77 Shadow Street

can’t because it doesn’t.”

Given the history of the Pendleton and the eerie nature of Andrew Pendleton’s journal scraps, Silas had expected Kyser to reveal a strange experience, which on the phone he’d hinted that he would. But this was more bizarre than anything Silas could have imagined.

Perry Kyser continued to meet Silas’s eyes and seemed to search them ceaselessly for signs of disbelief.

Lawyer’s intuition told Silas that this man wasn’t lying, that he couldn’t lie, not about this, maybe not about anything important.

“This voice comes out of the blue screens—‘Exterminate,’ it says, ‘Exterminate.’ The thing starts toward me. Now I can see how lumpy it is, not like any animal, lumpy flesh, pale skin. And wet, maybe wet with sweat, but milky wet, I don’t know what. A kind of head, no eyes, no face to speak of. What might be rows of gills along the neck, but no mouth. I’m backing toward the north stairs, hear myself saying very fast, ‘who are all good and deserving of all my love,’ so I’m halfway through an Act of Contrition, but I don’t even realize I started it. I’m sure I’m dead. As I back into the stairwell door and finish the Act of Contrition, the thing … it speaks to me.”

Surprised, Silas said, “It spoke? In English?”

“No mouth I could see, but it spoke. Such misery in that voice. Can’t convey the misery, despair. It says, ‘Help me. For God’s sake, someone help me.’ The voice is Ricky Neems. The painter who’s up on the third floor right then, making his punch list. I don’t know … is it Ricky for real or is it this thing imitating Ricky? Is this thing somehow Ricky? How can that be? All my life … I never scared easy. Never had anything worth being scared about after Korea, the war.”

Their waitress stopped at the table to ask if they wanted a second drink. Silas needed another round, but he didn’t want it. Perry declined as well.

“Korea was my war, too,” Silas said. “Living with that fear day after day, eventually you’re inoculated against it.”

“But in that basement hall, Silas, I’m so terrified the strength goes out of me like it never did in Korea. One hand on the doorknob to the stairs, can’t seem to turn it. My legs are weak. Only reason I’m still on my feet is I’m leaning against the door. Then everything changes. The lights get brighter. The dirty floor, the mold, the blue screens, everything that’s wrong—it fades out. The hallway like it’s supposed to be, clean and fresh—it fades in. And the thing coming toward me fades away, too, like it was all a dream. But I’m awake. It wasn’t a dream. It was sure something, but not a dream.”

Perry stared out at the rainy night for a moment before he continued: “After that, I go upstairs, looking for Ricky, and he’s there, he’s all right. He heard that rumble, like the timpani, but nothing else happened to him, and I didn’t know how to tell him what I saw without sounding nuts. But I should’ve told him. I should have insisted he get out of there, do his punch list Monday. I did try to get him to call it a day, he wouldn’t, so I left him there to die.”

“You didn’t. You couldn’t know. Who could?”

“The next day, Sunday, I go to church. Hadn’t gone in a while. Felt the need. Monday, went to work with a pistol under my jacket. Didn’t think a pistol would do the job. What else would? A pistol was something. But … that was the end. No more shadow people, and nothing like what I’d seen. Maybe stuff happened Saturday, no one but Ricky Neems there to see. During the next month, we finished the job.”

Silas’s right hand was cold and wet with condensation from his Scotch glass. He blotted his fingers on a napkin. “Any theories?”

Perry Kyser shook his head. “Only what I said earlier. I got a glimpse of Hell. That encounter changed me. Frequent confession and regular Communion suddenly seemed like a good idea.”

“And you never told your son, your wife?”

“I figured … if I was given a glimpse of Hell, it’s because I needed the shock. To change me. I made the change but didn’t have the courage to tell my wife why it might have been necessary. You see?”

“Yes,” Silas said. “I don’t know about Hell. Right now, I don’t know for sure about much of anything.”

The waitress returned and left the check on the table.

As Silas calculated the tip and took cash from his wallet, Perry again studied the customers at the bar. “What’s wrong with them?”

Surprised, Silas said, “You sense it, too?”

“Something. Don’t know what. What’re they—mostly twenties and thirties? For their age, they’re trying too hard.”

“Too hard at what?”

“Being carefree. Should come natural that young. They seem, I don’t know … anxious.”

Silas said, “I think they come here for the Deco, the music, the atmosphere, because they want to escape to a safe time.”

“Never was such a time.”

“Safer,” Silas corrected. “A safer time.”

“The thirties? War was coming.”

“But there was an end to it. Now … maybe never an end.”

Still focused on the bar crowd, Perry said, “I thought it was just me being old.”

“What was?”

“This feeling that everything is coming apart. More like being torn down. I have this nightmare now and then.”

Silas put away his wallet.