Shockadelica by Jon O'Bergh

Author:Jon O'Bergh [O'Bergh, Jon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BookBaby

Signal to Noise

Jenna

Jenna listened as Kendall replayed his encounter with Marvin from the previous night, and how Vince had used a credit card to open one of the supply rooms.

“What was he looking for?” she asked.

“I have no idea. Then he walked slowly down the corridor to the back door, but I couldn’t see what he was doing. I told you there was something odd about him. Anyway, now we have a way into the boiler room.” He pulled out his library card and waved it in the air.

“This actually works?”

“Yes,” he said as they went down to the basement. “Another reason to make sure you always keep your deadbolt locked. Even when you’re home.”

He looked around to make sure they were alone, then slipped the library card into the crevice of the boiler room door. Jenna watched him slide the card down until it made contact with the latch bolt. He wiggled the card. The technique did not work as easily as he had recounted, and he had to try several times until the door clicked open.

A massive red capsule perched on supports at the rear of the room, its color dulled with age and mottled by dirt and patches of rust. It sat silent for now, a hibernating dragon. Gauges, pipes, hoses and cast-iron hand wheels adorned the capsule, giving it the look of something in a mad scientist’s laboratory. Its ancient appearance did not surprise Jenna. She suspected that Turnbull kept it operating with duct tape and glue. But what surprised her were the images sketched and painted on the cinderblock wall beside the boiler: heads of goats with great, curling black horns. Some of the heads sat atop male bodies to create a human-animal hybrid. Others were disembodied. One portrayed a complete goat, recumbent with its hooves drawn up beneath the body.

“It’s the creature from the Necropolis,” she whispered.

Kendall took out his phone and snapped several photos. “An unusual place for an art gallery.”

Jenna examined the images up close. Some had been sketched in charcoal and looked rather faded, suggesting that they had been drawn decades ago. Others had been painted with delicate black brushstrokes, but the room’s rigorous climate had started to take a toll on those images as well. All seemed to have been made by the same hand, clearly that of a skillful artist. She imagined the red boiler during winter, rumbling away, spitting out heat into the narrow room. A version of hell.

“How’d you get in here?”

The voice made Jenna jump. She whirled around to see Vince standing at the threshold. “Oh, the door was unlocked and we were just curious.” She walked over to the boiler, trying to mask her guilt. “So this is where we get our heat from. I’ve always wondered what one of these things looked like. Very steampunk.”

Kendall pointed to the goat images. “We never expected to find something like that in here. I wonder who made them.”

“They have a real artistic flair,” said Jenna, hoping a barrage of talk would distract Vince from their trespassing.

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