7 Steps to Midnight

by Richard Matheson

  He had just finished putting the hotel reservation, passport and money into his overnight bag and put Basy’s bag back under the seat next to him when a flight officer had shown up to speak to him. One of the pilots? The navigator? There’d been no way of knowing. His name was Captain Blake.

  He’d asked Chris questions in a quiet, reassuring voice. Chris imagined that voice over the loudspeaker system, dulcetly informing the passengers that “This is Captain Blake. We are now plummeting toward the ocean at a horrendous speed and in a few moments, we will all be dead as doornails. Enjoy your flight.”

  Blake had asked him what he knew about Basy. Not much, Chris had told him. We spoke a few minutes, nothing specific; then he’d gone to the lavatory to vanish from the face of the earth—or the face of the sky.

  Captain Blake had soon departed, taking Basy’s bag with him. Thank God I looked inside it first, Chris had thought….

  “Here on vacation, guv’?” the driver asked.

  Chris’s legs retracted and he opened his eyes. “I’m sorry?” he asked.

  “Just askin’ if you’re on vacation,” the driver replied.

  “Oh,” Chris looked blank. “Yes,” he said then. “A vacation.”

  The driver smiled. “Have a nice time.”

  “Thank you,” Chris murmured. I’ll have a lovely time, he thought. So far it’s been just grand.

  He closed his eyes again, wishing he could sleep. Granted, he was accustomed to minimal sleep at home but he had to have something.

  Home, he thought. Was the other Chris Barton sleeping there at this moment? With Mrs. Barton asleep next to him? Maureen?

  He grimaced and angrily looked around before closing his eyes once more. The other Chris Barton my ass, he thought. There’s only one Chris Barton and it’s me. What name was in the passport, Donald Duck?

  ***

  He jolted, gasping, as a hand shook his shoulder. Jerking open his eyes, he stared at the man looking at him. It was the taxi driver. “Park Court, guv’nor,” he said.

  Chris looked around and saw the entrance to the hotel. There was a man in a uniform and top hat waiting on the curb. He rubbed his face and picked up the overnight bag, getting out of the taxi.

  “Take your bag, sir?” the doorman asked. He had a bushy mustache and looked like another character from Dickens. Here, it fit.

  “That’s all right,” Chris answered. He had no intention of letting the reality of its contents out of his hands.

  He looked at the driver. “How much?” he asked. The man told him.

  Chris unzipped the overnight bag and turned away so neither man could see its contents. Reaching into the envelope, he tore off the paper seal and pulled out several five-pound notes. Thank God he’d read that book on European monetary values. He’d never thought it would actually come in handy; he’d only read it out of curiosity.

  He paid the driver, tipping him fifteen percent, then gave the doorman a pound note.

  “Thank you, sir.” The doorman nodded.

  Chris went up the short flight of steps and entered the lobby. The desk was to his left. Moving there, he set the overnight bag on the counter and removed the hotel reservation form from it. He felt a moment of icy premonition as he laid it on the counter in front of the clerk. Was he mindlessly letting himself into a trap?

  He fought away the apprehension. What choice did he have anyway? So far he was alive and safe. He had to play the hand given to him. There was no apparent alternative.

  Anyway, he was too tired to resist.

  If it was a trap, it was a damned subtle one. The desk clerk examined the form and smiled, welcoming Chris to the hotel as he gave him a key. Chris thanked him, turned to the right and moved to the elevator. As he pushed the button, he saw a staircase leading down. For several seconds, the wonderment of actually being in a London hotel struck him, not unpleasantly.

  He waited until the elevator door slid open, then went inside and pushed the button for the fourth floor.

  It made him nervous standing alone in the small elevator as it slowly ascended. He pressed himself against the back wall, imagining Veering suddenly popping into view next to him, smiling and asking, “How do you like it so far?” He shuddered, then snarled without sound. Shape up, he told himself.

  The route along the fourth floor hallway was beyond circuitous. It seemed the hotel equivalent of a hedge maze, extending on and on, changing directions, twisting and turning. Chris passed maids and guests entering and leaving rooms. He wanted to stop one of them and ask where the hell he was but didn’t have the energy. This is it, he thought, I’m going to spend eternity wandering along a fourth floor corridor in the Park Court Hotel. Someday, they’ll find my skeleton in some dusty corner, still gripping the overnight bag with my bony digits.

  Finally, he came to the room and went inside. Locking the door, he leaned back against it with a heavy sigh. If they (whoever “they” might be) were going to try and get him now, they’d have to break in. He had the pistol; he’d make a fight of it.

  He snickered at himself. Sure you would, he thought. You’re a regular goddamn James Bond.

  Opening his eyes, he moved past the bathroom doorway into the room. There was a low counter to his left with a TV on it, a mirror above that. To his right were a pair of double beds, a table between them, a phone on top of it.

  He put the overnight bag on the bed closest to the hall door and walked to the window. There was a park across the street. He saw people ambling along a path, sitting on the grass, a man and woman waiting for a bus. My God, he thought, I’m in England. Standing at a hotel window in the city of London! For a guy who figured he was lucky to get to Las Vegas now and then, he was really on a roll.

  He frowned. This was still a nightmare, wasn’t it? He grunted. Sure it was. Still, it was rather like a Hitchcock nightmare. Foreign intrigue. Night flight from unknown enemies. He felt—he had to admit it—a little stimulated by it all. That’s because you’re safe right now, his mind reacted. Let something threatening happen and you’ll panic again.

  “Okay, okay,” he muttered. “Still…” Despite the frightening incidents, he was, at least, far away from that damned office at the plant, that damned computer and the damned project. Half a world distant, in London, living a mystery the like of which he’d only read about before. It was stimulating, no other word for it.

  He turned and looked at the bed beside him. It was tiring too; hell, exhausting. He crawled onto the bed, pulled a pillow from under the spread and dumped his head on it. Wait, I have to take off my shoes, he thought.

  He was asleep before he could make a move. There were no dreams. His rest was deep, black and still.

  2

  He began to hear music in the distance. At first, he was barely conscious of it. Then his brain began to rise from blackness until it surfaced and he opened his eyes.

  He stared at the ceiling, half-awake. The music was clear now; “The Swan” from Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals. He looked around groggily.

  It was in the room.

  Chris sat up with a grunt. A radio on a timer, he thought. He hadn’t seen a radio though. Was it part of the TV set? He looked at the TV. The music wasn’t coming from there. It was to his left. He looked in that direction.

  A small cassette player was lying on the next bed. He stared at it dumbly.

  Abruptly then, he sat up fast and looked toward the hall door. The room was empty. Yet someone had come in while he was sleeping and put the cassette player on the bed, turned it on and left.

  Chris shuddered, feeling lost again, a helpless victim. No matter how he tried adjusting, the mysteries kept piling up faster than he could handle them. He stared at the cassette player. “The Swan” ended and the Finale of the Carnival of the Animals began to play.

  He swallowed, then gingerly reached out and pressed the Stop button, flinching as he imagined that, in doing so, he’d detonate a plastic bomb inside the player. He pulled back quickly as though to avoi
d the explosion.

  “Idiot,” he muttered then. He looked at the cassette box lying beside the player. There was nothing on it; it was painted solid blue.

  After several moments, he sat up and, reaching over, picked up the cassette player. Another flinch as he imagined that, in doing so, he’d pulled a wire that would detonate a bomb beneath the bed.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” He scowled at himself. You have been reading too many goddamn thrillers.

  He examined the cassette player, then started to press the Rewind button. He hesitated. What, if in depressing it, he detonated—?

  “Enough,” he snarled. He lifted the cover of the player and took out the cassette. It was like the box—painted blue, no printing.

  He put the cassette back into the player and, closing the lid, pressed the Rewind button. He stared at the cassette player’s window until the wheels stopped turning, then pressed the Play button and the music began.

  “Introduction” and “Royal March of the Lion,” he thought, consulting memory. He sat listening. Next came “Hens and Cocks,” then “Mules”; it was apparently the entire Carnival. Next came “Tortoises,” he remembered then. “Elephants.” “Aquarium,” “Personages with Long Ears,” “Cuckoo in the Woods,” “Aviary,” “Pianists,” “Fossils.” Memory ticked them off. Finally “The Swan” again.

  Chris turned off the cassette player and set it aside. Standing, he walked into the bathroom, turned on the light and washed off his face at the sink.

  Dried, he went back into the bedroom and sat down on the bed again, picking up the cassette player. Pushing the Eject button, he opened the top and lifted out the cassette, turned it over. “Oh,” he said. A slip of paper was Scotch-taped to the cassette; on it, a number printed in black: 1530.

  He set down the cassette and put both hands across his face. Jesus God in Heaven, was this ever going to make some sense along the way? Hitchcock it wasn’t. Maybe Kafka was behind this story; it seemed more his style.

  He stood up, trying to blank his mind. Removing his clothes with deliberate slowness, he left them on the floor and walked naked into the bathroom. He started to pull aside the shower curtain, then drew back his hand, imagining a figure hanging in there. Maybe Janet Leigh crumpled, dead in the bathtub.

  “Will you stop?” he ordered himself.

  He turned and went back into the bedroom. Taking the toilet kit out of the bag, he carried it to the bathroom and unzipped it. He would have preferred that his mystery supplier had added a rechargeable electric razor to the kit, but what the hell. He moistened his face, spread cream on it and shaved with the safety razor, managing to nick himself no more than twice. Not bad, he told himself.

  He pulled back the shower curtain; no bodies there. Turning on the water, he waited until it was the right temperature, then stepped inside, pulling the curtain shut again.

  A blue cassette, Carnival of the Animals. Why blue? Any meaning there? Thirteen sections to the Carnival. Seven steps—lucky. Thirteen sections—unlucky. That seemed a nowhere route.

  Animals, he thought. Lion. Hens. Cocks. Mules. Tortoises. Elephants. Aquarium. Personages with long ears. Cuckoo. Aviary. Pianists. Fossils. “The Swan.” The one that was playing when he woke up. Significance there?

  And to top it off—1530. Adds up to nine. That miserable number again. Was it a year? An address? A combination to a safe? A waist measurement?

  “Just shut up, will you?” he addressed his mind. He finished showering, got out and dried himself. Now he’d go into the other room and find Veering sitting on the bed. Or Meehan. Or Nelson’s corpse. Or a Saint Bernard playing a ukulele.

  He went into the other room and took the clothes out of the overnight bag, laying them out on the bed. He put on the underwear, then the shirt (light blue), the slacks (gray flannel), the sweater (dark blue). Nothing but the best, he saw. His benefactor had taste.

  He had to have some coffee, he thought as he sat on the bed, putting on his shoes and socks. Maybe some food, maybe not. Carnival of the Animals. Was he supposed to meet somebody at the zoo?

  “Christ, who knows?” He stood and transferred the money and key to his new slacks. Going back into the bathroom, he patted shaving lotion on his face and combed his hair. Well, I’m dressed like Cary Grant even if I look like someone who’s just gone six rounds with a gorilla. 1530, he thought again. Thirty is double fifteen. And the next number in that progression is forty-five and I look that old right now.

  ***

  As he started down the corridor, it occurred to him that whoever had put the cassette in his room could just as easily have killed him. So there was beneficence in this to some degree. But why the goddamn mystery? Why not just wake him up and tell him what was going on?

  He went down to the lobby and asked the clerk if there was a coffee shop in the hotel. Restaurant downstairs, he was told. He was going to ask what time it was when he saw the clock on the wall, 4:12. It wasn’t dark outside and there was activity in the lobby so obviously it was the afternoon. He’d arrived about nine this morning. He’d slept almost seven hours then; that was two nights’ sleep for him.

  He went downstairs to the restaurant, was seated and given a menu. Before he could ask for immediate coffee, the waitress was gone. Would she bring coffee automatically the way they did in Arizona?

  Clearly, they didn’t; time passed and nothing happened. He stared out the window at a little courtyard. 1530. Blue. Animals.

  7 steps to midnight.

  Now there was a real puzzler. What kind of steps? And midnight when?

  He sighed. He didn’t dare let his brain loose on that one yet.

  Mercifully, the waitress appeared with a glass of water. She looked familiar. Had he seen her in a British spy film? Was she part of the cabal as well? Would there be a message slipped in his farina? Beware the one-eyed man?

  “Yes, love,” said the waitress, shattering the illusion. She was a plump, blonde, middle-aged waitress, nothing more.

  He ordered eggs and bacon, wheat toast, coffee. He was tempted to order a banger too (when in Rome, again) but he didn’t know what a banger was even though he’d heard them mentioned endlessly in British films. Maybe it was a stick of dynamite. Not likely, though.

  He tried not to think when the waitress left but it was impossible; once jump-started, his brain refused to stall. Which was the problem, of course. He’d kept thinking at the plant and put out nothing but dull repetitions and stupid variations.

  He grunted, recalling the dream for a moment. Perfect metaphor. Digits screwing up the performance on his mind-stage. Out of position. Running amok.

  He took a sip of water. Tastes awful, he thought. It’s drugged. He’d topple over and wake up in Shanghai, manacled to a dungeon wall.

  “Yeah, yeah, sure,” he mumbled. Enjoy yourself. 1530. Blue. Animals.

  The waitress brought his bacon, eggs, toast and coffee and he ate, surprised by his appetite. All right, let’s get this thing resolved, he thought as he ate. It had something to do with creatures and blue was a key. A lion. Hens. Cocks. Mules. Tortoises. Elephants. Fish. Donkeys. Cuckoo birds. Pianists? Fossils. A swan.

  “Wait a second.” He stopped eating. The simplest answer was the correct one; wasn’t that always the case? “The Swan” was the piece that was playing when he woke up. The color blue was essential. So was 1530.

  He jarred his chair back and stood. Moving quickly to the waitress, he asked her if there was a public telephone nearby. She told him there was one in the corridor outside the restaurant. He told her he’d be right back and started for the exit.

  There was a small directory, attached by a chain to the pay telephone. He picked it up and turned the pages quickly. He found what he was looking for, what would have crushed him if it hadn’t been there. But it was. “Bingo,” he said. It was the first feeling of controlled triumph he’d felt since all this insanity began.

  The Blue Swan/1530 Meredith.

  ***

  The first thing
he thought as he entered was: I should have brought the pistol with me. He reacted against the thought. Who the hell do I think I am, 007?

  He looked around the dim interior of the pub, wondering why whoever it was had gone to so much trouble to get him here. What if he hadn’t figured it out? Would they have gone to Clue #2?

  It was odd to see computer games in such an ancient setting, huge overhead beams oiled by the greasy smoke of centuries. He looked at the long counter with hams, beef roasts and chickens on it. Now what? he thought.

  He walked past the counter to the bar. He was going to order a screwdriver, then ordered a half-pint of ale. When in Rome…

  He carried the mug to the end of the room. There was a stairway to his left and he ascended it to find an empty, low-ceilinged room with booths, tables and chairs in it, a big unlit fireplace at its far end.

  He walked to the end of the shadowy room and sat in a booth, facing front so he could see if anyone came in. He took a sip of ale, grimacing. He wasn’t used to room-temperature drinks and the flavor tasted strange to him.

  The room was quiet except for the distant sounds from the downstairs pub. Chris took another sip of the ale. It tasted a little better now.

  He’d had no trouble finding the pub. After getting the new jacket from his room, he’d left the hotel, asking the doorman where Meredith was. It turned out to be Meredith Way and it was only four blocks from the hotel. The air had been crisply cold and invigorating as he’d walked. He’d kept thinking how incredible it was that three days ago he was in Arizona, immersed in his usual existence. Incredible, the number of things that had happened to him since he’d woken up in his office. It really would be stimulating if it weren’t for Gene’s death and the possible death of Nelson, of Basy.

  He sighed and looked once more toward the stairs. Was it all some monstrous joke? he thought. Was this the end of it? Was he just going to be left here, high and dry?