Shadow Street Chapter 7
Shadow Street Chapter 7
From the Blog
“Dalek,” Doctor Who, Season 1, Episode 6
Fiction Excerpt
Shadow Street Chapter 7
“Mr. Curtis, what happened?”
We ran up to him where he was standing there, covered in donuts, his hat to the side. His monocle still hung from his eye and he had the silliest smile on his face.
“What?” said the frog.
There was a blank expression in his eyes.
“Let's get them off of him.”
We started pulling donuts off him, popping them over his wrists, and then after pushing him to the ground with the cushion of baked goods around him, onto his back so we could disentangle his feet. Soon he lay there on the ground.
“Here's your hat at least,” I said, putting it back on his head. This seemed to clear his mind ever so much and he seemed to look at us for the first time realizing…
“Well, then!” He reached into his hat and pulled out a long nightshirt. “That’ll do.” He rummaged for a second longer and pulled out a pair of red bedroom slippers. He put his feet in them, then wriggled into the nightshirt and put his hat back on. “Good as new! Come on, this way.”
He hopped down the hall, left and right.
“Which way are we going?”
“Listen, Dr. James, the singing! This way!”
He pointed in one direction and completely hopped in another. Mrs. Smith and I did our best to keep up, following his hopping flapping body in as best a serpentine fashion as we could.
“Wait, I can hear it,” said Mrs. Smith, and faint, I thought I could as well.
“It must be this way,” I said.
We scrambled around, down in the tunnels, and came around to a small balcony overlooking a large room. I covered the ceiling with glistening stalactites hanging from it. Lights from a fire pit below shined on it. There were several other small balconies like this one across the way, but they were all dark.
Down below, around the fire pit, were several folks, mostly moles, and a couple of mice, again with strange octopus creatures holding onto their faces. Each extended two tentacles, one to the left, the other to the right, and they were touching each other as they danced, or used their possessed bodies to dance around the fire pit.
“Do you recognize anyone down there?” I said.
“Anyone? I recognize all of them!”
“They all come to your shop?”
“Yes, I've seen all of them recently.”
“In the last few days?”
“I don't know, but I think I've sold things to all of them.”
“What do we do?” said Mrs. Smith.
“Nothing yet. We’ll have to watch them,” I said.
Curtis was back down from crawling over the edge. “No jumping just yet, friend.”
“Humph.” Mr. Curtis folded his arms.
“Cut it out.”
I peaked over the banister’s edge and looked down, but all I could see were people dancing in the dark around a fire, and what seemed just a few people at that. I pulled a small pair of binoculars out and peered down below, and got a look right into one of their mouths.
“Yeah,” I said, then looked again. They were dancing around, holding onto each other’s tentacles, and swaying around, their arms hanging by their sides, to no music I could hear, and then they released each other in unison and I watched as the creatures slowly retreated into their mouths. A moment later, they were blinking and staggering around, and the fire went out.
“Now,” I said.
Mr. Curtis jumped over the side, giving me a wink on his way over.
“What? Mr. Curtis!” said Mrs. Smith. She ran to the edge to see Mr. Curtis deftly land and slide the rest of the way down to them, on a random stair banister. He landed in his pajamas and wandered into their midst, waving his arms and acting as disoriented as they were.
“How do we?” I said.
“This way.” Mrs. Smith took me by the hand and dragged me around the corner where the stairs were. We ran down to find Mr. Curtis helping a young mole up.
“There you go.”
The mole looked at us. “Where are we?”
“No idea,” lied Mr. Curtis. “Do you know?”
“This way everybody,” said Mrs. Smith. “This way.” She waved her arms. “Link Up everybody, link up.”
Everyone took a hand, and she led us out, occasionally I took the lead for a couple of turns, and mostly, Mr. Curtis kept up the persona of a dazed fool who didn't know where they were, like the rest of them, on one or two occasions he sent us in the right direction when no one was looking.
“This way,” said Mrs. Smith, as we passed the mushrooms.
They passed under strange pipes and up to a strange mossy set of stairs. Above them, a gas lamp, covered in metal and glass, burned and flickered, casting strange shadows on the ground.
“This way everybody, follow me,” said Mr. Curtis. He hopped cheerfully up the stairs and found the door locked, but his face didn't falter. He twisted the handle, and it rocked, but remained still.
He pulled a fine feather from his hat and jiggered it in the lock as the other folks were climbing the stairs. It clicked with a satisfying thunk and then twisted the knob and opened it as if it belonged to him personally.
“This way, this way.” He reached in through the door and found a candle on a holder which he lit, and picking it up by the little ring holder, he went in and proclaimed everything okay. “Through here, yes, right this way.”
He led them through and into the next room, which was someone’s front parlor connected to a ballroom. All the lights were otherwise out and there was a coating of dust on the floor that was sticking to my furry toes.
“I say, Mr. Curtis…”