by Abe Moss
“Left here.”
He inched toward the corner, checking that it was safe.
“Clark’s room is down here on the right.”
Pit, pat, pit, pat, went his feet along the floor.
“Here.”
Emmett approached the door and, like a guard might hold their keycard, he held out his mother’s necklace to the black security panel. The pink light intensified, illuminated the hall like a flash grenade, and the door clicked open.
“How do you do that?” Emmett asked.
“Let’s make this fast,” she said.
Emmett opened the door and poked his head into the room. Like his own room, there were two cubbies with their curtains drawn. One of them shifted, pulled aside by a tiny hand. The face peering out wasn’t Clark.
“Clark,” Emmett said, shouting as softly as he could. “Clark!”
The other curtain lifted open.
“Emmett?”
The face there was much more familiar.
“Come on. We’re leaving.”
Clark only stared for a moment. The other child opened their curtain further, getting a better look.
“Who are you?” the child asked.
Emmett whispered to his mother, “Can we bring him, too?”
“You’re very kind, Emmett, but we don’t have room or time for anyone else. Let’s get Tobie and then we have to go.”
“What’s going on?” Clark asked, still reeling from the surprise.
“We’re leaving,” Emmett said. “Hurry up.”
Slowly—probably still wondering if he was dreaming or crazy himself—Clark got out of bed and joined Emmett in the corridor. Emmett was about to shut the door when he hesitated.
“I know we can’t take everyone with us, but can we let them out?”
“Who are you talking to?” Clark asked.
Emmett held up the pendant. “My mom.”
Clark looked between the pendant and Emmett’s rather calm expression with yet more confusion.
“They’ll be free soon enough,” his mother said, the white stone flickering. “The sooner we get you out of here, the sooner we can help them all.”
Emmett shut the door, locking the other boy inside. For now.
“What do you mean, ‘your mom’?” Clark asked, following behind as Emmett led them onward. It was clear he couldn’t hear his mother’s voice the way Emmett could.
“You can’t hear her,” Emmett said, “but she’s with us right now… in the necklace.”
Reaching a corner, Emmett checked both directions before hurrying along. Clark’s pace wasn’t nearly as enthusiastic, his doubt holding him back like tar on his feet.
“Next right. Tobie’s door will be the second on the left.”
They turned another corner. Emmett jogged toward the door in question. He lifted the necklace up.
“Emmett,” Clark said, lagging behind. “I don’t know how you got me out, but… I don’t think—”
“Watch,” Emmett said.
He held the pendant to the black panel. Waited.
“I think you might be—”
Emmett squinted his eyes against the blast of rosy light which emitted from the stone. Clark lifted his arm to shield his own eyes and lost his balance. He stepped back, bumped into the wall. The door clicked and opened.
“See?” Emmett said, proud of his mother’s trick. He leaned into the room, identical to all the others, and whispered, “Tobie.”
In an instant Tobie peered out from his cubby, already awake.
“Emmett? How… what are you doing here?”
“Come on. We’re leaving.”
“Leaving?” Tobie looked beyond Emmett. “Clark?”
Clark waved humorlessly.
“What’s happening?” Tobie rubbed his eyes. “This isn’t real.”
“You’re not crazy,” Emmett told him. “We’re getting out tonight. But we have to hurry.”
It was déjà vu watching Tobie climb out of bed. He wore his disbelief in plain sight, moving slowly, uncertainly, just as Clark had done. He shuffled into the corridor, each step its own danger, that he might wake up from this strange dream. Emmett shut the door on Tobie’s unaware roommate.
Tobie saw the necklace in Emmett’s hand, recognizing it as the one he’d stolen so many weeks and months ago. “Is that…”
“It’s my mom’s,” Emmett said. “It’s how we’re getting out of here.”
Clark yawned beside them. “Now what?”
Emmett held up the necklace, and as the tiny white stone pulsed pink, Tobie’s mouth opened in delirious awe.
“We’re going to the garage,” she said.
“Okay. Tell me how to get there.”
Tobie and Clark exchanged looks, to which Clark only shrugged.
“It’s talking to you? You can hear it?” Tobie asked.
“It’s my mom,” Emmett explained.
Which explained nothing.
His mother led them back to the cafeteria. From there, they returned to C Ward, where they passed Emmett’s room. He gazed upon the door as they went, wishing to never see its interior again for as long as he lived.
“Where are we going?” Tobie asked. His voice was stripped of its melancholy—eager and hopeful—which put a bounce in Emmett’s step.
“To the garage,” Emmett said.
“For a car?” Clark asked, piecing it together. “We’re driving?”
Emmett looked down at the pendant as they walked, wondering how exactly his mother planned to accomplish that. Was that her plan?
“Emmett…” Tobie warned.
He looked up from his mother’s necklace. He halted, swallowing his heart as he saw them.
A group of three: Dr. Edwina Marks, Officer Hollings, and a third guard Emmett may have seen a time or two before.
They stood at the end of the corridor, watching the children with as much astonishment on their own faces. For a minute no one moved or spoke or blinked. Dr. Marks was likely wondering if she might be in need of her own medicine, imagining things.
“Stay where you are,” she finally said. “Right where you are.”
“Should we run?” Tobie asked.
Emmett clutched the pendant to his chest, listening, waiting, hoping.
“Don’t run,” his mother said.
“Don’t run,” he told the others.
In the long, suffocating hallway, the doctor and her guards approached—their brushing legs and slapping feet echoing hollowly, moving quick. Dr. Marks trained her eyes viciously on Emmett, telling a story of absolute rage and bewilderment.
“How did you get out of detainment?” she asked. As she came closer, she saw the necklace in his hands. Her jaw dropped, betrayed. “How did you get that? Did you go in my office?”
“And you two,” Hollings said, eyes darting between Tobie and Clark. “How did you get out of your rooms?”
“We’re leaving,” Emmett said, his voice pinched in his throat.
“And where do you think you’re leaving to?” Dr. Marks asked.
He opened his mouth to speak but stopped. He looked at the pendant in his hands, but his mother had no instruction for him.
“Hand that over,” Dr. Marks said, standing before him, hand open to accept it. “You haven’t earned that yet.”
He took a step back. “It’s mine.”
“Emmett…” Tobie said nervously.
“Give it up,” Hollings said. “It’s better if you do what she says. You’ll only make things worse if you don’t.”
“That’s right,” Dr. Marks said, a horrid scowl twisting her face. Her mask was off now, he saw. Her true self—full of shark’s teeth, thirsty for blood—was on display. He’d never seen eyes as cold as hers. “Let’s not make this any harder on you or your friends.”
Quick as a rattlesnake, she seized Emmett by the wrist. She bared her teeth as she forced his tiny fingers apart, revealing the black pendant in his hand, the white stone dead and mute in the middle.
The second guard lumbered toward them. Before Tobie could make it far, the guard swept him off his feet. Clark, meanwhile, stepped back against the wall, unsure of where to go or how to help.
“You can’t have it!” Emmett screamed, struggling to keep Dr. Marks out of his hands. Then Hollings swooped in, wrapped his arms around Emmett’s middle and lifted him into the air. He kicked his feet, but it was too late. The pendant was hers. She stumbled back, the chain dangling in her grip. “Give it back!”
She gave him an apologetic grin.
“Clark!” Emmett shouted.
“Stay as you are,” Dr. Marks instructed, setting her deathly eyes on Clark. She turned to Emmett, holding the pendant up between them, her cheeks burning hot with fury. “You have lost any and all chance of ever seeing this again—”
The corridor exploded into a star of pink, scorching light. Emmett reared his head back from the heat of it. Blinded, all he heard were the screams. Dr. Marks’ screams. As the burst of light began to dim, Hollings dropped Emmett to the floor.
“Edwina?” Hollings said, moving toward her.
Still her screams persisted.
The light continued to fade, though it was difficult to see through—like headlights in fog. Hollings staggered toward Dr. Marks’ wailing.
“Let go of me!” Tobie barked, followed the by the sounds of him falling to the floor as well.
As the light receded into itself, a bright cloud shrinking into the middle of the corridor, Emmett made out their shapes. He saw Hollings hunched over, searching for the doctor.
“Edwina?”
Soon the light was just a glint in the stone itself, the necklace on the ground. Dr. Marks was seated beside it, sniveling. Hollings crouched next to her, inquiring what was wrong. Wailing, she lifted her hand to let him see with his own eyes. All of their eyes.
Emmett felt the wind knocked out of him.
Her hand was black as charcoal, her fingers crisped into their final moments, curled and empty. Speechless, Hollings made to touch her, baffled by it.
“Don’t touch me!”
Pulling away, her blackened hand jostled at the end of her wrist and broke free. It crumbled into pieces on the ground.
A collective intake of breath.
Observing the burnt stump of her wrist, she began to scream again.
Emmett looked to the others, each of them in a state of shock. Gawking and repulsed. Collecting himself, he crawled toward the necklace, reached out to reclaim it. Dr. Marks, staring fretfully about the corridor, happened upon him and she shrieked.
“Don’t let him take it! Destroy it! Destroy it!”
Hollings made a dash toward the necklace as Emmett scrambled on all fours, and swept it aside with his foot, out of Emmett’s reach. With his other foot, he gave a swift kick to Emmett’s face.
“Ah!”
Emmett recoiled, hands cupped to the pain. Then, furrowing those thick, angular brows of his, Hollings stomped on the pendant with the heel of his boot. A tiny, barely audible crack was heard as the white stone broke between his boot and the floor. Emmett’s heart plummeted.
“No!”
Hollings lifted his foot slowly, cautious of what might lay underneath. The necklace lay broken and empty on the ground. Lifeless. Dark. He stepped back, let out a breath of relief. But then…
A spark.
A flicker.
From the pendant, tiny pricks of pink light jumped, spilling from the broken stone in its center. Then a flash. Hollings stumbled over his own feet, flinching back. What light was left in the pendant sprang out like a serpent. It slithered toward him, up his leg, around his body, circling his throat like a noose. As he opened his mouth to scream, the light darted inside, slipped down his throat. Then it was gone.
“Hollings…” Dr. Marks said, attempting to stand. “Help me up…”
Hollings looked about himself, ran his hands over his own body confusedly. He spun in place, spotting Dr. Marks on the ground reaching for him with her only good hand.
“What the hell is going on?” the other guard finally spoke, his voice cracking on the edge of hysteria.
Hollings shook his head as his eyes wandered the corridor. Something wasn’t right, his face said. He clutched himself. Grunted painfully. He hugged his middle. His legs turned weak and he swayed, losing balance. He shuffled toward the wall, feet dancing, and caught himself against his shoulder.
Clark, standing nearby, stepped away from him.
“Hollings?” the other guard said. “What is it?”
Hollings sank to the ground, back against the wall, hugging himself as though he had the worst stomach ache of his life.
As they were all distracted, Emmett went to the necklace. He picked it up, leaving tiny bits of white glass on the ground. He looked from the necklace to Hollings across the corridor, slowly piecing it together.
“Mom?” he asked the pendant, to which she gave no answer.
The second guard approached Hollings, keeping his distance.
“Hollings?”
Hollings looked up at him then, and his eyes were not his own.
They glowed.
“What the fuck…”
Officer Hollings leaned back against the wall, groaning. It was in his mouth, too—the light. It shone from his eyes, his mouth, his nose. Pink and radiant, like someone stuck a nightlight in his skull. The second guard straightened, steadily retreating, hands in the air as if to say the problem was beyond him. Hollings hugged himself tighter, growling now.
“Oh, god…” he moaned.
Emmett watched with horrified fascination as Hollings began to change. It was subtle, at first. Emmett wasn’t sure if he should believe his eyes. Could it have been a trick of the light? No, he thought. The facility lights left nothing to the imagination.
It was real.
Hollings threw his head back, growling louder, louder, louder, the pink light beaming from his orifices. His throat bulged against the collar of his shirt. His pantlegs tightened around his calves, his thighs. He was swelling larger, his body ballooning around the arms with which he hugged himself.
“Jesus Chri—”
The corridor echoed with a bang as Hollings splashed himself across its walls, dousing each of them in his remains. Emmett jerked back—wet, warm mist stippling his cheeks. It showered them like rain. In the humid air was a tangy, coppery scent. Emmett peered down at himself, at his dotted body.
Drip, drip, drip, from the ceiling.
The sole of a boot squealed in the mess, and Emmett glanced up to see the second guard’s backside as he fled in the opposite direction.
Clark and Tobie stayed as they were, red with gore, their feelings hidden under their wet masks. Even Dr. Marks ceased her sobbing for the time being.
“Emmett.”
His mother’s voice. The pendant in his hand was hollow and dull.
“Here, Emmett.”
It was across the hall, in a puddle on the floor.
He got to his feet and tottered, lightheaded. He walked toward her voice. Somewhere in the blood.
“Right here…”
It was the last thing left of him. Officer Hollings. Emmett loomed over it, unsure at which point it would be safe to say he was having a bad dream after all. The pink light continued to shine from the head’s open mouth, its eyes, its nose. At the sight of the neck’s ragged stump, Emmett shivered.
“It’s me,” his mother said.
“Wh-what happened?” Emmett said.
“It’s okay,” she reassured. “The pendant is broken. I needed a new vessel.”
“Y-you… you—”
“It wasn’t my choice,” she explained. “Quick now. We need to leave.”
Emmett slipped the broken necklace over his head, around his neck. Then, ignoring every fiber of himself which warned against touching it, he picked the head up by its hair, carrying it like a freakish lantern. A lantern with a pink flame inside…
> He turned to Clark and Tobie. “Come on, guys. We’re leaving now.”
Tobie got to his feet. Beneath the speckles of blood, his face was white as paper. He held his hands out by his sides, dripping wet, shaking top to bottom.
“You ready?” Emmett said.
After a moment’s consideration, mouth quivering, tongue jabbering, Tobie turned on his heel and fled back the way they came.
“Tobie!”
“Emmett,” his mother said, “Let him go.”
Tobie disappeared back into the cafeteria, out of sight.
Clark also appeared in a void state. But he didn’t run. Rather casually, he wiped blood from his face, out of his eyes, and flicked his hands to rid them of it.
“Your mom did this?” he asked. He looked to the severed head in Emmett’s possession. “Is that her, too?”
Emmett raised the head, looked into its glowing eyes.
“Yeah.”
Clark stood a moment longer. He took a long, thoughtful breath.
“So… now what?”
Behind them, Dr. Marks shuddered. Emmett had almost forgotten she was there.
“Show her to me,” his mother said.
He approached Dr. Marks with Hollings’ head outstretched. Dr. Marks shook feebly at the sight of it. Maybe it was her missing hand, or Hollings’ blood all over her, or maybe it was the madness working its way through her like a sickness—but she looked nothing like herself.
His mother began to speak—an old language he’d heard before, but didn’t speak himself, a language unlike any other. Dr. Marks’ aimless eyes drifted to the head at the sound of his mother’s voice. Those words continued to spill out from the mouth’s light, dancing musically into the doctor’s ears. The exchange lasted a minute or so and then, just as his mother was silent, Dr. Marks climbed to her feet.
“No, no, no…” she mumbled frightfully. “No… I don’t want to…”
By the look in her eyes, she didn’t comprehend what was happening. She turned from them and started toward the end of the corridor.
“Follow her,” his mother said.
“Come on,” Emmett told Clark.
They journeyed through the facility’s maze, left and right through a myriad of corridors, led by a reluctant Dr. Marks.
“Stop…” she said. “Let me go. What’s happening? Stop…”