By the Light of His Lantern Page 20

  “Excuse me.” Lewis spoke softly, attempting to get the man’s attention and no one else. Lewis stepped quickly after him, shortened the space even further, then further still until he was nearly on his heels. “Excuse me.”

  The man looked over his shoulder and saw Lewis then. His eyes widened in what Lewis instantly recognized as terror.

  “Please, don’t be—”

  The man yelped. He turned back around and promptly tripped over his own knees and fell to his hands. Lewis bent over him.

  “Here, let me—”

  He yelped again. He struggled to stand. Lewis touched him, attempted to help him up, and he screeched. Lewis pulled his hands away. He stood and watched as the man very slowly found his way onto his feet again, his legs like broken chopsticks under his hunched body. He scuttled away, throwing quick glances over his shoulder even though Lewis had given up entirely, until he disappeared into one of the many alleys.

  “Hey you.”

  Lewis turned to see someone standing across the road in an open doorway. The room inside was lit, and by their silhouette they appeared to be female.

  “Yes?” Lewis said.

  “You look like you need something.”

  Lewis looked in both directions, checking for passersby, and found it odd that there were none. The woman stared and said nothing more, a hand on one hip and the other helping her to lean in the doorway.

  “I am,” he said. “I was hoping someone could tell me where I am, actually.”

  “Lost?”

  “A little, yes.”

  The woman sighed, full of humor and lust—a chilling sound accompanied by nothing more than the flat black of her featureless face—and shifted her weight from one leg to the other, leaning against the opposite side of the doorway.

  “Join me inside. I can answer any questions you have.”

  “I just have one question right now, actually. I was wondering—”

  “Yes, of course,” she said. “Come inside with me. Let me help.”

  The strangely unsettling tone of her voice made Lewis’s legs yearn for flight. The longer he stared the more gradually her features began to appear, his eyes making sense of the dark between them. Though her voice advertised pleasure and warmth, her mouth shown lifeless like a pair of dead worms, drooping and black.

  Lewis stood closer, though careful to remain out of arms reach. When he was close enough to see through the doorway into the room behind the woman, he was grateful for his caution.

  “What is—”

  There was a man sat against the far wall of the room behind her, unconscious. Except, no… he wasn’t just unconscious…

  “Won’t you come inside?” she said. Her voice floated like a song to him, but now he saw even clearer how her face barely moved enough to indicate that the voice was even hers.

  The man’s pants were open and pulled to his mid-thighs. There was blood pooled around his lap on the dirty floor. The sight of the blood sent a jolt of pain down Lewis’s arms and he clenched his fists to be rid of it.

  “Never mind,” he told her. He stepped away. “It’s okay.”

  The barely-visible expression on her face soured. Her wormy mouth drooped on either side.

  “Then be gone already. Waste someone else’s time.”

  Lewis muttered an apology and shuffled away. He couldn’t remember anymore which direction he’d come from. It didn’t matter. He just wanted to be gone now. His joy at finding a town had bled to nothing. He felt as though he might be in even more danger here than out there in all the dark. This place was full of people, and the people of this world were more dangerous than anything the darkness could set upon him. He would fare better against a pair of hungry mandibles outside the town walls than against the smiling faces inside them.

  Wind gushed overhead, acrid, polluted, swept over the town like a dirty bedsheet being unfurled. It ran its gusty fingers between the rooftops and ruffled their boards and shingles. Lewis hurried through the streets, hugged himself to the very edges as people wandered freely down their centers, frightened to let anyone notice him. A large crowd emerged from an upper story, descended the stairs to the street, clapping each other on the backs and staggering like fools, and Lewis stepped so far out of their way that he brushed the smudged storefront windows at his side. They didn’t see him. They were too taken in their social euphoria, it seemed, and by the words Lewis overheard they appeared to be heading to the nearest bar. Weren’t they drunk already? Was that even possible? Each time he thought he’d learned something about the world, there was always something to prove him wrong. Perhaps the rules were different for everyone. Perhaps a beer or two or three might intoxicate one man and kill another, depending on their curse. Were they all cursed differently? Maybe they were. But did it matter? The crowd was passed and long gone by now and Lewis felt his thoughts overwhelmingly full and disordered. He wanted then only to be away from this place and all its painful contradictions.

  He wandered through the streets aimlessly, ping-ponging from one corner to the next and coming no closer to the way out no matter which direction he chased. And it looked as though the town had an endless supply of drunkards and jesters and seductresses in all the open windows and doorways, each different but all the same, really. Their attempts to interact with Lewis had no effect, other than to make it easier and easier to tune them out along with everything else. Soon he lost all sense of direction and purpose, and was only wandering for the sake of keeping in motion. It was hopeless. Utterly hopeless…

  In the decline of his self-awareness, something reached out to him. He came to an alleyway, one which normally wouldn’t have been any different than the last several he crossed paths with but for whatever reason at that moment gave him pause. At its entrance he stood, swaying, and he listened as something deep in the alley’s shadow sputtered and slinked closer. Normally he’d already be on his way, separating himself like a man who knew when something was or wasn’t his business. But he stayed locked to the spot, eyes helpless to do anything but stare ahead. He was lost to it now. All the horror. What was one more thing? You couldn’t hide from it. There was no such thing as a safe place. If you weren’t witnessing something which pushed you nearer to your sanity’s brink, you must not be moving. To cover your eyes against one abomination only made it more likely to be faced with another much worse when you opened them again. Wasn’t that how it worked?

  The sound grew along the alley like vines on its walls, crusty and moaning and scraping on its hands and knees toward him, hungry for him. He was new, after all. It wanted something new. The others, the streams of strangers at Lewis’s back, they knew better than he did. They were wise to its tricks. They wrapped themselves in their melancholy joys before the darkness could wrap them in its greedy paws. And yet, wasn’t that another thing Lewis thought he’d learned? They couldn’t distract themselves forever. They couldn’t pretend they weren’t where they were. Everyone pays their dues. It claims you eventually. So… why wait, he thought?

  Where else did he have to go but nowhere?

  The alley was roaring like a wind tunnel, its breath focused directly into Lewis’s ears so that he heard little else. Whatever the source, it got closer, and Lewis didn’t move at all but felt himself sliding toward it, the two sides of the alley moving past him, around him. It wanted him and so it would have him. He thought that would be okay. Without moving his head, only his eyes upturned, he looked to the narrow ceiling of sky above which was as black as anything else he saw before him in the alley’s stomach. It was a stomach, wasn’t it? And he was a one-of-a-kind morsel, wasn’t he? Even he knew that. Whatever pulled him closer, it would enjoy him very much. As he looked toward the sky another wave of wind rippled overhead and its stink curled down over them. Rusty, old. His eyes fell back to the alley, where he noticed the brick was passing him by inch by inch, and he noticed that his feet were in fact moving, actually. He stopped. The roaring in his ears started to subside. The nothingness he faced pu
lsed with something ghastly and starving, and with a final ditch effort it reached out to him, an invisible hand welcoming him, not so unlike a gesture to ask a potential partner for a dance. Lewis was afraid he had to decline. He took a step back. And then another. The darkness growled. It foamed. That inviting hand grew hard and clawed. And then, from its terrible wanting, something moved into Lewis’s firelight. It bobbed out of the dark, hovering before him, smooth and blue. The moment his eyes focused on it, everything was silent, and the intense malice he sensed disappeared, soaked up by the brick, and in its place he found himself surrounded by the strangest calm.

  It was a balloon. Blue as the ocean. It swayed lazily at chest level, trailing out on a silky white streamer tied to its knot. Abandoning the alarm he felt only seconds prior, he reached his hand toward it, daring to test its tangibility. Before his fingers touched, the string pulled taut and it danced away. A lure. Lewis stepped toward it. One step, two steps. The balloon dipped and bounced as it was pulled farther away. Three steps. Under his feet, illuminated by the fire, he saw what appeared to be scattered flower petals on the ground, bright and vivid like fresh paint. The sight of them triggered the most potent déjà vu he’d ever felt. It was all so wrong, but he was beyond questioning it. He followed the balloon, the flowers, deeper and deeper into the grimy alley. If he looked back the entrance would be a sliver of street light.

  The balloon quit its retreating and he bumped into it. Still. He placed his hand on it, heard the quaint squeal of latex against skin. The silver string dipped into the darkness a few steps ahead. Whatever held it remained hidden. It watched him. It was that feeling—being watched and not knowing by what—that he couldn’t stand. He wanted to know. So, he ventured past the balloon, patted it aside. The flower petals were more and more abundant. He stepped on them in soft clumps. Whole heads of flowers were littered across the dirt. He raised his lantern, could hear its breath. A deep, tired chuff. A single step more would bring them together. He stopped. It was certainly a trap. He hadn’t forgotten the previous feeling, that hunger. It was still there, salivating for him, only it made itself more pleasant now. The flowers were a nice touch. Oddly familiar…

  He extended his lantern, elbow straight, and looked into its face.

  Its eyes were black. Its skin was black. Its fur was black. Its body was so large, shoulders so wide, it was difficult to tell where the darkness ended and the gorilla began. It regarded him with hardened calm. It puffed air from its wide nostrils. Deep, heavy, patient breaths. The light of his lantern dotted its glistening eyes with orange.

  “Do I know you?” Lewis asked.

  The gorilla extended its own hand then. The string. Lewis shook his head.

  “No… that’s all right.”

  The ape pulled the string close, against its chest. The balloon bobbed beside Lewis, around him. After another pause for consideration—its eyes deciding between Lewis and the balloon in its possession—the gorilla turned its back to him and moved on. It bled into the darkness, whispered silently away, and was gone. Lewis lowered his lantern when he could no longer hear it. He waited there, feeling a sense of missed opportunity, until it was clear to him the encounter had ended and it wasn’t coming back.

  He turned around and was surprised to see the alley entrance was only a short walk away. He returned somberly to the street, less afraid, less confused than before. His head felt clearer all of a sudden. He couldn’t explain it.

  Staring at his feet, he stepped out of the alley and promptly bumped into someone.

  “Whoa!” the man said. Lewis flinched away. The man, on his guard, quickly took Lewis in and relaxed. “Careful, now…”

  Lewis looked around them, back at the alley, which now looked quite ordinary. In fact, somehow the darkness had receded and he could see straight through to a parallel street on the other side of the block, not a dead end at all. How strange…

  “I was… there was something…”

  The man followed his gaze down the alley and, whether he was pretending or not, nodded in understanding.

  “Are you all right?” the man asked.

  Feeling rather safe, Lewis answered honestly.

  “No. No, I’m not all right.”

  The man looked him up and down.

  “Are you lost?”

  Lewis shrugged. “I was trying to find a town. A man told me about a town, but I forgot the name. He said there would be other people like me there… normal.”

  “Normal?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t mean normal. I mean…”

  “I know what you mean.”

  Lewis took a deep breath. He put his hands on his hips and the feel of his palms on his bare sides made him remember his nakedness.

  “I met a man and he told me to come to this town, that I might meet people here who could tell me more about this place. He would have told me more himself if he’d had more time…”

  “Dead, is he? Don’t worry. He’ll probably make his way back in no time. What’s your name?”

  “Lewis.” He answered without pause. It was the first person he’d met yet, he thought, who didn’t have that almost indescribable aura about them, that foreign quality everyone else had about them here, that inhumanness. He seemed sane. The other man had as well, the one who told him about the town. Shaw…

  “Nice to meet you, Lewis. I’m Terry.”

  “Thank you for… not hitting me, or something. When I stumbled into you.”

  “No worries. Say, what do you say I take you with me to the bar around the corner? There are some other fellas there I think you’d feel comfortable with. A bit more normal, like you say. Something you’ve probably not seen much of since you washed up. What do you think?”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “That sounds good.”

  They spoke as they walked, and there was an immense warmth which washed over Lewis, a powerful feeling of safety he hadn’t felt… well, ever. It was exactly what he’d wanted to feel when he happened upon the town. He only hoped it lasted…

  “What is this place?” Lewis asked. “This town?”

  “You’re in Mercy’s Shore,” Terry said. “A lot different than it started out, but it still lives up to its name, relatively. It’s a good place to be if you’ve been out there too long, that’s for sure.”

  “Yes! That’s it! This is the town I was told about.” Another heavy wind rushed through the street, that sour smell still laced through it like a bitter mist. Lewis breathed it in as if it were the smell of roses. “It’s not quite what I imagined…”

  “Oh, it’s not perfect, that’s for sure. You still get a little of everything you’re bound to find outside its walls, just in smaller doses. Say, do you recall the name of the man who sent you here?”

  “Yeah, Shaw was his name.”

  They stopped in the street, and the man turned Lewis toward him with a positive glow in his eyes.

  “You don’t say! Shaw? Well then. If it was Shaw sent you, I think he must have known there’s plenty about you to like. Shaw’s a good man.”

  “You know him?”

  “Yes. Actually, it strikes me as being quite funny and a little coincidental it should be his name you give. I’d call him a friend, no doubt. And if he sent you here, I’m certain I might soon call you the same.”

  Soon they arrived at the bar, the very same which had earlier reminded Lewis of an old western saloon. They stood aside as a single woman shoved past them, naked as Lewis but much less ashamed, and then they entered.

  If not for it teeming with questionable personalities and being filled with their noise, the bar might have been a cozy place. It was lit by four large “bowls” of fire hanging from the ceiling, each with what Lewis assumed must be forever-burning wood like he had in his lantern. There were several small tables spread across the wide room, most of them filled by patrons who, to Lewis’s fascination, were drinking freely from cups and glasses. There was much talk, much laughter, some heated
scorn somewhere in the room, all intertwined. It was so much that, having had very little ordinary social interaction for so long, Lewis felt it hard to breathe. As they made their way between the tables, Terry looked at Lewis to check that he still followed, and he must have seen the struggle taking place.

  “How are you?” he said, raising his voice just a little to be heard over the bar’s chatter. Lewis returned his stare without having heard him. “Are you all right?”

  Lewis nodded. Without meaning to, his eyes were pulled away from Terry’s and he took in the crowd around them again. “There’s just… a lot going on here.”

  “I understand, believe me.”

  “How are they drinking?” Lewis asked.

  “Hmmm?”

  “Won’t it… won’t it kill them?”

  Terry took in the room with Lewis for a moment, lips screwed up, brow furrowed.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” he said.

  Lewis shook his head. “Never mind.”

  They continued between the tables. Lewis bumped into a chair and immediately flinched away, fearing someone’s retaliation, but they must not have noticed. He wondered in the back of his mind how a place like this could exist. All these people, in their collective contentment, should be under a constant barrage of nightmarish pain and misfortune. How was it, then, that they enjoyed each other’s company under one roof, and likely many others throughout the town, without the darkness’s eyes upon them? Or perhaps they were, but it was unable to reach them here. Impossible. There were no safe places, Lewis thought. Somehow, this place was tainted like the rest.

  They came to a table in the corner where three other men were sitting.

  Terry interrupted their conversation, “I’ve brought someone with me, I hope that’s all right.”

  The other men looked at Lewis but only briefly before shrugging their shoulders. Lewis, however, studied them much closer, formed a preliminary judgment of their characters by the shallowest of criteria. Terry was a friendly enough looking man, Lewis considered, and these other men didn’t appear any different. One of them was heavier than the others. One of them was bald and lean. The third was bearded and plain, someone who, if you only saw them in passing, wouldn’t draw any attention to themselves for the mere fact that he looked like any other bearded stranger. There was nothing noteworthy in any of their appearances. They were simply men talking around a table in a crowded bar. The most important quality, Lewis believed, was that they looked sane.