by Guy Adams
"Sunglasses?"
"Tinted lenses to protect your eyes from the sun. They make you look cool too."
"'Cool' as in extremely brilliant rather than low in temperature?"
"That's the one."
"Then obviously I should have some too."
"Obviously."
They entered the store, a small bell chiming to announce their arrival.
"Let me do the talking," said Miles, "we don't want to draw attention to ourselves."
"Oh to be so forgettable."
They walked over to a revolving pillar of sunglasses and Miles began trying them on, offering a pair to Carruthers. The explorer put them on.
"Your own portable darkness generators," he said. "How clever you modern people are."
"Stop being so sarcastic, do you want a pair or not?"
"I'd rather a decent pith helmet."
"You'll settle for the shades."
Miles took a couple of pairs and walked over to a drinks cooler in the corner. He grabbed a couple of bottles of coke and made his way to the counter.
"Hey there," said a small and round lady behind the counter. She was sat on a creaking stool and pressing her face into the breeze of a rotating fan. Thin strands of plastic whipped out from the fan and flickered around her cheeks. She looked like a hamster in a wind tunnel.
"Hi," said Miles, "hot day."
"Been hotter," she said, turning her head on one side as if to cool off her left ear, "there's times when I don't know whether to cry or shit it's so hot."
"I doubt either would help madam," said Carruthers from behind Miles.
The lady stared at him for a moment then peeled her eyes away and began tapping at the till.
"My friend's only joking," said Miles, "he has a weird Australian sense of humour."
"Crack wise again and he'll have my son's work boots up his ass too," she said, "I only has to call him and he'll come running."
"That won't be necessary," Miles insisted, "we just want to buy these things."
"That's what they all say," she continued, "then, 'fore you know it they're reaching for you over the counter, we get 'em all in here, crooks, lunatics and perverts."
"It's good that you're so busy," said Carruthers.
Miles shot him a dirty look. "Please ignore him," he said to the woman, offering her a couple of dollars. "We're in kind of a hurry."
"In some sort of trouble are you?" she asked, not taking the money.
"Of course not!" Miles laughed. "Just need to get on the road."
She stared at them a moment longer and then drew in a breath and opened her mouth to shout for her son. But no sound came out, she just froze there, mouth agape. The only noise was those plastic ribbons from the fan, flickering and cracking.
"What's happened to her?" Carruthers said.
"I have no idea," Miles replied.
Then a noise erupted from the throat: "The 5.15 to Brighton is currently experiencing a crisis of identity and, as such, staff are unsure as to whether it is coming or going."
"The House," said Carruthers, "trying to break through again?"
There was a crackle of radio static, the woman's jowls quivering with the noise. Then a young girl's voice: "Tomorrow morning, build not break, eight forty-five, build not break, Home Town, build not break, restoration, build not break..."
"Sophie?" Miles subconsciously leaning forward as if he might be able to see her if he looked down the woman's throat far enough. He left the money on the counter, grabbed their things and tugged on Carruthers' arm. "Let's get out of here," he said.
"Build not break, build not break, build not break..." Sophie's voice was getting louder and louder as they ran from the store. It continued to build, even as they ran up the highway.
"Build not break, build not break..." there was a pause and then "restoration!" The windows burst outwards as the final scream turned into a whine of distortion.
Miles and Carruthers kept on running.
11.
"Excuse me fellas," said Officer Calhoun, thumb in his belt trying to look casual and threatening all at the same time. Though in truth these two didn't look all that dangerous. Amy had been freaked by them, sure. But Amy was just a kid, she'd freak at anything.
He'd had half a mind to brush her off, still bristling at the ludicrousness of pulling every pair of white and black guys over and asking if they'd been up to any trouble. But there was a bigger part of him – an arrogant but also desperate part of him – that wanted these two to be the guys the Captain was after. Not only for the kudos of finding them but the kudos of finding them in front of his daughter, a girl who saw him as an embarrassment. However much he may rankle against her opinion, downright seethe at it in fact, he knew he'd done a few things in his life to have earned it. Now, perhaps a bit of the old alpha male may restore some respect.
"You mind me asking where you were this morning?" he said. Aware as soon as the words were out of his mouth that it was hardly the most subtle of enquiries. If they had been involved in that mess over on 192 they were hardly going to admit to it were they?
"Why," the white guy asked, and Calhoun thought he might just have been English after all, "there some sort of problem?"
"Just a general enquiry, sir," Calhoun replied, pulling a little secrecy back into the proceedings. The black was certainly nervous about something, he noted, in fact he looked ready to scream.
"Oh," the English guy replied, "well in that case we drove up from Hughie's place a few hours ago. Popped in at that building site a few miles away and killed a few people. That help with the general enquiry?" The man smiled and Calhoun felt a sudden urge to run, and to hell with the "alpha male" stuff. He caught a flash of Amy's pink hair out of the corner of his eye – I mean pink hair, who in the name of jumped up Christ dies their hair pink? – and that was enough to make him hold his ground. He unholstered his firearm and pointed it towards the table, keeping it moving between the two of them.
"Get out of your seats and on the ground," he barked, taking a solid pleasure in how authoritative he sounded. "Amy?" he called, "you get on out to my car, grab that radio and call me some backup." Too late for that, a little voice whispered inside him, far too late. He saw his daughter run outside and that would be some measure of relief in the violence that followed. At least his daughter had got out. He would think of that in a couple of minute's time as he lay dying on the floor. "You hear me?" he asked again, annoyed at the fact that this pudgy little shit was still smiling; a whole world away from lying on the floor and under Calhoun's control.
"I hear you," the man said, returning to his meal and continuing to eat. "Let me just finish my steak and then I'll give your request some consideration."
"It's not a request, asshole," Calhoun shouted, really, terribly afraid now. "It's an order. Now get on the floor."
"Please," the black guy said, "don't do this."
"I'll do whatever the hell I like," Calhoun replied before realising that the man hadn't been speaking to him. No, the man hadn't been speaking to him at all.
12.
Shepard had been pulling out from Dunkin' Donuts when Cheryl came on the radio telling everyone that Pete Calhoun was requesting backup a few miles away.
"What's the score, Cheryl?" he asked.
"I'm not quite sure, tell you the truth," she answered, a world away from the usual calm and informative voice of despatch. "It was Calhoun's girl that came on the radio and she wasn't clear. Something about a pair of freaky guys in the diner that match the description you sent out."
"Amy Calhoun?"
"Yeah, I know," I know this is not the way things are done, is what Cheryl was saying, I know Calhoun's fucked up again. Bless her though, she wouldn't send that over the radio, not when it could be picked up by someone eavesdropping on the police band.
"Okay Cheryl," he replied, "on my way."
He made it to the steakhouse in about ten minutes, riding the lights and siren and keeping his foot heavy on the gas. The minute he pul
led up outside he thought back to that road fatality he had cried over when he'd been wet behind the ears, the one with the kid and that damned heavy shoe. Looking at the blood-spatter and cracks that decorated the outside windows he knew he was about to see something that would linger as long – if not longer – in his memory. Something else for those dark, lonely mornings when all you heard was your wife's breathing.
He reached for the radio, needing to see no more. "Cheryl, we have a Code O," he said, keeping his voice as light as possible. "Get me a couple of guys and a band-aid."
There was a slight pause, but only slight, Cheryl was good. "Code O, check," she said, her voice as breezy as his own. "I'll put out a call, boss."
"Thanks despatch." He hung up the radio. "Code O" was their own little code sign, used when an officer arrived at a major scene requiring backup, fast but no damned rubberneckers or press. "Code O" (or "Code Oh Shit!" as Dutch frequently referred to it) was a way of getting an unpleasant job done on the sly. Get the warm bodies needed without lighting up the eyes of eavesdroppers everywhere. The "band-aid" would be an ambulance, Cheryl was astute enough to figure that much, he knew.
Shepard took a deep breath. He wasn't going to wait for backup to arrive. He should but he wasn't going to. That's because, in his gut, he knew it was all over. It was far too quiet in there. Whatever storm had blown this way – and it had something to do with those guys that had scared Corben Alliss, Shepard thought, scared him enough that the mere proximity of them was enough to get his piss flowing – it had blown over. When he stepped beyond that door he knew that all he would see was blood and ruin. But it was his job to check. He walked towards the restaurant, firearm in hand, held tense and ready to be used.
He moved slowly, in no great rush to look through the windows – fat chance of that, he thought, too much blood. As before when faced with such things, things a human being is hardwired not to want to witness, he found that his senses sharpened rather than spared him the details. It was as if his subconscious demanded he pay close attention, soaked up every nuance. Here but for the grace of God, it said, for this is where you'll end up one day… His boots crunched on a combination of grit and powdered glass like a child munching on cereal. Colours sharpened, that dark red, almost brown, of the blood – not the bright Technicolor of movie gore, but the autumnal shade of fallen leaves. That sharp, metallic, butcher-shop perfume.
"Captain Shepard?" the voice was quiet, a broken whisper coming from behind one of the parked cars. He swung his gun to aim at the noise, nerves so tense his automatic reaction was to assume trouble. He saw a flash of pink duck down behind the fender and lifted his gun skywards.
"Who's that?" he asked. "Come on out, you're OK." That's a lie, he thought, once you've seen this you're never going to be OK again.
Slowly a girl's head appeared and it took him a second to recognise Amy Calhoun. Last time he'd seen her had been on one of the department summer picnics they threw every year. Cops and their families getting together to eat barbecue and pretend they lived normal lives. That had been before Pete had lost his shit, hitting the bottle harder than was healthy and flushing his family away with every sip.
"Amy?" he asked, reconciling this young woman with the kid he'd known. That young girl who still had a father who knew his sober days. The kid that had never seen her place of work turned into a mess of meat and bone.
"Captain Shepard?" she asked again, as if not quite sure.
"That's right, hon," he replied, "Captain Shepard. You see what happened here?" She nodded. "The guys that did it?"
"Gone."
That was something at least. He had suspected it right enough but felt a rush of relief to know his instincts had borne out. "Your dad," he asked, "is he…"
She looked towards the spattered windows and her jaw began to shake. It wouldn't be tears, Warren Shepard knew they would come later, tears were the first sign of getting better. This was still shock, disbelief, horror… the brain switching on and off like lights during a storm.
"Okay," he said, "I want you to come and sit in my cruiser, okay?" He held out his hand to her. "More folks are on the way, you'll be safe now. We'll get you looked after." Ain't nothing that'll make this girl better now, he thought, not all the warm blankets, sedatives and counselling in the world.
He led her carefully back to his cruiser and let her sit in the passenger seat. He picked up the radio and, cautious of breaking the secrecy of a Code O told Cheryl that Pete's daughter needed someone to keep an eye on her. He knew that despatch would follow his meaning.
That done he had no more delays, he needed to see what had happened inside the diner. Like it or not, the job demanded it.
Captain Shepard walked inside.
PART SEVEN
The Ballroom
1.
"Sophie needs to go to the library now!" the screens had shouted and with that the future took a small spin towards resolution.
Alan and Penelope led the crew of the Intrepid downstairs and set their minds to travelling once more. They raided the local shops for a few supplies – mostly food and drink, for whatever it was worth – and filled their backpacks. Hawkins struck gold with some pocket torches, better than sacrificing any more clothing to the flames. Alan rigged a backpack to act as an oversized papoose for Sophie, he knew she would hate being bundled up so close to him but it was the only practical way to cover any distance with her. She was as vacant as ever as he fed her into it, poking her legs out of ragged holes he had cut into the fabric. It pulled heavily on his shoulders and back but he hoped he'd padded it enough for it to be at least reasonably comfortable for its passenger.
Despite the inherent dangers in heading back into the main body of the House, Penelope was glad to be on the move again. With a direction fixed and an objective to aim for – however incomprehensible – she had something to occupy that flitting mind of hers. As the only one of the party to have visited the library before she did her best to describe it to the rest of them.
"It sounds as ludicrous as the rest of this place," said Maggie. "God only knows what we're supposed to do when we get there."
"I guess we just hope that the House makes that clear," Alan said. "We're flying blind as usual."
"Certainly usual for me," said Jonah.
"I wish I could say I was comfortable with following the House's directions in the first place," said Hawkins. "It's hardly seemed driven towards our best interests thus far."
"Who knows if it's the House talking or Sophie," Alan replied, "we have no idea where one ends and the other begins."
"And that makes me feel much better," said Barnabas.
Alan and Penelope had done their best to fill the Intrepid crew in on what had happened to them all, even more aware how ludicrous it sounded when trying to explain it. In the end Hawkins had dismissed matters with a wave of his one good hand. "I'm a sea captain," he had said, "we know that sometimes you just have to follow the tide wherever it may go. For now it flows towards this library and we shall sail with it as best we can."
Packed and prepared as well as they could ever hope to be, they made their way towards the station exit. There was a solid wall of darkness where there should have been the hustle of pedestrians and the honking battle of taxicabs. Every now and then a ghostly passenger would walk out of that darkness and pass through them on their way to the station.
"Weird as you like," said Ryan, pulling faces at a besuited businessman as he emerged into the light, checked his watch and dashed towards his imaginary connection. A young woman appeared, weighed down with shopping bags and her own pleasure at having bent her credit to near breaking. "Help you with your bags darling?" Ryan asked, eyeing her appreciatively. He skipped in front of her, smiling as he held open his arms and puckered up, meaning to kiss this beautiful illusion. She collided into him, sending him sprawling onto the stone floor, his amorous expression switched for one of surprise. The woman was just as startled, dropping her bags and staring at him momentarily b
efore a look of confusion spread across her face and her eyes slipped from him.
"She can't see you any more," said Penelope, "she did… I'm sure she did, but now…" she moved her hand towards the woman. It passed right through her hunched back as she stooped to gather her shopping. "No, gone again…"
"But how could she even have been there in the first place?' said Hawkins. "You told us they were just images… not real people at all."
"That's what we thought," said Alan.
"Doesn't matter," Penelope said, "if we stop to pick at every mystery we come across we'll never get anywhere."
"Yeah," said Ryan, getting to his feet, "wish I'd known that might happen though, I'd have gone for her tits."