgent. She has told him of her mission. Of the death of the man she was set to find. I have retreated to the shadows to watch. Care saw me race forward, and she knows where I sit, but the man seems oblivious. His illness may have dimmed his vision, I realize. Or else he has become accustomed to the scurrying of creatures in this, his nighttime realm, and no more considers their progress than he would a mote of dust.
‘No.’ The girl shakes her head, her face grim. ‘This had nothing to do with luck.’
The guard sighs. Despite his size, he is weaker than the girl and more fatigued. ‘I saw him, what? A week – maybe ten nights ago. He said he was going to be leaving town. That he was leaving with a lady friend. Some gal and her kid. Said he had his papers.’
‘Papers?’ She picks up on the word. Terry nods.
‘Said they were his ticket out.’ He rubs his cheeks, rough hands rasping on the bristle. ‘Parole, I figured. Least at first. I wished him luck.’
‘But they weren’t, were they?’
He shakes his head this time, the gesture sad and slow. ‘He’d hit the jackpot, Dingo did. He found the lost papers. The ones we’re supposed to look for.’
‘Found them?’ The girl chews it over. Her fingers twitch at the bag on her side. Eager to be sorting through the papers within. ‘He didn’t get them here?’
‘Never came in.’ Another demurral. ‘I asked. It was one of those rainy nights, you know. But he said this place creeped him out. That he was meeting somebody. I thought it was an odd place for a meet. I told him to bang on the door after, even if he didn’t want to come in. I had something warm brewing. But he didn’t. We had some good times, me and Dingo.’
Care is listening, as am I. If she could, she would tilt her ears forward as I do, the better to catch the nuances of voice. I believe she must gather what I do, however. That the man is losing himself in a memory of times that in retrospect appear golden. He must have been healthier then, as he describes working the trucks. Loading and unloading with muscles not yet ravaged by disease.
‘He and I, we used to crash in that shack of his.’ His lips twitch at the memory. ‘We got paid in coin, most weeks. We’d get some drink. We had some times.’
‘The shack.’ Care watches his face. I do, as well, but although her voice has summoned him back to the present, the smile lingers. The recollection is an agreeable one. ‘That’s where I found the papers.’
Terry shrugs in acquiescence. ‘He’d take them there, sure. It was our place. That’s not where he
found them, though.’ A cough bends him double, wracking his body with a sharp bark that sets my ears back. The girl doesn’t stir, however. She only waits for him to sit back up. To wipe his mouth on his sleeve. I can smell the blood flecked there. If she sees it, she does not comment. Instead, she asks again.
‘You sure?’ Care is doubling back. ‘Do you know where they’d been?’
The man only shakes his head, his voice silenced by another cough. It matters not. He has already told her about the pages. That the files she has so recently perused were rifled long ago, the most salient of their contents removed. Accounts of job placement – work release – for inmates sent into private service. Of deals made between private industry and the state. Those accountings – the ‘count’ the boy spoke of – were removed years ago. But although their intended use was thwarted, the documents were never returned. Never refiled after that one, long-ago theft – when a foolhardy whistleblower sought to make a difference. They have instead become the stuff of legend.
I confess to having doubts at the way she handled the interrogation. True, once this guard – this Terry – collapsed, sick and in apparent despair, she seemed to have the upper hand. His vulnerability and her kindness created a dynamic unlike any I recall. Still, the man is a liar – a convicted felon, as demonstrated by his placement here, a trustee working in this hall of records.
What I can confirm, I have. That the man has not been outside is apparent. His ancient work boots have paper-thin soles, but the signs of wear on the toes and ankles are all dusty, the cuts in the leather dry. Nor do his clothes reveal any sign of the outside, no trace of earth or dampness, or of any other living thing. Instead, he smells only of decay. The odor of this building, of paper and crumbling brick. And of his own rotting lungs, which surely imprison him more securely than any legal sentence could.