He did see the victor toss his shoe into the air however, with a final shout of “Fucker!”
The shoe.
Steve couldn’t take his eyes off the shoe. It rose in the air, turning as it rose, then plummeted to the bare boards like a shot bird. Steve saw it clearly, more clearly than he’d seen anything in many days.
It landed not far from him.
It landed with a loud thud.
It landed on its side. As his shoe had landed. His shoe. The one he kicked off. On the grid. In the room. In the house. On Pilgrim Street.
Quaid woke with the same dream. Always the stairway. Always him looking down the tunnel of the stairs, while that ridiculous sight, half-joke, half-horror, tip-toed up towards him, a laugh on every step.
He’d never dreamt twice in one night before. He swung his hand out over the edge of the bed and fumbled for the bottle he kept there. In the dark he swigged from it, deeply.
Steve walked past the knot of angry men, not caring about their shouts or the old man’s groans and curses. The warders were having a hard time dealing with the disturbance. It was the last time Old Man Crowley would be let in: he always invited violence. This had all the marks of a near-riot; it would take hours to settle them down again.
Nobody questioned Steve as he wandered down the corridor, through the gate, and into the vestibule of the Night Hostel. The swing doors were closed, but the night air, bitter before dawn, smelt refreshing as it seeped in.
The pokey reception office was empty, and through the door Steve could see the fire-extinguisher hanging on the wall. It was red and bright: Beside it was a long black hose, curled up on a red drum like a sleeping snake. Beside that, sitting in two brackets on the wall, was an axe.
A very pretty axe.
Stephen walked into the office. A little distance away he heard running feet, shouts, a whistle. But nobody came to interrupt Steve, as he made friends with the axe.
First he smiled at it.
The curve of the blade of the axe smiled back.
Then he touched it.
The axe seemed to like being touched. It was dusty, and hadn’t been used in a long while. Too long. It wanted to be picked up, and stroked, and smiled at. Steve took it out of its brackets very gently, and slid it under his jacket to keep warm. Then he walked back out of the reception office, through the swing-doors and out to find his other shoe.
Quaid woke again.
It took Steve a very short time to orient himself. There was a spring in his step as he began to make his way to Pilgrim Street. He felt like a clown, dressed in so many bright colours, in such floppy trousers, such silly boots. He was a comical fellow, wasn’t he? He made himself laugh, he was so comical.
The wind began to get into him, whipping him up into a frenzy as it scooted through his hair and made his eye-balls as cold as two lumps of ice in his sockets.
He began to run, skip, dance, cavort through the streets, white under the lights, dark in between. Now you see me, now you don’t. Now you see me, now you —Quaid hadn’t been woken by the dream this time. This time he had heard a noise. Definitely a noise.
The moon had risen high enough to throw its beams through the window, through the door and on to the top of the stairs. There was no need to put on the light. All he needed to see, he could see. The top of the stairs were empty, as ever.
Then the bottom stair creaked, a tiny noise as though a breath had landed on it.
Quaid knew dread then.
Another creak, as it came up the stairs towards him, the ridiculous dream. It had to be a dream. After all, he knew no clowns, no axe-killers. So how could that absurd image, the same image that woke him night after night, be anything but a dream?