The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, 2013 Edition
Page 34
The late-autumn sun had already set beyond the last of the ranges. The famous view was gone from the long windows now, their old panes turned to so many mirror reflections by the light from the Deco wall sconces and the chandelier overhead. The black iron fireplace, clean but inevitably dusty, was the room’s most distinctive feature, the mantel a modest afterthought by comparison, even more simple and functional than the CCTV footage had shown it to be.
“The previous owners must have become fed up with the whole thing,” Jared said.
Susan nodded. “None of the various management groups ever said much about it but, you know, who wanted the publicity? It could happen at any time. It was always there. And, like I say, it’s been getting more frequent.”
“Hard to live with.”
“They only used the Delfray Room as an overflow room for special occasions, last-minute wedding bookings, that sort of thing. They just made sure they put nothing on the mantel. Records show that the occurrences—you call them ‘events,’ don’t you?—started soon after the hotel was first opened in 1891 as the Belgravia Hotel though very infrequently then. When it became the Hydro, only a few people knew about them. Management had to consider their more refined and sensitive clientele, so hushed things up pretty quickly. There was originally a large mirror mounted over it, quite ornate, so no one really questioned the lack of other adornment.”
“Except the occasional guest who suddenly found his drink on the floor.”
Susan laughed. “Exactly. The ultimate party trick. I imagine it’s a bit like trying to sell or lease out a murder house. Something you just don’t mention, just work around as best you can. Mr. Ryan—Jared—if you’ll excuse me asking. I understand that you’re not blind in that eye. You’re just masking it for what’s being done tonight. Is what Cilia said true? This whole thing is about seeing what’s doing it?”
“That’s right.”
“You don’t mean it’s someone? A person? A ghost?”
Jared shrugged. “We can’t know. Martin Rathcar proceeded from the certainty that something was doing it—whether resident poltergeist or freak of nature. He found serious funding to develop a method for seeing anomalies like this a different way.”
“But the patch. I understand that—“
“Dr. Rathcar called it the Nightside Eye as a media drawcard in 2008, back when the funding proposals went in. Made it sound sexy, mysterious. He got the idea from one of those mythbuster programs on TV.”
“Really. How so?”
“It seems veteran seamen aboard sailing ships in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries often wore a patch over one eye when they went below-deck. They swapped the patch from one eye to the other so they were nightsighted and could see immediately. It let them find things quickly, stopped them bumping their heads. Very practical.”
Susan looked skeptical. “That really happened?”
“It’s highly likely. Dr. Rathcar expanded on the idea, kept one eye completely isolated from all the customary vision tasks for nine months, took injections of several quite powerful very specific neurological regulators to intensify the ‘nightside’ function in that particular optic nerve.”
“Biased it?”
“Many claimed so, though the regulators weren’t known to be hallucinogens. More like the drugs used in eye surgery, optical trauma events, sight retrieval situations. Increased receptivity and adaptivity. Intensification of the optic process.”
“I remember now. Rathcar’s the guy from Sydney University who wouldn’t say what he saw. He took his own memories with another drug. I remember that interview on 60 Minutes.”
“That’s the guy. Martin Rathcar.”
“You’re doing what he did?”
“As best I can.” Jared touched the smooth marble ledge again. There were no frissons, no untoward sensations, nor had he expected any. He took his hand away. “When he injected the Trioparin, took his memories, he breached quite a few legal agreements. He ended up being locked out of his own facilities, forfeited his database and research material. But some preliminary theory was already published. There was even a popular article in New Scientist to generate interest. The rest of the procedure was relatively easy to duplicate. The main thing was getting access to the same location he used a year ago. You can see why I’m so grateful to you and your office.”
Susan smiled. “Cilla briefed me as well as she could before she left for London. Her mum is unwell—all last minute. She said I just have to be here and watch. Make sure rules are followed.”
“You’re doing more than you realize. You and the security guards rostered on tonight become impartial observers as well.”
“Hey, I like that. Independent witnesses!”
“I’m glad you think so. I wonder if you’d be okay with us using your names in our observation log? It could really help.”
“Sure. It’s exciting. I’ll ask Geoff and Amin later.”
“My camera and sound people will be here soon, Sophie and Craig, my volunteer assistants and official witnesses. It’s six o’clock now. Once we’re set up, we’ll begin at 7:00 p.m., the same time Dr. Rathcar did fifteen months ago. We’ll do the whole thing twice if we can, put several objects here on the mantel—a plastic bottle, a child’s wooden block, a toy train, and simply record what happens. Second time through, if we are lucky tonight and the phenomenon occurs, the moment they’re moved, disturbed in any way at all I shift the patch from one eye to the other and see what I get. It shouldn’t take long.”
“You do that once it happens.”
“As soon as it happens. As close to. The first time is a control to establish parameters: event frequency and duration, lighting levels, things like that. But the second time round I stand over here by the fireplace and shift the patch, just as Rathcar did.”
“But the camcorders will only catch your reactions. Not what you see.”
“Right. But whatever we get may match reactions in the CCTV footage from the Rathcar attempt. Rathcar’s own footage hasn’t been made available yet, but may be released once we do this. Rathcar called out a single word—‘Kathy!’—his assistant’s name. We don’t know why now, and of course he can’t tell us.”
“Or won’t.”
“Or won’t. But there may be some key detail or other that emerges. Later spectrographic analysis may show even more, who knows?”
“It’s all very uncertain,” Susan said, looking at him intently, or possibly at the eye-patch that was to play such a key role in what was about to happen.
“True. But it’s all we can expect in a situation like this, and hopefully what we do tonight will actually duplicate Rathcar’s results, whatever those ultimately were. All we know is that there was an event and that Dr. Rathcar shifted his patch, reacted strongly to something, called out Kathy Nicholls’ name, just her first name, then shifted the patch back. It’s what he did afterwards that caused the fuss. Gave himself the injection.”
“So you’re doing this to help Dr. Rathcar.”
“In a sense. Not out of some noble motive or anything; I’ve never even met the man. But I have to allow that he saw something. A respected research scientist took his own memories of what seems to be the key moment in a serious experiment. Grandstanding aside, something probably significant happened to make him do that.”
“The resident poltergeist,” Susan said.
“I’ll settle for that, whatever it is.”
“You hope to see it?”
“That’s the idea. Hopefully see something.”
“So why do it at night? It happens in daylight too. Surely that’d be easier.”
Jared had to smile. “Rathcar did it at night, so we do likewise. I think it was Channel 9’s idea, having the night-shoot. Spookier. More dramatic.”
“I can understand that. The smallest things are scarier at night.”
“Exactly.”
“But whatever you see may just be sensory overload. All those drugs you mentioned.”
Sophie Mace and Craig Delmonte had appeared at the doorway to the Delfray Room, laden with camcorders, audio equipment and a portable lighting stand, assisted by Geoff and Amin, the security guards rostered on for the evening.
Jared and Susan walked back to the double doors, where Jared completed the introduce tions then helped the security men carry in chairs and a table so Craig and Sophie could set up their video monitors just inside the entrance. Susan left them to it, going outside to discuss the evening’s schedule with the guards.
“Give us twenty minutes to get the settings,’ Craig said.
“Won’t take long.”
“Listen, Craig—”
“Jared. Let’s do this like we discussed. You’re pumped, I can tell. It’s only natural. Go for a walk and calm down! Sophie and I can handle this.”
“Right.”
They had talked about it, about remaining composed, focused, letting others help. This footage would be seen, closely scrutinized. Objectivity and detachment were everything.
Jared stepped out into the corridor, walked the short distance to the corner and turned left into the long axial hallway for the whole wing. It was dimly lit, and so quiet, stretching off into shadow at its farthest reaches. Jared started along it, moving soundlessly on the old carpet, with locked doors to his left and long darkened windows to the right. He knew that beyond the steady mirror reflections in those panes the land fell away over sheer crags, buttresses, blurrings of eucalypts, a great gulf of darkness, all invisible now. In daylight it was the sort of panoramic view that caught your breath, weakened you in the knees, made any attempts to capture it in photographs impossible. Photographs never caught the scale, the dimension, the vast uncaring emptiness.
Now that he was finally doing it, everything seemed intensely unreal, and he had to counter that feeling. He took several deep breaths, made himself consider where he was. The old spa complex was all around him, stretching away like a bleached wishbone here by the highway at Medlow Bath, an antique ivory clasp opened and laid out along the ridge, arms pushed back against the incredible drop. The phrase “abandoned in place” had never been more appropriate. This fabulous old hotel was meant to be restored, maintained, feted, if only as something as second-rate yet cherished as the Carrington Hotel in nearby Katoomba. But used, for heaven’s sake. Though no one was saying so officially, there was already the distinct feeling that it might all prove too hard, that these empty rooms, forgotten lounges, deserted balconies, and silent staircases would stay like this indefinitely, the only thing moving in the halls by day the motes of dust glittering in the westering sunlight, by night the shadows made by the moon as it fell down the sky.
Now and then security guards would come and go, trying the locks, checking the fire-doors, running the aircon in various rooms to counter mildew and mold, helping to replace the fire-extinguishers as they reached their use-by dates, escorting the planning people who seemed to come less and less frequently now.
Jared turned to face his own reflection in one of the long casements, stood distracted by the familiar shape with the eye-patch. For a moment it made him forget the great darkness beyond the glass, but then he forced himself to think of it, savor it: the fact that two things could be true at the same time, his image and the other. It calmed him, anchored him somehow.
When he finally did check his watch, he saw it was 6:51, time to get back. He re-traced his course, returned with the same silent tread to the Delfray Room, welcoming the soft murmur of voices as Sophie and Craig made final adjustments, calmly explaining what they were doing for Susan’s benefit. The security guards were off making last-minute checks of the exits.
Everyone knew to leave Jared be now, and he distanced himself, found focus by reviewing how well it had gone so far.
The Rathcar duplication was nearly complete: his taking the exact regulator doses across nine long months, the grooming of the monocular separation followed to the letter. The logistical requirements had been met too: securing the Hydro for the evening, keeping the costs well down. The guards were rostered on anyway. Only Susan had to be paid a fee for the two or three hours it should take, and she had turned out to be so interested that if he’d bothered to arrange to meet beforehand she might well have done it for free.
At 6:56, Jared called for Stand-by. Susan took out her mobile and contacted the security men. “Geoff, get Amin. We’re about to start.”
The guards appeared in the doorway moments later, took their places on the spare chairs, interested and attentive.
“All right,” Jared said. “So everyone is clear on the sequencing, we roll cameras at 7:00 sharp, do the control run to make sure our visitor is with us. We set up our things on the mantel, let our guest have a free go at them. Once it happens, if it happens, we then take the thirty-eight minute break and do it all again, this time with me standing over by the mantel and swapping the patch as soon as I can after the event occurs.”
“Is the thirty-eight minutes necessary?” Susan asked.
“Again, it’s what Rathcar did. It wasn’t planned. He just had more things to coordinate. But we’re duplicating his sequencing as closely as possible.”
“Understood.”
“Okay, Sophie, Craig. It’s 6:59. Begin recording. I’ll go put the things on the mantelpiece.”
Jared did so, once again crossing the empty dance-floor to the fireplace. First he stood the plastic bottle on its end, then set down the wooden block a short distance along from it, finally placed the red toy locomotive. Though tempted to stay by the mantel even for this first run, pulling his patch aside at the first sign of any disturbance, he made himself return to the monitors by the doors.
The vigil proper began at 7:02.
It was exciting at first, full of a new and understandable tension, an intensification of everything. The objects sat there—so ordinary, so comical in that ordinariness, both unreal yet super-real but growing more and more unsettling, even disturbing somehow in their stillness.
As long minutes passed, the waiting soon became unbearable, of course. In most modern cultures, human senses were rarely accustomed to being strained this way. What once might have been essential for hunting and for vigilance in the face of danger and strife now brought only a worrying hypersensitivity. Jared watched the monitors, then the mantel across the room, monitors and mantel, glance up, glance down, the cycle repeating over and over. He found himself afraid to blink, straining to catch the slightest movement, the smallest disturbance, keenly aware of the gulf beyond the windows, of the chill autumn darkness all about them, thought of the empty rooms and hallways, the locked bars and dining rooms, the kitchens, closets, the empty pipes, the utterly still interiors of the hotel outbuildings scattered along the ridge. He imagined movement a dozen, two dozen times, but there was nothing, certainly no confirmation from Craig and Sophie at their monitors, watching the test objects in both long-shot and close-up. Geoff and Amin sat quietly behind him, Susan to his right, close by the monitor screens, no doubt staring too.
Jared had not forbidden talking, but that’s what had resulted. There was barely a sound.
Ten minutes became twenty, thirty, and the silence grew to be a layered thing. Sounds not noticed at first gained a striking new intensity: the hum of the recording equipment, the smallest cough, the rhythmic cycle of their breathing, the occasional tick of temperatures shifting, of masonry cooling, old pipes settling, whatever traces came in from the great emptiness beyond the windows.
It was so sudden when it happened—as alarming, dramatic and violent as everyone had said it would be. One moment the objects sat unmoving, exactly as placed. The next they were gone, clattering on the parquetry floor as if an unseen arm had swept them aside.
“First event, 7:46,” Craig said for the audio log, then: “Sta
nd by. Stand by. Counting to the thirty-eight minute repeat at 7:47—now!”
Everyone relaxed then, began talking all at once. It was happening. They were in the thirty-eight minute time-out.
To Jared’s surprise, one of the security guards, Amin, was suddenly at his elbow, handing him a folded note. “When I started my rounds earlier, Jared, a guy parked out by the highway asked me to give you this the moment something happened.”
“What’s that?” Jared said, even as he took the note, opened and read it.
Mr. Ryan
I am waiting in front of the Hotel in a white Camry. Please give me fifteen minutes of your time. It is very important that you do so.
Martin Rathcar
Jared passed the note to Craig, said: “Keep to the countdown. I’ll be back in time.” Then he left the Delfray Room, hurried out to the front exit, out through the porte-cochère to where, sure enough, a solitary white Camry was parked by the highway. As Jared approached the vehicle, the passenger window lowered, revealed a man behind the wheel leaning over, smiling.
“Jared Ryan? I’m Martin Rathcar. Thanks for coming out. Please get in for a moment.”
Jared dimbed into the passenger seat and they shook hands.
“Dr. Rathcar, I have to say this is truly a surprise! Really quite marvelous! But why are you here?”
Martin Rathcar looked older than his fifty-two years. He sat with his hands on the steering wheel his narrow face partly shadowed, partly lit by the highway lamps. His eyes glittered. “I know you don’t have long. My one-time assistant, Kathy Nicholls, let me know that you’d duplicated the monocular separation and were doing this tonight.”