Thrall

by Mary SanGiovanni

  “Wow,” Jesse said. Murdock squinted next to him in the weak light, a strange look on his face as he studied the model.

  Jesse read aloud the tiny print of the tombstones that someone had painstakingly carved. He half expected to see his name or the names of his friends on the stones, but he didn’t. Most marked the final resting place of Smiths and Joneses and Taylors. But he wondered if maybe—just maybe—he would find tiny little skeletal bodies beneath the fake grass and dirt.

  “Are we done here?” Murdock asked abruptly. “We ought to be getting on if we want to find your friend.”

  Jesse nodded slowly, and turned from the display. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess we should. Maybe he’s gone on to the History of Thrall exhibit.”

  ***

  The art gallery was not as dark as it should have been. Carpenter didn’t have a flashlight, but he could still see the paintings on the walls. Splinters of light seeped in through the broken windows but fell at bent, odd angles on the paintings and ink drawings, distorting the subject matter with their highlights. Carpenter eyed with suspicion the grim and hideous landscapes, the rotten fruit still life, the dead gazes of parchment-dry eyes following his movements through the gallery.

  The paint seemed alive somehow on many of the canvases. The pictures were changing, but almost imperceptibly—just enough to give a vague impression of movement. It wasn’t something he could pinpoint exactly, though. Carpenter found he couldn’t stare too long at any one picture. A landscape of a Victorian lady lounging lakeside made him uneasy. Her white dress yellowed under his inspection, then grew speckled with red, as if she were bleeding flecks of paint from underneath. Another painting of a ship at sea actually made him feel a little sick. The boat rocked in the rough blue strokes, carrying a pirate crew whose flesh seemed to rot with scurvy and infection and ailments only sea life could cause. He thought he could almost smell the death leaking out of another darker painting, a swooning woman in shadow whose nightgown was smeared with dark stains. The woman’s eyes were rolled back curves of white, and her shriveled lips worked a silent “o” of agony. One painting very much reminded him of Dali’s Persistence of Memory, except that hands instead of clocks were melted over tree branches, their fingers dripping onto the flayed skeletons of grotesque beasts.

  Carpenter was almost to the door when he saw it: a window on another world. It was the first of a disturbing related set of framed oil colors. As he gazed down the length of the wall, he shuddered. The paintings had been done by several different artists in several different styles, but all of the same place—a nightscape of slanted trees and monstrous silhouettes against a backdrop of stars. Two or three of the paintings showed misshapen statues. Many contained what Carpenter assumed to be buildings, but their outlines were vague and asymmetrical.

  That place bends the eyes to see what it wants them to see. The thought was there like a curator’s tour-guide explanation in his head. He believed it to be the truth. Carpenter studied the gold-plate captions beneath each. Creeper 7, read one, and another, strangely enough, Self Portrait. Several were captioned Changing of the Guard, and one was called The Truth About God. The last, entitled Scion, The Universe is Yours, was a black splotch of paint on a canvas amidst swirling thin streams of color.

  Carpenter reached into his pocket and felt for the papers he’d found in one of the admin offices. He didn’t take them out, though. Somehow it didn’t seem safe to expose his findings to the baleful faces and prying eyes of the artwork.

  Beneath the paintings, tromp l’oeil pieces of Thrall scenery hung in curtained window-frames. Black slithering tendrils broke beyond the flatness of the paintings and climbed over the sills into the quiet reality of the gallery. Carpenter snorted. That was Thrall right there for you, in all its sinister glory.

  Several of the sculptures caught his attention. He’d seen those shapes before—breathing, palpitating and fleshy, growling at him and inking their dirty ooze into his world. There were hall-swimmers in miniature, as well as the balloon-heads and the tricoils. There were other beasts, too, the kind he only saw in the woods or in the Raw, and only at night. Many of the sculptures were molded with the same fearful asymmetry that he’d attributed to alien architecture in the paintings above them.

  Carpenter gave the artwork a grim nod, and moved toward the door. He’d heard someone call the display a “monstrous menagerie of art imitating life” and that person had been right—damned right. If nothing else, those pieces confirmed what he’d discovered in the offices.

  He had to find those kids and show them the papers. He didn’t know if they were going to find who they were looking for, but if the papers were to be believed, all hell would break loose if they tried.

  ***

  The History of Thrall exhibit was melting.

  At least, that’s how it looked to Jesse when he first saw the room—like it was made of wax, its very shape and contour bowing and tilting wildly under some invisible flame. As he stood there, old photographs dripped sepia distortions of face and form onto the floor. The panes that shielded newspaper clippings from further yellowing spilled like glass waterfalls from the wooden frames. Jesse could make out, but barely and only for a moment, their headlines about fires and murders and suicides and strange lights in the sky before the ink bled away and the paper curled under that same invisible fire.

  Jesse rubbed his eyes and blinked a few times.

  The room was rigidly square and virtually empty. Nothing melted now, but the photos and news clippings were gone. A sign which read LOCAL HISTORY EXHIBIT hung on the wall opposite him, and beneath it, printed in smaller letters, HOW THRALL BEGAN. There was no History of Thrall exhibit per se, and no indication, other than the sign, that there ever had been.

  But that couldn’t be right. Jesse tried to remember whether it had been furnished with historic items when he’d come to the museum all those times with Mia. He couldn’t. He couldn’t call up a single clear image of ever having been in the room before.

  “Did you find anything?”

  Jesse jumped, and turned toward the voice with his flashlight. Nadia looked up at him from a far corner of the room. She sat with her legs stretched out and her hands folded under her breasts. One of her legs, Jesse noticed, had a bad gash around the knee.

  Tom stood next to her, and nodded a hello. “We didn’t find much other than a storeroom,” he said with a shrug. “No trace of her, man. Sorry.”

  “No sign of anyone,” Nadia added. The anger was gone from her eyes and, he thought, from her voice. What had replaced it, though, was a strange tentativeness that surprised him. She looked away from Jesse and up at Tom. “At least, anyone we’d want to know.”

  She was about to say something else when she noticed Murdock peering in from the door. He looked uncomfortable for a moment, like he’d been caught eavesdropping. Tucking his gun into the band of his pants, he moved quickly into the room.

  “Are these your friends?” Murdock asked Jesse. He cleared his throat. To them he said, “I’m Murdock—Keith Murdock, Ph.D.” Approaching them, he extended a hand. Tom shook it, sizing him up as he did so. He shot Jesse a look around Murdock’s arm, and said, “Murdock. Don’t think I’ve seen you around.” It was almost accusatory.

  Murdock looked flustered. “Yes, well, that’s...that would be because I haven’t really ventured from the museum in years. Haven’t had much of a mind to make the social rounds, so to speak.” He tried on a laugh, found it awkward, and dropped it.

  Jesse turned his attention from them to the gash on Nadia’s leg and said, “You okay, Nadia? That’s a bad-looking cut there.”

  “If I don’t get tetanus or something in this place, then I’m sure I’ll be fine.” She winced for effect as she shifted her leg.

  “There are bandages and alcohol in one of the admin offices. We could wrap it up at the very least.” Murdock peered down at her leg. “How did it happen?”

  “Something sharp from the Geology exhibit. Part of the display. If you
have something to wrap it up in, that would be great. It was okay before, but it’s starting to throb now.”

  Murdock nodded. “I’ll go get the bandages and rubbing alcohol. You’ve got another friend to wait for, right? Stay here, and I’ll be right back.” He turned and slipped out through the door.

  Tom jerked a thumb in Murdock’s direction. “What’s with the stiff?”

  “Dr. Murdock says he remembers Mia and Caitlyn. Thinks we might be able to find something in the personnel files.”

  “Ahh,” Tom nodded slowly. “So...she isn’t here?”

  Jesse let out a long, slow breath. “No, not anymore. She used to intern here. According to Murdock, something happened with one of the displays here, and Mia and Caitlyn were involved.” He shrugged. “Maybe the report can give us an idea of where to look next.”

  Doubt hung in the air among them, but no one said anything. Jesse didn’t push them for conversation.

  When Murdock returned, he poured the alcohol over Nadia’s knee. She whimpered a little, but bit her lower lip and kept quiet. Murdock wrapped her leg in the bandage and he and Tom helped her to her feet.

  “Can you walk?”

  She nodded, and offered him a warm smile. “Yes. Thanks.”

  Murdock shrugged and smiled back. “Glad to help.” Then, with a sweeping gaze around the room, he added, “So, where’s your other friend?”

  “We haven’t seen Carpenter since we all split,” Tom said. “I hope the guy’s okay.”

  Murdock coughed. “Maybe something came up?”

  “Damn right something did.”

  They all turned to the door. Carpenter stood in the frame, a little breathless. He regarded Murdock with suspicious surprise.

  “Who’s this?” Shoving his hands in his pockets, Carpenter circled the man like a wary dog, and all but sniffed the air between them.

  “This is Keith Murdock. He works—worked—for the museum. He remembers Mia.”

  At the anthropologist’s name, Carpenter shot a look at Jesse and muttered something that no one seemed to catch.

  “You must be Carpenter.” Murdock extended a hand, but Carpenter looked at it like it was a piece of rotting meat. The anthropologist shoved his own hands in his pockets and shifted uncomfortably. “Right. Nice to meet you.”

  “Jesse,” Carpenter said, his eyes all the while on the anthropologist, “if you’ve got business here, then I suggest we get it done and go. We’re kinda short on time, here. I found—”

  He was cut off by a loud crash, followed by a bass wail that shook the floor beneath them. They exchanged glances.

  “What the hell was that?” Jesse asked.

  “It came from the basement.” Murdock met his gaze. “Where the records are.”

  “Show us. We need to get down there.”

  Nadia grabbed Jesse’s arm. “Are you nuts? You can’t go down there! Don’t you think we’ve seen enough of this place?” Her voice grew a little softer and she added, “She isn’t here, Jesse, and I don’t think you’re going to find any answers in the mouth of whatever’s in that basement.”

  Jesse’s expression was apologetic. When he spoke, they strained to hear him though his voice made the only sound in the room. “You can stay here, Nadia, but....” He shrugged. “I don’t know where else to go to look for her.”

  Something folded in Nadia’s face as she glanced back at Tom, and she sighed. “At least give me a flashlight that works, damn it.”

  Murdock handed his over to her.

  Tom drew his shotgun from the holster. “Okay then. Let’s go get us some records.”

  ***

  Murdock led the way back toward the administration offices, past the door to the room where Jesse had found him to the end of the hall. He made a left and they followed him down a narrow corridor at the end of which stood a small metal door. It had been painted green once, but the paint had mostly peeled or been scratched away. Murdock produced a key from his pocket and unlocked the door. Cool air sprawled out into the hallway, bringing with it a faint musty smell like chalk dust.

  Murdock cleared his throat. “Want to turn over that flashlight?” he asked Nadia, but she threw him a possessive look. He shrugged and gestured for her to lead the way. With a barely audible sigh-huff, she shouldered past him and started down the stairs.

  The beam of the flashlight did little to cut the darkness of the stairway as it descended with Nadia’s limping steps.

  “Can you see anything?” Jesse asked her.

  “No, I—” She let out a cry and for a moment, the light arced overhead. They heard plastic crack and Nadia swore. The sound of her sniffling carried back up the steps to them. “I dropped the flashlight. Something furry—”

  “Shhh.” Carpenter’s voice passed them like a zephyr from behind. “Listen.”

  They caught strains of irregular grinding of stone against stone—fighting, it seemed to them, to pierce the thickness of the murk at their knees.

  “Want me to come up ahead?” Tom asked after a time. “You can take this flashlight, Nadia. You point, I blast.”

  Nadia nodded. “Yeah, please do.” No one objected.

  With some effort, Tom maneuvered past them on the narrow stairwell and stood behind Nadia. Jesse heard the sound of Tom’s hand smacking the side of the flashlight and a feeble, faltering haze of yellow bloomed ahead of them. “After you, sweetheart.”

  Before they reached the landing, the flashlight died. The grinding stopped seconds after.

  “Well, I guess that’s a good—” Tom began, but dropped off as sudden light from a swinging bulb overhead brought the room to pale, mildewed clarity. “What the—”

  “Who knows,” Murdock answered. “The museum does that sometimes. Twitchy wires, I guess.”

  Before them, the basement stood about twenty-by-twenty feet in area and was stacked almost to the ceiling with storage boxes and packing crates. On the far wall they had an unobstructed view of a doorway. That room beyond stood in filmy shadow, but they could see enough to know that movement, and likely, whatever had been grinding, was coming from in there.

  “So, where are these records, Murdock?” Tom swung the muzzle of the shotgun in uneasy arcs in front of him, his eyes on the far doorway.

  Nadia huff-sighed. “Please don’t tell me they’re in one of these boxes. Some filing system you have here.”

  “No, no, not here,” Murdock told her. This is where the newest items in our catalogue were stored. Before they went on display, we’d authenticate, tag, and make the proper notations on each item. You won’t find what you want here. The personnel records and incident files,” his gaze trailed to the doorway where a bloated shade of dark gray flickered, “those are—or at least, they were—through there.”

  Tom snorted. “Of course. I wouldn’t have expected anything simpler.”

  “Do you still want to pursue this, Jesse?” Murdock asked.

  Jesse nodded, his eyes on the door. “You guys can wait—”

  “Lead the way, man.” Tom raised the shotgun. Beside him, Carpenter had drawn his gun, too. “We’ve got your back.”

  “Thanks, guys.” Jesse drew his own gun and with a resolute step forward, he led them through the canyon of crates toward the door.

  Beyond it was a gaping cavern of a room, impossibly large. Its ceiling gathered the lightlessness like clouds but beneath that, a faint amber glow pulsed through the room.

  “Something’s wrong,” Murdock said, shaking his head. “Something’s very wrong here. This room—this room wasn’t here. There was a back room, yes, but it was the size of a closet and it had filing cabinets in it and....” His voice trailed off.

  At the room’s center hung an enormous skeleton, all spine and interlocking ribs. Its three thick, spiky skulls had deep sockets for eyes. Four long saber teeth hung over the jawbone from each skull, two to a side. The wires from which the whole skeleton was suspended disappeared into the sable canopy above.

  “My God,” Murdock breathed, h
is eyes bright and excited. “An Edgicor.” He took a few steps forward. “And that’s not all. Look at this one. A Thim-sal.” He pointed to a long skeleton of something that resembled sketches Jesse had seen once in a book about the Loch Ness monster. The spine branched at the end in four directions. Spikes about three feet long protruded outward from each rib about half-way down the body. Long fin bones swam out from the spikes like serrated oars. The eye sockets in the massive head were big enough for a large child to stand up in. The jaw could have easily swallowed a car.

  Jesse recognized one of the smaller skeletons—a tricoil like the one Tom had shot on Main Street. Nadia came up behind him and gasped. He followed her wide-eyed gaze to some skeletons with anglerfish-like heads and compact ribcages. The five forearms, positioned beneath the throat, were multi-boned stalks that ended in talons. Long scythe-like wing bones arced above the hips. There were no hind legs at all.

  “Those are the Althior,” Murdock said to her. His gaze was now fixed on those skeletons as well. “One of the most deadly night-things the Raw has to offer. It’s amazing. Usually seeing them this close means it’s the last thing you’re ever going to see. Wow. Who would have set up such a display?”

  Disgust hissed from Nadia’s throat as she turned away. She followed Jesse over to where Tom was studying the great glass tanks that parenthetically capped off the room. In them, the flaccid remains of things which reminded Jesse of overlarge jellyfish were displayed. At these, Nadia let out a little cry and turned her head, muttering something about a movie theater.

  Jesse was about ask Nadia what she’d said when he noticed some statues he hadn’t seen before. His stare caught the attention of the others.

  On the far end of the room, three statues stood in wide triangle formation with their backs to the skeletons and to the group. They gathered a dusk to themselves as sourceless as the pulsing glow of the room. In fact, it was as if they were unaffected by any source of light or shadow but their own making. Jesse thought they looked vaguely like people, but people once removed from humanity. Something about them made Jesse more uneasy than the awful implication of bestial life that the skeletons suggested.