A step out of bounds.

Ivory truffle. That’s what is said, plain as day.

Scrawled on a scrap of paper and backed in plastic, tinted blue, it lay like it had business there. The sparkle of the singular key was almost blinding in the evening, like catching sunlight on the rise of wave. On the floor, beneath the bench outside ‘Casper’s’ I had scooped it up, amusedly. “Ivory Truffle?”

Though a small trifle in the gospel of everyday, it was enough to stir up enthusiasm amongst the fella’s at the bar that night…

“Drugs.”

“What?”

“Drugs!” said Selby Ainsworth, non-phased “It’s always the drugs. Some storage lock-up, or back-alley factory. I mean, Ivory – Truffle. Come on!”

“He’s right, you know.” Said wide-eyed Tony Pierce. Lips pursed, he nodded his head slowly as Selby spoke. “They’ll be looking for you, now. Mark it! You’d better drop that off back where you found it.”

“You’re an ass. Why would they add a dandy little keyring to advertise it to anyone who might see it? No, it’s not that.”

Taylor was more resourceful than the rest of my retinue.

“I’ve found them!” she said with the zest of triumph in her voice. “Notable Glam Rock band of the 80’s, Ivory truffle. A one hit wonder with “The Truffle in you” in 1982” she read from behind the half-light of her phone screen. I signalled for the phone and read for myself. A two man band of matted hair and skin-tight leopard print.

“Dead for 9 years, Taylor.”

She thought for a moment. Snap. “Keys to a fan club-house!”

I looked down again at the cover picture of their acclaimed LP of ’82. Jauntily, they posed on what looked like the surface of Mars. A superimposed UFO in the back ground fostered that half amused, half bewildered feeling you get whilst watching a pre-school Nativity play.

“Not likely” I said.

They joked and prodded theories for a little while longer, passing it off as a thing of fancy or nothing at all. Something momentarily amusing yet altogether insignificant, like an oil spill in the gulf or talk of celebrity scandal to pass the time. But that primordial instinct within told me that it was, or wanted to be, something more.

“Swingers! They all get keys issued out for a hotel room, right…”

*

The next day at work was a revelation. The mystery had sheltered quietly in the peepholes of my mind, only becoming tangible again when I reached Casper’s next morning. It was Casper himself who sponsored my expedition, polishing what was an amusement into a finely gleaming obsession.

“Look at him. Skulking around there and sickening my customers” he fumed as I walked in. He had amassed a crowd of professional work-shyers, poised to see the latest spectacle.

“What’s all this then? Another kamikaze bird you’ve caught on camera, Cas? Who was it this time?”

“A pervert has been menacing my customers” he warned, “and I’ll not have you mocking it”.

“You what?”

“Just you watch. Some fella lurking around was looking up poor Mrs Seeley’s skirt!”

“Mrs Seeley is 87 years old, I hardly think…”

“Just watch.”

Indeed, the footage was damning. The man crossed over the road under the refuge of his hat, and began a recce of the front of the café. Every so often he stole glances at the bench where Mrs Seeley was sitting, apparently wrestling with some unseen dilemma. Finally, he seemed to lose all control and got on his knees and peered directly under the bench. Right before Casper burst out of the door like clothes from an overfilled closet, and chased him off. My colleagues all cheered mockingly, but Casper quelled them with a wave of his hand.

“Lucky little blighter! I should have given him a ride home in an ambulance for that!”

There was no doubt the disguised figure was up to something, alright. The footage didn’t lie, it only told an ignorant truth; he had come back for what he’d dropped the night before.

*

It was a couple of nights later before I got any kind of concrete leads. Obsession had crept up on me like moss gropes at the rocks, and I couldn’t keep the prospect of legend out of my mind. I had that innate feeling of destiny about me; that this would somehow spare me from the erosion of day to day mediocrity. Through boredom or sheer modern escapism, I willed it to be something more than the key to the milk float, or a sewing circle at community hall. Either way, I was going to find out.

A search of the Web turned up squat, except for the occasional references to our friends from the 80’s. The telephone directory was even less of an ally, and what is more, the mysterious voyeur had not returned following Casper’s defence the day before. My list of possibilities was wearing thin, so that i was forced, once again, to seek help from more rudimentary circles.

“Put some posters around town” suggested Tony. “'Have you lost your Ivory Truffle’, something like that. You might get a few cranks on the line – myself being one of them – but when the right call does come through, you’ll know it.”

He was right, of course, but I opted for something a little less on the nose. Printed in large, all-business font, the words “IVORY TRUFFLE? CALL LARZ FOR DETAILS” were scattered about town. I was getting desperate, but I wasn’t ready to risk my own name just yet.

It was late evening, and I’d covered down past the old market, through the shopping mall and up the north end of Crosland Street. Id reached the Post-Office when the thing really began to burst its banks and spill out into the night.

“Don’t”.

That was all that he said. I was struggling with the cello tape like the rest of mankind before me, when the poster dropped to the ground and billowed in his direction. He must have caught sight of the words and grasped their significance immediately.

“Don’t” he croaked.

“Well, why not? This is a public building, you know? And I’ve got as much right as anyone to put these here.”

“You don’t wanna be meddling in what you’ve got on that paper there. They go, and they never come back. They go for the food and the shelter and I ain’t never seen any of ‘em again”.

“They? What do you mean… they?”

“Street Folk” he said, not totally unabashed “the fella’s I slum it with. He comes around on the cold nights – funny talkin’ fella – and he takes them away with him, or he tells ‘em where to go”.

I was peaked. After all my shuffling in the dark, I finally had a link. Though unnerved by what he said, I was too far to be deterred by what could just be the ravings of some fool. Squat, and sleeping rough, he had the staple appearance of a typical vagrant; straggly, rough trimmed beard and a worn, moribund coat that he didn’t seem to mind. He was animated now, hunched forward and wide-eyed, like a man pulled from the sea. I snatched up the poster.

“This” I pointed, “do you know what this is?”

“It isn’t a what, it’s a where. Sort of ‘code word’ he says, for a place where they can be safe. But there’s a demented way about that man that’s almost …sickening. Like there’s something else that’s inside of him. And he talks but when he does it’s as though he’s searching you, like he’s looking right through you at something far away, or within”. He was almost in a frenzy, now. So much so that I thought he might bolt for the sanctuary of the hills at any moment. I started, but he broke in.

“If you have that key, then he’ll be looking for you now. And I’m telling you, you better tear down those posters and get rid of that thing.” he yelled.

There could be no doubting it, then. He was telling the truth, or the truth that he knew anyway. If he knew about the key then he was my best chance at finding where it might unlock. I had to be coy; one wrong step and he might clam up and leave me standing by the roadside.

“Look, pal! I don’t know what you think you’re saying, but I’m just trying to find the owner of a missing key for my boss, not some Cold War stuff. I don’t have one good reason to believe you; I don’t even know who you are!”

It was just the right amount. Put your shoulder to the door and it might break, but give it a little nudge, and…

“They call me Nigel” he said, “or at least most people used to. And I’m telling you, I’ve seen where he takes them – I’ve been there! It’s an old storage unit. Nothing to it, save for those code words on the door. He came by one night, as was his way. One of the coldest nights I’ve had in my 7 years out here. Tommy was shivering, but he wasn’t stupid. Or so I thought. So he leaves behind that little key for him – “just think about it” he says. And into the night, damn near freezing-to-death Tommy went to where he’d told him to.”

“I followed close behind, not sure what we were about! It was stupid, I knew it – but he was my friend. And part of me wanted to see with my own eyes where he was taking them. I got onto the corridor just in time to see him slip through that door.”

Faltering for a moment, he looked up at me like a man genuinely stricken.

“I stopped at the door, but I couldn’t face going in. I had that pounding in my chest that freezes you dead. There wasn’t much I could hear inside, save for the faintest of footsteps, and the part of me that I despise told me that he’d made his own decision, and there wasn’t anything more that I could do for him”.

A little breathless, he looked off a while somewhere far behind me. Then, remembering, he reached through his beard and into an inside pocket for what could have been his only possession.

“There wasn’t much in there, except for doors and corridors, you see. But creeping away I came across this clipping that was folded up on the floor of the corridor.”

He pulled out a gnarled and manky scrap of paper, old enough that it had started to become brittle about the edges, and handed it to me. I began to unpeel it, but he seemed to change his mind.

“What did I say to you? You don’t want to be involved in this! What do you think you’re about? People are gone – missing!”

The excitement got the better of me. I felt the thrill of being close, for the first time, to something besides the designer, 9 to 5, TV commercial existence, and I couldn’t stop myself. It was a nudge too far.

“Where is it, this place? I have to know, I have to find this guy! I...I can help!”

“Are you bleeding deranged?” he shrilled. Jumping up, I thought for a moment he might try to rattle it into me.

“You’re with him, aren’t you?” He decided, suddenly. “Helping him?”

“Look, just calm down!”

It was too late. He’d given way to blind terror, and was yelling frantically for me to go and leave him, and his name behind. I abandoned the poster and backed away, before fleeing back up the street in a shower of tin cans and rocks. Back at my place I mulled over what he had said and what I was potentially barging into. It could be fatal, but the Devil’s promise of reward that stirs a man, were enough to make up my mind.

Nigel’s Secret turned out to be a clipping from The Springtown Post. Apart from the yellowing of age and the fraying brittle ends, it was perfectly legible. Dated 6th of June, 1981 it seemed to be the general run-of-the-mill type of broadsheet. Grand opening of the newly renovated Town hall; Cadillac sales at ‘Motormart’ were at an all-time high, and a local man completed his 100th Marathon at the ripe old age of 96. The only photograph on the page was of a man in the bottom left hand corner. He was dressed like a man attending a fancy dress party as a 19th Century explorer; beige shorts, domed hat, short-sleeved shirt with binoculars and Bowie knife. “University of Springtown Biologist Edmond Talin may have discovered new species of tropical plant”.

I threw it down in disgust and settled in for a night of disappointment. I’d been sold a nugget of gold and found Pyrite instead. And what is more, there was no chance my new friend was ever going to share the location of this storage lock-up. If it even existed? No, there were too many connected pieces in play; the mysterious man, the writing on the key, Nigel’s knowledge of it.

Nigel I fumed behind knitted brows. “Nigel. Nigel. Nigel. You damn coward, Nigel.”

It barely lasted a moment. The phone rang almost the second I had uttered the words, as though it were a parley from some powerful and shadowy foe. It was late, and I was still feeling the sting of my latest defeat.

“Yeah?”

Slight breathing through the receiver was all I could discern, and then I remembered Tony and the cranks.

“Look Tony, you wide-eyed creep! Screw off! I’ve had a long night, and I ain’t…”

“This is no Tony of the ‘wide eyes’” the wooden voice answered. “I’m calling for my key.”

“Your key?” I stalled. I was too riled up to expect such a development. I fumbled and muttered like a simpleton, trying to steady myself. “I..I don’t”.

“Forgive me” the voice broke in, with a shade more gusto this time. “Forgive me, but I saw your add displayed outside of the Train station in town. This is Larz, I presume?”

“That’s right”.

“Then of course, your Ivory Truffle reference can only be reference to my key?”

He spoke like an orchestra, emphasising every third or fourth word like a show tune singer.

“My apologies, and yes of course! Could you…Um, possibly tell me where you might have misplaced your key…Mr?”

“I’m afraid not” he said, avoiding the bait “but surely, my knowledge of what it is you are in possession of tells you that I must be its owner?”

“I’m sorry, sir. I have no way of knowing for sure whether…”

“Don’t you deny me what is mine” he bawled. The venom almost slithered out from the receiver to choke me. “There is no one else who it could be – no one. You are taking precious time from my work. My work!” He was panting violently through the receiver.

“You will bring me that key, or I will come for it myself.”

*

It was all arranged. We were set to meet him the following night at the storage lock-up on Starling lane. I had recruited Tony into my service with surprisingly little resistance. No longer ‘wide-eyed’, he was poised and self-possessed. It seemed the prospect of immediate danger were a compliment to his creed with life. I guess no man was ever truly happy with a comfortable lot in life.

“It’s there. Pull up on the right. The right.”

Of course, we hadn’t waited until the arranged time to see what was really going on inside. “The Man in the hat”, had said his work could wait no longer, hence the forthwith nature of our meeting. But we were going to find out what that work was for ourselves.

We entered via the side entrance, beneath the neon lights that crowned ‘The lock and key’ storage unit, into the comfortable warmth of the corridor. Searching the doors for any signs of our mantra, we came upon the words ivory truffle at last.

“Stay close behind me, lad. This isn’t no school trip; we’re in on it now”. It wasn’t. By Tony’s account, it was a military operation. But I can’t deny that on the precipice of our discovery, I couldn’t help feeling the foreboding that Nigel must have felt. With a curt snap of the lock, the door creaked open, and we were in.

More heat. The place was like a tropical oven, so much so that Tony and I immediately shed a layer. The room was dark, shallow with low ceilings and, apart from a pin-up board to our right it was empty. Empty, until it startled us like a face in a window; a yawning hole burrowed in the ground. Glowing faintly with the reflection of iridescent blue light, the tunnel into the Earth seemed to swell and oscillate. Below the slow hum that welled from within, I could hear my pulse firing warning shots in my ears. I was only saved from utter inertia by the sound of Tony rustling paper to my right.

“Look” he muttered gravely. “It seems our Man in the hat has a sentimental side”.

On the pin-up board were scattered newspaper clippings dating back to the early 1980’s. It was a panorama of what looked like dirty and insignificant scraps of local news, like a detectives crime narrative abandoned long ago. The subject matter was dark, and disturbing, precisely because it was so close to home.

Body snatcher! Springtown mortuary night raid leaves 4 missing. September 12th 1984.

Cops, Crops and Cadavers; local scientist on the run. December 2nd, 1985.

Schoolyard dinner lady found with brain “eaten” out. Mr’s Chatsworth, I recalled. 2004.

Homelessness epidemic on the decline, says Springtown Mayor. March 28th, 2011.

They seemed to form a narrative without a key. A sequence of events, whose thread only a maniac or schizophrenic could discern. The only commonality between them was that they were inconclusive, and disturbing in equal measure. It looked as though Nigel’s clipping had come from this very room after all, though its connection with these incidents was anyone’s guess.

I realised then, that I hadn’t the stomach to find out what was down that tunnel. The mystery that had baited my jaded soul had fled in the face of reality - I wanted to get the hell out.

“Tony, this is bad” I said “and I don’t think we’re gonna find anything pleasant down the bottom of that tunnel”

“We’re in it now, I already told you that.”

“What the hell does that even mean? I’m telling you now, there is no way I am going into that tunnel!”

There wasn’t much of an argument to have – they already had us. From the shadows behind, my yelling had awoken two hidden spectres. Groping hands had seized us from the dark, the strength of which was nullifying. Tony struggled, but we were tin to an industrial press. The things dragged us down through the heat of the tunnel and towards the ever growing blue lights.

*

I couldn’t hold back the vomit. Tony stood rigid as a monolith, whilst I doubled over and convulsed, sickened by the thought and the reality.

“They need to eat” the figure said, matter-of-factly “otherwise, they’ll starve like any other creature.”

On the floor were constructed wide wooden troughs, filled with the remains of human corpses and moss woven earth. Roots dug in and strangulated greedily, as the monstrous plants towered over. The heat had become almost unbearable from the UV lamps above, which provided the semi-subsistence that the Human remains could not. Between the guards that flanked the rows of plants like terracotta statues – the spectres that had seized us in the anteroom above – I saw them for the first time; a patchwork of…Ivory.

Fleshy, ovular protrusions nestled along the stems and branches of the alien plants. I noticed them through the obscure light of the UV’s; one at first, then countless. They quivered and mulched at the stems, a sickly off-white colour and no larger than a plum. They were the very same that were waxed to the side of the heads of the victims that guarded them.

They stood with blank, vacant expressions, staring forward into nothingness, and I realised then the vile allusion of those cryptic words that had brought us there.

“Devastating, aren’t they?” Doctor Talin said. He had emerged from the shadows, now, and there could be no doubt that he was the very same Doctor from that clipping of decades ago.

“And totally, unequivocally obedient.” He crouched down, so that his eyes met mine. “You see, apart from a food source, we offer them much more”.

“A host” Tony spat. He proved to be even sharper now that the iron had come down hot upon us.

“Indeed, a host. In a very crude sense of the word, but much more. Partnership – a symbiosis, if you will. They attach to the head, like so” he gestured “and fuse with the Cerebral cortex, so that their knowledge and sentiency becomes part of ours. All that they – their entire species – know, we know. And vice versa”. He looked up at the imposing plants with what could only be described as adoration.

“But look at them” Tony shouted “they aren’t in any partnership! They’ve been taken over – hijacked! There’s nothing left of them but flesh! And those?” He nodded to the pit, and again I retched in revulsion.

“True, those weak, and decrepit creatures have been used to serve a more docile purpose in their new world. But not all suffer that fate” He removed his hat, then, revealing his own ivory overlord. It quivered slightly at the stimulus from the light.

“They have been here millennia, starving in that rainforest. I know, because they know. And I saved them. Without me, there would be nothing more left of them.” He smiled a weak, ironical half smile, and replaced his hat.

“And, without you…they would starve.”

It was then that I struggled to my feet. Tony had been poised from the outset, and ready for the fight that he knew would come. Charged, and overridden by adrenaline I prepared for a last desperate struggle to avoid becoming one of those things in the dirt.

But it was all in vain. Like a storm in reverse, I heard the shriek, then felt the blow to my shoulder as the thing flew past and darted for our nightmare. Between the swinging and hacking of the crowbar, it wailed and shouted agonisingly.

“You sick man! You Devil!”

The crowbar came up once more and caught the cord of the UV light. Sparks flew and semi-darkness shrouded the room. The things had moved in like an avalanche, but the assailant was in a frenzy.

“You’re not men! They were my friends, you monsters!” The sparks had found the moss, and in an instant we were caught in a typhoon of confusion and flames. Amongst the crashes and the ferocious shrieking and hacking, Tony shook me loose from the fray.

“The tunnel” he screamed at me.

“Monsters! You’ll never take me like them!”

*

By the time we had made it up the passage the smoke had begun to rise through to the anteroom. By the time we were once more facing the blurred haze of the neon lights, the whole building was in flames. I sat down on the roadside as bystanders began flooding in from the surrounding streets and avenues. No one came out of the flames. Not a soul, from our world or theirs. Tony stood panting by my side, once more the wide-eyed Tony I knew, and I thanked what Fates had conspired to spare me from that hellish fate.

Nigel, Nigel, Nigel.

You found your courage, in the end.