Shadows Out of Time

It returned in candle-lit gloom. The secret space in the basement of Redcap’s apartment building, its stones engraved with symbols and formulae, its walls tilted at strange angles. The open trap door through which Maggie and I had descended. Hands still clutched me tight. The arms belonged to a tall, wiry man, who pressed me to my knees and glared down at me. Long, wavy hair shadowed his face. Beaded necklaces click-clacked over a loose, paisley shirt, and from a chain around his neck dangled a talisman like the one Dennis had showed me, engraved with the symbol of Redcap’s coven. People surrounded us, posted at the perimeter of the ritual circle. They chanted. Their words made no sense to me, but in them I heard the familiar rolling rhythm I had earlier mistaken for a passing subway train.

Somewhere in their midst a young child wept.

Redcap: What’d you see though the windows of the Private Estate, Richie.

Me: Are you…Redcap?

The sharp smack of a hand slapping my face.

Redcap: Who else would I be? Tell me what you saw.

Me: What I saw…

Redcap: Your deadbeat brother screwed it up, Richie, so now you put it right and tell me.

Me: Where are Dennis and Maggie?

Redcap: Dennis is dead and probably Maggie too by now.

Squirrel snitched about your plan to pin it on me. Man, I was furious. Then I told him to go along with it because I saw this golden opportunity for you to finish what your brother started. I put the Coven back together just for you, kiddo, and we brought a new sacrifice to reopen the way.

Me: Did you…kill Dennis?

Redcap: Nah, man, the sudden stop when he hit the sidewalk did that.

Me: Let me go find them. Please!

Redcap: Tell me what you saw through the windows. That’s all your brother had to do, but when he came back, he told me to fuck off. You believe it? He wanted to protect the world by keeping the secret. What a hypocrite. And what about me, man? Who’s protecting me from the cosmic darkness thundering at us out of history? Only me, man. Only me. And to do that, I must know what you saw through the windows in the Private Estate.

Me: I saw…I saw a sliver of the moon.

A horrifying groan of anger and frustration from Redcap. Rattling, chittering sounds from the shadows. Louder, faster, frightened chanting from the circle.

Redcap: What else? Tell me.

Me: There isn’t anything else. The guy slammed the door in my face when I tried to look.

Behind Redcap, a figure materialized. An impossibly giant man seemingly carved from black obsidian and with the face of a devil. Its height defied the confines of the room. Redcap shuddered and released me. The chanting of the circle reached a feverish beat. The members of the Coven of the Right Stars took on definition in the dark, men and women who swayed in a trance. An ungainly shape scrabbled around their feet and sent a ripple of excitement among them. The next moment I saw what Dennis had died to avoid. The abominable cockroach thing with the face of a haggard and ancient woman. As large as a dog and hazy as if it were somehow not entirely present. In its segmented forelegs it clutched the body of a bloody child, two, maybe three years old. A new sacrifice. The woman’s face opened its mouth and showed me a blend of teeth and wriggling palps, running with fresh blood. It dawned on me then that I hadn’t noticed when the child’s crying had stopped, and that single moment of realization pushed my senses reeling beyond the point of rational thought. I crawled toward the trap door, but Redcap seized me again and dragged me to my feet. He gestured at me, motions mimicked by the man of black stone, and I couldn’t tell which imitated the other, if the stone man pulled Redcap’s strings or vice versa. Cold terror filled me. I wrenched myself free and dove into the trapdoor opening even as the cockroach thing scuttled toward me.

I fell through a shrieking void. Merciful silence followed. For a time, I sensed nothing.

Then a car horn honked. A dog barked. A child cried. Daylight stabbed my eyes.

I clambered to my feet and stumbled down a narrow alley, spilling out onto a cobblestone road on the west side of Manhattan. Perry Street. The Hudson River a block away. The opposite side of the city from Redcap’s old apartment.

Passersby flashed me frightened glances.

My watch showed me less than an hour had passed since Maggie and I entered the trap door. My senses reeled, but I kept my composure, began walking, telling myself I had dreamt it or fallen victim to a prank by Squirrel, hallucinating on some drug he’d slipped me.

I gave up trying to rationalize it.

In my pocket remained the papers of the poet my dead brother had given me.

My Carry-Corder had recorded everything.

Days later, I picked up my developed film and photos and found the images exactly as I remembered them.