Swallowed By The Cracks e-Pub

by Lee Thomas, Gary McMahon, S. G. Browne, Michael Marshall Smith

  "Not the dog you nancy," the girl spat, "Him, the one that sent her to you… He don't need you no more. The dog is mine. He had no right giving her away."

  "No one gave me that dog," Samuel replied, infuriated with the diminutive woman's impertinence. "The dog was left to stray, and I cared for her."

  "You got all the brains of a shite stew," she replied. "That bugger, Mr. Dodd, sent her to you, made it all a game 'cause he thought it would be a fine story to tell." The woman pulled something from her pocket. She held it up and back so that it caught the light. "This here calls my Milly home," the woman said. She put the instrument to her lips and made a great show of blowing, but no sound emerged from the pipe. Still, Ruby's ears pricked, and she shot to her feet, searching the landing as if her name had been called. "You see that there? I don't know how it works, but it does. He trained her to come when this was blowed on. Proves she's mine. Now piss-off home."

  "Miss, I will only warn you once about your language."

  "Good," she said, swiftly returning the pipe to her pocket. "'Cause I don't give a piss if you like the way I talk or not, and I don't want to hear nothing more about it. I just want my dog."

  "And what would your master, Mr. Dodd, have to say about the way you treat his guests?"

  "Don't think he'd give a donkey's cock one way or another. He's right out of his fucking skull. Now get out of the way and let me and my Milly go."

  Lightning flashed above, and the space to Samuel's left lit up as if it had no ceiling at all. Something large and confounding occupied the center of the space, but he'd only managed to see it from the corner of his eye. Before he could turn to take it all in, the atmosphere was again as black as velvet.

  The lightning had a different affect on the woman. She yelped as if it had burned her, and as the thunder rolled through the rafters, rumbling the very walls of the structure, she quickly struggled to lift the dog.

  Samuel's heart sank when he thought he might lose Ruby forever. In their brief time together, he'd grown fond of the bitch, liked having her at his feet and lying next to him at night kicking her legs as she scampered over dream landscapes. He loathed the idea of her being kept by this crass and horrible woman.

  "I'll pay you for the dog," he said.

  "Don't need it. Got my pogue from the bugger when he lost his mind, and after what he done to me, I deserve every penny. You know what it's like to serve a monster? You see what he did to that door? Him's got the luck I come back to board up the other down there," she said throwing her index finger toward the staircase at her back.

  "I'll be quite generous. I have grown fond of the animal."

  "He said he'd be generous, too. The only thing he ever gave me was this here dog, and then he took her away. The rest I'm taking myself, because he don't need it anymore and the dirty bugger don't deserve none of it no how. He's against God that one. He's the Devil himself. That there," she said, pointing into the vast space on Samuel's left, "that there is Hell, and you can go on down and wait for him in it."

  Obviously, the small woman had lost her mind, and it occurred to Samuel that she may have become delusional and murdered the master of the house in her derangement. It happened all the time with the immigrant classes. Samuel bore them no ill will generally, and he certainly didn't believe they were the beasts his friends at the club often claimed, but they were raised harshly by rough hands and their morality – their value of life – differed from that of men like Samuel and Hubert Dodd. Her fixation on Ruby seemed to contest this cold-blooded perception, but Samuel felt an instant chill and wondered if his colleague from the club lay bleeding somewhere in the main house, struck down by a servant who'd succumbed to religious mania.

  "Where is Mr. Dodd?" Samuel asked.

  "He's in another Hell," the girl replied. Ruby wriggled in her grasp. "He made a Hell here and found one in his own damned head."

  Seeing no use in arguing with a lunatic, Samuel decided to change his tack. He gripped the handle of his umbrella quite tightly, should he need to use it in defense, and then he squared his shoulders.

  "I can run much faster than you," he announced.

  "Who said we was gonna race?"

  Ruby whimpered and looked at him with the same pleading expression she used when she needed her constitutional.

  "My point being that with the dog in your arms, I can reach a constable and bring him back before you make it to the end of the road. Now, I have offered to pay you generously for the animal. I suggest you allow me to do so. Otherwise, I shall be forced to involve the authorities."

  Apparently, Samuel's logic worked on the woman, because the tension left her shoulders and face. "Bugger," she muttered, surrendering to the futility of her situation.

  She dropped Ruby, who had only a short distance to fall. Immediately the dog raced to Samuel, taking a seated position next to his leg. Samuel presented the servant with an ample number of bills, enough to make her eyes light.

  "Take care of Milly," she said, tucking the bills into her boot. "She's a good dog. The only good thing to come out of this place."

  A moment later, the dreadful little woman was gone, tromping through the mud in the alley toward whatever destination summoned such people. Samuel bent low to scratch Ruby behind an ear.

  "I hope I wasn't being presumptuous," he told her. "If you'd rather accompany that foul woman, I should quite understand, though I think remaining with me will provide you a more comfortable future."

  In response, Ruby opened her mouth as if to yawn, but instead gave a weak yap, which Samuel took as acceptance of his decision. Ruby pressed close to his woolen trousers, and Samuel was finally able to slip the tether around her neck without incident.

  An explosion sounded at his back, startling both man and dog as a cloud of brilliant white erupted around them. Unlike the previous flash of lightning, this one did not come and go. Rather the light, shocking after so much gloom, remained. Samuel spun, his heart lodged in his throat. Surely, lightning had struck the building and the persistent illumination suggested fire, but what Samuel saw upon completing his turn was no natural element.

  The ceiling of the building was made of glass. Hundreds of small panes captured in an intricate steel web partitioned the dark sky beyond into a grimly colored grid. A great metal pole descended from this ceiling, ending at an immense platform, which while no taller than a steamer trunk spanned a good thirty feet. From this suspended panel a series of tubes and wires and rods dropped to a great apparatus of gears the smallest being no larger than Samuel's head, while the largest being the size of a respectable carriage. Burnished wood, perhaps mahogany, and tarnished metal were used to fashion the complex series of cogs, all of which now groaned and cranked. The distance from Samuel's location on the walkway to the floor was no less than forty feet. There he saw the base of this grand mechanism: a thick glass column, wide enough for Samuel to stand within and stretch his arms. The tube rose into the heart of the complex works, which creaked and turned like the heart of a great watch. Within the clear tower, dozens of coils glowed, throbbing energy as if they had captured the lightning itself.

  Samuel gazed on astounded by the intricacies of the contrivance before him. It was impossible and amazing. His gaze ran from ceiling to floor and then back skyward to the mesh of metal above. As he drew his attention downward again, he noticed a series of flat metal plates beneath the wooden platform, a detail eclipsed by the magnificence of the whole.

  The plates, two dozen in all, pushed forward and back along narrow tracks like finely fitted drawers. A great ratcheting suddenly filled the hall. Only when it happened again did Samuel notice that the plates were locking into positions along the base of the platform. This seemed to cause the complexity of gears to become sluggish. One by one, the metal sheets came to a snapping rest, and though this technical marvel thoroughly in
trigued Samuel, his gaze was soon drawn away.

  A dark form moved across the far wall. Perhaps it had only been a shadow cast by one of the revolving gears, but the sudden motion caught Samuel's eye. He followed it over the wall with his gaze, and reared back from the banister when it came to a stop.

  The floor and back wall of the chamber below the walkway were alive with motion. Hundreds of unidentifiable forms in a spectrum of unsavory colors – cheese mould green, rotten beef gray, the filthy yellow of infection's discharge – swarmed the lower room to create a foul bestiary in the heart of the city.

  Among these insectile and reptilian specimens, another species stalked. This trio of creatures bore a resemblance to man, in that they traveled on two legs and swung two arms, but there was nothing human about them. Their skin seemed to be the color of porridge and it stretched tightly over twig-thin appendages punctuated by knotty, grotesque joints. Tufts of beet-red hair jutted from their scalps. Exhibitions of their savagery proved many, even in the momentary viewing. They beat and tore the others creatures. They stomped them beneath clawed feet. And from all of their adversaries, they took a taste.

  Samuel rushed away from the banister, yanking Ruby along as he made his way to the door. So horrible had been the vision, he instantly wiped it from his mind, which proved to be a transient comfort at best, because he forced himself to turn back to see what his mind wanted him to never see again.

  In the room below, the coils within the glass tube faded. Two more plates clicked into place, sounding like pistol reports in the vast chamber. And in the dying light, Samuel saw the writhing bodies of the unholy menagerie scrabbling for their places along the floor and the walls.

  He ran back into the rain, following his eager hound, without opening his umbrella. Cold water drenched him and brought a little of his sense back, and he stopped in the muddy road, though Ruby struggled with the tether, attempting to drag him away from the perverse scene behind them. Hubert Dodd had risen in his thoughts to cancel his retreat.

  No, they were not friends. Perhaps civil acquaintances, but certainly not friends. Surely the device and the monstrous creatures that guarded it were in some manner of Dodd's manufacture, but if this were the case, Hubert Dodd would certainly be the most brilliant man alive. And hadn't the terrible woman told Samuel that Dodd had arranged for them to meet through his discovery of Ruby? Something about a joke? A story?

  Drenched to the bone, Samuel turned, taking great care to pull Ruby to his side so as not to add to the dog's ill ease. He took a step toward Hubert Dodd's home. Ruby complained, digging her paws into the mud and barking a frightened tune.

  "Of course, you're right," he told her. "It's a foolish thing to do, but think of what we might learn should Dodd be alive to tell us it?"

  * * * * *

  Indeed Hubert Dodd was alive, but just barely. They found him in the front parlor of his home, lying amid a clutter of discarded papers and strewn books, and Samuel believed the man had been attacked by the foul-mouthed servant girl with whom he'd bargained for Ruby's ownership. Dodd sprawled naked as a jay. His once hearty face now appeared gaunt and his intimidating bulk seemed deflated, with sallow skin creped at his joints and creased below the navel. On closer inspection however, Samuel found no cuts from a guttersnipe's blade, nor any indication Dodd had been accosted about the head. Rather, he seemed to be under the influence of a powerful opiate. The man moaned solemnly, then burst forth with a startling round of giggles.

  The condition of the man and his surroundings appalled Samuel. Bodily waste had settled into the carpet and clotted on Dodd's skin in long stinking scabs. Further whatever intoxicant the man had consumed seemed to be acting as aphrodisiac as the sickly gentleman's penis remained in a state of erection.

  Still not convinced that the servant girl was free of liability, Samuel considered the very real possibility that Dodd had been poisoned, perhaps with some exotic toxin he'd procured on one of his great adventures. Or Dodd may have been feverish from an illness given him by one of the strange specimens he kept in the adjacent building. Thoughts of disease caused Samuel to pause and wonder on his own well-being. Still, if he were going to be infected it would have already happened, and he couldn't leave Dodd to thrash and die in his own filth.

  Only upon closer inspection of the man did Samuel believe he found the cause of Dodd's hysteria. Inside the man's thigh, very near his scrotal sack, a pale wormlike creature, long and thin like the lace of a boot, clutched the wrinkled skin. Samuel instantly thought of leeches. He had seen a jar of the black, slime-coated creatures at his physician's office, and though this parasite bore little resemblance to those horrible slugs, he imagined it was of the same genus. Without hesitation he reached down and tugged at the worm, which was dry and scaly, and not slick with vile excretion as he'd imagined, and while the central thread of it easily peeled away from the skin, it held firm on either end.

  "Leave it be," Dodd bellowed.

  But Samuel ignored the delusional command and grabbed firmly to the worm and yanked with all of his force, separating the worm from Dodd's thigh and discarding the dreadful thing to the carpet where he ground it into the filth and fibre with the heel of his boot.

  Dodd appeared infuriated for a moment, then he closed his eyes and sank unconscious.

  * * * * *

  With no chance of carrying Dodd up to his rooms – even withered, the man bore a tremendous heft well beyond Samuel's physical abilities – he located a large library on the first floor with a broad leather sofa and dragged the unconscious man along the hall atop a carpet. He hoisted Dodd onto the sofa and then set about matters of practicality. Certainly he would need to call a physician, but no servants remained to send about this task, and Samuel feared leaving the stricken man alone. He stoked the hearth in the library and did the same with the stove in the kitchen, on which he placed an ample stockpot that he set about filling with water from a ceramic pitcher. Ruby followed at his heels from library to kitchen and then up the stairs where Samuel came upon a guest suite. He removed pillows and blankets from the mattress and carried them back to the library. They remained piled on the floor while Samuel used warm water to clean Dodd's reeking skin. Then he wrapped the man in blankets and pushed a pillow beneath his broad head.

  He thought to leave then. In part, his concern was for Dodd, thinking to hurry back into the storm to fetch a physician who might competently treat the man; but he also felt a profound disquiet as he considered the creatures occupying the building next door. Surely, he'd seen some of them scrabbling about the walls. Even if the door were locked as the servant girl had suggested, some might climb from the room and spill over the banister. He thought about the cat-like species he'd encountered in the alley, and his resolve to leave this place heightened. Upon making the decision to depart, the sickly man stirred and came awake. Confusion and exhaustion worked on Dodd's face. He looked like a drunk who'd woken to find himself in strange rooms.

  "Samuel," he muttered, using the familiar name as if they were dear old friends. The name caught in his throat though, and he coughed violently.

  "What have you done to yourself?" Samuel asked.

  "The parasite?" Dodd asked, suddenly concerned. A great scramble beneath the blankets indicated he sought the thing out on his thigh.

  "I've done away with it."

  "Good man," Dodd said. "I was unable to do it myself. Its gifts were beyond my refusal."

  "Gifts?" Samuel asked, confounded.

  "Some manner of opiate," Dodd said before another racking flurry of coughs convulsed him. When the fit passed he continued, "Even when I first discovered it latched to me, I knew it was trading the blood it drew with an euphoric substance. I thought to document the effects of the creature before removing it, a clear indication that the opiate worked with an initial subtlety on my reason, and as the hours passed, I drew deepe
r into its thrall, until I was its prisoner."

  "Where did you find such an odious specimen?" Samuel wanted to know.

  "Dear Samuel," Dodd whispered as if to a dense child, "I did not find it. It found me."

  "Because of that contraption?"

  "You've seen it?" Dodd asked, seeming pleased with the information. "I dare say, it's a wonder."

  "But what is it?"

  "The contrivance is an accumulation of knowledge," Dodd said. "Some of that knowledge emerged from my own tinkering and experimentation, and some of it I quite simply stole, at the time not being aware of the comprehensive design. That came when I discovered the particular property of lightning."

  "And what property is that?" Samuel asked.

  "Do you remember regaling the men at the club with your theories about raindrop worlds? How you believed that each drop contained the possibility of realms and what might happen when those varied worlds puddled together?"

  "Yes, but…"

  "You were not incorrect, at least not in the broadest sense. That was one of the reasons I thought to bring you to me. Many worlds run adjacent to our own. They bump and caress and gather. Like the raindrops, these other realms are innumerable, shifting and fluid all part of the collecting puddle you imagined, but they are segregated by sheer membranes, which is to say the drops heap without dilution. But the lightning… the lightning creates a momentary tear between realms. It is a double-edged sword that slices the veils, and my device holds those lips of fabric open, making it possible to cross realms as easily as stepping over a threshold into a new and astounding room."

  "You've made these journeys?" Samuel asked, dumbfounded.

  Dodd snuffled a laugh and leaned his head back, letting it sink into the pillow. "I am not that brave," he said. "Were it not for the specimen you so kindly removed from my leg and that odd bird-thing I keep in the laboratory cage, I wouldn't have even known of the experiment's success, but it is apparent that if these creatures can slink into our world, then we could just as easily cross into theirs."