Genesis. Volume 2

October 4, 1986. Detroit. Public Library. Day. Before heading to the abandoned factory, Arthur insisted they stop by the library. "Marcus really laid on the creepy stuff about that faceless body," Arthur adjusted his backpack strap. "We need to check the old archives. Something must have shown up in the local papers." "And look up the fire too," Max added on the fly. "The guy made it clear they shut the place down right after they dug up the corpse." Lisa unfolded her city map on the go, tracing her finger along the grid of streets. The nearest library was on Grand River—just three blocks from Jim's Diner. The building rose before them suddenly: a grim, massive edifice of gray stone darkened by time, with pointed Gothic windows and impossibly heavy oak doors. At the entrance, on granite pedestals, two stone lionesses stood frozen. Time had taken its toll—one had its muzzle completely knocked off, missing its nose, while the other lacked a front paw. "Gloomy. Looks like a cathedral," Emma shivered, eyeing the gray facade. "More like a crypt," Max muttered grimly, shoving the heavy door open. Inside, it smelled of old paper, dry wax, basement damp, and decades of dust. The ceilings soared high into darkness; massive marble columns supported the vaults, and a wide staircase rose to the second floor at the back of the hall. There were almost no people inside. A silence so deep it made their ears ring. Only in the far corner an old man in a worn jacket rustled pages, and at the registration desk a child whimpered quietly while his mother filled out a card. Lisa walked confidently to the counter, where an elderly woman with ridiculously thick glasses sat. A plastic badge glinted on her cardigan lapel: "Mrs. Donovan." "Hello," Lisa smiled politely. "We'd like to look at old newspaper archives. We're interested in anything related to the Ford Park factory." The librarian slowly lifted her gaze from some forms and lowered her glasses to the tip of her nose. Her look was stern, distrustful—clearly accustomed to teenagers causing nothing but noise and trouble within these walls. "And why would you need that?" "We're doing a school project," Lisa lied without missing a beat. "Detroit's industrial history, the golden age, that sort of thing." Mrs. Donovan slowly shifted her gaze from Lisa to Arthur, lingered on the grim-faced Max, and then carefully studied Jenny and Emma. Something in her stern face wavered—whether she was just tired of being suspicious, or she recalled her own school days. "Ford Park, you say..." she repeated quietly, with a hint of reluctance. "Nasty place. You're not the first ones sniffing around it, by the way. Only those who went poking around last time never came back." "We're just reading," Arthur stepped forward slightly, trying to keep his voice calm. "We only need the papers. We're not going anywhere." The woman sighed heavily, scraped her chair back with a creak, and gestured for them to follow. She led them to a far wing, into a cramped windowless room where microfilms were stored. It smelled stuffily of heated plastic from old projectors and some kind of sour chemicals. On the walls hung yellowed photographs of old Detroit: smoking chimneys, endless assembly lines, and rows of workers in hard hats. "Here are the archives from the twenties and thirties," she pointed to a solid wooden cabinet. "What exactly are you looking for?" "Emergencies, industrial accidents. And anything about the fire that shut it all down." The librarian nodded silently, pulled out a couple of heavy boxes of reels, and briefly explained how to crank the reader. At the door, she turned back and added sternly, "Just be quick about it. I close the hall at five and lock up." As soon as she left, Arthur clicked on the projector. The machine hummed softly, casting a beam of light onto the frosted screen. They worked in complete silence, flipping through one frame after another. Old issues of the Detroit Free Press, the Detroit News, and tiny local weeklies flashed by. The first half hour was a total blank. Classifieds for used cars, baseball scores, petty thefts. But then Lisa suddenly spun the reel back: "Stop. I think we've got something." On the screen, a short article lit up: "October 1924. Mysterious incident at the Ford Park plant. Laborer William Harper reported for his shift in Workshop No. 4 and vanished without a trace. The next day, the man was found wandering the streets two blocks from the factory grounds. Harper had completely lost the power of speech and failed to recognize his wife and children, who arrived at the scene. Doctors at the local hospital diagnosed severe nervous shock. A month later, the man died of exhaustion without regaining consciousness." "Same as our Marcus," Max drummed his fingers on the table in tension. "Only Marcus got luckier." "Depends on what you call luck," Emma interjected quietly. "He's just still alive." They kept scrolling. 1926—a similar story. Another worker, again the same ill-fated Workshop No. 4. And again sudden amnesia ending in death at an asylum. A year later, the pattern repeated. The papers reported that the workshop was rapidly emptying—workers flatly refused to take shifts there. But the factory management kept covering things up, blaming everything on plain carelessness and mental issues of the victims. "They didn't give a damn about the people," Jenny clenched her fists in anger. "As long as the quotas were met." "Business, nothing personal," Max muttered grimly. Then in 1932, something happened that could no longer be buried on the back pages. Lisa zoomed in on the text and read aloud, enunciating each word: "'Horrifying discovery at Ford Park. The body of an unknown person was found in Workshop No. 4. The deceased had no face—the skin on the head was completely smooth, devoid of eyes, nose, or mouth. Law enforcement is stumped; identification is impossible. A revolt is brewing among the workers, and the site is openly called cursed. Management has decided to close the factory indefinitely.'" "So the guy wasn't lying about the face," Max swallowed audibly. "But management was lying through their teeth," Emma jabbed a finger at the bottom of the page. "Look, there's a small-print note: 'According to unofficial sources, this is the fifth such case in the last eight years. The administration declined to comment.'" Jenny walked over to the cabinet, pulled out one of the actual yellowed newspapers of the era, and carefully spread it on the table. The spread featured a photo of that very workshop: rows of enormous machines, bare brick walls, and deep, unnaturally black shadows in the corners. Beside it—a small, blurry photograph with a terse caption: "Scene of the incident." It showed the outlines of a medical stretcher with something covered by a thick sheet. No contours of a face were discernible beneath the fabric—just a smooth, flat void. "They actually printed that?" Lisa grimaced with disgust. "They took the picture, sure, but they hid everything under the sheet," Arthur peered at the frame. "Afraid of starting a panic." Jenny turned the brittle page. Next came a very short notice that the site had been bought by another company, the sign changed, but Workshop No. 4 remained boarded up. Then the war broke out, and the factory was completely forgotten, left to rot. "Well, that's it," Arthur turned off the projector, plunging the room into semi-darkness. "Nothing else to find here." The group started toward the exit, but Lisa lingered at the table where a separate cardboard folder lay. Apparently set aside for some local exhibit, it contained old archival photographs of workers. Group shots at the gate, portraits of production leaders, shift supervisors. "Hey, take a look at this," she called them over. Jenny was the first to return. Lisa pointed to an old photograph: a pale woman in a long high-necked skirt stood right by a lathe. Her hand rested on a lever, and on her index finger a massive ring was clearly visible. Even with the poor print quality, a distinct letter "B" could be made out on the signet. "Is that... it?" Jenny's voice caught. "Looks very similar," Lisa nodded. "Exactly the same pattern." "And who is she?" Max peered over their shoulders. Lisa turned the photo over. On the back, in faded chemical pencil, a sweeping inscription read: "Martha Brooks, quality inspector. 1923." "Brooks..." Arthur looked at Jenny in surprise. "That's your last name." "A great-grandmother, maybe?" Emma suggested. "Or some other relative," Jenny replied quietly, unable to take her eyes off the photo. "But that ring is definitely ours. And she worked right here at the factory. A year before the whole nightmare with the disappearances started." "Maybe she was a Keeper?" Max scratched his head. "Like, she held the Void in check, and then something went wrong?" "Or the other way around," Lisa bit her lip thoughtfully. "As long as she worked here, everything was quiet. When she left—the creature broke free." Jenny carefully took the photograph by the edges. The ring on the pale fingers of the woman from the past seemed almost tangible. As soon as Jenny ran her fingertip over the glossy paper, the thread on her own wrist gave a sharp, hot pulse. Her heart gave a frightened lurch. "I need this picture," she said firmly. "Steal it?" Max glanced furtively at the door. "No. I'll try to negotiate." She quickly left the stuffy cubby and headed to the registration desk. Mrs. Donovan was still rummaging through file drawers, noisily adjusting her slipping glasses. "Excuse me," Jenny laid the card carefully before her. "There's a photo in that folder. Martha Brooks. Could I get a copy somehow? Or take it on deposit? It's very important." The librarian slowly raised her heavy gaze to Jenny. "Found what you were looking for, did you?" "I don't know. But this woman is from my family. I just want to keep a memory of her." The old woman sighed heavily, whistling air through her nose. She rummaged under the counter and pushed out a clean sheet of yellowish paper and a well-sharpened pencil in front of Jenny. "Trace it. The photo is original, one of a kind; I'm not letting it out of the building." Jenny nodded, grabbed the paper, and returned to the others. She sat down at the table, laid the card before her, and quickly reached for the pencil. Her fingers moved with frantic speed, laying down stroke after stroke with confidence—as if she'd been doing this all her life, even though she'd never even taken an art class. Lisa stood beside her, amazed, watching the contours emerge on the paper with perfect precision. "Wow. When did you learn to draw like that?" "I don't," Jenny didn't even look up; her hand seemed to have a life of its own. "My fingers just know where to go." In a couple of minutes, the ring, the recognizable letter "B," and the woman's slender wrist appeared on the sheet in full detail. Moreover, Jenny added what wasn't even visible in the blurry photo: a tiny nick on the metal of the signet and a deep scratch just below the stone. "I saw this ring in my dream," Jenny admitted quietly, setting down the pencil. "Now I know for sure whose hand it was. Martha's." "And what does that give us?" Arthur frowned. "That her blood runs in me. The Void knew the Brooks family decades ago. That's probably why it reacts so wildly when I'm around." She carefully folded the sheet into four and tucked it into the deep pocket of her jeans. The others quickly gathered the old newspapers, put the reels back in the boxes, and returned them to the counter. At the very exit from the library, Mrs. Donovan was waiting for them again. She stood by the door, sternly crossing her arms, and studied the teenagers point-blank. "Don't go poking around that cursed factory," she said quietly but clearly. "I've sat within these walls for forty years. I've seen plenty like you—pale-faced, with burning eyes. Some did come back, yes. But many stayed there." "We're just working on a project," Arthur tried one last time to dodge. "Don't take me for a fool, boy," the librarian cut him off. "I see your eyes. You're going to go anyway. But get this through your heads: what's made its nest in those workshops doesn't die. It knows how to wait. It waited a hundred years. It'll wait for you too." She pushed the door open hard, letting them out. No one argued. The street greeted them with a sharp gust of cold wind and the same indelible stench of gasoline fumes. Lisa pulled out her notebook on the go and quickly jotted down: "Martha Brooks—inspector, 1923. Ring with letter 'B.' Ford Park plant—Workshop No. 4. Faceless corpse." "So, now we go there?" Max adjusted his jacket collar, glancing around. "Yes. No point in dragging it out," Arthur strode decisively forward. Jenny, walking along, tightly gripped the folded drawing in her pocket. The red thread on her wrist again swelled with a tight, throbbing warmth. She understood clearly: the Void already knew they were close. It could smell the Brooks' blood. And it was waiting for them.