Nocturnes (2004) Page 12

  Things continued that way for some months. For my part, I neither understood nor trusted the motives of the older boys in taking Smethwick under their wing, but Smethwick himself was too grateful to be suspicious.

  When at last they came for him, I believe that he cried as much out of sorrow as from dread.

  On the night of the ritual, I remember waking as a long line of sixth-formers entered our dormitory, some with candles, but all holding their little velvet boxes in their hands. They moved silently, and none of the other boys appeared to be awake to see them or, if they were, they chose not to reveal the fact. The sixth-formers slapped their hands over Smethwick’s mouth so that he couldn’t scream, while four or five of them lifted him from his bed. I could see Smethwick thrashing in his pajamas, his eyes full of fear and panic. Perhaps I should have cried out, but I knew that it would do no good. Perhaps also I should have left Smethwick to his fate and remained content in my ignorance, but I did not. I was anxious to see what they were going to do to him. It pains me to say it, but I was glad that it was him instead of me.

  I shadowed the group at a distance, following them down corridors and stairs until they came to an oaken door bound with iron bands that stood open in a corner by the staff common room. I can’t say that I remembered ever seeing the door before. Perhaps it had been hidden by a tapestry or a suit of armor, for there were many such relics in the Montague School.

  The door was pulled closed behind the boys, but not locked. I opened it gently and felt cool air on my face. Stone steps wound down in front of me. In the quickly fading light from the candles of the group, I descended until I found myself in a huge, cold room with stone walls and a low, vaulted ceiling. There were more candles here, and more figures waiting. I hid in the shadows behind a stone column and watched.

  On a raised stone platform below me stood the male teaching staff of the school. There was Bierce, the games master, and James, who taught Latin and Greek, and Dickens and Burrage and Poe. Before them all stood Mr. Lovecraft, the headmaster, dressed in a red tartan nightgown and matching slippers.

  “Bring him forward, boys,” said the headmaster. “Gently now, that’s it. Tie him down well, Hyde, we don’t want him running off on us, do we? Oh, do stop whimpering, Smethwick. It’ll soon be over.”

  They tied Smethwick to four iron rings set into the stone slab, binding his arms and his legs tightly with strong rope to each ring. Smethwick was wailing now, but nobody seemed to be paying him much attention and the stone walls simply threw his cries back at him.

  “All right, you older boys,” said the headmaster, beckoning them with his right hand. “Up you come, one at a time. You know what to do.”

  The sixth-formers stood in an orderly line facing the platform. On the floor beside Smethwick I could make out a pattern, perhaps a foot long and six inches wide, marked in a stone that was darker and older than those surrounding it. It looked like fossil remains, except concave, as if whatever fossil had once been entombed there had been expertly removed, leaving only the impression of what it had once been.

  And as I watched, each of the boys stepped forward, opened his little velvet box, and placed his bone in a section of the hollow pattern, filling it bit by bit, until at last the skeletal remains of some kind of animal lay on the floor, although it was like no animal I had ever seen. It seemed to have eight legs, like a spider, but its skeleton was obviously internal, not external. I could see its rib cage and a tiny, pointed skull, and a kind of short, barbed tail that followed a groove in the stone.

  The headmaster smiled as the last bone was positioned, then removed a small, ivory-handled knife from the pocket of his dressing gown. “Hyde, as head prefect, the honor of bleeding Smethwick falls to you.”

  Hyde, a dark-haired, smug looking youth, stepped forward in his brocade gown. He accepted the knife from the headmaster with a small bow, then turned to Smethwick. The cries of the spread-eagled boy rose an octave.

  “Please, let me go,” sobbed Smethwick. “Please, Headmaster. I won’t tell. Please, please, Hyde, don’t hurt me.”

  The headmaster shook his head in exasperation. “For goodness’ sake, Smethwick, stop whining. Be a man about it. It’s no wonder your family never made anything of itself. Hyde’s brother died at the Somme, leading a charge of two hundred men. They all died with him, and were grateful for the chance to go out like soldiers behind their beloved captain. Is that not correct, Hyde?”

  “Yes, Headmaster,” replied Hyde, with the kind of misplaced pride that only the relative of a bloodthirsty lunatic could show.

  “You see, Smethwick? Hyde’s the kind of chap that other men follow to their deaths. Who’d follow a whiner like you, Smethwick? Nobody, that’s who. Who’d vote for you, Smethwick? Not a soul. Would tribes of natives break their ranks and flee in terror from the sight of your sword? No, Smethwick. They’d laugh at you, then cut your head off and stick it on a pole. You are of no value as you are, and you would be of no value in the future. This way, you’ll bring a whole new generation of Montaguans together. That will be your legacy. Hyde, continue, if you please.”

  Hyde leaned over and made a long, deep incision in Smethwick’s left arm. Smethwick immediately cried out in pain. Blood flowed quickly from the wound and dripped onto the skeletal remains of the insect thing below.

  And, as I watched, a red membrane began to form over the creature. I saw veins and arteries appear, and a tiny dark heart began to pump blood. The bones on the beast’s skeletal legs, which had lain curled over what had once been its abdomen, now bonded and began to twitch, testing the air. A yellow substance flowed over its little skull as the spined tail moved on the stone with a thin, raking sound.

  The creature twisted where it lay, then coiled its body in on itself and stretched suddenly, the springing movement ejecting it from its bed and bringing it to rest on the ends of its long jointed legs. It stood about ten inches tall, the semitransparent skin on its back a whitish yellow and sectioned like a caterpillar’s. In the candlelight, six round black eyes of varying sizes gleamed at the front of its skull. It raised its head, and I caught a glimpse of a long mouth, perhaps an inch or two in diameter, flanked at either side by small, thick palps.

  The headmaster took a careful step back, then raised his left hand like a conjurer displaying his latest illusion.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, his voice quavering with pride, “I give you…the school mascot!”

  There was a round of applause from the assembled boys. On the stone slab, Smethwick’s whole body twisted and shook as he tried to wrench his limbs free.

  “No, pleeeaase,” he pleaded. “Let me go! I’m sorry for whatever I’ve done. I’m sorry. What did I do? Tell me! What did I do?”

  The headmaster looked at him with what might almost have been pity.

  “You, Smethwick, were born into the wrong class.”

  Then the creature found at last the source of the blood. Its jaws opened and its mouth expanded and contracted as it swallowed the drops. It tensed its body again, its abdomen lowering until it almost touched the ground, and sprang up onto the slab. I heard Smethwick scream as the thing scuttled across his chest, arched its back, and, with a single scorpion thrust, plunged its tail into Smethwick’s neck. There was a jet of red that was quickly stopped by the creature’s mouth as, slowly, it sucked the life from the boy. I tried to block my ears from the soft, rasping noise that it made, and I felt my gorge rise as its horrid body began to expand, stretching to store the blood of the unfortunate boy dying beneath it.

  At last, the thing was sated. It drew away from Smethwick and staggered slowly onto the slab itself. Smethwick lay still, his eyes open and his face pale. There was a round, bloody hole at his throat. His left hand spasmed once, twice, then was still.

  Gingerly, the headmaster lifted the beast by its sides and raised it high into the air, its legs flailing gently and blood dripping from its jaws.

  “By this ritual of the bones, we are bonded together, all comp
licit, all united in the great family that is our class,” he declared. “Generations of men have learned their most valuable lesson from this little creature. The blood of the lower classes is also our lifeblood: without it, we cannot be great, and, if we cannot be great, our country cannot be great. Now, three cheers for the Montague School.”

  All of the boys shouted “Hip-hip hooray!” as the headmaster lowered the creature and placed it in a small cage, then handed the cage to Mr. Dickens.

  “You know what to do, Dickens,” he said, his voice carrying in the echoing chamber. “In a few days it’ll be skin and bone again, then you can disassemble it and put the pieces back into the boxes.”

  Mr. Dickens held the cage away from his body and stared at its occupant, now drowsy and gorged with blood.

  “It is the damnedest thing, isn’t it, Head?”

  For the first time, what might almost have been disgust showed itself on the headmaster’s face.

  “Indeed it is: the damnedest thing. Hyde, you and two boys take Smethwick here and dispose of him. I suggest a walk along the cliffs, but be sure to weight him down before you drop him off. Now, Mr. Bierce will lead the rest of you boys in a chorus of the school song.”

  But I didn’t wait to hear it. I ran back to my room and packed my bags, and by morning I was gone. My parents were surprised to see me, and wanted to take me back to the school. My father was angrier than my mother, conscious, I think, of the opportunity that I was rejecting, and the future hardships attendant upon this decision. I cried and screamed, even vomiting with distress, until they relented. I think, perhaps, that my mother guessed something was very wrong, although she never said anything about it and I never told her of what I had witnessed. After all, who would have believed me?

  And so a letter was sent to Mr. Lovecraft announcing my withdrawal from Montague. A place was found for me at a local school, one to which every child brought with him his own sandwiches and milk, and in which lice were rumored to be a constant irritant. I was surrounded by those who were like me, and I quickly found my place among them.

  One week after leaving the Montague School, the headmaster came to the house for a visit and a talk. My father was at work. My mother gave him tea and scones, but politely declined to return me to his care.

  “We’ll be sorry to lose him, Mrs. Jenkins,” he said, as he shrugged on his long blue overcoat. “He could have made a wonderful contribution to the school. New boys are our lifeblood, you know? Will you permit your son to walk me to the gate? I should like to say farewell to him.”

  My mother gave me a push in the small of the back, and I was compelled to follow the dark form of Mr. Lovecraft to the garden gate. He paused on the footpath and looked closely at me.

  “As I told your mother, Jenkins, we’re sorry to lose you.”

  He gripped my shoulder, and, once again, I could feel those fingers working at my flesh.

  “But mark my words, Jenkins: in the end, you can’t escape your destiny. One way or another, we’ll have you.”

  He leaned in close to me, so near that I could see tributaries of blood in his eyes.

  “Because, Jenkins, like all the members of your sturdy, loyal class, you’re full of the stuff that makes Britain great.”

  The Furnace Room

  The Thibault company once made locomotives and carriages for the railroads, famous names that ran on lines all across the Northeast: green cars for Wicasset and Quebec; green and red for Sandy River; yellow and green for Bridgton and Saco. Then the railroads closed down—first the narrow gauge in the forties, then the standard gauge in the fifties—and the trains from Boston no longer made the journey north. Union Station, once the hub of the rail network in that part of the world, had disappeared from the map, to be replaced by an ugly shopping mall. The only reminder of the great trains that had once proudly left the yards were some disused tracks, their sleepers now rotted and overrun by dark weeds. The Thibault company closed its doors, and its buildings fell into disrepair. Windows were shattered, and holes were punched in roofs. Weeds sprouted in the yard, bursting through cracks in the concrete, while the gutters filled with filth and rainwater streaked the walls. Occasionally, there was talk of knocking the whole place down and building something new and impressive there instead, but the city was in decline and no investor could be found who was willing to pump money into the economic equivalent of an open grave. After all, there were malls being constructed on the outskirts of the city, and businesses were abandoning the center of town in favor of covered streets bathed in artificial light, so that elderly walkers could pretend to fend off mortality without being troubled by either the elements or fresh air.

  Then, a decade or so ago, the city stopped dying. Someone with an ounce of intelligence and imagination noticed that the port, with its beautiful old buildings and its cobbled streets leading down to the working harbor, was pretty enough to warrant its preservation. True, not every business had closed up shop and headed for the suburbs. There were old bars, and a couple of general stores, even a diner or two. They soon found themselves side by side with chichi souvenir stores and microbreweries, and pizzerias that offered more than one kind of cheese. There was some whining, of course, and claims that the character of the port had been sacrificed for the tourist dollar, but, truth be told, the old character hadn’t been much to write home about to begin with. That kind of nostalgia tends to come from folks who never had to scrape together nickels and dimes to pay the rent on a bar, or who never opened their store and sat there, all the long day, just for a couple of sales and a side order of chitchat.

  Soon there were visitors on the streets for more than half of every year, and the old port became a curious mix of working fishermen and gawping tourists, of those who remembered the bad times and those for whom there were only good times to come. The developments began to expand beyond the natural boundaries of the old port, and it was decided to reopen the Thibault company yard as a business park. The old redbrick buildings were converted into specialized engineering works, and boatmakers’ sheds, and a locomotive museum. A narrow-gauge railway ran up and down the waterfront from early summer until Christmas, when the last of the tourists departed after seeing the city’s festive lights. The place wasn’t exactly bustling, since the kind of work it attracted was the low-key sort, done indoors and under cover. It was pretty quiet during the day, but even quieter at night, except for the wind that howled across the bay, bringing with it the sound of breaking waves and passing ships, their horns calling through the darkness, a sound that was either reassuring or lonesome depending upon your frame of mind when you heard it.

  I don’t recall much of how I came to the city. It was a bad time in my life. I didn’t care about where I was or where I was going. I’d done some things that I regretted. I guess most people do, somewhere along the line. It’s hard to live any kind of life without building up a store of regrets. The important thing for me was just to keep moving. I thought that if I kept shifting from place to place, then I could leave my past behind me. By the time I realized that I was bringing my past right along with me, it was too late to do anything about it.

  There wasn’t much work on offer when I arrived. The season was almost over, and the casual workers in the restaurants and the bars had already departed for Florida and California, or for the winter resorts in New Hampshire and Vermont. I found a cheap room in a run-down house, and spent my nights looking for two-for-one specials in bars desperate for custom, asking anyone who sat still long enough if they knew of somewhere I might pick up a job. But the people who frequented those kinds of places either didn’t much care for work or would take the job themselves if they heard about it first, so I didn’t have a lot of luck. After a week, I was getting pretty desperate.

  I don’t think I would even have found out about the job had I not been walking along the waterfront, smoking a cigarette and wondering if I hadn’t made a mistake by coming this far north, but there it was: a hand-lettered sign covered in plastic
to shield it from the rain:

  NIGHT WATCHMAN WANTED. APPLY WITHIN.

  With nothing else to do, and no other hope for employment on the horizon, I went inside to inquire in the main office about the job. A guy who was sweeping the floors asked my name, then told me to come back the next morning, when the man in charge would be available to talk to me. I was told to bring along a résumé. I thanked him, but he kept his back to me the whole time. I never even saw his face.

  The next morning, I sat in the offices of the Thibault company’s administration department and listened as a man in an expensive gray suit explained my duties to me. His name was Mr. Rone, but he told me that most folk just called him Charles. He said he used to be in the marine business, and still liked to keep his hand in. Transport, he explained: animals, sometimes, and people. Mostly people.

  The night watchman’s job would require me to patrol the complex, making sure that the vacant premises did not become homes for hobos and junkies, for there were still buildings unoccupied or under development. I was not being paid to sit in a chair and read the sports pages, or snooze. There were no electronic clocks, nothing to monitor my activity, or lack of activity, but, if anything went wrong, then it was my ass that would be in a sling, yessir.

  “Any questions?” said Charles.

  I was confused.

  “You mean I have the job, just like that?”