Cages and Those Who Hold the Keys

7

Once the most exclusive and expensive hotel in Cedar Hill, the last fifty years had seen the Taft slide not-so-slowly into disrepair and decay (as had many of the buildings in this unpopular area near the East End), becoming nothing more than a glorified flop-house where those who’ve reached the end of their rope could crawl into poverty’s shadow and just give up. Martin thought it looked like some mangy, dying animal left by the road. The rusted fire escape twisted around the exterior like a piece of barbed wire, and were it not for the low-wattage lights seen in a few of the dirtier, cracked, and duct-taped windows, you’d swear it was an abandoned ruin waiting for the wrecking ball to put it out of its misery.

He stood at the front doors, readying himself for whatever waited inside.

He’d left his car three blocks away, in the city’s only parking garage. It had cost him all the money he had to get through the gate, but at least it wasn’t on the street and in easy view of any cops who might cruise past; he supposed he ought to count himself lucky none had driven by while he was walking over here: the last two things he’d done before leaving his car was tear off one shirt sleeve to use as a makeshift bandage for his head (the knot had begun bleeding—not a lot, but just enough to start dripping into his eye), and taken a crowbar out of the trunk, sliding it up his coat sleeve. A full half of the serious crime committed in Cedar Hill occurred in this area, and he wanted to be able to defend himself if it came to that.

Martin, however, could not see himself; some of the blood from the wound had spattered onto both his shirt and coat, had even left a thin trail down the side of his face; the bandage around his head was ragged, too tight, and already stained with fresh blood that was also soaking into stray strands of his hair; his face was far too pale (he did have a minor concussion, though he didn’t know it), and his eyes appeared to be sinking farther and farther into the dark circles around them; add to this the manner in which he walked—fast and hard, a man in a hurry—and that even a nearsighted ninety-year-old grandmother could tell he was carrying a crowbar up his sleeve, and you had a picture of someone you did not. Want to. Fuck with.

Martin pulled in a deep breath, opened the door, and stepped into the hallway. It was lighted (as were all of them) by naked bulbs that hung too low and cast too many shadows.

He shook his arm, letting the crowbar drop a little farther into his grip, and started up the groaning stairs. Christ, he’d almost swear he could hear the rats gnawing at the woodwork, or roaches scuttling across dishes left too long unwashed.

Somewhere outside, in back of the building, a trashcan was knocked over.

He hurried his step.

If the looks and sounds of the place weren’t bad enough, the smells made up for it: rot, filth, the ghost of recently-mopped vomit, the sickly sweet aroma of urine and old human feces, all of it mixing with the thin mist rising from the outside sewers that added its own olfactory panache to the evening. He began breathing through his mouth so as not to gag. He hit the fourth-floor landing and stepped into something moist and spongy, but didn’t look down to see what it was. All he could see was the door a few feet away from him. 401. He approached it, raised his hand to knock (out of habit), then tried the knob. Locked.

He pulled the crowbar from his sleeve, tried to reach the bulb hanging nearest him with his hand, couldn’t, so stepped back, jumped up, swung the crowbar, and shattered the damn thing. Hitting the floor, he hunched down in the new shadows and waited for someone to come investigate the noise. No one did. Of course not; no one would, not here.

He rose up and pressed his shoulder against the door, forced the hooked end of the crowbar into the jamb, tightened both hands around it, and yanked back.

The doorjamb splintered apart in a shower of semi-soft flakes and the sound of a rotten tooth being torn from infected gums. Not looking to see if anyone was watching, Martin stepped into the room and closed the door behind him; it wouldn’t latch (he’d taken care of that for good), so he looked around, saw a crate stuffed with books and newspapers and painting supplies, and dragged it over to hold the door in place.

He then heard something from elsewhere in the room; the pulling in of a deep, slow, ragged breath, thick with mucus, that made a sickening rattle-wheeze-pop! at the end, an equally terrible sound when exhaled.

He walked toward the nearly used-up old man lying in the shabby, half-broken bed, his body covered by tattered blankets.

No, not just some old man—Bob.

This was him.

It was really him. Martin recognized him from that day outside DeVito’s; his face was all but collapsed now, barely more than a skeleton covered in a tissue-thin layer of flesh, but it was him.

A hundred different questions came to him simultaneously: how long had Bob lain here in this condition? How had he managed to keep himself alive? How long had he lived here, anyway? Didn’t he have any friends who might have come by to check on him?

Martin realized he was wasting time—Bob couldn’t last much longer, no way—but he had no idea what he was supposed to do, what he was supposed to look for or find here, so he fumbled in the dark until he found the small desk lamp attached to the head of the bed and snapped it on.

It was only a forty-watt bulb, but that was all it took.

Dear God, he thought. No one should have to die like this.

It wasn’t just that Bob’s skin had the grey pallor of spoiled meat, or that his hands had locked into shapes that more resembled talons; it wasn’t even the smell of him—dried blood, ruined bowels, the mold from the sheets and the blankets, something both pungent and moist that could only have been a freshly-burst infected bedsore—no; these were bad enough, sure, because goddammit no one should have to endure a death this cruel: it was, simply, that Martin Tyler was looking at the crystalline image of his very worst fear: that he was going to end up old, sick, alone, and forgotten, living out the remainder of his empty days in some dim little shabby room with no one to talk to or care whether or not he woke every day to the promise of more loneliness, feeling like his life had amounted to nothing.

No one deserves to die like this.

Bob pulled in another terrible, thick, rattle-wheeze-pop! breath (the Death Rattle, Martin remembered a nurse using the term during his dad’s final hours; the Death Rattle), then sank farther down into soaked-through mattress.

“Hi, buddy,” said Martin. Whispered. Wept.

He found a rickety wood-backed chair that he pulled over next to the bed and—after testing it to make sure it would support his weight—sat down.

“Long time no see,” he said.

. . . rattle-wheeze-pop!

“I wish I remembered more about you, I really do. I’m sorry. I—Christ, I’m not even sure you can hear me. When each of my folks died, near the very end, one of the nurses told me that they could still hear me if I wanted to say something to them, tell them I loved them or say good-bye, and as much . . . as much as I wanted to believe that, I couldn’t bring myself to say a goddamn thing. I just sat there and watched them die. And even then it felt like . . . because I didn’t talk to them . . . it felt like I was failing them one last time.”

. . . rattle-wheeze-pop!

“I don’t think I can do this again, Bob, I really don’t. But I can’t think of what else to do. I don’t know where to go from here, can you understand that? Jerry didn’t have the chance to tell me. I’ve gotten this far but from here on . . . I’m winging it.”

. . . rattle . . .

“So I’m going to sit here for a minute while I try to think of my next move and keep you company, all right? I think maybe you’d like that. I hope so, anyway. I think maybe you didn’t have a lot of company, and you would’ve liked some.”

. . . wheeze . . .

“I’m sorry that you were so lonely that spending twenty minutes with me was a high point in your life. I wish I’d known that. I’ve never been anyone’s high point before.”

. . . pop!

“If it helps, that watercolor I bought from you is my prize possession. I really love that picture, you know? You were good; you were really good.”

. . . rattle . . .

“I’ll remember you, I promise. Even if no one else does, I will. Does that count for anything?”

. . . wheeze . . .

“I’m going to tell you something that I’ve never told anyone, if that’s all right, since we’re here like this, just you and me. All my life, I’ve

(been half in love with easeful death)

felt lonely. Even in a crowd of people, or with people I know, even the few times I’ve had girlfriends, I’ve felt that way. I’ve spent so much time looking back at the bad things, or imagining the good things ahead that never get around to happening, that I’ve . . . I’ve missed out on most of my life. You ever feel like that? Like you’ve

(Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme)

been living just outside the frame of the movie, except it’s in the frame where all the real living is happening?”

. . . pop!

“Ah, well, shit. My head really hurts, and I’m tired, and I’m scared right down to the marrow of my bones. And I sound like a whiny little kid. I’m sorry.”

He reached out touched one of Bob’s hands, gently stroking its surface; it felt rock-hard, clammy, a brittle used-up echo of something grand that once was.

“Why couldn’t I talk to my folks like this, at the end?” And son-of-a-bitch if that didn’t open the goddamn waterworks again. Martin didn’t fight it; he just leaned down his head and placed Bob’s hand against his lips, kissing it once, not too quickly, then pressed it against his forehead as he cried, and once he almost lost his grip but managed to grab hold before Bob’s hand dropped back down and—

—and Bob was holding something.

Martin slowly turned Bob’s hand around—wincing at the sound of the frail bones cracking—and moved it a little more toward the light.

Bob was clutching a piece of paper that had been wadded into the size of a lime.

Carefully working it free of Bob’s frozen grip, Martin smoothed open the sheet of stationary.

Hello, Dipshit, read the salutation.

Martin almost grinned. “Hello yourself, Jerry.”

The letter continued:

Since you’re reading this, then Gash woke up before I could finish telling you what you need to do.

Yes, I figured that you’d end up holding Bob’s hand; cop to it or not, you’re a hand-holder; held your dad’s hand, held your mom’s, it only stood to reason . . . .

Second floor above what used to be DeVito’s; first room on your left at the top of the landing. Bob’s old apartment many years ago. The painting is there, so is the key to the museum. You’ll know the key when you find it—or when it finds you. There’s a flashlight under the bed, you’ll need it.

Be careful; once you’re inside, Gash will know and he’ll come looking. Make damn sure he doesn’t spot you—and more important than that, make sure you don’t see him. It, actually. Trust me on this: you lay eyes on that thing, you’d sooner rip them out of their sockets than have to look at it a second time.

The exhibit you want is called Rights of Memory. In it, you’ll find a piece entitled As Was, As Is. Smash the case, and take the piece out of the museum. Once you’ve gotten out, destroy it—and don’t let your heart or hand be swayed by its appearance, that’s what Gash wants.

This piece is the disease; it is the physical form of the Alzheimer’s that is killing Bob; Gash is what the Alzheimer’s is becoming. As long as he and it are in the same place, the process can’t be stopped. He’s been using other pieces from inside the museum to build himself; when Bob dies, he will ingest As-Was and be complete. It is the single most powerful source of his strength; destroy it, and he’s toast.

No, this won’t save Bob, but it will stop Gash and buy the rest of the Substruo time to repair the foundation while they wait for Bob’s replacement to come of age.

Then there’s one last thing that you’ll need to do, and it’s going to take nerve.

Here Jerry had drawn an arrow at the bottom of the page. Martin turned over the letter and read the two short lines written there.

“Oh, no . . . .”

From the bed, Bob released another rattle-wheeze-pop! Martin looked at him. The gaps between each breath were growing longer. And Martin knew what this meant; he’d known it with Dad, known with Mom. There was maybe an hour left; probably less.

He grabbed the flashlight from under the bed, rose from the chair, leaned down, kissed Bob’s forehead, whispered, “Good-bye, my friend; I will keep you in my heart always,” then walked across the room, kicked aside the crate, wrenched open the door, and ran. And ran. And ran. Hitting the street, he kept running, the crowbar hanging from his grip, not giving a good goddamn if anyone saw him or not. He would not be stopped. Regardless of what he had to do, he would not be stopped. He stuck to the side streets and alleyways. Six minutes after he’d said good-bye to Bob, Martin emerged half a block from West Church Street. He would have to be out in the open now; if the cops were going to spot him, it would be between here and DeVito’s.

The area of the square where he’d emerged was once again swarming with classic cars . . . and police cruisers. Like the first night, the cars seemed to be going a little too fast, showing off, but the cops seemed to be enjoying it as much as the spectators.

Good, just keep watching the show . . .

Sliding the crowbar back up the sleeve of his coat, he lowered his head and started crossing the street—there were a lot of spectators tonight, the streets were lined with lawn chairs—and was just turning the corner onto West Church when a little boy sitting a few feet away from a foot-patrol officer shouted: “That guy’s all bloody!”

The officer turned in Martin’s direction, saw the way he looked, and began approaching him while simultaneously talking into the microphone of his portable communications unit.

Martin shook his arm, letting the crowbar drop back into his grip.

Only if I have to . . . Then turned and continued walking away. After a few yards, he turned and looked behind him. The officer was at the corner, finishing speaking into his mike, looking right at him. Martin tightened his grip on the crowbar.

And then a grotesquely wonderful thing happened: someone in a souped-up ’67 Chevy hit the gas to beat a yellow light, didn’t make, and broadsided a Bentley that in turn spun around and slammed into the front end of a ’74 Ford Mustang. The collision wasn’t bad enough to seriously injure any of the drivers or passengers, but it created one hell of snarl.

The officer following Martin spun around to see what had happened, then ran out into the street and started directing traffic around and away from the accident.

Martin wasted no time; he sprinted down West Church, crossed at the deserted intersection, and ran to the front of the Tae Kwon Do studio. To the left of the display window

(used to be so many books there)

was a dilapidated-looking puke-green door. Martin put his shoulder against it, worked the curved edge of the crowbar between the door and jamb, and forced it open.

Could have a whole new career as a burglar waiting for you.

He all but threw himself into the small area at the bottom of the stairs, yanking the door closed and whispering a silent hallelujah when it stayed in place.

He took a few seconds to catch his breath—I’m gonna quit smoking I swear to God I’m gonna quit—then realized that by closing the door he’d plunged himself into near-total darkness.

He fumbled the flashlight from his coat pocket and turned it on; the beam came alive with churning dust motes, wriggling a bright path up the two dozen or so stairs that led to the second floor.

Martin began to climb, the stair boards creaking and groaning under his weight. He seemed to be making a habit of climbing up noisy stairs.

Halfway up, something scuttled away from the wide beam of light.

God I hope it’s not some wino waking up from a binge.

Then: Or Gash testing the exit once again. He stood shivering in the silence, listening for the sound of any further movement. Nothing. He ascended the rest of the stairs without incident. He reached the landing of the second floor and turned left into a long corridor, stopping at the first door. It opened with a low, deep moan, loosing a cloud of dust.

Martin swung the flashlight beam around the room, illuminating an old sofa, its springs and stuffing bursting forth and spilling to the floor, crawling with insects. The room was littered with old newspapers, broken boards, and pieces of shattered glass. The walls glistened from both the broken pipes behind them and the leaking roof; the wallpaper curled downward like strips of flayed skin, and much of the plaster had fallen out in large chunks to reveal the disintegrating plumbing and electrical wiring that ran in sloppy, tangled patterns.

The largest of the windows in this room was broken, sections of sharp glass jutting upward like crooked teeth. A steady, chill October wind whistled softly through, ruffling sections of newspaper that drifted along the floor with dry, rasping sounds before pressing against the wall, torn corners rustling like the wings of a moth. Martin cast the flashlight beam down onto the floor and saw the desiccated corpses of several flies and beetles buried under layers of dust and grime.

He entered, the flies and beetles crunching under his shoes. Somewhere in a back room, water was dripping steadily, pinging against metal. He caught his foot on a large piece of cardboard, kicking it aside to reveal a nest of spiders.

Sidestepping the nest, he moved toward the nearest door—what he assumed to be the bedroom. A mildew-stained mattress lay on the floor in the corner, a third of its surface burned away some time ago by a careless cigarette; the stink of the old fire still lingered in the air.

He looked through the room for the painting and, not finding it or anything that might be a key, moved to the only other room, deciding the kitchen was right out and not wanting to risk seeing the condition of the bathroom.

At first he thought he’d struck out here, as well; nothing but more newspapers, cardboard boxes stuffed with old magazines and painting supplies, and more broken glass. He shone the flashlight on the walls to his left and right, then the one in front of him.

I misunderstood something, he thought. I must have misread it.

He set down the crowbar and began to look through his pockets for the letter—he had brought it with him, hadn’t he?—but then dropped the flashlight, which rolled to the side and then around, shining right into his face.

Instinctively, he turned away to shield his eyes from the glare, keeping them closed for a moment until the bright explosions behind his lids lessened, then opening them again—

—his breath caught in his throat—

—you really are a dipshit, sometimes—

—because he’d been looking for a canvas, for something stretched or matted, maybe setting on an easel or hanging on the wall in a frame . . .

. . . but Bob had used the wall itself.

Martin knelt down and fumbled the flashlight into his hand, then stepped back so as to allow the beam to reveal the work in its entirety.

Its sheer size was overwhelming; it reached from one side of the room to the other—easily twelve feet—and rose from floor level to the ceiling—at least seven feet.

Even though he knew time was slipping away, Martin was so stunned by the sight he couldn’t move for several moments.

The painting possessed a dark edginess echoing movements of the past—social realism, German expressionism, Dadaism, surrealism, even a touch of the more recent imagists—yet no one style conflicted with the others; its identity came from an effortless fusion into something that, Martin thought—if it could be labeled at all—might be called “Cumulativism”. It beckoned to him, demanded his awe, his closeness, but as he neared it, at the moment of communion, the faces within seemed to withdraw, distancing themselves from him. Soft shadows of sadness bled from each corner into the center of the painting, creating a disquieting rippling effect, the emotional residue of a broken and embittered heart, searching for a place of healing in a universe that ultimately had no use for either sadness or redemption.

It was the most astonishing thing he had ever seen.

He couldn’t make out the landscape for the crowd of near-life-sized people in the foreground; instead, their shapes seemed to almost be the landscape, with heads in place of hills. Forty faces—he counted them—stared out, their expressions ranging from benevolent acceptance to fury so white-hot you could feel it radiating outward to sear the skin. The faces in front were the most detailed, yet their expressions were the most placid. The faces behind grew less developed the farther back they appeared—many were little more than a few splotches—yet their expressions were instantly recognizable. These faces were thoughtful, their eyes alive: there was a man dressed in an old leather coat, his darkly lustrous face accented by an even darker beard as he stared downward and a little to the right, a shepherd’s cap held in his wind-burnt hands, a man of hushed, gentle resignation, his dignity whispering of well-earned rest, a warm fire waiting at home, and the rich scent of bread baking in the kitchen; behind him stood an exquisite woman in a golden dress that fluttered gently in the breeze, and though her back was turned forward and you saw her face only in profile, it was easy to see the care she took before presenting herself to the world, her delicate hands the ghost of an errant wish—that a woman might never grow old, never lose the radiance that kissed her face when a suitor came to call, never see her beauty dissolve little by little in the unflattering sunlight of each morning, and never know a day when the scent of fresh roses from an admirer did not fill her rooms; next to her stood a bittersweet girl with long dark hair tumbling about her shoulders, her face seemingly held in a velvet cradle, a hand covering her mouth, eyes with sad dark places around them that told you she often hid behind a scrim of gaiety to conceal a lonely heart; she was every night you sat isolated and alone, wishing for the warm hand of a lover to hold in your own as autumn dimmed into winter and youth turned to look at you over its shoulder and smile farewell.

A single, hard, unnoticed tear spilled from Martin’s eye, trailing down his cheek.

“‘To take into the air my quiet breath . . .’” he whispered. “‘To cease upon the midnight with no pain . . . .’”

Above all these face was an agate sky that warned of the coming storm; a cold veil of rain approached from the upper right side, a sprinkle becoming mist becoming a terrible cloud formation that erupted across the top of the scene to cover nearly one-fifth of the entire painting: swirling black tinged with grey and purple, its mass thinning somewhat as it spread outward to form the shadow of a great, winged creature.

Martin shook himself from a sudden chill, stepped back once more, then gave the painting one last look.

“Okay,” he whispered to the emptiness. “I found the painting. Now where’s the goddamn key?”

A voice behind him said, “‘The world is a stone, soldier . . .’”

Martin whirled around to find himself once again face to face with the six-year-old boy he’d once been. “Jesus Christ, scare me to death, why don’t you?”

“Sorry.”

“What are you doing here, any—?”

You’ll know the key when you find it—or when it finds you.

Martin smiled. “It’s you, isn’t it? You’re the key!”

The little boy shook his head.

Martin’s heart sank. “Then why are you here?”

“‘The world is a stone, soldier . . .’” “You already said that; repeating it doesn’t help me.” “You have to remember.” “Remember what?”

The little boy shook his head and released one those deeply dramatic sighs of which only children are capable, then said: “When you bought him that hot dog and soda that day, you said that you’d once been a writer. He asked what kind of stuff you wrote and you told him stories and books and a few—”

“. . . a few lousy poems,” said Martin. “Yeah . . . I think I remember saying something like that.”

“He said that there was no such thing as a lousy poem, only lousy poets.”

Martin laughed. “That’s right! I remember really liking that line.”

The little boy nodded. “You said you might use that sometime, and he said you could have it . . . for the price of a poem.”

Something in the back of Martin’s mind was stirring beneath its covers. “Yeah . . . that’s right . . . that’s what he said.”

“And you recited one for him, and he loved it. He loved it so much that it gave him an idea.” The boy nodded toward the painting. “He painted that because of you, because of the poem you recited to him. You were the inspiration.

“You’ve forgotten too many of the good things, Martin. You only see your mistakes.

“The admission to the Midnight Museum is that poem. That’s the key. It was one of the many good things about yourself that you’ve forgotten.”

Martin knelt down in front of the boy. “Where did you come from? Did Bob or Jerry send you?”

The little boy shook his head.

“Then how did you get here?”

“With you. I’ve always been with you. You just forgot about me. I got out the other night, after you took the first bunch of pills. I didn’t want to die just because you did. Dumb bunny.”

“I’m . . . I’m sorry.”

The little boy reached out and put his hand on Martin’s shoulder. “You don’t have to be sorry about anything, not anymore.”

“Why?”

“Because Mom and Dad still love you, they always did and always will, and because . . .‘The world is a stone, soldier . . .’”

The thing stirring in Martin’s brain threw back the covers, reached out, and turned on the light.

Martin rose slowly to his feet and turned to face the painting.

“‘The world is a stone, soldier,’” he said. “‘It holds no thought of long brown girls, dead gulls, vanishing town. The great clock with its golden face, face-down; Beneath these cloud-ribbed skies where stars would rot

if stars were men. No alien gods remain along the

boulevards . . .’”

In the painting, the sky began to brighten ever so slowly, allowing beams of broken sunlight to pierce the clouds and fall on the faces of the people gathered below, the faces, Martin now realized, of other Substruo.

He moved a little closer as the light glided across more faces, and a few of those faces closed their eyes and turned up toward the glow.

Martin continued reciting the next stanza, amazed that he was remembering any of this slight, forgettable bit of verse that he’d written a full decade before meeting Bob that day: “‘In this bleak land Civic ghosts dissemble. The street lamps stand, delinquent angels weeping in the rain.’”

The people in the painting began to move; some toward the back, some to the side, others merely turning to the left or right where they stood, creating an opening, revealing a path.

“‘There are countries untroubled by the seas,’” whispered Martin.

The path was wider, clearer now. A few of the people were looking right at him, smiling; the man with the shepherd’s cap even lifted his hand to wave Martin closer.

“‘There are greener worlds, soldier, and other skies; music in the square, women under flowered trees, and summer slides into soft decay, leaf unto leaf . . .’” The woman in the golden dress, who before had stood in profile, now directly faced Martin, and began to offer her hand. Martin reached out and took hold; it was a delicate hand, satin-gloved, exquisitely feminine, and flooded his arm with warmth.

“‘There are always tomorrows, soldier, and other battles done; this music in the square, these women under flowered trees, as summer slides into soft decay, leaf unto leaf; And larks into falcons rise from the yellow sleeves of eternal day.’” Her sudden soft smile was a song his heart had forgotten, and now remembered, could no longer contain. He stepped in among them.

The shepherd laughed; the girls smiled; the older ones, hunched and slow but not beaten, never beaten, grasped his arm and bid him welcome, bade him thanks.

“I would walk with you a ways,” said the woman whose hand held his, “if you would like.”

Martin could barely find his voice. “Yes . . . I’d like that very much.”

He turned and looked down the path, back out into the cold ruined room where his six-year-old self was still standing.

The little boy lifted his hand and waved.

Martin said: “You’re a fine little fellow.”

“And you are a good and decent man,” replied the boy. “Someday you’ll know that. I’ll keep the door open for you as long as I can.

“Now go stop that miserable fucker in his tracks.”

The woman laughed and pulled Martin away, leading him into a field of trees whose bright blue leaves formed upturned faces, and beneath whose shade deeper shadows danced.

Coming to a stop, the woman turned Martin to face her and kissed him firmly on the lips. “Just so you know, his favorite book was Alice in Wonderland.” Martin looked at the dancing shadows, that had now stopped, forming a deep, dark circle beneath the trees. “Have you your weapon, still?” asked the woman. Martin shook the crowbar from his sleeve and held it up.

“‘There are always tomorrows, soldier, and other battles done,’” said the woman, kissing Martin once again. “Might I suggest you remember the old rule of tuck-and-roll?”

“What are—?”

He never finished the question, because Gold Dress gave him a playful push backward, and before he could regain his balance to stop it, he spun around and was falling down the hole made by the stilled dancing shadows.

I’m finally flying, he thought as he dropped downward, arms out at his sides, legs behind him.

It took perhaps fifteen seconds for him to reach the floor, and by then he had pulled himself into a ball, legs bent to lessen the severity of the landing, and when he hit, he hit hard, but he remembered to tuck-and-roll, and when he came up again, when he stood, his entire body still thrumming with the echoed impact of the landing (pain, yes, no doubt about that, but muffled, waning), he took only three seconds to steady himself and pull in a deep breath before running forward, toward the marbled doorway only a few dozen yards away, the magnificent marble doorway into whose columns were carved whimsical figures of monkeys, serpents, lions, butterflies, Hindu- and Greek-inspired deities, and figures who bore so close a resemblance to the circus Tumblesands Martin almost expected them to step forward and take a bow.

The entablature above the doorway proclaimed:

THE MIDNIGHT MUSEUM

Afternoon Tours Available

“Funny,” he said, then—smacking the crowbar against his hand to assure himself of its weight and power—stepped through.

The floor was a highly-polished chessboard of alternating black-and-white marble tiles whose configuration, coupled with the incredible height of the ceiling, gave the interior an almost-dizzying forced perspective, but despite the bright tract lighting, the large wall-mounted video monitors (all of which were currently displaying electronic snow), and the enormous oval skylight set into the center of the cavernous ceiling, it was a dim-spirited place, a terrible place, a place where gigantic tumors squatted in fossilized silence, where syphilitic skulls stared out from glass cases, and where a pair of tubercular torsos encases in bulky Lucite squares sat atop short ersatz-Roman columns, one on each side of the entrance to the innumerable displays—among which a quick glance would find: infected eyes; rows of malformed infants in chemical-filled Plexiglas coffins; sliced cross-sections of human faces; a baby without sexual organs; a colon grown to seven times normal size; a plaster cast of Siamese twins, made after death, with armpit hairs in the casting; a special display centering around a nameless man who died in 1897 when the tissue connecting his muscles mutated torturously into bone; something called “The Soap Lady”—a body buried in soil possessing rare properties that turned her corpse into adipocere, her mouth open as if she’d died calling out the name of some long-forgotten love; the skeletons of an eight-foot giant and a three-foot dwarf (The remains of an old magic man and his ungrateful apprentice? Martin wondered); and the obscene death-mask of a little boy whose grotesque facial cleft had turned him into a human gargoyle. No sound. No movement. Death inviting the viewer to pause, so as to better esteem the agonizing poetry of its more creative handiwork.

Unable to absorb all of it at once, Martin focused his eyes straight ahead, on the sign reading Rights of Memory.

He swallowed, took a deep breath, and moved toward it.

Upon entering, the first thing he saw were rows upon rows of bookshelves crammed to overflowing with ancient volumes that reached from the floor to the ceiling.

The books were all three times the size of any encyclopedia he’d ever seen; stamped in gold on their spines were words and sigils he didn’t understand. The smell of mildew wafting down from their pages filled the air, even though only a few of them lay open, face-down, on nearby reading tables.

So Gash has been passing the time with a little light reading.

The video monitors came on, and Martin immediately jumped behind one of the reading tables.

Oh, some hero-to-the-rescue you are, jackass! First little sound and you’re scrambling for cover.

After the better part of a minute with Gash still a no-show, Martin realized that the monitors must be on some kind of automatic timer—or what passed for such a thing in this place.

He moved from behind the table in slow increments, not fully rising to his feet until he was certain company wasn’t coming.

Each screen was displaying a different image: Spring-greened fields; animals giving birth; scenes of war that shook and jerked from side to side because whoever was holding the camera couldn’t keep it still; an empty playground; a pair of gloves lying on a sand dune in the moonlight; silently screaming faces; children playing; old folks

(Bob, lying in that room in the Taft . . . no, he wasn’t among them)

dying; homeless ones begging for money from passing strangers; couples making love; people in uniforms torturing prisoners; babies being murdered by their parents; priests celebrating Mass; bright fireworks over rivers; assassinations; roses in bloom; wedding photographs; mangled bodies in bomb-blasted streets—

—Martin had to look away, shaking his head to clear it of the images.

Gripping the crowbar with both hands, he moved toward the center of the room, turning in slow circles as he did, not giving anything a chance to sneak up from behind.

The video monitors blinked, then returned to their previous state of silent electronic snow.

Overhead, something moved.

Martin looked up and saw what appeared to be a large, pulsating, organic black sac hanging from between two of the monitors. A thin red tube ran down from its center, dividing into several more that branched out in all directions like veins or exposed nerves.

He held his breath, then looked down at his feet.

The floor itself—already dizzying when stilled—was pulsing in rhythm with the sac overhead, as if the entire structure was a living thing, a single entity composed of several disparate parts, each one somehow alive—but not in the same way Martin himself was alive; this level of existence (if it could be called that) more resembled that of someone in REM sleep, or a hospital patient deep in a coma.

It took a moment for the impact of this to register, and when it did, Martin smiled.

Gash was sleeping again; maybe just a quick little nap, forty winks before finishing the job, but . . . yeah; asleep once more.

Stepping past a glass case containing something that looked like a giant insect carapace with angel’s wings, Martin moved toward a pile of bodies (Christ, how he hoped they were just life-sized and –like statues), all of which had been set aflame at some point in the past: they had melted in places, fusing together into a grotesque mass of entwined limbs and bloated flesh that encircled a glass case in the middle. At various points, a few of the red “veins” from the ceiling sac entered the mass through moist, puckered knots.

But this still wasn’t the worst of it.

Behind the mass and the glass case they encircled, the first in a series of naked human figures hung upside-down by its shackled ankles, swinging back and forth at the end of a rusted chain.

It wore Bob’s face, broken with grief, darkened by terror.

In the center of its chest was a moist, round, bloody hole.

It’s not him; remember that.

Easier said than done, because each succeeding figure not only shared Bob’s face and the gaping bloody chasm in the center of his chest, but built upon his original expression of grief and terror, his horror more defined, enabling Martin to witness the perverted evolution of his anguish: rage, euphoria, self-loathing, ecstasy, confusion, pride, and—on the final, hideously-realized figure—helpless resignation. This last image of Bob was looking directly at something massive that lay

(slept?)

under a gigantic tarpaulin at the farthest side of the room.

Martin thought: Oh, fuck me . . .

Because he knew what was under there.

(Make damn sure he doesn’t spot you—and more important than that, make sure you don’t see him. It, actually. Trust me on this: you lay eyes on that thing, you’d sooner rip them out of their sockets than have to look at it a second time.)

“Don’t freeze-up now, Dipshit,” he whispered to himself. “You got this far.”

He turned toward the body-heap once again, this time looking at the display in the center.

Even this far away, Martin could easily make out the words on the plaque:

As Was, As Is

This baby had no cranium, and was nestled on a bed of cotton in the large glass case filled with what he assumed was formaldehyde; whatever it was, years of soaking in the chemical had turned the baby’s skin a ghostly white. It sat in a semi-upright position, legs bent at the knees, feet horizontal, arms thrust straight out from the elbows as if resting on the arms of a chair: a wise old sage upon his throne, waiting on a lonely mountaintop for the truth-seekers to arrive.

Stepping as lightly as he could (the fucking floor would not stop pulsing), Martin began to climb the body-heap, forcing himself to ignore the elastic, spongy softness of each face or torso he stepped on.

It didn’t help that he could fully use only one hand to assist his climb, the other busy gripping the crowbar.

Even though it took him only a minute to reach the top, to Martin it felt like an hour; by the time he was able to fully stand before the display, he was drenched in sweat, his heart trip-hammering in his chest as if trying to squirt through his rib cage.

He stared down at the malformed baby. “Let me ask you something, little man As-Was,” he whispered between gulps of air. “Could this be just a tad more ominous? I mean, seriously. Throw in some cobwebs and a cameo by Boris Karloff, and we’d have the serious makings.”

Keep joking, he told himself. As long as you can make with the smartasseries, you won’t have to think about what’s under that tarpaulin or admit how goddamn you-should-pardon-the-expression scared you are.

Leaning closer to the case, Martin said, “I take it from the notable lack of enthusiasm that you’re more of a Vincent Price man, am I right? I am right, aren’t I?”

As-Was made no reply. Extra cotton had been packed behind its neck and around its shoulders to prevent its head from lolling forward or around; only close scrutiny revealed the clear, thin wire that ran down from the lid of the case, snaking through the dense layers of cotton to attach itself—via a small silver hook—to a catch protruding from the base of his skull.

Despite his rising anxiety (it wasn’t quite outright terror yet, but it was probably within walking distance of the neighborhood), Martin couldn’t resist reaching out with his free hand and giving the case a small but solid shake, if for no other reason than to re-affirm that he was really here. The formaldehyde rippled once, twice, more, each rising disturbance pattern expanding into the one above and below it, creating hybrid ripples that looked like rolling lines of static on an old television screen, and as each series of ripples broke against the surface, As-Was began moving in response to the mild turbulence: first a finger—up, then down, tapping in rhythmic thoughtfulness, a smooth liquid reflex; then a hand—side to side, waving as if it were trying to attract someone’s attention; then an arm—shuddering; then both arms; and, finally, the head—up-down, up-down, the wise old sage nodding in sympathy as the truth-seekers spoke of their dilemma.

Here in the Midnight Museum, moments became the real becoming dreams becoming now and in a blink were gone: then.

The liquid in the case stilled.

As-Was’s bobbing head lolled forward, chin resting against its chest.

The nightclouds retreated, allowing the moonlight to spill through the skylight and grow brighter against the baby’s pallid features. Slanted shadows dissolved. No more sound, save for the soft, ragged rasp of Martin’s breathing. No further movement. Death moving on to busy itself with the weaker living who did not understand the aesthetic of its efforts.

Martin stepped back, readying himself to raise the crowbar and do what he’d come here to do, but froze when all the video monitors surrounding him simultaneously flickered back to life.

Each screen displayed the same image: Bob, as he was right now, as he was at this very second, lying on his shabby bed in his even shabbier room, struggling for every breath. The image was silent and chilly and ashen and dead, save for the diffuse light that shone down from the icy edge of a dispassionate Heaven.

“Oh, Christ,” said Martin, the words emerging somewhere between a nauseous choke and strangled sob.

He watched on-screen as Bob involuntarily opened his mouth, gasping for air; even though there was no sound, Martin thought he could hear Bob’s scream, silent and gnarled and endless: Do it, for chrissakes! In the Midnight Museum, the baby’s mouth opened, releasing a bubble of air that had not been in its lungs a moment before. Bob’s right hand twitched. As did the baby’s.

Bob’s eyelids quivered, then stilled as he released another breath, sinking further into himself and the living death of his affliction.

The baby’s eyelids also quivered, but then snapped open, revealing the burnished, obsidian-black marbles that had been used to replace its eyes. It smiled up at Martin, revealing starched, toothless gums.

“Now or never,” it whispered in a voice clogged with thick liquid age.

Before Martin could react, As-Was reached behind its head with one fishbelly-flesh arm and yanked the hook from the catch in the back of its skull—

—and with unexpected force kicked its feet against the glass, spiderwebbing a crack from which liquid squittered outward as it pressed its arms against the sides of the case to gain more balance before kicking again and then screaming—

—but Martin was ready now, stepping sideways and gripping the crowbar in both hands, swinging it farther back and higher, determined to come down with all the power he had, do it all in one or two massive blows, he could do it, he knew he could, he had to—

—As-Was slammed his feet against the glass once more, heels-first this time, the crack widening as small chunks of glass spit outward, the front of the case pissing an arc of formaldehyde that hit Martin in the belly, soaking his shirt and pants, pooling at his feet, and with one quick last look at Bob’s dying face on the monitors, he swung the crowbar with all he had, connecting with the crack and shattering the front of the case, the liquid vomiting out, soaking him, running in rivulets down the heap of bodies upon which he was standing—

—As-Was tumbled forward, spitting up, then caterwauling at the top of his lungs just like any baby would when it woke up at three in the morning and Mommy and Daddy weren’t there in the dark and it was hungry—

—and Martin squatted down like a baseball catcher and scooped As-Was into the crook of his free arm, his other hand still gripping the crowbar, and this little son-of-a-bitch was slick, slippery, and would not hold still, would not stop kicking, would not give it a rest with the spitting-up but that wasn’t going to stop him, no way, because he’d done it he’d actually for the first time in his life done something that he thought mattered and no squalling little black-eyed flat-top monstrosity was going to screw this up for him—

—and just as he spun around and began to slide down the heap ass-first like a kid with a sled on a snowy hill he saw something from the corner of his eye that kicked his anxiety right in the parts and turned it into outright terror—

—the tarpaulin in the far corner lay flat on the floor.

Not just flat—neatly folded.

You son-of-a-bitch! thought Martin.

He’d been tricked.

Gash had never been asleep, he’d only wanted Martin to think he was asleep, had probably been chuckling to himself while folding the tarpaulin as Martin smashed the case and fought against the rush of formaldehyde and As-Was kicking his chest and screaming and spitting up . . .

Martin hit the floor and slid forward a few yards, propelled not only by the angle of the descent from the body-heap but because the liquid from the case had continued running forward, creating a slick little river across the floor, and by the time he was able to stop scuttling and sliding around and finally get to his feet, two enormous, heavy thumps caused everything above, below, and around him to shudder just as an equally enormous shadow rose up to block out most of the light.

(Don’t look, don’t look, for the love of God whatever you do, don’t look)

Martin hunched forward and ran toward the entrance, As-Was still kicking and clawing and screaming against his chest, and then the floor shook again as Gash took two more

(Simon says take two)

giant steps, only now he was stomping because the bookshelves began to wobble and tilt, raining down dozens of heavy volumes, one of them coming so close to crushing Martin’s skull the corner of its cover tore a small section from the top of his ear, but he kept running, and there it was, there was the entrance, and then he was through and moving forward to where he could see a circle of light spilling down from—

—“Oh, shit!” said Martin—

—from the hole above, from the hole above that it had taken him fifteen seconds to fall through, from the hole above that there was no goddamn way he could reach, even if he didn’t suck at basketball no way could he jump that high, smooth move, Einstein, you got this far and God knows we’re all more than a little shocked by that, warn us next time, will you, but you know what, here’s a question, a real brain-teaser, a little mental exercise for all you over-the-hill glorified janitors out there: why do you always start waxing the floor in the toilet stall?

Everything was shaking apart as Gash continued stomping forward.

(don’tlookdon’tlookdon’tdon’tlook)

Give up?

Answer: because you don’t want to wax yourself into a corner. The difference between a good plan and a not-so-good plan is that a good plan usually includes a way out. Martin looked up and saw all the faces from the painting encircling the way out, peering down. “I don’t suppose any of you have something like a rope?” Their faces told him everything he needed to know.

Martin looked down at the floor and released his breath. If I had a razor, I’d probably open a vein right about—

—then it hit him.

A vein.

The ceiling sac.

Not giving himself time for second thoughts, he turned, hunched down, and ran back into the museum, his eyes focused on the veins running down from the sac and not, repeat not on the foot the size of a couch that had just slammed down on the floor a few yards away from him, and when Martin reached the nearest vein he swung up and out with the crowbar, severing it near floor and loosing a spray of bright blood that geysered in all directions as the vein snapped and whipped around like a live electrical wire, and he had maybe five seconds to grab hold of it and hope he could pull it loose from the sac and that meant either dropping As-Was or the crowbar, and it really wasn’t much of a choice, so it was good-bye crowbar, and he dropped it, grabbed the whip-curling end of the severed vein and somehow managed to twist it around his wrist, grabbing onto it and pulling with everything he had.

From deep inside the core of the sac, something gurgled, then screamed.

Martin moved backward, toward the entrance, pulling, pulling, trying to keep his balance on the blood-slicked floor as the screaming from inside the sac grew louder, ragged, and more intense, damn near deafening him, but then the other end of the vein came loose with a wet, stubborn rip and fell limply to the floor.

Damn thing was strong. Chalk one up for the janitor. He turned to run out— —but Gash was having none of that. And that’s when Martin made his only mistake. He didn’t look away when the thing stepped into the path of his escape.

Gash walked on tree-thick legs that crawled with living sinew on the surface. Where his groin should have been was a bloated, black, seeping cluster of tumors. His skin—if it could be called that—had the jagged, ferromagnesian texture of andesine, though not quite as dark. His arms were held in place like prostheses by moldy leather straps that formed an X across his chest. A curved section of copper tubing snaked from the tumors of his groin to a glass container strapped to his hip. With each heavy, tormented step he took, the tube discharged into the container a thick, reddish-brown liquid full of wriggling ebony chunks.

Gash sucked these excretions into his mouth through a long copper straw.

He looked at Martin and smiled, his pulverized lips squirming over rotted needle-teeth caked with loose bits of flesh and still-fresh strands of wet muscle. He spoke in a voice clogged with phlegm, putrescence, and piss.

“I think you have something that belongs to me.”

Close your eyes and just run, just run, he can’t move that fast, he’s too fucking enormous, too heavy, too clumsy.

But Martin couldn’t do it.

Gash leaned down, the shadows cast by his soldier’s helmet spreading away from his bloodshot, bulging eyes, neither of which was where it was supposed to be. “No?” he said. “Then maybe a trade?” Martin at last found his voice. “You don’t have a goddamn thing I want.” Gash’s smiled grew even more hideous. “I think I do.”

He reached down with both arms and thrust his talon-like hands deep into the center of clustered tumors, digging around inside, making a sound like a child working to create a stack of mud pies. Finding what he’d been looking for, he pulled out his hands in a slop of pus and excrement, raising the treasures up into light, then licking the pink-and-white cancerous afterbirth from each figure before spreading wide his arms so Martin could clearly see. In his right hand, Gash held Martin’s father. In his left, Martin’s mother. “I’ll give them back,” said Gash, his diseased voice sounding as bright and honest as something so corrupt could sound. Then he shook them a little; enough to make each of them shriek in agony.

“It hurts so much, Martin,” said his father. “Oh, God, why didn’t I just do what you and Mom wanted and let them take the bastard out of me?” Martin began shaking, from head to heel he was shaking, losing his hold on both the vein and As-Was. “So . . . what do you say?” hissed Gash, thin strings of pinkish slobber dribbling from his lower lip. Martin said nothing.

“So you’re gonna let us down again?” said his father, his voice taking on that same cold anger that had been so present in his speech the last few weeks of his life. “I thought you’d at least make us proud this one time, this one goddamn lousy time.”

“Please, honey,” Mom pleaded. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but you were always such a good boy. Please do this one thing for us, Marty. Please?”

And just like that, the brief moment of uncertainty that had nearly cracked his resolve became a cold ball of anger.

“Nice try,” he said to Gash. “But she never once called me ‘Marty.’ Her nickname for me was ‘Zeke.’

“You’re not only ugly, you’re obvious and sloppy.”

And with that, Martin made three quick movements that were so fast they might as well have been a single motion: he let go of the vein, spun around and downward to grab the crowbar, and threw it toward Gash; it shot straight out, a steel arrow, and buried three-quarters of its length in the center of the tumor cluster.

Gash threw back his head and screamed, dropping the lifeless and now-featureless figures, his hands fumbling down to find and remove the crowbar, and that was all the opening Martin needed; grabbing the end of the vein again and tightening his hold on As-Was, he ran straight out, right underneath Gash’s parted legs, reaching the hole a full ten seconds before Gash yanked out the crowbar and turned, still slobbering in pain, and started toward him, half-stomping, half-limping.

Martin threw the end of the vein upward with all the force he could muster; the shepherd caught it on the first try, and within seconds most of the people from the painting had lined up above, each grabbing a section. Below, Martin tightened the other end around his wrist and arm, gripping the slack with his fist. “Pull!” They did, and it worked, but it was slow going; they slipped once, almost dropping him back down, but caught it in time. Meanwhile, Gash was rallying, gaining strength and speed, closing the distance.

Martin shouted: “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!”

Gash saw that Martin was almost to the surface, let out a massive roar—

—and unfurled his hideous wings, taking flight, demolishing the walls, the bookshelves, and most of the displays as he soared forward, talon-hands thrust out, barreling toward Martin and making a final push—

—as the people from the painting gave one last, massive, powerful yank, pulling Martin through the hole and to the surface.

“Thank you,” he said, and that was all the time he was going to have, because now the first of Gash’s hands shot up through the hole, talons impaling the shepherd through his chest and face.

Martin ran.

Just ahead, dim and ruined and depressing, he saw the room where his six-year-old self still held open the doorway, and damn if that decrepit room wasn’t the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his life.

Behind him, the people screamed. Something ripped. Something else was pulled apart with moist, shredding sounds.

And then Gash’s scream filled the air.

Doubling his speed, Martin chanced one look behind him and saw something that would haunt his dreams off and on for the rest of his life: Gash’s torso, arms, and wings were free of the hole, and he was slaughtering everyone within reach.

Oh, God, please forgive me, all of you, please forgive me . . .

. . . and just before he reached the doorway, Golden Dress appeared from behind a tree and had just enough time to shout “This is not your doing!” before Martin released a scream of his own and leapt into the air, passing through the doorway, tossing As-Was forward, and slamming to the floor beyond—but remembering to tuck-and-roll, which is probably the only thing that prevented him from snapping his neck.

He saw Gash rise high in the background of the painting.

Martin looked around for something with which to destroy As-Was, found nothing, but then the little boy who’d once been him shouted, “Here!” and tossed the flashlight to him, the wonderful, big, long, heavy flashlight, and Martin raised it above his head, readying to swing down—

—except As-Was had changed; no longer a ghostly white deformed monstrosity, but a soft, pink-skinned, chubby newborn with perfect hands, feet, face, head . . . and the loveliest blue eyes. It looked up at Martin and gave a gurgling giggle. “What the . . . ?” The baby squealed with delight, shaking its arms and kicking its legs, its smile wide, toothless, radiant. Martin looked from the baby to the painting. Gash was free of the hole, crouching down, unfurling his wings once again, readying to take flight. Below Martin, the baby’s face changed into an expression of perfect newborn love.

He felt his arm slowly start to drop, then just as quickly remembered Jerry’s warning: don’t let your heart or hand be swayed by its appearance, that’s what Gash wants.

Martin closed his eyes, turned the baby’s head to the side, and smashed its skull into pulp with three powerful strikes. His ears filled with the sound of a melon hitting the pavement after being dropped from a great height, and he almost threw up, but then a great jolt like an electric shock shot up his arm, throwing him back against the wall and flipping the flashlight through one of the shattered windows.

The baby jerked and spasmed, thrashing against an ugly light engulfing its body, causing it to flicker and sizzle and—very quickly, at the end—fold in on itself like a film negative set on fire and implode into nothing.

At the same moment, the painting on the wall rippled and bulged, pushing outward like a bas-relief work before deflating, flattening out . . . and returning to the way it had been: a field of faces, looking out at something only they could see.

Martin sat up, pulling his knees to his chest and folding his arm around them.

“You did it,” said the little boy.

Martin lifted a hand and waved him away: not yet, please, just . . . not yet. “You’re not finished.” “I know . . .” “You gotta—”

“I know!” And as much as seeing the false images of his parents had nearly shattered him for good, what he had to do next was worse.

Burn the painting, the letter had said.

Burn it right away and get the hell out.

Martin staggered to his feet and grabbed the box of magazines and newspapers and painting supplies, scattering the papers and opening the jar of kerosene that had been used to clean the paint brushes. He poured the liquid over the papers, onto the floor, and splashed the remainder onto the wall and the painting. Pulling his lighter from his pocket and flicking open the lid, Martin looked at the little boy and said, “You need to leave.” “I know. I’ll be going with you. If you want me to.” “That would be nice, yes.”

The little boy smiled. “Cool.”

Martin took a deep breath, struck up the flame, took one last look at the painting that no one else but him had ever seen or would remember, then tossed the lighter into the papers and, per Jerry’s instructions, ran like hell.

It took less than three minutes before the rooms were engulfed in flames.

Five minutes later, the entire second floor was ablaze.

In the end, it became a four-alarm fire that razed the entire building. Firefighters fought for nearly six hours to get it under control, finally extinguishing the last remnants of the conflagration around 6:45 a.m.

By then Martin had made an anonymous 911 phone call about the body in room 401 of the Taft, hightailed it back to his apartment, taken a shower, put on clean clothes, and applied fresh peroxide and bandages to his various wounds.

Then he sat on his couch and waited.