The Bureau of Them Read online

  Table of Contents

  Introduction:

  The Bureau of Them

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  Acknowledgements

  About The Author

  Spectral Press

  A SPECTRAL PRESS PUBLICATION

  The Bureau of Them

  Novella and biographical notes are Copyright © 2015 Cate Gardner

  All other text and Spectral Press logo is Copyright © 2014 Spectral Press

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the copyright owners.

  The right of Cate Gardener to be identified as the Author of their work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Editor/publisher Simon Marshall-Jones

  Cover art by David Chatton-Barker © 2015

  eBook created by Graeme Reynolds

  Spectral Press, 13 Montgomery Crescent, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK15 8PP

  Website: spectralpress.wordpress.com

  The Bureau of Them

  By

  Cate Gardner

  spectralpress.wordpress.com

  For

  Simon 'the' Bestwick

  Introduction:

  The Bureau of Them by Cate Gardner

  Angela Slatter

  Introductions should, as a rule, be short things because they are not why you pick up a book-rest assured this introduction will conform.

  You've selected this title because (a) Cate Gardner is awesome, or (b) Cate Gardner's writing is wonderful and terrifying, and/or (c) Spectral Press's range of novellas and chapbooks have never let you down yet and you see no reason why they should start now. All of these possibilities are perfectly sound and correct.

  The Bureau of Them is Pure Horror in the best sense: it arouses fear, dread, sometimes disgust and shock ... but, driven as it is by Cate's beautiful prose and precise vision leavened with black humour, you find you don't want to turn away. You are frequently seized and held captive by dread anticipation, but you never turn away. This novella is all the more terrifying because it feels real, possible, because the landscape is populated by the sad, the angry, the pitiful, the vengeful, the impatient ... the recognisable.

  In The Bureau of Them Katy is trying-and failing-to recover from the loss of Glynn; she'd do anything to see him, touch him, one more time; her friends are worried about her. She's living on what-ifs, on maybes, on hope, which Emily Dickinson called "the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops".

  And Katy's hope never stops.

  "She looked up the curve of James Street desperate for the dead to become visible again even if they surrounded and threatened her. The air felt empty, stealing her breath. Empty because she had swallowed the world, and all its pain now rested within her desperate to break through her fragile skin."

  You fall into a world inhabited by the dead, your dead, by wonders and miracles and cataclysms. Chasms open beneath your feet, the sky splits, and everything you think you know about the Afterlife is shattered. Katy slips between the cracks of life and death, and so do you, because Cate Gardner has pried the doors open to show the shadows that move there. You cannot quite shake the sensation that those shadows are looking back.

  The Bureau of Them is not only an assured example of the best Horror can offer, it is also an in-depth and affecting examination of loss and sorrow and the acts to which we may be driven whilst in their grip. This novella can proudly stand next to the works of Mary Shelly, Flannery O'Connor, Shirley Jackson, and those blokes Stephen King and Neil Gaiman.

  Cate Gardner is indeed, in the words of Publishers Weekly "... a rising purveyor of high literary strangeness ..."

  Now, read this damned book. With the lights on.

  Angela Slatter

  Brisbane, Australia

  5 June 2015

  The Bureau of Them

  ONE

  The man at the abandoned office building's window would be a collection of shadow and dust. It wouldn't be Glynn. Katy brushed her fringe away from her eyes. Glynn was dead. The dust-built figure's fingertips touched the glass. Katy blinked back tears, determined not to look away. To have Glynn back for just a moment was better than never at all.

  "Katy," Nathan said, "you still with us?"

  Katy wanted to ask the same question of the dust boy. If only breath would mist his side of the glass. It didn't. It couldn't.

  "I said, are you still with us?"

  Nathan's words should be inconsequential. Instead, for Katy, they sent memories swirling. She could feel Glynn's hand in hers, his breath on her face, the vibration of his lips against her ear. No one ever noticed the wreck their words made of her. She should be over it now, they'd say. Hasn't Glynn been dead for a year?

  Thirteen months, twelve days, seven hours, some minutes.

  If she could reassemble Glynn from shadow and dust, she would. If she could remove this window without disturbing the illusion, she would, although it wouldn't be of any more use than a collection of old photographs and warped memories. It wasn't Glynn. It couldn't be him. The ghost traced a heart in the dust. Her knees sagged.

  "What's so interesting about that building?" Nathan asked.

  She couldn't tell him. No more than she could look away. If she turned for just a second the illusion would dismantle and she'd never win Glynn back.

  "We're going to the pub on Friday. The Old School. Steph said they're fighting to keep it open and they might succeed if the old gang met up there. We used to drink that place dry. Glynn…"

  Sometimes other people forgot Glynn was dead, too.

  "Crap! Is that the time? I have to head back to work but," he said, turning her to face him, "are you okay? I'm worried about you. We're all worried about you."

  She wanted to ask Nathan if he could see Glynn, but she daren't. Instead, she replied, "Fine. Just a little distracted. Sorry."

  "Daniel will be there on Friday."

  "I'm not interested."

  Her friends were determined to set her up with Daniel, a slick boy in a pressed suit who would never be her type. Had they forgotten Glynn's laughing eyes, his dishevelled hair, and easy smile? If Daniel died, he'd look back at her from polished chrome.

  "Friday then," Nathan said.

  Katy nodded. With a wave, Nathan turned and ran across the road, taking no heed of the traffic despite the fact they'd both lost someone they loved there. No wonder she saw Glynn here. Witnesses claimed Glynn strolled out into the traffic as if the road were empty, walking into the path of a coach. Dead at the scene. Although she hadn't been there, the screech of metal and crunch of bone beneath tyres woke her most mornings. She turned back to the window and its dust ghost. In the building's doorway, a tramp coughed into his fist, a guttural sound, thick with phlegm. She hadn't noticed him there before. The tramp rattled his box of trinkets. Katy ignored him and approached the window where the dust boy continued to wat
ch.

  "It's not you," she said.

  "You're not the first to talk to your dead here," the tramp said.

  "Glynn's not here," she said, not questioning how he knew she was talking to a ghost.

  "If you say so."

  The mind played awful tricks and it wasn't as if this was the first time she'd seen Glynn since he'd died, it was just that he usually dissipated within seconds or proved to be a stranger with a similar look. Behind the window, the accumulation of dust and shadows stepped back. Boys formed from inanimate things couldn't move. The window emptied. Katy rushed to the doorway and drummed her fists against wood and glass. The tramp continued to shake the collection of trinkets in his cardboard box.

  The door rattled against its frame but didn't open. With a final thump, Katy considered there might be something within the tramp's box she could use to jimmy the door open.

  The tramp held a key in the curve of his palm. When Katy bent to grab it, his fingers snapped over the key and he rubbed the fingers of his other hand together. Katy dug into her purse and removed a five-pound note. She wedged the note beneath a plastic cube and a metallic owl in the tramp's box. He gave her the key.

  The key fitted the lock.

  The lock unfastened with a click. Katy's hand rested against the door, but she didn't push it open. The tramp didn't urge her either way. She could open it a little, call into the dark and see if anyone answered. If Glynn were in there, he wouldn't ignore her. Of course, he couldn't be in there because Glynn was dead. The door shuddered beneath her hand. Shapes moved behind wired glass, indistinct against layers of dirt. Beside her, the tramp gathered his box and clutched it to his chest. Spit dribbled into his beard. If he had the key, he must have been inside and if he'd been inside it was possible other vagrants lived within the building. She'd seen a man, a stranger. She hadn't seen Glynn. Of course, if she didn't push the door open and see whoever it was that almost resembled her Glynn then Glynn would never let her go.

  She didn't want him to let her go. She didn't want to let go.

  "Who's in there?" she asked both the tramp and whoever was behind the door.

  Now was the time to run. She didn't move, frozen in place by hope, by want, by a key that opened a long-abandoned door. Looking at the key, she saw it wasn't the type of key to open an office building. Its ironwork was intricate and ornate, its length long and Victorian, whereas the building was 1960s at the earliest. Behind the door, shadows swelled in number. Bellies pressed against glass, shirt buttons straining, waiting for her to open the door. Why didn't they open it themselves?

  "Are you certain you want to see him again?"

  It wouldn't be Glynn. The tramp grabbed her arm. She pulled away from him, batting him off. Tears ran down her cheek. If she thought Glynn was inside the building, really thought it, then of course she would want to see him again, but it wasn't Glynn, it was a tramp. All the same, she nodded in answer to the tramp's question. He grabbed her arm again and this time pulled her to the side of the building.

  The door opened. It seemed she'd formed a plug, keeping those within the building trapped, for when she stepped onto the pavement the wind stilled and people began to file through the open doorway. They didn't look like tramps-too ordered, too co-ordinated, too ghastly. Each of them wore either a grey dress or a grey suit, their pallor the same washed-out shade; easy to believe they were dead.

  A laugh trembled up her throat. Snot joined the tears rolling down her face. She wiped away both. This was a nightmare. About her the dead swarmed, although swarm didn't seem the correct term for their orchestrated movements. About them, about her, the world continued as normal, undisturbed by this gathering of ghosts. She shivered against the building, rough concrete digging into her back. She shook her head as if to prove to the world she thought them an illusion.

  "They're not ghosts."

  The tramp neither confirmed nor denied her statement.

  The tide of ghosts parted to reveal Glynn amongst them. Her hand reached out but touched only air and perhaps the edge of a cotton jacket coated in grey dust. They moved away from her. Ripples, distortions cast by sharp sunlight. Sobs shuddered through her. She'd lost her mind.

  "You left me."

  The dead turned on their heels, sweeping grey dust arcs against the pavement. Closing rank about Glynn, they flowed along The Strand.

  "No."

  For a moment, the tramp, the wind or perhaps a ghost (ridiculous!) held her against the building. Then she fell forward, dropping to her knees. She scrambled to her feet and chased after the dead but they were too fast. Even at a run, she couldn't match their magnificent strides.

  "Glynn."

  They didn't turn at her cry. Grey against grey, they'd moved so far that she could no longer pick Glynn out from the sombre crowd. At the corner of James Street, the wind pushed Katy back; it stole her breath and battered her thighs and chest with distinct punches. When at last she turned the corner, Katy caught a glimpse of the tail end of the group before they faded against the reality of people, bus shelters and pubs. The dead erased from the landscape as if they'd never existed.

  "Glynn," she said, more of a whisper now, pain cutting across her belly, folding her in two.

  Thirteen months dropped to a single minute. Katy wiped the heel of her palm beneath her eyes, smearing the building's dust and dirt across her cheek. The veins in her forehead throbbed, pulsing toward headache and only when a bus driver sounded his horn did she realise she'd wandered into the road. She stepped onto the pavement, dazed and disorientated. She'd thought she understood the full weight of grief but all that had passed before was a mere pinprick compared to this weight that threatened to fell her. It had almost been easier to think she would never see him again. Hope ached more than no hope.

  Yes, easier to think he'd gone forever.

  She looked up the curve of James Street desperate for the dead to become visible again even if they surrounded and threatened her. The air felt empty, stealing her breath. Empty because she had swallowed the world, and all its pain now rested within her desperate to break through her fragile skin. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to exist. Steadying herself against the wall, Katy turned back onto The Strand. Again, the tramp sat within the doorway of the abandoned building (or rather not so abandoned), his polished shoes poking from the entranceway, a box of trinkets positioned between his knees. He'd known what would happen. She was certain of that. He'd expected the dead to rush from the building.

  "Who were they?" she asked, her voice trembling. "Was it him? Was it my Glynn?"

  The tramp's fingerless gloves snagged on the sharpened edge of a key while the other contents of the box rolled to a far corner. Metallic owl, coloured blocks, cocktail umbrella and other assorted crap. Katy stole the key from his box. This time it didn't fit the lock, its ornate edge too large for the Yale keyhole.

  "It is of no use to you now," the tramp said. "You get to open the door once. Now you'll have to wait for them to return and open the door for you. That's how it is with the dead."

  He spoke of them as if they were real and not a figment of her grief.

  "Locks and keys take time to wear apart."

  The wind pushed her against the door, eager to press her into the building. Her hair whipped about her face, concealing her red-rimmed eyes and nose. The far-too-large key scraped against the outer edges of the lock. Frustrated, Katy slammed her knee against the door.

  "Open, damn it!"

  Perhaps she should try sesame, abracadabra, or some other magic word. I love you. A sob broke. She broke. The world couldn't offer her a glimpse of Glynn and then steal him back. She tapped her forehead against the door and didn't care about the dirt, what passers-by may think. He'd been here, within reach of her hand, and now, he was gone again. She turned and looked across the road to the approximate spot where Glynn had died. A man in a dark grey suit watched her from the central reservation. She'd have thought nothing of him only he slowly faded from view until only an outl
ine of him remained.

  "Did you see…?" she turned to ask the tramp, but he too had vanished.

  She stepped away from the building, wrapped her jacket tight about her body and walked ghost-like through the weave of traffic both human and vehicular.

  TWO

  The woman tethered to the desk by cobwebs stared at the door and the echo of a living woman pressed into its glass. Death froze the cobwebbed woman, left her petrified. If she were a ghost, why didn't she fade? If she were a zombie, why didn't she crave brains? If she was still in the world, why couldn't she step into the sunlight and breathe?

  Sometimes the woman recalled her name was Isobel and that she'd been in love with a man named Peter. Sometimes she saw Peter standing at her reception desk, chattering away as if the gulf of life and death wasn't standing between them. He saw only the wood of this desk, whereas Isobel felt the weight of dirt.

  Mostly she wondered why the living chased after the dead when the dead wanted no part of them.

  "Shoo," she whispered, disturbing neither cobweb nor dust.

  The living woman moved from the door. A coincidence. The living never heard her and neither did the dead.

  THREE

  Katy saw no more ghosts on the way home. She got off the bus and waited for a moment in the bus shelter, catching her breath, trying and failing to make sense of what she'd seen. Shattered Perspex crunched beneath her shoes. She'd read in the local paper that the council were considering removing all bus shelters due to the cost of continuous repair. Every night gangs stole into her world leaving a trail of destruction and scrawled graffiti as if they needed to assert their place. Dust tickled the inside of her nostrils-not surprising considering the dirt that had covered the window of the office building and how she'd all but snorted the dust in her attempt to enter. She sneezed.

  As she reached into her pocket for a tissue, something fell out and rebounded against broken slices of Perspex. The metallic owl from the tramp's box rolled to the pavement edge. Katy picked it up. She turned it over in her hand as though doing so would explain how she'd come to own it. A curious little thing, jointed wings vibrating in the breeze. She'd give it back tomorrow. Now she had a reason to return to the building.