Creepers

11

They entered a cobwebbed corridor in which a door on each side had a tarnished plaque with the word GENTLEMEN engraved on one and LADIES on the other. Farther along was a dusty counter behind which rubber sandals were scattered.

"When people abandon a house, they usually take everything with them. It's their stuff, and they want to keep it," Rick told Balenger. "But when it comes to closing a hospital, a factory, a department store, an office building, or a hotel, everybody's in charge, and nobody is. It's assumed that somebody else will take care of the final details, but it often doesn't happen."

They passed elevator doors whose metal was rusted. Stairs led up.

Conklin pointed. "Take a close look at the stairs."

"Marble," Vinnie said, then turned toward Balenger. "Most places we infiltrate, the floors have nails poking through. That's why we warned you to wear thick-soled boots."

At the top, they came to another pair of swinging doors.

"Looks like mahogany," Cora said. "A sturdy wood. Even so, these doors are rotting." She indicated a crumbling area at the bottom of each.

When she pushed at the doors, they didn't budge.

"There's no lock," Rick said, puzzled. "Something on the other side must be jamming them." He used his knife to pry one of the doors in his direction.

The doors suddenly flew open. With a crash, Rick hurtled back, slamming into Balenger, knocking him down. Several things cracked and snapped, cascading. Cora screamed. Large objects banged around them, burying Balenger.

In darkness, he felt something blunt and hard jabbing into his chest and stomach. A mushy, fetid substance weighed against his face. Heart racing, he struggled to free himself. He heard Rick cursing. He heard wood breaking, as if it were being thrown against a wall. Abruptly, he saw the light from headlamps and pushed something heavy with rotting fabric off him.

"Rick! Are you all right?" Cora screamed.

Coughing, struggling to his feet, Balenger saw Cora yank at a tangle of large objects, hauling them off Rick.

Vinnie's hands were on Balenger, helping him up. "Are you hurt?"

"No." Balenger felt nauseous from the odor of what had pressed on his face. He tried to wipe away the smell. "But what-"

"Rick?" Cora pulled him up.

"I'm okay. I just-"

"What fell on us?" Balenger demanded.

"Furniture," Conklin said.

"Furniture?"

"Broken tables and chairs. Sections of sofas."

An animal made a terrible screeching sound. Balenger saw a rat scurry from a hole in a decaying sofa. A second rat streaked after it. A third. Balenger's stomach thrust bile to his mouth.

"Somehow, all kinds of banged-up, shattered furniture got piled against that door," Conklin said. "When Rick opened it, the movement was enough to dislodge everything."

Balenger rubbed his aching chest where what he now realized was a table leg had jammed into him. Adrenaline shot through him. "But how did the furniture get broken? How did it get thrown there?"

"Maybe a crew started to do some renovating and was told to quit," Conklin suggested. "These old buildings have all kinds of puzzles. In that abandoned department store in Buffalo, we found a half-dozen fully dressed mannequins sitting in a circle of chairs as if having a conversation. One of them even had a coffee cup in its hand."

"That was somebody's idea of a practical joke." Balenger scanned the darkness. "Fine. So is this a practical joke? Is somebody telling us to stay away?"

"Whatever it is," Vinnie said, "it happened a long time ago." He showed Balenger a broken table leg. "See this break?"

Balenger aimed his headlamp at it.

"The wood's old and dirty. If this were a fresh break, the inside of the leg would be clean."

Conklin smiled. "You get an A, also."

Rick picked up his knife. "Well, at least we got the doors open."

Balenger noted Cora's relief that Rick wasn't injured. But he also noted the way Vinnie looked at Cora, pained that her affection wasn't directed toward him.

The young man subdued his emotions and raised his camera. Its flash made an animal scamper.

The open doors beckoned. Past the murky outlines of more broken furniture, Balenger and the others paused in astonishment.

"Now this is what makes the effort worthwhile," Rick said.