Audrey stooped over, and threw up.
She wiped her mouth and looked to see if anyone was watching her. She then carefully rolled down her sleeve.
Across from the nook, on the opposite sidewalk, stood a large bookstore, its revolving door spinning. She held her arm close and staggered into the street.
The building, despite its size, carried little stock, and what it did have was lined up on metal shelves laid out in neat short lines down the middle of the room. Daylight fell through skylights in the ceiling, past bare rafters, and spread the shadows out to the edges of the room. Audrey crept through those shadows, sneaking along the periphery until she found the customer washrooms.
She looked at herself in the mirror blankly, her dark hair ruffled, accentuating her pallor. She turned her head to the side, then to the other. Her neck, just above the injured shoulder, was almost white. She pulled her collar down and leaned closer. The taint on her arm was spreading, working its way up. Audrey slumped, and tears tried to form in her eyes. Despite their efforts, though, they were unsuccessful.
She spoke to the version of herself staring back from the mirror. “I’m going crazy,” the illusion said, and she and it both nodded as if it were true.
“No,” her arm insisted, and she looked at it, looked at its multiplying sets of openings, some wide and moist. “You are not.”
She rubbed her hand over her hair.
“You’re not real,” she finally said.
“Not real,” it mimicked. “Why have you become this? Why has this happened?”
She stammered. “It’s the drugs.”
“No, it is you. Uncover your eyes.” The tiny mouths opened and closed, a thin line of pus drooling from one. “The world is a shadow on a wall. You must forsake it. Do not let it empty you.”
“Please, just shut up.”
“You must not let it in.”
Her arm jittered and the mouths whispered, “Quiet.”
The door to the washroom then opened and a woman walked in.
Audrey stood there wide-eyed as though caught. The woman barely gave her more than a glance. Instead, she walked into one of the stalls and closed the door.
Audrey rushed to roll down her sleeve, wincing as the cloth passed over her swelling flesh, all the while keeping her eye on the thin metal door the woman had passed through. Audrey patted her hair down as best she could, straightening the worst of the tangles, and walked with forced casualness to the door.
Just as she pushed down on the handle there was a noise, like the screech of rubber, and Audrey hurried out.
The store was full of people standing among the stacks and shelves, reading. Audrey took a step towards the entrance and stopped. Coming through the turnstile was Doctor Meme, two police officers in tow. They walked as though they were tin mechanical soldiers, marching down the aisles. They had not seen her, so she hid behind the closest shelf.
“You are feeble,” the voice said. “You are afraid of seeing things as they are.” She looked, but no one else seemed to have heard the voice. She bent down on one knee.
“You’re not real,” she chanted. “You’re not real.”
“It is this place that isn’t real. It is empty of thought. Read,” it ordered, then said no more. She stood slowly, watching carefully for her hunters, and almost appeared right before them. She shot down quickly, and waited.
She picked a book at random and held it close. She listened carefully for the sounds of their footsteps as they approached her.
At first, they were smooth, rhythmic, but as they approached they became more erratic, quicker and louder.
Audrey kept her head down and opened the book in her hands. She used it to cover her face.
She did not move as the three men passed her by, a voice like Doctor Meme’s saying things like: “We have to find her — she isn’t stable;” and “She seems to be having a dissociative attack.” Nor did she move when their footsteps passed beyond earshot. Instead, she stared at the book in her hands.
She flipped through it pages at a time but the results did not change. “They’re blank,” she said under-breath. She pulled down another volume from the shelves, and then another, and the more she did, the more she laughed. Audrey started dropping volumes to the floor, laughing at the sight of each one.
“They’re all blank.”
Her arm was silent.
• • •
Doctor Meme and his escort were gone by the time Audrey stopped laughing and stood. Still, she ran from the bookstore, ran until the jar of each landing step brought a wince to her face and she squeezed her arm tight.
That no longer stopped it from speaking though, and on resuming it spoke louder, finally having found its lungs.
“Look around you. Look closely. See the seams, the white cloth pulled taut. The world is only an image, Audrey — an unfeeling, empty illusion; a poor replica of what is true.”
“It’s not real.”
“None of it is. Nothing is as it seems. Even love is an illusion.”
“Even love is . . .” Audrey trailed off as she saw the bank of pay telephones. Three of them stood in a row, graffiti on their plastic windows, and all three stood unoccupied. “Even love . . .”
Audrey looked behind her, then approached the telephones.
“Do not believe in emptiness, Audrey,” the voice was screaming. “Do not let it swallow you whole.”
“I . . .” She stared at the chipped plastic receiver.
Then she hesitantly lifted her hand.
The voice in her arm had quieted, but still it whispered as Audrey’s hand crept forward. With a final leap, her fingers landed on the hard black plastic, and she exhaled and lifted the receiver. She hefted it a moment, then let it hang down and reached into her pocket.
She produced a small silver coin and inserted it into the telephone’s slot. The voice of her arm was almost gone.
Audrey put the receiver to her ear and waited. The line continued to ring and Audrey kept watching behind her. She pinched the receiver between her ear and shoulder and used her freed hand to rub her pained arm. “I’m not crazy,” she said. “I’m not.”
There was a click and a man’s voice appeared on the other end of the line. Audrey started to cough.
“Who is this?” the man said.
“Sebastian, it’s me. Don’t hang up! Please, I don’t know who else to call.”
“What do you need, Audrey?” He sounded suspicious.
Audrey’s voice was on the verge of breaking. “I don’t know what to do. I — I think I’m sick. The doctor gave me some sort of shot and — Sebastian, I think I’m in trouble . . .”
His voice became softer with her then. “Where are you?” he said. “I’m coming to get you.”
Audrey started to smile and coughed again. “I’m at Dundas Sq—”
“Hang up.” She winced as though her arm was being crushed.
“What? Where are you?” Sebastian said. Audrey stood frozen. “Audrey? Are you there? Audrey?”
She did not speak, nor move.
“Can you not hear it?” the voice asked.
“Audrey, I need to know where you are. I’m coming, just tell me where,” Sebastian said, and as he did Audrey heard a click on the line, as though a recording had been turned off. Or turned on. The same noise reoccurred again after he finished speaking.
“It is an illusion of the real word. Do not fall victim to it.”
“Audrey? Are you there? Audr—”
She hung up the telephone.
She stood still and watched it though, as if she were waiting for something to happen. She stared at the telephone and her eyes did not blink.
“Now do you see?” asked the whisper. “There is nothing inside.” Audrey dropped her head into her hand.
“I’ve gone mad,” she said.
She turned to leave and saw Doctor Meme standing there, the two police officers flanking him. The doctor’s brow was furrowed and he wrung his hands. Audrey’s a
rm spoke incessantly, repeating itself.
“It is not real. It is all plastic. All empty plastic.”
She shook her head but the sound remained.
“Audrey, don’t move,” Doctor Meme said, barely audible over the din. “An ambulance is coming.”
“What—” she whispered; “What do you want?”
The arm spoke louder. “Do not listen! Do not let the void consume you!”
“I want to help you. You know that.”
“No. Not you. What do you want?” she said, holding her arm before her. “Why are you doing this?”
“It is all plastic.” The sound seemed to be coming from all directions at once. The doctor seemed oblivious, though he too spoke louder.
“Audrey, listen to me! You’re going to be all right. We need to get you to the hospital.” He turned to the officers and spoke, but it was inaudible over the sound her throbbing arm was making. They nodded and looked at her and all the while her arm would not quiet. She banged her skull, begging the voice to stop, but it would not. It kept going on and on.
“Please,” she said, and tears began to stream down her face.
“Empty plastic,” was the only response.
Then there were hands upon her shoulders and Doctor Meme’s face was inches from hers as he shook her. His eyes were wide and his lips were moving but the only words she could hear were “Plastic! Plastic! Plastic!” over and over again, filling her head. The doctor shook her harder and she swung her swollen arm at Doctor Meme’s face.
Everything became quiet. There was a single hollow sound, like a fist upon an empty jug, and then a low pop. Doctor Meme’s head fell to the sidewalk, then rolled in an awkward circle, his eyes wide and blank, before slowly rocking to a stop. Audrey could see right into the neck but there was nothing there; it was empty.
“No,” she breathed.
“The world is not as it seems,” her arm spoke, its voice rough and shaking; “It is merely an illusion of a world. And it is an illusion that does not want to be dispelled.”
Audrey turned and saw the crowd that had formed behind her. Plastic faces looked back at her for a long moment, then they moved forward.
Audrey held her arm tight but it spoke no longer.
LEATHER, DARK AND COLD
FIRST, HE WAS only a name dropped casually in an overheard whisper, one that struck me as odd. The next time I heard him mentioned it was from a distance as others argued about his accomplishments. Shortly thereafter my female classmates, all at once it seemed, asked if I'd ever met the man. I confessed I hadn't, and the look they gave me was filled with both disbelief and pity. I started to wonder just who this Chris Pace was, and why he had left such an indelible impression upon a world that barely knew my name.
He was perhaps my exact opposite. Where I was quiet and studious, he breezed through his classes without the appearance of effort; where my eyes were hidden beneath brown matted bangs and thick glasses, his were a vivid blue that gleamed from a sharp blonde face. He was taller than me, wider and fitter, and he had a natural charm that seeped out, infecting those around him. He seemed, in a way, to be the perfect man, and compared to him I felt far more inferior than usual.
I must admit, at first I didn’t take to Pace. He walked into Professor Walsh’s lab as though it simply hadn’t existed before his arrival, and as I watched everyone — including Walsh — turn, drawn by his magnetism, I vowed I would not be so easily gulled; I would not let his looks and charms distract me from my studies.
It took less than a week before I, too, fell under his spell.
It was easy to do. Pace had a way that made me feel special, as though I belonged to a world that had, until then, done nothing but plot against me. He asked me about myself, asked questions about things only I might care about. We spent time together, and not once did he seem bothered by my rough-worn clothes and spotted appearance. I was so different from him in so many ways, yet his friendship was the only thing that eased the numbing wasteland that lay inside of me. I would have done anything for him.
“Jess,” he said to me as we sat in the graduate students' lounge. “What would you say if I told you I needed your help, but wouldn’t tell you why?”
I pushed the hair from my face, trying not to smile. “It would depend, I guess, on what you wanted.”
“It’s nothing dangerous or anything, but I need your help getting into one of the offices in MacNaughton tonight.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“I just told you I can’t tell you,” he said, looking up at a passing trio of girls who giggled amongst themselves at his gaze. Sitting next to him, I might as well have been invisible. “It’s something you would probably disapprove of, and I don’t want to drag you into anything that would trouble your morals.”
“All right,” I said reluctantly, and he patted my hand with his own. It felt hot, slightly moist, and I found the sensation disquieting.
“Good! I knew I could count on you. I’ll meet you by the rear entrance about eleven. Don’t worry, it’ll be fine.”
I tried to smile as he stood and put on his checkered coat, but I suspect my concern was quite apparent. He looked at me a moment and winked. Inside, something moved.
• • •
The air outside froze as soon as it left my lips, small clouds hanging around my head too long before dissipating into the breeze. I pushed aside my woolen glove to check my wristwatch. Pace was twenty minutes late.
The door behind me opened into the small of my back, and I turned to find Pace looking out amused, light spilling over his shoulder. “You know,” he said, “I didn’t mean you had to wait for me outside.”
“I know,” I lied. “I wasn’t here long.”
He shook his head and then prompted me to follow.
The MacNaughton Building was quiet, the other students long gone back to their cramped dormitory rooms, and without them around the place felt foreign. In the dim light time had stopped, congealing the air that hung between Chris and me, until it was like a distorting liquid. Sleet fell outside, and though I couldn’t see it, I could hear the tiny ice pellets bouncing off the darkened skylights, filling the air with the rough sound of scratching. Pace seemed unbothered by the oddness that hung around our heads, instead moving without faltering through the half-lit hall.
“There’s the elevator. Do you have your keys?”
I showed him my left hand. The ring circled my third finger.
“Good, good. That makes things easier.”
The elevator waited on the sixth floor above us until I was sure it would not answer our call, and then it descended, lighting each floor number on its way down. We stepped in, and he extended one lean finger to press the button that would return us to the sixth floor.
We stood silent, waiting for the box to carry us upward, when Pace turned and looked at me. I felt strange, and pretended I didn’t notice his stare, but I could not stop from blushing. He took a small breath and said, “I have a confession, Jess.”
My heart beat furiously against my chest.
“I can’t take this place anymore. It’s suffocating me. I can feel the walls leaning closer, closing in. Every building on this campus is the same — the whole school is infected with some sick disease and it’s tainted everything. Can’t you feel it?”
“I — I feel . . . something,” I stammered. “I don’t know what. There is something, though — something in the air around us.” The fan above our heads made a flapping noise, a slow and steady rhythm like something leathery was riding the blades.
“That’s why we’re here,” Pace said. “To see the Professor.”
“Who?”
The doors opened and Pace raised his finger to his lips, silencing me.
I followed him quietly until he stopped and pulled me flush against the wall, hiding us in the shadows that ran across the tile. With the wind nearly knocked from me, I wheezed for breath and Pace’s hand clasped my mouth. It took a moment for my body to relax.
When it did I gently pulled his hand away. I spoke, but he didn’t look at me, his eyes fixed on the hallway that stretched out before us.
“What just happened?”
“Quiet,” he whispered. “Do you hear that?”
I tilted my head and listened. At first, there was nothing, merely the creaks and hums of an old building, empty and vast — the sounds of crackling fluorescents and warming air vents. Then, subtly at first, I heard it: the gentle flapping, the shuffling, like a pair of leather soles wearing themselves down on the tiled floor.
“That’s him, that’s Professor Milton,” Pace said, “but I can’t tell where he is.”
I listened. “He sounds like he’s everywhere.”
We waited, the two of us huddled in the shadows, Pace’s body long and lean, just an arm’s reach away. I could barely see his face in the half-shadows, but it seemed troubled, pained. There was something going on, something I had not been told about, and for a fleeting instant I wondered if I could trust him.
He raised a hand to quiet me though I’d said nothing. I followed his stare down the western hall, from which echoed a distant door opening, and more worn leather being dragged across the tiles.
“Come on,” he whispered.
The two of us sneaked down the dark hall. No one else seemed to be in the building, and our presence felt wrong somehow, as if we didn’t belong there, swimming through the thick heavy air that filled the place. We walked past rows of lockers, our footsteps ringing across their metal surfaces. We turned at a junction of hallways, and ahead I saw a beam from a small window, a solitary light in the darkness.
“See?” Pace said, his breath catching. “I knew it was here.”
We maneuvered to the door cautiously, retreating to the darkness with each errant noise. It prolonged our approach, but we had to ensure Milton was not hidden inside. Pace shook the door’s handle but it would not budge.
“I need your keys,” he said, and I fished them from my pocket, all the while surveying the hall for sign of Milton’s return. I didn’t see him, but I couldn’t see anything in the darkness. The snakes in my spine began to writhe.
Beneath The Surface Page 17
