The Hidden Back Room Read online

  Copyright Information

  The Hidden Back Room

  by Jason A Wyckoff

  First published 2016 by Tartarus Press at

  Coverley House, Carlton-in-Coverdale, Leyburn,

  North Yorkshire, DL8 4AY, UK

  All stories © Jason A Wyckoff, 2016

  Cover photograph © David Baker, 2016

  ISBN 978-1-905784-85-1

  ‘On Balance’ was first published in Nightscript, Volume 1, Chthonic Matter, 2015

  ‘Gut Punch’ was first published in Weirdbook, Issue 31, Volume 2, Number 1, Wildside Press, 2015

  ‘The Homunculus in the Curio’ was first published in Strange Tales, Volume IV, Tartarus Press, 2014

  ‘The House on North Congress Street’ was first published in Dark World, Tartarus Press, 2013

  The publishers would like to thank Jim Rockhill for his help in the preparation of this volume

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  The Hidden Back Room

  Tanoroar

  Gut Punch

  On Balance

  The Rain-Dirty Valley

  The Homunculus in the Curio

  A Blood Without Blood

  The Dreams of Pale Night

  The House on North Congress Street

  Details

  Comfortidor

  In the Library

  Les Ombres Chinoises

  Stronger Than All Storms

  dedication

  for

  Trudy Plummer

  THE HIDDEN BACK ROOM

  Reed would never have taken his car to a garage called ‘Jim’s Honest Auto Service’ if not for the advice of a co-worker. He was describing his plight to another illustrator when Kaplan, from sales, stepped into the breakroom to refill his coffee mug. Reed had as little contact as possible with the sales department, but he had to admit that Kaplan’s advice, though unsolicited, was not unwelcome, as his lament detailed not only the issues he was having with his car (which, though old, he was loath to part with, fearing the burden of a new lease), but his dissatisfaction with his ‘usual’ garage as well, his patronage of which he attributed to its proximity to his apartment building. Kaplan swore Jim’s Honest Auto Service was worth the drive. Inwardly, Reed was still resistant. There was the matter of the name; such a claim might be seen as quaintly boastful, but it struck Reed as desperate, the sort of thing one leaves off unless one ‘doth protest too much’. Also, he thought Kaplan’s conviction to be as likely rooted in solipsism as truth—that he had chosen this garage was, to Kaplan, sufficient proof of its capability, and his recommendation was a form of self-congratulation; Reed didn’t think Kaplan cared enough about his circumstance to invest in its betterment. Unfortunately (as Reed saw it), dismissal of such advice might be seen as impugning the judgment extolled by its offering, and so he mumbled his promise to go to Kaplan’s mechanic. And, because he thought Kaplan likely to follow up on the matter, Reed did exactly as he promised, begging off a Wednesday afternoon in early December (which, he brooded, he would not have had to do if he were to take his car to the garage nearer home).

  ‘Jim’s’ was in an older part of the city with which Reed was not familiar. Ground floor shops supporting two storeys of brick apartments lined the boulevard. The garage fractured the harmony of the neighbourhood. The building obviously had been originally occupied by a chain or franchise company. Blue and orange swooped in a yin-and-yang wave across half of an illuminated plastic sign atop the building; newer black-on-white lettering announced the current tenant on the other half. The garage sat on a broad lot marked with yellow parking lines so bright they nearly glowed. It housed four bays; aluminium segmented doors with inset windows were closed in front of three; the one nearest the office was open. The day’s drizzle became more persistent just as Reed arrived. He parked his troubled car and went into the waiting room at the corner of the building before realising that the enclosure was separate from the office, which was accessed from inside the garage. This he entered, wiping moisture from his hair.

  Reed saw three mechanics on duty. The nearest waved and smiled and nodded towards the office. The other two were working on a bulbous crossover in the farthest bay; waist and legs protruded from beneath the hood and again from under the back to form a curious insect. The office door was split, with wood painted peach on the bottom, and the top a thick, plastic panel whiskered with fine scratches. An arc had been cut where the two met, and a three inch speaker had been installed slightly above it, just below Reed’s eye-level. A thin woman in her fifties with blonde-grey curls and face and teeth worn from smoking bounded up from her seat at a desk when she saw Reed. Her embossed nametag identified her as ‘Carla’.

  ‘Good afternoon. Are you dropping off?’ she said, though it took Reed extra seconds to parse the words. He heard her voice in staggered parallel—faintly through the transfer opening, then more loudly but distorted and disconcertingly delayed through the speaker, so that what he saw of her mouth unobstructed by the speaker didn’t altogether align with the sounds, like a poorly dubbed voiceover. ‘Darlin’—are you dropping off?’

  Reed blinked and gathered himself with a shiver. ‘Yes—sorry. Yes, I’m here to have some work done. I have an appointment—Reed Murmin?’

  ‘Oh, yes—“Murmin”. I’ve got your paperwork right here.’ She crossed back to the desk and retrieved a clipboard, which she guided through the barely-accommodating half-moon. A pen attached with a chain slid from the side and danced above the floor until Reed reeled it back. The woman leaned forward and pointed with the back of her finger up against the cloudy panel. She informed him of what he had already discovered, ‘If you go back out and around the front, you’ll find the door for our waiting area. You can fill everything out in there and then Jim will be with you shortly.’

  He followed instruction, holding the clipboard to his belly to protect the paper from what was now a steady, cold rain. The waiting area was brightly lit by hanging fluorescent rods. There were seven identical orange vinyl chairs with heavily lacquered wooden arms, grouped two and two against the interior walls and three against the other exterior, glass section. Dog-eared magazines were scattered on an oval coffee table and two end tables. Reed sat at the chair nearest the door, with the view of the street beside him and a row of tall, thin hedges opposite—erect, green snouts whose tips bent over and back in the wind, sniffing with curiosity. He was alone.

  Reed had just signed and dated at the bottom when the mechanic who had waved and smiled flung open the door and leapt in out of the increasing downpour, with somehow only a mottling on his shoulders. He offered a grease-marbled hand. ‘Hi, I’m Jim! And you are Mr Murmin.’

  ‘Please—Reed.’

  ‘Reed it is. We’re grateful you chose to entrust your car care to us.’

  Reed felt obliged to mention, ‘Uh, David Kaplan referred me.’

  ‘Sure, I remember Mr Kaplan! I’ll remember to thank him for the referral the next time I see him. You have your paperwork ready. And of course we’ll need your keys.’

  Reed handed him the clipboard and fished in his coat pocket. ‘I had mentioned on the phone . . . I was hoping to wait.’

  ‘Of course, you’re welcome to wait! This is our waiting room.’

  Reed looked outside. ‘Wow. It’s really getting dark out there, with the rain. It looks like night already.’

  ‘Yes, it does,’ Jim agreed. ‘But it’s not. It’s day.’

  Reed searched Jim’s face for some trace of mockery, but couldn’t detect any. ‘How long, do you think? How long to fix my car?’ He gestured limply at the clipboard.

  ‘It’s an easy fix,’ Jim reassured him. ‘We’ll take out the old part, and then install the replacemen
t. We’ll have your car ready in fifty minutes. But only if I get started right now.’ He extended his hand.

  Reed realised he was still holding his keys: car, apartment, and the one he used to cut tape. He handed them to Jim.

  Jim extended a ‘thumbs-up’ from the key-wrapped fist. ‘Thanks!’

  Reed surveyed the waiting room. Perhaps because of the inhospitable weather, he found the over-lit enclosure and its well-worn furniture and magazines oddly comforting. Even the smell of exhaust seeping from the garage engaged his senses aptly. And an hour or so was not long to wait, especially given the surrounding alternative. So Reed surprised himself when he stopped Jim, on his way back out of the waiting room, with the inquiry, ‘Is that a restaurant across the street I see?’

  Jim looked at him inquisitively.

  ‘I think the name above the door is “Albert’s”?’ Reed could barely see the colour of the building on the other side of the street. Any sign it might have displayed hid behind sheets of rain. He reasoned he must have noticed a name when he parked his car, even if he didn’t remember doing so. ‘What’s it like in there?’

  ‘Oh!’ Jim’s face brightened. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never been inside. Do you plan to wait there?’

  Reed didn’t have an umbrella, but he was already grabbing the lapels of his coat and hunching his shoulders to test how well he could cover up. ‘I think I just might go see.’ He glanced at Jim. ‘Yes, I will go and wait over there.’

  Jim nodded and pushed open the door. ‘OK, then. Tell you what: I’ll come find you when your car is ready.’

  Reed tried to hike his coat closed above his head, but the rain pummelled his crown. He was fortunate to have to stand on the berm no more than a second before an oncoming car slowed and flashed its high beams to usher him across, a favour repaid with the memorable sight of a headless apparition bounding gracelessly onto the far sidewalk. Reed crouched under a narrow trapezoidal overhang. He had failed to confirm the name of the restaurant in his hurry to get under. He thought it couldn’t really matter what the name of the restaurant was, anyway; he certainly wasn’t going to soak himself further for such trifling information. He looked across at the island of the yellow cube. It still beckoned, in its way—in the way one regrets having forsaken shelter for a tumble through the elements, knowing the return trek was yet to come. But he was across now, and the allure waned. He tried ineffectually to shake the water from his coat, and then pulled the red door open and went in.

  To his left ran a bar half the length of the narrow room; booths with low dividers lined the wall opposite. A few ‘four-tops’ sat in the open area towards the back, and beyond them were three doors stationed equidistant in the far wall: left, right, and centre; the right was labelled ‘restrooms’. The floor was large chessboard tile; the bar was a deep walnut with a clean brass rail before which stood eight tall stools, one pawn per square; the booths were upholstered with a lustrous violet cloth embroidered with small diamonds. Reed felt the décor presented a ‘classic’ sensibility, which he took to mean either well-preserved or carefully refurbished, the result of which was a precise balance between ostentation and restraint that made drawing inference as to its perspective clientele impossible. The current state of commerce was at least readily apparent—there was none. In fact, the small restaurant lacked not only customers but staff, as well. As Reed was the only person in the room he supposed the restaurant must be closed, despite the unlocked door, and begrudgingly resigned to cross back through the rain (with the hope that the ignominious defeat it signalled would go unwitnessed) even as he sauntered between bar and booths.

  He jumped when the centre door banged open. A waiter rushed into the room. The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled, but his collar was closed and wrapped with a black bow tie. An apron was tied around his waist, the top half left to dangle over the bottom. He was slender and clean-shaven under auburn waves; a birthmark on one cheekbone looked like a smeared, dirty tear. He straightened in surprise at the sight of Reed.

  ‘Ah! Hello.’

  There seemed little reason to believe his presence could be terribly inconvenient, given the dearth of customers (assuming the restaurant was, in fact, open for business), but Reed watched tumblers move with precision behind the waiter’s darting eyes as he adjusted for the new responsibility.

  ‘Please sit anywhere. You’ll excuse me.’

  At which the man spun on his heel, extended a straight arm, and banged through the door on the left. A peek of bright light on stainless steel through the door’s backswing indicated to Reed that the kitchen lay beyond. A clatter of pans followed immediately to confirm.

  Though the waiter’s manner could not be considered welcoming, it had not been exactly brusque, either—Reed chose to identify it as ‘accommodating’, and so felt free to do as he was invited. He sat at a booth towards the back of the room, hanging his coat on a peg on the divider.

  The waiter emerged from the kitchen with a covered tray on the tips of his fingers of his left hand. He saw where Reed had chosen to sit, and appeared to once again reassess the situation. Reed thought he may have sighed. The waiter skittered to the bar with an acutely-leaning gait, flipped the bar flap open with his right hand, and then ducked completely out of sight. A second later, the covered tray rose, a UFO from a B-movie, and then the waiter’s scanning eyes, and finally his torso with menu clutched tight. The waiter hustled over to Reed’s booth and offered the faux-leather-clad menu.

  ‘I’m sorry to say we have no specials today. The soup is Gazpacho. What can I get you to drink?’

  ‘A—a coffee, I think, for the chill.’ Reed looked at the covered plate. ‘Whenever you get a chance.’

  ‘Coffee,’ the waiter confirmed, and then zoomed to the middle door.

  Reed watched to see where that door might lead, but saw only what he thought might be another door behind it. The suspicion seemed validated when there followed another palm-to-wood bang—but then perhaps another and another afterwards, as though the waiter navigated a series of doors. Reed could make no sense of it.

  A commensurate sequence of bangs announced the waiter’s return, empty tray in hand. He ran to the kitchen, re-emerged sans tray while the door still fluttered, chased immediately by the ring of a telephone. He reared at the sound before apparently deciding to ignore it, and then once more disappeared behind the bar. Between rings, Reed heard china clinking and soon the waiter elevated once more, cup and saucer in hand. In the space of four more rings, the waiter presented ‘Your coffee, sir’, wheeled and flew back into the kitchen to answer the phone.

  The waiter didn’t speak loudly, but the door was thin and there was no other sound in the restaurant, so Reed could not help but hear half of the conversation.

  ‘Yes, darling. Yes, of course, dear.’ His wife, Reed surmised. Had he been wearing a ring? Reed couldn’t say. ‘No, sweetheart, I absolutely want to hear about it. I do. But I need you to hold on just one moment.’

  The waiter banged through and swooped to Reed’s booth. ‘Have you decided?’

  Reed realised he’d neglected the menu, and that that neglect implied he could have only been otherwise occupied by eavesdropping.

  ‘Um, the . . . special . . .’ he sputtered, remembering as it dribbled out that his choice was not an option. He doubled down on making an ass of himself. ‘The club sandwich. . . . ?’ Reed despised club sandwiches, but it seemed the item most likely to be found on any menu. He wondered if he should have dared to ask for fettuccine alfredo. He wasn’t at all hungry, but it seemed rude to be waited on solely for coffee.

  The waiter plucked the menu from the table and said, ‘Very good. I’ll have that right out for you.’

  He replaced the menu beneath the bar. While he was out of sight, soft lounge music began to play over a hidden system. He popped up, went to the kitchen to say, ‘Just one more minute, dear,’ and immediately thereafter came out with a tray laden with a triangular stack of rolled silverware and several empty wine
glasses, which he ported through the odd procession into the hidden back room.

  After berating himself for his panicked ordering, Reed glanced around. As busy as the opposite wall was (the hatch of red brick abutting varicoloured bottles in tiers behind the bar, a platoon’s decorated soldiers at parade rest repeated in reflection), the wall beside him was dull. No art was hung to break up too-regular swirling brushstrokes meant to disguise drywall as stucco. Reed found the artifice repellent in some way he couldn’t identify, and he shifted closer to the outer edge of the bench seat, brushing up against his damp coat.

  Reed wondered if the waiter had turned on the music simply because a customer was present, or as a means to obscure his telephone conversation. If it had been the latter reason, he couldn’t have provided a lesser impediment, as the music was so quiet that, sitting absolutely still, Reed had to strain to hear it. A woman sang in a foreign language over a jazz trio, drizzling honey into the spaces between bass and piano. Reed couldn’t identify the language. He thought it might be Malay. He had heard Malay once and had it identified for him; he thought it the most exotic and beautiful language he’d ever heard. Ever since, if he heard a language he couldn’t identify, he liked to believe it was Malay. He pictured the performance in the corner by the restrooms, the musicians inexplicably playing as quietly as humanly possible. He could see the form of the singer wrapped in silver sequins, though he couldn’t conjure her face.

  He sniffed appreciatively at his coffee, letting it cool.

  The procession of loudening bangs announced the waiter’s return. The tray now held two beer mugs. Reed saw no clinging suds to indicate they had been recently emptied. The mugs went beneath the bar. Reed glanced away when the waiter straightened, so as not to make him think he required attending. The waiter shot into the kitchen.