He paused, caressing the back of her hand.
“Did you see me?” he asked.
“Not at first, but I felt you; your hand grabbing mine. Then I heard your voice. I didn’t see you until you were pulling me up . . . until you saved my life.”
She began to cry again. He did what he could to comfort her.
“What did you see before the foyer?”
When her weeping subsided, she told him of the whole experience; her terrifying journey through the streets of Saigon, the chaos on the embassy roof, the terror of falling.
He, in turn, described his own experience. He left nothing out, the trembling of the structure, the nails and screws firing out of their places like bullets, the collapse of the balcony, the horrific image of his building violently consuming itself.
They stared at each other after their stories were told, wondering how they could possibly believe the other’s if they hadn’t lived through their own.
“Alex, it was so real.
So real . . .
”
He told her that it was just as real for him; that he had no doubt the building would have consumed him as well as itself.
The Crazy Cat clock’s reassuring tick-tock continued unbroken in the next room.
“Su, you were in Saigon as a little girl . . . is that what actually happened to you?”
Her face clouded over.
“No, but it was very similar. I’ll never forget that day. It was crazy, Alex. There were people everywhere, desperate to find a way out. My parents and I were trying to get to the embassy. My father, who worked for the Americans, was assured a place on one of the evacuation helicopters. But the streets were chaotic. I was separated from them.”
“How old were you?”
“Seven. I can’t begin to tell you how terrified I was. I wandered around in the crowds for most of that day, crying, begging for someone to help me, praying that my father would rescue me. Finally, a man—I think he was a taxi driver—saw me and asked what was wrong. I told him that I had to get to the embassy to find my parents. God bless him, he took me there.”
“And your parents?”
“I found them, thank heaven, and was able to get on the helicopter with them.”
“And did you fall out?”
“No. None of that ever happened. But I remember being afraid of it. The door was open and the helicopter was shaking, there were so many people on it. But no, that never happened.”
“How strange. So it was . . . some sort of exaggeration of your memory, a distortion of what really happened. Does that make sense?”
She looked at the ceiling, thinking on what he had just said.
“I suppose . . . but why did it change what
actually
happened? I don’t understand that. Tell me about your experience, whatever you want to call it. We both know that nothing like that ever happened to you.”
“No, it didn’t. It was more like a nightmare. It definitely wasn’t a reflection of anything based in reality.”
Cantrell paused, putting a hand to his forehead, closing his eyes.
“Wait a minute, Su. Isn’t that what dreams and nightmares really are? Metaphors . . .
projections
of what’s troubling us down deep . . . ?”
She stopped him.
“Or fear. That’s what these experiences have in common. Think about it. They’re all about fear.”
He was beginning to understand.
“So, your fear was about falling out of a helicopter?”
She smiled.
“Yes, but that’s just part of it. You said it was a metaphor, Alex, and I think you’re right. For me, my deepest fear was projected. Abandonment. It’s all about that. It began on that day I got lost in Saigon, but it’s been with me all this time. I went through the same feeling—the same
terror
—when I lost my husband. And I go through it every day with Anna. I hate myself for thinking it, but I feel abandoned by her as well, when she can’t speak or react to anything I say or do. And it came up again with you, when you told me to leave and said that you’d stay here by yourself.”
“I had no idea . . . ”
“Don’t blame yourself for anything, Alex. You did nothing wrong. I don’t think I realized all of this for what it was until just a few minutes ago. What just happened has put everything together.”
They were both quiet for a moment, each reliving their own private terror.
Cantrell elaborated on his experience, providing details that he’d omitted from the original, panic-quickened telling. When the building began to self-destruct, he believed that it was destroying its outer skin; literally shedding every improvement, every vision, he had tried to impose on the old building. As if it resented it, hated it. As if it wanted to hurt him personally, in an insane act of vengeance.
“But it didn’t stop there, Su. The building was intent on destroying itself, as if to spite me.”
She looked at him, puzzled.
“Why would the building do that, Alex? Why would it kill itself?”
“The building had nothing to do with it. It was
me;
my thoughts, my fears . . . ”
“What
are
you afraid of, Alex?”
He looked down at the floor, swallowed slowly, and met her gaze.
“Failure. That’s what I’ve always feared, from back when I was a little kid trying to please my dad. Trying to please my boss. The critics, the financiers, the press, the clients, the public—
myself
. No, not really trying to please, trying to avert failure, to prove myself.”
“And the Exeter . . . ”
“It was my greatest challenge. It represented
me.
If this failed, then everything I stood for, my entire
life
, would be like that vision of the floor chewing everything up.”
He paused to take a deep breath, glancing suspiciously at the surrounding walls.
“It wasn’t the Exeter destroying itself, Su. It wa
s me,
destroying myself. That’s my greatest fear.”
She kissed him lightly on the cheek.
“You’re not a failure, Alex, and you know it. And I’m not a little child standing terrified on the roof of an embassy in 1975. But you’re right, I’m sure of it; this
is
all about fear, about
us
. . . ”
She pointed her finger at him, her expression dawning with sudden comprehension.
“Think about this: Maybe everything that’s happened here was all tied into the same thing. The victims of this place acted the way they did because they were confronted with their worst fears, just like we were. Maybe what happened to them was as terrifying, as
real
, as what you and I just went through.”
“Then why didn’t our experiences kill us, or drive us mad like the rest? Only Sharon and us made it. Why?”
She bit her lip. “Maybe it had something to do with Sharon’s intellect, and in our case, with us being together. And I mean
together
, not like the Sloanes. We helped each other, trusted each other. And we love each other, Alex. There has to be power in that . . . ”
He nodded. “And if it happens again . . . if the clock stops . . . ”
“Then we’ll still have each other.”
They kissed, grimacing at the aches and pains that riddled their bodies. But they weren’t finished talking yet.
“So we’re on the right track,” Cantrell said. “This place is acting as some sort of . . . negative amplifier. But
why?
”
“What about Cross?” Su Ling offered.
“What about him?”
“You saw it up close, Alex, and I saw it on the video; how he acted, how he sounded, when it happened to him. As if he were an
animal
, waiting to take that last walk up the ramp to the killing floor . . . ”
“I’m not following you.”
“Think about it: This place was a
slaughterhouse.
Thousands upon thousands of animals were killed here. How much accumulated fear do you think these walls have absorbed?”
“My God . . . ”
“Look, we can’t know what was in Cross’s mind. We don’t know what his fears were, but maybe he really did have a talent for seeing things that other people can’t. Maybe it was more than he could take.”
“So, it’s like all the cattle, all the hogs, that were killed in this building, are somehow still here, haunting the place?”
“No,” she said with a patient smile. “It’s not the animals or their spirits, Alex. It’s the fear they left behind. That’s what’s haunting the Exeter.”
“If that’s all true, then what about what we saw tonight? What about that
boy
who ran across the room? That was a ghost if I’ve ever seen one.”
Su Ling’s features lit up with sudden understanding.
“My God, Alex, we forgot! Anna’s pictures. That’s what we were doing when all of this began.”
They helped each other off the floor and limped as quickly as they could to Anna’s room.
§
They carried the ponderous stack of paper on tiptoe, in order not to wake the child. The only sound in the room was Anna’s soft breathing, and the rhythmic ticking of the Crazy Cat clock.
Alex moved the end tables and pushed the sofa away from the center of the living room, providing ample space for the job at hand.
It was a considerable task.
Like children with pieces of a puzzle, they moved back and forth, trying to match up the pieces, changing place with each other as they moved around the image slowly taking shape before their eyes.
As in most puzzles, the corners and edges seemed to come together first, then progressed slowly toward the center. At first, they could see the shape of a ceiling and a tiled floor in what had previously appeared to be random markings.
They were so focused on what they were doing that Su Ling and Cantrell lost track of time. Soon a shaft of dawn seeped through the curtains.
They took a break for coffee, but could barely wait to get back to work.
Details began to form: the unmistakable hooves of an animal; a man’s working boots; what looked like a pair of boy’s sneakers.
The first clearly recognizable image appeared on the left side of the drawing: A queue of animals—longhorn steers—approaching the center of the picture from a ramp which led from somewhere below.
Su Ling gasped when that portion of the puzzle became clear.
“Look at that,” Cantrell said. “Can’t you see it? It’s the ramp, I’m sure of it.”
She nodded in agreement, frowning.
“I can’t believe that this came from the imagination of a little girl, Alex . . . ”
“We don’t know where this is coming from, Su, and we don’t know what it means yet. Let’s keep going.”
Eventually, the center of the picture began to take shape. Dominating the composition was a single longhorn steer; nostrils flared, eyes wide, glaring with terror.
Alex worked from the right of the puzzle, moving steadily upwards.
This section was dominated by the figure of a man; tall and strong looking, wearing some kind of overalls and dark work gloves. The expression on his face mirrored that of the longhorn, though there was something else to his expression . . . something they couldn’t discern at first, but which gradually became clear the more the figure coalesced.
Su Ling gasped at the sight of it.
“I’m not sure I want to finish this thing,” she said when she saw the man’s face. “I don’t like where this is going.”
“We have to; we have to know what it means.”
She nodded silently, returning to her work.
Half an hour later, they arrived at the center of the picture, finally comprehending the man’s contorted expression.
One of the steer’s horns was embedded in his chest. A long stream of blood spurted from the wound.
Su Ling put her hand over her eyes, like a theatergoer watching a horror movie.
“Oh my God.”
“It’s okay, Su.” Alex put his arm around her shoulders “We’re almost finished. You sit down. I’ll do it.”
She didn’t argue, seating herself on the couch, drawing her knees up to her chest. Her eyes, however, never left the coalescing picture.
It only took a few minutes to assemble the final pieces of the puzzle.
When he was done, he joined Su Ling on the couch and then took her hand, leading her to a standing position upon it. From their slightly elevated position, they had a perfect view of the entire work, which formed a neat rectangle in the center of the living room floor.
They were looking at the final figure, which appeared in the lower left corner.
A boy, dressed in overalls, like the dying man, but he had canvas sneakers on his feet instead of boots. He was looking directly at the violence in the center of the picture, his face an ashen mask of horror.
“It’s him,” Su Ling said. “Isn’t it?”
Cantrell exhaled.
“Yes, no question; he’s the one we saw . . . ”
“The ghost.”
“It’s the old killing floor, the one that used to be here. It looks like it might have been a typical day at the slaughterhouse, but . . . ”
“But something went horribly wrong,” she offered. “It wasn’t a typical day after all.”
Something stirred behind them. They both started, turning away from the composition.
Anna stood across the living room in her pajamas. They had no idea how long she’d been standing there.
“Anna, are you okay?” her mother asked.
In response, the child slowly approached the picture, gazing down at it. Su Ling made a grab for her, perhaps to pull her away from the awful vision, but Cantrell grabbed her arm.
“Let her look.”
The girl’s eyes went from one corner to the next, slowly and methodically taking in the whole thing.
Tears began to flow from Anna’s eyes, although she remained silent and expressionless.
When Su Ling saw them, her own tears began to flow.
Anna began to shake her head back and forth, and the stony expression on her face—an expression that had been there, unchanged, for more than a year—began to change. Her lower lip thrust out in a pouting gesture; her forehead furrowed. Her eyes, usually wide open, narrowed as the tears flowed.