The Balcony Box
by ChellusAuglerie
URL: http://www.bluecatsgraphics.com/pean/fanfics/113/

I don’t own Pendergast. Mr. Preston and Mr. Child do.

When I read this one-scene-short for the humpteenth billionth time, it made me think of ‘The Lady or the Tiger’. One can’t imagine why. Heh heh. If I remember correctly, I don’t believe this could happen in real life, but let’s pretend for the sake of Hallowe’en, shall we? On with the show!



“Forgive me such crude sentiment, beloved...but I think it was a mistake for you to come here.” The mahogany-haired woman said to her husband while she reached to touch his white face, both of them shrouded by the incomplete darkness of their balcony box, the most famous balcony box in the world. “You don’t look as though you feel all that well, of a sudden. Of course, it could just be this dim light. Oh, my...you’re so clammy! Are you all right? I certainly hope whoever is sitting above us doesn’t spill anything else on account of the gunshots echoing from the stage. That last scene with the actor was exceptionally jolting. When he pointed his weapon into the audience, he almost seemed to be looking right...up...h—” Abruptly the woman thrust her fingers out to him, feeling wildly about for her husband’s milky countenance in the dark, not bothering to look. Somehow her hands alighted on his pallid brow and probed. Finding a congealing stickiness spread jaggedly across his flesh the woman then cried out in horror, and lights flicked on around them. With languid care the man opened one silver-blue eye, the slit dilating into a sliver of moonbeam in the light-flooded theatre. Then slowly he reached up with a napkin and touched the sticky substance, laughing almost inaudibly in the preternatural still of the murmuring crowds. He could have been looking right at her, except that his eyes were closed, and he was pale as he spoke. But then, he was always pale. “There, there! It’s only dark cherry syrup, ma petite! Someone sitting above must have spilled his...soda.” Still holding the napkin to his head, he shooed away some attendants, and then the lights went off again. The show resumed. The man continued to dab at his temples, but when his wife moved to help him he waved her off with a moan. “Please, no...” He said weakly, holding to the armrests like a captive, crazed monkey grasping at the bars of its cage. But when she jerked around to face him, he had slumped back in his chair. She jumped up and knelt before him, straining to see his face in the dim light. As she took his chin in her hands, the lines of his mouth began moving apart in a vacant grin. “Curtains for you, beloved...” Then, as the cream of his eyelid retracted to reveal a crimson sphere, the bloody napkin fluttered to the floor, and she screamed.