The Fall of Never(59)

Carlos Mendes walked down the hallway toward the sliding subway doors. Each closed door on either side of him also had words written on them, only in blood. OPEN 24 HOURS, said one. BUSES 5, 7, 9 TO UPTOWN, read a second. ABORTIONS HERE, exclaimed a third, OUR DRS WORK 4 U! As he walked, he could hear each door that he passed rattle and slowly creak open, could hear muffled footsteps pooling out onto the hallway carpet behind him. He didn’t turn to look, suddenly too afraid. There was a stink in the air, some offensive concoction—the warm, thick stink of fresh blood and hot urine and methane.

Ahead of him, the subway doors at the end of the hall slid open, splitting the obscene Peter Pan in half. A dull red luminescence pulsated from within. Something moved in the midst of that red light—something serpentine and stimulated, snake-like—and he nearly recoiled at the first glimpse of it.

A cluster of small hands at his back urged him forward.

To his left and right, more doors creaked open. Now they were opening faster than he was walking, and he was able to catch glimpses of them slowly opening from the corners of his eyes. There appeared to be children on the other sides of those doors—countless small children, still mostly cloaked in shadow, all curiously stepping out into the darkened hallway.

The tip of the snake-like entity within the red light inched just a bit outside the gaping subway doors. It was a tentacle, he saw, or some vein-riddled proboscis the thickness of a grown man’s wrist. He felt a scream creep up from his throat, threaten his lips…but he could make no sound.

More small children joined the gathering in the hallway. He felt added sets of tiny hands at the small of his back, his buttocks, even the backs of his legs. Pushing.

The tentacle bent and touched the hallway carpeting. It was dripping a reddish fluid too viscid to be blood. Like an enormous lethargic snake, the tentacle eased from left to right, left to right, probing its new surroundings and leaving a gelatinous webbing on the carpet. After a moment’s hesitation, the tentacle appeared to come to a decision—it began twisting toward him, the width of its body growing greater and greater as more of it withdrew from behind the subway doors.

It wasn’t a tentacle at all, he suddenly realized, feeling that quaking scream brewing up inside him again.

It was an umbilical cord.



Again the following day, he found himself standing outside Nellie Worthridge’s apartment complex. But this time he stood in the rain and knew he was more conspicuous. Knew too that he was one step closer to the edge of his mind than he had been yesterday. A young woman and her small child nearly ran into him while hurrying along the street just as the rain started. The woman shot him a what-are-you-doing-here? glance, which he turned away from, embarrassed.

I must look like a psychopath, he thought. Not for the first time, he wondered if he was going crazy, genuinely crazy. Was it possible Nellie hadn’t said anything at all? Even now, the tape of Nellie’s words—his only proof—had been mysteriously erased…

Or had those words even been there at all?

No, I’m not going crazy, not losing my mind. I know what I heard.

Again, he looked up at the apartment complex. In his head, he could clearly recall the telephone conversation he had had with the woman Nellie claimed she played bridge with on Wednesday nights. None of them had ever even heard of the old woman.

I didn’t dream that part up, did I? I didn’t just dream up a bunch of names that actually live in the city, one of whom lives in the building next door to the old woman, did I? No—that’s impossible.

A taxi sped by, dousing him in freezing rainwater.




At dinner, Marie was visibly distraught by her husband’s behavior, although she kept her disapproval to herself.

“You’re not eating,” his mother said from her own seat at the table. “You’re not hungry?”

“I had a late lunch, Mamma.”

“At the movies,” Marie said. There was unmistakable disapproval in her voice.

“I think it’s all this time off,” he said. “I think I get restless and don’t know what to do with myself.”

“Now with this work again,” his mother said, bringing up one hand. “This stress is why you cry out in your sleep last night?”

“What?” He looked from his mother to his wife. Marie only offered the most minimal of glances before turning her eyes toward her mashed potatoes. “I cried out in my sleep last night?” He forced a grin, desperate to make light of the situation. “Did Marie tell you that, Mamma?”

“I heard nothing,” Marie said flatly.

“I don’t need Marie to tell me,” his mother said, “I heard it with my own ears. You woke a poor woman up in the middle of the night! This is what your stress does to your tired old mama. Your Marie is just careful of your feelings, Carlito. You nearly woke the whole city.”

“I cried out in my sleep?” he asked his wife.

Marie only looked at him. “Eat your greens,” she said.




Later that night, with the rain already turned to sleet and whipping against the eaves, Mendes found himself in the kitchen with the telephone in one hand and Marie’s phone book opened to Bruce Chalmers’s home number in the other. After some consideration, he dialed.

“Hello?”

“Bruce,” he breathed, “it’s Carlos Mendes. I’m sorry to call you so late—”