Meri appeared again, looking upset and asking about the argument, so I decided I needed to get over myself and talk to her. She dragged Jim and me off to see Emmett Veirs, the director. He was talking to one of the security guys, who left pretty much immediately, which was a good thing given I almost choked on the cloud of aftershave hanging around him. Jim looked like he recognised him, but he ignored Jim as he passed us.
The director didn't think there was a problem with the paperwork. I took a look at it myself, and it all looked fine. Everything in order, and signed off by Meri herself, except she seemed to know nothing about it. I never thought I'd be saying this, but I found myself actually sympathising with Meri once the director started accusing her of drinking and suggesting that he'd made a mistake hiring her. I couldn't let her sit there and be berated like that, so I talked some crap about the effects of stress and guided her out of there.
I think I had some kind of hallucination on the way to Meri's office. Bloated figures, eating something, surrounded by flames. Another thing to check with Dr Lana. At least it only lasted a moment.
I figured I was right about the stress when I saw Meri's office. Clothes and a sleeping bag. All the hallmarks of someone spending far too much time at work. I confirmed that it was her writing on the forms I'd just been reading, but she didn't remember being involved. She brought up the chanting in the gallery again though. That security guy, Alano, was involved. Turns out he's some relative of Jim.
Meri started breaking down at that point, and all I wanted to do was reassure her. Losing a chunk of her memory isn't the same as losing Spencer but I recognised that feeling of nothing making sense. I told her I knew a good therapist. Dr Lana's great with this kind of thing, after all.
Meri took some valium and went to sleep. I covered her up with the sleeping bag, and that's when her key card fell out of her pocket. As I picked it up, there was a sound from the speakers in the room. Static, but with an undertone of people calling out, a sudden scream, and then silence. Jim heard it too.
I'd been starting to have suspicions about what was going on here. Hallucinations, memory loss, Jared's episode earlier. It all added up to something in the ventilation system. I heard about a theatre once that tried to create ambience for a play by putting perfume in the ventilation system, and ended up putting the entire audience to sleep. The way this whole event was being staged, the idea that someone was trying to add to the atmosphere by drugging us all seemed quite plausible.
I convinced Jim to join me in a bit of snooping. Meri's key card got us into the loading dock, where we found a couple of massive generators running. I managed to slip in some oil and burn myself on one of the engines, but I did spot a trail of red droplets on the floor. Blood. Jim followed them, and found the trail from the lift, between the engines, ending at a brick wall. My first thought was that we'd got the trail the wrong way round and that someone had been injured by the wall and gone to the lift to get help, but the trail didn't seem to go that way. I wondered if there was a secret door or something, but when I touched the wall to test it it seemed solid enough. Except now I had blood on my fingers too.
I didn't know what was happening, but I didn't want to stay there either. We ran down the corridor and back into the public area, where we found Jared. He was looking better and said his girlfriend was on her way but he still didn't want to be alone, and I know I felt better having him around.
That's when the exhibition opening was finally announced. We all had the skull symbol for the first group, so in we went, with Jared nodding to various movie types along the way. Of course we had to queue first, but that was very well staged. The tolling of a Venetian bell, good use of shadows and light, sounds of agonised wailing and crying. I should have taken notes, but whatever the hell we'd all been drugged with was getting worse. I felt like I was being watched by some omnipresent being, and it seemed like the statue of a decaying ballerina that I'd ended up next to had moved, and was reaching out for me and screaming.
By then I just wanted to get the whole thing over with. We were lead through a curtain in a cloud of dry ice, into a crowded room. The doors closed and I could just make out Marielle Dubois at the front, with a smoking cauldron on either side. She spent some time reminiscing about the artist, in a way that would have made me pretty uncomfortable if I was her current partner, but it didn't seem to bother Anthony.
Then the curtains opened, and once again it seemed like there was some kind of trick lighting with the paintings. I could see the appeal of this incredibly dynamic work. There seemed to be someone singing in French, audible over the rustle of the crowd. The paintings weren't the only thing on display. Some kind of symbol was painting on the floor in white chalk paint, and it seemed like the colours of the paintings were running down into it. It was hypnotic, somehow. I felt like I shouldn't have come, but at the same time couldn't leave. It took Jared's hand on my arm to get me to move.
There was one more artwork to display. A triptych. The Tears of Djeraba. Marielle opened it up, then before I'd even had time to take that in, she'd pulled out a knife and cut Anthony's throat. There was so much blood, and that chalk symbol seemed to be sucking it out of him somehow. And Alano had shown up with more security guards, and suddenly he stepped up and kissed Marielle.
I had a sudden moment of clarity then. Jim was freaking out, so Jared and me grabbed his arms and tried to run for the exit. At first we couldn't even move him, because there were flayed rotting arms reaching out of the paintings to grab hold of him. Alano's whole body split apart, and some huge figure emerged from it, still holding Marielle. I could hear the cracks as she was crushed in its embrace.
We had to get out. I didn't want to go near that thing, but I couldn't see any other way. I lost my grip on Jim, but he was running by now. And then we were out, and I ran into Jared a moment before Jim ran into me. It was like the building was being pulled into some other place, full of flames and the sound of screaming.
Jim ran downstairs and I followed. Jared remembered Meri, and by this point it didn't seem like looking for her would make things any worse. Except when we got to her office I could hear chewing sounds from inside and there was blood running from under the door. Jared was the only one brave enough to look, and shut the door again straight away.
I thought maybe the loading dock would give us a way out. I lost track of the others along the way, as all the light turned yellow and something seemed to be following me, but I broke into a run and I was back with them. Meri's key card didn't work on the loading doors. Jim hit the fire alarm, hoping that would open things up, but it just turned on the sprinklers and after a few moments the water turned to blood. Jared grabbed a fire axe and smashed open the chains holding the doors. I heard the sound of springs and gears, and then blood poured in under the doors as they opened. Outside there was nothing but a burning landscape and the sound of screaming.
That's when I knew we were going to die. Either that, or we were already dead.
Except when I looked at Jim and Jared, I knew I couldn't give up just yet. That blood covered wall, the supposed secret door. I hadn't investigated it properly but maybe there was a way out. When I looked back I saw it - holes in the wall, with some kind of darkness beyond. I went back for Jim and Jared. I tried to ignore those two huge engines, but I couldn't help seeing that there was some kind of grinder atop each one. Samantha and Nasrah were being crushed in them, with their blood pouring into the engines. But I had to keep going.
It felt better through the hold in the wall. It was a dark and empty space but there seemed to be a light in the distance. I wanted the three of us to hold onto each other, but Jared was already going, so I held Jim's hand and followed him. As we got closer to the light I could hear jazz, and then suddenly we were on a street. The sun was black and the street was flowing with blood, but other than that we appeared to be in Paris in the 1950s.
Jared sat down at a cafe, and joining him seemed like the best thing to do. He ordered food. I just asked for coffee. I wasn't sure I could stomach anything else, and I was getting a very unsettling feeling. That Rosetti painting of Proserpine holding the pomegranate sprang to mind. I glanced at the waitress as she went back inside, and suddenly the cafe wasn't a cafe but a tomb full of rotting bodies, and the coffee cup was full of lumpy mould. A moment later it was gone, but I put down the cup anyway. Jim must have seen it too, as he started throwing up. I couldn't make myself look at Jared who was still eating, with ichor dripping down his face.
Jared insisted on making conversation with the waitress. Jim said he could see a burning building. I couldn't, but by this point I was willing to believe him. Somehow that was more reassuring than the waitress telling Jared we were in Montmartre, and kissing him.
That's when I heard the air raid sirens. But the kids on the street went right on with their game of football, even as bomber planes began flying overhead.
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