- Michel called her name as he went through the mass masoleum, desperate to break up the eerie feeling the Columbarium had on him, hoping for a reply that did not come. Periodically, as he checked out a branch that led off the main corridor, he would peer out the window at the end, searching for, hoping for some sign of her. But the cemetery outside was still. Still as death, he thought. And then he forced himself to return to the corridor and continue inside this oppressive, spooky environment. In here, where there was no air not laced with embalming fluid, where the cold weighed him down to the floor, where the lighting caused everything to seem artificial and created unusual shadow patterns; it felt as if the dead were about to come alive, like in so many horror movies he'd seen. You'd turn around, and there would be one, mindless, less than human, sitting in the open drawer, staring at you with one thought in mind, one all- consuming passion. And behind that one, there would be another, and another... Wow! he thought. This is how mortals see us. Maybe it was his mortal side that brought out such strange thoughts. This would be a great place for a Halloween party, it occurred to him, and that bit of lightness lifted his spirits.
- But then, almost instantly, he broke into a cold, clammy sweat that clung to the shirt on his back, and his pants at the back of his knees. "Now you're scaring yourself!" he muttered, faking it, as if his own voice would sound like the reassuring voice of another. As if he could convince himself that he was not as alone as he knew himself to be. Not as afraid.
- Each step he took down the corridor seemed endless. And disappointing. He knew his aunt was not here, but he had to walk to the circle at the end of the claustrophobia-inducing space anyway. Passing the dozens of drawers that lined the walls containing moldering bodies. Inhaling that god-awful odor. He glanced back over his shoulder despite telling himself how ridiculous that was.
- And the branches! He half expected to come face to face with some Romero zombie, flesh rotting away, vacant gaze... And as he came to each branch he steeled himself then called up more steel in his backbone. He had to go down each branch, because especially at the far end, by the wall, there were those stupid indentations, body-sized pockets, where anyone could hide...
- He moved back to the middle of the main corridor and continued along it, trying not to feel intimidated by the high ceilings of drawers of dead. But the walls towered over him, and made the space narrower than he knew it to be. Who had this weird idea, he wondered, of cramming the resting dead in drawers! Like the coroners' storage drawers he'd seen in so many movies and on tv shows, except these were not stainless steel but marble, and somehow that made them less antiseptic and more disturbing.
- The carpet absorbed his boot sounds so his movements became soundless. This corridor with its branches with more marble drawers in the branches seemed endless. Nothing enroute to the circle that led to the other corridor that led to the entrance that led to the outside except the odd loveseat with angels and cherubs in the pattern of the fabric. It all made him feel suffocated. And this is so dumb! he reminded himself. Chloe is not here. You can't sense her. Which meant she had already gone and must be waiting outside for him. He knew it was the human part of him that made him call her name repeatedly. And loudly. Sensing would be enough. If there's something to sense, he reminded himself. All he could sense in here was that the walls were closing in on him, and the smell of embalming fluid made him almost dizzy. But he needed some reassurance, despite not wanting to need that, and the sound of her name on his lips helped.
- The Columbarium wasn't that big, and it was taking him a long time to get through, but everything felt so unreal to him, in this vault with hundreds of dead buried in one stifling space.
- Finally, he reached the connecting circle that led to the entrance corridor. He stopped to look at the small glass doors here, behind which were urns and boxes holding ashes. More pictures and names. What a hideous way to go out, he thought. Incinerated, and then stored in a tiny cupboard for ninety-nine years, or in perpetuum, depending on how much money your relatives wanted to spend.
- A sound caught him off guard and he gasped. Above, the bat, frightened, squeaking, flying toward the skylight, back and forth, back and forth. Michel judged that even if he could balance himself on the circular railing, he probably couldn't reach the poor creature. Still, it's desperate struggle touched him, and he figured he had to try.
- Getting up onto the railing was not difficult, and even if he fell, it was only one floor, and there was carpet below. Of course, there was also that hideous metallic sculpture of people floating up into space that went from the lower level to almost the skylight. He guessed it must have to do with souls floating up to heaven or something. If he got a few cuts and bruises, he would heal.
- Once he had climbed up onto the railing, it was easy enough to balance himself on the flat metal surface. As long as he didn't move. The bat, of course, flitted back and forth, near the top of the skylight, which he could not nearly reach. Occasionally, it flew down a bit, within his grasp, and he knew if he waited long enough and stayed still, it would fly within snatching distance. It seemed to fly east and west, and he wondered if that was some kind of magnetic field, or ley lines or something--he'd have to ask Chloe. She knew things like that.
- If he moved around the railing a bit, and took off his shirt, he would be in the best position to trap the bat. He could probably even use the shirt to knock it lower, then catch it in the fabric, and get it out of here. And himself too. There was no place on earth he'd prefer to not be than in the Columbarium. But he couldn't leave this poor creature, anymore than he could leave himself in such a horrible atmosphere. David would have said it was symbolic. Whatever.
- He pulled his t-shirt over his head, then began inching slowly around the railing. The bat squeaked loudly, unnerved by his presence, and became more frantic. "Calme-toi, mon petit oiseau de nuit," he told the creature of the night. He waited, watching it flutter, and swiped at it once or twice, but the bat was more to his left. Alright, he thought, I can move over. He slid his feet slowly along the railing, thinking ahead to how he would catch the bat, take both of them to the entrance, release the night flyer into the night sky, then go home. Something about that completion felt ominous. He would not find her. He would leave feeling far from relieved. He teetered, and struggled for balance.
- Once he'd regained it, he looked up and swung the shirt at the bat again. The bat eluded it. Suddenly, it perched on the railing directly across from him. The small bat, so rodent-like, sat perfectly still. Then it turned its head and stared at him with one beady eye.
- Dread crept over Michel. Dread he tried to shake off. Why did it seem as if reaching the entrance would be somehow not a completion but the start of something? He couldn't ignore the feeling as he stepped a bit more to his left, so that he was now front-first with the entrance corridor.
- At that moment, the bat flew up into the air again, just overhead, flapping at the glass above him, soaring back and forth, making him dizzy. Michel figured he could swing the shirt up and knock the bat down and catch it, and as he thought this, something caught his eye.
- In the split second before he fell, Michel screamed.
- Then instinct took over, and he clutched at the sculpture as he catapulted. It was only quick reaction that helped him break the fall and land on his feet, with just a sliced inner forearm, and no more damage.
- But he was not worried about the wounds to his body. Quickly, he found the stairs, raced back up, and around the circle and down the corridor to the entrance...and stopped dead.
- What lay ahead he could not comprehend. His mind shut down completely. His body locked. Time freeze-dried. And then in a split second reality blew against him like a wave of freezing wind. Glacial sweat broke over his body.
Not far from the entrance lay...what? All he could fully acknowledge was the blood. Lots of it. Staining the walls and the carpet crimson. The smell of embalming fluid washed over him making him retch, and nearly knocking him off his feet. He had an urge to turn and run, but that would mean returning through two corridors of hovering dead, just waiting to abandon their concrete tombs and attack him, the living. That's crazy, he told himself. I'm the walking dead, the one everybody on the planet fears... But these thoughts, he knew, were only distractions to keep him from recording the nature of the horror that lay before him.
- Out of the mass of confusion and terror he felt, his mind finally did record some things--an amulet; a swatch of snowy hair; an eye, so blue, so familiar...
- And finally his body burst into movement, racing for the entrance, leaping over...over...he could not think about it, even as he cried out, "No! No!" raising his hands to ward off whatever evil would touch him. What he saw could not be, and yet he recognized the hand, the clothing,...everything.
- As the door of the entrance crashed open, he glanced behind him, around him. What kind of mad creature had done this? Had the dead come to life? He must be in danger.
- He could not think rationally, could only feel, and his instincts for safety overcame all but his terror, which it aligned with. Outside, senses fine-tuned, ready to pick up anything and everything that might warn him of danger, he bolted.
- Dawn. The sun blazed above the horizon. Birds chirped. Small animals foraged for food. He could sense nothing in the cool dawn, nothing human or superhuman. Nothing to account for his terror. Nothing but what he had seen back there...who he had seen...
To be continued...
|
