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It’s too wet to rain.
It’s been almost a year since Charles left Oakmont—turned tail and ran his keister all the way back to Boston. Thinking he’d gotten away. Thinking he put all that soggy misery behind him. But it’s been a year and the water is everywhere. The flood is coming to Boston, too.
Not all at once. There’s been no grand tsunami, no tidal waves or vicious storm like what turned all’a Oakmont ass over head. No, it’s coming in slow. Charles saw it before it even started: looking out over the bay, its surface glossy, opaque, and convex, like the surface of an eye. Swelling up and up—only a matter of time before it spilled. Like the tide coming in as an unwelcome guest, and then coming in some more, and some more, and more.
The water’s everywhere, now. Not quite like Oakmont, yet, because folks outside of Boston care about Boston. The National Guard turned up about a month back, and they’re at the bay now, piling sandbags, rebuilding the breakwaters, like it’ll do a damn thing. Nothing stops the water, though. Everywhere Charles goes, there’s at least an inch of the stuff. Sales on galoshes are through the roof. Everything stinks of brine and fish. The sewers overflow and the Common is a marsh going on aquarium. He heard a story the other day about something in the reeds, there. Some slinking, unidentifiable amphibian staking its claim on the bandstand.
And it’s only going to keep coming, Charles knows. The sea will swell and spill, over and over, until the avenues turn to canals, and Fenway Park hands in its bats and balls for water polo. There’s no stopping it. But it won’t rain.
Charles Reed sits at the bar in a small joint on Union St. He’s been coming here for a while—it’s the one joint in decent distance from his apartment where the owner has managed to keep the standing water out. It’s a losing fight, though. Charles keeps his heels hooked over the stool rungs, because if he puts his foot down, he knows he’ll feel the floorboards give a little. The ocean is just underfoot. The wallpaper is peeling, the booze tastes like salt. The drywall ain’t earning its name. Everything is becoming soft, and mushy, and rotten—a whole town crumbling into silt. And there’s not a damn thing anyone can do about it.
Well. Anyone else can do about it.
Charles pays for his drink and leaves, wandering up Union Street. It’s nowhere near closing time but the streets are still almost completely empty. No one wants to be out in the dark. There’s not even enough water yet for anything to be hidden underneath—just enough to ruin your shoes—but the cityfolk can feel it coming. Sooner or later Charles knows some odd hand is gonna reach out of a storm drain, some slimy tail with teeth.
He's thought about moving inland. Lots of people have already, like rats fleeing the ship. His apartment building is half full, the entire first floor having broken their leases first. He wonders how far west they’ve gone, how high up. Were the Appalachians tall enough to escape the floods? For how long? Charles watches his building rise up in the distance and imagines what it’s gonna look like when the barnacles creep in, when the bricks calcify. The water sloshes against his boots and he can almost see ropey sinews twisting around the upper floors. The limbs of some cephalopoid stretch up from the inky, creeping sea, down from the ponderous clouds, circling and choking his little home. He can feel the opening of a great, cavernous maw, gaping, sucking. He’s felt its pull since long before Oakmont and it’s stronger than it’s ever been.
There’s a stern pressure against his back. It’s hard but not heavy, as if he’s falling backwards even though he’s standing perfectly still, and only five fingers and a steady palm are holding him up. A firm, familiar presence at his side. His heart begins to pound.
Oh, he knows who this is. He’s waited for this. There’s a point in which dread becomes anticipation and he’s tasted that for weeks. He knows what’s come for him and he wants, so badly that it aches, to—
Charles wakes up in his bed, on a lumpy mattress tangled in clammy sheets. He blinks around at his apartment. The wallpaper is peeling here, too.
He stays still for a while, letting his breath even out. He’s on the fourth floor, and even then there are times he’s afraid that if he swings his feet to the floor, seawater’ll splash his ankles. So he stays in bed for a while, unmoving. Trying to remember how he got here. He remembers leaving the bar, walking home. The weight against his back. Something hot twists in his stomach, and that’s when he realizes there’s a pleasant scent of coffee wafting in from the kitchen.
That’s no coffee he buys, he thinks immediately. He can’t afford something that—God, that smells good. He’s already sitting up before it occurs to him that for there to be freshly brewed coffee, someone else is in the apartment.
Charles stops. Puts his bare feet to the cold—dry—floor. He hears the quiet tread of nice shoes on the linoleum and he thinks about the hand on his back, his racing heart. Well, he thinks, it can’t be that yellow-jacket prick if he was generous enough to show up with fancy coffee and go as far as to make it, can it? He can put off having to choose a little longer. So Charles throws on a fresh shirt and wanders out of the bedroom to confront whatever gentlemanly B&E is taking place.
As suspected, there’s a man in the kitchen, making coffee—in a suit, no less, but not a yellow one. The intruder is tall and blond, dressed in warm burgundy. He turns, and the first thing Charles sees is the glint of gray morning light off glossy porcelain: a mask. An eye that’s not really there catches his. Then the other eye, which is perfectly normal, sitting in the familiar face of Graham Carpenter.
“Good morning,” says Graham in that nasally but affable voice of his, driving in the recognition full force. Not that he is easy to mistake otherwise, but as a man of many distinctive qualities, his voice stands out to Charles above the rest. “I’m sorry to have intruded, but your door was unlocked.”
No it wasn’t, Charles wants to say. “Good morning, Mr. Carpenter,” he says instead. He makes a hasty but somewhat useless effort to straighten his shirt and comb his hair back with his fingers. “This is an unexpected pleasure.”
“Graham,” the man corrects him gently. “I think just Graham is enough, between the two of us. Don’t you?”
Charles smiles a little. It’s been a long time since he had a guest—has he ever brought home a guest to this place?—and it’s nice, actually, not to wake up alone in the apartment again. “Okay,” he says. “Graham.” As Graham turns back to the coffee he’s brewing, Charles heads for a cupboard to fish out two clean mugs before his guest can see the state of those they won’t be using. “Sorry I’m not much of a host. If I’d known you were in town, I—”
Graham plucks the mugs out of his hand. “No, not at all,” he reassures him smoothly. “Please, sit down. As the intruder here, let me make it up to you in this small way.”
“Oh, um. All right.”
A little baffled but still pleased, Charles, takes a seat at the small kitchen table. Graham continues. “It wasn’t my intention to spring my arrival on you unannounced, but I’m afraid I didn’t have your number to call ahead. And I especially did not want to miss my opportunity of meeting you, seeing as I am so rarely anywhere but Oakmont these days.”
He pours the coffee and then joins Charles at the table. They each sip. At the first taste of earthy caffeine Charles’ mouth is at attention, savoring every moment as if he can absorb it into his tongue, the insides of his cheeks, skipping stomach altogether. Holy hell it really is delicious, and a quiet murmur of appreciation slips out of him. Graham takes a more reserved drink, the corner of his lip quirking—accepting the unspoken gratitude.
But as Charles lowers his mug with a sigh, he suddenly isn’t certain how to feel. In his line of work, a familiar face is a double edged sword. Repeat customers aren’t the boon they are for most other occupations: usually it means the job wasn’t done right, or else that a loose end is about to be tied off. Even in the best cases, a returning client is often prone to leaning on past affairs for leverage. Graham seems to know better than to put the squeeze on Charles Reed, but then again, do they really know each other that well?
On the other hand.
Graham Carpenter of Oakmont is sitting in his Boston apartment, drinking fresh coffee. He himself is indelible proof that Oakmont exists, that it happened. There are mornings Charles wakes up—a firm, steady hand against his back, hot like a fresh brand—thinking the doomed city and its doomed inhabitants were all part of some asylum-induced fever dream clawing behind his eyelids. The creatures, the babbling townsfolk, the briney canals, could all be no more than a little too much laudanum sloshing about between his ears. Boston is too wet to rain, but so what, he thinks sometimes. Maybe the inescapable, thundering dread that grips his stomach at the stench of the ocean exists only in his mind.
But no. His imagination sure as hell ain’t good enough to conjure up joe that tastes this good, and that means it’s real, which means Graham Carpenter is real, and sitting in his kitchen, politely waiting for him to indicate he’s ready for conversation. That confirmation is terrifying in a satisfying way. It aches in the pit of him, like a sore muscle in need of flexing. It’s his, it’s real. He’s not mad yet.
“Speaking of,” Charles at last picks up Graham’s dropped thread, “I have to admit, I’m surprised to see you. I didn’t think anyone left Oakmont, or even could.”
Graham smiles. “I was the one who helped you leave,” he reminds Charles with gentle teasing. “Did you not think I could do the same for myself?”
Charles stumbles over his lips, blushes a little. He gives a hapless shrug, but Graham is continuing before he can think of a dry reply.
“I’m sorry,” Graham says, still smiling, still affable. “I’m not very good at this. The truth is, I’m only in Boston for a short while on business. I don’t have a great deal of time to reminisce, I’m afraid.”
Charles relaxes beneath his I’d like to get down to business now tone. Familiar face or no, sanity-affirming presence or no, the idea of sitting down and idly chatting about those bizarre, unresolved weeks in Oakmont isn’t exactly…well, let’s just say, he has no idea how to handle that. There’s nowhere that conversation can go that he’s interested in exploring.
But business, God yes, let’s have it. If there’s anything Charles needs now more than fucking good coffee, it’s a distraction. His eyebrows raise to snatch the bait. “Could it be you’ve got a job for me, Graham?”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Graham confirms, bless him. “That is, if you’re available.”
“You know we’re not in Oakmont anymore,” says Charles, warming his fingers against his mug. “Bullets aren’t gonna cut it this time—I only take good ol’ American dollars.”
Graham gives a little chuckle. Has he ever heard him do that before? “I am happily prepared to compensate you properly for this, Charles. The truth is, once I return to Oakmont after my business is concluded here, I don’t believe I’ll ever leave again. So I might as well make use of what I have while I’m here.”
He pats his jacket pocket, and the wallet likely hidden there, and takes another sip of his drink. Charles thinks very hard on what the dollars to coffee conversion rate is compared to bullets. He decidedly does not think about anything else Graham just said. “In that case, I happen to be available. What’s the job?”
“Nothing too exciting,” Graham promises, which might actually be a bit of a disappointment. “I’m trying to locate an old friend of mine: Oliver Jones. He’s lived here in Boston since the war.” His eye escapes Charles’ for a moment, losing focus on some distant corner of the room. “He and I were rather intimately acquainted, and I had hoped to see him in person at least one more time.”
Jones—oh yes, Charles remembers that name, glimpsed on a correspondence not meant for him. He sees the skin tighten around the edges of Graham’s mask, and he wonders for a brief second, is this a brotherly farewell he intends to offer his old platoon-mate? Or could this be unfinished business? No, no no no. Graham is capable of a lot, but this isn’t about that. Graham means just what he says.
“So I take it he’s missing,” Charles pushes the conversation forward.
“I’m afraid so,” says Graham. “I’ve called on his apartment three times, each at a different time of day. He nevers answers, and from what I gather from the landlord, no one has seen him in a few weeks.” He sighs. “No one will go looking until his rent is due.”
Charles nods along; he’s done a hundred of these. “I was hoping you would look into it for me,” Graham continues. “Compesnated, of course, like I said. I don’t know Boston well enough to inquire around myself. But as I happen to know a rather talented private investigator, I would like… to be at ease.”
He doesn’t have much hope of finding the man alive, that much is obvious. It’s closure that Charles needs to pick up a scent for. He sighs with the thought. Wouldn’t it be great, he thinks. Wouldn’t it be so fucking swell, if somebody on this godforsaken planet got a little bit of closure?
“All right.” Charles nods one more time. “I’m in.”
Graham straightens, watching him with clear elation. “Yes?”
“Yeah.” Charles chugs the rest of his coffee. He sets the mug down with a heavy exhale, and everything feels a bit more normal already. “Give me the address.”
**
The building isn’t that far from Charles’ own. Like everywhere in Boston, it reeks of salt and dead fish. There are a lot of narrow blocks like this one in the area, full up of vets come back from the war, needing a tiny little space to themselves. Just four walls and mattress, where they can scream at night and not disturb the honest folk uptown.
The landlord gives him the same unconcerned song and dance he did Graham: Oliver Jones hasn’t been seen in over a week, but he’s paid up, so what business is it of anyone’s? He declines to let Charles inside, but he’s so engrossed in a book—he barely even looks up as he speaks—that he doesn’t bother seeing him out. Charles takes that as invitation enough and helps himself to the apartment on the third floor.
This place is closer to the water—too close for Charles’ liking. Everything's soggy and moldy and pushes in a little bit too much when touched. He doesn't even need to pick the lock; a good hard nudge is all it takes to shift the whole damn knob, and the door swings open. He wonders why Graham didn't try that himself. Maybe he felt it would be too much of an invasion of privacy for an old friend.
He walks into the trap.
Charles was half expecting it because half of him always is. The proof doesn’t jump out right away, but he can smell it under the mildew. There’s a radio on its side near one wall, bread growing on the countertop. The bed in one corner of the single room apartment is made, doesn’t look like it’s been occupied for a long time. Empty bottles with a familiar poppy logo are huddled on the floor by the pillow. The reminder makes Charles’ teeth ache.
He pushes the door open wider and hears scraping paper: postcards piled up from the mail slot. Looks like Jones has a sister out west. The last one has a return address, inviting Jones to join her on the beach with her husband and little ones. Naw, that’s too far west, Charles thinks. No point in leaving Boston for California when they’re both on the coast, first to drown.
Charles continues flipping through the mail as he heads deeper into the apartment, and his thumb brushes over a thin, folded paper. He opens it up as meanwhile the teeth of the trap close in: it’s a flier advertising a local theater performance of The King in Yellow. Fuck.
Charles goes cold. He feels the hand on his back. Just because this Jones guy knows Graham doesn’t mean he was ever at Oakmont—why would Graham be here if he had been? He shouldn’t have any connection to kings of whatever color. But the strange, three-pronged sigil he remembers from alley walls and bloody basements is stamped proudly in one corner of the playbill, and maybe it isn’t just the flood waters that have washed up uninvited on Boston’s shores.
“Johannes,” he says aloud, and his eyes rove every corner and shadow, as if the name itself is a child’s superstition that will summon the man from beyond the veil. The “man”. Ha. His heart thuds in anticipation but nothing happens.
Charles moves quickly around the apartment, running his fingers over everything he can reach. Clothes, piles of books, the laudanum bottles, the bread. He still has his gift, he’s sure of it—he still gets flashes sometimes, silhouettes of ghosts drifting about the homes they once occupied. But his brain feels soggy and swollen, like an old sponge in a ditch, and the remnants of Oliver Jones offer no clues. Does he even live here, Charles wonders? Did he ever? He can feel the iron teeth snapped tight around his pelvis but he keeps pacing anyway, trying to claw some vision up out of the mundane clutter. Then he notices the wallpaper.
Peeling, like everywhere else. Charles crosses to the wall and digs his nails under the curled edge. Pulls. It comes up easy, the glue soft and dead, and god fucking damn it, there it is: a narrow yellow curve decorating the wall beneath it. The tendril looks stained more than painted, as if it's welled up from somewhere deeper within the wall. He doesn’t have to clear more than a strip to recognize it, but he snatches up the playbill again, just to be sure.
The King in Yellow, stage show. One night only: tonight. Of course. God fucking—of course. It’s so gratingly obvious as far as traps go that Charles is furious, and doubly so because he knows that’s the point. He storms over to the apartment’s phone and dials the number to the hotel Graham is staying at, drumming his fingers impatiently as the clerk connects him.
The line picks up, and Charles hears an inhale on the other end, but he beats them to speaking. “Johannes?”
There’s a short pause, during which Charles’ stomach makes a break for his throat, followed by a quiet sound of confusion. “Excuse me?” says Graham.
Charles doesn’t relax yet. “It’s me,” he says. “I’m at the apartment.”
“Ah, so soon?” Graham sounds perfectly natural on the other end, but Charles’ blood is pumping now, a spring wound tight, ready to catch the other fucking shoe when it finally drops. “Have you found anything?”
“Yeah. Sort of. Listen, Graham.” Charles forces himself to take a breath, but when his lungs expand he can feel that fucking hand against his back again, patient and anticipatory, and he can’t stop himself. “Did Johannes put you up to this?”
“Johannes van der Berg, I assume you mean?” Graham replies. “I haven’t seen or heard anything from him since you left Oakmont, Charles. You have some reason to believe he knows Jones?”
Charles lowers his eyes, realizing that he’s still clutching the god damn flier. It crinkles in his fist. “The King in Yellow,” he says, and the words seem to sprout in his mouth; his tongue feels twisted and the insides of his cheeks tingle. “Does that mean anything to you?”
“The play?” Graham hums, still damnably at ease. “Yes, I’ve heard of it. I haven’t had the opportunity to see it in person, however.”
“It’s playing tonight at a theater downtown—the Wisteria. Nine o’clock.”
“I see.” Graham is quiet for another beat. “I’m happy to meet you there, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”
Is he? Charles grinds his teeth—they taste yellow—as defiance hardens between his ribs. It’s time to run—it’s time to flee into the mountains like all the rest, as high up as he can go. He should be sprinting back to his apartment now, he should be begging Graham for whatever’s left of that coffee and then out the door out the city out the human race, because the flood is coming, it won’t stop, it won’t stop, and it can’t rain because the oceans have swallowed it all already.
But Charles doesn’t run. He takes another deep breath as a macabre sensation of relief washes through him. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I think what we need will be there.”
“All right. The Wisteria, at nine?” A note of humor sneaks into his voice. “You don’t strike me as a man of the theater, Charles. If you don’t have anything suitable to wear, I’m happy to lend you something for the evening.”
Charles’s mouth jerks into a smile. “I’m good, thanks. See you tonight.”
He hangs up.
Charles is, in fact, good. A good private investigator knows how to employ a decent disguise for any situation, but for him, it’s a bit more personal. He’s a clothes horse.
So he dresses the part: three piece suit, pinstripe. Necktie and pocket square. Wool hat. Good enough to get buried in, that’s for sure. If he was walking into Johannes trap—and let’s be serious, there’s no doubt of that—he would face the choice he had fled from before head on, and wearing his best, too.
Once again, Boston’s streets are nearly empty as Charles arrives at the Wisteria. He gets out of the cab and gazes up at the small, hand-carved sign, hanging over a rotting door. Never been here before—Graham was right, he’s no theater buff—but it sings with familiarity. He twists the rusty knob open, no earthly idea what he’ll actually find inside. What greets him is a narrow stairway, leading down.
Down. Fuck. Charles takes a deep breath, steeling himself for cold salt sloshing up to his knees, probably, as he closes the door behind him and heads down. He keeps his hands off the banister. But the deeper he goes, the drier the air becomes, to his shock. The wallpaper illuminated by bare bulbs is crisp and flat against the walls, and his feet touch solid concrete when he reaches the bottom. Not a splash. His relief is sour but he relishes it as he follows a short hall to another door, this one solid oak, new and ornate. He takes the knob, and even through his gloves he feels an engraving on the brass: three rough curves. His palm tingles and he lets himself in.
Charles steps through into a small foyer. It’s actually one of the nicer establishments he’s been in for a long time; plush carpet, low-hanging chandeliers, lamps on sconces. The space seems to glow with warm, gold light, that banishes all soggy melancholy of the city outside. There’s no ticket-seller, no coat-taker. He moves forward slowly, trying to steel himself against the welcoming heat of the place. This is nothing more than a baited trap and he’s not going to let his wits get tangled, even if the faint smell of lavender soothes his mushy sinuses.
“Charles,” says Graham. He’s dressed in a fine suit, too—double breasted, chestnut colored. He’s the only visible soul in the place and he’s waiting in front of a set of double doors that presumably lead to the theater proper. He smiles. “Apologies for my presumption earlier: you look dashing.”
“Back at you,” Charles replies as he approaches. There’s not one spec of yellow on the man, but even so, he knows he’s right. “I don’t see anyone taking tickets.”
“A small theater like this, a one night engagement. Perhaps anyone who is lucky enough to know about it has earned their seat already.” Graham reaches for the doors. “Shall we?”
“Might as well,” says Charles, and he takes a breath.
Graham pulls the door open and motions for Charles to go first. He does so, bracing himself. As his foot crosses the threshold he feels eyes falling upon him—swiftly, all at once. He’s walked into the center of attention.
The theater is full, at first glance. What Charles can only assume is Boston’s elite sit perched in every available chair, which for a theater isn’t all that many—two dozen, perhaps. Which means that Charles’ entrance is keenly observed: every occupant has turned in their seat, without any creak of chair or breath of movement. As if they have each been waiting, all along—some of the uncomfortably craned—for Charles Reed to join them. The crowd is full of tailored suits and silk gowns, and upon each face is a mask. Pallid, featureless masks with eyes cut wide peer at him in silent, impatient contemplation.
Charles stops. This is the point of the pulp serial where the reader smacks their magazine against a bed post, shouting Run! Run! And then they turn the page, cruelly oblivious to the truth that their daring hero would be safe, if only they stopped reading. He stopped reading, once—he can do so again. He can still leave. He should leave. There’s always the Rockies.
Then Graham puts his hand gently to Charles’ back. The steady familiarity of that palm burns through his suit, branding his spine. Heavy, and supportive, and inescapable. Charles sets his jaw and takes a step forward. Graham follows, still touching him. He could speed up or shake him off, but he doesn’t, leading them step by step down the gentle decline toward the front of the house.
There are two open seats for them in the front row, because of course there are. The rest of the audience watches them the entire way; their chairs creak and scrape as they turn their bodies to keep Charles in their line of sight. Otherwise no sound is heard, not even the hiss of breath against the inside of their masks. Are they breathing? Charles feels his breath whistling through every tiny vessel in his lungs, so loudly he’s certain everyone can hear it.
Graham’s hand comes off his back, and he sits down. Graham sits beside him. As soon as they are settled, Charles can hear movement from behind the curtains: the play is about to start.
“Seems like we’re right on time,” says Graham quietly, and Charles scoffs. It’s a bizarre relief to know his host is as much of an insufferable prick as always.
It really is a rather tiny theater; the stage is barely large enough for ten people to occupy at once. The wallpaper on either side is rich ochre, but the heavy curtains blanketing the stage are warm yellow-gold. They catch the light of more chandeliers, reflecting it gorgeously in the small space, casting diffuse shadows in between the patrons. If it wasn’t so fucking creepy, it might have been downright elegant, thinks Charles. If he’d known the setting for his possible death was going to be so gently divine, he might have even shaved.
The curtain opens, gaping wide like a blossoming maw. Charles’ heart gives a thud even before Graham reaches over, squeezing his hand against the armrest. The leather of their gloves crinkles together, and Charles feels something similar clench within his chest. He struggles to keep his breath even as he waits for whatever horror Johannes has prepared for him.
A woman takes the stage. She is frail and very pale, draped in gossamer silks of iridescent goldenrod. Her hair is blonde as platinum, and when the first song of the performance flows from her, her voice is so delicate and pure that it damn near brings tears to Charles’ eyes. The audience is enraptured, and he can’t say he’s an exception. A few members hum along to her sorrowful melody. A few others mouth the words, the theater so small and intimate that Charles can hear their tongues meeting their lips. He has never heard this haunting dirge, but something inside him yearns with familiarity all the same. It reminds him of the calling he felt once as a boy, gazing out over the sea. He’s been told that lots of people feel that way, when they stare out over water that seems to continue on forever.
But it’s not the ocean, now, seeking to claim him. He feels upon his face a warm, dry breeze. The woman’s song evokes in him the smell of old leather and paper, like an ancient library. He imagines twisted lanes of dusty cobblestones, stone archways worn with centuries, towering cathedrals glittering with stained glass murals. He can see in his mind’s eye a great city whose spires dominate a glowing skyline, which go on and on, unfolding as endlessly as any sea. Banners flutter in the wind and the streets below teem with the meandering, chattering masses.
A great metropolis, both growing and in ruins, both overflowing with life and fading into dust. Its borders stretching forever outward, consuming all in its path. The cycle of life given consciousness.
And then the song ends, and the play resumes. Charles takes a deep breath, as if having just emerged from beneath a smothering blanket. The hand around his tightens—its thumb strokes his knuckles, focusing and oddly comforting. Charles grips it back. He twists their fingers together. Whatever he’s seen is probably a beautiful lie, but it sure beats being swallowed whole by the churning horrors of the salty deep. As far as hauntings go, he’ll take it.
The play carries on with dialogue, now—the preparation of a great masquerade, and the furious anticipation of an honored guest. Charles continues to cling to the hand in his as the actors—each masked, like their audience—whirl about each other in costumes of drab but intricate gray. Something is coming to their city. They continue in ignorant bliss, celebrating their empire at the height of its ascendency, thinking the arrival of the Stranger at best a charming and exhilarating boon, at worst a mild curiosity. Charles hates them a little, for their lack of caution. The luxury they adore so fervently is about to spell their doom. He’s not sure if he would prefer that to the creeping, sweat-soaked dread that permeates his life and city now. He likes to think he would prefer to see the apocalypse coming, but maybe only because he can’t unsee it now.
As the first act draws nearer to its conclusion, the theater grows tense. The audience leans forward in their chairs, anticipating some climax that Charles can only guess at. When The Stranger takes the stage, cloaked head to toe in tattered yellow, his stature and bearing are so obviously familiar that Charles’ heart pounds wildly, and the space between his shoulder blades itches and throbs. The figure isn’t the gaping, toothy jaws of death from the trenches, but he represents exactly that. Any moment now, he is going to unclench and swallow them all whole. And the audience waits for it, enraptured, all but aroused with anticipation for their own demise.
The act ends with a scream. The delicate siren that opened the play shrieks in horror, her voice sublime in its terror, shaking each patron to their marrow. Charles’ palms sweat within his gloves, and he leans forward with the rest. Any moment, and she will summon their demise. The stage curtains billow and curve as if forming a great archway—a door, a gate that he is meant to open. It has been waiting for him for so long, and something in him aches, a key seeking a lock. He might have even pushed to his feet if not for the hand around his, drawing him in, anchoring him.
“Charles,” says Johannes. His voice is quiet and faintly teasing as he tugs Charles to lean back in his seat. “Not yet.”
Charles settles back with a long sigh, but he doesn’t feel any relief. Once again, he is only delaying the inevitable. As the theater lights brighten for intermission, he turns to look at Johannes, sitting in the seat where Graham once was, wearing the suit Graham once wore. He smirks at Charles over his glasses, smug and intolerable.
“It’s about time,” Charles mutters.
Johannes arcs an eyebrow. “Is that all the surprise you can muster for me?” he asks, and Charles can’t quite tell if he’s honestly disappointed or making a decent feint of it. “When did you figure out it was me?”
“I knew the whole time,” Charles lies. “But you made it really obvious when you forgot that as far as Graham knows, Johannes van der Berg was shot three times and died. I never told him that you actually survived.”
Johannes gives a little shrug. “Ah, well, my memory is not as keen as it used to be, at my age.”
Charles scoffs. Theirs are the only voices in the theater; every other member of the audience has relaxed in their seats once more, but they are quiet, staring in unflinching intensity at the stage, waiting for act two to begin. He’s not even sure that they’re real let alone human, so he ignores them as he fixes Johannes with his glare. “Was all this really necessary?” he asks. “Graham, the fake case, the apartment?” Something icy bites at his stomach. “What did you do to Graham?”
“Nothing at all,” Johannes replies breezily. “He is as safe in Oakmont as he ever was.”
Charles grimaces, mourning the truly excellent coffee. “So it was all just a stupid joke and a waste of my time.”
“Not entirely.” Johannes turns to point over his shoulder at a man two rows behind them, his masked face still beaming expectantly at the stage. It’s then that Charles realizes Johannes is still holding his hand, and for some reason, he doesn’t pull loose. “That is Mr. Oliver Jones,” Johannes says. “A remarkable coincidence, all things considered. Between him and you, it has just about convinced me that Mr. Carpenter has earned a seat for act two as well. He’s quite charming in his own way, don’t you think?”
“Act two,” Charles echoes, and his eyes dart toward the stage. The curtains are closed now, and he can hear footsteps skittering around behind it, as the “actors” prepare for the rest of their performance. He swallows. “I have a feeling I’m not going to like it.”
“I would not presume to guess,” says Johannes. “You regularly defy my expectations for you.”
He lets go. Charles’ feels a chill at the absence, and he isn’t sure how to react as he watches Johannes push to his feet. “If you’re not feeling prepared for it, let us take a walk, Charles,” Johannes suggests. “You look as though you could use a breath of fresh air.”
Charles glares back at him, defiant. In truth, it’s the outside he might not be prepared for. The Wisteria is so warm, so coarse, so dry. He doesn’t want to give that up for moldy, mushy Boston just yet. But when Johannes offers his hand, he takes it again. He lets Johannes draw him to his feet and up the carpeted slope back toward the lobby.
The audience does not move or acknowledge them in any way.
The air out on the streets isn’t exactly fresh, but Charles takes it into his lungs anyway. Its spongy chill reminds him that this is his life now, this is all he has to look forward to. He and Johannes walk hand in hand down the sidewalk, avoiding the deeper puddles where they can. The night is thick and still. When they turn the corner, Charles recognizes the welcoming glow of his favorite Union Street speakeasy, which Johannes is leading them toward. He’s pretty sure they should be a few blocks away, but he doesn’t question or argue and instead follows Johannes inside.
They sink into a booth, overdressed. Johannes pays for their drinks. It’s not until Charles has a hint of alcohol in him that he’s able to speak the truth.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he says.
Johannes regards him calmly, his manners downright friendly. “Why?” he prompts.
“You know why,” Charles mutters, and he watches Johannes’ thin lips curl in a smile. He wishes he could scrape it off his face with his fist. “I didn’t choose. I ran away. You’re here to make me go through with it at last.”
Johannes hums, so low and full of fondness that it may as well be a purr. “You really think that’s why I’m here?”
“Of course it is! Why else would you be?” Charles gestures sharply at the bar around them; he’s not even sure if it’s real. “This fucking charade with Graham, the job. Why go through all this trouble? Just to fuck with me again? For what? What other goddamn reason could there be, except that you’ve been waiting all this time to drag me all the way back to Oakmont and finish what you started?”
“Me?” Johannes says with mock affront, leaning back in his seat. “What I started?”
“Yes!” Charles snaps, but when he notices some eyes around the bar turning their way, he swallows and lowers his voice. If he’s wrong and this isn’t just another of Johannes' illusions, he doesn’t want to make himself unwelcome in the one place in the city he doesn’t hate yet. If that even matters now. “Yes,” he says again, and he fixes the “man” across from him with an even stare. Sweat soaks into the brim of his hat. “I know what you are.”
Johannes stares straight back. He doesn’t look any different than when Charles first met him on the docks of Grimhaven Bay all those months ago, nothing in his face or bearing that indicates the threat he represents. Even so, Charles can see beneath his surface, now. His gift, weakened as it has become, reveals to him the shifting, squirming coil that lies beneath Johannes’ frail skin. He can feel its sinewy tendrils reaching out to him across the short space that separates them, as if they’re already winding around his ribs.
“And?” Johannes asks, giving himself away with the eagerness beneath his usually unflappable composure. He is hungry for the next words out of Charles’ mouth. “What am I, Charles?”
Charles’ pulse thunders throughout his body so heavily that he feels like he’s rocking in his seat. It damn near makes him seasick. “You’re one of them,” he whispers.
He’s the thing sleeping under Oakmont, ready to spring awake and end all humanity. He’s the Fecund Mother spewing out its thousands of corrupted young. He’s the monument to Dagon that gave Charles his visions in the first place. He’s the King in Yellow, manipulating all from the shadows.
“You’re a god.”
Johannes’ smile widens. He looks proud—not an arrogant confirmation, but rather, proud of Charles, coupled with relief. Unhurried, he removes the glove from his left hand and sets it on the table, stretching it toward Charles, palm up in invitation. Charles hesitates. His guts know he’s gonna take that bait again—they tell him so, loudly—but he waits a few beats all the same, to see if something will…happen. Nothing does. So with his breath held, Charles takes off one glove, too. He reaches across the table and clasps Johannes’s hand.
It’s dry, and warm, and fleshy. Long fingers, soft tips. No blemishes or calluses to speak of. He squeezes gently, and despite how certain Charles is of his convictions, for the moment, it feels like nothing more than a human hand. Something inviting flutters in his stomach and he suddenly can’t remember the last time he was touched by another person, or at least, as tenderly as this.
“I’m not here to bring you back to Oakmont, Charles,” Johannes says, and God help him, he believes it. “There’s no boat, no diving suit. I’m here because I’ve taken a liking to you.”
He moves his thumb slightly; Charles shivers, the reverberations of that touch spreading out beneath his skin. “You like me,” Charles says. It sounds so childish and so insane at the same time—he knows he’s right, he knows what utter annihilation it must mean for him, to have earned the interest of a creature like this. But he doesn’t let go. “Why?”
“Why not?” Johannes returns jovially. “You avenged my murder so thoroughly.” Charles scoffs and shakes his head; Johannes continues. “You’re a very interesting fellow. I have seen the chosen come and go, but few withstood Oakmont’s ‘charms’ with the same strength of character as you. That you alone survived until the end to choose at all is testament enough to that.”
“But…” Charles gulps, watching their joined hands. Strength of character—he wants to laugh. “But I didn’t choose. That’s why I’m still alive.”
“Choosing not to play their game is in itself a choice,” Johannes reasons. “You thought you could break the cycle. Cheat destiny. That you have avoided the Daughter’s madness all this time afterward is a singular achievement, you realize. It defies hundreds of generations of your kind.”
Charles takes a long drink; sighs when he puts it down. “That’s a real nice way of saying I’m a filthy coward, I guess.”
Johannes chuckles; honestly, and with a sympathy that sets Charles’ teeth on edge. God damn smug bastard. His shoulders stiffen, but as he tries to extricate his hand, Johannes abruptly stands from the booth. He moves around the table and joins Charles on his side, urging him closer to the wall—boxing him in. His body is unnaturally warm, pressing in, and though he is not of great stature, Charles feels trapped.
“No,” Johannes says, and he tosses his glasses onto the table. He leans in, and his eyes, once dull and brown, shine in the dim light with eerie flecks of molten gold. “You chose me.”
“I…” Charles sinks into the corner of the booth. His eyes are wide and locked on Johannes’, and his breath seems to pass uselessly straight through him, as if he’s a fish on a hook. “The fuck I did,” he says.
“You said it yourself,” Johannes continues to taunt, turning toward Charles—pressing his knee into Charles’ thigh. “It’s me you’ve been waiting for.” He takes Charles’ hand again, pinning it to the table and squeezing it tight. “Well, I’ve been waiting for you, too.”
Something hot and sweaty coils in Charles’ stomach. His spine tingles. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You’ve been dreaming about me, Charles,” Johannes purrs, stroking his fingers; Charles’ breath catches. “It’s me you feel against your back when you wake.” His other hand slides to the back of Charles’ neck and squeezes, just so. “I’ve felt you, too, you know. Your desire summons me.”
Charles shivers. He can’t even think of how this must look to everyone else in the bar, but there’s not much he can do about it, so he doesn’t look. What does it matter, anyway. “My desire, huh.” Fuck, even the word is under his skin now. It’s been too fucking long. “You mean, my burning desire to end all of humanity in a typhoid apocalypse?”
“No,” Johannes says, so casually. He rubs thumb idly against the soft flesh just under Charles’ ear. “No, I know you don’t want that. You’ve had enough from the ocean, isn’t that right?” He runs his fingertips along Charles’ sweaty hairline. “It was a comfort to you, once, but its depths repel you, now. Your boyhood joy worn down on the shoals. You’ll never submerge yourself again, I’d wager.”
“So…” Charles stares at him, and his heart skips. It’s not the skin on skin, it’s not the close proximity to…whatever creature he really was. Could it actually be hope? “So what does all this nonsense you’re jabbering on about really mean? If you don’t want me to go back to Cthygonnaar, what else is there to do?”
“Ahh,” Johannes murmures, but somehow, he doesn’t sound quite as smug as he should. It must be the caress of his fingertips to the delicate spaces between Charles’ knuckles, he thinks. It’s fucking distracting, and it…god, it does feel good. “Down to business, then, as always. I would expect not less.”
“Stop stalling.”
“Forgive me—my love of theater.” Johannes clears his throat and draws his hand back; Charles misses the warmth immediately, but at least he can focus, for Christ’s sake. “Charles, it is true that you were chosen as the Seed. In many ways, you still are exactly that. But what if I told you that you are more akin to…a key?” He sought and held Charles’ gaze. “One that fits more than one lock.”
Charles’ breath catches. He’s got the final piece—he’s figured it all out. He can see the fucking future, and he shivers again beneath a layer of sweat. “There’s more than one door,” he breathes.
“There’s more than one door,” Johannes answers.
He leans away from Charles then, as if he is graciously offering the man space—to think it through with his full faculties, to not be enticed or compelled. As if it isn’t already too late. “You and I are good friends by now, no?” he carries on. “I won’t sport with you, Charles—life as you know it will end.” He scoffs charmingly. “But as you well know, that was always going to be the case. You’ve seen what I have to offer you in its place, now. No more of this…putrid slick.” He draws his fingertip across the condensation on the table. “There is only the Great City to look forward to, my friend. Beauty indescribable—pleasures fit to drive a man mad.”
“You mean, like this morning’s coffee?” Charles suggests.
Johannes’ lip quirks. Maybe he thinks Charles is joking, but he really isn’t. There’s a part of him that really would smite every poor soul of earth for another sip of that joe—since apparently, every entity of the cosmos with a decent enough gang is taking their shots at annihilation anyway.
“I’m no genie,” Johannes says. He presses a hand to his chest. “If you are going to accept my offer, you take me as I am. The good, and the bad—no bartering, no conditions. But it’s not such a bad deal, is it, compared to the alternative?”
The alternative being slow death at the hands of another flood, Charles supposes. Or maybe the delusions will get him first. Maybe whatever’s nested itself in the Common. Armageddon is coming for him, god damn it, and he was half tempted to throw open the pearly gates for it back in Oakmont already.
But that isn’t exactly what Johannes is offering him now, is it? He thinks of the beautiful, pale waif from the play, and her voice which pierced him so effectively. He finds himself asking, “Will I survive this?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes,” Johannes replies with playful sincerity. “Though likely not in the manner you’re thinking.”
“The fuck does that even mean?” Charles mutters, not that he expects Johannes will answer. He’s not sure he wants him to. He feels as if his chest is suddenly full of silt, seeping down from his ribs into his stomach like an hourglass, and if time is running out, there’s only one last question that matters.
“Why me?” He tries to make it fierce; it comes out less so. But at least he gets it out.
And Johannes—god, devil, or whatever else he is wrapped up in that suit—smiles at him. “Charles,” he says, “you can ask me that question every day from now until the walls of my city crumble into dust, and I can give you a different, honest answer, every single time. In fact, I hope that you do.”
He leans in again; Charles doesn’t recoil. His voice lowers to a purr, and he covers Charles’ hand with his own. His fingers are warm and dry. “But for tonight, the answer is what I told you already: you chose me. And so, I choose you.”
Charles’ brow furrows. He wants to understand. “Which came first?”
Johannes’ smile quirks, and he pats the back of Charles’ knuckles. “Ask me again tomorrow night, and I’ll tell you,” he says. “So, Mr. Reed?” He lets go to instead place his hand palm up on the table next to Charles’. “Shall we go together?”
Charles stares at the offering. He thinks maybe he should look away, at least try to act as if he’s conflicted. Maybe there’s someone else in this tiny little bar that will give him a sharp look, a shake of the head, that will draw him back to his senses. But hell, who is he kidding? Johannes is right: he chose already. If not down in that watery cave under the doomed city, then just this morning when he woke up to a hand on his back, mouth watering. He held out long enough to earn the ending he wanted. That’s a legacy he can live with.
Well. By whatever measure of “live” Johannes is offering. It’s good enough for him.
Charles leaves the bar with Johannes. As they make their way back toward the Wisteria, the sky roils and growls overhead. The wind picks up with the promise of a storm, and no no no, it’s far too late for that, now. They reenter the theater, and every member of the audience is exactly where they sat before, unblinking and unmoving. Charles spots Graham Carpenter among them, tucked into the center row, his porcelain face replaced by the same pallid, featureless mask of the rest of them. Ah, good, he thinks. Graham earned himself a ticket to this chapter of Revelations after all.
They retake their seats in the front row. Johannes is still holding his hand. The briny stink of the streets is barely even a memory now, as Charles sits bathed in the warm glow of crystal chandeliers, the iridescent curtains, the smell of dusty wood and old stone. A city of tall spires and tattered banners awaits just beyond the curtain. The door is his to open.
Charles nods; the curtains part. Act Two has begun.