"I've been hanging around a whole lot longer."
If it weren't for the door they might be close enough to shake hands, that's if they weren't shoving or punching or otherwise attacking each other, but Woody's unseen presence makes Angus feel more alone with the dimness, especially since it's growing darker. When he twists around he sees that Nigel's computer is emitting significantly less light than its mates. He dashes across the office and shakes the monitor rather than switch it off and on. Do the blackened icons really quiver like dead leaves on the surface of a pool that has been disturbed? Surely all that matters is that the screen brightens, though not much, as Woody shouts "Want to give me an update?"
"We were losing power somehow."
"Yeah? It's fine in here."
If it's as fine as that Angus is tempted to leave him to it, but he knows Woody's voice would follow him anywhere he ended up. He hurries back to the door and throws all his weight against the ruler. The doorframe responds with a feebler creak than before, and Woody protests "You're quiet again. I still don't know what you're doing."
"I'm trying to get the lock open," Angus says through his teeth.
"Hey, you didn't tell us you were a cracksman. Guess I'll have to keep more of an eye on you."
Angus assumes Woody is joking, undoubtedly smiling. Nevertheless he grows clammy with anger. He hurls himself against the ruler with all his might. Something yields, and he nearly runs into the wall. The doorframe has proved more than equal to the ruler, which has bent almost in half.
At first he thinks his vision is blackening with rage or from his effort, and then he understands that the room is darkening. All three computer screens have dimmed until their displays of icons are barely visible. He runs to Nigel's monitor and tries to shake some sense into it, but if anything it turns murkier. He lets it be and taps Ray's with a knuckle. Immediately all the icons vanish as if the screen has gulped them down.
He's holding up one uncertain hand as though that may persuade the computer to spare him anything worse when the screen brightens. That has to be reassuring, though it conveys the impression that a light has swum closer behind a swollen wall of fog. He moves to Connie's monitor and knocks on the screen.
At once the icons sink out of view, and he's afraid the light will. It flickers and then steadies, but can he trust it? With a pair of knuckles he knocks twice as hard on the glass. He's reminded of tapping on an aquarium to rouse whatever creatures live within, which must explain why the greyish pallor that swells towards him looks more solid than a glow—almost solid enough for a head that's rising to the surface of the medium that has rotted it shapeless. It sends him back to the door with renewed eagerness to liberate Woody. As he leans on the far side of the ruler to bend it back into shape, it gives with hardly any resistance, flinging him past the door with a handful of metal that scrapes over the wood.
The ruler hasn't even snapped in half. Less than a third is left protruding from the gap. As prickles flood over Angus's skin, Woody calls "Sounds like you did something at last."
Once Angus has regained enough control to shout rather than scream he confesses "I've broken the ruler."
"You've broken what?"
"The ruler I was trying to pry your door with."
"You're not the cracksman you wanted me to think you were, then. I guess it's back to brute force. Want me to get you some company?"
He can't be referring to the noise behind Angus, so distant or muffled it's practically inaudible. Angus glances back and tells himself he's dreaming on his feet from being up so late; no blotchy lumps can be nuzzling the insides of the computer screens. "Who?" he blurts.
"Let's try for a couple of the jocks down there." So immediately that Angus starts, dropping the fragment of ruler, Woody amplifies his voice to call "Ray, Nigel, one of you or both, why don't you stop what you're doing long enough to open a door so Greg and Ross can help Angus. Can't imagine why you didn't think of doing that already."
Nor can Angus as he wills them to respond. It's impossible that they could have failed to hear Woody, yet they aren't answering. Could the faint sound at Angus's back have some connection with them? Perhaps it's Agnes or Nigel thumping on the lift doors. He has distinguished nothing further when Woody's voice blots out the sound. "You two outside don't have to wait, you know. Maybe if you try to get in that'll do the trick."
Before long Angus hears a series of irregular thumps downstairs. They're louder than the other sounds, which nonetheless feel closer. He's becoming less able to look behind him as Woody says in his biggest voice "How about you, Angus? You hearing anything I'm not?"
Angus feels as if replying may draw attention to him, especially since all he finds to say is "What would I be?"
"Ray or Nigel or both, I'd hope."
Angus strains his ears but only grows uncertain how many sounds he's hearing and from where. "They haven't said anything yet."
"Greg and Ross, take a breather. Angus, give Ray and Nigel a shout."
Shouting fails to appeal to Angus. He sees his pallid shadow flattening itself against the dim wall and wishes he could be as anonymous and unobtrusive. It's only because he realises Woody will harass him until he does that he yells "Ray? Nigel? Woody wants to know what's happening."
At first he seems to have invited silence, but it's followed by an outburst of surreptitious thumps as though objects too soft for hands or heads are blundering against glass. Soon Woody renders them inaudible by demanding "Any message for me?"
"I didn't hear any, sorry."
"I won't tell you I'm surprised. Sounded like you were shouting at me, not them. Why don't you go find them and report back. You sure aren't achieving much here."
Angus would be grateful to escape him and the noises in the room if that didn't take him closer to the dark. He's unable to decide which is least welcome as he sidles out of the office. He very much prefers to avoid seeing the computers, but the alternative is to watch his shadow drag itself like a stricken faceless puppet along the wall. It makes him feel like a frightened child lying awake in the worst of the night, not even certain it's his own shadow or what it will do if the light goes out. Why couldn't he have learned to drive? It would have let him turn back from the fog tonight instead of being delivered to Texts by his father. As the shadow glides ahead of him it turns elongated and distorted as an amoeba trying to resemble a man before it loses its hold on the doorway to the staffroom and sprawls expansively into the dimness. Angus remains in the doorway and plants his hands around his mouth, though his fingertips block some of the view of the indistinct shapes in the staffroom. "Ray? Nigel?" he shouts. "Can you answer?"
He doesn't want to listen any harder than he absolutely has to, not when it makes him more aware of the soft insistent blundering behind him in the office. Surely it's Woody shifting impatiently against the door as a preamble to demanding "So who's said what?"
A sly blurred voice imitates his much larger one, and Angus has to tell himself it's on the speakers downstairs; that's why it's coming from the dark. "Nobody has yet," he admits.
"Can't hear you."
"Nothing yet," Angus yells through the dimness into the dark, which appears to acknowledge him with a restless twitch.
"Still can't. Why don't you try just talking to me instead of the rest of the store."
Angus could retort that back at him, but turns barely far enough and long enough to call "They aren't answering."
"Well, that makes no sense. They can't have gone anywhere. They certainly aren't on the sales floor, am I right, Greg? I'm right. Listen, Angus, you aren't doing what I said yet. I told you to find them, not shout at us. Better not get the idea you don't have to do what I say just because I'm locked in for a while."
The choice of whether to stay in the unsteady dimness or venture beyond it feels like a nightmare from which Angus has no chance of awakening. Like a nightmare, it seems to cancel time, so that he can't tell how soon Woody demands "Did you go yet, Angus?"
"I'
m going," Angus nearly shrieks and twists around to ensure Woody hears. What he thinks he glimpses sends him out of the room, even though he's leaving most of the light behind. He's already less certain, or trying to be, that grey lumps were flattening token faces against the insides of the computer screens, smearing the glass with wide loosely grinning mouths that looked both voracious and imbecilic. He's the imbecile, he makes himself think, if he lets his imagination paralyse him. All that's wrong is lack of sleep. He can still prove to Woody that the British don't let the side down.
Is Woody so concerned about being trapped in his room that he has forgotten Agnes is suffering worse? Angus dodges across the staffroom, which appears to be composed none too specifically of dim fog, and leans through the entrance to the stockroom. An unnecessary amount of darkness encloses both sides of his head. "Agnes?" he shouts. "Nigel? What's the latest down there?"
He wants to believe he hears Agnes pounding on the lift doors, having exhausted most of her strength, but the sounds aren't ahead of him. There's only silence in that dark. Is she unable to hear him or too frightened to answer? If the latter is the case he's dismayed by how much he sympathises. Nigel must have locked himself out of the building; that would explain the second clank of the doors and his subsequent lack of response. Angus is about to try to reassure Agnes that she's no longer alone and himself that she can hear when Woody's giant voice intervenes. "Angus, if you're doing what I'm hearing, try and think."
That seems not to require an answer, which at least means Angus doesn't need to look towards the office, where the foggy glow is flickering as if things are moving in it. So long as it's in and not out of, Angus silently pleads as Woody adds "Leave Nigel and Agnes and see if Ray wants help. If the fuses are fixed the elevator will be, obviously."
If that's so obvious, why didn't he mention it earlier? Angus resents being made to sound foolish to the entire shop. "Agnes," he shouts between his hands. "I'm going to help with the fuses and then you'll be fine."
His resentment of Woody's comment drives him across the staffroom to show everyone he isn't useless. So little of the wakeful dimness follows him that he's barely able to see the door to the stairs is closed. Has it been rendering Ray's shouts inaudible? Angus hurries past the time clock, not least because its dial reminds him of a porthole against which a face might flounder, and pulls the door open. He's stepping forward to shout to Ray when he collides with an object crouching outside the door.
It's a chair. Ray must have blocked the door with it, only for the action of the metal arm to dislodge it. Angus shoulders the door wide and props the chair on two legs against it before he takes another step. There's more than dark ahead of him. Are the stairs being flooded? If that's making Ray attempt to draw the longest breath he can, isn't he ever going to stop? Even if he's breathing through his mouth the inhalation sounds too large. It takes Angus far too long to understand he's hearing the muted roar of the hand dryer in the Gents between the staff lockers and the top of the stairs. The watery sound is in there as well. "Ray," Angus calls, "is that you?"
In a moment the dryer breathes its last. He waits until he's beyond wondering if that was a response, which at least gives him time to identify water splashing in a sink. Someone has left a tap running. It will have to stay like that until there's light. "Ray, can't you say something?" he urges at the top of his voice.
He's nowhere near as loud as Woody, but then he doesn't have mouths all over the shop. "Does anyone else find it hard to believe Angus is still calling and not going where he's told? You'd think he didn't want us to have light to work with."
Angus feels burdened with everyone's dislike, an extra and even more oppressive darkness. He's becoming convinced that Ray has taken refuge in the Gents, having panicked in the dark, and is too abashed to admit it; that would explain his silence. If he's hiding in there Angus won't disturb him further. He can open the door at the foot of the stairs and let in whatever light is present on the sales floor. Any that allows him to see the fuses or even to see is enough.
He paces out of the last trace of dimness, where the name-tagged doors of the lockers remind him quite unreasonably of memorials, and at once is immersed in the dark. He could fancy he's about to step over the edge of a bottomless well until he finds the right-hand banister to clutch. His doubts recede with the noise from the Gents as he hears the dryer recommence its exhalation. Doesn't Ray understand this betrays his presence? Angus would rather not imagine what state of mind has brought him to playing with the machine in the lightless room. Maybe he's desperate to dry his nervous sweat, not an idea Angus welcomes. He'll be helping Ray and Agnes as well as showing Woody and whoever shares his contempt that Angus can succeed where quite a few others appear to have failed. He holds the clammy banister and steps off the edge.
A stair is waiting where his foot needs it to be, and another below that, all the way to the ground floor. He only has to trust them, because he can see his goal beyond the stairs, a horizontal glow as thin as the edge of a knife. Has Ray opened the tap further? The sound can't really be following Angus. Perhaps Ray is splashing cold water on his face in the dark. He must have retreated to the Gents before Woody suggested he and Nigel should let in Greg and Ross. That's up to Angus now; the scrap of light confirms it by jerking closer with each step he descends. Then a surface with no edge strikes his right foot. He's at the bottom of the stairs.
The floor glistens with faint light. He hangs onto the banister while he lowers his other foot, and then he strides across the lobby. His gaze is fixed on the light under the door, but there's nothing like enough to let him watch his step. He doesn't even glimpse the object that catches his feet and sends him sprawling headlong into the dark.
Is the blackness deeper than it ought to be, or is something vast rising out of it to meet him? When the floor slaps his palms they immediately start to throb, which seems reassuring by comparison. Then the pain begins to dull, allowing him to wonder what tripped him. He raises himself gingerly away from it, but not before gaining an impression that the obstacle is a body. Someone is lying far too still on the floor in the dark.
Angus shrinks against the wall and then makes himself reach out. His fingers touch the soles of a pair of shoes. They feel thin and flimsy, and are splayed away from each other in a position that puts him in mind of the gait of a clown. The right sole is marred by a cavity into which he flinches from inserting a fingertip. It's hardly information Ray would want him to have. He shuffles forward on his knees and locates one of Ray's hands, which is or has been clawing at the linoleum. Angus lifts it by the wrist to search for a pulse, not that he has ever done so before; he isn't even sure he'll be able to distinguish any from the pounding of his own bruised hand. Ray's fingers flop against the back of it. Their touch distresses Angus, not least because they are damaged somehow; they've been subjected to violence. He keeps hold of the wrist, but his bruises prevent him from being certain there's no pulse. He lays the hand down gently and sidles alongside Ray until he feels his trouser legs grow wet He's kneeling in water.
The floor on the left side of the lobby—the side where the fuses are—is waterlogged. Now he understands why he sees it glistening and why he thought the sound of water was following him downstairs. If Ray was standing in water while he tried to fix the fuses, and with a hole in his shoe—Aren't modern fuses built to be safe even under such conditions? The unspoken question seems to rouse Ray. Angus hears movement to his right, and as he strains his eyes he glimpses the faintest outline of a raised head.
Instinctively he stretches out one bruised hand to support the back of Ray's neck. His fingers sink into the swollen mass all the way to their first knuckles. He gasps and chokes, and as he snatches them away he feels the substance closing up like mud. He isn't quick enough to avoid a pair of thick cold flabby lips that mouth against his palm. Then the object that was squatting on Ray's chest flops off him with a sound like the fall of a sack loaded with jelly, and slithers heavily to take up a position
between Angus and the door.
He can hear voices arguing beyond it. His colleagues aren't far away, but there's no use yelling for help; they weren't able to open the door from their side. He can't from his. The prospect of touching or being touched by the squat soft object in the dark has robbed him of the ability to move or speak, until his panic sends him lurching to his feet to stagger back where he came from. He knows he's leaving Ray behind, but Ray is in no state to care; if he were he couldn't have borne having the object on his chest. Angus seizes the banister and attempts to retreat backwards, but he's so afraid of tripping up again that he swings around and hauls himself upwards, his face to the dark. Water spills past him on the other side of the stairs, and he does his best to ignore the sound so as to reassure himself that he can't hear anything creeping after him. He's well over halfway upstairs when he discerns a noise that isn't water. It's above him.
It has to be Woody. He's been able to release himself somehow. His footfalls are soft and deliberate, dropping on a stair and pausing before the next descent. Nobody could blame him for being careful. Angus closes his fist around the banister, wondering why he can't sense that Woody is holding onto it too. "Woody?" he calls. "Go back. There's—"
His voice has begun to falter as soon as he spoke Woody's name, because it provoked a response. It can't be described as a word, but it's unquestionably a denial, a thick loose grunt that suggests the source is indifferent to forming much of a mouth. For as long as the newcomer takes to plod two steps towards him he's unable to move, which enrages him so much he heaves himself up a stair. "I'm not afraid of you," he shouts or screams or tries to. But he is, and twists around sightlessly with nowhere to go. He feels as if even the stairs have had enough of him, because they sail out of reach of his feet as the banisters avoid his desperate clutch. For longer than he could have dreamed it would take there's only breathless blindness. Then the floor of the lobby cracks his skull open to let his brains out and the darkness in, and he just has time to sense whatever is rising eagerly beneath the dark to claim him.
The Overnight Page 29
