Early Riser

The cylinder

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.

‘Why are you doing this?’ I asked, and they whispered back in unison, like a lispy echo: ‘Why are you doing this?’

‘What’s going on?’

‘What’s going on?’

‘Simple Simone says,’ I said slowly, ‘“Put your hands on your head”.’

They all obediently put their hands on their head.

‘Simple Simone says: “Put your hands by your side”.’

They all put them down again.

‘Stand on one leg.’

They ignored the order. Simple Simone hadn’t told them to, see. I smiled, for the first time in a while.

‘Simple Simone says: “Tell me your name”.’

They answered as one, but each with their own. I only heard a few in the mass of different words. Rubik’s Cube Girl was Rebecca and Glitzy Tiara, positioned off to her right, was Betty, who now had tears rolling softly down her cheeks.

‘How are you feeling right now?’ I asked, and there followed a mix of responses – frustrated, trapped, lost, adrift.

They stood there for a moment longer, but then the magic faded, and they moved out of the trance and drifted off down the corridor, as vacant as ever. I had no idea of the meaning of Don Hector’s words on the cylinder, but whatever it was, it had an effect on nightwalkers. The recording might not retrieve the nightwalkers, but it was a step in the right direction.

I went into the kitchenette, mixed some muesli with long-life milk and a large spoonful of peanut butter and walked to the window. I could hear the wind whipping around the building outside, rattling the shutters and trying to find a chink in the building’s Winter armour. I needed a plan, and after some careful thought figured one out: I’d go and see Hugo Foulnap, who was on duty at the museum. The reason was simple. Aurora had suggested he was Campaign for Real Sleep and if this was true and he was hiding as Danny Pockets in Sector Twelve, then I could make two assumptions: that there was an ongoing RealSleep operation and he, Jonesy, Toccata and the shambling occupants of the Cambrensis were a big part of it.

I found some fresh warm clothes in the wardrobe, replaced the flashcube on the camera so I was armed with more flashes, then cautiously opened the apartment door and peered out into the empty corridor. I crept back upstairs without being molested, found a heavy parka, pulled on some snow boots, shoved the camera in my bag and consulted the fixed line schematic that was screwed to the wall between the inner and outer doors of the Cambrensis. The museum was on the other side of the road and about a quarter of a mile away. In daylight and without weather, about a five-minute stroll. I would have to do it in less than thirty and not lose my way if I wanted to keep all my fingers and toes.

I took a deep breath, then opened the outer door.

If I thought the weather had been bad before it was twice as bad now. The icy wind was howling past the door, the view a mass of angry swirling snow. I fired up the lamp with the last thermalite, then clipped myself onto the fixed line. I paused to tell myself that this was the best course of action, Gronk or no Gronk, and set off into the storm. My lantern afforded me really only moral support but by staying close to the wall I could minimise the buffeting from the wind, and although the snow was now almost three feet deep in drifts and the going slow, I made progress. Within ten minutes I was at the bridge, from where I would have to cross the road without the fixed line. I was less cautious than perhaps I should have been; after leaving the line and taking two paces towards the opposite parapet, the full force of the wind lifted me off my feet.

I think I remember tumbling for a while, then being wedged head first in the snow. To make matters worse the snow guard inside my parka then ripped, and the wind-blown snow rushed up inside the back of my coat and wrapped itself around my neck and chest. I momentarily stopped breathing with the sudden chill and could actually feel myself begin to lose core temperature. It started with an uncontrollable shiver, then a chattering of teeth, then a sense of calm mixed with resignation, loss and waste. I wanted badly to dream, to be back on the beach in the Gower, beneath the orange-and-red parasol of spectacular size and splendour with Birgitta being Birgitta and me being Charles. But I couldn’t, and slowly, with an annoying drab certainty, I felt myself slipping away.

But I didn’t die. Not yet.