It was customary for observers to inspect the perimeter fence on foot before completing their shifts. Though a flashlight was not required during daylight hours, Liam took one on this occasion.
Less than an acre separated the properties, encouraging the observer in his trespass. It was not his intention to enter the brothel, only to examine the grounds for evidence of a mass evacuation.
It never occurred to the investigator that only mannequins situated close to the windows were visible from the ground. Those on beds on the upper floors, such as viewed from the post, could not be seen at all. Like other observers, Liam was only too glad to land a plum government job and not question the dodgy logistics; yet there was more revelation here, besides.
Graffiti on the wall leapt up without disguise—graffiti also not visible from the tower. The tags were, by the nature of these things, inscrutable, but the idea of them, their brazen placement, indicated a breakdown of pretense.
Talk of collusion and conspiracy was not unfounded, but it was incontestably a silly job, for all its paperwork. Should the entire operation prove to be a hoax, the hoaxers were not so thorough in anticipating every contingency where a doubter attempted to discover the deception: Teenage vandals with cans of spray paint had penetrated further into the charade than had salaried men with high-powered binoculars.
In context of this act of sabotage, what the observer experienced minutes before from the tower may not have owed to a lapse of consciousness but, rather, to skylarking perpetrated by juveniles. This possibility goaded him to venture closer to the brothel, and to probe an exterior doorway where a piece of yellow tape was tied around a supporting beam.
Was this the caution tape that greeted Howard?
Movement was detected in the glass of a detached mirror leaning against a slab of drywall. Liam’s flashlight beam was immediately ensnared in its regression of reflections, like a glistening pebble pulled down a deep well. A series of full-length mirrors, yet to be installed, marked out a path through the principle corridor and corresponded to the path of the yellow tape. A conspiracy between the tape and mirrors was reasonable to assume; and as each mirror peeled away from the remainder, the object imagined as an endpoint must be room 1136.
The observer took the bait, yet faltered in his resolve to reach the endpoint. He glanced over his shoulder more than once to gauge his progress. The way backward looked much like the way forward, in that unanchored shapes, in both directions, mirrored each other. This was uncanny in the same manner as the sleeping guard’s face, where one met with a symmetrical parity that should not be.
A row of oblong metal boxes emerged flanking an outer wall; these were amenable to some little description. With fingers extended, the top of the first box was inspected: Recessive features provided the relief of a human face. Liam tipped his light into the concave mold and found the anatomical outline for a human-scaled statue. In coming on the next mold, more of the same was anticipated—and yet, a subtle change was met under his hand. Fearful, he did not use the flashlight to highlight the difference. This face felt less human than the first, and he grasped that each mold would become increasingly less human should he work his way methodically through them. In sum, these provisional caskets threw off a chill that could not yield so benumbing an effect without the abetment of imagination.
The catacomb, and whatever simulacra were attached to it, represented something of an altogether too specific nature to contemplate. The transformation documented here receded through a chain of nightmares, and owing to the graduated darkness, the seeker could no longer find his hand before his face without placing it directly under his light. Every second he was exposed to this atmosphere, the greater the peril he imagined.
A shuffle was heard ahead and, worryingly, whatever he visualized as a destination seemed to be moving toward him. The flashlight was switched off in hope of eliminating mirror glare, and to expose anyone in his path. Whoever stood in his way had also stopped.
“You are trespassing,” he said aloud, in his best authoritative voice (even though he was trespassing as much as any lurking vandal).
The remaining molds along his path were no less discomforting than whatever forms were fashioned within their infernal contours. These changes were in back of his mind as he was destined to intercept the figure clouded in the mirror.
A breath preceded his fated step. He swung around with his light to strike someone jutting from a doorway. Recoiling, he plowed into a stack of molds opposite the commotion. The uppermost one toppled from the pile and bonged like a leaden church bell at his feet. Between its trumpet-like fanfare and silvery relief, the observer felt his courage abandon him. The length and breadth of large feathery wings were embossed in the seraph’s outline.
And yet, the searcher swore that a sinewy, dysmorphic arm had grasped wildly at him from a doorway, but his light found only a female mannequin standing halfway through it. His glancing blow had sent her spinning on her circular base.
Retracing the steps of their dance, he settled his mind on the sequence, and added several more steps to his forward advance. Creeping sense told him that whatever had been in front of him was now assuredly behind him.
A polyurethaned figurehead of Jesus swayed from the ceiling. A Crown of Thorns circled The Sacred Pate, and dusted the plaque to which The Savior was nailed. Its engraved Motto declared the former purpose of the building: Soli Deo Gloria.
Beneath it, bubble-wrapped statues crowded a store room. These were the outlines seen from the main office window, and were recognizable as Nativity decorations, including barnyard animals and kneeling shepherds. This merited the briefest sigh before the tracker reached the stairs and found the caution tape draped over its steps.
From the upper doorway, the treacherous, unfinished floor of 1136 was met. The sofa, previously occupied by the immobile guard, presented a new puzzle in light of this information: Liam could neither see how the piece of furniture was brought to the room nor what prevented it from crashing through a spare number of floorboards beneath it. It was within the realm of possibility that the rotting body fell into this pit and now resided on the lower floor, although no foul odor was detected wafting out of the darkness.
In his light’s examination, the yellow tape that led him to this room appeared luminous, like a kerosene-soaked cloth wick in a burning lamp. It disappeared into the rupture of floor planks.
Processing these details delayed him seeing the observation deck window across the way—the overhead light at the post was turned off, where the observer surely left it on.
Liam recalled Howard’s strange account of viewing an office invader from this very window. Quitting his investigation, he doubled back through the building. Dread followed him through the last flinders of daylight in the trees.
The observer met with a door he did not pull to behind him. A push was made against it, but the barrier appeared stuck on a section of unfastened carpet. Another push was equally unsuccessful, although a third attempt forced the springy door to give unevenly—a melanic shape was glimpsed past the blocked jamb! A fourth thrust met with no resistance and sent the batterer tripping over his feet.
The well-lit room was like stumbling into an icy puddle, and seeing himself asleep in the desk chair rived Liam’s consciousness in two. Will propelled him upright, out of the chair seat and facing the same doorway. He expected to confront himself, or someone else, standing in it, but no one was there. The door creaked with sinister consequence, as if someone had bounded through it in the second before. The observer shed beads of perspiration, certain that it had been he on the other side of the door, pushing.
He tested his legs, and then his mettle. Creeping onto the landing past the office, a look was tossed cautiously over the balcony rail, down involute steps that incised and split, almost into even halves, a formidable shadow. The monumental stillness in the air possessed the tenacity of a voyeur, and an idle half-hour more endurance of it would turn into a lifetime if he did not leave at once.
Fright overtook his judgment, and also the satisfaction he would have derived from castigating a tardy coworker. This opprobrium was left for another day, and he fled expediently by the elevator.
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