The Devourer Below

by Charlotte Llewelyn-Wells

  Three more, the thing under the desk said.

  The closet door opened, and the other two peered out.

  “You can’t take these,” she replied. “Not yet.”

  They are cooked, Bob conceded. The Devourer would reject them. But we can consume them anyway. Honor them. Share them.

  Ruth’s heart skipped a beat. She had always known, of course. The knowledge had been festering at the back of her conscious mind for weeks, months now. But now she could no longer hide from it.

  They ate them.

  The Devourer Below was a greedy master, but he did share his food with his servants.

  Ruth pushed back a bout of nausea. “Does Olivia… and Collins…?”

  Sometimes, her confidant said.

  She closed her eyes. “And am I expected to?”

  Where had that thought come from?

  When the time comes. Soon. In the woods.

  “I don’t think I could.”

  The creature gave a brief shrug. Your time will come. You are a lot like us. You hide away. Secretive. You are not used to being seen. You would feel at home with us, down below. You could share the food with us.

  Ruth laughed. “Are you flirting with me?”

  Bob’s eyes were like dying embers in the dark. You have a mate already.

  Ruth shuddered. “What do you know of her?”

  She has a nice smell. We feel it on you. His gaze lingered on her face. She would be welcome too. In the woods. And Below, too, where the Devourer awaits.

  That was when Ruth decided she needed a way out of all this. She wished she still believed in God, in any god that need not be fed dead bodies. Then she could pray for some form of deliverance. For herself, and for Charlie.

  •••

  “Some guys were here looking for you.”

  Ruth stared at Chuck Lumley, the feeling of déjà vu washing over her. “What people?”

  He shrugged and picked up his hat and his bag. “Two guys, one Black, the other looking like a cop, and a woman. They were here this morning. Asked a lot of questions.”

  Ruth felt a pressure in her chest. “What sort of questions?”

  He shrugged and glanced at the door. His shift was over, and he wanted to go home. “Questions. About how we run things hereabouts. You know, the paperwork, the routines. They might be back. I told them you’re the one to see about the unclaimed bodies and the rest.”

  Then he wished her a good evening, and left her alone with her fear.

  The three strangers called about one hour later.

  “Miss Turner?”

  She looked up. A man in a trench coat, a young woman in a cheap coat and comfortable shoes, and a tall Black man in suspenders stood at the door of the office.

  “Yes, I am Ruth Turner.”

  The two men looked at each other. “Can we have a bit of your time?” Trench Coat asked. “Your colleague said you are the one we should talk to.”

  “Mister Lumley,” Comfy Shoes added. She had short red hair, and large brown eyes.

  “I think he mentioned you,” Ruth said. “I don’t know–”

  “It won’t take long,” Suspenders said, with an affable smile. “You can call me Calvin, and my friends here are Roland and Lita.”

  Ruth gave them a wary nod.

  “So this is where the bodies are kept, huh?” the man named Roland asked. He gave her a look. “Before they get buried, I mean.”

  Ruth arched her eyebrows. “This is the morgue,” she said.

  “She’s not wrong, you know,” Calvin chuckled.

  “Do you get many unclaimed bodies?” the other man asked. The same question Olivia had asked, a lifetime before.

  Ruth crossed her arms. “You should define ‘many’,” she said, keeping her tone professional and detached. “I am not aware of the average figures across the country. We do get an unidentified body once in a while, but it is not a common occurrence. I am sure the police have better figures than I do right now.”

  Calvin frowned. “And what about the bodies that are identified, but not claimed by any family member?”

  “The lonely and the forgotten,” the woman, Lita, said. It sounded like a quote from somewhere.

  “Once again, we can have one of those, once in a while. I do not have any figures at hand. If you could call again–”

  “What happens to them?” Roland asked. He was slowly walking around the room, and asked his questions without watching her.

  “The Town Council arranges for their burial. On the Hill, or in Christchurch.”

  “What’s the difference? Why choose one or the other?”

  Ruth shrugged. “A matter of convenience, I presume. We have no say in these arrangements.”

  The man in the trench coat was standing by the filing cabinets. “And I guess this is where all the records are kept, right?”

  Ruth stood. “Why are you asking me these questions? Who are you?”

  He looked at her from underneath the rim of his fedora. “Just… you know, concerned citizens.”

  “Concerned about what?”

  Roland put his hand on a filing drawer handle. “I guess we couldn’t take a look at the records, right?”

  “Your guess is correct, mister–?”

  The Black man placed his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I think we have inconvenienced Miss Turner enough,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  They wished her a good night, and before she could ask her own questions of them, they were gone. Ruth sat down heavily, her heart racing.

  •••

  “And what have you told them?”

  Ruth took a drag from her cigarette. She was leaning on the wall by the telephone. Her landlady gave her a hard look, and she answered with what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “What should I tell them?” she hissed into the receiver. “They wanted to know about the unclaimed bodies. And how they are assigned to the different graveyards.”

  Olivia was silent for a long moment.

  “You have done right,” she said finally. “Just keep acting normal. Everything’s fine.”

  Ruth doubted it. The strangers were certainly not done with her.

  “We must be careful,” Charlie said in a low voice when they met for lunch the following day.

  Her luminous smile was gone, and she kept looking around.

  “What happened?”

  “A guy came to the shop,” she said. “Asking questions.”

  “A guy? Questions about us?”

  Charlie nodded. “Tall, wearing a trench coat and a slouch hat. He did not look like vice squad, but he certainly had a cop feel to him.”

  Two nights before there had been another raid at the Southside. Another hectic scramble, another wild run through a maze of darkened alleys, police whistles and frantic footsteps. Another sharp stab of panic that had dissolved in a burst of frenzied release.

  But in the cold daylight, this was different.

  They walked towards the campus grounds, neither of them feeling like lunch.

  “What did he want with you?” Ruth asked.

  Charlie looked at her and frowned. “What do you think?”

  “Maybe he’s not vice,” she said.

  “Maybe we should stop going out for a while.”

  Ruth stopped, like she was rooted to the ground. A young man carrying a stack of books dodged her and kept running past. “Watch out!” he shouted, and was gone.

  Ruth listened to her own voice, dead and toneless. “You want to call it quits?”

  Charlie’s cheeks were aflame. “Don’t be stupid,” she hissed, and squeezed Ruth’s hand.

  She sat down on a bench, and Ruth sat by her side. “I just say, we should start being more careful. More private about… about everything. About us.”

  Rut
h stared at the tip of her shoes. “I don’t want to hide anymore.”

  She was feeling again at the brink of a precipice. The endless fall was calling to her.

  Charlie placed her hand on Ruth’s forearm. “I know, love. But we must be careful.” Her usual mischievous spark lit her blue eyes. “We can be together at my place. Dance to the radio.”

  She was suddenly serious. “But we must be careful.”

  “Yes,” Ruth agreed. “Very careful.”

  •••

  According to the police, whoever broke into her office was scared away by the night watchman. Ruth wondered if any of her friends from Below were also involved. A chair had been smashed, and the place was in a mess. Lumley was standing in a corner, holding his black bag like a shield over his chest.

  “They cracked the locks,” the uniform cop said. He walked to the filing cabinets, trampling the spilled sheets on the floor. “And then they had a go with a crowbar on these here drawers.”

  The files from the community burials.

  Ruth interlaced her fingers, hoping the policeman would not notice her trembling hands. He did not.

  “Not much to steal here anyway, what?” he said, genially. “Young punks, probably. Or some student prank.”

  “Do we need to come down to the station?” Lumley asked. He glanced at Ruth.

  The officer shook his head. “We might need a statement. You check out if anything’s missing. But as I said, this is not the crime of the century, what?”

  “At least nobody got hurt,” Ruth said, trying to sound calmer than she felt.

  The cop scoffed. “Kids. It’s those pulp magazines they read, if you ask me. And movies too. All those gangster stories.”

  •••

  The knock on the door cut short Bob Haring’s crooning about Tahitian skies, and put a stop to their dance. “Don’t–” Ruth whispered.

  The knocking came again. Charlie hugged Ruth harder for a moment, then they let go of each other, and the redhead went to answer the door.

  The man in the trench coat pushed her back and walked in, ignoring her protests, the Black man in suspenders and the young woman in the sensible shoes right behind him.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” Roland said. He gave a long look at Ruth, taking in her neatly pressed trousers, her jacket, her tie. “Well, well,” he said, and pushed his hat back on his forehead.

  Charlie stepped in front of him, her hands closed into fists. “What does this mean?”

  “We need to put a few questions to your girlfriend,” he said.

  “You can’t come into my house like this!”

  “Really? And what are you going to do? Call the police?”

  He flashed a badge at her, and put it back in his pocket. She barely got a glimpse.

  Calvin grimaced. “Awkward.”

  Ruth stood by Charlie’s side. “What do you want?”

  Roland snorted. “Like you don’t know.”

  “She’s not one of them,” the woman said. She had a steady, authoritative voice. Lita, Ruth remembered.

  “Yeah, sure,” Calvin smirked.

  “She’s not. I can feel that. You know I can. She’s tainted, but not yet–” she waved her hands, “corrupted.”

  “Tainted?” Charlie turned to Ruth, sharply. “What does this mean? You know these people?”

  “It’s OK,” Ruth said in a low voice, her eyes on Roland’s. She squeezed Charlie’s hand. “This has nothing to do with you.”

  He grinned. “Yeah, sure.”

  “She’s right,” Lita said. “The girl is clean.”

  Charlie was no longer listening to them. “What is happening?”

  Calvin sighed. “Your friend here, miss. She got involved with some bad people. Bad people indeed.”

  Charlie turned to stare at her. Ruth felt a tightness in her chest, but it slowly dissolved in a cold spike of resolve. She leaned closer, and gently kissed her on the lips.

  “Well, I’ll be damned!” Roland blurted.

  “I need to talk to these gentlemen,” Ruth said, like she was talking to a child. “It will be alright.” She looked at the Black man. “Not here. Let’s go out.”

  Roland was about to say something, but the other man stopped him. “We’ll go for a walk,” he agreed.

  “I will stay here with her,” Lita said. She was staring Ruth in the eye. “I’ll make sure she’s safe.”

  Ruth whispered a thank you, and followed the two men outside.

  They walked slowly along the street. With Ruth in her coat and her fedora, they were just three men taking a stroll after dinner, having a smoke.

  “How long have you been with the cult?” Calvin asked.

  Ruth was feeling strangely lightheaded. This was not the way she had imagined it would be. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “We’ve seen the registers,” he said. “You’re good, but we knew what to look for.”

  “Why use a crowbar?” Ruth asked. “Why not get a warrant?” She looked closely at Roland. “This is not official, is it? Who are you? What do you want?”

  They were silent for a moment. “We want to do the right thing,” the grizzled man said. “Cut the snake’s head.”

  “We want the top people,” Roland said. “Madame Dyer, Collins. All the others. Professor Warren too. Put a stop to the madness. For good.”

  “We need to know where they meet, when,” the other explained. “Sweep the whole thing clean.”

  “I know nothing of this,” she said. She felt like she was slowly sinking in deep, cold water. Her breath came out in ragged bursts. “I met Collins and, I think, Madame Dyer. Olivia. But apart from that– They only use me to get the bodies.”

  “This is really a pity,” Roland said.

  He stopped, his hands in his pockets. “She looks like a nice girl, your girlfriend. You think you’ll be able to keep her out of all this? You think they will let you go? Her too?”

  “They threatened my family,” Ruth whispered.

  Calvin placed a hand on her shoulder. “We want to help you.”

  Ruth straightened her back. This was what she had been praying for. She took a bold step over the brink. “There is going to be… something. In the woods,” she said. “I do not know the details. Some kind of celebration.”

  She had gone with the flow for too long. Not anymore.

  “When?”

  “I don’t know. Soon. I can learn more. I have been invited. So to speak.”

  The two men traded a glance. Then the man in the trench coat handed her a calling card. Special Agent Roland Banks. And a phone number. “OK, Miss Cinderella,” he said. “You’re gonna give us a call as soon as you get your invitation to the ball.”

  •••

  They talked long into the night, holding on to each other, after the three strangers had gone.

  Ruth told Charlie of Collins, and Olivia, and their racket. An insurance fraud, she explained. They bought insurance for people that did not exist, and then provided a body, and burial details, and collected the money.

  “It’s horrible,” Charlie breathed.

  Yes, horrible. But not as much as the truth.

  “And now the feds…”

  “Yes, they have been on the case for a while.”

  “What will happen to us?”

  Ruth smiled, and kissed her on the top of her head. “Nothing. I will help them. I am just an accessory. I will testify. They will let me off the hook.”

  Charlie was slowly rocking back and forth.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Ruth took a deep breath. “Because I love you.”

  •••

  Ruth lit a cigarette, filling her lungs with warm courage.

  “Is your invitation still on?” she asked. Bob’s burning ey
es drilled into her. She hid behind a cloud of smoke. “To the feast.”

  Yes.

  “Good!” she smiled. “I’m curious. When will this be? Where?”

  When the stars are right. Where the shadows are deeper. In the woods.

  “It’s a bit vague.”

  You will be told. The woman that smells of dead flowers will tell you.

  “Olivia? Is she going to be fine with me coming?”

  The lips of the creature curled up to reveal a thick, sharp, eye-tooth. You will come. We will welcome you. She won’t question this.

  Bob lifted his hand, and his sharp talons ran along the curve of Ruth’s jaw.

  You could be one of us. Your mate too.

  “She won’t come,” she said, a little too sharply.

  Why?

  “She’s not ready yet.”

  The creature nodded. But you are.

  The others had carried an old woman’s body out already. Her friend was getting ready to go.

  It will be glorious, he said.

  Olivia’s expected visit was three days later. “Have they found out who broke in here, then?”

  “Students from one of the Miskatonic Greek societies,” Ruth replied. The lie came naturally, her tone light, her voice steady. “Some kind of dare or initiation. You know how students are.”

  Olivia arched an eyebrow. “No, not really. But talking about initiations… In five days, on the next new moon. Your presence has been requested. It seems our friends down below have taken a shine to you.” Olivia Dyer sounded peeved. She touched a strand of hair that escaped her powder-blue cloche, and gave Ruth a poisonous smile. “They want you along for the next ceremony. Remember, in five days.”

  Ruth crossed her arms, expectant. “Where?”

  A smirk. “Out in the sticks. We will send a car for you. It will be an informal thing. No black tie or anything – come as you are. But come on an empty stomach.” She licked her lips, a quick flick of her tongue. “There will be a buffet.”

  •••

  Collins drove a wobbly old Model T with one headlight on the blink. Ruth climbed aboard and he gave her one of his yellow-toothed grins. The engine coughed and belched black smoke.

  “No tie?” he asked. “Someone might mistake you for a woman.”

  His laugh turned into a cough, and he spat out of the side window.