Gene Wolfe - The Land Across

The cop had told me there was a coach for bodies out back, and a couple of horses. What was really there was a barn. It was stone up to about four feet, with wood above that, and I got the feeling it might have been there back when there were farms where I was instead of city streets. Doors front and back, both of them padlocked. I figured I could probably get in pretty easily, but it was not worth doing. The woman I had been following had gone into the building, not the barn.

The thing that threw me was that there were no lights in the windows of the building. None. If she had gone in there she had not turned on a single light, or that was how it looked. The cop would have given me his flashlight if I had asked for it, but I had never thought of it. So live and learn.

I tried the back door. Locked, which was what I had expected. Then the windows. The first three I tried were closed and locked good. I pushed up hard, but nothing doing. The fourth one (I have always thought since then that four was my lucky number) was open at the bottom about three inches. It would not go up any farther no matter how hard I pushed. At first that made no sense, but it was summer and the people inside would want some ventilation. Nobody here seemed to have air conditioning, and it would have been miserable in there with all the windows closed.

So leave one or two open a little, but locked or blocked so they could not be opened any farther. And I remembered the hand.

I took it out and whispered, “I hope you can hear me, and I hope you really like me like Magos X said. I’m going to put you halfway in, through this little opening, see? I want you to unlock the window for me so I can raise it and get inside. Will you do that for me? Please?”

Most likely you think I have too much imagination, and maybe you are right. But a breeze sprang up just then, not a strong wind but plenty strong enough to ruffle my hair. Up until I talked to the hand the air had been still that night, like it mostly is in the summer.

I laid the hand on windowsill and waited, and as soon as I looked away it was gone. Pretty soon I heard a rattle inside. I waited a few seconds more before I lifted, and the window went right up just as slick as you please.

The hand came out then, so I picked it up and said thank you and put it back into my pocket. Sometimes I have wondered how the ghost felt, walking along beside me all the time with her hand in my pocket. But I did not think of that then.

Jumping up, pushing aside some velvet curtains, and crawling through the window were all pretty easy. Doing those things without making much noise was a whole lot harder. I did the best I could, because as soon as I was inside I had heard voices. Not loud, and a long way from being loud and clear enough for me to understand what the people were saying, but voices for sure. When I stood still and listened hard I thought I could tell the men’s voices from the women’s. It sounded to me like there had to be at least four people talking, and it could have been more. Later I found out there were thirteen, but I did not know that then.

The worst thing, and it was really pretty bad, was that I did not have any kind of a light and it was blind dark in there. I walked as slowly as I could and as carefully as I could, too. The floor creaked anyway, little slow creaks every time I took a step. I knew there was a really good chance that I would trip over something even if I was careful. Knocking something over might be just as bad.

Only I was tempted to do it. For one thing I was tired and I had taken some good solid punches. I wanted everything to be over so I could maybe take a shower and for sure go to bed. For another, when the people I could hear talking heard me, they would turn on the lights.

And I cannot tell you how bad I wanted those lights. If they got rough or even looked like they wanted to, I was going to shoot. And if I ran out of bullets they were in for one hell of a fight.

Only hell was on their side, or at least they thought it was. I had never thought that heaven was on my side, but I told God I could sure use an angel with a flaming sword right about then.

What I got instead was tables with stone tops, or at least tops that felt like stone. I found a couple of those and had just figured out that there was a row of them side by side when my fingers found one that had somebody lying on it. I felt him, and he was not exactly cold, but you probably know what I mean. A kid, I thought, not moving and no clothes on. There should have been a stink, but there was a heavy smell pretty much like roses only not as good as a real rose. Not as good as the rose perfume a girl I used to know wore, either. You could tell it was chemicals formulated to smell like that.

So it was an undertaker’s for real, and I was just wishing that I had found a row of empty caskets instead when I saw a little gleam of light. Not much. Very, very small. Only light just the same. You know I went toward it.

The tough thing was going quietly. I wanted to walk faster, and I had to make myself go slow and step down easy and keep feeling my way with my hands.

It was a door, an old wooden one from the feel of it. It was closed and latched, but it was not tightly fitted enough to keep a little light from getting through here and there. Just a few gleams.

I laid my ear to one that was about the right height, and that was where the voices were coming from. A woman in there was saying, “… and the news would get out.”

The latch squeaked even when I turned the knob slowly. In fact, it squeaked so much I felt certain they had heard it, but when I pulled the door open they were still talking among themselves. The hinges squeaked, too. So, do I go in or stay out?

That one took maybe half a second. It would be dumb to go down there. I had sent the cop to Naala, and she would be here in another ten minutes or so. Probably she would bring the cop with her, and maybe a couple of other operators. So stay upstairs.

By then I had gone down the first couple of steps, and I kept going. Call it pride. I did not want Martya to know that I had been there but had waited for backup. I knew I was being stupid, and cussed myself, and went down anyway.

Every old wooden step creaked. I was being as quiet as I could and keeping to the edge of each step, but they still creaked under my weight and I could not do one damned thing about it.

They saw my feet before I could see them, and by the time I could they were ready. A man I had not noticed in the Golden Eagle and the woman I had followed had guns and had them out and aimed at me. The little guy who had said he was a photographer had a knife. He was holding it to Martya’s throat. I ought to have been watching the whole bunch of them. I know that, but I was not. I was looking at her. Only at her, really, and not paying much attention to the two with guns.

She was naked and tied to a cross, with ropes around her wrists and ankles. Here and there they had stuck skewers into her, long steel pins with metal ornaments at the ends. There was one in each arm, and one through her right leg about halfway between the ankle and the knee. They had gagged her, too, but when she saw me her eyes got big.

“Don’t worry,” I told her. “Help is on the way.” She could not nod or anything. She just stared.

The photographer said, “You struck me.” He made it sound meaner than I could make anything sound.

I said, “Yeah. I think I’m going to do it again.”

He held up his big knife. “This is good for both. If you come nearer, I cut her throat. Nearer still, and I cut yours. You think I cannot? Make the test.”

I gave him my best smile. “Later, maybe. Nice place you got here.”

“It will be the last place for you. This I think.”

“Maybe I’ll come back in fifty, sixty years.” I relaxed and had a look around. There were pictures on the walls, pictures that had been blown way up by an expert. They showed men raping women who looked dead, and naked women giving a little oral sex to dead men. One I remember a lot better than I want to showed this really good-looking brunette. She had stabbed a man’s corpse in the chest, or that was what it looked like, and still had her hand on the hilt of the knife.