Extraction

listened intently, never asking a question or interrupting the flow of my narrative. When I was done, he sat back in his chair. He lit a cigarette and smoked it thoughtfully, still in silence; when it was a mere bit of ash between his fingertips, he dropped it into an ashtray, leaned forward, and read my uncle’s note again. Then he drew a deep breath, stood up, smoothed his shirtfront, opened a drawer, pulled out a revolver, checked to satisfy himself it was loaded, and snugged it into the rear of his waistband.

“ ‘What are you going to do, Father?’ I asked, though I could guess all too clearly.

“ ‘Going to see what has become of your uncle Everett,’ he replied. He strode out the study, toward the front door.

“ ‘Let me go,’ I blurted. He looked at me, his eyes narrowing slightly in surprise.

“ ‘I can’t do that, son,’ he replied.

“ ‘But it’s my fault. I have to go. Don’t you see?’ I seized his shirt cuff. I pleaded. I insisted. I begged.

“At last, he nodded slowly. ‘Very well. Perhaps it — whatever it is — will prove a lesson to you.’ Just before opening the door, he turned as if taken by a new thought, took up a kerosene lantern, and then we ventured out into the night.

“Only several evenings previous I had walked down Dauphine Street and turned onto Montegut, precisely as we were doing now. Back then I’d been thinking about what a fool my brother was, and feeling great irritation at having to be the one to set him straight. Now — as we approached the dark and silent Dufour place — I felt a great weight on my heart. It was a blustery night, far more unsettled than on my previous outing; the trees thrashing and moaning as the wind stirred their branches, the streetlights throwing gyrating shadows on the road. The houses we passed were dark, shuttered up tight against the fury of the coming storm. I looked up to see thin clouds, scudding across a bloated yellow moon. Despite the presence of my father at my side, I was gripped by an anxiety of the soul, mortal terror of a sort I’ve scarcely known before or since.”

Pendergast fell silent. After several moments, he stood up and paced about the library, in a fashion not unlike that of Monsieur Bertin, forty-five minutes before. He paused to jab a poker into the fire, causing a flare-up of the dying coals that cast a panoply of flickering light across the room. After some more pacing, he made his way to the sideboard and poured himself a large brandy. He gulped it down; refilled his glass; and returned to his chair. Constance waited for him to resume.

“The house was, as before, utterly dark and silent. I glanced up at the oriel window, but on this night it, too, was black. The wind had sucked a tattered lace curtain out through the broken window frame, and it fluttered above. It seemed to me like a trapped specter, gesticulating desperately for help.

“We mounted the porch steps, the boards groaning under our weight, and went to the door. I tried not to look, but couldn’t stop myself. The strange pillar or box with the copper vessel was still there, its mouth dark.

“The door had no bell, no knocker. Handing me the unlit lantern and pulling the revolver from his waistband, my father tried the door. It was unlocked and not even latched, and a small push sent it swinging back into yawning darkness. An odor seemed to roll out upon us from the dark: a clammy smell of dead animals, spoiled meat, rotten eggs.

“We took a step inside. The interior of the house was pitch black. As my father was feeling along the wall, unsuccessfully, to find the switch of an electric light, a gust of wind grabbed the front door and slammed it behind us. I jumped at the crash, and stood in the darkness, trembling, as the echoes came back at us from the deep interior spaces of the house.

“ ‘Aloysius,’ I heard my father say out of perfect darkness, ‘hand me up that lantern.’

“I marveled at the coolness, the levelness, of his tone. I raised the lamp up over my head. It was taken by an unseen hand. For a moment, there was silence. Then the scritch of a match, followed by a flicker of yellow from the lantern. There was a squeaking sound as my father adjusted the wick, and the light brightened until we could… we could see the room around us.”

Pendergast took a sip of brandy, and another, before placing the glass aside again. “We were standing in the formal entryway of the house. The lantern, though dim, furnished enough light for us to make out — just barely — the details around us. At first it didn’t look like anything much out of the ordinary, a typical antebellum mansion of the Delta style. To the left was an open set of double doors, leading into the main parlor; to the right, another set of open doors gave onto the dining room. Ahead, a large staircase swept up in a gracefully rising curve, and below it a hallway led back out of the range of our vision.”

Pendergast took a deep breath, let it out slowly.

“Gradually, the dimly lit room came into focus to my eyes and its shabbiness became more apparent. The floor was covered with a Persian rug, threadbare and chewed by mice. The pictures on the wall were so dark with age as to be indecipherable. A section of banister was gone on the stairway, and several desiccated plants stood in containers on either side of the staircase. But then I began to notice something else — something very odd. The surfaces of the room — the walls, the furniture — did not seem quite as regular and flat as they should. It was as if they had… density and texture. As my father proceeded cautiously into the center of the room, the lantern extended, I noted myriad tiny gleams and sparkles from the wallpaper and elsewhere, which formed elaborate patterns of curlicues and lines. I stared, unable to comprehend what was causing this strange effect.

“My father realized it before I did. I heard a choked gasp from him, and he stopped dead, extending the lantern toward one particularly complex pattern of wallpaper.

“That was when I realized the designs were not part of the wallpaper itself. They were from tiny, gleaming things affixed to the wall. As I stared, my father took a single step forward and I realized what these little gleaming things were.

“They were teeth. Tiny, white, polished teeth. I could not speak, and nor could my father. But with that realization came a second one — these curlicue patterns were everywhere. They ran along the molding, they coiled about the wainscoting, and they looped and spiraled about the door frames. They marched in lines up the banister; they decorated the gilt edges of the paintings hung on the walls. Teeth… everywhere I looked, little incisors and bicuspids looked back at me. Swirls of youthful molars followed the contours of the room in dotted lines, meticulously arranged, achingly regular. Sometimes their biting ends were affixed to the walls, curved roots sticking up in sickening curves; other times they were reversed, the rows of yellow and white bone lined up as if ready to nibble the air. There were whorls and spirals, like the cowrie-shell necklaces of the South Seas, and delicate sprays like bursting fireworks arrested in midair. There were other, denser designs, like leering faces with slit-like eyes and yawning mouths, which seemed to be screaming out at us from the walls.

“My father said nothing. I believe his silence was more unnerving to me than if he had cried out in disgust. He slowly walked up to the closest wall and held up the lantern, moving it back and forth. The moving light threw countless tiny, sharp shadows across the surfaces, like some nightmarish magic-lantern show. The… the precision, if you will, the fanatical craftsmanship, was diabolical.

“Despite my shock, and despite being almost dazed with fear, there was still a small part of my brain that — as I stared around, wide-eyed, in the glow of the lantern — could not help but wonder how long this had been going on; how many children over how many years had contributed their teeth to this dreadful work? Old Dufour must have been very, very old indeed to have accumulated so many teeth.

“My father, with excruciating slowness, walked the length of the four walls in that room, his lantern extended, peering at the tooth-work. Why he felt the need to see it all, to examine it, I do not know. It was all I could do not to shut my own eyes against the abominable sight.

“Without conscious thought, I was somehow walking backward in my horror, and I lost my footing; my hand went back instinctively to keep myself upright. It touched the wall… and I received a dreadful sensation of cold, hard unevenness. With a cry, I yanked my hand away from the sharp nubbins of teeth, almost as if I had burned it, and once again stumbled forward, gasping with fear.”

Pendergast stopped. His breathing, which had accelerated during this last recitation, eventually slowed again. In time, he continued.

“My father turned to me, and I saw a strange, hollow look in his face. ‘Go outside to the street,’ he said. ‘I must search for Everett.’

“But I didn’t obey. I was terrified to leave him. As he turned to pass through a doorway in the back of the room, I followed at a sudden run. He ignored me, continuing along a dark passageway, his revolver at the ready. We came to a kitchen, all tile and marble surfaces, but there was nothing here beyond rat droppings and mold.