The Darkest Night
Page 25
Chapter Twenty-Four
Harry, Jack and Patricia held the three flashlights that had been packed away in one of the suitcases. Harry and Tom each had a walkie-talkie, which had also been brought along in their provisions; Tom kept his stuffed down in a pants pocket. Frankie had the heavy duty flashlight he had stored in his backpack; he also sported the safety goggles he had brought with him, though Tom felt they wouldn’t offer much protection against whatever it was that they were facing. Having opted to take the hallway leading off to the right of the lobby, the group moved slowly, with Harry and Tom taking the lead, Jack on rearguard, and the rest in between.
They passed the staircase leading up to the second floor and kept moving. The glow of light from the lobby fell further behind as they walked, until it was just a distant glow barely discernible from the surrounding darkness. Harry stopped at a closed door and tried the knob. The door swung open with a squeal of hinges.
“There’s a window in here,” Harry said.
Harry went in alone, leaving the others out in the hall. He checked out the window, tried to slide it up. It was stuck. He came back out into the hall.
“It wouldn’t open,” he informed the others.
“Then let’s break it,” Katie said.
“I don’t know about that,” Harry hesitated.
“What’s the problem?” Tom asked.
“The window is kind of small,” Harry said. “I don’t think I’d be able to climb through it.”
Tom groaned. Patricia peeked into the room. Harry was right; the window was small enough that she would probably have a hard time squeezing through herself.
“I know there are bigger windows,” she said. “I’ve seen them from the outside. We just have to find one.”
“Shit,” Tom cursed under his breath. “Well, let’s get going already.”
Harry retook his spot at the head of the pack, while Tom dropped back a little to walk beside Patricia. Patricia played her flashlight along the walls on either side of them, which were smooth and bare. Frankie kept his own flashlight pointed ahead, shining over Harry’s broad shoulders to assist in lighting the way.
“The next window we come to, we’re taking it,” Tom whispered to Patricia.
She didn’t say anything back. In the back Jack was following slowly, turning every few steps to shine his light back along their trail. They had turned a corner, and the light from the lobby was completely gone, just a memory.
Harry stopped when he reached the entrance to a large room. Patricia joined him in the doorway, and together they shined their lights around the room. The room was at least thirty yards long and fifteen yards wide, with long tables lined up in rows down the length of it, and at the far end there was a set of double doors that were closed. The room was wanly lit by faint moonlight streaming in through large, dusty windows set high along one wall.
“Looks like a cafeteria,” Patricia said.
Patricia and Harry entered the room, and the rest of the group followed them inside. Tom took note of the windows; they were large enough for all of them to fit through, but they were too high up for them to reach. He looked at Patricia and saw that she was looking up at the windows as well. She met his eyes, and he could see that she had come to the same conclusion that he had.
“Maybe we can drag a table over beneath one of them,” she said. “Do you think we could reach the windows then?”
He looked back up at the row of windows.
“Maybe. But I think we would still need to boost each other up; the last person out will have to be pulled up. The problem then is that it will be quite a drop down to the ground on the other side. I’m not even sure that these windows can be opened.”
“If they can’t be opened we can bust one out,” Jack said. “Then we boost each other up and climb out one by one. Next-to-last person will have to pull the last person up, and then they can both drop down. It’s not that high; the worst we would have to fear is a sprained ankle.”
“Let’s go for it,” Frankie said, shining his light into the far corners of the room.
“Help me move one of these tables over to the wall,” Harry said.
Harry and Tom took up spots at either end of one of the long tables. Tom swiped a finger along the top, leaving a trail in the thick, built-up layers of dust.
“Ready?” Harry asked.
“Yeah, I’m ready,” Tom said, getting a firm grip on his end of the table.
They heaved together, and managed to lift the table just a few centimeters off the ground.
“Crap; put it back down,” Tom said.
They set the table back on the ground.
“We’re going to need a little help here,” Tom said. “Could you guys help us out by lifting up the benches?”
Patricia and Frankie moved to one side of the table while Jack and Katie took up positions on the other side. The four of them leaned down and got their hands under the edge of the benches that were bolted to the table.
“All right; everybody lift on three,” Tom said. “One…two…three!”
Together they lifted the table, and the load was noticeably lighter. Tom moved forward, Harry moved backward, and the others shuffled sideways. Together they carried the table to the wall.
When his back touched the wall Harry called for them to set the table down, and he slid out from his end. Jack helped Tom push the table the last couple of feet, the legs of the table squealing on the floor until the edge of the table butted against the wall. Jack stepped up on the bench, and then up to the tabletop. He stepped near the wall, looking up at the window above his head, then turned around.
“I don’t seen any latch or hinges,” he said. “What are we going to use to bust the glass?”
Those with flashlights shined them around the room, and those without lights followed the others’ wandering beams. There were plenty of tables, but no chairs, as the tables all had bolted-on benches.
“Wait; I see something,” Harry said, and he went rushing across the room.
Harry ran between the rows of tables until he reached the far end of the room. When he hustled back, the beam of his flashlight bouncing wildly as he ran, he was cradling a large metal cylinder in his arms.
“Look at this son of a bitch,” he said as he set the cylinder down on the table near the wall.
“Is that a fire extinguisher?” Katie asked.
“Yep,” Harry said. “It was leaning up against the wall over there. It’s an old bastard, too, the kind you have to pump by hand.”
He gripped the pump handle on top of the cylinder and pumped it once; all that came out of the hose was a wheeze of stale air.
“Think it will work?” Tom asked.
“It’s empty, but it’s still got some heft to it,” Harry said. “I think it’ll do.”
Jack walked over to their end of the table and picked up the ancient fire extinguisher, holding it by the metal ring that circled its top end. Its sides gleamed dully in the moonlight. He turned to face the wall, gauging the distance and angle to the window.
“Whenever you’re ready, Jackie Boy,” Harry said.
“Okay, okay. Just give me a second.”
Jack gripped the ring on the extinguisher tightly, twisted his upper body around like a shot putter getting ready to launch, and then swung around, launching the metallic extinguisher up and at the window. The extinguisher clanked against the glass and fell to the table, rolling off and bouncing off the bench onto the floor. The window was still intact.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake; get down from there,” Harry said. “I’ll do it.”
Jack stepped down first to the bench, and then to the floor.
“I put everything I had into it,” Jack said. “But if you think you can do better, be my guest.”
For the briefest of moments something blocked out the pale moonlight, and then a malformed shadow swooped down upon Jack. He was lifted off his feet and tossed through the air, glancing off of one of the other tables and falling to the ground.
Jack tried to gain his feet, but the living shadow moved quickly, smashing into him and knocking him flat. The shadow disappeared into the pools of darkness that the weak light coming in through the high windows couldn’t penetrate.
Tom moved to help Jack, but he was brushed aside as another shadow rushed in from his right side. The contact between the shadow and himself was brief, and to Tom it felt like brushing up against a wall of ice.
The first shadow reappeared out of the darkness, and the two hideous things swooped around Jack. He used his feet to push himself back on the floor in an attempt to get away from them, but they followed him. Tom didn’t know what to do.
“Out of the way!” Harry bellowed from behind Tom.
Without question Tom stepped aside, and a moment later the fire extinguisher flew past his head, headed straight for one the of the living shadows. Tom expected the extinguished to connect with a thud, but instead it just went right through the shadow without a sound, landing on the ground beyond and clattering away into the darkness. The shadow-thing took no notice.
“Help me, guys,” Jack pleaded. “Please help me!”
“We’ve got to do something!” Katie cried.
She made a move toward Jack, but Patricia got a hand on her and held her back. Katie tried to shake free of her grip, but Patricia held on.
“You can’t go over there,” Patricia said, trying to reason with the young woman. “Frankie told you what those things are capable of.”
“Let me go!” Katie pleaded.
Patricia held fast.
“Guys, we’ve gotta get out of here!” Frankie yelled above their voices.
The flashlight that Frankie held fell to the ground as he was knocked aside; a third living shadow had joined the party. After knocking Frankie to the ground the shadow headed for Harry. Harry tried to run, but the thing caught on to him, swinging the big man like a ragdoll so that he flew through the air for about twenty feet before landing and sliding for a few more feet.
“Ohgodohgodohgod,” Frankie was muttering from where he lay on the ground.
“Tom, help Frankie,” Patricia said.
Tom ran to the boy and dragged him up to his feet, then picked up the flashlight and handed it back to Frankie.
“I don’t want to be here anymore,” Frankie said.
The tone of his voice frightened Tom; it was the voice of a boy having a nightmare, wishing the bad dreams away. But this was no dream, and it could not be wished away. Tom heard a door squealing open and looked up in time to see Harry disappearing through the double doors at the opposite side of the room from where they had entered.
“The bastard left us,” Tom muttered to himself.
“Get them away from me!” Jack yelled.
The plea brought Tom’s attention back to the man, who was still sitting on the floor, waving his arms at the shadows that swooped around him. The third shadow had joined the others, and now all three were playing with Jack, like hyenas toying with wounded prey just before the kill.
“We have to help him,” Katie said, but she was no longer fighting to break free of Patricia’s grip; it was as if she had accepted that there was nothing that any of them could do to save the man.
One of the shadows grabbed Jack by the ankles and lifted him up into the air. The other two shadows spread out, and the first shadow tossed Jack to one of them, which in turn tossed him to the third shadow. Tossing him back and forth that way, they glided to the set of double doors through which Harry had disappeared. The doors burst open when one of the shadows came into contact with it, and they carried Jack away down a hallway that opened off of the cafeteria. As the doors squealed shut they heard Jack’s screams fading, fading, fading….
Tom ran to the fire extinguisher, picking it up from where it had fallen. He jumped up on top of the table.
“We’re getting out of here,” he said. “I’ll boost Frankie out first, and then the both of you.”
As he prepared to launch the extinguisher up at the widow, the table he was standing on was lifted up and turned over by an invisible hand. Tom fell to the ground hard, jamming his right knee into the hardwood floor; the extinguisher rolled away from him. Patricia finally let Katie loose and ran to Tom, helping him to his feet.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah. I banged up my knee pretty bad but I think I’m fine.”
All the tables in the room started shifting, as if some giant that they couldn’t see was coming toward them from the direction of the double doors, walking down the aisle, its legs brushing aside anything that stood in its path.
“Let’s go!” Tom commanded.
He headed for the doorless entrance through which they had entered, and the others followed. Tom turned down the hall and ran back the way they had come. As they ran Tom almost passed the open door of the room whose window they had discarded as an escape route, and he stopped in his tracks. He took a step toward the room, but the door slammed shut. Tom tried to open it, but the knob was frozen in place and refused to turn.
“We should keep moving,” Patricia said.
“Fuck!” Tom yelled in frustration.
He gave up on the door and they headed for the lobby again. The light first became visible as a distant glow, but got brighter as they got closer to it. When they broke from the hall into the lobby they saw that the black wall still stood near the door, blocking their exit.
“Damn, damn, goddamn shit,” Tom said.
“What do we do now?” Katie asked.
She looked at Tom with wide, staring eyes, and he saw that she was on the edge of a nervous break.
“I don’t know,” he said.
And then, because he had nothing else to say, he repeated it:
“I don’t know.”