The noise behind her, from the door, did not sound good. It was the unmistakable sound of splintering. Any minute now and the boy and the black man, plus whoever else they'd got out there, would be in the room, and they'd get whatever it was they wanted. Well, she preferred not to think of that, putting it just barely in front of who or what they were and where they were from. "Not from around here," she muttered. She watched the tail lights of the yellow cab growing smaller as it turned into Broadway. It was joined by another car, a dark color, exactly the same height from the ground.
Sally refocused her attention on the windows.
The windows were two-pane side-sliders – the inside pane slid to the left and hit a stop, and the outside pane slid to the right and hit a stop. As far as Sally could see it wasn't possible to crawl out of the window.
She looked around for a tool – there wasn't one.
What there was, however, was a brace of beautiful carved Queen Anne chairs, upholstered in Regency stripe and polished until you could see your reflection. Sally took a hold of the back of one and, amazed at her own strength, swung it for all she was worth against the wall-corner. The chair broke immediately, falling to the ground in pieces: the back (with rear legs an integral part), the seat – with one front leg still attached – and the other front leg by itself. Sally picked the solo front leg and hefted it a couple of times. She turned to face the door.
OK, what was it to be? Stand here and face them down? Or attempt to dislodge the window blocks and crawl out onto the ledge? She'd be OK so long as she didn't look down. It wasn't windy. These sounded distinctly like famous last words so she put them from her mind.
The staccato rhythm on the door was drums, beating from somewhere over an impossibly high ravine, way, way across the jungle. She faced forward, watching the windows of the buildings across the street with calm fascination, half expecting to see someone watching her, someone who would lift a hand to his or her mouth, wave to her to cease and desist at once, turn back, mouthing dire warnings as he or she glanced down at the chasm below, before looking back, eyes wide in horror as he or she reached for a telephone and feverishly punched in a nine and a one and then another one, then explained to the person on the other end of the line that some fruitcake was about to step out onto the ledge of the Brown Palace and could someone come quick?
But there wasn't anyone in the windows.
Sally raised a knee, her left knee, and raised herself up onto the sill.
(25)
"Now what?"
"Now," Johnny whispered, matter-of-factly, "we get in the car and see if the keys are in the ignition."
Melanie nodded. "Good plan, Captain."
"It's always good to have a good plan."
"They're the best kind."
"Uh huh."
"Johnny?"
"Yeah?"
"Are you scared?"
Johnny couldn't stop the smile. "Constipation seems like a luxury right now. Like, mightily desirable."
He moved silently and slowly along the side of the Dodge to the driver's door and took hold of the handle.
"Can you see them, the keys?"
He turned around from trying to stare through the window. "Can you see me, Mel?"
"Nope. I can tell where you are, but I can't actually see you."
"Right. So how do you think I can see the fucking keys inside the car, in the ignition, hidden behind the steering wheel?" He hoped she hadn't realized that he was actually pressed against the glass trying to find out for himself.
"Sorry."
"No, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap."
"S'OK."
"I have to open the door."
"Well, we always knew we'd have to do that."
"True. But now that it's come to it, I can't help wondering whether we should just sit tight and hope that everyone goes."
Melanie's voice sounded disconsolate in the darkness of the garage. "Not much chance of that, I fear."
"I fear your fear is well-founded, Lady Melvin," Johnny agreed.
And he pulled the handle.
The Dodge's interior light glimmered until he pulled the door fully open, and then it shone as bright as a lighthouse beacon. He leaned on the seat and shuffled his shoulders across.
"The keys are here."
Melanie threw back her head and thanked whatever gods were in charge of giving suckers an occasional even break.
Johnny shuffled around a little. Melanie heard the lid of the glove compartment open and close, and then things being moved around in the small recess which straddled the transmission – sunglasses, packs of gum, biro pens. She knew what he was looking for, watched his back moving around intent on searching.
"Is it there?"
Johnny backed out of the car and closed the door gently. The darkness was immediate and absolute. He pulled it ajar again and the light returned, quelling the sudden flurry of panic in Melanie's chest.
"Can't see it if it is." He stood up and moved back to where Melanie was standing. "Where would he put it?"
She shrugged and then said, "Christ, it's anyone's guess."
"Here? In the garage?" She looked around at the clutter of forgotten and stored items hanging from the center beam or propped against the walls.
"I– I wouldn't have thought so."
Johnny let out a deep sigh.
"Sorry."
Johnny looked into her eyes and smiled. "It'll be OK."
"Will it?" she asked pleadingly.
He let the question hang and said, "I have to go back."
"Into the station?"
"What else can I do?"
"Can't we… can't we ram the door?"
"Oh, sure… but it won't give. It might, after a few dozen attempts – assuming we don't damage something under the hood, or chew the wheel arches up so's they ride on the tires." He walked to a chest of drawers standing in the corner and rummaged about in the cans and glasses of paint, each one boasting an abandoned brush standing to attention, its bristles long ago hardened. "The thing is, what'll they be doing while we're doing that?"
"Well, we have to–"
It was an easy thing to do. And normally, it wouldn't have mattered.
But, of course, this time it did.
Johnny was reaching for what looked like a piece of plastic that could have been the remote control for the door mechanism.
But it wasn't.
And nor was the goofy-looking cross-eyed reindeer standing on the shelf below, the shelf against which Johnny's flapping shirt sleeve brushed. The forgotten Christmas decoration slid drunkenly to one side, Johnny's eyes widening as he saw what was happening and–
"Johnny!"
–it lurched fully over, rolled the few inches to the shelf's edge and, even as Johnny shot out his free hand, dropped.
Johnny's hand missed, hit a can of America's Finest gloss paint that Geoff had used to paint the sills outside the studio a couple springs ago, which in turn knocked over a bottle.
The reindeer hit the floor with hardly a sound.
The bottle didn't.
Johnny cringed at the sound of breaking glass and the additional, almost musical–
Hey viewers, what sounds like a bell and smells like shit?
–duuh-uuh-uuhung! as it bounced first onto the metal tub containing cloths and a vicious-looking tangle of old clothes that Geoff and Melanie had either grown out of or which had been left behind by the fickle whims of fashion, and then onto the floor.
The silence which followed that seemingly endless reverberation was pure and, in and of itself, a noise all of its own. And it was perhaps that noise – the calm that trailed in the wake of the storm – that drew the most attention.
"Shit!" Melanie said.
It was a lot more appropriate than some idiotic question like, D'you think they heard? – particularly as that question was answered almost immediately.
Thuuuum! Thuuuum!
"Shitshitshitshi–"
"Shh," Johnny hissed. "
If we can't get out, then they can't get in. The garage door's metal, for Chrissakes."
And then somebody started to move the bureau from the station door behind them.
"That one isn't," Melanie said without a single trace of emotion.
(26)
Sally's voices chorused. They were scared, but Sally sought to calm them, to reassure them. They did not become calm. They were not reassured.
The metal ridge bit into the soft skin beneath her kneecap but when she raised her second leg up and rested that knee on the sill, the pain eased. She hunkered up with both feet on the sill and gingerly placed a foot out onto the ledge. It was cool out here, not too cold and not too warm. Refreshing, under any other circumstances.
Now the noise against the room door behind her was deafening.
Sally eased her second foot out onto the ledge, trying to ignore the flurry of nervous questioning from the ever-present voices.
"Dontlookdowndontlookdowndontlookdowndontlookdown…" she told them, and herself, in a whispered litany.
Holding tightly onto either side of the outer pane, Sally slowly moved herself fully out onto the ledge, equally slowly straightening her legs to allow her to achieve a standing position. She kept watching the building opposite, thinking that if she saw movement now she would plunge forward.
She recalled a one page six-panel cartoon strip in Gerry's Mad magazine from many years ago. Entitled "Self Portrait", the strip showed a beatnik type arrive outside the Empire State Building with a framed blank canvas which he laid on the sidewalk. The remaining panels showed him going up in the elevator to the top floor and jumping out so that he landed right in the middle of the canvas. It seemed darkly amusing back then; not so amusing now.
The wind gently blew her hair and cooled the droplets of sweat on her forehead.
Close the window, mommy, one of the voices insisted.
It seemed like an unnecessary effort – when they got into the suite (which she was absolutely damned certain they would, and fairly soon) they would quickly deduce that she had to have left by another exit, and the only other exit was the window.
No, they won't think so logically, the voice countered.
On reflection, that seemed like a reasonable assumption. After all, the two people in the hall – plus however many others had arrived since she last looked through the spyhole – had hardly displayed profound levels of intellect. In fact, far from it. It was more as though everything they encountered was completely alien to them, and the simple act of logic-streaming was something of which they had no experience.
Alien, she thought.
That's what they are, mommy – they look human but they're not. You need to close the window and get out of sight.
"Alien," she said to the night.
She let go of the pane and, keeping her head, back and neck ramrod straight, and her backside pressed against the glass, outstretched her arms as though she were about to fly from the ledge and began to shuffle her feet sideways, turning herself around to face the glass. As she moved around, trying not to snivel, she noted in that kind of absentminded way one notes things of complete non-importance, that her pants felt wet – she wished briefly that she had gone to the bathroom before embarking on this route, but it was too late now. It was too late now for a lot of things.
Sally managed to get around in hardly any time at all and she now faced the window, her face pressed against the glass and her arms still stretched out to either side, palms flat against the wall on either side of the panes. The door was holding but she could see it moving with each hit it suffered. The noise now was an endless stream of crashes and she noticed that the carpet immediately in front of the two sides was sprinkled with wood dust and shavings.
Keeping her face against the outer pane, Sally reached in and pushed the inner pane until it secured into the slot. Then, still holding her face against the outer pane, she pushed it gently across using the palms of her hands. At least it hadn't been raining – meaning her hands would probably not have been able to gain any purchase – so Sally thanked God for small mercies. In just a few seconds, the outer pane slid into the metal slot down the right hand side of the window and Sally straightened up again. Now came the tricky bit: she had to edge her way along to her right and thus away from the window. A sudden ping against the inner pane made her lean back just for a moment. Immediately realizing the folly of such a movement, she thrust herself back against the glass, heart beating so wildly that she imagined the people out in the corridor would be able to hear.
When it seemed that she was steady again, Sally eased herself straight and saw a twisted screw on the sill inside the room. She looked up and saw that the door was now drunkenly weaving and waving, its top hinge completely free of the jamb. She could see a pair of arms flailing at the top of the door on the hall side but, thankfully, no faces. If she could see faces then it followed that the faces could see her. In which case, she would simply have been sidestepping the inevitable outcome. Of course, if they were not as stupid as she hoped – and as her phantom progeny had assured her they were – then she was doing that anyway.
Somewhere off behind her, an engine hummed. Sally dared not turn around – not least because she felt she would probably fall – mainly because, after all of this, she could not bear to face up to a flying yellow cab hovering right next to her, with its driver, complete with dark glasses and gloves, waving a finger at her – Naughty naughty! – but whatever it was, the vehicle passed by, its engine becoming more and more muted until it disappeared completely. That made sense. From what she had seen of the other two airborne cars, they were looking for something down on street level and, clinging onto the side of a building eight floors up, Sally was hardly that.
The door was buckling now. She had to move fast.
She edged along the ledge, suddenly delighted to discover that the glass had gone from in front of her to be replaced by brickwork. Encouraged by this, she moved faster until, within just a few seconds, her left hand left the pane behind and itself moved onto the brickwork. No sooner had she edged just another few inches than there sounded an almighty crashing from the window she had just left behind. They were into the suite.
Sally imagined the boy with the sunglasses slouching across to the window and looking out, his eyes suddenly focusing on the smashed catches, the wrecked leg of the delightfully ornate Queen Anne chair, and then he would raise a gloved hand, or perhaps two gloved hands, and he would ease open the windows, peer out (though only if he were able to stand on something, she remembered) and look first one way (where she wasn't) and then the other (where she was). And soon after that there would be hell to pay, maybe with the people coming out onto the ledge – she didn't think they would be worried about falling: she wouldn't have been able to say why, she just felt that way – or maybe with a whole posse of flying cars and trucks crowding her in and, eventually, nudging her from her ledge.
Sally remembered that terrible photograph soon after 9/11 – the one showing a man who had voluntarily leapt from one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center to plunge to certain death many stories below, his arms outstretched before him as he plummeted to an unforgiving sidewalk, legs pumping as though to slow him down (or hasten the descent), necktie blowing in the wind. What did it feel like? she wondered, that sudden cessation of motion when the body and all its myriad organs and arteries, bones and muscles, was pulverized. The face, smashing into the paving slabs, the brain going from thirtytwo feet per second per second to a stationary state – and a stationary state brought on by a gazillion tons of planet that just wasn't ever going to budge, or even shudder, when you hit it.
Turning her head the other way – making sure she didn't look down and so scraping her nose on the bricks in the process – Sally saw that she was about twenty feet from the corner of the building. She could only hope that the ledge continued around the other side. There was no reason why it shouldn't, of course, but it seemed just the kind of capricious trick that mig
ht be played by gods who would have you watch the ghost of your husband blow his brains out while mouthing to you that he had never loved you.
She edged along, right foot exploring first, tapping the ledge every few inches to make sure it was there and that it was secure, placing that foot down and then sliding along the wall and dragging her left foot after. The noise from the room had either ceased or she had gotten too far from the window to be able to hear it.
Then, just as she was nearing the corner – her fingers actually curling themselves around the brickwork – a vintage car, twotone, all polished chrome and tailfins, drifted around just below her and she stopped dead. She caught sight of a woman wearing a white blouse, or maybe a cream one, Sally couldn't be sure, her head turned to look out of her side window at the ground. The car's headlights had been pulled out of their frames and were somehow suspended on some kind of concertinaed latticework of metal, and they worked independently of each other, one of them scanning the side of the building that Sally was clinging to (albeit a few floors down from where she was) and the other washing over a covered eating area on the opposite sidewalk. The woman was wearing dark glasses – Sally couldn't see whether she had gloves on – and, just for a moment, Sally fully expected her to look up and–
Darkness Falling Page 25
