Lockwood & Co. The Hollow Boy

There’s nothing like the onset of night to bring out the best in an agent, and for some of us the darker it is, the better. I’m talking visually here. Suddenly every embarrassing pimple is cloaked in shadow; jaws become firmer, waistlines sleeker. Unwashed faces become pale and interesting; the lankest hair acquires a glamorous sheen. The rougher points of personalities recede too; thoughts turn to survival and to the job at hand. So it was with the ragtag band that Lockwood had assembled that evening. For once, as we stood beneath Aickmere’s tissue tree, our similarities outweighed our differences. Kipps and Lockwood, Kate Godwin and I—we were all made of the same stuff. We had our rapiers and other weapons; we shared a cool seriousness of purpose. Even Flo looked businesslike, her straw hat casting a ring of shadow across her face, her coat pulled back to reveal her great curved gutting knife and the sinister array of implements she normally used to winkle objects from the river mire.

George handed around some chocolate; we compared notes on what we’d learned.

“Mostly just seems to be worries about the air quality,” Lockwood said. “Something unpleasant but hard to fathom.” He leaned casually against a counter, face lit by a flickering gas lantern. “Then there’s that story of the girl who saw a crawling figure. That stands out a mile, because it’s so definite and strange.”

“What kind of ghost might it be?” Holly Munro asked.

No one knew.

“A couple of people say they heard a voice calling out their name,” Bobby Vernon said. “It was always at dusk; always when they were leaving. It sounded like someone they knew was far off in the building, calling them back inside.”

“Did they ever follow the sound?” I asked.

“Er, no, Carlyle, they didn’t,” Kate Godwin said. “Because they weren’t completely stupid. Who would ever obey a disembodied voice?”

“Oh, you never know. Some people might be tempted.” Holly Munro used her sweetest, most eyelash-batting tones—as she always did when she was referring to me.

Flo Bones shuffled her feet impatiently. “I don’t know about all this, Locky….There’s not much to go on here. Are you sure this place is the focus?”

“It’s pretty thin pickings so far,” Lockwood admitted. “Aickmere could tell as much from my manner when I spoke to him just now. Exactly what he expected, he said. We’re going to have a very dull evening. He still maintains there’s nothing here.”

“No, he’s wrong,” I said slowly. “There is something. I can sense it.”

I still detected that oddly prickling feeling, so familiar, yet so hard to read. The skull appeared to be having similar problems analyzing it; it hadn’t yet reported in.

“I don’t hear anything,” Kate Godwin said. She was a Listener too, and that made her suspicious of my insights. “What do you think it is?”

“I don’t really know,” I said. “It’s like background buzz, a kind of radiation. It’s strong, but also muffled—like it’s mostly blocked but managing to seep in anyway.”

“You need to get your ears syringed,” Godwin said.

Lockwood shook his head. “If Lucy says there’s something, we need to take notice. Where’s it strongest, Luce? The basement?”

“No. I get it everywhere.”

“Even so,” George said, “I’d like us to play close attention to the basement. It surely overlaps where the old prison was, so you’d think any phenomena might start there….What else did Aickmere say to you, Lockwood? Any hints or friendly warnings?”

“Nothing. Oh, apart from telling us again to keep the place tidy and—above all—not to touch that tree.”

“Like we’d mess it up,” Kipps growled. “What does he think we’re going to get up to tonight? Have a wild party in Men’s Wear? We’ve got a job to do.”

Lockwood grinned. “True, and we’d better get on with it. Right, I’m going to put us into pairs for the first stage of the night.”

And he did. He divided us into teams of two. He himself would go with Kipps. Kate Godwin and Bobby Vernon formed a second natural pair. Next, George (who remained remarkably calm at the news) was lumbered with Flo Bones.

Guess who was left for me?

I felt like the kid in the playground who’s always chosen last. I began checking through my equipment with ostentatious care.

Holly didn’t seem overjoyed either. “So…Lucy. We’re doing the second floor?”

“That’s right….” I was synchronizing watches with Lockwood and the others. The initial stint was two hours only; then we’d rendezvous by the first-floor stairs to make sure all was well. I snapped my notebook onto its belt-clip, ran my fingers across the familiar pouches. The weight was right; everything in position. I gave my partner a token smile. “So, Holly—shall we go?”

Two by two we stole away: George and Flo were covering the basement and ground floor, Godwin and Vernon the highest levels. Lockwood and Kipps climbed the central stairs with Holly and me, flashlights flowing over the gleaming marble. On the first floor they vanished into Ladies’ Fashions, while we continued up the stairs.

The Men’s Wear department filled three interconnecting halls. It was pretty dark, because we were a fair way above the level of the street lamps. Silver-faced mannequins, gleaming dimly in the half-light, sat or stood on pale white pedestals between the dangling racks of clothes. Suits, trousers, row upon row of neatly pressed shirts….There was a smell of mothballs, fabric-conditioner, and wool. I felt it was colder than when we’d passed through earlier.

Holly carried bags to the far end, where we would start. I hung back a moment.

“Well?” I said.

“I’ve done my thinking,” the voice from my bag announced. “And I’ve had an idea.”

“Great.” What was that odd sensation, so deep down and far away? It had really been bugging me. I wanted the skull’s insight. “Let’s hear it, then.”

“Here’s my tip: lure her down to Kitchenware and brain her with a skillet.”

“What?”

“Holly. It’s a golden opportunity. There are lots of pointy things there too, if you prefer. But basically a simple smack with a rolling pin would do fine.”

I gave a snort of fury. “I’m not interested in killing Holly! I’m concerned about the weird vibes I’m getting in this place! Is mindless violence your solution to everything?”

The ghost considered. “Pretty much, yeah.”

“You disgust me. The consequences—”

“Oh, you wouldn’t get caught. That’s the whole point. Just do it quietly like, and blame it on the supernatural forces that are infesting the place. Who’s to know?”

I contemplated getting into a heated debate with the skull about the moral implications of murder but decided it was pointless. Also I had no time: my partner was pattering back toward me down the aisle.

“Okay,” I said loudly as she drew near, “we’d better get on with it, Holly. You do know how to record psychic data, don’t you?”

She was nervous—breathing fast. I saw her jacket moving rapidly up and down. “Yes,” she said, “I do know that.”

“Using the Fittes-Rotwell grid method?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. Then let’s begin. I’ll take the readings and you record them.” Ignoring the whispers of the skull, which kept suggesting different unlikely kitchen utensils that could be used for murder, I sketched out a map of the room. Holly and I went to the first point on the grid, a corner filled with neatly piled sweaters. Above us, a mannequin wearing a plaid shirt, woolen cardigan, and slacks pointed jauntily into the dark. “So the temperature here,” I said, “is…fifty degrees. I see nothing and…I hear nothing. So there’s no prime indicator, no malaise or chill or anything. That means you can put little zeros in the boxes there….Okay? Got that?”

“I told you, I know how to do it. And, by the way,” Holly said, “I can take readings too. I do have some Talent. I trained as a field agent when I was little.”

I was already pacing out the strides to the next point. “Yeah? So what happened? Did you find it too dangerous? Not to your liking, I mean?”

“I found it scary, yes. You’d be stupid not to.”

“Yeah, I guess. Temp here’s fifty too.”

She noted it down. “But that wasn’t why I stopped,” she said. “They put me in a desk job after the Cotton Street killings. Maybe you heard of that, even in that little place up north you came from?”

“It wasn’t a little place, as it happens,” I said. “It was a very substantial northern town, which—” I stared past her, suddenly alert. “Did you hear that?”

“What? No.”

“I thought…a voice….”

“What did it say? Where did it come from? You want me to note it down?”

“I want you to stop gabbing.” I stared up the aisle into the dark. I couldn’t hear anything now besides Holly hyperventilating. If there had been a distant voice, calling my name, it wasn’t there now.

Holly was watching me closely. “Lucy, you’re not going to go wandering off, following the voice, are you?”

I stared at her. “No, Holly. Obviously I’m not.”

“Fine. Because at the Wintergarden house you lost control and—”

“It’s not going to happen! It’s gone, anyway. Shall we just get on with the survey?”

“Yes,” she said primly, “all right.”

We got on with the survey.

“I heard all that,” the skull hissed in my ear. “I’ve got one word for you: egg whisk.”

I shook my head, spoke under my breath. “That’s stupid. I couldn’t kill her with that. Anyway, egg whisk is two words.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“It is so. And I don’t think she meant any harm, then. She was just—”

“If I was out of this jar,” the skull said, “I’d throttle her for you. I’d do it as a favor. Think how nice it would be just to follow your urges for once. You could do it right here. Use a coat hanger as a garrote.”

I ignored it; there were other things to think about. The temperature was dropping, and now thin wires of white-green ghost-fog showed too, winding around the bases of the clothes racks, lapping at the pedestals of the mannequins. Holly and I continued taking readings up and down the shadowy hall, past T-shirts and sock racks, shelves of slippers and old men’s vests. Our scribbled notes showed a gradual increase in secondary phenomena, particularly chill and miasma, but we also noticed something else:

Apparitions.

They began as faint gray forms, seen always at the far end of an aisle. In the half- light they were uncomfortably similar in size and shape to the costumed mannequins, and it was only when one suddenly drifted sideways that I realized, with a shock, that they were there at all. They did not seek to approach us; they made no sound. Neither Holly nor I could detect any aggressive intent; still, they unnerved us by their watchful presence and by their number, which seemed to grow steadily as we proceeded along the hall. When we got to stairwells, and looked down, we could see them clustering far below, looking up at us with blank black eyes in soft gray faces. When I gazed back through Men’s Wear, I could see them hovering in the shadows, silent and discreet.

Or not entirely silent.

“Lucy…”

That voice again. Far off, a patch of darkness welled toward me.

“Skull?” I risked a whisper to my backpack. Holly was a few paces ahead of me, and I didn’t think she’d notice. “Did you hear that? Spare me your usual nonsense. I haven’t got time.”

“The voice? Yes, I heard it.”

“What is it? How does it know who I am?”

“A presence is building. Something pulls itself toward you.”

“Toward me?” I went all cold. “Why not Holly? Or Kate Godwin—she hears stuff too.”

“Because you’re unique. You shine like a beacon, attracting the attention of all dark things.” It chuckled. “Why d’you think I’m chatting with you?”

“But there’s no reason—”

“Listen,” the skull said, “if you want to avoid all this, you’re in the wrong job. Go be a baker’s girl or something. Better hours, nice floury apron…”

“Why the hell would I want a floury apron?” I took a deep breath. “These things watching us—tell me what they are.”

“There are many spirits wandering in this place. Most seem lost; I sense no willpower in them. But there are other, stronger, powers here that do have will. One of them is hunting you.”

I swallowed, gazed out into the dark.

“Oh, and here’s more good news,” the skull added. “I’ve finally got an answer for you about that odd sensation you’re feeling. I know where you’ve felt it before: it’s like the bone glass. Remember? That’s what the feeling’s like.”

The bone glass….I knew at once that it was right. That queasy, prickling background sensation I’d experienced since arriving at Aickmere’s? It was familiar. I had known it before.

At Kensal Green Cemetery, six months earlier, Lockwood, George, and I had discovered a curious object, a mirror or “bone glass,” that had certain odd capabilities. Most startlingly, we guessed it gave its owner the ability to look across to the Other Side. Since anyone who looked into it invariably died—and since the glass was smashed at the end of the case—it was hard to be certain about this. But just being close to the thing had made me feel ill; and I now realized that my sensations here were very similar indeed.

“It’s not the bone glass, of course,” the skull went on. “It’s different—bigger and farther away. But it’s the same sort of feeling. A disruption in the fabric of things. Take it from me, Lucy. Strange stuff’s going on around here….”

With that the skull’s presence suddenly receded. Holly Munro was at my side. I hadn’t noticed her come close.

“Why are you talking to yourself, Lucy?”

“I wasn’t. Er, I was just thinking aloud.”

It was an excuse that wouldn’t have convinced a three-year old, and it was touch-and-go with Holly. She frowned and opened her mouth to speak—but at that moment a familiar voice called both our names. And there was Lockwood, coat swishing, lantern swinging from one long pale hand, advancing swiftly through the dark.

I hadn’t realized until I saw him how tense and strung out I was; also how desperately I missed him at my side. I felt both worse and better as he drew near.

“Lucy, Holly—are you all right?” He was smiling, but I could see anxiety in his eyes. “People are getting jumpy. I’m checking up on everyone.”

“We’re okay,” I said. “There’s just an awful lot of ghosts around.”

“Yes, though they’re holding off for now.” He flashed his grin at us. “The worst thing that’s happened so far is George knocking a leaf off that stupid tree in the foyer. We’ll stick it back on later. Hopefully Aickmere won’t notice.”

“Lucy’s been hearing voices again,” Holly Munro said.

I glared at her. I’d been about to tell him—probably—and I didn’t like it slipping out like it was some kind of guilty secret, or the way Lockwood looked at me so sharply.

“Lucy?” he said. “Is this true?”

“Yes,” I said huffily. “Something’s called my name twice. It’s fine, though—I’m not going to do anything stupid. And besides, I’ve got Holly here to look after me.”

He was silent for a long moment; I could see him wrestling with his doubts. At last he said quietly, “We’re meeting up in half an hour. Think you’ll be okay till then?”

“Yes, of course.” The way I said it probably sounded abrupt, like I was cross with him for asking. I wasn’t at all—just like I wasn’t entirely sure I’d be okay. The skull’s words had spooked me. My spirits felt oppressed. I kept wanting to turn around, just in case something was sneaking up behind…but I certainly wasn’t going to admit any of that in front of Holly.

“Well…see you both soon, then,” Lockwood said.

Soundless as ever, he faded into the shadows.

Holly Munro and I stood in the hall for a moment, watching him go, darkness swirling around us. Then we resumed our psychic survey. Never overly talkative when we were alone, we now fell entirely silent, other than whispering new readings to each other. We were unsettled. I looked over my shoulder more often than was necessary.

At last the silence between us became oppressive. I cleared my throat.

“So,” I said—I wasn’t particularly interested; I just wanted to relieve the tension—“this Cotton Street killing you mentioned earlier. What was it? Big deal for you?”

Holly nodded briefly. “You could say that. I was the sole survivor of a four-strong team that got attacked by a Poltergeist in a Cotton Street studio. I got out of the window, rolled down the tiles, and fell against the chimney. Lay there all night, more dead than alive. My supervisor and two other colleagues weren’t so lucky.”

It was a rough story, but even as she spoke I was distracted. I had that sudden unpleasant feeling of something close and creeping near. I looked behind me—and saw nothing….When I looked back, I found Holly still watching me, waiting for my reaction.

I took a moment, tried to focus on what she’d said. “Yeah. Sounds bad.”

“That’s all you’re going to say?”

What, did she want me to hold her hand? The precise same thing had happened to me, too. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But if you were an agent…stuff happens.”

There was a pause. Holly gazed at me. After a while she said, “They took me off the front line. It was meant to be temporary, but I was good at desk work and found I didn’t want to go back. But don’t think I haven’t got the ability to do this, Lucy. I’m rusty at it, but I’m still capable.”

I shrugged. I scarcely heard her. I was concentrating on the atmosphere of the hall. A faint, dusky radiance from the streetlights below filtered through the windows and gave everything grainy definition. It wasn’t so strong that our Talents would be impaired, but neither did we need to switch on our flashlights to find our way. Holly drifted away from me. She crossed to the nearest racks and walked between them, brushing her fingers along the soft lines of shirts.

I stood looking down the room.

My feelings of anxiety had deepened all the time we’d been on this floor; now, all at once, without warning, they intensified into dread. I found my gaze was fixed on the dark space at the end of the hall, beyond Checkout and the final racks of clothes, where a tall, squared archway opened on to the cross-passage that led to the elevators and stairs. The details of the passage could not be seen: it had no windows, and the streetlights did not penetrate there. It was a blank emptiness, small, but of infinite depth.

“Lucy…”

Sweat ran down the side of my face; I couldn’t look away.

I could hear the rustlings of Holly’s fingers as they ran along the shirts. Down in the street, a dog barked, perhaps a stray. But that was the last thing I heard, for now cold silence engulfed me—suddenly, violently, as if it had come rushing up the hall from the passage at the end. It hit me like a fist. Something pressed hard on my temples; I grimaced, opened my mouth, but I could not call out. My limbs were marble; my hands locked at my side. I was as fixed and frozen as one of the mannequins.

And I watched that notch of darkness.

I watched as something moved into it.

It came from the right-hand side beyond the arch, a human figure crawling on all fours. Scarcely blacker than the blackness all around, it dragged itself along on knees and elbows with a series of slow, slow, jerking movements. Now and again it advanced in swift scuttles, as a hunting spider might, but the overall impression was of obnoxious weakness and of pain. Thin legs dragged behind it; the head hung low between the rolling shoulder blades and could not be clearly seen.

Across the space at the end of the hall the crawling figure went; it reached the other side of the arch and disappeared along the passage in the direction of the elevators. A moment passed, and then a flowing thread of darkness streamed across the gap after it. It looked like a thick black rope, shimmering, quivering at its edges. At first I couldn’t make out what it was; then pieces of it broke away, and I recognized them. It was a great host of spiders, silent, intent, moving like a single living thing. They too passed out of view in the direction the awful jerking figure had taken, and with that the dread that held me in its grip relaxed, and I could move again.

The pall of silence lifted about me; once more I heard Holly’s fingers as they brushed through cloth and, outside in the street, another bark from the poor stray dog.

There was pain in my mouth, and my lips were wet. When I touched them, my fingers ran with blood. In my numbness and terror, I’d driven my teeth into my tongue.