Jasper Fforde - Early Riser

I replaced it in the tube and, my curiosity aroused, decided that it would be best to play it back and see what was on it. I needed a phonograph so retraced my steps, and passed the nightwalker Glitzy Tiara on the landing as I headed towards the porter’s lodge on the lower ground floor. There were more nightwalkers in the lobby and I moved cautiously amongst them. Some of them whispered words and phrases, one of them was constantly shuffling a pack of cards, and a fifth was holding two Rubik’s cubes: with her left hand she scrambled, with her right hand she solved. The crates and cans of food littered around also indicated to me that they were being harboured, almost certainly by Jonesy and Toccata, and on an industrial scale. Jonesy had indicated that she, too, thought nightwalkers were still sentient and it was likely Toccata thought the same. Despite my feeling vindicated, the notion flew in the face of conventional medical and scientific thought. Rigorous tests had been run and the conclusion had been unanimous: nightwalkers were irrecoverably brain dead. But if their consciousness was complete yet displaced to somewhere impossible to detect, and HiberTech knew about it, then the current nightwalker policy of redeployment, retirement and then being parted out for spares would be murder. No, wait, considerably worse than murder.

As I was passing the reception desk my lantern went out a second time. I had one thermalite remaining so instead simply waited for my eyes to become accustomed to the darkness.

The cylinder was key. RealSleep desperately wanted it, and HiberTech would do anything to stop them getting it. I started to see vague shapes as my eyes became used to the darkness, and while they did I could hear the nightwalkers walking past me in the gloom, whispering as they did so, which is a truly unnerving experience. Once, one brushed against me and nibbled me on the arm, and I suddenly wondered how often anyone fed them, and how long they would have to not be fed before they started to feed on one another – or me. The answer, I soon realised, was right about now. I hadn’t fully been aware as my eyes became used to the dim light, but they had grouped around me in the semi-dark and I felt their hands touching me. I tried to push them away but as soon as I moved past two and wrested myself from the grip of a third, another three or four pairs of hands grabbed me and I felt a sharp pain as one of them bit me hard on the side of my head. I yelped, but the noise only invigorated them, and I felt them grip me tighter. I gave up on the soft approach and struggled, shoved and punched, but their numbers were too great and I was pushed to the ground, the nightwalkers murmuring and groaning in an increasingly aggressive fashion in the dim greeny-blue light. This was, I knew, how it worked. An attack began slowly, then rapidly escalated in aggression to a frenzy. I felt several bony fingers try to lift up my shirt to get at my stomach. I was beyond shouting, and just kicked and struggled as hard as I could, the sound of their hungry murmurings growing in my ears. I had come so far, and ultimately – for nothing. The cylinder, worthless to the nightwalkers, would pass to whoever stumbled upon my remains.

Uselessly, I pulled my shoulder bag closer to me and closed into a ball, then had an idea. I ignored the bites and scratches, reached into my bag and pulled out Laura’s camera. I pointed it in their general direction and pressed the shutter.

The flashbulb fired, and in the stagnant gloom of the lobby it was as though a door had momentarily been opened into the Summer. The effect was impressive, and instantaneous. The nightwalkers paused, their minds momentarily scrambled. This wasn’t a trick I’d learned in the Academy, this was a trick I’d learned from Lloyd, two days before.

The nightwalker’s confusion was short lived but long enough for me to wind on the camera and fire the flash again. In the bright white light I could see their bewildered expressions and wasted no time in pushing my way through the tangle of confused bodies. I ran down the steps to the lower ground floor, found the porter’s lodge and slammed and bolted the door after me, my heart racing, my hands shaking.

Every hour I was experiencing something new, every hour I was wishing I wasn’t.

I clicked on the emergency light and went straight through to the bathroom, rummaged through the medicine cabinet for some iodine and then dabbed it on the bite marks, of which I had many. I’d been lucky that their hunger had come on relatively slowly. If they’d attacked me en masse as I’d walked in, I’d have been too tired and cold to defend myself. Whilst I self-administered as best as I could, I heard unpleasant noises from the lobby, where it sounded as if their hunger had been appeased on one of their own. If they’d eaten the weighty Eddie Tangiers, they’d be quiet maybe eight hours. Glitzy Tiara, ninety minutes, tops.

Still sore but having found no bites to be life-threatening, I walked back into the porter’s living area and looked around. The walls were covered with bookshelves and display cases that contained numerous specimens from the animal and plant kingdoms. Porters were never simply glorified hoteliers, they were generally people who welcomed a monk-like existence, and spent their spare hours on contemplation or studies.

There was a salt-water hippo skull hanging from the ceiling and a baby glyptodon skeleton in the process of being articulated. There was also a Dictaphone, all brass and rosewood with a large copper horn for playback. I switched on the desk lamp, wound the clockwork motor fully and slipped the cylinder onto the machine. I flicked the lever, waited for the cylinder to spin up and then gently placed the needle on the groove, half expecting to hear Don Hector’s voice, and a long explanation of what he’d found, and every single one of my questions answered.

I didn’t. Not even a tiniest bit. It was Don Hector’s voice all right, but what he was saying made no sense at all – a long and seemingly random collection of apparently unconnected words interspersed with numbers and Greek letters, all spoken in an even monotone. It lasted five and three quarter minutes and was, I presumed, some kind of code. It was only after the discordant collection of words had faded that I heard another noise – a gentle murmur from outside. I walked over and quietly opened the door a couple of inches. As I’d suspected, there was a nightwalker outside. It was Rubik’s Cube Girl, but she’d stopped doing the puzzle and was standing stock still in apparent Torpor. She wasn’t the only one. They were all there, perhaps thirty or so, filling the entire corridor. All standing still, unblinking, tightly yet equally spaced from each other, all missing a thumb. I was about to close the door when the nightwalker blinked, and that was unusual. Firstly because nightwalkers in Torpor don’t blink, and secondly, because they’d all blinked – in unison.

I cautiously reached my arm out through the door and pushed her hard on the sternum. She took a step back to steady herself. If she’d been in Torpor, she would have fallen over, knocked the next and they’d all be over, one after the other in a comedy fashion, like skittles. But the thing was, they all took a steadying step backwards.