Authority(86)
Control had been standing there with his back to the shelves for only about a minute.
He had been standing there recognizing that there was a draft in the loft. He had been standing there without realizing that it wasn’t a draft.
Someone was breathing, behind him.
Someone was breathing on his neck. The knowledge froze him, froze the cry of “Jesus fuck!” in his throat.
He turned with incredible slowness, wishing he could seem like a statue in his turning. Then saw with alarm a large, pale, watery-blue eye that existed against a backdrop of darkness or dark rags shot through with pale flesh, and which resolved into Whitby.
Whitby, who had been there the entire time, crammed into the shelf right behind Control, at eye level, bent at the knees, on his side.
Breathing in shallow sharp bursts. Staring out.
Like something incubating. There, on the shelf.
* * *
At first, Control thought that Whitby must be sleeping with his eyes open. A waxwork corpse. A tailor’s dummy. Then he realized that Whitby was wide awake and staring at him, Whitby’s body shaking ever so slightly like a pile of leaves with something underneath it. Looking like something boneless, shoved into a too-small space.
So close that Control could have leaned over and bit his nose or kissed it.
Whitby continued to say nothing, and Control, terrified, somehow knew that there was a danger in speaking. That if he said anything that Whitby might lunge out of his hiding place, that the stiff shifting of the man’s jaw hid something more premeditated and deadly.
Their eyes locked, and there was no way around the fact that each had seen the other, but still Whitby did not speak, as if he too wanted to preserve the illusion.
Slowly Control managed to direct his flashlight away from Whitby, stifling a shudder, and with a gritting of teeth overrode his every instinct not to turn his back on the man. He could feel Whitby’s breath pluming out.
Then there was a slight movement and Whitby’s hand came to rest on the back of his head. Just resting there, palm flat against Control’s hair. The fingers spread like a starfish and slowly moved back and forth. Two strokes. Three. Petting Control’s head. Caressing it in a gentle, tentative way.
Control remained still. It took an effort.
After a time, the hand withdrew, with a kind of reluctance. Control took two steps forward, then another. Another. Whitby did not erupt out of his space. Whitby did not make some inhuman sound. Whitby did not try to pull him back into the shelves.
He reached the trapdoor without succumbing to a shudder, lowered himself legs-first into that space, found the ladder with his feet. Slowly pulled the door closed, not looking toward the shelves, even in the dark. Felt such relief with it closed, then scrambled down the ladder. Hesitated, then took the time to lower and fold away the ladder. Forced himself to listen at the door before he left the room, leaving the flashlight in there. Then walked out into the bright, bright corridor, squinting, and took in a huge breath that had him seeing dark spots, a convulsion he could not control and wanted no one to see.
After about fifty steps, Control realized that Whitby had been up in the space without using the ladder. Imagined Whitby crawling through the air ducts. His white face. His white hands. Reaching out.
* * *
In the parking lot, Control bumped into a jovial apparition who said, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” He asked this apparition if he had heard anything strange in the building over the years, or seen anything out of the ordinary. Inserted it as small talk, as breathing space, in what he hoped was just a curious or joking way. But Cheney flunked the question, said, “Well, it’s the high ceilings, isn’t it? Makes you see things that aren’t there. Makes the things you do see look like other things. A bird can be a bat. A bat can be a piece of floating plastic bag. Way of the world. To see things as other things. Bird-leafs. Bat-birds. Shadows made of lights. Sounds that are incidental but seem more significant. Never going to seem any different wherever you go.”
A bird can be a bat. A bat can be a piece of floating plastic bag. But could it?
It struck Control—hard—that he might not have Cheney any more sussed out than Whitby—a hastily prepared facade that was receding across the parking lot, walking backward to speak a few more words at him, none of which Control really heard.
Then, starting the engine and released past the security gate, almost without a memory of the drive, or of parking along the river walk, Control was mercifully free of the Southern Reach and found himself down by the Hedley pier. He explored the river walk for a while, so far inside his head he didn’t really see the shops or people or the water beyond.
His trance, his bubble of no-thought, was punctured by a little girl shouting, “You’re getting here too late!” Relief when he realized she wasn’t talking to him, her father walking past him then to claim her.