"No, I made one, but I left it upstairs. You, uh, want to come up with me? John said we shouldn't be alone."
"To get a sandwich? How long's that going to take?"
"I don't think it's smart for anybody to be alone."
Evan heaved an irritated sigh. "So you want me to schlepp up all those stairs with you while you get a sandwich? You were alone this morning."
"I wasn't thinking of myself. I was thinking of you alone down here on the stage."
"I'll be fine. You'll be gone all of three minutes, right? Look, I'll sit right here on the edge of the stage in front of the proscenium so nothing can fall on me, okay? Besides, I was a goddam Marine."
Curt nodded. "All right. Don't go anywhere."
Evan made himself comfortable on the edge of the stage. There was no danger of falling, for the orchestra pit, raised to its highest level, was only four feet below. He watched Curt trot up the aisle, then settled back on his elbows, thinking about how this was the last time he would see this place.
He had had enough of the Venetian Theatre. The place had become a haunted house. All the deaths had been bad, particularly Robin's, but Donna's had hit him worst of all because of Sid's imprisonment. And then, last night, the little girl… it was no wonder his father wanted everyone out. Evan thought he might have evacuated the place a helluva lot earlier.
He looked out over the hundreds of seats. Yes, he had had quite enough of this theatre, and of his father, and of Terri Deems, who had been the main reason for his remaining there as long as he had. Ever since they had spent the night together, she hadn't had a kind word for him. Now was the perfect time to leave.
Maybe he'd go out to the west coast. He had some friends there, and the place seemed fresher, sunnier than Pennsylvania or New York. Whatever happened, he wasn't going back to Manhattan. He didn't want to be anywhere where there were theatres. They were fine when they were empty, wonderful open spaces that comprised a whole world. He had loved empty theatres when he was little, and he loved them still. The problem was that they didn't stay empty.
Evan shivered as he thought about audiences, those vast, featureless masses of people with one great, demanding face. With the thought alone came the first drowning sensations of his asthma, constricting his windpipe. He forced the thoughts away, made himself relax, and soon he was breathing easily again. He chuckled bitterly as he thought about the Marines and his feeble attempts at command. All he had needed was for a squad to look at him, and the nightmare began. How could you command when you couldn't even breathe?
No, it was the west coast for him, maybe up on the coast of northern California. He had visited school friends there his senior year, and had been impressed with the life style. Maybe he could become a carpenter. He liked working with his hands. Hell, he thought, even a house painter would be fine. Something to get him out in the weather, away from theatres, from the memories of all the faces…
Then the lights went out.
He felt panic for only a moment, then realized that the darkness had a natural explanation. After all, they had pulled electrics all morning. Perhaps the circuit that the remaining lights were on had overloaded. Or a fuse had burned out, that was all. In a minute Curt would be back, would see what had happened, and would come on stage with a flashlight. Everything would be fine.
Still, Evan was uncomfortable enough to pull his feet back from over the edge of the pit. He didn't like the idea of them dangling into darkness.
But was it completely dark? Usually a theatre's darkness was like that of caves – total and unrelenting. You could not even see the deeper darkness of your hand in front of your face. But Evan thought that there was light coming from somewhere, and he called out.
"Hello?… Hello, is anyone there?"
There was just enough light now to make out the great curves of the loge and balconies above. But where was it coming from?
Then he became aware of a sound he had not heard in years, a dull drone, as of some giant hive filled with huge bees, punctuated by an occasional higher-pitched tone. When he realized what it was, his bowels turned to water.
An audience.
The murmur went on and on, its sound terrifying him with the knowledge that out there in the dark were people, people sitting and facing him, and only that blackness, once feared, was what kept their eyes from him. He wanted to get up, to run off the stage, but his legs refused to move, his arms would not push him erect. And then, from high up in the booth, the light started to grow, one light, bright as flame, blinding him as it must have blinded Tommy Werton before the curtain fell on him, but Evan would not step back, even if he had wanted to. He was incapable of motion.
And now the sound, that doleful buzzing of the hive, diminished slowly into a flat silence, and he knew they were looking at him, at him alone, staring with their thousand eyes, listening with their thousand ears, waiting for him to speak or scream.
But he could not scream. Only a thin whistling sound escaped from his throat as he struggled to take in the air that refused to enter his terror-filled lungs, the air that would not go to his screaming brain, the air whose absence brought a dark and blessed curtain down over Evan's consciousness, but not before the light began to grow on the audience as well, and he could see them, thousands of them, filling every seat in the vast theatre, from the first row not ten feet away up, up to the soaring reaches of the balcony where they became lost, coalesced into a single distant mass of flesh and clothes and eyes, for that was all there was to their faces – no mouths, noses, cheeks – only eyes, staring, waiting. And the horrible buzzing began again, and he wondered, just before he fell into the pit of their need, how can they speak without mouths?
Scene 3
Dan Munro, with three of his officers, had come to the Venetian Theatre to perform their search of the premises. When they entered the auditorium, they found the work lights on and Evan Hamilton lying unconscious on the floor of the stage. The officers, all of whom were trained in CPR, immediately went to work on the boy, while Munro ran to the backstage phone and called 911 for an ambulance, which arrived only five minutes later. The medics found Evan breathing, and correctly diagnosed his condition as a severe asthmatic attack accompanied by a state of shock. They lost no time in bundling him into the ambulance and transporting him to the Kirkland Medical Center.
While the ambulance pulled away from the theatre, sirens screaming and lights ablaze, Dan Munro talked to Curt, who had returned with his lunch as the officers were laboring to keep Evan's breath flowing. "I couldn't have been away for three minutes," he said. "I don't know what the hell happened. He was fine when I left. And now… oh Christ… is he going to be okay?"
"I think so. Unless there's something else wrong they didn't spot," said Munro. "You didn't see anybody in here?"
"No, no one." Curt gave a bitter laugh. "There aren't that many of us left."
John Steinberg called the prison before Dennis's visit with Sid was over, and informed Ann about Evan's attack. When Dennis came out of the visiting area, she took his hand and told him that Evan had been taken to the medical center. "John said not to worry. They think he'll be fine."