Shadows Out of Time

I awoke facedown on the floor of my office. The sound of metal pounding on wood filled my head. I groaned as I pushed myself up. My blouse hung off my body in tatters. My skirt was much the same, stained in fresh blood. The office was a mess. My desk was on its back, the couch toppled over on its side, the window smashed and devoid of glass. Pieces of paper and random trash lay scattered across the filthy carpet, which was covered in a rubbery gray substance that had the scent of musty fungus. In the midst of this chaos Sean lay prostrate in the center of the pentagram. The smaller pentagram on his bare chest had smeared, dripping messy red tendrils down his torso as if it were an unfinished scrap of graffiti spray painted by a group of amateur taggers. I couldn’t tell if he was breathing.

I crawled toward him, ignoring the pounding at the door. I cradled his head in my lap. “Sean? Can you hear me?”

The boy’s eyes fluttered open. “Where am I?”

I laughed as tears trickled down my cheeks. “It doesn’t matter. It’s over now.”

The door to my office burst inward. In the doorway stood two police officers with their guns drawn. Behind them I could see Mr. Willeford staring at me with an expression of mounting horror.

“What the hell’s been happening in here?” he asked.

I cleared my throat and put on a decidedly professional air. “Mr. Willeford,” I said, “I’m happy to announce we’ve accomplished a major breakthrough far sooner than previously anticipated. I’ll be waiving the fee on this one. No need to thank me. By the way, any of you gentlemen can feel free to help us to our feet when you’re ready.”

I tried to appear calm, but somewhere in the depths of my mind was the sound of a madman choking on his own blood in a room too small to die in…and far too small to live in. I can still hear it sometimes, even to this day, despite the fact that many weeks have passed since that fateful afternoon.

I must admit, Dr. Peaslee, it’s not always an unpleasant sound.

Of course, I plan to translate these experiences into a far more organized and objective report, one I hope to present to your esteemed colleagues at your exclusive conference next year.

As always, I appreciate your support in these matters. Needless to say, Sean does as well.

It will no doubt be…interesting…to hear the reaction of our peers when I present my findings to them next fall.

At long last, perhaps your grandfather’s name can be restored to the exalted heights it so richly deserves after all these decades of shameful neglect.

Yours Sincerely,

Dr. Margaret Keil, Ph.D.

The Beast Comes to Brooklyn GORDON LINZNER

“Hands off!” Professor Wolfgang Bauer snarled at the young man who’d been reaching for a package that had almost slipped from the academic’s arms.

The would-be Samaritan was a boy, really, in his late teens at most. He blanched at the rebuke and scurried backwards.

Seeing the youngster’s shock, Bauer relented. “Nein, danke,” he added in a less hostile tone. “I can carry these on my own. Your concern is appreciated.” The professor raised his leather travel bag with his left hand, while tightening his grip on the heavy package in his right so that his knuckles whitened.

“All yours, mister,” the youth said with a sneer, and turned up along the South Ferry pier to enter the train station.

Bauer returned to his own thoughts. The oppressive temperatures made him testier than usual. Having spent more than a year in Egypt, he ought not to have been so bothered by the City of Brooklyn’s late August heat wave. Of course, that had been a dry heat.

Mopping his brow with a sleeve, Bauer took a last glimpse at Brooklyn’s sister city across the East River. His grip on the package never loosened. Every other artifact he’d uncovered on this expedition had been shipped directly to his benefactors at the Boston Museum, but he’d felt compelled to make a side trip of his own to New York. He’d hoped to consult an antiquities expert at Barnum’s American Museum, perhaps learn something of its mystical nature from the Fox Sisters. The latter meeting would not have met with his sponsors’ approval.

It had all proven a waste of time. Barnum’s so-called experts were anything but, and the museum staff was preoccupied in preparations for the arrival of Swedish singer Jenny Lind.

With a sigh of self-pity, the Professor entered the station himself to board the train to Boston.

The car was sparsely populated; this was hardly the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad’s most profitable run. He slid his traveling bag under a seat and placed the package in the unoccupied space next to him, resting his arm less than casually atop it. He could not say why, but the professor was convinced this item was the most important discovery of the expedition.