The Dark at the End

4

Ernst stormed up to the Lodge’s second floor and found two Kickers replacing the door to one of the rooms. Ernst knew whose room.

“What is the meaning of this?”

“Just following orders,” one of the Kickers said. “The boss told us to-”

“Where is he?”

The other jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the room. “Right inside.”

Ernst raised his black, silver-headed cane. “Out of my way! Out!”

They scuttled to the sides, leaving him a clear path through the doorway.

After a number of days’ absence, he’d returned to the Lodge and had been shocked to see its street facade defaced by a pair of steel window shutters on the second floor.

He stormed into the room and found Hank Thompson staring out one of those windows.

“The shutters must come down!”

Thompson smiled as he turned to face him. “Morning, Drexler. How’re they hanging?”

He was goading. Thompson seemed to take inordinate pleasure in annoying him. Well, Ernst was already annoyed- more than annoyed.

“Remove those shutters immediately.”

Thompson gave him a cold stare. “No.”

“This is a historic building. You cannot deface it like this.”

“What’s defaced? These are primo roll-up hurricane shutters. Heaviest of the heavy duty. Watch.”

He picked up a remote, pointed it at the nearest window, and pressed a button. With a soft clatter, a ribbed steel sheet unrolled from the cylinder at the top and slid down the tracks attached to either side of the frame. He pointed the remote at the other window and the same happened, darkening the room.

He grinned. “Pretty neat, huh? And if there’s a power failure, I’ve got a little gadget that lets me crank them up and down by hand.”

“Have you gone mad? This is totally irrational. You’re on the second floor. Someone would have to put up a ladder in full view of the street and the claque of your followers who drape themselves on the front steps.”

Thompson’s smile faltered. “What if what wants in isn’t human? What if it flies through the air?”

Ernst stared at him. He had gone mad.

“‘It’?”

“The Kicker Man warned me. He hasn’t led me wrong yet.”

Was he talking about the Change? Had he had some sort of premonition and was preparing for it?

Ernst hoped he was wasting his time, hoped that Jack, the man Thompson hated so fiercely, had succeeded in stopping the One.

“So don’t waste your breath telling me to undo this. It stays.”

Ernst turned toward the new door. “And this?”

“Steel. With a big bar across it. The walls are stone, two feet thick on the outside, a foot on the inside.” He looked around, nodding. “Yep, I’ll be safe here.”

Ernst saw no point in continuing the conversation, so he walked out.

Where was the One? Alive? Dead? He wished he could call Jack.