Remains Read online

  “You can access everything from the past twenty years on the intranet; I’ll get IT to buzz you and set up your password for that. Anything older than twenty years, and I’m afraid it’s a trip to the basement and the archive. Which—”

  Throughout the tour Lizzie had cradled a battered card folder, full to the point of having begun to split, under her arm. It was so full that someone had tied what appeared to be a long shoe lace around its middle in an attempt to stop its sides from tearing any further.

  “—is exactly where your first job’s going to take you. Mal Anderson wants everything we’ve got on the Zodiac case. He’s leading on Sunday with an alternate theory of the case and he’s gonna need everything we ran at the time on his desk by tomorrow morning at the latest.”

  A light flickered to life on the phone on Lizzie’s desk. Before the phone had even begun to ring she was backing away from Lucy. The tour was over.

  “Er… He’s also made some more specific notes he wants checked in the front of that folder,” she called back, her voice getting louder as she strode further away. As the glass doors to Lizzie’s office closed behind her, she shouted back: “You need anything else, my extension’s 225.”

  Lucy looked down at the battered folder in her hands. She pulled on the shoelace, untying it. The folder sighed, breathing out, the thick pages crammed inside shifting, pressing at its sides until they threatened to burst. All around her, the office buzzed and spun in a state of constant movement and change. Like the pieces of a puzzle that would never be solved. Noise piled on top of noise, louder, louder, the whole room competing to be heard at once.

  Silence. The soundless corridor put Lucy on edge. Coming from the overwhelming noise of the Chronicle’s newsroom, it felt out of place, almost surreal. As if stepping through the door from the Chronicle had transported her to some mute, alien realm. Lucy felt her skin prickle. She looked up and down the windowless, grey corridor. She was completely alone.

  Trying to hold Mal Anderson’s disintegrating folder together, Lucy made her way along the corridor towards the elevator.

  An ajar door that should have led to the welcoming offices of a portrait photographer now led only into darkness. Abandoned, like so many offices after the financial crash, prints and paperwork had been scattered across the floor. A telephone cord, picked out by the light from the corridor, the shattered smile of a broken advertising board… A giant eye seemed to follow Lucy as she passed.

  Lucy pressed the elevator’s call button.

  Nothing.

  Something had shifted in the atmosphere in the corridor. Lucy suddenly felt absolutely certain that someone else was going to appear in the hallway at any moment. Maybe pulling themselves from one of the dark offices, or by tearing around the corner at either end of the corridor. Either way, she felt they were approaching fast, rushing towards her. Lucy hit the call button again.

  And then a third time. Harder.

  Still nothing.

  She looked for a sign to the stairwell. She could feel her body tightening, getting ready to bolt. Loudly, above her, the elevator’s cables snapped taut and it began to grind and creak its descent towards her floor.

  As soon as the doors were wide enough for her to pass through, Lucy slipped between them. She found the button for the basement and hit it. Once, twice… The elevator doors continued to open. Three, four times. Come on! Come on! The doors locked at their widest point. The silence returned. And with it, the ever-growing sense that something was coming. Lucy backed up until she felt the cold metal of the elevator’s wall pressing into her spine. Still the doors remained wide open.

  She had to get out of there. She forced herself forward, inching across the stained steel floor, straining to see around the edges of the car. Her anxiety had grown to real fear now. Fear that had wrapped its black arms tightly around her chest, squeezing her lungs, making it hard to catch her breath. Lucy took another tentative step forward. The heavy doors jerked backwards, bucking against their rails, before finally starting to slowly close. The corridor shrank until it was only a glimpse, and then it was gone. Lucy’s stomach turned over as the elevator sank towards the basement.

  She tried to calm down; convince herself it was all in her head. Like she’d done in the hospital, like Doctor Bachman had taught her, she searched for a memory, an image to cling to, but all she found inside herself was darkness.

  An unmanned CCTV camera covered the elevator. The camera recorded Lucy pacing by the door at the front of the car. It also recorded the deep shadow that stretched across the rear of the elevator.

  Lucy focussed on the discolored, numbered lights blinking on and blinking out as each floor passed. Eventually the elevator came to a stop. She waited for the doors to open. She could feel her chest tightening again. The cold that she’d felt at the back of the elevator had stretched forward to find her.

  And then the doors began to part. Lucy barged through the gap, slamming her shoulder into the opening door with such force that it almost tore Mal Anderson’s folder from her hands. Without stopping or looking back, she hurried into the basement archive.

  Behind her, the elevator doors yawned wide. Once more they locked open, motors grinding, tightening, before angrily jolting back and finally beginning to close. This time, however, just before the doors were about to meet, they stopped. A foot or so away from closing, the doors froze and then quickly retreated.

  The pool of shadow that spread across the back of the elevator car seemed to have grown darker, thicker.

  After a long moment, the doors began to close once more. This time they met, metal pressing against metal, locking tight. Whatever they had caught on last time had gone.

  5

  Now Lucy could breathe, and she breathed deeply. She filled her lungs with the comforting smell—her university library, summer days in the attic of the house she grew up in, the hazy smell of afternoons spent hunting through boxes filled with the imagined mystery of her parents’ past, stories of intrigue and romance—where her parents were played by Cary Grant and Grace Kelly—invented from props she plucked from the dusty storage crates. Those stories always ended the same way, after the shipwreck, after the cliff top car chase, after the credits had rolled, with Lucy, content, dressed in a dusty costume she’d scavenged, reading a book and snacking on the plate of peeled carrots that her father would leave by the loft hatch for her. Brain rations for adventurers, he called them, snuck away from Mom’s Sunday dinner preparations.

  Recently, Lucy had taken comfort in the thought that one day soon she might come to an end, lie down and simply stop, silent and wrapped in the warm, safe scent of the past.

  The San Francisco Chronicle archive is huge: a vast, rambling under­ground library housing over one hundred years of San Francisco history. The work of four generations of reporters. Every important event witnessed and documented. Typed up, sketched down, scrawled on everything from notepads to napkins, library stacks stuffed ceiling high with boxes ordered by year and month. In reverent silence, Lucy made her way through the archive until she came to a series of stacks labelled 1967-1969.

  Lucy continued on, another ten or so years deeper, until she came to a bank of desks. Eight desks. All eight were empty. At one time, the archive had been the beating heart of the Chronicle. Now it was rare for three people to visit in a week. Lucy took a desk facing back the way she’d come. She didn’t feel comfortable with her back to the elevator. She gently placed Mal Anderson’s folder down and flicked on the desk lamp. Dust swarmed in its beam, stirring and settling, drawn to the monitor of the research terminal perched at the back of the desk.

  As careful as she’d tried to be, Mal Anderson’s folder wasn’t going to be leaving the archive again. Its sides had finally torn open and the bulging contents spilled across the desk. Lucy looked down at the pages of notes, research, crime scene photographs. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen suc
h graphic images. David Faraday shot in the back of the head, Betty Lou Jensen’s body wrapped in a blanket, shot five times in the back trying to flee from the Zodiac. David was seventeen, she was only sixteen. Two children slaughtered like animals.

  Lucy pulled Mal Anderson’s scribbled notes over the crime scene photographs. Her hands were shaking, she tried to breathe deeply the reassuring smell of the archive, to take herself back to the safety of her attic room, but now that room was covered in blood. The blood of a child. Did they call out before they died? Did they scream out for help but no one came? Why didn’t you do something, Lucy? Anything? Lucy stood up fast, her chair screeching across the tiled floor. She stepped away from the desk, and then stopped and grabbed a hold of the chair to steady herself.

  Aisle 1967 to 1969 was closed, the stacks on rails rolled together. Lucy looked up aisle 1970 to 1973, checking it was clear before taking hold of the large wheel at the end of the rack. The weight of the moving stack could easily crush someone caught in its path. She gripped the wheel. The unit was heavy, the wheel hard to turn, but eventually the stack began to shift, slowly rolling towards 1973, opening up the aisle Lucy needed.

  With every turn of the wheel the aisle next to Lucy grew slimmer until 1970 came to rest on 1973, the heavy units knocking against one another. Reading from Mal Anderson’s list, Lucy headed into the passageway she’d just made. 1967 took up the first half of the stack to her right, floor to ceiling archive boxes, different sizes, different colours, different states of disrepair. May and June were water-stained and warped, likely casualties of the flood of ’88. The smell of mould grew stronger as Lucy headed deeper between the stacks.

  December 1968 perched high on the last shelf, at the farthest point of the aisle. It was probably the heaviest box, too. A lifetime ago she would have found that amusing.

  Lucy brushed the box with her fingertips. Standing on tiptoes, she was able to push it so a corner hung over the edge of the shelf. She tried to lift the box, get her hand underneath it, but it was too heavy. Lucy put a foot onto the bottom shelf, then pulled herself up onto the unit. Her movement muffled the quiet knocking that had begun at the end of the stack.

  Both feet off the ground now, Lucy eased December 1968 further off the shelf. The knocking grew louder. The unit shifted on the tiles. The aisle shrank a little. Then a moment later, the stack rocked back into place. Lucy managed to get a hand underneath the box. She was going to have to pull it until it began to tip, and then catch it. The knocking came again. The stack inched into the aisle in time with the sound.

  Lucy grabbed a hold of the shelf. She felt that. She felt the unit shift. She looked back to the end of the stack. And that was when she saw it.

  Was someone there? Peering around the end of the aisle? She was sure she’d glimpsed someone—a shape. Lucy stepped down onto the tiles. The knocking came again. Again the wall of archive boxes shifted towards her. Cautiously, Lucy headed towards the noise.

  She found herself hugging the huge stack, pressing into it as if she were hiding behind a giant for protection. She could feel each knock vibrating through the stack. The unit rocked forward, rocked back in time with the sound. With each knock, with each step she took, the sense that something terrible awaited her grew.

  But Lucy couldn’t stop. She was being drawn along the aisle. Not by fear or by some dark curiosity, but something else, something inside her, something that tethered her, pulled her towards whatever lurked ahead. As she passed the water-damaged boxes, the smell of rot caught in her throat. It hadn’t been that strong before, had it? It hadn’t filled the whole aisle. Soon the stack would run out, the giant would step away, and Lucy would be left completely alone.

  The knocking grew faster, louder. She strained to see into the corridor but the stacks had her blocked on both sides. The fear that had unfurled in her stomach flared into panic. Then Lucy was at the end of the aisle.

  The instant she stepped into the corridor, the knocking stopped. The wheel handle on the stack rolled backwards and locked, as if someone who was part-way through turning it had just let go. Could someone have been here? Just a moment ago? Lucy looked along the corridor, following the rows of stacks towards the double entrance doors and then back towards the bank of desks, and then she froze.

  Certain that any noise she made would muffle the approach of the dark shape she’d glimpsed, she stood absolutely still, listening. The silence of the archive pressed in her ears: charged.

  Lucy stood at the end of aisle 1967 to 1969 for ten minutes more before she worked up the nerve to turn her back on the corridor. December 1968 stuck out awkwardly, half on and half off of the shelf.

  Lucy pressed the box against her stomach and leaned backwards. Her arms ached from its weight. The corrugated card around the box’s handles had started to cut off the blood to her fingers. As she walked quickly back to the desk where she’d left Mal Anderson’s notes, she looked down each aisle leading off from the corridor. With every glance she expected to see the shape, pressed into the shadows against one of the stacks, biding its time. There were many places to hide in the archive.

  By the time she made it back to the desk she was losing the battle to hold on to the box. She dropped it with a thud that made the research terminal’s mouse jump and the monitor at the back of the desk blink on.

  With a startled gasp, Lucy recoiled from the image on the screen. The house. That terrible black house. How did it get there? Who did this? A headline above the image read: BOY SLAIN IN KIDNAP GONE WRONG.

  Somewhere close by, a child laughed.

  6

  And Lucy laughed too.

  “Hi! You’re through to the Campbell Clan,” Lucy’s voice called out to the shadows and dust in her deserted apartment.

  “I’m afraid that Lucy, Matt, and Alex aren’t here right now, so please leave us a message after the beep...”

  Giggling, Alex beeped and then he was gone, snatched back into memory as the recording ran out. The real beep followed and Lucy’s machine began to record.

  No one spoke. Outside on Berkeley, the first office workers were leaving for the evening, their shadows stretching after them, following them home. Long, dark fingers reaching across Lucy’s apartment as they crossed the small window in her kitchen. Still no message came.

  It was indistinct at first—distant—more of a shift in the pitch of the silence at the other end of the line. Something moved. Quickly muffled by the thick quiet, it was easy to miss. The second movement was clearer.

  At the other end of the line, something dragged itself closer. Dipping in and out of the hush, each time the noise came it was louder, nearer.

  Inch by inch, raw and sticky, it gained on Lucy’s answering machine. The darkness in Lucy’s apartment had swelled. Pooling in the lounge as if it were bleeding from the place at the other end of the open line, leading the way for whatever pulled itself ever closer.

  The line abruptly cut off, Lucy’s machine reaching its maximum recording time and severing the connection. The apartment fell silent once more. Whatever lurked in the thick black would remain there a while longer.

  The same silence filled the archive. Lucy had left the box of papers where she’d dropped it, caught in 1428 Montgomery’s unflinching stare. The shot, taken in the early hours of the morning after, had come to represent the end of Lucy’s world. An ambulance swung up onto the lawn, the horror and confusion written across Detective Bob Taylor’s face. At the time, Lucy hadn’t even known what had happened yet.

  In the archive there are eight research terminals. In the dying light of the day, eight research terminals displayed a single image: the house.

  7

  Three hours earlier.

  Rising over the brow of the hill, brick by brick, floor by floor, as if it were hauling itself from the earth beneath, 1428 Montgomery came into view. Lucy pulled into the curb and shut off the engine. She
sat, one hand on the key in the ignition, watching the house.

  The house watched back.

  She knew she shouldn’t be here. She also knew it was inevitable that she would end up here. Without removing the keys, Lucy’s hand dropped away from the ignition. The first day of her new life was going to end the same way each long day of her life before the hospital had ended.

  For three hours she sat silently watching 1428 Montgomery. As the afternoon turned to evening, darkness stretched from the house, its giant shadow spilling out across the overgrown lawn towards Lucy. Nine months ago, someone had driven a For Sale sign, like a stake, into the lawn. If they had meant to kill the darkness, they’d failed. With each minute it grew, reaching ever closer to Lucy’s car.

  Lucy opened her mouth to speak but no words came out. She spoke so little recently that she barely recognized her own quiet voice when she heard it. She thought it sounded like the voice of a ghost. After the murder, she’d come to realize that there was little point in speaking any more. There wasn’t anything left to be said. There wasn’t anyone left that she wanted to speak to. Her voice had withered away and died. She tried again,

  “Doctor Bachman says I shouldn’t come here.” Her words were barely a whisper. “Well, where else am I supposed to go?”

  Lucy looked away from the house. She’d thought about this conversation, thought about how she’d explain. She’d played it out in her head, night after night in the hospital. Now she didn’t know what to say.

  “I know I’ve been away for a while. I’m sorry about that. I… er… I’ve not been very well. Don’t worry, though. It’s okay. I’m better now. I still thought about you every day. I think about you every minute of every day.”