The Dead Have No Shadows (30 page)

A falling branch sent up a cloud of sparks which rained down around Mickey and his companions.  Elena’s initial relief turned to terror.  Fires were springing up all around their feet.

The sound of the lift mechanism stopped and the door slowly rumbled open.

“Inside, now,” gasped Mickey.  He grabbed Elena and pushed her into the lift car.  He turned to do the same with Pester but was himself propelled inside by his guide as an entire tree fell across the spot where the three of them had been standing seconds before.  Pester hit the door close button.

The three of them leant against the far wall of the car, trying to get their breath back.  Outside the sound of the blaze grew louder and angrier.  The air inside the lift car started to heat up.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Mickey.  He crawled over to the control panel.  To his surprise there was only a single floor button.  Shrugging, Mickey pressed it.  There was a pause, long enough for Mickey to begin to worry, then the motor came to life and the lift began to rise.

Mickey had no idea how long the lift was moving for but they must have risen hundreds of feet by the time the mechanism cycled down to a stop.  Doors at the rear of the car slid open onto a view that initially defied comprehension.

Glorious sunlight flooded into the lift and the three of them had to shield their eyes from the glare.  The lift had opened on to a large floor space.  The trio walked out of the lift and looked around them.  The floor area was horseshoe shaped with a glass dome for walls and roof.  In the centre of the floor a double bank of escalators led down to a lower level.  Wherever, Mickey and his companions had emerged, there were at the top of it.

Mickey slowly moved further into the floor.  Around the periphery of the horseshoe, a row of benches, set slightly back from the glass wall, faced outwards.  Some of these benches were occupied.  There were old people, sharing sandwiches and sipping tea and young mothers wiping up the drips and splashes from the ice cream cones that their toddlers were sporting.  The whole scene had a sense of long missed normality.

Elena walked to the far end of the floor.

“Leave me here,” she sighed.  “This is too beautiful to leave.”

Mickey and Pester joined her at the window and Mickey happily agreed with Elena’s sentiment.  The glass walls gave a panoramic view of the countryside beyond the tower they found themselves in.  Lush green meadows spread all around, ending in cliff tops, beyond which a calm sea glistened in the sunlight cast from a cloudless sky.  The horizon was a thin barely
discernable
haze that made the sea look as if it stretched forever.

To one side, the cliffs were broken by a shallow but wide valley that led down to a broad, flat, sandy beach, where waves gently lapped at the edge of the golden sand.

“This is such a wonderful place,” said Elena.  “I would be happy to end my journey here, just looking at the sea until time ends.”  Despite the tears running down her cheeks, Elena looked the happiest that Mickey had seen her.

Pester had wandered away from the windows and was looking at the shrubbery in the planters around the edge of the escalator well.  The bushes were decorated and the wall containing the lift was similarly dressed.

“I didn’t notice that before,” said Mickey as he left Elena enjoying the view and moved to where Pester was standing.  “It looks a bit weird for celebratory stuff.”

“Unless it’s a
Feste
Macabre,” Pester replied.

“A what?” said Mickey.

“A macabre festival.  Like Halloween, but with a far more sinister edge to it.”

Mickey saw that Pester wasn’t joking.  He looked at the decorations.  They were black, deep purple and blood red.  The bunting and streamers were tooth edged and jagged.  Serpent headed creatures with bodies of what looked like razor wire and eyes of deep red gemstones were wrapped around the branches of the bushes.  Similar creatures, coiled into springs hung from the ends of the branches in a parody of Christmas baubles.  Whatever these things signified it wasn’t a joyous festival in any sense that Mickey knew.

“This means trouble doesn’t it?” said Mickey.

Pester nodded.  “Aye it does.  I take it you don’t recognise where you are.”

“Never been here before,” said Mickey with certainty.  “This can’t be right though.  It all seems out of place.  Look at those old people over there.  They’re not the sort who would go for something like this.  This is all Gothic looking stuff.  There’s a society at university that’s into this kind of stuff.  It could even be devil worship.”

“Possibly,” said Pester.  “But I think the living people can see something different from us.”

“Living people?”

“Look around you,” said Pester.  “What can you see?”

Mickey looked and instantly saw what Pester meant.  Despite the bright sunlight everyone, except Mickey, Pester and Elena had a shadow or a reflection in the brightly polished floor.

“They’re all alive,” he said.  “Can they see us?”

“No.  The living can never see the dead.  Despite what some people might think.”

That comment made Mickey shudder.  Pester had never put it that way before.  He was right though.  If these people could see Mickey, they would be looking at a ghost.

“What are you two talking about?”  Elena asked as she joined them.  Her mood seemed to have been brightened by the view and her earlier anger at Mickey forgotten.  “Ugh.  I do not like those decorations.  They are sinister.  Pester, what do they mean?”

“They mean that we have to be careful while we’re in here,” he replied.

Elena scowled at Mickey.  She didn’t speak but her expression left Mickey in no doubt who she blamed for this.

Mickey looked around, trying to spot a threat.  All he saw were old couples and young families enjoying the view and the sunshine.  He suspected that the real danger would present itself when they made their way through the lower levels, trying to find the exit.

The escalator took them off the tower in three flights.  From the half landings Mickey could see that the tower formed part of a huge glass roofed building that ran parallel to the coastline.  Each of the half landings was decorated in the same manner as the viewing tower.  The windows at each level had emblems and motifs that seemed to taunt Mickey and Elena though.  The images framed the idyllic scene outside as if to say, ‘so near and yet so far.’

The final escalator disgorged the travellers onto the upper floor of a giant shopping mall. 

Elena had never seen anything like it and gawped at the myriad shops that ran down both sides of the massive open balcony.  Large clusters of broad leaved vines hung from the rafters, close to the eaves, soaking up the natural light streaming through the vaulted glass roof.  The central portion of the roof structure was clear of greenery but was bedecked with massive ornate banners and flags.  Each was black, purple or red and bore strange emblems and sigils of arcane heraldry.  Strung alongside these banners were more barbed streamers and macabre baubles.  The roof beams were wrapped with more, larger, red eyed serpents; each one sporting a series of lethal looking blades along the length of its body.

The concourse was busy with shoppers and strollers while others were relaxing in clusters of settees and chairs dotted about the place.

“Left or right?” said Mickey.

Elena ignored the question.  She was too busy lapping up the sights.  For a poor village girl this was beyond her wildest dreams.

“Go left,” said Pester.  “It looks less busy.  And keep on the lookout for anything suspicious.”  He gently took Elena’s arm and led her towards the left hand concourse.  People seemed to drift out of the way as the three strangers walked along.

The open well running along the centre of the concourse gave a clear view of the floor below.  Emerging from the ground floor was an odd structure.  It was a skeletal pyramid shape that looked to have been constructed from the trunks and branches of the petrified forest that Mickey and his companions had just fled from.  The structure looked haphazardly built with beams and posts lashed together with thick rope.  Platforms ran around the structure at various levels.  Ladders were strung between these landings giving access to the pinnacle of the structure.  The whole thing reminded Mickey of a medieval siege tower, apart from the decoration.  The arms supporting the landings were draped with more banners, smaller versions of those hanging from the roof.  Heavy braided rope was wound up and around the central column of the tower in a strange parody of streamers.  More bladed serpents twined around these ropes.  The end of each arm carried another, coiled serpent wrapped around a vaguely human effigy.  The whole thing was made all the more distasteful by the fact that the shoppers and people milling around didn’t seem to find anything untoward about this macabre device or its hellish decorations.  Perhaps in the living world these structures were harmless and cheery Christmas trees.  Mickey would never know.

There were groups of street actors and artists plying their trade.  Mimes and statues drew a few curious spectators and the occasional half interested glances from passers-by, while jugglers and contortionists were graced with larger crowds.  One such crowd was assembled just past an open stairwell, halfway along the concourse.  Instead of trying to barge past or having to move to the other side of the concourse, Mickey took the stairs to the ground level.

At the bottom of the stairs a number of large cushioned sofas were arranged next to a children’s play area.  A couple of young mums were chatting on one of the sofas whilst their little ones were running around in the play area.

“I need a minute,” said Mickey, limping over to a free sofa.  He eased himself down onto the cushions, trying to position his leg to ease the growing pain in his thigh.  It seemed that Elena’s displeasure with Mickey had returned because she turned her back on him and walked off to browse some of the nearby shop windows.  Though she would never be able to buy, she could still look and dream.

Another troupe of street artists came past.  These were dressed in long black hooded cloaks with large wide brimmed black hats.  Their faces were completely covered by white masks that had long beaked noses.  They reminded Mickey of the quacks that plied their trade during the Black Death.  The beaked part of the masks would have been filled with aromatic materials to protect the wearer from the plague laden air whilst they were treating the sick. 

The plague doctors seemed to be performing a walking cum dancing routine that would repeat every dozen or so steps.  Though they appeared to be very good at what they were doing Mickey had no idea what the purpose was.

The troupe went past and Mickey turned his attention to the children at play.  He smiled sadly.  They had their whole lives ahead of them while his had already ended; and his entire existence would soon be extinguished.  Let them be happy, he thought.  Let them live long lives.

Another dance troupe was making its way along the concourse.  It was a large group of dancers, with accompanying musicians, prancing and cavorting across the floor.  They looked like Morris Men from May Day celebrations, but these dancers had more colours in their costumes and included women.  The dancers congregated around the open space at the foot of the stairwell to put on more of a display.  They cavorted around the sofas and the play area, weaving around the columns that held up the stairs.

The two mums were deep in conversation and completely ignored the dancers.  Then Mickey noticed that the children weren’t showing the slightest bit of interest in the performance either.  He thought that they should either be watching with rapt curiosity and trying to join in or crying for their mothers to remove them from the cacophony.  Then Mickey spotted something else.

“Pester,” he shouted.  “The dancers have got no shadows.  Where’s Elena?”

Pester had been studying more of the arcane decorations and now turned in alarm.  A group of dancers suddenly blocked Pester from Mickey’s view.  Mickey tried to rise but was driven back down by a blow to the chest from one of the musicians and a trio of dancers crowded around in front of him, preventing him from gaining his feet and raining blows on him.  He thought he heard a cry for help but a sudden blare of music drowned out all others sounds.