In Such Dark Places by Joseph Caldwell

Author:Joseph Caldwell [Caldwell, Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4804-4401-0
Publisher: Open Road Media

9

THE BUILDING DAVID TOOK Eugene to had smoke stains on the outside that rose from the second- and third-floor windows like hair standing on end in fright. The entire tenement looked as though it had been burned out. The windows and the front entrance had been sealed with sheets of tin, and to get inside, David led Eugene into the building next door, up to the roof, across to the fire escape, and in through a bathroom window where the tin had been loosened and could be bent back.

The window itself was broken, frame and all. The solid windowless wall of a warehouse about ten feet from the back of the building protected them from curious neighbors. The toilet in the bathroom where they entered was running, gurgling like a brook.

“Don’t worry about the stairs being safe,” David whispered. “The fire didn’t come up this side. Just the smoke and the water from the hoses. Where we’re going is down on the next floor.”

The windows in the hallway let onto an air shaft, and through their grime all outside light was transmuted into shadow. Since the electricity had been turned off, Eugene and David moved slowly down the stairs in near darkness. The after-smell of smoke was cleansing and cool.

“Is it still bleeding?” asked Eugene.

“I can’t tell. My tie stopped it, I think.”

At the bottom of the one night of stairs David said, “This here is it. I know where the candles are.” He stepped through an opening where the door had been splintered and wrenched off its hinges. “The firemen did that,” explained David. “Wait here till I light candles so you can see.”

Waiting in the hall, Eugene listened for other sounds. He heard nothing except the distant gurgling of the upstairs toilet and the street noises, echoing far off like sounds coming at dusk from the other side of a lake.

A match was struck. A glow filled the center of the room, stretched itself, then reached into the corners as David lit a second, then a third candle. “There are windows on the air shaft,” David said, “but I want you to see what it’s really like. Come on in.”

Eugene stepped into the room. The walls, from ceiling to floor, were streaked with stains of water and smoke, gray and amber runnels, as though some gigantic weeping had happened here. Above a mantel directly opposite the door, a sooted mirror reflected Eugene standing there, webbed in shadows, half hidden by smoke. Under the tin-sealed windows that probably faced the street, a plush couch, bedraggled and matted, stood dumbly like an enormous cow that had been rescued too late from the pond. Near it, like a sodden calf, was a matching chair, and next to it a round table whose warped veneer top reminded him of the crinkly serrations of Helen’s hair.

All other furniture, salvageable perhaps, had been removed, making what remained look that much more abandoned and forlorn. A scuffed suitcase in front of the couch suggested a coffee table and it was there that one of the candles burned.

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