Read Online Fortress of Ephemera: A Gothic Thriller by Eric Christopherson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Eric Christopherson
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stripped Noah of the aforementioned dungaree jacket and flannel bathrobe, stripped him of a tweed herringbone jacket and a tattered tuxedo shirt yellowed by dirt and sweat and most likely decades of wear, stripped him of four pairs of trousers, each patched to a considerable extent and worn atop one another in descending order of bagginess, in Russian nesting doll fashion, one might say. The multi-layers of clothing provoked dumbfounded queries from captors and captives alike.
“Saves on firewood,” Noah explained with a shrug. But when queried by Howard about the additional key rings found inside his pants pockets—bringing the total number of keys, in my estimation, to eighty or ninety—he refused to answer.
With a defiant glare, Noah stood shivering in his last remaining article of clothing, a red flannel union suit of the kind that I'd only seen before in sepia-toned tintypes from the post Civil War era, the extent of his undernourishment at last fully apparent to me. A rear view of the man revealed upper arms thinner than his elbow joints, and the drop flap in the back of his suit was missing its buttons, exposing a derrière so taut as to appear mummified.
“What about this?” Willie said, holding aloft a small note pad—three inches wide and six inches in length—which he'd extracted from the back pocket of Noah's innermost pair of pants.
“Read it,” Howard said.
Willie flipped to the first page. “Hey, what the . . . I can't read this.”
“Show me.” Howard passed Willie the gun in exchange for the note pad. He rifled through the pages, mumbling: “Gibberish . . . sheer gibberish.” He held the note pad up to Noah so that I could see a tiny, dense scrawl of black ink filling up the page being exposed. “It's a code of some kind, is it not, Mister Langley? A codebook?” No response. “And you carry it hidden on your person at all times, as with the keys, don't you? What's it for?” Still no response.
“Forget it, Howie,” Cormac said. “The coins!”
“You're right.” Howard flung the notepad away. It landed beside the staircase in one of several sand-filled fire buckets the cats had topped with their excrement. “Start cutting pieces off the old man, until he talks.”
Torture
Our voices, i.e., those belonging to Miss Buxton, Patrolman Cox, and myself, railed as one in protest at the barbarism planned for Noah, at the reminder of civilization's thin veneer , to borrow a phrase from Edgar Rice Burroughs. Cormac unsheathed his blade and advanced on his target of aggression. At the same time, Noah, clutching his chest, doubled over as if in pain.
“My heart,” he gasped. “It can't . . . can't take much more excitement.”
Cormac grabbed a fistful of hair from the back of Noah's head and yanked upwards until the old man had been straightened out again. “Bum ticker, huh? Think we're that stupid?”
“It's true,” Noah said, his eyes a little cross-eyed taking in the blade at the tip of his nose.
“What'll it be, Howie? Ear? Finger? Toe?”
“Let's start with an ear,” Howard said.
“You'll kill him!” Miss Buxton said. “And then where will you be?”
“She could be right,” I said, though I knew she wasn't. Hadn't Noah trekked three miles on foot that first day when he'd shown up at Gaines, Trenowyth and Fenno? It had to be a bluff.
“It's true!” Noah said. “I swear to it! And I can prove it! We've a greenhouse, you see . . . give me a moment, I'm so very lightheaded, so dizzy . . . we've a greenhouse on the roof, where I grow digitalis purpurea . . . better known as purple foxgloves, or witch's gloves . . . I grind up the leaves to make my own digitalin . . . The cost of a physician's visit, of store-bought medicine, being what they are today, you understand.”
“Bollocks,” Cormac said.
“The digitalin is used to increase cardiac contractility. It's also an anti arrhythmic agent. That is to say, it steadies the beating of my heart. If you
“Saves on firewood,” Noah explained with a shrug. But when queried by Howard about the additional key rings found inside his pants pockets—bringing the total number of keys, in my estimation, to eighty or ninety—he refused to answer.
With a defiant glare, Noah stood shivering in his last remaining article of clothing, a red flannel union suit of the kind that I'd only seen before in sepia-toned tintypes from the post Civil War era, the extent of his undernourishment at last fully apparent to me. A rear view of the man revealed upper arms thinner than his elbow joints, and the drop flap in the back of his suit was missing its buttons, exposing a derrière so taut as to appear mummified.
“What about this?” Willie said, holding aloft a small note pad—three inches wide and six inches in length—which he'd extracted from the back pocket of Noah's innermost pair of pants.
“Read it,” Howard said.
Willie flipped to the first page. “Hey, what the . . . I can't read this.”
“Show me.” Howard passed Willie the gun in exchange for the note pad. He rifled through the pages, mumbling: “Gibberish . . . sheer gibberish.” He held the note pad up to Noah so that I could see a tiny, dense scrawl of black ink filling up the page being exposed. “It's a code of some kind, is it not, Mister Langley? A codebook?” No response. “And you carry it hidden on your person at all times, as with the keys, don't you? What's it for?” Still no response.
“Forget it, Howie,” Cormac said. “The coins!”
“You're right.” Howard flung the notepad away. It landed beside the staircase in one of several sand-filled fire buckets the cats had topped with their excrement. “Start cutting pieces off the old man, until he talks.”
Torture
Our voices, i.e., those belonging to Miss Buxton, Patrolman Cox, and myself, railed as one in protest at the barbarism planned for Noah, at the reminder of civilization's thin veneer , to borrow a phrase from Edgar Rice Burroughs. Cormac unsheathed his blade and advanced on his target of aggression. At the same time, Noah, clutching his chest, doubled over as if in pain.
“My heart,” he gasped. “It can't . . . can't take much more excitement.”
Cormac grabbed a fistful of hair from the back of Noah's head and yanked upwards until the old man had been straightened out again. “Bum ticker, huh? Think we're that stupid?”
“It's true,” Noah said, his eyes a little cross-eyed taking in the blade at the tip of his nose.
“What'll it be, Howie? Ear? Finger? Toe?”
“Let's start with an ear,” Howard said.
“You'll kill him!” Miss Buxton said. “And then where will you be?”
“She could be right,” I said, though I knew she wasn't. Hadn't Noah trekked three miles on foot that first day when he'd shown up at Gaines, Trenowyth and Fenno? It had to be a bluff.
“It's true!” Noah said. “I swear to it! And I can prove it! We've a greenhouse, you see . . . give me a moment, I'm so very lightheaded, so dizzy . . . we've a greenhouse on the roof, where I grow digitalis purpurea . . . better known as purple foxgloves, or witch's gloves . . . I grind up the leaves to make my own digitalin . . . The cost of a physician's visit, of store-bought medicine, being what they are today, you understand.”
“Bollocks,” Cormac said.
“The digitalin is used to increase cardiac contractility. It's also an anti arrhythmic agent. That is to say, it steadies the beating of my heart. If you
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