Carpenter clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t try to guess anything about women. You’ll live longer that way. And don’t eat raw hamburger.”
They passed the remains of a gutted bank, its ATM standing lone sentinel amidst the burnt ruins. Across the street stood a run-down hardware/paint store and a bakery whose confections had long since dried and turned to dust. The rotund baker character on the sign had been spray-painted with an abnormally large penis shooting crème onto a lopsided doughnut. Tom and Nadia crossed to that side. As they passed the Senior Living Center next to the burnt shell of what was once Thrall General Hospital, he heard his name and an angry blur of sound from Nadia.
On Jesse’s side of the street, the rusted wrought-iron fence containing Thrall Community Park and Recreational Area stretched the rest of the northern length of the block. Its broken gate squeaked in rhythm with the wind against the chain that held it close to its post. Jesse knew that area a bit, well enough to know that a lot of the woodland trails had been blocked off after that group of teenagers disappeared in 1990.
The local museum sat across from the park, set back from the street on a small hill. A horizontal oblong of white brick and mortar, it stood like an antiseptic monument to the new buildings of Thrall. Its front surface sported colossal windows whose cracked glass panes refracted enough of Thrall’s daylight to make the dusk within seem to move. Huge silver block letters spelled out the words THRALL MUSEUM OF ARTS AND SCIENCES across the front of the building above the glassy arcs.
As they met up again, they followed the curving driveway up a slight hill to the front of the building. A concrete canopy labeled ENTRANCE hung above a gaping hole where the doors had once stood. It looked to Jesse as if something had blasted out of the lobby area—the walls around the hole were burnt, and pulverized glass crystals sparkled around them in what little light reached beneath the canopy.
“After you,” Carpenter said to Jesse, gesturing toward the doors. Behind Carpenter, Tom gave a reassuring nod, but Nadia stood with her arms folded over her chest, her gaze fixed on the hole.
“Okay, then. In we go.” Jesse took a breath and led them inside.
A stale smell like rotting cloth and powdering bones hung in the air of the interior, which was bad. But beneath it was the road kill smell again, mixed with urine and sweat, and that was worse. Jesse realized with a degree of discomfort that it meant they were probably not alone in the museum.
The place was larger on the inside than the exterior suggested. Signs pointing to the left indicated the location of the Art Gallery as well as the Ancient Cultures and the History of Thrall exhibits. To the right lay Geology and Crystals, Native Flora and Fauna, and the Astronomy exhibits. The administrative rooms, a Model Train and Dollhouse display, and the Science and Technology through the Ages exhibit lay straight ahead down the hallway in front of them.
“I’ll go with Tom,” Nadia said without looking at Jesse. “We’ll start with the Geology exhibit and work our way through the wing. Carpenter, why don’t you go down toward the model trains with Jesse? We can meet by the History of Thrall exhibit.” She started off down the hall to the right without waiting for an answer.
“Be careful,” Jesse called out after her. Nadia waved without turning around. Tom shot him a quick apologetic glance, and then went off after her.
Carpenter clapped his hands together. “Well, let’s get down to brass monkeys. I’ll take the model trains. There are some offices down that way, too—you take those. It’s more likely that she’d be shut up in an office than with trains and dolls, right?”
Jesse nodded. As they moved down the hall, he took Carpenter’s gun from his backpack and handed it to him. “If you need anything—if you run into any kind of trouble—just yell, okay?”
Carpenter grinned. “Likewise. I’ll be across the hall.” He pushed open one of the doors of the exhibit room and went in.
For a moment, Jesse was alone in the hall, and every nerve ending screamed discomfort at the thought. With a last glance around the hallway, he turned the knob of the door with ADMIN OFFICE CURATOR OF EXHIBITIONS stenciled on the glass and went inside.
***
From a single window to the left, patchy light fell against the tan tiles of the floor closest to Jesse but skirted away from the far end of the room. Where the light fell, dust motes swirled up at his approach. Just beyond its reach, under the window, stood a desk. Its various stacks of papers spilled across the surface onto the chair and floor. A trail of crumpled paper and what Jesse took for ripped-up file folders led off into the darkness. He moved toward them and the floor crackled under his feet. He looked down and saw a puddle of purple-black like a smeared bruise beneath, trying to cling to his soles with thin, sticky tendrils. Along the side of the desk, he noticed more of the purplish substance streaked in five long rows that spilled off sideways into the dark.
Across the room, a floor-to-ceiling bookcase displayed a series of history and science books and journals. Jesse fingered them lightly, glossing over their titles. Dust flaked off like dandruff under his touch. People of the West Indies, Religions of Ancient Civilizations, Annotated Egyptian Book of the Dead. The titles were strangely familiar. Mia had bought the first two, he remembered, and he’d gotten her the third as a birthday present. Native American Folklore and Customs, The Story of Bones—A Sociocultural Analysis. He thought she probably would have liked those, too, for her library, if she’d—
On the top shelf was A Dissertation on Nazi Medical Experiments. The History of Torture? A cold lump of unease formed in his stomach. Prolonging Pain—An Analytical Treatment of Methods Throughout the Ages? He blinked, hoping the titles would go away as the one in the library had. They didn’t. What the hell had gone on in this museum while he’d been away? Had Mia (God forbid) been involved? He swore and turned from the bookshelf. Why would he have thought that, about her being involved? Since he’d been in Thrall, his thoughts often came increasingly jumbled, anxious, angry. It shouldn’t have surprised him to find books like that in Thrall, but it bothered him to think of Mia anyplace where they might be.
Movement as a shift in the layers of darkness in the back of the room, caught his attention. A quick-burn of fear seared across his stomach. He squinted, trying to make out the shape.
After a moment, his eyes adjusted to the darkness and an outline of a head and shoulders seemed to take on its own feeble light. Whoever (whatever) it was sat on the floor, propped against the wall. It made no move to get up. It didn’t even seem to breathe.
“Uh, hello? Are...you okay there? Do you need help?”
The figure in the dark turned its head in Jesse’s direction and he jumped.
“Hello?” Jesse felt for the gun in his backpack as he inched toward the figure. As it came more fully into view, he saw that it was human—a forty-something man in a stained sweater. A line of crusted blood curved up around his hairline and branched off into his thick brown hair. The paleness of the skin contrasted somehow with the all-American good looks, as if those days he could have been lounging poolside were misspent. The fingertips of the hand closest to Jesse had dried smears of blood beneath the nails and around the cuticles. One of the jeans-clad legs shifted as if to accommodate a leg-cramp. Jesse noticed blood on the toe of one sneaker.
“Go away. Just go away.” No hostility in the croaking voice—no real force behind it, either. The man closed his eyes for a moment, as if the act might make Jesse disappear. He scowled when he opened them again and saw Jesse still standing there. His red-rimmed irises reflected a stale resignation that shadowed the dry beds of his used-up tears. The grim turn of his mouth was acceptance of the inevitable. The man had justified giving up in his mind, and didn’t care whether anyone else understood his logic. But Jesse understood it. He remembered understanding it too well. A lot of Thrall’s inhabitants, he suspected, would have understood it.
He hoped anyway that the twisted logic still eluded Mia, wherever she was—Mia, who had more at sta
ke and so much more to be afraid of in surviving.
“Why won’t you go away?”
“Are you okay? Are you here alone?”
The man gave him a curious look, then barked a loud, sharp laugh. “Are you kidding? There’s no one left here. No one. I’ve lost all of them.”
“Look, maybe,” Jesse cleared his throat, “maybe you should come with us. I mean, there’s that old thing about safety in numbers and all that and...well, those things out there—”
The man sighed. “So you’ve seen them, then. The horrors. The lesser gods of a cold and hateful universe. The Althior and Edgicor and Thim-sal. The beasts in the belly.” He uttered a dry, papery laugh devoid of humor. “The end. Or maybe, the beginning. But who wants to be around to find out?”
The man dropped his gaze and dragged his hands up onto his lap as if the act took great effort.
When Jesse noticed the gun, an acute discomfort set in. “Man, what are you doing? Don’t tell me you made it this long in this place to die now?”
The man snorted, turning his head away. “I made it this long because the wonderful power of prescription drugs can blur a lot of nasty things, friend, a lot of nasty things. That’s all I had left in this museum—drugs and nasty things. And the drugs are gone. But it doesn’t matter. We’re riding on the back of the beast. We’re all going to die.”
“No,” Jesse said, surprised at the vehemence in his own voice. “No, not all of us. We’re not going to die, man. We’re going to get out of here.”
A sardonic grin carved a kind of cruelty into the man’s face. He leaned in suddenly. “You think so, huh? Think the monsters are going to draw you a map and hold the door for you on the way out?” He gestured with the gun as if to illustrate the path out of town. “Well, guess what—nobody ever leaves the way they came. The physics of this place won’t allow that.”
He sat back. “But you don’t get it. You really don’t.”
“Then enlighten me,” Jesse said. “Tell me about Thrall.”
The man opened his mouth to speak, closed it again, and shook his head. “No. No no no no no.” His head thumped lightly against the wall behind him, his face falling away from Jesse’s gaze. “I was a doctor of the humanities, you know. Double PhD in archeology and anthropology, minor in linguistics. Oh yes, I was a renaissance man. And my true love was ancient races—their tools, their language, their social customs, their art. Their whole system of beliefs. The people of yesterday fascinated me.”
Jesse moved closer and the man’s grip around the gun tightened, his arm spasming as if he meant to aim. Jesse flinched, backed off, and the tension in the man’s arm leaked away.
“But sometimes the people of today hold a power over you, too,” he continued as if there had been no break in his speech. “And when they die, well...you turn to what brings you comfort. You look to what you know, what you can control, for answers. I needed to know the answers...the truth about death and what lay beyond. And I had thousands of years of answers to tease from the materials before me. I just had to have the patience to look. I wanted to know anything and everything about life-after-death. The theories, the research, the religions. Everything.”
He glanced at Jesse with disgust. “They were all wrong. Of all the theories in the world, all the beautiful beliefs and faiths, I never thought the truth would be so ugly. A truth not to be gleaned from the dirt of Earth, but from the hateful vastness beyond it. The Althior of the air and the Edgicor of the ground and Thim-sal of the water and the lesser Grigicor that swim in between....all for the use of those in the deep, eternal Endless Black.”
The man’s words were vaguely familiar—part of a memory from childhood whose significance Jesse had been too little to understand. The meaning of the words carried the weight of revered text, abstruse and serious. The man had recited them as if he’d committed them as doctrines to memory. It gave Jesse a sense of something cosmically sinister looming on the horizon. He shifted uncomfortably.
“You’re right. I don’t get it.”
The man nodded. “It’s better that you don’t.”
“Um, look, doctor—?”
“Murdock. Keith Murdock.”
“Dr. Murdock, I’ve got to find someone. Maybe you know her, or remember her from days when the museum was still up and running—”
“Oh, it’s up and running now, I assure you.” Murdock snorted. “You’d be surprised what’s up and running.”
“A young girl,” Jesse tried again. “I’m looking for someone who might have worked here five or six years ago. Maybe something to do with the Aztecs or the Incas?”
The doctor sat up straight, an eyebrow arched precariously over a hazel eye. “Oh? Who?”
“Mia Dalianis. She was about 5’5, straight blond hair, very pretty....”
Murdock frowned. “I remember the name. Certain names stick with me for some reason. Dalianis, yes, but I can’t recall why.” He sighed in frustration. “It’s all blurry now, and I’m so tired of thinking....”
Fear, hope, maybe a little of both skittered across Jesse’s chest. “Was she staff?”
“An incident, I think. There was an incident with an intern. The young woman saved her daughter when one of the exhibits, uh, broke loose....”
“A daughter? Was her name Caitlyn Dalianis?”
A light of recognition sparked in Murdock’s face. “Yes! Caitlyn, that’s why the name sounded familiar. I watched her while they filled out a report. Caitlyn, yes. A beautiful child.” A pause, and again the man’s eyebrow arched slightly. “Yours?”
Jesse nodded. “It’s very important that I find them, Dr. Murdock. If you can tell me anything—”
Murdock shook his head. “They aren’t here now.”
Jesse deflated visibly, and Murdock’s expression changed. “I can’t tell you much, but...we could check personnel files. Maybe this Mia—she was the mother?—maybe her file will give you something to go on. Some indication, maybe, of where to find her.”
“That would be great. If you could, that would be great.” Jesse breathed a sigh of relief.
“Sure I could.” Murdock rose slowly, brushing the dust from his pants with the barrel of his gun. He seemed relieved, too. “Only had one thing on the schedule today, and I guess it can wait.”
***
Creak—creak. Creak-Creak.
As they approached the geology display, the sound got louder.
Creak—creak. Creak-Creak.
When Nadia first saw the glowing bulb swinging from what remained of the ceiling light fixture, she thought Thank God, a place with light.
Her second thought ebbed away the relief.
Creak—creak. Creak-Creak.
“Uh, Tom, the light’s on. I thought you said there’s no electricity in this town.”
Tom eyed the bulb warily. “There isn’t.” He tapped it gently and its arc increased. At rhythmic intervals, Nadia caught flashes of illuminated wall. CREEPER 7, said one scrawl of purple paint. Then darkness. Then in red, WE ALL FALL DOWN. Darkness. In blue: CHANGING OF THE GU— Darkness again.
“Is this one of the old buildings of Thrall, or whatever you call them?”
“Nah, not this place. This was built in the 1920s—’29, I think. Why?”
“Well, it seems all the really weird stuff has happened in places that were original to the town. I figured maybe it was some kind of pattern.”
Tom shrugged. “Could be. The original buildings may be the centers, where the weird stuff is strongest. But it’s gotten into everything by now, Nadia. No place is ever really safe.”
“That’s a shame,” she said, but Tom didn’t reply. She stepped over the jagged shards of an overturned crystal display and picked up a rose quartz off a nearby shelf, turning it over gently in her hand. Its pink color was overcast by the sickly hue of the swinging bulb.
Creak—creak. Creak-Creak.
“Anyone ever take down one of the original buildings? Bring in a demolition crew and level it?”
“Nope. Thrall folks are a superstitious lot. I don’t think anyone wanted to find out what would happen if they did. But I’ll tell ya, it isn’t a bad idea, in my humble opinion.”
They became aware of the sudden cease, mid-creak, of the bulb’s rhythmic swaying, like someone had reached out a hand and steadied it behind them. They turned. The bulb hung motionless from the ceiling, pulsing faintly.
“No big deal, right? Bulb stopped swaying.”
“Right,” Nadia agreed. “No big deal.”
Tom nudged at it anyway with his finger and it sparked, jolting them and eliciting a cry of surprise from Nadia. Then they were plunged in darkness. For a moment, the phosphorescent rocks glowed, then faded to black.
“Well, shit.” Tom’s voice came out of the darkness. “Brilliant move on my part.” A moment later he added, “Damn. Flashlight won’t work.”
“Batteries dead?” Nadia fought to keep the panic out of her voice.
“Yeah, I guess. Sorry, Nadia.”
“No problem. Just the dark. No big deal, right?” She forced a laugh.
Nadia felt Tom’s hand reach for hers in the darkness. His skin was warm and dry and pleasant against her own. She let him lead her along, shoulders to the wall to feel the way.
Something sharp pressed into her leg just above her knee and drew a quick cold breath of pain across it. “Ow!”
Tom stopped. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” she panted. It hurt like a bitch. She could feel the cold wet drip of blood down her leg. “Something cut me. One of the splintered shelves, I think.”
“There’s probably a lot of that around here—broken display cases and overturned stuff. I’ll try to lead you around it. Is the cut bad? Can you walk?”
“Yeah, I’m alright. Let’s just see if we can find someplace with a window or a sliver of light somewhere, ’kay?”
“Sounds good to me,” Tom said. He led her forward again, then to the right as the hallway sloped. At the far end was a window, and Nadia could see that the hallway branched to the left just before it. Their footsteps echoed behind them. The hollow sound made Nadia think of ghost feet shadowing their movements. She tried, without realizing she was trying, to tread light enough to escape the echo.
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