And then another noise—much closer. A soft, wet sound. Someone breathing. It came from across the table. Amy’s concentration snapped into focus, but it took some effort to swim up through her layers of awareness and finally open her eyes.
It was Trinity. Her eyes were closed, and in the mellow candlelight Amy thought she could see them flickering back and forth underneath their lids. Her mouth was hanging open, her fists were balled on the table, clenched hard inside their silver bracelets, and her nose was running. A thin trickle of snot collected on her upper lip until her heavy breathing sucked it into her open mouth. A dozen wisecracks sprang to mind, but Amy resisted the urge to say anything. Everyone was being so serious.
The snot kept flowing, more and more of it, streaming over Trinity’s upper lip and trickling into her mouth. It was disgusting. Amy glanced over at Matt, but his eyes were closed. They all had their eyes closed. Amy shifted in her chair. Shouldn’t someone say something? Or maybe wake Trinity up? She wouldn’t want this in her Ghost Bomb reel.
Finally Trinity’s mouth was full and the snot spilled out, stretching toward the tabletop, a thin silver strand of drool hanging from her lower lip. It began to stretch and descended, quivering toward the tabletop, swinging gently back and forth, until its pendulous head tapped the front of Trinity’s T-shirt and stuck there.
Amy couldn’t stand it anymore. “Hey,” she whispered.
With a sudden wet gasp, Trinity opened her eyes and tried to swallow. Her throat flexed and she choked on the thick glutinous mass. She gagged and gagged again, unable to get it all down. She reached for her neck, but her handcuffed wrists couldn’t get close enough.
“Matt!” Amy called.
“It’s okay,” Matt said to Trinity. “I’m here.”
Ruth Anne opened her eyes. “What’s happening?”
“She’s choking. Get these cuffs off.”
“It’s okay,” Matt repeated. “Just spit it up, Trin. Get it out.”
Trinity’s throat gave a final heave and what Amy saw next was impossible: it looked like she was vomiting underwater. A thick, milky liquid hung in front of Trinity’s face, an impossible cloud suspended in midair, soft white tendrils unfurling in slow motion.
“Get her cuffs off,” Amy repeated, but either Matt didn’t hear her or he was too awestruck to respond.
More fluid surged from Trinity’s mouth, thickening the milk cloud. Candlelight reflected on its undulating surface, amplifying every delicate tremor, making it appear alive. As Trinity regurgitated gulp after gulp of white fluid, its aimless drift took on a purpose, unrolling tendrils back toward her face, latching onto her hair, her ears, clinging to her cheeks and dragging itself over her, obliterating her features beneath its milky ripples. The cloud pulled itself slowly over Trinity’s head, engulfing her from the shoulders up until all that was left was a torso disappearing into a white glob of liquid, its sides rippling with surface tension as if it was breathing for her.
Trinity’s chest heaved and her diaphragm and stomach jerked as she pumped out more fluid; the liquid mass thickened and bulged. Some distant part of Amy’s mind understood that the Brooka/bathroom smell had returned, a rich toilet stench, stale and rank like rotten cheese.
The only person not watching the ectoplasm was Carl. His eyes were closed and he was breathing heavily through his nose. His face was red, his neck was corded. Sweat had blackened the collar of his polo shirt.
A long pseudopod of milky white fluid stretched across the table toward Carl and sniffed the air around him. He opened his eyes just as the fluid rolled over his face in an intimate gesture and flowed up his nostrils. Amy wanted to gag but she couldn’t speak, she couldn’t move. She was paralyzed watching this foul communion. The fluid stretched across the table from Trinity’s mouth to Carl’s nose, rippling in midair over the table like fabric floating underwater.
“Heh … hel—” Carl mumbled.
The ribbon of fluid fluttered, shaken by the sound of his voice. Then its tail broke free of Trinity’s mouth, and quick as an eel it disappeared up Carl’s nose. As suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone—and the spell that paralyzed the group was broken.
“Okay,” Amy said, trying out her voice, relieved that she could speak. “Okay, okay.”
“Is he—” Ruth Anne whispered.
“Hurts!” Carl said, loudly. “Forgot … it hurts!”
His voice was different; it was deeper and didn’t sound like Carl at all. His hands spasmed and clenched in their cuffs, like dying crabs flexing on the table. A long minute passed before he spoke again, but when he finally did, he was considerably calmer. “Forgive me,” he whispered. “Why does it always have to hurt so much?”
Trinity’s head was lolling backward, as if her neck had been broken. Her eyes were closed. Her trance was still in effect. Her voice was a croak. “Who are you, spirit?”
Carl looked down at his wrists. All of his insecurity, all of his weakness, all of his kindness, all of it was gone. “You have me in restraints? That is too misguided. You are sicker in your spirits than I first believed.”
“Who are you?” Trinity asked again.
“I am your warden, your healer. I am your north star. Your dispenser of health and goodness. You shall learn to love me, like all of the penitents in my Beehive.”
Cold sweat trickled down Amy’s spine. She thought back to the graffiti in the bathroom.
“They called it my Beehive because it hummed with the sound of industry,” Carl continued, his sweat-soaked face earnest. “My partners grew fat off the labor of my penitents, but I truly cared for them. I prescribed the toil that purified their souls.”
“Enough,” Matt said, reaching across the table for the handcuff key, dragging Trinity’s limp arm behind him. But in the midst of all the confusion, the key had vanished.
“The sad young lover,” Carl said. “Sick at heart, chasing after something he can never have. I fear the cure shall be difficult for you, my lad.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Matt blustered.
“I’ll have you turn the crank,” Carl said. “It shall cauterize your sense of romantic folly. One thousand and one, one thousand and two, one thousand and three, one thousand and four … ”
“Where’s the key?” Matt said, looking around the table. “Who has the key?”
“Ten thousand turns of the crank every day,” Carl continued. “Ten thousand today, ten thousand tomorrow, ten thousand the next day after that. There is no exit until you’re cured, because the door of the Beehive only swings one way.”
He turned away from Matt to study the rest of the group. “Did any of you think you were here by accident? I’ve been watching you for so long, picking the sickest from amongst your ranks and nudging the hand of fate to guide you into my care. Providence must smile upon me, because here you all are.”
Amy wanted to say “Whatever.” Something flip. Something to undermine him. To undercut his bullying. To show him that he couldn’t talk to her this way. But she felt hollow and two-dimensional and useless.
“There’s the spinster,” Carl said, looking at Ruth Anne. “Still afraid of her Creepy Crawlies, still possessing the mind of a child. Her cure will be quite painful, I’m afraid, but pain is a sure sign of its efficacy.”
Ruth Anne recoiled, and next Carl turned to Trinity.
“This one must be turned from her tempting ways,” he said. “There is a treatment involving the crushing of one’s body on the tread wheel that is most effective with fallen women.”
Then he turned to Amy. She looked down at her lap, avoiding eye contact. She didn’t want to be seen by him. She squirmed like a bug on a needle while his eyes stripped her of her clothes, stripped her of her skin, laid her open and revealed her workings on the dissecting table.
“And you,” he smiled. “I’ve been looking forward to treating you most of all. I shall present you with a variation of my tranquilizing chair that will guide you to the fulfillment of your tru
e nature. For this is not a penitentiary, you see. It is a mill. A mill to manufacture sound minds. It is quite easy to begin. Something I learned from the Serbian tribes. Churches are built where saints were martyred. A bridge requires a child in its foundations if it is to hold. All great works must begin with a sacrifice.”
And with that, Carl stood. Ruth Anne jumped, expecting to feel her left arm pull away from the table, but empty handcuffs dangled from both of Carl’s wrists. Somehow he had detached himself from her and Trinity without anyone noticing.
“Give me the key,” Matt said, trying to sound brave.
Carl turned his burning gaze on him.
“My whip shall split your bestial hides and drive you on to work, for work is the moral treatment that will mend your degraded minds,” he warned, his voice rolling like thunder across the Showroom floor. It was the voice of a preacher, a voice of the past, a voice for cathedrals, a voice from a time before microphones. It was a voice that denounced witches and flogged sinners. It was a voice that sang Latin while women burned at the stake and men were crushed beneath stones. “Now, let us make the necessary sacrifice for my great work to begin again. Let us use the materials at hand to fling wide the gates and open the door. Come inside my mill,” he said, licking colorless lips with his pale tongue. “Come inside, and let hard work cure the weakness inside your minds.”
With that, Carl took the empty cuff dangling from his left wrist and, holding it like a scythe, pressed the sharp end of the hasp against his windpipe. At first it looked as though he was scratching an itch—but then he forced the tip into his neck, pushing the handcuff’s teeth into his throat. Ruth Anne shrieked. Amy couldn’t look away. Carl pushed the hasp deeper into his neck, hooking it behind his trachea. Then he yanked on the chain. There was a wet crunching sound, and a bib of black blood cascaded down him.
Matt stepped backward and tipped his chair over, pulling Trinity’s limp body with him. She flopped to the floor, pulling him down in a kind of grim slapstick. Their fall jerked Amy across the table. The edge of the Frånjk caught her in the stomach and she let out a soft shocked grunt. The vanilla candles went rolling, spilling rivulets of white wax. Ruth Anne vaulted from her seat, but she was still tethered to Amy; the resistance yanked her back and she toppled a tripod.
Carl wavered where he stood, blood pulsing down his front. Then he slowly sat in his chair, face numb and glazed, mouth slack.
“Is he dead?” Matt asked. “Did he kill himself? Did we just watch this guy kill himself?”
“Stop pulling,” Ruth Anne said to Amy, crawling onto the table, kicking candles out of her way.
“What?”
“Stay still.”
Ruth Anne leaned over Carl’s body, reaching into the pocket of his polo shirt. She retrieved the handcuff key from his pocket and unlocked her right wrist. She pulled her blouse over her head, slid off the table, put one hand behind Carl’s head, and pressed her blouse to the gaping wound on his neck. Instantly, it was soaked in blood.
“Help me,” she snapped at Amy, throwing her the key. “Get his legs.”
Amy fumbled the key into her cuffs and released them. With one sweep of her arm, Ruth Anne cleared the table, sending the remaining candles and EMF reader clattering to the floor. Then she and Amy hoisted Carl’s body onto the Frånjk. Ruth Anne kept her blouse pressed to his neck, applying pressure; she grabbed Carl’s wrist and checked his pulse.
“Shit,” she hissed, and let his wrist drop. Amy had never heard Ruth Anne curse before, and she knew it could mean only one thing.
“We shouldn’t have done this,” Amy said. “I knew it was a bad idea.”
Ruth Anne lifted her blouse from the wound and spread it over Carl’s face. Amy unlocked the others, and Matt helped Trinity to her feet. Her legs were wobbly and he had to hold her up.
“What happened?” she said, her voice hoarse. “I don’t understand. Is Carl hurt?”
“What the hell is going on?” Basil asked.
He was standing in the center of the Bright and Shining Path, mouth hanging open, looking at a scene from his worst nightmare. Vanilla-scented candles had splashed wax halfway up the walls. Cameras were tipped over. Handcuffs were all over the floor. Ruth Anne was topless except for her bra. Blood was everywhere. And a dead man lay sprawled on a Frånjk dining table.
“Somebody answer me!” Basil said. “Who did this to him?”
“He did it to himself,” Matt said. “He went crazy and tried to kill himself.”
“It wasn’t Carl,” Amy said. “It was someone else. He said he was our warden. He said this place was his mill.”
Trinity turned to her, awestruck.
“The séance worked?” she asked.
“What are you people talking about?” Basil said.
“You have to call the police,” Amy said. “Call them and tell them to come back.”
“They never showed up,” Basil said, disgusted. “I came here to see if they called you back.”
“I tried to save him,” Ruth Anne said. “I really tried.”
“Go clean up,” Basil said. “There are T-shirts in the break room. And take Trinity with you. I don’t want anyone alone. I’ll come find you when the police get here.”
“We found a ghost,” Trinity said.
“Stop talking and go to the break room,” Basil said. “I can’t believe this is happening. There is a dead man on the Frånjk! And Corporate is going to be here in”—he looked at his watch—“five hours! We’ve got five hours to clean up and sort this out. This is a nightmare.”
Trinity and Ruth Anne set off down the Bright and Shining Path.
Amy tried to explain. “It was nobody’s fault,” she said. “We were having a séance and—”
“A séance?” Basil asked. “Jesus Christ.”
“It’s true,” Matt said. “He was possessed. Or something.”
“Stop talking,” Basil said. “Both of you. Stop talking.”
He pushed past them and walked over to the Frånjk. Carl’s face was still covered with the blouse. Basil tried to lift it, but the blood was already drying; it came loose with a ripping sound.
Amy had seen two dead bodies before. The first was her uncle who had died, as they say, peacefully in his sleep. The other was a neighbor who’d overdosed at the trailer park. Carl looked worse than either of them. His eyes bulged like boiled eggs, his mouth was drawn down in a rictus of pain, and she couldn’t even look at his throat. Amy felt Basil slump, defeated.
“We should … ” she said.
“Not yet,” Basil said, and he sounded exhausted. “Just give me a minute before you start talking.”
Carl’s hand shot out and seized Amy’s wrist. Amy let out a yelp of surprise. His eyes rolled down and fixed on her. His mouth twisted itself into a cold grin. When he spoke, his voice seemed to creep out of the wound in his throat:
“The doors are open.”
Amy heard a distant click and her vision went black. The spotlights went dark. The exit signs. Power indicator lights. Everything. With no windows or skylights, the Showroom was blacker than midnight, and Amy was blind, isolated from everyone else, lost in darkness. She stumbled backward and at some point realized that Carl had released her wrist.
“The safety lights,” a disembodied voice said.
Amy recognized the voice. Basil was somewhere to her left.
“No one can turn off the safety lights,” he continued. “This is impossible.”
The Showroom floor was massive, but Amy felt the walls and ceiling closing in. Her pulse was popping in her wrists, throbbing in her neck like a headache. But it wasn’t the darkness that frightened her. It was the silence.
Normally she could hear the endless roar of Orsk’s air-conditioning system blowing through the miles of ductwork, but now it was completely silent. The darkness was eating every sound, muffling it, muting it. The air felt warm and suddenly stale.
“Use your phones,” Matt said.
Eerie blue l
ight bloomed in the darkness as Matt powered on his iPhone and increased its screen brightness to the highest setting. Amy powered up her flip phone and realized that her battery was down to its last bar. She aimed the screen in Matt’s direction and saw him squatting over a gear bag, rummaging inside. “It’s got to be in here someplace,” he said.
“The safety lights never go out,” Basil repeated. “Not even in an earthquake.”
This is worse than an earthquake, Amy thought. This is something the Orsk engineers never anticipated.
“Here.” Matt switched on the Maglite and cast the beam around the dining room display. That’s when they discovered that they were alone in the darkness. Except for a few spatters of blood and candle wax, the surface of the Frånjk was bare.
“What the hell?” Matt said.
“Oh, thank God,” Basil sighed. “He’s just injured.”
“That’s not possible,” Amy said. “You didn’t see what we saw.”
Basil snatched the Maglite away from Matt and shone it around the Showroom floor, its beam bouncing across furniture and room displays, chasing away shadows. “Carl!” he called. “Can you hear me?”
Amy turned to Matt. “This is crazy. You saw what happened. We need to go.”
If she had any courage, she would have walked out by herself, but the darkness was too complete. Her pathetic cell phone was too faint to guide the way. Amy had never been scared of the dark, or of ghosts, or of serial killers, but right now she felt small and vulnerable and surrounded by something hungry. Ruth Anne’s talk of Creepy Crawlies echoed in her mind; they haunted the thick shadows, creeping closer and closer.
“Amy’s right,” Matt said. “We have to go.”
“With an injured man bleeding all over the Showroom? I can’t do that, Matt.”
“He sliced open his throat,” Matt said. “He killed himself.”
“If he was dead, he’d still be on the table.” Basil stepped out on the floor, aiming the flashlight toward Bedrooms. “Carl?”
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