been the subjects of one of those experiments, though I couldn’t imagine
how they had wound up here, like this.
The mystery of the ve ve rats was only one more of Fort Wyvern’s
virtually infinite supply of enigmas, and it had nothing to do with the
more urgent mystery of Jimmy Wing’s disappearance. At least I hoped it
didn’t. God forbid that I should open another door, farther along the
hall, and discover the ritualistically arranged skeletons of
five-year-old boys.
I stepped backward, out of the rodents’ equivalent of the legendary
elephants’ graveyard, easing the door shut with a click so
preternaturally soft that it could have been heard only by a cat on
methamphetamines.
A quick arc of the flashlight, hotter than ever in my hand, revealed
that the corridor was still deserted.
I moved to the next door. Stainless steel. Unmarked. Lever handle.
Identical to the previous one.
Beyond was a room the size of the first, sans rat skeletons. The tile
floor and painted walls gleamed as if they had been spit-polished.
I was relieved by the sight of the bare floor.
As I backed out of the second room and silently eased the door shut, the
troll voice rose once more, nearer than before but still too muffled to
be understood. The corridor remained deserted both ahead and behind me.
For a moment the voice grew louder and seemed to draw closer, as though
the speaker was approaching a door, about to step into the hallway.
I thumbed off the flashlight.
The claustrophobic darkness closed around me again, as soft as Death’s
hooded robe and with pockets almost as deep.
The voice continued grumbling for several seconds but then abruptly broke
off, seemingly in mid-sentence.
I didn’t hear a door open or any sound to indicate that the kidnapper
had entered the hallway. Besides, light would betray him when at last he
came. I was still the sole presence he rebut instinct warned me that I
would soon have company.
I was close to the wall, facing away from the direction I’d come, toward
unexplored realms.
The extinguished flashlight was now cool in my hand, but the pistol felt
hot.
The longer the quiet lasted, the more it seemed bottomless. Soon it was
an abyss into which I imagined myself drifting down, down, like a
deep-sea diver festooned with lead weights.
I listened so hard that I was half convinced I could feel the fine hairs
vibrating in my ear canals. Yet I could hear only one sound, and it was
strictly internal, the thick, liquid thud of my own heartbeat, faster
than normal but not racing.
As time passed without a noise or a sudden wedge of light from an
opening door farther along the corridor, the likelihood grew that in
spite of what instinct told me, the troll voice had been receding rather
than approaching. If the kidnapper and the boy were on the move and
heading away from me, I might lose their trail if I didn’t stay close
behind them.
I was about to switch on the flashlight again, when a shiver of
superstitious dread passed through me. If I had been in a cemetery, I
would have seen a ghost skating on the moon-iced grass between
tombstones. If I had been in the Northwest woods, I would have seen Big
Foot shagging among the trees. If I had been in front of any garage
door, I would have seen the face of Jesus or the Holy Virgin in a
weather stain, warning of the Apocalypse. I was in the bowels of Wyvern,
however, and unable to see any damn thing at all, so I could only feel,
and what I felt was a presence, an aura, like a pressure, hovering,
looming, what a medium or a psychic would call an entity, a spiritual
force that could not be denied, chilling my blood and marrow.
I was in face-to-face confrontation with it. My nose was only inches
from its nose, assuming it had a nose. I couldn’t smell its breath,
which was a good thing, as its breath must smell like rotting meat,
burning sulfur, and swine manure.
Obviously, my nuclear imagination was nearing meltdown.