Shadows of Tockland

by Jeffrey Aaron Miller

  When he’d recovered, he set his shirt collar back over his nose and mouth and walked over to the open door. He reached inside and felt along the wall for a light switch. The wall felt spongy, and when he applied pressure, a big chunk of it crumbled in his hand. When he found a switch, it didn’t work, so he stepped aside to let some of the light behind him flood into the room.

  A bathroom. He saw a toilet in one corner, but the tank was broken and lying in pieces on the floor. On the other side of the room was a small cubicle-style shower with a glass door covered in a network of cracks. Filthy water stood half an inch high on the floor, an old t-shirt floating on top like debris from a shipwreck. A shattered mirror and a toppled sink completed the picture.

  David started to turn away when something caught his eye, a slumped figure beyond the shower door, partially obscured by the cracks in the glass. His breath hitched in his throat, and he seized the door frame in a death grip.

  “Hello?”

  It was an instinctive response, and he felt stupid the second he said it. Whatever that dark shape was, it wasn’t tall enough to be a person, unless it was a child or someone the size of Telly. He stepped into the bathroom, feeling water seep through the thin leather of his shoes. The water was warm and squished between his toes in an unpleasant way. He kicked a stray piece of the toilet tank out of his way, and a spider that had been hiding underneath fell into the water, thrashing, until it touched the edge of the fallen sink and scrambled to safety.

  David took one more step into the room and reached out as far as he could to snag the handle of the shower door. It felt slimy, and when he pulled it, the glass crackled and bits flaked off. At first, he thought the hinges might not budge, that the whole door would break free and fall to the ground, and he tensed to leap out of the way. But then it gave a loud creak and swung outward. His shadow filled the open stall, but he could see the dark shape now, leaning against the back corner of the shower and glinting with wetness from the leaking shower head.

  He stepped aside so the light would hit it, and when it did, he bit back a scream. A pile of dirty clothes, black with mold and decay, and nestled under a fold of wet cloth near the top was a human skull. Only bits of gray flesh remained and some kind of gristly-looking goop inside the eye sockets, but most of it had either rotted off or been picked clean. David stepped aside, hit the edge of the toilet with his heel and went down. The door frame caught his fall, as he slammed into it with his hip, but the soft wood burst under his weight, and the whole wall buckled. David spun away, grabbed the other side of the doorframe and propelled himself out of the bathroom.

  His momentum carried him halfway across the room and right into the couch. He hit the armrest, and the overfull upholstery burst open, gushing brown stuffing like guts. He only just managed to stop himself from tipping forward and landing face-down on the cushions. He remained there a moment, feeling the wetness seep through his pant legs, smelling the damp decay, and wondering just what terrible fate had befallen the poor soul in the shower. Sickness. It was the obvious answer. The same sickness that was killing people everywhere.

  He had to tell the others, he knew that, and then they had to leave. They wouldn’t want to. Telly, especially, wouldn’t want to, but he had to convince them. He listened for a minute and heard some of them upstairs, chairs being scooted across the floor, Cakey—was he singing a song? David pushed away from the couch and made his way to the stairs.

  And then he heard the soft squeal of door hinges behind him. He took a little stutter step, let out a squeak of fear and froze. What door was there behind him except the shower door? In his mind’s eye, he saw a long, skeletal arm reaching out of the pile of wet clothes, bones dripping soft, crumbling skin.

  He turned, fire burning in his guts, and looked back in the direction of the bathroom. The shower door was open, and he could see the skull nestled in among the old clothes, jaw hanging open in an eternal, silent scream. He wrapped his arms around his belly and bent over, tasting acid in the back of his throat.

  A voice spoke. “Get a hold of yourself.” Soft and whispery, a woman’s voice.

  He lowered his arms and sought its source. A shadow moved in the hallway across from the bathroom. David tensed to flee.

  Then she entered the light, and he saw Annabelle, her eyebrows drawn down, mouth twisted to one side in a smirk. She held something in her right hand. He saw a sharp edge poking up from between her thumb and forefinger.

  “What in the world are you doing?” she said, her voice caught somewhere between concern and amusement. “Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Fine…I’m fine,” he said.

  Annabelle stepped farther into the room, heard the water squishing under her shoes and glanced down in distaste.

  “What a dump,” she muttered. “Is this really the best they could do? This whole place is falling apart.” She held up her hand and opened her fingers. The object she was holding was some kind of a placard, a small plastic plate with the words GREEN ROOM etched in white lettering. She showed it to him then tossed it on the floor.

  “That was on the door,” she said. “When I touched it, it fell off.”

  “This room is not green anymore,” David said, gesturing at the mold-spackled walls.

  “Right,” Annabelle said, turning to survey the room. She noted the spider in the corner with a frown, then turned toward the bathroom.

  “Be careful,” he said. “There’s a…” The word got stuck in his throat.

  Annabelle took a step toward the bathroom, leaning forward to get a look. “What is that?” she said, and gasped. “Is that a dead body?” And then, to David’s horror, she actually walked into the bathroom and approached the shower.

  He went after her, though he only made it as far as the door before he caught himself. “You shouldn’t,” he said.

  She ignored him and reached out, snagging a fold of the moldy clothes and giving them a yank. The whole pile collapsed, clothes and bones and filth tumbling down to the floor of the shower and spilling out into the bathroom. Not just a skull, but ribs, vertebrae, bits of water-logged flesh. David clapped his hands over his mouth as vomit seeped onto his tongue.

  “You figure he died taking a shower?” she asked. She stooped down, as if she meant to pick up one of the bones, then seemed to think better of it and rose.

  David swallowed the vomit, but his throat burned. “I guess so,” he said. “What if he was sick? What if it’s like Telly said, and the parasites go into the water after they die? And here we are soaking in it.”

  She turned to him, pursed her lips, and shrugged. “Look, we’ve been bled on, spat on, rubbed on and licked by infected people,” she said, showing him her bandaged hand. “If we’re gonna get sick, we’re gonna get sick.”

  “But I don’t want to.”

  She waved him out of her way and walked out of the bathroom. As she moved past him, the smell of decay mingled with the faint powdery scent of whatever perfume she was wearing, and the combination made him gag again.

  “Neither do I,” she said, though she did not sound particularly concerned. “Neither does anybody, but there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  She headed back toward the hallway. When she got there, she paused, looked back at him and beckoned.

  “Come on,” she said. “There another corridor behind the Green Room and a stairway leading up. Might be some kind of apartment, but I’d rather not go up there alone.”

  “I…” Don’t want to. I don’t want to see any more terrible things. He bit his tongue and did not say it, settling for the barest hint of a nod.

  She led him down the dark hallway to another door and through the door into murky light. David took a deep breath of the dry air, thankful to drive the moist stink of decay from his nostrils. Beyond the door was another hallway, lit by a small window at one end. A broken exit sign, dangling by its wires, hung from the ceiling above a wide metal door. Annabelle grabbed David by the arm and turn
ed him in the other direction, however, toward the darker end of the hallway, where he could only just barely make out yet another door.

  “There,” she said. “I opened it up and looked inside, but I didn’t want to go up by myself.”

  “Maybe we should get the others,” he said, as she pulled him, gently but insistently, toward the door. “Maybe we could all go up together, you know, in case…”

  She ignored his suggestion and dragged him to the door. Little white stick-on letters, peeling at the corners, marked the door as PRIVATE.

  “It’s not locked,” Annabelle said. She turned the knob and opened the door.

  Beyond the door, a small foyer led to a steep staircase of narrow wooden steps. Dusty light shined down from somewhere above.

  “Maybe Telly ought to see this,” David said. “Him being the boss and all.”

  “I’ll go up first,” Annabelle said, as if she hadn’t heard him. “You follow right behind me.”

  “But—”

  She rounded on him. “Stop it,” she said, jabbing a finger in his face. Though she looked half-playful, the abruptness of the command made him blush furiously and wilt under her gaze.

  “O-okay,” he said.

  She shook her head and turned away. “Right behind me,” she said again.

  David was still deeply shaken by what he’d found in the Green Room. He had no desire whatsoever to follow her. All traces of curiosity had left him, but her insistence, and his fear of her, kept him moving forward. The stairs creaked under his weight, and when he leaned on the handrail, it felt like it might gave way.

  The stairs opened up into a small, bare apartment with a hardwood floor and very little in the way of furniture. A single folding chair in one corner, a card table lying on its side and the remnants of a cardboard box were the only evidence that anyone had ever lived there. A small window in the back, framed by dirty curtains, gave a view of a parking lot. David remained on the top step as Annabelle walked into the apartment, picked up the chair and cast it aside. The clatter made him flinch.

  “No corpses, no madmen, no sick,” she said, giving him a withering I told you so sneer. “Maybe that was the owner down there in the shower. What do you think?”

  “Maybe,” he replied.

  “Maybe,” she said, repeating him and gently mocking the faint warble in his voice. She laughed and walked over to the table, righting it. “Oh, David, poor little David.” She retrieved the chair and slid it up to the table.

  “Are we really supposed to stay in this disgusting nightclub?” David asked. “I mean, we can’t really sleep in this dusty room, knowing there are corpses downstairs.”

  Annabelle shifted the chair, as if she meant to sit down, but then leaned back against the wall instead, tucking her hands behind her. “If that’s what Telly says we’re doing, then that’s what we’ll do. I’ve spent a lot of time yelling at him about one thing or another, and, trust me, it doesn’t do any good. He’s the boss.”

  “Why is he the boss? If the rest of you don’t like his decisions, why don’t you just do something else?”

  Annabelle considered the question, her eyes moving back and forth. “For all our complaining, I guess we sort of respect him on some level,” she said. “And you should be glad. It’s the reason you’re still here and not back in Mountainburg. We all wanted you gone, the boss wanted you to stay. And think of all the fun you would’ve missed out on if we’d gotten our way.”

  A moment of silence followed, and he suddenly felt painfully awkward being alone in the room with her. He glanced down the stairs, wondering how best to excuse himself, and when he looked back up, she was staring at him. A questioning look, a contemplative look, eyes narrowed. Disapproving, he was sure. He couldn’t think of anything to say, so he cleared his throat and averted his gaze.

  “How old are you, David?” she asked. Quiet, barely above a whisper.

  He swallowed. “Seventeen.”

  “When do you turn eighteen?”

  “Two—two months.”

  For a long, uncomfortable moment, she said nothing, and he felt her dark eyes on him, though he refused to return the look. The air felt heavy, as if the force of her presence had filled the room. Sickness burned in his belly, but he tried not to let it show.

  “I was barely eighteen when I joined up,” she said. “Barely eighteen.”

  She let this comment hang, as if she expected a response. David didn’t know what to say, so he nodded.

  “Cakey was twenty five,” she said. “Twenty five and normal. Hard to believe a freak like that was ever normal, right? But he was.”

  “Yeah,” David said, again only because he couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “I’ve been on the road with the Kroo for almost six years,” she said. “It changes you, being on the road, dealing with rubes in every town, belonging to no place. It changes you.”

  “Why do you do it, then?”

  “Good question,” she said. “I like to perform. Better to say I need to perform. It feels good when you get applause. It’s good when you get recognition. It feels right when you’re on the stage, and you can feel it all coming together. You know what I mean?”

  He shrugged.

  “No, I guess you don’t get it yet,” she said. “But you will. There’s something in performing that we all need, and it makes the awful stuff seem worthwhile. Even Gooty sticks around, and he’s got the least reason to be here. All of us need something that we only get from doing this. That includes you. There’s some reason you wanted to join up. What was it? Your old man?”

  David nodded. “Mostly. Had to get out of Mountainburg.”

  “So we’ve all got our reasons,” she said. “And that’s why, if you’re like the rest of us, you’ll keep right on letting Telly be the boss, even when his decisions get you in trouble. Because you need to be here, you need to be on the road, you need to be onstage despite the risks and the pain.”

  “I don’t want to get sick,” David said. “I don’t want to wind up like the people in West Fork. I’d drown myself in a river before I got like that.”

  “Would you?” She pushed away from the wall and came toward him, and his heart began pounding so hard, he felt dizzy. “It’s easy to say that until it happens.”

  Now he did look at her. She had a little smile on her face, but there was something very sad about that smile. She passed a hand over her eyes.

  “Are you sick?”

  “No, not me,” she said. “But we’ve had people in the Kroo get sick. The others don’t talk about it, especially when Gooty is around. You saw how mad he got at Telly this morning, and Telly didn’t even say anything worth getting mad about.”

  “Gooty’s sick?”

  She laughed, but it was half-hearted, a pitying kind of laugh. “Of course not.” She was very close now. She leaned against the stair railing, and he could feel the warmth of her, smell the perfume, unsullied by decay. “I’ll tell you the story, but you better promise me you’ll keep it to yourself.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “That’s not a promise,” she replied.

  “I promise I’ll keep it to myself.”

  “Good,” she said. “If you breathe a word of it to Gooty, or give him any indication that you know the story, I’ll kick your ass seven different ways. Got it?”

  He nodded.

  She paused, took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It was Gooty’s wife. Josefina was her name.” She pronounced the name hoe-suh-FEE-nuh. David repeated it under his breath. “She was a performer, very talented, very sweet. We all loved her. She made Gooty a better person. Really, he’s an awful man without her.”

  “How did she get sick?”

  “How does anyone get sick?” Annabelle said with a shrug. “One day, she woke up with a headache, scratching her scalp, her gums were sore, body ached and that was it. That’s how it always starts. We tried to take care of her, of course, tried every folk remedy and visited all kinds of crackpot
doctors, but, as I’m sure you know, there’s no cure. She got worse, as we knew she would. Erratic, couldn’t perform, sensitive to noises, unable to handle any sort of stress. It was…well, it was horrible.”

  “She was like Hess?” David asked, thinking of the fresh blood on his bare scalp, the crazed look in his eyes.

  “Eventually,” Annabelle said. “But it wasn’t the sickness that killed her. Some townsfolk in the middle of Poop, Georgia—or whatever the place was called—tried to take her away and put her in quarantine. We didn’t take kindly to it, of course. Things escalated, mostly because of Cakey. Guns were drawn. You can imagine the rest.” She looked away. “But that’s how it goes.”

  She turned back to him, and there was terrifying moment where she leaned in. He felt the heat of her face and the pull of her. Very lightly, her lips brushed against his, and he thought his heart might rip right through his sternum and fall to the floor. He had no idea what to do, so he gripped the handrail in both hands and held on for dear life.

  And then she sighed and pushed past him. “I suppose we’d better go tell the others what we found,” she said and started back down the stairs.

  But David didn’t move. He couldn’t. He was frozen in place, his guts churning, still feeling that moment of closeness, the hint of perfume, the weight of her presence.