The Nocturne Chamber Part 4

The street bustled with activity as I pushed passed the crowds and found my way to the metro station. Hopping on a train, I sat in a seat quietly for several minutes before exiting the automatic doors and climbing the stairs to the street. My coat billowed in the wind of a deserted path as I walked off toward Breyer Street, just three blocks over to the left, and then eight more up. I'd cased every bar from one end of the city to the other, eavesdropping, listening to gossip, asking questions. A good six out of ten had at least some comment to make about Breyer Street. Though the information within the area was often inconsistent, or hazy at best, it always had something to do with that street. I wasn't sure if that could help me, but there was nothing else for me to go on.

I rounded some buildings and came to the fairly narrow street. It was slightly crooked, sloping out of sight some five hundred feet ahead. Some small shops adorned both sides of the avenue, each sliced separate by thin alleyways that meandered out of view into shadowy crevasses. My habitual nature kicked in, and I immediately perked up for a bar. I wandered by one within a few minutes; it was garishly labeled The Devil's Tap Room. A cartoonish ghoul leered down at me from the neon sign above the name of the bar, and I strolled up to the door and let myself inside.

Given that it was late afternoon by this time, the seating area within was relatively barren, save for a few occupants huddled away in their own corners. I looked around for a few moments before sauntering to the counter and taking a seat. An elderly gentleman appeared from the back and walked directly to me. He asked what I wanted to drink, to which I replied a double of the house bourbon. After a few deft movements, my drink was in front of me, and the bartender then asked if I wanted anything else. I told him nothing for the time being, and he withdrew with a nod. I cast sidelong glances at the other occupants while sipping my drink, attempting to form some sort of lead to follow now that I was on what I could only hope was the right trail.

It wasn't the cleanest bar, and it seemed almost to define the word seedy, but even that wasn't out of the ordinary. It was just like several other spots I'd been to all around town, and I couldn't quite understand why the rumors had brought me here. The bartender came back around again after a few minutes, footsteps muffled by the drone of equipment and scattered television sets. I ordered another round, and I asked him if anything strange had been going on lately. After all, I said to him with somewhat too much emphasis, I had heard some interesting rumors. His expression shifted as he turned away to pour the drink, and by the time he faced me again, he was composed.

According to him, he didn't put any credence in any of the rumors, for he had certainly never seen any strange doors around town. Sensing something sensitive, I pressed a little further and mentioned he obviously knew the rumors I was talking about, so it must be a fairly big deal around there. Again, I could see something in his expression waver slightly, and he admitted that he did have one strange anecdote to offer. He leaned in close as he told me, muttering, his voice barely audible over the drone of the bar.

It was just a few nights ago, he started, and he was walking home. It was just six blocks away, and he made the walk every day when he worked. Just after the fourth block on the way back to his home, he passed a dark alleyway and could hear what sounded like sobbing coming from within. He paused there, and called out to offer his help if it was needed. The sobbing continued unabated, and he approached the gaping maw of the passage cautiously, unable to see within. Here, he said, a strange dread had filled him, and he made a hasty retreat back to the road and rushed home.

That night, he said, he had some sort of dream, one more vivid and horrifying than any he could remember. A dark path unfolded before him, and he walked until he saw a small shack before him. Knocking on its door, a silhouette opened it from within. Its voice, which sounded so faint as to be ethereal, claimed he was not welcome, and pointed with a long, rubbery finger to something behind him. He followed this motion, and spied a hill in the distance which appeared to have some tree at its summit. Nodding at the figure in the shack, he headed off in the direction of the hill.

As he walked there, and as he grew closer and closer, he became more alarmed at what he was starting to see more clearly; what he had taken to be a tree at the summit of this hill was, in fact, a broad trunk that grew into a sickly gray figure, human, but completely featureless. Its arms were chained above its head, and a noose throttled the neck of the beastly creature. Still, the man came closer, and as he did, the tree began to quiver, the spasms of its body horrid enough to make the man look away in disgust. Then he could hear it, for it was screaming silently through its blank face, raging against its fettered limbs, forever unable to escape.

Then the bartender had woken up. It was the strangest dream he had ever had, he said. I was enthralled, thinking of the dream of the man from the other night. At the time, I didn't see it as having much significance, but I was reevaluating that conclusion given what I had just heard. Gathering myself, I asked him the name of the street that he had passed, the fourth block. My blood chilled slightly when he stated plainly the road was named Breyer Street. The information raced through my head: the sobbing, perhaps why the door was called the Weeping Door, the vivid, strange dreams, the street that seemed to be at the heart of every rumor and sighting. I finished my drink in a single gulp, and left cash on the counter, tipping the old bartender well for his information.

Walking back out onto the street, I followed the steps the man had traced back to his home that night, and presumably every other night, and I finally came upon Breyer street. It was a small, rundown road with two lanes, the asphalt cracked and faded. This was an older section of the city, and it had not been renovated in quite a few years, to my knowledge. There were only old, boarded up town homes on one side, and on the other, a large factory, its bright painted logo unrecognizable as the elements eroded it away. I walked down the street, curious what else was there. After the buildings, it just meandered off past empty lots and towards the shore of Lake Hargrove, which hugged the west side of the city.

I made my way back, and turned left onto the larger road off of Breyer Street, intending to explore the alley where the man had heard the sobbing. It was just a couple hundred feet from Breyer Street, an alley that bordered a large boutique and a cafe, going back less than a hundred feet before ending with a brick wall. I wandered within, checking every corner of it for anything that looked like it could be even slightly out of the ordinary, anything that could offer me a clue. I abandoned my searching after several minutes, unable to find any signs of disturbance or anything strange about the place at all. Vaguely disappointed, I came back to the main street and then entered the cafe.

A young woman at the front counter greeted me as I walked in, and I addressed her in turn and ordered a black coffee. Being the only customer present in the building, I sat in a corner that wasn't very visible from the front counter, as if I was hoping that by not seeing me, the cafe attendant would forget I was there at all. I mulled over my thoughts and took a couple of speculative sips of coffee, staring out the window to the street beyond. Pulling out a notebook, I jotted down everything I knew of that could potentially be connected to whatever answer surely wait at the end of this bizarre search. Weeping. Dreams. Sobbing. A door. Disappearances. Breyer Street. Alleys.

I held my head in my hands at the sheer inadequacy of the information available to me. Eventually, I found myself doodling a small map of the surrounding area, wondering if peering down at it from above would suddenly reveal the great truth of it all. I sighed, realizing just how much work I was going to be in for. Since the only thing I had to go on were whispered stories and unconfirmed rumors, there was only one thing I could think to do: talk to everyone I could in the area, hear every story, and then hopefully have enough data to make some sort of map and time table. If this door did exist, and it was seen in multiple different places at presumably different times, I thought perhaps I could predict where it would be.

Draining the last bit of my coffee, I strode up to the counter and thanked the worker. She smiled and told me it was no problem, and seemed to be about to wish me a good day but I was making no move to leave yet. I cleared my throat, and said the words I would find myself saying hundreds of times in the near future:

Have you heard about anything weird near Breyer Street?