The Ghost in the Human Chain (Ch28)

There are two dead men in the cellar who are very much alive.

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The flashlight’s beam split the open cellar doorway over the stairs, and in the dust motes that burst like atomic particles, Theda’s life was redefined into something extraordinary. It was similar to a handful of moments she had experienced before, where seemingly out of nowhere, she was temporarily removed from the present moment by a well-known but nameless force. She thought with the finality of those who realize death has found their address, this is where it all begins.

Conlin slowly pushed the door all the way open. Two gas masks hung from hooks and the empty chasms of the eye sockets watched her.

“Are you ready?” Conlin asked quietly.

“Yes,” she said, and she was.

She knew after the nonsense with Maxim’s anarchist group had ended that she had been given a second chance; a chance to retreat back into her family and a life of relative normalcy: attending the university, followed by medical school, then marrying…another doctor, most likely, one who was devoted to her father and had his approval…and finally becoming the woman her father had always wished for her to be.

But when Conlin turned the doorknob of the cellar, an innate knowledge settled over her that she had never experienced. If I walk down those steps, there’s no going back. And there it was. That was it. After tonight going back to her family as the same person was impossible. Tonight would change the course of her life, forking from the well-known map into a tangled territory unknown and although her terror was like a fine mercury, there was a strange peace in this knowledge. It was as if all the months of bending the world to her will were finally over and the river of time swept her in its cold embrace, taking over from where she could no longer navigate.

“Let’s go, please,” Conlin’s voice trembled slightly on please. He stepped down, the stair groaning under his weight. With her left hand held lightly onto the back of his coat and pointing the gun in her right toward the ground, she followed.

Down.

Her nostrils twitched at the smell that grew stronger with each step. Illness. The sourness of unwashed bodies. The scents of a hospital ward but this had underlying odors of the dank rot of old warehouses that had been abandoned to vermin and spiders for decades.

A sound of metal clanking on the ground made them both jump, stopping them in their tracks. They were halfway down the staircase. Conlin swung the light into the darkness of the room. “Who’s there?” he spat.

A large piece of metal arced from the darkness and connected with Conlin’s gun with a metallic clink. Conlin yelped as a massive figure slammed into him, knocking the light onto the ground. Theda scrambled down the last few steps but before she could raise the gun, the sound of one man being thrown into the wall shook the room. Somewhere a light switched clicked! and the room was bathed in a humming yellow light.

Asa Jackson, shirtless with a cascade of purple, brown and yellow bruises across his face and chest, went to grab Conlin by the shirt, but stopped suddenly, hands outstretched. “Patrick?” He croaked.

Conlin, backed against the wall, struggled to catch his breath as his face changed to recognition. “I’ll be goddamned. The Ghost.”

Theda lowered her gun. “You’re alive.” Her legs weakened and she sat on the stairs. “And you know each other?”

“Theda?” Jackson said. “What are you doing here?”

Conlin raised the gun and pulled back the hammer, pointing it at Jackson’s face. “You supposed to be dead again, Jack? Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

A slow, humorless chuckle escaped Jackson. He lowered his hands. “Put the gun down, Patrick, and stop being ridiculous.”

“Why the hell you here? Thrax send you? Make sure this whole thing goes off without a hitch?”

Jackson shook his head. “Andersen sent me,” he said quietly.

“Bullshit.” Conlin leveled the gun.

Jackson said, “It’s true. When we get back, you can ask him yourself.”

“That’s impossible. He came through with me and someone shot him. He’s dead.”

Jackson’s face turned to stone. “He came through.” It was a statement.

“Maybe he had me come through because you couldn’t do the job, and the old man needed me.”

Jackson’s breathing intensified and the muscles in his arms clenched like a coiled snake. Over their heads a thump! Like a small item fell from a shelf. It wasn’t going to be long before Cyril woke up, and tied up or not, they needed to be long gone by then.

Theda said, “Mr. Conlin, put the gun away.”

“You have no idea who this guy is!” Conlin said, still not lowering the gun.

“Gentlemen, please,” a weak voice said from inside the room.

Jackson didn’t turn. Eyes narrowed, his head lowered, and those blazing blue eyes, hardened and dangerous, were a beat away from striking. Conlin stared down the gun barrel and Theda wondered what would have happened if she hadn’t been there. He’d have pulled the trigger by now.

She rose slowly and holstered her gun inside her jacket. She peered into the rest of the cellar that was bathed in that awful yellow light, the bulbs hanging from the ceiling swayed slightly, their filaments painfully stinging her eyes after the total darkness. In the far corner was a pile of clothing carelessly tossed like dirty laundry. Along the opposite wall were three army cots exactly like the ones in the Infirmary. One was in a heap in the corner, the headboard ripped from the frame and missing one leg, which was now at Jackson’s feet and, she presumed, what he used to swat at Conlin’s hand. The next bed was empty, but on the bed frame were chains hanging from the metal rods with open manacles at the ends. A maroon stain splashed across the center of the dirty mattress, turning to yellow around the edges.

On the third cot lay a man. One hand was chained to the bed frame. Even if Theda had not seen him a day ago in the Infirmary, she would have recognized him by the resemblance to his grieving father, whom she met that morning in the train station, just moments before she disappeared from her family.

“Caleb Van Horn?” she walked down the last step. “Mr. Conlin,” she said, still looking at Van Horn. “Please put that down.”

Conlin lowered the gun. “I’m assuming that’s a dead man. Another one,” he shot a look at Jackson. “Nice of you to help him out of his chains.”

“The next time you break out of a metal frame, let me know,” Jackson said. “And try to do it without making any noise. I trust from the ruckus upstairs that you’ve taken care of the guard.”

“He’s taken care of. Not for long, though.” Conlin released the hammer and to Theda’s relief, holstered the gun under his coat, his face murderous.

She approached Van Horn, then stopped, the enormity of what he could be carrying almost knocking her off her feet again. He could be sick. If he is, we’re all exposed. It’s already too late. “Mr. Van Horn,” she said gently. “Are you ill?” She approached him slowly, pulling her coat collar over the lower half of her face. The man on the cot was young, in his early twenties, his light and fine hair dirty with mud. Just like the other day in the Infirmary. She placed her wrist against his forehead. He was cool to the touch.

Jackson moved past her to the far wall by a closed and bolted door. His hand grabbed a ring of keys hanging from a nail. “Not a problem to have keys here when the guys chained will die soon.” He tried each key on Van Horn’s wrist until one worked, and the manacle opened.

“I’m not sick,” Van Horn said. “I was when they brought me in from the river.”

“Last night, two men came in here. They were wearing gas masks. They said nothing, but they shoved something up our noses. Some type of cotton with a fluid on it. God knows what it was, but I think I have some idea.” Jackson moved toward the pile of clothing and fished out a large tunic that was tattered at the elbow and smeared with dirt. He pulled a shirt from the pile and shoved his head through, stopping for a moment and wincing at the pain. He buttoned up his tunic but slower this time, clenching his jaw from pain, then found the thick army issue socks in the pile. “They surprised me yesterday. Billy ran me off my bike and when I wrecked they jumped me. Next thing I know, I’m here. These yours?” He threw a smaller tunic and shirt to Van Horn, who shrugged into the jacket, his eyes watery. “Considering I’m down here with a dead guy,” he nodded toward Van Horn, “my chances didn’t look too good.”

“They said you’d died. Killed in a motorcycle crash,” Theda said quietly.

Jackson laughed and shoved his foot into his boot, then stopped. He looked first at Theda, then back at Conlin. “Patrick. Why in God’s name did you bring her here? You knew what we were in for.”

“Andersen said we had to find her.”

“Why?”

“Jack, we need to get out of here. Now.”

Jackson stood and grabbing Van Horn under the arm, hauled him to his feet. “You good to walk?”

“Yes.”

“You have the car?” Jackson said to Conlin. “Or do you and I part ways now? And I’ll see you back in New York?”

Conlin, looking like he was smelling rotting fish, shook his head. “No. Andersen would have wanted us to stick together. He was good like that.”

Jackson nodded. “I got a place for us to stay for tonight. We’ll figure out what’s next tomorrow.” He started for the stairs.

Theda began to follow when something caught the corner of her eye. Next to the cot where Van Horn had just been chained to, a small, brown leather bound notebook peeked from underneath. She bent down and with her foot, pushed it into the light.

The others didn’t hear her gasp, thanks to her coat collar that was still covering her lower face. With a quick glance to the men, who were beginning to climb the stairs, she bent down quickly and snatched it up.

“Theda!” Jackson threw a glance backwards. “Let’s go!”

She shoved the little notebook into her coat next to the gun where it rested by her ribs. The gold embossed letters on the cover winked at her in the light before it disappeared.

H.A.E.

Harold Arthur Evora.

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