Nocturnal: A Novel

Aggie saw smears of blood on the white floor — the path of the boy with no tongue. Hillary pushed Aggie on. They walked past a white-robed man wearing a Richard Nixon mask: the long nose, squinty eyes and wide grin. The man stood behind a scratched yellow mop bucket that stank of bleach. He swabbed a wet mop across the trail of blood.

“Wait,” Aggie said. “Can I ask a question?”

“Maybe,” Hillary said.

Aggie didn’t know what that meant, but she hadn’t said no. “What’s with the masks? You don’t wear one.”

Hillary let out a huff of disgust. “Because I am la reine prochaine. The ouvriers wear the masks in tribute to the guerriers who risk their lives to bring us food. You understand?”

Aggie didn’t. Was she speaking Italian?

His confusion must have shone on his face. Hillary shook her head, then reached out and pulled off the Nixon mask. As it slid free from under the white hood, Aggie held his breath, expecting to see something horrible — but it was just a man. A light-skinned black man. He stood there, mop still in hand, half-lidded eyes staring out. His mouth hung open. The tip of his tongue was touching the inside of his lower lip.

“Hey,” Aggie said, “is he retarded?”

“He is an ouvrier. He does the work that needs to be done. Now you stop talking and walk, or we will miss it.”

Hillary pushed Aggie in front of her. Each shove was just hard enough to keep him going, but he felt strength every time her hands connected with his body. They moved quickly. He got the feeling she didn’t want to be seen.

The narrow hall curved and twisted. Soon the white gave way to browns and blacks and grays, the colors of deep earth. Other tunnels branched off. There was no pattern to the branches, no regularity, just a seemingly endless choice of dark options. Stone and brick walkways changed to dirt floors. The hallway widened at one point. When it did, Hillary pushed Aggie into a side tunnel. He walked in, eager to please, but she grabbed him, turned him and held him so close that they were almost kissing.

“What you see now, no one sees,” she said. “You be very quiet, go where I tell you. You make one noise, they will tear you to pieces. Understand?”

Aggie nodded.

She pushed him through a hall so cramped he had to turn sideways to fit. Dirt and stone ground up against his face and chest. The walls here looked like an archaeological dig: dirt and stone, sure, but also blackened wooden boards, rotted timbers, worn bits of broken glass bottles, ceramic shards and rusty metal from old tools, gas cans and pipes. This was a tunnel dug by laymen’s hands, carved through old landfill. The junk hallway led up at an angle steep enough to make him winded after only twenty steps.

As he climbed, a heavy scent started to fill the air. It wasn’t a perfume, it was thicker, more … animal. He stopped to breathe it deep into his nose. Whatever it was, he couldn’t get enough of it.

Hillary pushed him. “Hurry. You must see this.”

He kept climbing. Of all things, his dick twitched. He couldn’t possibly be horny at a time like this, could he?

The floor leveled out. Aggie found himself in a tiny room with a ceiling so low that he had to crawl in on his hands and knees. The floor was a random collection of metal grates and old jail-cell bars set into the ground — he could look through them into the dark void below.

Hillary leaned in close to his ear. “We made it in time.”

He whispered back: “Made it for what?”

“To see what will happen to you if you don’t do what I say.”

A tiny light appeared below — a single candle, carried by a white-robed man. This one wore the mask of a twisted, smiling demon. Aggie saw the floor was perhaps ten feet below the grates. He was close enough that if he reached through the bars and stretched, he might be able to touch the top of the masked man’s hood.

Another white-robed masked man entered, also carrying a candle. Then another. And another.

The candles began to chase away the darkness, revealing a rectangular room maybe twenty feet long by fifteen feet across. At one end of the room, the feeble light illuminated a patchwork tarp that covered something big, a mound about the size of an elephant lying on its side.

More candle-carrying, white-robed masked men entered. They walked through a narrow door that was in the middle of one of the long walls. The door appeared to be the only way in or out. Aggie saw that the earlier masked men were leaving, saw that it was a procession — they entered, found a place to set their candles, then quietly shuffled out. The room grew brighter, as did the flickering light playing off the patchwork tarp.

One end of the tarp moved. From that end, Aggie heard the moan of a woman. A masked man ran to the tarp’s opposite end. It reached under, picked something up, then stood, holding that something tight to its chest. What was that stain on his white robe? Was it blood? Fresh blood? The masked man pushed past his own kind and left the room.

Hillary grabbed his ear, twisted it. “Make no noise. If they see you, you die.”

That strange smell intensified. Aggie’s face felt hot. His dick started to stiffen.

The stream of incoming masked men set their candles down on shelves, on a table, on the floor, on whatever space was available, then they turned and walked out, sliding past other masked men who were bringing in more candles.

The room grew brighter.

Music started playing, a thin, plinking, metallic melody. Aggie looked to the side of the room opposite the mound. A white-robed man was sitting at a white wooden table. Another masked man walked up to it, this one holding a metal stand with eight candles, all tall and parallel — a candelabra. And wait … it wasn’t a table, it was a little piano, like a smaller version of one of those big grand pianos.

A second candelabra joined the first. Now there was enough light that Aggie could see the piano player wore a Donald Duck mask. The small piano wasn’t really white, but more of a pale yellow, the paint chewed up and scarred, chips showing the dark wood beneath.

Aggie’s hands locked onto the iron bars holding him aloft. His dick was fully erect now, pushing out his secondhand pajamas. Not just erect — it was so hard it hurt.

More candles.

The room grew brighter still.

Wait … was the entire tarp moving?

Hillary’s hot breath on his ear. “Now they bring the groom.” Her lips were so close. Her breath sent hot tingles up his spine. He wanted her, his throbbing cock calling out to him to take her. But how could he want this old crone who kept him prisoner?

The music grew louder. It wasn’t a piano — it was harsher, thinner. He knew that sound. He’d heard it in an old TV show … The Addams Family … it was a harpsichord. The white-robed Donald Duck started to rock back and forth as he worked the chipped keys.

More candles, more light.

That tarp was moving. Not just the end, oh no oh dear Jesus the whole thing was moving what the fuck is underneath that thing it can’t be alive it just can’t because it’s so big as big as an elephant. What is it what is it?

The squeaking of wheels. A dolly, the kind movers use, rolled in through the narrow door, pushed by a white- robed man. And strapped to that dolly …

The boy with no tongue.

The light of at least a hundred candles flickered off the blond-haired boy’s blood-covered mouth, his jaw, his neck, his shirt. He cried with big, heaving sobs that shook his thick chest. The boy … he had a boner? Even from up here, the boy’s erection was clearly visible under his pajamas.

The masked men gathered at the tarp, ruffling it, preparing to remove it. The flapping of the giant cloth sent