Douglas Preston - Relic

At last, thoroughly lost and out of breath, she ducked into an alcove containing a display on primitive medicine. Gasping, she crouched behind a case holding a trepanned human skull upon an iron pole. She hid in its shadow, listening.

There was nothing; no noise, no movement. She waited as her breath slowed and reason returned. There was nothing out there. There had never been anything out there, in fact—it was her overzealous imagination, fueled by this nightmarish tour. I was foolish to sneak in , she thought. Now, I don’t know if I’ll ever want to come back—even on the busiest Saturday .

Anyway, she had to find a way out. It was late now, and she hoped people were still around to hear her knocking, should she come up against a locked exit. It would be embarrassing, having to explain herself to a guard or policeman. But at least she’d be out.

She peeked over the case lid. Even if it had all been her imagination, she didn’t care to go back in the same direction. Holding her breath, she stepped quietly out, then listened. Nothing.

She turned left and moved slowly down the corridor, searching for a likely looking route out of the exhibit. At a large fork she stopped, eyes straining in the darkness, debating which of the branching pathways to take. Shouldn’t there be exit signs? Guess they haven’t been installed yet. Typical . But the hall to her left looked promising: the passage seemed to open up into a large foyer, ahead in the blackness where sight failed.

Movement registered in her peripheral vision. Limbs frozen, she glanced hesitatingly to the right. A shadow—black against black—was gliding stealthily toward her, [136] moving with an inky sinuousness over the display cases and grinning artifacts.

With a speed born of horror, she shot down the passage. She felt, more than saw, the walls of the passage roll back and widen about her. Then she saw twin slits of vertical light ahead, outlining a large double doorway. Without slackening her pace, she threw herself against it. The doors flew back, and something on the far side clattered. Dim light rushed in—the subdued red light of a museum at night. Cool air moved across her cheek.

Weeping now, she slammed the doors closed and leaned against them, eyes shut, forehead pressed against the cold metal, sobbing, fighting to catch her breath.

From the crimson gloom behind her came the unmistakable sound of something clearing its throat.

PART TWO

SUPERSTITION

EXIBITION

= 21 =

“What’s going on here?” came the stern voice.

Margo whirled around and almost collapsed with relief. “Officer Beauregard, there’s—” she began, stopping in mid-sentence.

F. Beauregard, who was righting the brass posts that the swinging door had knocked over, looked up at the sound of his name. “Hey, you’re the girl who tried to get in earlier!” The policeman’s eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong, Miss, can’t take no for an answer?”

“Officer, there’s a—” Margo tried to start again, then faltered.

The officer stepped back and folded his arms across his chest, waiting. Then a look of surprise crossed his face. “What the hell? Hey, you okay, lady?”

Margo was slumped over, laughing—or crying, she wasn’t sure which—and wiping tears from her face. The policeman freed one folded hand and took her arm. “I think you should come with me.”

The implications of that last sentence—sitting in a [140] room full of policemen, telling her story again and again, maybe having Dr. Frock or even Dr. Wright called in, having to go back into that exhibition—forced Margo to straighten up. They’ll just think I’m crazy . “Oh no, that’s not necessary,” she said, snuffling. “I just had a bit of a scare.”

Officer Beauregard looked unconvinced. “I still think we should go talk to Lieutenant D’Agosta.” With his other hand, he pulled a large, leather-bound notebook out of his back pocket. “What’s your name?” he asked. “I’ll have to make a report.”

It was clear he wouldn’t let her go until she gave him the information. “My name’s Margo Green,” she said finally. “I’m a graduate student working under Dr. Frock. I was doing an assignment for George Moriarty—he’s curating this exhibition. But you were right. Nobody was in there.” She gently freed her arm from the policeman’s grip as she spoke. Then she started backing away, toward Selous Memorial Hall, still talking. Officer Beauregard watched her and finally, with a shrug, he flipped open the notebook and started writing.

Back in the Hall, Margo paused. She couldn’t go back to her office; it was almost six, and the curfew was sure to be enforced by now. She didn’t want to go home—she couldn’t go home, not just yet.

Then she remembered Moriarty’s copy. She pressed one elbow against her side-sure enough, her carryall was still there, hanging unnoticed through the ordeal. She stood still another moment, then walked over to the deserted information kiosk. She picked up the receiver of an internal phone and dialed.

One ring, then: “Moriarty here.”

“George?” she said. “It’s Margo Green.”

“Hi, Margo,” Moriarty answered. “What’s up?”

“I’m in the Selous Hall,” she replied. “I just came from the exhibition.”

“My exhibition?” Moriarty said, surprised. “What were you doing there? Who let you in?”

[141] “I was looking for you,” she answered. “I wanted to give you the Cameroon copy. Were you in there?” She felt panic rising once again to the surface.

“No. The exhibition’s supposed to be sealed, in preparation for Friday night’s opening,” Moriarty said. “Why?”

Margo was breathing deeply. trying to control herself. Her hands were trembling, and the receiver knocked against her ear.

“What did you think of it?” Moriarty asked curiously.

A hysterical giggle escaped Margo. “Scary.”

“We brought in some experts to work out the lighting and the placement of the visuals. Dr. Cuthbert even hired the man who designed Fantasyworld’s Haunted Mausoleum. That’s considered the best in the world, you know.”

Margo finally trusted herself to speak again. “George, something was in that exhibition with me.” A security guard on the far side of the Hall had spotted her, and was walking in her direction.

“What do you mean, something?”

“Exactly that!” Suddenly, she was back in the exhibit, in the dark, beside that horrible figurine. She remembered the bitter taste of terror in her mouth.

“Hey, stop shouting!” Moriarty said. “Look, let’s go to The Bones and talk this over. We’re both supposed to be out of the Museum, anyway. I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t understand it.”

The Bones, as it was called by everyone in the Museum, was known to other local residents as the Blarney Stone Tavern. Its unimposing facade was nestled between two huge, ornate co-op buildings, directly across Seventy-second Street from the Museum’s southern entrance. Unlike typical Upper West Side fern bars, the Blarney Stone did not serve hare pâté or five flavors of mineral [142] water; but you could get homemade meatloaf and a pitcher of Harp for ten dollars.

Museum staffers called it The Bones because Boylan, the owner, had hammered and wired an amazing number of bones into every available flat surface. The walls were lined with countless femurs and tibias, arranged in neat ivory ranks like bamboo matting. Metatarsals, scapulas, and patellas traced bizarre mosaics across the ceiling. Craniums from strange mammals were lodged in every conceivable niche. Where he got the bones was a mystery, but some claimed he raided the Museum at night.