Night Film(62)

There was a grating screech as he accidentally tripped on something—a metal folding chair—then, fumbling with a lamp, the room was suddenly drenched in pale light.

It was small and stark, with a faded brown rug, a window with a torn shade, a sagging metal cot in a corner. Something about the way the sheets were thrown back, a green blanket dangling on the floor—a discernible dent in the pillow—seemed to suggest Ashley had just climbed out of it, moments ago. In fact, the entire shabby room hinted she’d just been here, the musty air still filled with her breathing.

The rank stench, a combination of sewage and burning, seemed to seep out of the walls. A brown stain covered the ceiling by the window, as if something had been slaughtered on the roof, then left to slowly bleed down into the rafters. The floor, strewn with a few plastic wrappers, was sticky from some type of dark soda that had spilled.

“Didn’t Devold say Ashley was wearing white pajamas when he broke her out of Briarwood?” Hopper asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“They’re right here.”

Sure enough—a pair of white cotton drawstring pants and a top had been tossed in a heap on the sheets.

Hopper seemed reluctant to touch them. I picked up the pants, noting with surprise not just that A. Cordova MH-314—her room number at Briarwood—had been printed along the inner waistband, but the legs still held her form. So did the top; cut in the boxy shape of surgical scrubs, the left sleeve still twisted around her elbow.

I put them back on the bed, stepping toward a small closet. There was nothing in there—just four wire hangers on a wooden rod.

“Something’s under here,” Hopper said. He was looking under the bed.

We grabbed the cot, carrying it to the center of the room, and then all three of us stared, bewildered, at what had just been exposed.

None of us said a word.





36


My first thought was that it was some type of target. And if I ever found such a thing under my own bed, I probably couldn’t help but wonder if the Grim Reaper had put it there, a reminder that I was due to be picked up in a matter of days—or I had enemies who wanted to scare the living daylights out of me.

Four concentric circles made out of black ashes had been meticulously laid out on the floor. At the center—almost directly beneath where Ashley’s torso or heart would be, I noticed, if she were lying flat on the bed—was a pyramid of charcoal. It stood about six inches, the rocks white and crumbling, the concrete beneath it charred black.

“What is it?” Nora whispered.

“The ashes are what smells,” said Hopper, crouching beside it.

After taking photos, Nora found a sandwich bag in her purse, and, turning it inside out, we collected a sample of the powder. It looked like finely chopped leaves, dirt, and bone. I sealed the bag and tucked it into my coat pocket.

“Holy shit,” Hopper whispered behind us. “Check this out.”

He was by the door, staring at something lodged above it—a cluster of sticks. They’d been carefully positioned deep in the corner, as if to deliberately escape notice.

Hopper pulled them down, holding them in the light from the hallway. They looked like roots—some thick, others thin, others tightly coiled in spirals, though they all looked to be from the same plant. Each one had been knotted neatly with white string and tied to another.

“Looks like some kind of occult practice,” I said, carefully taking the bunch from Hopper. I’d come across some bizarre religious customs over the years—baby-tossing in India; Jain monks who walked around naked, wearing the air; tribal boys forced to wear gloves filled with bullet ants, a ritual to enter adulthood. This seemed to be something along those lines.

“Why would it be over the doorway?” asked Nora.

I looked at Hopper. “You remember Ashley being involved in any unusual practices or beliefs?”

“No.”

“Let’s do another walk-through. See if there’s anything we missed. Then let’s get the hell out of here.”

Nora and Hopper nodded, glancing warily around the room. I was about to head over to the bedside table, when out of the corner of my eye I saw something green streaking past the doorway followed by staccato slapping. Flip-flops.

I stuck my head out. The landlord was scampering down the hall. The old crone had been spying.

“Wait a minute!” I shouted, stepping after her.

“I don’t know nothing,” she growled.

“You must have noticed that smell coming out of her room.”

She stopped dead at the end of the hallway, turning, her skin glistening with sweat.

“I don’t know what that girl did with herself.”

“Have any of the residents said anything?”

She didn’t respond. She had an off-putting, lizardlike way of moving, remaining stone still—as if knowing she’d be camouflaged by the grim light and cracked walls around her—then hastily scuttling away. Now she was absolutely immobile, staring at me with her head cocked.

“She scared people.” She grinned. “Don’t know how, ’cuz she’s a skinny thing. And some a’ the numbers who take my rooms, they’re usually the ones who do the scaring. But I don’t make it my business. People can do what they want, long as they pay me.”