The Devourer Below

by Charlotte Llewelyn-Wells

  His companion took a step forward. “Excuse my… partner,” she said. The man scoffed. “He has some authority issues.”

  “Who are you?” Ruth asked. “What do you want?”

  The woman sighed. The fur slid down from her shoulders. She had a long neck. A gold medallion rested on her chest. “Let us talk about what you want, first,” she said, her voice dripping poisoned honey. “And what you don’t want.”

  “We hear you like a bit of the night life,” the man said, and winked. “One wouldn’t say it, from the looks of you.”

  Ruth felt a chill. “What do you mean?”

  “It is alright,” the woman said. She came closer. She was wearing an intensely sweet perfume. “We can appreciate your… little indiscretions. We all have our weaknesses. But not many share our enlightened point of view, do they?”

  Fear and anger bubbled in Ruth’s chest. “Get out of my office,” she hissed.

  “And go where? To your boss? Or should we go to the police? Do you think they’d go easy on you and your ginger girlfriend? No, wait – maybe we should pay a little visit to your family.” His evil smirk widened into a sickening grin. “Imagine finding one of them here on the slab, one of these days.”

  Ruth opened her mouth, but no sound came out of it. This couldn’t be true.

  The woman smiled. “Breathe, darling.”

  She pulled out one of the chairs, inspected the seat critically, and sat down. Crossed her legs. She smiled again. The man moved behind her and crossed his arms.

  “What do you want from me?” Ruth asked.

  The woman’s smile did not reach up to her eyes. “We want your unclaimed bodies.”

  •••

  They had everything figured out already. The man’s name was Collins. He worked as a gravedigger and general handyman in the graveyard on Hangman’s Hill. He would provide the burial papers. Ruth was to take care of the paperwork on the morgue side and, when needed, just leave the service door open. Ruth would only need to call them when there was an unclaimed body in the morgue. Doctor the papers and turn the other way. The friends of Collins and the woman would do the rest. Everything would look fine.

  “Nobody cares about that dead meat anyway,” Collins said.

  “It’s better than being forgotten in some common grave,” the woman said.

  “It’s against the law,” Ruth said. But her voice was uncertain.

  “So is imbibing the bootleggers’ booze,” Collins said with a chuckle.

  “And dressing up as a man,” the woman said. “And a few other of your… shall we say, pastimes?”

  Ruth was squeezing her hands together to stop them from shaking. “What are you going to do with… with these people?”

  “That’s none of your concern,” Collins said.

  “At least for the moment,” the woman added. Collins gave her a weird look. “And you should stop considering them people. They are bodies. There’s nothing to them but that. Dead meat.”

  “And if I do as you ask–?”

  “You’ll go on havin’ a wild time, and no one will be any the wiser,” Collins winked. “And all your loved ones will be safe.”

  “Indeed, you’ll be much safer with us,” the woman said, “than on your own. We are very good at keeping our secrets. And our friends’.”

  Ruth’s hands ached from the way in which she was pressing them together. She looked from the woman to Collins and back. “If I were caught–”

  “You won’t be,” Collins said. “People like you are good at keeping secrets, aren’t you? But sure, we could rat on you alright.”

  He leaned closer, a cruel smirk on his face. “After all, we are law-abiding citizens. We have a moral duty to report your… indiscretions? I am sure they would like to have a talk with you, and your ginger-headed friend.”

  The woman gave him a hard look. “Enough.”

  She stood and took a step towards Ruth. She placed a nicely manicured hand on her shoulder. “You should think of this as an opportunity,” she said.

  Ruth remained silent, but she already knew what her answer would be.

  “Nice girl,” the woman said, like she was reading Ruth’s mind. She squeezed her shoulder gently. “You won’t regret it.”

  •••

  The first one was a man in his late seventies, dead of a stroke, alone in his two-room apartment on East Street. A widower, all of his family dead of the Spanish Flu ten years before. Ruth called the number they had given her, and started filling out the forms.

  Ruth was working afternoons.

  Early in the morning, someone dropped an envelope in her mailbox. She found it on her way out to work. Hangman Hill Cemetery papers, burial permits, general authorizations. She faked the missing signatures and got them stamped during the lunch break. Nobody locked their offices. Why should they?

  Then, the following night, she left the door of the service corridor unlocked, and went home.

  She tossed and turned in her bed through the night. Late in the morning, her head splitting with a headache, she made herself up and dressed and went to see Charlie for lunch.

  They sat in one of the students cafés on College Street, just two friends having lunch together. But Ruth was distant, distracted. Charlie leaned across the table and placed a hand on her forehead. “Are you coming down with something?” she asked.

  Ruth jumped, startled. She pulled back and looked around. “What are you doing?” she hissed.

  Charlie grinned and picked up her sandwich again. “You’re no fun today.”

  Ruth took a deep breath and shook her head. “I am sorry.”

  “What for? It’s not your fault if you caught a bug.”

  They walked together after lunch, just two friends having a stroll. A few college students stared at Charlie, and Ruth felt a pang of jealousy that distracted her briefly from her mounting panic.

  Then they parted ways, and Ruth went to her office, ready to face disaster.

  The body was gone, the icebox drawer empty.

  And nothing happened. Nobody came to inquire about the old man, no one checked or made any fuss about the records. As long as the papers were in order, nobody seemed to care.

  Not a person, Ruth thought. Just a dead body.

  That night, when she got home, she found a plain envelope in her mailbox. Inside were five five-dollar bills, and a card of fine ivory-colored paper. Ruth recognized the woman’s perfume.

  Buy something pretty for your girlfriend.

  Olivia.

  Ruth dropped the money and the card in a drawer. She needed a hot bath. She felt dirty.

  •••

  The days turned into weeks and the weeks into months.

  Things settled into a reassuring routine. Work at the office, sometimes lunch with Charlie. Maybe a movie on a weekday night. Clara Bow. Ramon Navarro. And then, on the weekend, Ruth would shed her everyday skin and don her jacket and tie. Charlie had given her a fine trench coat as a gift, and she had bought more shirts, and another hat, using the money from Olivia. She also bought Charlie perfume and a pair of pearl earrings.

  And sometimes a dead body would land on the slab, some sad forgotten man or woman. Ruth would pick up the phone and slip a new form into the typewriter. She had her own stamp now. She had asked one of the guys in the Southside, and he’d suggested an old Polish man, who made her a copy of the records stamp. She carried it in her bag. No more sneaking into other people’s offices at lunchtime.

  Everything was fine.

  Ruth was maybe drinking a little more than before, smoking more cigarettes. When she was out with Charlie, dressed like a man and with her lover on her arm, she was aggressively cheerful. She danced and made a racket and ordered more “tea”. But it was alright. They’d sometimes stumble to Charlie’s place, a little smashed, and fall in bed, giggling. />
  Later, Charlie snoring gently at her side, Ruth would stare at the ceiling, questions running through her now sober mind.

  What were they doing with the bodies?

  Olivia and Collins did not look like Arkham’s own Burke and Hare. But one heard things, about fraudsters and criminals. Ruth believed they were involved in some form of insurance scam, the ramifications unseen to her and impossible to fathom.

  •••

  “Leaving so early?”

  Olivia was standing in the doorway, her hand on the knob. She was wearing a deep maroon coat with a soft fox collar and a matching cloche hat.

  Surprised, Ruth put her bag down. “What do you want?” she hissed.

  Olivia pouted. “Let’s call this a social visit.”

  Ruth glanced at her wristwatch.

  “Yes, I know, it’s late,” Olivia said. She unbuttoned her coat, revealing a black dress, a long string of pearls. Like she was coming from a gala night. “They will be here soon.”

  “Who?”

  “Our… associates. I guess it’s high time you met them. Get acquainted. Learn more about our circle.”

  “I am not interested.”

  “Liar.” Olivia came closer. “You are too intelligent not to be curious. And tonight–”

  There was a sound from the service corridor. The metal door at its end opened, hinges creaking.

  “Ah, here they come.”

  Fear like a spike of ice pierced Ruth’s chest, cutting her breath short. Sharp, unexplained, a feeling of helplessness, an urge to flee. Run away. Hide. Irrational. Paces clicked in the corridor. Feeling the other woman’s eyes on her, Ruth stepped back from her desk, and Olivia moved to her side and, unexpectedly, took her by the hand.

  The corridor door creaked, and the handle moved.

  “Do not be afraid,” Olivia ordered, a quavering note in her cultured voice.

  Ruth wished she could turn and look at the woman’s face, but her eyes were glued to the door as it slowly opened.

  And then in they came. A slow procession of hunchbacked shapes, walking on hoofed feet, ember-like eyes burning in dog-snouted faces. Black fur, flashing teeth. They moved like apes, their paws’ knuckles sometimes touching the floor. Sometimes their talons clicking on the marble tiles. There were six of them, two undoubtedly male.

  Ruth wobbled, and Olivia’s hand squeezed her own. “They mean us no harm. Look at them.”

  Ruth’s voice was broken. “I–”

  “Look! Don’t you dare turn your eyes away… Look at them if you want to live!”

  The creatures crossed the room in single file. One of them, Ruth noticed, wore wire-framed glasses. Another sported a wristwatch. Ruth choked on a laugh at the incongruity.

  “Good,” Olivia whispered. “Keep looking.”

  The creatures opened the two icebox drawers where the recent unclaimed bodies had been waiting. A man and a woman, drifters by their clothes. Found by the railroad after a chilly night. The black creatures pulled away the sheets and remained for a moment in contemplation of the remains. One of them stretched out a hand and caressed the face of the dead woman, almost affectionate. They stood like that for a minute, as though in prayer. Then, effortlessly carrying the bodies, the things walked back to the corridor.

  Thank you, they said. Or so Ruth believed. By now, her mind had completely dissolved.

  “See?” Olivia whispered in her ear. “There is nothing to fear.”

  •••

  Ruth missed five days of work, claiming a bad cold. In fact she spent the time curled up in her bed, her arms wrapped around her folded legs. Laying perfectly still, breathing slowly, and moaning rhythmically. When fatigue overwhelmed her and sleep came, she was shaken awake by the dreams screaming in her mind.

  Charlie found her like that, when she came to visit after work on the evening of the fourth day. Ruth was still wearing her office clothes and her shoes, and was soaked in sweat, and trembling. Her moans were like a frightened animal’s.

  “I’m calling Doctor Howard,” Charlie said. There was a telephone at the bottom of the stairs. But Ruth caught her by the wrist. “No,” she croaked. “Just stay with me.”

  Charlie frowned, worried. Then she slipped out of her shoes and lay down with Ruth in the bed, holding her tight. They spent the night like that, both awake. One of them worried sick, the other slowly going crazy.

  •••

  After that night, and the fever days, Ruth did not care anymore. She went through her days like they were somebody else’s.

  She called the number and handled the paperwork and collected the money from her mailbox. She no longer had any qualms spending it. She stalled Charlie’s questions at her gifts, and all the rest. She danced and drank and smoked and partied harder than ever. She became notorious at the Southside Speakeasy.

  She started wearing slacks at work, and ignored the raised eyebrows. She started smoking in her office. “It covers the smell of the disinfectant,” she explained when a surprised Lumley caught her lighting up. He could not deny that it did.

  She carried a hip flask in her handbag. Sometimes she came to work dead hungover. Sometimes she was tipsy by lunchtime. But nobody noticed, nobody cared. She least of all.

  She tried not to think of the nightmares. The dark shapes dancing in the dusk, the strange chanting. And on the nights when the bodies were taken, she no longer vacated the offices. She would just sit at her desk and watch as the creatures came. It was better than be at home alone, and dream.

  It was on the third night they came that she started talking to them, and they answered back.

  The Devourer Below needs feeding, the dog-faced creature explained, during one of their conversations. He moved his lips, but his voice sounded in Ruth’s mind like her own thoughts. And we are Those That Feed the Devourer.

  There was pride there, and duty. A sense of belonging. And Ruth knew she was one of those “we”, just like Olivia or Collins or the others. Because there were others.

  Surface Dwellers, the creatures called them.

  But that did not matter to her. Only Charlie mattered now.

  The creature she called Bob caressed Ruth’s face, and she did not shrink or start. His touch was delicate, like a friend’s. Protecting your mate, Bob said. Feeding the Devourer. This is good.

  She offered him a cigarette, but he declined.

  After they left with the body, she locked up the office and staggered back home.

  She hoped she would get at least two hours of dreamless sleep.

  •••

  Their first row was terrible, and started from nothing. They had come home from the Southside, where they had danced until they were dizzy, and everybody clapped and sang along. They sat together on the bed, and Charlie slowly undid Ruth’s clothes. Took off her jacket, loosened up her tie. Helped her out of her shirt.

  “I think the landlady is getting suspicious,” Charlie whispered, and kissed Ruth’s shoulder.

  Ruth shrugged her off, instinctively.

  “Hey! What’s wrong with you these days?”

  Ruth turned to her, her eyes two steel spikes. “What do you mean?”

  Charlie shrugged and huddled closer. “You are strange,” she said softly. “It’s like there’s always something going on, in here.”

  She caressed Ruth’s temple, her fingers light and cool. Ruth pushed her back.

  “Hey!” Charlie screeched. She chuckled, but Ruth’s expression smothered her mirth.

  “If you weren’t this insistent,” Ruth said, “people wouldn’t be suspicious.”

  “You got it bad tonight, huh?” Charlie snorted. “Well, sorry for loving you.”

  “This is it, right? You’re sorry about this.”

  Charlie’s eyes widened. “Are you insane?”

  And Ruth started scr
eaming at her, words that cut like blades, until Charlie broke down crying, and Ruth finally realized where she was, and what she was doing. She stopped mid-phrase, her mouth suddenly dry. “I am sorry,” she said next. “I’m sorry, my love, I am so sorry–”

  She sought Charlie’s hand, and the redhead pulled back, her face streaked with black eyeliner, her eyes reddened and puffy. They looked at each other, both of them more sober than they had been for weeks. More sober than they wished to be.

  “I am sorry,” Ruth said again, and finally they held on to each other.

  •••

  There was a fire in the Rookeries on French Hill one night, the flames painting the clouds red. The fire truck tore through the streets screaming and later, as the greasy black smoke rose from the wreckage, the bodies were brought to the morgue.

  “You want to stay where you are, miss,” the fireman said. Fatigue colored his voice. Ruth was standing behind her desk, her hands on the desktop, her face pale. “It’s not a pretty sight.”

  Men with soot-smeared faces brought in the stretchers. Three bodies, under dirty sheets. The smell was awful.

  The creature under the desk moved and brushed Ruth’s leg.

  There had been four of them in the morgue, when the firemen had come. Now two were hiding in the supply closet, and one had made a dash for the staircase. Bob was huddling under the desk.

  The firemen put down their stretchers, opened the ice drawers.

  “We will get you the reports and paperwork tomorrow.” The chief walked closer, and Ruth retreated. She could smell the musky tang of the creature under the desk. Felt his breath, hot against her leg. But the fireman just looked her in the eye and frowned. “For the moment, put down in your registers we’ve got three of them, male, in their thirties by the look of them.”

  “Shouldn’t there be an autopsy?” Ruth asked, her voice shaking.

  The fireman shrugged. “It’s pretty clear what killed them,” he said. “I doubt the city will waste too much time or money on them.”

  “Poor bastards,” another man said, pushing the drawer closed.

  They were folding up the stretchers. They nodded to her as they filed out, and in a moment she heard the trucks starting. She sat down with a sigh.