“And how do you plan on doing that?”
“Depends on you.”
At that moment, Martin Tyler took a cold, hard look at himself and his life: the books read in the solitary evening hours; the movies he’d gone to by himself; the offices and restrooms he’d worked long and hard to clean, only to get up the next day and do it all over again; the meals he’d shared with no one; the emptiness of the days, the aloneness of the nights; the fear that always accompanied him and that kept him at arm’s length from the rest of the world. What he saw was a man whose life was devoid of meaning and purpose because he had allowed it to become devoid of meaning and purpose.
But now it had both; maybe for the only time it ever would.
Am I crazy? he thought. Did I do a serious number on my brain with all the pills?
Then decided he didn’t care.
For the first time in several years—since Dad had first been diagnosed with prostate cancer, to tell the truth—he felt active, vital, necessary, strong—alive. He wanted to hold onto this feeling, if just for a little while longer. “Tell me,” he said to Jerry. “Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.” “You’ll have to find a way to get out of here as soon as possible.” Martin nodded. “I’ll think of something.” “And once you’re out the door, there’s no turning back.” “I understand.” “I mean it, Martin; you can’t let anyone or anything stop you or slow you down.”
“I get it, okay? Just tell me what to do.”
Jerry studied his face for a few moments, then nodded. “There is a place called The Midnight Museum. It has been in existence for as long as Substruo have walked the Earth. In it are housed those pieces of work that the Substruo have never been able to finish, or polish, or—in some cases—correct. It does not have doors or windows as you know them, but it does have entrances and exits. One entrance can be found in René Magritte’s The Glasshouse; another in Dali’s The Persistence of Memory; Escher’s Waterfall contains two exits; Mozart’s Requiem, three; but there are only two pieces that contain both an entrance and an exit: one is Auguste Rodin’s sculpture The Burghers of Calais; the other is an unfinished painting of Bob’s that he’d intended to call In The Midnight Museum—he would have been the first Substruo to use the name in a piece of work, and since that’s all but outright forbidden, that should give you some idea of the power he knew he possessed.
“That is where Gash is trapped.”
“How do I work this? What do I do once I get inside?”
“The first thing you have to—” Jerry’s eyes widened and he doubled forward, grabbing his stomach and opening his mouth to scream, but all that emerged was a faint, strained, wet shriek.
The circus performers all stopped, many of them looking around in confusion and panic.
Jerry flickered, then came most of the way back.
“What’s wrong?” said Martin, kneeling in front of Jerry and trying to grab onto his arms; his hands passed through as if the other man were smoke.
Jerry pulled in another pained breath: “Gash just woke up.
“And I think he’s really pissed off . . . .”
In the Center Ring, one of the Satin Lion Dancers fell forward, intestines belching through a large hole in its chest; one of the ballerinas began to scream, but a small dark growth appeared on her lower lip, quickly growing to engulf her face, turning it into a massive, black, crusty tumor, the pressure blowing one eye completely from its socket while pushing the other around to where her ear had once been; two of the Tumblesands lay writhing on the floor, blood jutting from their oversized mouths and noses, spraying into the faces of the performers nearest them, many of whom slipped in the thick muddy puddles made when blood soaked into sawdust, falling to impale themselves on steel poles thrown free of the fire-blasted wagons; a leopard screamed as it was turned inside-out, its teeth tearing through its own face as its ribcage was pulled out through its throat; the ropedancers howled in agony as the rope beneath them turned into barbed wire, shredding chunks of flesh and muscle from their feet and legs as they fell down into the growing flames; bodies imploded; tongues grew to twenty times their size, blasting through the fronts of faces and tops of heads; Onlookers tumbled through the scrim, crashing to the floor with hideous screams as their entrails and mechanisms splattered out in a burst of bloodied gears and slick viscera; a lower section of bleachers near Martin exploded into a thousand pieces, the splinters of wood flying out to blind dozens of the fleeing performers, the force of the blast toppling three of the massive wooden beams holding the roof in place.
Within seconds, the entire circus was flayed, shredded, gutted, crushed, and burning. Flames danced across the walls, spreading to the roof, dripping fire that sizzled when it met the blood running down the walls.
Martin threw himself down, covering his head and shouting, “What am I supposed to do?”
“Room 401, the Taft Hotel,” was all the more Jerry could say before he flickered, shrank, then imploded into nothing.
Martin leapt to his feet, his flesh turning red from the intensity of the heat, and started running for the door—
—then realized he didn’t know where the door was, the Onlookers had hidden it behind the circus tent, it could be anywhere, in any direction, he had no idea what he—
—then he remembered where the Onlooker had stepped through into the Center Ring; crouching down, trying to find some breathable air as the smoke from the fires roiled overhead, he thought he caught a glimpse of the spot, and if he was right, if that was the spot, then it was in front of the wall with the window, and if that was the case, the stairs leading back up into Buzzland should be . . . be . . .
To your right.
But what if—?
Move your sorry ass!
Martin struggled to his feet and ran in a semi-crouch, hacking smoke from his lungs, feeling blisters rise on his skin, blinking his eyes, trying to keep his bearings and—
—he slammed the top of his head into the cement wall of the gym near the backboard and was unconscious before he hit the floor.
He was still unconscious fifteen minutes later when Bernard, making his last rounds before his shift ended, found him there after checking Martin’s room and discovering it empty.
6
“I warned you to watch out for those steps,” said Ethel, daubing peroxide onto the bloody knot rising on Martin’s forehead.
“I know, I’m—ouch!—I’m sorry.” He was lying on the sofa in the main area, where Bernard had dumped him after bringing him up.
“You ought to be making with the ‘ouch’ and the apology,” said Ethel. “What were you doing up at this hour, anyway?” “I couldn’t sleep; I figured a few laps around the court would wear me out.” “You didn’t swallow your medicine this last time, did you?” “No.”
“I knew I should’ve checked; you’ve been so good about it up until now, I just assumed . . . oh, well, live and learn. Do it again, and I’ll personally make sure you get two more days in here.”