Night Film

36

My first thought was that it was some type of target. And if I ever found such a thing under my own bed, I probably couldn’t help but wonder if the Grim Reaper had put it there, a reminder that I was due to be picked up in a matter of days—or I had enemies who wanted to scare the living daylights out of me.

Four concentric circles made out of black ashes had been meticulously laid out on the floor. At the center — almost directly beneath where Ashley’s torso or heart would be, I noticed, if she were lying flat on the bed — was a pyramid of charcoal. It stood about six inches, the rocks white and crumbling, the concrete beneath it charred black.

“What is it?” Nora whispered.

“The ashes are what smells,” said Hopper, crouching beside it.

After taking photos, Nora found a sandwich bag in her purse, and, turning it inside out, we collected a sample of the powder. It looked like finely chopped leaves, dirt, and bone. I sealed the bag and tucked it into my coat pocket.

“Holy shit,” Hopper whispered behind us. “Check this out.”

He was by the door, staring at something lodged above it — a cluster of sticks. They’d been carefully positioned deep in the corner, as if to deliberately escape notice.

Hopper pulled them down, holding them in the light from the hallway. They looked like roots—some thick, others thin, others tightly coiled in spirals, though they all looked to be from the same plant. Each one had been knotted neatly with white string and tied to another.

“Looks like some kind of occult practice,” I said, carefully taking the bunch from Hopper. I’d come across some bizarre religious customs over the years — baby-tossing in India; Jain monks who walked around naked, wearing the air; tribal boys forced to wear gloves filled with bullet ants, a ritual to enter adulthood. This seemed to be something along those lines.

“Why would it be over the doorway?” asked Nora.

I looked at Hopper. “You remember Ashley being involved in any unusual practices or beliefs?”

“No.”

“Let’s do another walk-through. See if there’s anything we missed. Then let’s get the hell out of here.”

Nora and Hopper nodded, glancing warily around the room. I was about to head over to the bedside table, when out of the corner of my eye I saw something green streaking past the doorway followed by staccato slapping. Flip-flops.

I stuck my head out. The landlord was scampering down the hall. The old crone had been spying.

“Wait a minute!” I shouted, stepping after her.

“I don’t know nothing,” she growled.

“You must have noticed that smell coming out of her room.”

She stopped dead at the end of the hallway, turning, her skin glistening with sweat.

“I don’t know what that girl did with herself.”

“Have any of the residents said anything?”

She didn’t respond. She had an off-putting, lizardlike way of moving, remaining stone still — as if knowing she’d be camouflaged by the grim light and cracked walls around her — then hastily scuttling away. Now she was absolutely immobile, staring at me with her head cocked.

“She scared people.” She grinned. “Don’t know how, ’cuz she’s a skinny thing. And some a’ the numbers who take my rooms, they’re usually the ones who do the scaring. But I don’t make it my business. People can do what they want, long as they pay me.”

I was halfway down the hall now, but stopped because a small boy — no more than five or six years old — was peering at me through the stairwell door. After a pause, he slipped out, standing sullenly behind the woman. He was in a dirty T-shirt, cotton pants too short in the leg, and socks meant for much larger feet.

“Is that your nephew?” I asked.

She surveyed him coldly and turned back to me, saying nothing.

“You mentioned Kay watched him once when you were out. Can he tell me anything about her?”

She pointed at me. “For a friend, you don’t know too much.”

I noticed then a shard of light was coming out of a room beside me, the door moving. Someone was eavesdropping. Before I could see who it was, there was a loud clanging. The landlord and boy had just disappeared into the stairwell. I took off after them.

“Hold on!”

“You leave us alone.”

I raced down the steps, tripping on fliers, catching up on the next landing. Without thinking, I grabbed the boy’s arm. He emitted a bloodcurdling squeal, as if I’d just branded him with an iron.

Startled, I let go, yet he continued to scream as he watched something — some kind of action figure he’d just dropped — careen down through the metal railings, bouncing on the steps, skidding across the tiles on the ground floor. With a whimper, he took off after it.

“Look what you done now,” the woman mumbled furiously, heading after him. “Take your friends and get out of here. We don’t know nothin’.”

When I reached the ground floor, I found the two of them frantically scouring the hallway. The boy stood up, turning to the woman, his fingers working fast in the air. He was speaking in sign language. He was deaf. And I’d traumatized him.

Guilty, I turned, searching the tiled floor, kicking aside fliers and wrappers. I soon found it in a rectangle of light under the stairwell.

It was a tiny wood carving of a snake — three inches long, mouth open, tongue extended, twisted body. It felt oddly heavy.

Suddenly beside me, the landlord snatched it, handing it back to the boy. She then seized his arm, hauled him toward an apartment door. I caught a glimpse of a cluttered room, a TV playing cartoons, as she shoved the boy inside, darted in after him, the door slamming.

Nora and Hopper were racing downstairs, the building growling with the noise. They ran straight down the hall, Nora turning, silently beckoning me to hurry. I exited after her into the cool night, realizing I was gasping for breath, as if I’d just wrenched free of something — something that, without my knowledge, had been suffocating me.