The SF Sideshow, Episode 3: Dance Macabre

Unraveling mysteries in strange books is a tricky affair.

Sometimes you find yourself engrossed for hours at a time at sigils on pages that change whenever you look away. Sometimes you lose sleep over ciphers written in your missing partner’s hand. Sometimes you lose time, wondering where several hours of your life have gone. The book becomes your first thought in the morning and last at night.

Devin Striker was becoming familiar with these consequences. He knew more awaited him.

Zoey’s journal remained a series of mysteries that brought him no closer to finding her. What was written in the cipher remained largely unknown. There wasn’t a single clue as to how it arrived at his apartment, on his desk, or why it seemed to find itself there so frequently despite his best efforts. He had to take care with pages containing the morphing symbols, as touching them carried its own set of potential consequences. The first and only he’d brought himself to touch caused him to black out and somehow moved all of his furniture and everything on his floor against the walls. What made him truly uncomfortable was Case’s absolute inability to acknowledge the journal’s existence. 

The black mark on the back of his left hand was another source of discomfort. It first appeared as a faint black line, lengthening and curving over the next week to become a ring on the back of his palm. From its perimeter, the beginnings of yet more dark strokes crept toward the center. While its shape was a curiosity, how it reacted to the journal was his main concern. How, when he pressed his left palm against the sigil that caused him to black out, the mark burned. How he could see through his palm, like the mark was a lens, in his last moments of consciousness. 

He wanted to know when Zoey had taken a permanent marker to the only legend to the ciphers within the journal. He wanted to know how he lost minutes which turned to hours in the blink of an eye, enthralled with sigils he could not explain. For all his toying with the journal, there was no greater knowledge gained, only time lost— or time shifted away from what sustained his living.

He needed to pay the rent.

Without Zoey, his savings were hemorrhaging. As a couple, they pooled their money. Selling art was supplemental. Something he did to put extra money in his account and help cover his share of expenses when unexpected setbacks happened. Without her, he had to lean on it to barely meet each month’s rent. He had no financial padding left. He’d have to make sales at the art exhibit that night or his situation would become dire. He had a closet in his hallway, between the living room and bathroom, that housed pieces to be sold. He pulled out those that satisfied him and decided to show the painting he’d finished when he was last in the studio as his main piece: The black figure looming over him.

He called Case, feeling guilty for ignoring her increasingly in favor of Zoey’s journal since the new year. Case took some convincing— that is, she let Striker grovel just enough before she accepted his invitation. She added the condition he went to a party with her afterward. She was a half hour from the phone call to his doorstep. Striker tucked the journal into his coat pocket as he left. They made it to the gallery with just enough time for Striker to hang his art— with Case’s help— before the gallery opened to the public.

The exhibit was a slow one, and Case was not Zoey— Zoey was, for lack of a better term, his manager and the ‘face of the brand’. A maven. Most new buyers assumed she was the artist until she pointed him out and called him over to close the deal. Marketing and sales were among the jobs she excelled at and quit ‘in the real world’, except where Striker’s art was concerned. She engaged the people that gawked at his art. She turned conversations from form and color into dollars. Case had no such proclivity or skill. 

Zoey still understood how to cater to the fickle whims of deep-pocketed San Francisco art collectors. Case, instead, spent the exhibit pre-gaming for the next party on free wine and beer as she perused the pieces around the gallery, growing bored after her first lap. Striker was left fending for himself, stuck in front of his work as she wandered the exhibit floor. Potential buyers approached, but there was something— some detail about the large piece that seemed to disconcert them. They’d come close enough to get a good look at it before turning up their noses or making some other sour expression, before giving Striker a smile and moving along.

With Zoey usually planted at his section, he’d often be able to step outside for cigarettes at his leisure. He managed to make it outside for one in the middle of the showing, before Case’s fiending had reached its peak. Having an empty pack himself, the two made a brief trip to the store at the end of the block. Striker refilled his flask with bottom shelf bourbon. Case, in her effort not to get too trashed too early, waited until they were back at the exhibit for her next beverage. The second round was more of the same, and the once-busy crowd began to dwindle as the night continued. 

When the exhibit was over and the people had left, Striker hadn’t sold anything. He had, however, noticed his sketchbook tossed aside, in a corner of the gallery when he locked the doors. He picked it up and ascended the stairs where he found Sheryl on a couch in the loft.

She looked up over her cat-eye glasses. She wore those frames special for every exhibit.

“Were you watching the floor tonight?” he asked.

“Nu-uh,” she said, shaking her head, “Been running the books for the month.”

“How many cameras are in here?”

“Security cameras?”

“Yeah.”

She scratched her chin. “I wanna say four or five? Something wrong?”

“My sketchbook showed up,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “I didn’t notice until I locked up. I think it got left here when I went to the store to grab some stuff.”

“Whiskey?”

After a brief pause, he uttered a sheepish, “Yeah. And cigarettes.”

She frowned, “Did you get anything sold?”

He shook his head. “I was wondering if maybe one of the cameras caught who brought it back? If it’s those girls I mentioned, they got into a fight with my friend on New Year’s eve.”

“Oh,” said Sheryl, shutting her laptop as she stood up. “I have one on the door and a couple in the gallery proper. I think there’s one in the studio, but I’m pretty sure it’s been unplugged— the lens is cracked. We can take a look, though. How long ago do you think it was?”

He followed her down the spiral staircase. “In the last hour maybe? I never saw who dropped it off, but my guess is one of the girls who took it.”

Sheryl stopped, “Wait, took it? They stole your sketchbook?”

Striker shrugged. “Yeah, on New Year’s Eve.”

“Why didn’t you call the police? Or tell me? I would have done that. And I would have kept a hawk’s eye out for them.”

“I,” Striker paused. “I don’t know how much use the cops would be right now. I’ve been talking to them a lot more than I want to, anyways.”

“Well, everything from tonight should be on one of those videos.”

“Striker!” yelled Case from across the gallery, on a couch. She whistled and giggled when her voice echoed in the empty space. 

“How drunk are you?” he asked.

Sheryl opened her office door. Behind it was a box full of different bottles— beverages to be dispensed during exhibits. She pulled a clear one from it.

“She seems like one of those carbonated water kinda gals,” she whispered. “I’ll look at these videos,” she said in regular volume, “You go on with your friend and make sure she takes care of herself.”

“She’ll be fine,” said Striker, taking the bottle.

Case nursed the mineral water on the bus toward SoMa. They got off near Bryant street and she led the way through alleys and tiny streets, to the door of a warehouse not far from the Hall of Justice. There were four people in line and Striker decided to peel off to relieve himself from the exhibit libations. He chose a spot in an alcove with a door. Midway through, his left hand began to itch furiously. The mark on the back of it glowed, just enough for him to perceive. He put his business away and half-stepped out of the alcove. Down the sidewalk, he could make out a figure in the darkness between streetlights. A luminescent ring hung in the air in front of them. It appeared two-dimensional, like light sliced from a plane unseen. It spun and flashed. It was gone.

Then, the person down the street stepped backward, disappearing into the wall behind them. 

Striker zipped up his pants and looked again— there was no one on the sidewalk ahead of him. Aside from the alcove he’d stepped from, there were no doors or windows into the warehouse on the street he stood. Only rusty corrugated metal, through which vibrated the bass of the party inside, and a discarded cigarette with lipstick on the filter. 

He returned to the line, where Case was in front, busy with her phone. They got their pat-downs. She was waved through. Striker got some heat for a craft knife in his coat that he’d forgotten about and was waved through after leaving it with security.

Case was nowhere in sight when he stepped in, but a man with a clipboard and a star painted on his cheek waved him through, saying “Your friend paid for you, Neo,” as several more people filled in the space behind him. He grimaced and made his way into the party. It was dark inside. The light setup was laser-heavy. The only faces he clearly saw were those that the security’s flashlights swept over as they walked their rounds. It was difficult to see where he was going, let alone ascertain someone’s features.

He turned at a tap on his shoulder, to see Case’s unmistakable silhouette bouncing with the music. “What took you?” 

“I got held up in the line for my x-acto,” he said, his eyes sweeping over the crowd, trying to recall the outfit of the person he saw down the sidewalk. What he remembered was basic— jeans and a tee-shirt. Hard to find in a crowd of people wearing basically the same thing, in the dark, with some shiny lasers to illuminate them.

The two waded through the crowd to a makeshift bar. It was a simple metal industrial shelf piled with bottles, a folding table, and a bartender tightly packed between them. Case got a gin & tonic and Striker stuck to straight whiskey. As per usual, she made her way to the dance floor as soon as she paid for her drink. Striker stood on the outskirts of the dance floor and slammed his double-shot. Nature called again.

It took searching, but he found the bathroom door in a hallway just off the dance floor. The hall was illuminated by a single blacklight bulb, with another open door at the end of it. He was staggering drunk by the time he emerged from the bathroom, proud his dinner hadn’t wound up in a toilet. He’d brag to Case when he found her. He swayed in front of the door for a moment, and decided to explore the room at the end of the hall.

It wasn’t much brighter than the hall itself. It too was lit by black-light that caught wisps of smoke as they ascended from a slab on a table. Three people sat on one side, while a young woman with a large butane torch sat on the other. She had curly hair that fell below her shoulders.

“Dab?” she asked, as she sparked the torch. Striker looked over his shoulder at the dance floor past the hall and shrugged. It was more Case’s interest than his— he preferred his cannabis by simpler means— but he still sat down at the empty chair. She prepared a hit for him. Striker inhaled sharply, sending himself into a coughing fit. He felt a wave of lethargy as he hacked. The man next to him handed him a bottle, yelling, “Water,” into his ear. Striker slugged it down, wheezing.

“What’s your name?” asked the woman, as his fit began to subside.

“Striker.”

“Molly.”

She held out her left hand, Striker instinctively shook with his right. Her name was familiar, but he couldn’t recall why he felt it somehow important. He sat unsure how to broach the subject with two other people engaging with her as well. His assumption was that she might know Zoey, but that conversation would be best had when they could talk alone, and he was sober.

Either way, she wasn’t the person he saw outside. He wanted to find them.

Striker nearly fell over the table as he stood. He thanked the woman and bid the other side of the counter farewell. He clipped his shoulder on the doorframe on his way out. His head was spinning by the time he was in the throng of dancing people. As the back of his left hand itched again, he recalled the ring of light he’d seen just before the person disappeared into the wall. He hoped he might see that ring again. Instead he was met by a series of flashes from the lights above.

As his eyes adjusted, he saw a security guard walk past a woman in a familiar floral dress. Striker couldn’t see her face, but Elsie was his first guess— the inscrutable happy woman from New Year’s Eve. He texted Case before shoving his phone back into his pocket. He could barely make out the features of those around him, having to close one eye to keep the room from spinning. He couldn’t spot Case or Elsie. As for the mystery person, he had little idea how he could possibly figure out who they were.

He had to push his way through people as the center of the dance floor was a tight throng of bodies. He saw a woman in a rainbow shirt he’d spotted Case dancing with before he went to the bathroom. He tapped her on the shoulder. She shot him a glare, as did her new dance partner. She yelled something at him that he couldn’t hear over the music.

“Where did my friend go?” he tried to yell, but his voice was still hoarse from the dab room and he was slurring heavily. “The girl you were dancing with?”

She leaned in closer and her partner stood at her side. “Fuck off. We’re not interested.” Striker backed off and waded toward the bar. A hand grasped his wrist and he spun around, spitting out a slurred, “Sorry, I was looking for my friend.”

He remembered the woman who grasped his wrist from the New Year’s Eve party at the GetUp. She was the lone dancer the pair of bachelors gawked at as they drank their cheap swill. She scrutinized him, before locking her gaze with his. There was a fire behind her eyes that was unmistakable in the dim light by which he saw her face.

His stomach fluttered and he turned from her. He knew he’d far overdone it when his legs weakened. He waded off of the dance floor toward the bathroom with her in tow. His throat trembled and he tasted bile, staving off retching onto the floor with deliberate breaths. She didn’t release him until they were outside of the throng and she could keep him in sight. She followed behind him as he staggered into the hallway.

Striker stumbled into an open stall in the bathroom. He dropped to his knees and retched before it all came out. Unlike New Year’s Eve, there was no ascension to an altered state, just the realization that he’d drunk far too much. Even as he shook while he evacuated the contents of his stomach, he felt his left hand itching. The mark on it was luminescent. He heard the door to the bathroom open and close.

When he looked behind him, the woman who’d grabbed his hand in the crowd stood leaning against the sink. She wore pleather pants and a simple white tee shirt tucked in at the waist. Her hair was tied at the back of her head with a long tuft framing the right side of her face. Her hands were gloved with finger black knits.

“Can I get some water?” asked Striker, cradling the toilet.

“You’re holding water,” she said. “How fucked up are you?”

Striker wiped his face with this sleeve and drank the rest of the water in the bottle. She looked down at him, and held out her hand. “Give me that,” she said, taking the bottle and passing it back full. He gulped it all in a few moments and cast the bottle aside.

“That was a bad idea, you should drink more water. Clean your face,” she said, handing him some paper towels. 

Striker groaned as he did. Rising to his feet was a challenge he was unable to manage. “You’re the person I was looking for,” he managed.

“Why were you looking for me?”

“I watched you walk through a fucking wall.”

She raised a brow, but changed the subject, “Is that a tattoo on your hand?”

His jaw fell agape. He was lost for words.

“Who are you?” she asked, “No bullshit, okay?” 

Striker shook his head as his shoulders rose toward his ears. He stuttered over his words. “I’m just an artist. No bullshit.”

A silence settled between them, broken by the rattling of the bathroom door’s handle.

“Hold on,” yelled the young woman. She continued, hushed, “I remember you from New Year’s Eve. You remember those girls at the party?”

Striker nodded.

 “They’re here. And they’re looking for somebody. And a lot of people are pointing at you. Do you know why they’re after you” Someone outside pounded their fist on the door. “Hold on!” she shouted. She glared back at Striker. “Anything?”

He swayed, clutching the toilet before a second round of vomiting. She watched him for a moment, and scoffed, heading for the door. Several people came in as she left, filling the stalls around Striker as he staggered to his feet. When managed to right himself, he bumbled to a sink that he clutched for dear life as the party continued.

Several sets of bathroom occupants later, he managed to stagger out of the bathroom and pull his phone from his pocket.

Case had responded with three question marks and he realized he’d texted her drunken nonsense. He closed an eye and tried again, telling her to meet him by the bathroom. When he looked up, Elsie stood in front of him. Unlike New Year’s Eve, he could look her directly in the eye. There was a distance in her gaze, while her lips curled into a smile. The change in her expression was slow, as though she labored to move each muscle in her face into the correct position. She looked at something behind Striker.

He turned around, and Ada stood barely a foot away. Her expression was blank as it always had been, devoid of emotive hint.

“Would you like to talk about Zoey?” she asked. She dipped her head to the side just slightly when the question left her mouth. “Or would you prefer not to know why she left you?” Her tone and meter was even throughout. 

They were still wearing the accessories Zoey loved most, Ada the gear necklace, Elsie the hair clip.

He looked behind him. Elsie was closer now, nearly brushing against him.

“We really, really just want to talk, Striker,” said Ada.

“I want answers,” he slurred, beginning to realize his intoxication might hinder his ability to handle a conversation.

“I’m trying to offer that. But it’s too loud here. Let’s go somewhere quieter.”

“The bathroom?”

Ada shook her head. “I have a better place. We’ll talk there. Follow Elsie”

He shrugged, too intoxicated to protest, fight, or flee. Or, see straight without closing and squinting an eye.

Ada marched Striker along the edge of the crowd to a door on the other side of the dance floor. It opened into an unlit hallway. Out of the other end, they marched out through the alcove where Striker had earlier relieved himself before he’d witnessed the woman walk through the wall. They continued past the warehouse to a brick building next door. Its front, windows and all, were plastered with graffiti. 

Ada approached the padlocked front door. She ripped off the lock barehanded and tossed it aside, pushing the door open. She was the first in and a push from behind by Elsie sent him stumbling into the darkness. It was dusty and the streetlights lit the open room in shafts. Impressions on the floor hinted at walls that had since been torn down.

“Why are you wearing Zoey’s stuff?” he asked.

“It’s gaudy and we like it,” Ada now spoke with a distinct Londoner accent, “Why do you think she left you?”

“Fuck you, you know why.”

“Oh!” shouted Ada, “Look who’s got a set of fucking balls, finally. Let’s say we did dissect that fucking tart for wasting our time. What are you gonna do sunshine?”

He tried at several starts, but found himself lost for words. The pair of women looked at one another for a moment before turning back to him. Elsie’s expression hadn’t changed at all since becoming locked in that uncanny smile. Ada remained a blank slate.

“This is about a book you don’t need. I have a very strong feeling you’re carrying it right now,” she began. “What’s say we just... Have it and you go on and forget us.”

“What did you do to her?”

“Nothing we won’t do to you. I think I’m being very charitable. I promise we will walk away and you never see us again.”

“What about Zoey?”

“Devin,” she said, then repeated his name, half chuckling, “Devin,” She took a step toward him.

He turned to walk for the door, but she snatched him by the back of his collar. He thudded against the wall as she pinned him. “Devin, you can’t run. Zoey ran. We found Zoey. Again. And again. And again. And we caught up to her. We found you, you are pinned to a wall, and you are not running anywhere.”

Ada held him in place with one hand, immobilizing him despite his struggle. Elsie fished his pants pockets and tossed the contents aside. She pulled the journal from his coat. He turned his head when blood sprayed against his face as her outstretched hand burst into gore from which emerged a gnarled claw. “Elsie,” she said, his eyes focusing on her hand. Her thick fingernails curved into sharp points. Let’s see if—”

His left hand itched. Ada stopped abruptly and looked to her left. Elsie glanced in the same direction. Then, Elsie flew backward into Ada, launched by a force unseen. Striker was pulled along with Ada who’s grip remained firm. He saw a brief flash of light near the front of the room, in the darkness beneath a window. Elsie leapt up and ran toward the source as Ada dragged him to his feet. 

She lifted him off of the floor and started to say something before Elsie flew back toward them from the darkness, sliding along the floor until she stopped at the back wall. Ada dropped him and turned. She began to sprint toward their mystery assailant. Her left leg kicked up as though thrown from behind. She hit her back and rolled to her stomach, scrambling— or almost slithering— into the darkness ahead faster than Striker could sprint.

His phone rang, and he saw it ahead of him, lighting up. He ran for it and snatched it from the ground, as the woman with pleather pants tumbled into him, sending both of them and his phone to the floor. He couldn’t see it, but it continued to ring. Ada came out of the darkness into the shaft of the light in a blur, and the girl in pleather flicked her hand upward. Ada’s trajectory abruptly shifted and she ground against the ceiling as though she were sliding on the floor, before falling down. The woman pulled him to his feet. 

The first to step into the light was Elsie, with a pocket knife embedded in her skull. Then, Ada, whose face was rent from grinding along the ceiling. The woman staggered backward with a hand over her mouth. Her body spasmed, like she was about to puke, but she stomped and raised her hands. She began gesturing, drawing something in the air that left a trail of light before she snapped her fingers. It disappeared in a flash.

He saw Elsie when his eyes adjusted. She was in midair, lunging toward them outstretched like a large cat pouncing on its prey. 

The woman grabbed his hand with her right and made a quick upward gesture with her free hand. Striker felt a charge rip through him, and his connected hand felt almost like it was vibrating. He could see a sigil in his vision, as though it were right in front of him, vibrating with such ferocity that he couldn’t determine what it’s actual form was. The streetlights died, plunging the room into pitch black, punctuated by a wet thud. She let go. Striker stepped carefully backward, still staggering from inebriation as he heard a scuffle in front of him. His phone rang again, and he stumbled, falling to his knees toward the sound of his ringtone. 

It stopped ringing abruptly after it started. In the silence, he heard a loud squelch, followed by another. He wheeled around as the street lights illuminated the room in shafts again, dim at first. There were two figures on the floor. The third woman, his savior, emerged into the light.

“We need to leave right now,” she said, folding the pocket knife retrieved from Elsie’s head. She immediately walked past him outside, burying her face in her hands. Striker followed behind, shakily taking the hair clip and necklace from the bodies. He had to pry the journal from Elsie’s hands. He also snatched his cigarettes, just visible at the edge of a shaft of light on the way out. He fished for his lighter when he stepped onto the sidewalk. He continued to search himself for a flask or anything else. 

He had nothing.

Striker had to jog to catch up with the woman, who didn’t respond when he called after her. He circled in front of her and she sidestepped him. 

“What the fuck just happened?” he asked.

She took a few more steps forward and pivoted. Her face was covered in blood. Her bloodsoaked hands were raised, grasping at nothing, and her gaze dropped off. The ferocity was gone. “I thought I could figure that out from you.”

“I have no idea what the fuck is going on. Not since Zoey disappeared.”

The woman glared back at him. She turned and walked down the street and began to jog before side stepping into the wall of a building ahead. She disappeared as she had into the club, and likely the brick building she’d saved him from. That was becoming a theme.

Someone always has to pull his ass out of the fire.