think it was paint. Not a stick of furniture, except for an old rotary phone. She picked it up. Heard the sound, and at first did not believe it.
A dial tone!
She reached into the pocket of her sweat suit. A piece of paper. Her instincts told her to do this: she no longer remembered why. She dialed the number on the card. An answering machine. She didn’t listen to the message, or remember why. Just spoke after the beep. “Hi. They’re trying to kill me, and I found this card. My name is Audrey Lucas.”
Hung up. Dialed a number from memory, didn’t know whose. Machine picked up. Was it late? Early morning? “Hi. They’re trying to kill me. My name is Audrey Lucas.”
Found a Post-it in her pocket. Dialed the number written there. Behind her in the hall, she heard the click-clack of high heels. Ringing, ringing. The phone picked up, but no one answered. “Hello? Hello?” she called. “Please help me. I’m—” then she remembered, “At The Breviary—510 West 110th Street, fourteenth floor. Please!”
But no one answered. Far away, two people talked on the other line. They didn’t hear her!
Behind her, the tenants had arrived. Galton, unmasked. His lone eye glared. Loretta. Marty. The naked man. Evvie. The party, too. Still holding cocktails. So drunk they swayed, staggered, and crawled.
She watched, panting. Her breath was as heavy as syrup.
On two, three, and four legs, they advanced. They clogged the hall with their bodies. Arms and legs and torsos, indistinguishable as clumped insects. Their eyes had all gone black. It was The Breviary coming for her. The Breviary never lets anyone out.
She squeezed the receiver. Someone spoke on the other line: who is this? The tenants got closer. “Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!” Loretta clapped.
This was happening…This was happening?
“Who let her out? Marty, did you let her out?” Loretta asked. Her feet were a puddle of blood. They clacked as she walked, full of doll shrapnel.
Audrey remembered the key in her mouth. They’d take it if they could. But, two inches long and jagged on one end, was it too big to swallow? Then again, if worse came to worst and she died, at least she couldn’t build their damn door.
She swallowed. It got stuck. Swallowed again. It tore her throat and lodged inside the wound. She breathed, and air whistled.
They came closer.
And then, on the phone: Tell me who you are! It was Jill. She’d called Jill!
She swallowed and lifted the phone to her ear. The key went down, cutting its jagged way along her esophagus. “Hh-hh-help!” she cried.
Loretta pulled the phone from her hand. “I’m Audrey Lucas. I need help!” she shouted, just as Loretta ripped the wire from the jack.
38
The Sound a Trap Makes as It Closes, V: Build the Door
With hands reaching high over their heads, they played light as a feather. Carried her back to 14B and in their fine, tattered clothes, filled her den.
“Build the door!” Loretta screeched. Clop-clop! Her feet were porcelain castanets.
The key cut its cold way down her throat. She coughed blood and wiped it with the back of her hand so they didn’t see, then sputtered, “Build it yourself!”
“Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!” Loretta screeched. “I’ll scratch your face!”
And then, in the den, Audrey saw what in her sleep state, she’d missed. Her work was almost done. It wasn’t shaped like a normal door anymore. Its edges were curved, and it was thicker in the center than at its base. It defied conventional engineering, but she could see that it was strong, and like The Breviary itself, so long as she built a proper frame, would hold. This time, none of the labels were hidden: PALMOLIVE, SERVITUS, PFIZER, HAMMERHEAD, UNITED CHINESE EMIRATES. They’d been cut and taped so that the entire front of the door was riddled with nonsense letters, like English converted into babble.
The hole she’d made for a handle hung only two feet off the ground, as if, when the thing on the other side finally came through, it would not walk but slither. Along the door’s perimeter, letters had been cut from the boxes to form a single, repeated phrase:
Abandon Hope. All Ye Who Enter Here
They laid her on the air mattress. “Finish it yourself,” she said.
Martin’s voice was low, but no one spoke above it. “We can’t. You’re the one who can make it sturdy enough to hold. Every time we’ve tried has been a failure.”
“What’s on the other side?”
The tenants began to chatter among themselves. Gleeful and twittering. Their