She was sprinting by the time the passenger door of a black Jeep Cherokee
parked alongside the street was suddenly flung open; Augusta was moving too
quickly to avoid it and collided, bounced backward, stumbled, and fell onto
her back, gasping for air. The breath had been knocked out of her lungs
and as she lay on the sidewalk struggling to breathe and feeling as though
she were drowning, a shapely leg emerged from the Cherokee.
A second leg followed the first, both clad in tight jeans that ended at dainty feet, with toenails painted scarlet, enmeshed in sandals with thick high heels. And a woman stepped down from the Cherokee, onto the sidewalk.
She looked as though she were dressed for a day on the beach, with a tight, brightly colored, tiny top that was little larger than a bikini and ended well above the waist of her jeans, exposing a considerable expanse of tanned, flat belly. Her hair was curly and dark and spilled down over her shoulders; she looked exotic and...
Dangerous. No, more than dangerous. Finally able to draw a breath, Augusta sat up and began to scoot backward, feeling she had to, above all else, get away from this person. The woman watched her, her eyes lost behind sunglasses.
How could she see? It was already as dark as dusk. What reason could there possibly be to wear sunglasses? There was a cheerful picture of a parrot on her top, but it seemed hungry and vulture-like. There was something wrong about her. She was more than dangerous. She seemed evil, and stood without moving, like a corpse propped up despite her healthy tan and lustrous hair, and a body that looked as though it had been exceptionally well taken care of. For the first time, as Augusta scrabbled backward, an expression danced across the woman's face – a smile, small and cruel.
Augusta reached to steady herself against the Cherokee's bumper and pulled herself to her feet. She glanced down and noticed a Florida license plate. Dade County, which meant this vehicle, and likely this woman, were from the Miami area. Augusta stood and looked back toward the woman.
And shrieked, and nearly fell as she jumped back to get away. The woman had removed her sunglasses.
She had no eyes. There were only black holes, like the eye sockets of a skull, and blood began to dribble down the woman's cheeks, like tears. Her tiny smile had widened to a hungry grin.
"You brought the child?" the woman spoke with an accent, Cuban or Mexican – something Hispanic – and her voice was deep and sultry. Seductive.
Blood ran down her cheeks in long trails. It dripped down onto her top, and onto the tanned skin of her cleavage, disappearing between her breasts.
"You brought the child to this place?" the voice, from that face with its bottomless black pits for eyes, was unbearable. Horrifying.
The woman stretched out her arms, her sunglasses dangling from one hand – her fingernails, like her toenails, were painted red as blood, and gold rings laden with every type of jewel sparkled even in the dim light, on every finger. Augusta was rooted with rapt terror. It was like a dream, her legs wouldn't respond. The woman came closer; she moved like a hungry cat.
The words stretched themselves out, vile and slow like pus being squeezed from a wound – "Yoooooooo brrraaawwwttt theeeeeeee chiiiiiiiillld?"
The blood was no longer dripping; it spurted and fell and landed in sunbursts on the sidewalk. It ran in torrents down the woman's face, down her neck, onto her clothing – she was bathed in crimson, and in the cool air it steamed. Even her grin had gone red. She opened her mouth and a forked tongue unfurled, and fell in a writhing cord all the way to her knees, where it whipped and thrashed and tried to catch the falling blood. She stepped closer, her arms opened wide. Augusta finally broke free of her reverie, and bolted.
She threw herself to the left, around the back of the Cherokee, and fled up Lindsey Street, toward Nathan Avenue. She heard the woman – no, that wasn't a woman, but she had no idea what the hell it might be – laughing. It shrieked with glee, and Augusta heard pounding footsteps behind her.
Then nothing. She halted and whirled around, and saw no sign of the thing that looked like a woman. Breathing hard, she searched the mist and saw nothing. The black Jeep Cherokee was lost somewhere behind her in the fog.
And the thing that looked like a woman dropped out of the mist and landed hard in a crouch on the pavement. Her tongue lashed and danced in the air. Her hands had changed – no longer human hands, they were claws, two clutches of long, long claws with dancing jewels in their golden settings all along their length.
"Silly woman..." it slurred, "I only want to thank you for the gift."
Augusta was close to tears, and backed away, never letting her eyes leave that bleeding face.
Child... Child. Surely not her child.
From her crouch, two things happened: the thing that looked like a woman's tongue whipped back into her mouth, a serpent slipping back into its hole, and she reached for Augusta, and her arm elongated and grew, and the claws snapped tightly closed around Augusta, pinning her arms to her body.
The thing that looked like a woman stood, and her arm seemed to bend at several elbows as she lifted Augusta up into the air. With the claws, as strong as steel bands encircling her, she could barely breath.
"Yes, your child," crooned the thing that looked like a woman, as blood poured from her empty eye sockets. "Your daughter, the one you brought here. I appreciate the gift – I so rarely have a little one to play with. Oh, but don't you worry... She's in a place you can't go yet, but you'll be allowed in soon. Very soon, and in the meantime, I will play with her."
Augusta's heart felt as though it would tear its way to freedom at any moment. She had never in her life been so frightened as she dangled in the air and stared down at the thing that looked like a woman, clutched tight in its claws. This couldn't be happening. But still she realized what the thing had said: it had her daughter.
"If you have her, please give her back," she said in a choked whisper.
"You haven't suffered enough," the thing said calmly, "When you have, you can see her again. That was the deal we agreed to."
The surest cure for terror was fury. She hadn't agreed to anything. Augusta kicked and thrashed, and struggled to free herself, and only earned herself a warning squeeze that seemed to say the thing that looked like a woman could effortlessly squeeze her to bloody paste.
"Give her back to me," Augusta wheezed.
The thing regarded her with a nasty smile washed in blood.
"Please," Augusta begged. Helpless tears trickled down her cheeks.
"You have a road to walk first, my dear, and when you've walked it, then you may see her again. You need only simply do as I say."
Augusta looked up and saw the Ridgeview Clinic building towering above, a grim castle in the mist. She hadn't realized she was this close to Lindsey Street's intersection with Nathan Avenue. If she had only been a little faster or hadn't stopped to look behind her, maybe she could have reached the avenue and escaped, and could have been searching for Kitty now. But the thing had Kitty, and might have had her hidden away somewhere ever since the arms first appeared behind her and dragged her away into Wiltse Hill Tunnel. She didn't know what to do.
"Every journey begins with a single step, dear one," said the thing that looked like a woman. It lashed out with its free arm and with its snarl of claws, and smashed one of the big plate glass windows that looked into the Ridgeview Clinic's lobby. Then it threw Augusta inside.
*
Augusta landed hard on a sofa and lay stunned for only a second as a cloud of dust puffed up around her, before springing to her feet. Across the lobby, on the other side of the shattered window, the thing that looked like a woman waggled its claws in a jaunty wave goodbye, grinning through the blood still pouring down her face, as something dark and thick oozed down the glass of every window and door in the lobby. It stole the light and sealed her in; she knew it even as she ran toward the windows, glass crunching beneath her shoes. The last of the light was gone by the time she had crossed the lobby, and the blackness was vast.
Augusta had never felt so alone. In the sudden darkness and silence, she panted for breath, her heart hammering.
And she suddenly realized that in the stillness, every move she made seemed as loud as a drumbeat. And if there were things like the thing that looked like a woman outside, God only knew what might be in here. With her – she might not be alone at all. She could see nothing at all in the blackness, but turned her back to the wall anyway, while she shrugged off her backpack. She unzipped it and felt through the items inside; people who had seen the interior of her backpack were always astounded at how she managed to carry so much inside – it looks like you've got a K-Mart in that thing, a friend had once said.
But at least she was rarely without what she needed, when she needed it. There was a flashlight inside, with fresh batteries. It was attached to a long strap that could be tossed over the shoulder and worn like a purse so her hands were free. She found it and brought it out, zipped her backpack closed again and slung it over her shoulders.
Anything could be in the lobby, in the dark with her. Should she turn on the flashlight? If there was anything in the lobby it would be drawn to the light and come right to her.
But if she fell down a flight of stairs while she stumbled around in this huge building looking for a way out – and she had to get out and keep searching, she couldn't just wait alone here in the dark – and broke her neck, she'd be no better off. And if she tripped over a table or chair, the noise would draw whatever might be lurking nearby to her as effectively as if she'd shot off a flare. And at least if she had some light, she might be able to see to run away from whatever or whoever might be inside the building with her. So she switched it on, and turned to look behind her at the windows.
Which were sealed with smooth, cold cement. As if it had been there all along. For years even, because as Augusta tentatively reached out to touch it, her fingertips came away coated in dust.
What was this? Cement – how could it be cement? It had been glass no more than a minute ago. The entire front wall of the Ridgeview Clinic building facing Lindsey Street had consisted of giant arched windows – display windows for the Victorian department store that had originally occupied this building more than a hundred years ago.
She spun around, realizing her back had been turned to the lobby. The light from her flashlight traveled around the lobby, illuminating groups of sofas and chairs, and a reception desk, and a scattered forest of potted plants, all of which were dead. She played her light over large abstract paintings, still bright beneath accumulated dust, hanging on the walls, and across the gorgeously carved wooden pillars standing sentinel throughout the lobby. Nothing moved, but the light flashed off a large map of the building and a directory of the physicians who had their offices here, enclosed in a Plexiglas stand near the reception desk. It might show a way out.
Augusta crossed the lobby warily, listening for any sounds at all. Watching for any movement as dust swirled through the beam of her flashlight, but she seemed to be alone in the lobby with the wilted, dead plants in their pots. She looked down at the stand, and began to read doctors' names before she noticed something glistening on the Plexiglas – a spray of blood, fresh and wet. There didn't appear to be much, only as much as what would result from a bloody cough – there was a runner of thick, dark phlegm as well, she noticed. It too was still wet, though she couldn't work up the courage to touch it and see if it might still be warm.
Someone had been leaning on this directory when they coughed up their blood. Whoever it had been might still be nearby, and might be hurt.
Damn it, she thought, frustrated and wiping her forehead with her wrist. The thing that looked like a woman had Kitty – she couldn't explain how, but she was absolutely certain of it. And she would have to suffer before she could see her again, but she would be goddamned before she simply sat here in the dark, waiting to be released. She was going to get out, no matter how. But if someone nearby was so hurt or so ill to have coughed up their blood onto the directory, she couldn't leave them behind.
She would have to find the person and help them because it was what she had been raised to do, she thought as she turned away. Helping other people was paramount in this world.
And often, in helping other people, you helped yourself as well.
The elevators probably weren't working, but she might as well check them anyway, she thought, but she would have to hurry because to cough up blood was a symptom of something serious. She jogged away from the directory, past the reception desk to a bank of four elevators, where she pressed a button and, as she expected, nothing happened. There didn't seem to be any electricity at all. She sighed, looked for a door to the stairwell, and found it nearby. It was ajar, and she pushed it open, searching for movement. Anything could be hiding here, and could drop down on her at any moment. She looked up, searching with her light, and saw nothing but a dark stairway rising up through the building, so she began to climb.
A second leg followed the first, both clad in tight jeans that ended at dainty feet, with toenails painted scarlet, enmeshed in sandals with thick high heels. And a woman stepped down from the Cherokee, onto the sidewalk.
She looked as though she were dressed for a day on the beach, with a tight, brightly colored, tiny top that was little larger than a bikini and ended well above the waist of her jeans, exposing a considerable expanse of tanned, flat belly. Her hair was curly and dark and spilled down over her shoulders; she looked exotic and...
Dangerous. No, more than dangerous. Finally able to draw a breath, Augusta sat up and began to scoot backward, feeling she had to, above all else, get away from this person. The woman watched her, her eyes lost behind sunglasses.
How could she see? It was already as dark as dusk. What reason could there possibly be to wear sunglasses? There was a cheerful picture of a parrot on her top, but it seemed hungry and vulture-like. There was something wrong about her. She was more than dangerous. She seemed evil, and stood without moving, like a corpse propped up despite her healthy tan and lustrous hair, and a body that looked as though it had been exceptionally well taken care of. For the first time, as Augusta scrabbled backward, an expression danced across the woman's face – a smile, small and cruel.
Augusta reached to steady herself against the Cherokee's bumper and pulled herself to her feet. She glanced down and noticed a Florida license plate. Dade County, which meant this vehicle, and likely this woman, were from the Miami area. Augusta stood and looked back toward the woman.
And shrieked, and nearly fell as she jumped back to get away. The woman had removed her sunglasses.
She had no eyes. There were only black holes, like the eye sockets of a skull, and blood began to dribble down the woman's cheeks, like tears. Her tiny smile had widened to a hungry grin.
"You brought the child?" the woman spoke with an accent, Cuban or Mexican – something Hispanic – and her voice was deep and sultry. Seductive.
Blood ran down her cheeks in long trails. It dripped down onto her top, and onto the tanned skin of her cleavage, disappearing between her breasts.
"You brought the child to this place?" the voice, from that face with its bottomless black pits for eyes, was unbearable. Horrifying.
The woman stretched out her arms, her sunglasses dangling from one hand – her fingernails, like her toenails, were painted red as blood, and gold rings laden with every type of jewel sparkled even in the dim light, on every finger. Augusta was rooted with rapt terror. It was like a dream, her legs wouldn't respond. The woman came closer; she moved like a hungry cat.
The words stretched themselves out, vile and slow like pus being squeezed from a wound – "Yoooooooo brrraaawwwttt theeeeeeee chiiiiiiiillld?"
The blood was no longer dripping; it spurted and fell and landed in sunbursts on the sidewalk. It ran in torrents down the woman's face, down her neck, onto her clothing – she was bathed in crimson, and in the cool air it steamed. Even her grin had gone red. She opened her mouth and a forked tongue unfurled, and fell in a writhing cord all the way to her knees, where it whipped and thrashed and tried to catch the falling blood. She stepped closer, her arms opened wide. Augusta finally broke free of her reverie, and bolted.
She threw herself to the left, around the back of the Cherokee, and fled up Lindsey Street, toward Nathan Avenue. She heard the woman – no, that wasn't a woman, but she had no idea what the hell it might be – laughing. It shrieked with glee, and Augusta heard pounding footsteps behind her.
Then nothing. She halted and whirled around, and saw no sign of the thing that looked like a woman. Breathing hard, she searched the mist and saw nothing. The black Jeep Cherokee was lost somewhere behind her in the fog.
And the thing that looked like a woman dropped out of the mist and landed hard in a crouch on the pavement. Her tongue lashed and danced in the air. Her hands had changed – no longer human hands, they were claws, two clutches of long, long claws with dancing jewels in their golden settings all along their length.
"Silly woman..." it slurred, "I only want to thank you for the gift."
Augusta was close to tears, and backed away, never letting her eyes leave that bleeding face.
Child... Child. Surely not her child.
From her crouch, two things happened: the thing that looked like a woman's tongue whipped back into her mouth, a serpent slipping back into its hole, and she reached for Augusta, and her arm elongated and grew, and the claws snapped tightly closed around Augusta, pinning her arms to her body.
The thing that looked like a woman stood, and her arm seemed to bend at several elbows as she lifted Augusta up into the air. With the claws, as strong as steel bands encircling her, she could barely breath.
"Yes, your child," crooned the thing that looked like a woman, as blood poured from her empty eye sockets. "Your daughter, the one you brought here. I appreciate the gift – I so rarely have a little one to play with. Oh, but don't you worry... She's in a place you can't go yet, but you'll be allowed in soon. Very soon, and in the meantime, I will play with her."
Augusta's heart felt as though it would tear its way to freedom at any moment. She had never in her life been so frightened as she dangled in the air and stared down at the thing that looked like a woman, clutched tight in its claws. This couldn't be happening. But still she realized what the thing had said: it had her daughter.
"If you have her, please give her back," she said in a choked whisper.
"You haven't suffered enough," the thing said calmly, "When you have, you can see her again. That was the deal we agreed to."
The surest cure for terror was fury. She hadn't agreed to anything. Augusta kicked and thrashed, and struggled to free herself, and only earned herself a warning squeeze that seemed to say the thing that looked like a woman could effortlessly squeeze her to bloody paste.
"Give her back to me," Augusta wheezed.
The thing regarded her with a nasty smile washed in blood.
"Please," Augusta begged. Helpless tears trickled down her cheeks.
"You have a road to walk first, my dear, and when you've walked it, then you may see her again. You need only simply do as I say."
Augusta looked up and saw the Ridgeview Clinic building towering above, a grim castle in the mist. She hadn't realized she was this close to Lindsey Street's intersection with Nathan Avenue. If she had only been a little faster or hadn't stopped to look behind her, maybe she could have reached the avenue and escaped, and could have been searching for Kitty now. But the thing had Kitty, and might have had her hidden away somewhere ever since the arms first appeared behind her and dragged her away into Wiltse Hill Tunnel. She didn't know what to do.
"Every journey begins with a single step, dear one," said the thing that looked like a woman. It lashed out with its free arm and with its snarl of claws, and smashed one of the big plate glass windows that looked into the Ridgeview Clinic's lobby. Then it threw Augusta inside.
*
Augusta landed hard on a sofa and lay stunned for only a second as a cloud of dust puffed up around her, before springing to her feet. Across the lobby, on the other side of the shattered window, the thing that looked like a woman waggled its claws in a jaunty wave goodbye, grinning through the blood still pouring down her face, as something dark and thick oozed down the glass of every window and door in the lobby. It stole the light and sealed her in; she knew it even as she ran toward the windows, glass crunching beneath her shoes. The last of the light was gone by the time she had crossed the lobby, and the blackness was vast.
Augusta had never felt so alone. In the sudden darkness and silence, she panted for breath, her heart hammering.
And she suddenly realized that in the stillness, every move she made seemed as loud as a drumbeat. And if there were things like the thing that looked like a woman outside, God only knew what might be in here. With her – she might not be alone at all. She could see nothing at all in the blackness, but turned her back to the wall anyway, while she shrugged off her backpack. She unzipped it and felt through the items inside; people who had seen the interior of her backpack were always astounded at how she managed to carry so much inside – it looks like you've got a K-Mart in that thing, a friend had once said.
But at least she was rarely without what she needed, when she needed it. There was a flashlight inside, with fresh batteries. It was attached to a long strap that could be tossed over the shoulder and worn like a purse so her hands were free. She found it and brought it out, zipped her backpack closed again and slung it over her shoulders.
Anything could be in the lobby, in the dark with her. Should she turn on the flashlight? If there was anything in the lobby it would be drawn to the light and come right to her.
But if she fell down a flight of stairs while she stumbled around in this huge building looking for a way out – and she had to get out and keep searching, she couldn't just wait alone here in the dark – and broke her neck, she'd be no better off. And if she tripped over a table or chair, the noise would draw whatever might be lurking nearby to her as effectively as if she'd shot off a flare. And at least if she had some light, she might be able to see to run away from whatever or whoever might be inside the building with her. So she switched it on, and turned to look behind her at the windows.
Which were sealed with smooth, cold cement. As if it had been there all along. For years even, because as Augusta tentatively reached out to touch it, her fingertips came away coated in dust.
What was this? Cement – how could it be cement? It had been glass no more than a minute ago. The entire front wall of the Ridgeview Clinic building facing Lindsey Street had consisted of giant arched windows – display windows for the Victorian department store that had originally occupied this building more than a hundred years ago.
She spun around, realizing her back had been turned to the lobby. The light from her flashlight traveled around the lobby, illuminating groups of sofas and chairs, and a reception desk, and a scattered forest of potted plants, all of which were dead. She played her light over large abstract paintings, still bright beneath accumulated dust, hanging on the walls, and across the gorgeously carved wooden pillars standing sentinel throughout the lobby. Nothing moved, but the light flashed off a large map of the building and a directory of the physicians who had their offices here, enclosed in a Plexiglas stand near the reception desk. It might show a way out.
Augusta crossed the lobby warily, listening for any sounds at all. Watching for any movement as dust swirled through the beam of her flashlight, but she seemed to be alone in the lobby with the wilted, dead plants in their pots. She looked down at the stand, and began to read doctors' names before she noticed something glistening on the Plexiglas – a spray of blood, fresh and wet. There didn't appear to be much, only as much as what would result from a bloody cough – there was a runner of thick, dark phlegm as well, she noticed. It too was still wet, though she couldn't work up the courage to touch it and see if it might still be warm.
Someone had been leaning on this directory when they coughed up their blood. Whoever it had been might still be nearby, and might be hurt.
Damn it, she thought, frustrated and wiping her forehead with her wrist. The thing that looked like a woman had Kitty – she couldn't explain how, but she was absolutely certain of it. And she would have to suffer before she could see her again, but she would be goddamned before she simply sat here in the dark, waiting to be released. She was going to get out, no matter how. But if someone nearby was so hurt or so ill to have coughed up their blood onto the directory, she couldn't leave them behind.
She would have to find the person and help them because it was what she had been raised to do, she thought as she turned away. Helping other people was paramount in this world.
And often, in helping other people, you helped yourself as well.
The elevators probably weren't working, but she might as well check them anyway, she thought, but she would have to hurry because to cough up blood was a symptom of something serious. She jogged away from the directory, past the reception desk to a bank of four elevators, where she pressed a button and, as she expected, nothing happened. There didn't seem to be any electricity at all. She sighed, looked for a door to the stairwell, and found it nearby. It was ajar, and she pushed it open, searching for movement. Anything could be hiding here, and could drop down on her at any moment. She looked up, searching with her light, and saw nothing but a dark stairway rising up through the building, so she began to climb.