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September 13, 1939
En-route from Los Angeles to New Orleans
United States of America
“What do you mean, he knows? He knows what?” Richard asked.
Wilkins struggled to stand, lifted himself painfully from the booth, and grabbed his friend by the shoulder. “About Peru. About the idol.”
“Richard?” The redhead at the American’s shoulder looked absolutely perplexed.
“Maybe another time, Gretchen. I need to take care of some business,” Richard said as he planted a kiss on her cheek, spun her around, and sent her on her way with a gentle press to the small of her back.
“We need to follow him,” Wilkins said, leaning heavily against his friend. He felt as if he had no control over the muscles of his legs. His entire body shook as he stood and sweat poured from his face in rivulets.
“Are you okay? What happened to you?”
“I don’t know. He did something to me. But I do know we can’t let him take the idol.”
“How would he know about that?” Richard asked as he pulled one of his friend’s arms over his shoulders and steadied him.
“I haven’t the foggiest. I had my concerns yesterday evening when I felt like I was in the book, and then he mentioned they can ‘transport you to another place and time.’ It seemed too on the nose.” Wilkins still struggled to keep his legs steady and leaned on Richard’s arm.
“Wait, what?” the American asked as they made their way through the doors to the first sleeper car.
Wilkins had told him about the encounter in the observation car, but not about the incident where he had felt as if he were a character inside Tears of Vienna. “It was like I was living the events of the book I was reading. I thought it more the product of an overactive imagination on a sleepless night, but now I’m having my doubts.”
“What does he know?”
“More than we do, I fear.” Wilkins shook his head and cursed himself for his ignorance. He had been unnerved by the meeting with Henri, so should have picked up on the signs. The man was obviously stalking them, and he had voiced little more than a passing concern to Richard. “I believe he had suspicion enough to follow us onto the train, and just now, he confirmed it. I don’t know what he did to me, but it reminds me of a certain legend from the people of the—”
“Explain later,” Richard cut him off. “For now, let’s make sure he doesn’t take the idol. I’ve spent too much on this expedition, and we’ve been through too much craziness to let him walk away with it.”
As they made slow progress through the sleeper car, Wilkins’s legs began to feel stronger. The numbness which pervaded his entire body ebbed, and as they passed through the doors into the next car, he was walking fully under his own power.
Their own cabin was three cars back from the bar. By the time they were midway through the second car, they were both at a full run. Richard drew his revolver from under his jacket before he opened the last pair of doors, then dashed through.
The corridor was empty, save for the porter nodding off in his seat near the rear of the car. Richard ran to their cabin and pressed gently on the doorhandle. The door slid open slightly; enough to tell them it was no longer locked. Wilkins waited while Richard flung the door open with his back to the wall, then spun around and rushed into the small space with the revolver held out before him.
“It’s empty,” he called out.
Wilkins entered behind him and went straightaway to the small overhead compartment where he stowed his bags. He flung open the cabinet and pulled out the contents. He threw the briefcase with his notebooks behind him, almost striking Richard. A suitcase followed, this one fortunately caught by his friend before it plowed into him.
Wilkins emptied the cabinet but did not find the leather satchel. In desperation, he ran his hands through the compartment, along the sides, and pressed on the back. His shoulders slumped forward, and he laid his head down on the cold aluminum trim lining the storage space. He gripped the edges of it with both hands, his knuckles white with frustration. “Dear God.”
“It’s gone?” Richard asked, even though he likely could see for himself the space was empty. It was a question certainly born of hope or dread rather than a genuine inquiry; it was simply a confirmation of both their worst fears.
Wilkins needed only to nod in response, and Richard was out the door and on his way faster than a passing spring storm. The scholar slammed shut the luggage compartment and ran after him.
They bolted through the last of the sleeper cars and into the dining car, which at that time in the evening was still occupied; fortunately, it was not as cramped as usual thanks to the social being held further forward in the train. A pair of cooks looked up in astonishment as Richard ran past. In his leather jacket and brown slacks, he was a blur of earthen tones as he sped by with the revolver held upright. When their attention shifted to the shorter man covered in khaki running awkwardly behind, Wilkins could do more than offer an apologetic smile as he rushed to keep up.
A woman shrieked as Richard ran by, and her male companion bolted upright just as Wilkins caught up to the spot. He barreled into the man, spun around in a struggle to keep his balance, and continued on his way, calling out an apology over his shoulder. A chorus of shouts and the clinking of plates and glasses as others rose to see what the commotion was about followed him as he reached the rear of the car. Richard was well ahead of him, but had left the doors open in his wake.
As Wilkins approached the door, a handful of passengers came streaming out with looks of panic on their faces. He shouldered past them and ran through the open transition into the observation car. The train shuddered under his feet, and he was almost tossed to the side as it rounded a turn. He grabbed the frame of the doorway and pushed himself into the last car.
Richard stood in the center of the aisle, his feet planted firmly and the revolver held before him. Henri stood framed by the wall of glass at the rear of the car, the satchel bearing the idol in his hands. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll drop that and walk away,” the American said.
“Excusez moi, but I do not think this will be possible.”
“Henri!” Wilkins called out. “Don’t touch it. You don’t know what it can do.”
“Oh?” Henri chuckled. “But what irony is this? No, my Anglais friend, it is you who knows not what it is capable of.” With that, he pulled the idol from the bag and threw the latter aside. He stood there with the effigy in both hands, the tiny screaming man facing the two of them.
“I don’t care what we know or what you know,” Richard said as he took a step forward. “All I care about is that it’s our find, and you’re going to put it down.”
“I don’t think so,” Henri said.
“For the love of God,” Wilkins pleaded, “put it away before something happens.”
“Oh? And what might happen?” Henri asked. He shifted his hands so the idol sat flat on one palm, and then traced a finger lovingly along the various tendrils surrounding the figure. “Perhaps I wish for something to happen.”
Richard looked over his shoulder, as if waiting for Wilkins to give him some direction. The anthropologist saw no other way out of the desperate situation and nodded a silent accent. Turning back to Henri, the American said, “Last warning. Put it down, or I swear I will put a hole in you.”
Henri merely smiled as a glow suffused the space around the idol. The lights in the car flickered and went out. As darkness consumed them, the sound of a thousand screaming voices filled Wilkins’s mind, as they had in the Peruvian ruins. He fell to his knees and covered his ears, but there was no stopping the noise. He looked up, and in a strange green glow emanating from the idol in the Frenchman’s hands, he saw Richard had also collapsed to the floor of the car; the revolver discarded as he too struggled to block out the overwhelming assault on his senses.
Somehow, Wilkins heard Henri’s voice over the cacophony. “You will soon learn, mon amie, that there is more to this world than there seems to be. The entire world will learn, soon enough.”
The screaming grew louder and a bitter chill filled the air. From the rawness of his throat, Wilkins knew his own voice had joined the chorus despite being unable to hear himself. A sulfurous odor filled the air, and a wave of nausea overtook him.
“C’est dommage, friend Wilkins,” Henri’s voice carried over the chaos, “that one such as yourself fears the truth. As a self-proclaimed scientist, you have devoted your entire life in search of the one thing which terrifies you most.”
Wilkins looked up again and saw the idol suspended in the air of its own accord. The green and black marbled surface was so dark that he could no longer see the details of the figurine. It was little more than an inky blackness hovering before Henri—as if it were absorbing any light around it—yet the green light emanating from it was almost blinding in its intensity. Arcs of what seemed to be electricity danced between the Frenchman’s hands and the statue, weaving around it in strange patterns. His face was lit from beneath, casting an eerie glow on his broad smile and eyes wild with ecstasy as he began chanting. The words passing his lips were unintelligible, seeming so foreign that no human throat should have been capable of forming the sounds he repeated with practiced ease.
Richard lay prone on the floor of the car, which vibrated as if the wheels were turning over a field of rough stone instead of the smooth steel rails of the tracks. A dull rumble filled the air, an undercurrent to the constant chorus of screaming voices which seemed both impossibly close and distant at once. The air grew colder as Henri’s voice rose above the bedlam. Wilkins’s fingers burned and grew numb. Crystals of ice formed on the surfaces around him and grew as if they desired to consume the entire world.
The twisting in the pit of his stomach became overwhelming, and the muscles of his abdomen spasmed and sent the contents of his belly spewing forth onto the floor of the car. As the glow of the idol became brighter, a darkness deeper than a thousand nights closed around them. The song of agony coursing through his mind grew to a fevered pitch, the voices coalescing into a single shriek that threatened to tear his mind apart as they approached a crescendo. All was dark except for the glow surrounding the inky blackness of the idol, which was blindingly bright while illuminating no surface around it.
Then, as suddenly as it began, the chaos ended. The bright glow blinked out, and the world was nothing but unending darkness and silence.
