Worse, maybe he had known. Maybe he’d just wanted the kid off his hands.
I tried to imagine signing one of my children away. I even tried to give Darick West the benefit of the doubt and imagine what it’d be like if one of them suffered from a disability that made their life unbearable to witness. But it didn’t work. No matter which way I looked at it there was no empathy, no understanding.
I looked up at the operating table and my eyes caught something in the gloom, something moving from the doorway. I tried to stand, fell sideways over the desk and grabbed the head of the table.
An explosion of noise, too much for my mind to cope with.
I heaved myself up. I’d forgotten my gun on the floor and I sprang back for it, aiming it at the space where the disturbance had drawn my eye. But there was nothing there. I lowered myself to retrieve my phone.
‘Eli?’ I called.
It hadn’t been Eli.
I stepped over the desk, carefully placing the operating table between me and the exit. The door itself was gone. All the doors were gone for some reason.
One more time – ‘Eli?’
No scuffling of feet. No face. I wasn’t even sure I had seen anything.
I lowered my gun, slowly.
I crossed the threshold of the empty doorway and looked at the floor but there was no obvious disturbance in the dust. I don’t know what I’d expected; cartoon-like footprints.
‘Fuck’s sake, really,’ I said out loud.
I only needed to get outside. It was hardly Crystal Maze. Leave the building. All I needed to do was leave the fucking building. Why was I looking for a door when I could use a window?
Crossing into the dormitories, I climbed out into a wall of thistle and trees that hadn’t been cut back for fifty years. I had to put my gun away to navigate it. I followed the building, clinging to the wall and skirting my way past holes, peering into rooms and seeing rows of latrines.
Foliage ripped at my back.
Paper-thin scratches on my cheeks.
When the building stopped and I staggered out of the undergrowth, I inhaled as if I’d been underwater. Now I could see the path back to the car.
I started walking towards it, brushing nature off my coat and out of my hair.
Both of us leave, or neither of us do.
I stopped.
What if Eli ran into trouble? What if he ran into Trent?
I looked back at Willowbrook and thought I saw Eli standing at one of the holes-for-windows. I raised my hand to wave. It didn’t wave back. It was human, but it wasn’t Eli. It wasn’t Eli.
It wasn’t Eli.
‘Shit!’
Looking back at me, at the hole-for-window, wasn’t Eli.
My gun and torch meant nothing. I tore back towards the car.
Flooded with fear. Fucking ringing with it. Sentience gone.
Get to the car.
Get to the car.
Get to the car.
It came into sight and my velocity caused me to slam straight into the bonnet.
If I got inside and started the car I’d have a mobile weapon. I could drive to the entrance, blast my way through the forest and find Eli, run right over that faceless breather in the window.
Shutting the door and locking everything, even checking the sunroof, I stared back at the buildings. I started the engine and the purr of the vehicle surrounded me, drowning out the humiliating thump of my heart.
I put the gun down on the seat next to me, shaking.
‘Fuck…’ It made me feel better, the senseless repetition of this word. ‘Fuck fuck fuck fuck…’
I checked if I had any calls from Eli. I tried ringing him but it went straight to voicemail. He must still be underground.
Everything was locked. I checked again, and one more time to be sure.
I placed both hands on the wheel, almost rattling it loose.
Unblinking, I watched and watched the path, the trees, but no one came walking.
I wouldn’t be able to drive back through the forest towards the tunnel, I realized. It was too dense. I was going to have to leave the car to get Eli.
Both of us leave, or neither of us do.
My gun felt light and ineffectual in my grip.
I took deep breaths for a few seconds before unlocking the doors.
‘Fuck, Eli,’ I muttered, getting out of the car again. ‘Fuck, Eli!’
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Even the moon had disappeared on the second time around. No natural light. Nothing. Even nature was conspiring against me. But then, nature wanted all of us dead in the end.
My eyes were fixed on the hole-for-window, but there was no face or human outline, no movement. If there was, I’d shoot it, I decided. Fuck questioning, fuck thinking, fuck logic, fuck humans and the value of life, fuck Trent Byrne and whatever had happened to him. If something appeared in that window, even for a moment, it was getting shot.
‘Eli!’ I shouted into the void.
It didn’t matter if the thing knew I was coming. It was probably watching me right now. The more I announced my presence the more likely we were to avoid each other, like stamping through long grass to avoid snakes.
‘Eli!’
Into the trees again, reopening old scratches, clearing centimetre after centimetre of space. Unbidden, the image of being cornered by some skeletal creature in this claustrophobic mess leapt into my mind. I felt sick, pushed it away.
I stopped, looked at my phone and tried calling Eli with my back against a tree, but there was no answer and no ringing.
I pushed forwards. My foot hit something metallic. I couldn’t tell if I had passed the window I’d climbed out of, but I felt as though I’d been walking for longer. Just as I thought I should have been reaching a turn in the building, the trees cleared and I stumbled into a clearing.
The ground had become dust and dirt. I shone my light around and the trees were thinner here, anaemic and leafless, creating a rough path to my right.
I followed it.
The forest hummed and whirred, making it impossible to hear if someone was following me or not.
I had no idea what the other entrance to the tunnel would look like, or whether it would even be visible.
‘Eli!’
The path seemed to end. The building turned another corner and there was nowhere for me to go but back into the forest.
That didn’t make any sense.
I followed the edge of the clearing in a circle, moving away from the walls and windows. About twenty-five yards away, when the trees started to become intrusive again, I spotted something.
It was as if someone had tried to create a bonfire, a haphazard pile of leafy branches and dead bushes all piled atop a half-buried wheelchair. I was reluctant to approach it, as it meant putting my gun inside my coat, but I took hold of the wheelchair’s handles and shook it out of place. The wheels spun easily when tested, but more easily backwards…
I wheeled the artificial compost heap out of place, and saw it had been shielding a concrete hole.
It was a steep drop with a steel ladder embedded into the wall. At the bottom – by the looks of it – was a tunnel leading under the building.
‘Oh, Jesus fucking Christ.’ I fell into a crouch, shone my light down, and covered my eyes. ‘This is fucked.’
I stood up, turned and found the third rung of the steel ladder with my left foot, torch wedged between two fingers as the rest of them clung, claw-like, around the ladder. I descended into the abyss, thousands of miles from home, and wondered how I had got here, how far and how deep into the earth I would follow Eli.
Sometimes I caught myself looking at him and thinking he was the devil himself. Why was I climbing into the tunnel to rescue him? Eli wouldn’t need rescuing. Not from this. He belonged here.
Still… he hadn’t come out the other side.
I felt for rung after rung until I hit solid ground. I was faced with the same dilemma as earlier; either keep on into the tunne
l or wait here.
Taking out my gun. ‘Eli!’
A pause, then I tried again with, ‘Trent?’
Saying his name out loud dispelled some of my fear.
‘Trent! You in here?’
‘Eughm.’
I stopped dead.
It might have been a word, distorted by how confined we were, but it hadn’t sounded like Eli’s voice. It didn’t sound entirely like a person.
‘Eli? Is that you?’
It must have been. I just hadn’t heard him properly. It must have been Eli. It had to have been.
I moved on. At least moving forward would provoke something sooner or later.
There were no footsteps apart from mine.
It could have been an animal.
I couldn’t think about it. Just keep moving forward…
Don’t think.
You didn’t think before.
Not thinking brought you here.
‘Eli, are you still fucking here?’ I reached out and leant against the wall. ‘Can you hear me?’
‘Gotta be quick, gotta be… quick.’
This time I heard words and they were closer than before.
I jabbed the light before me like a weapon.
‘Who’s that?’ I called. ‘Eli? Show yourself!’
Tapping, like fingers drumming against metal.
I backed away, squinting into the tunnel.
The tapping stopped.
It was replaced with a scraping sound, feet being dragged against ground, then the same frantic rodent-like scrabble as before.
‘Fuck—’
I turned and ran.
Barely ten strides and I ran clean into the ladder, busting my lip open.
Not even pausing to put my torch or gun away I hoisted myself upwards, deaf to everything. Two fingers weren’t enough to grip and I slipped, my gun falling.
I was about to leave it and keep climbing but…
What if the thing got hold of it?
The idea was too grim to handle and I let go, dropping four or so feet and scrabbling about the floor. My knees jarred, and just as I found the butt of my gun—
Footsteps—
Something grabbed my wrist and I fired twice, both shots above my head and I was screaming into someone’s face, screaming into mine.
Eli…
‘Ron! Ron, fucking get a fucking grip!’
Eli. It was Eli.
‘Ron!’
It was Eli.
I stopped. Even this close, almost nose to nose, it was hard to make out his features. But it was definitely him.
‘Eli?’ I lowered my arms and pushed him away. ‘What the fuck was that?’
‘What?’
‘That!’
He stared at me without comprehension and it made me lose my shit.
‘Don’t fucking look at me like you don’t know what I’m talking about, that!’ I jabbed my gun over his shoulder. ‘You didn’t hear that?’
‘Ron… there’s nothing there. I just walked all the way through.’
‘Bullshit!’
He frowned. ‘Are you OK?’
I shook him by the collar. ‘You’re fucking lying! You know you’re fucking lying! How can you just stand there and—’
‘Get off!’ He swatted my hands away and took a step back. ‘The trees, the dark, it can make you hear and see things.’
‘When I came out of the forest I saw someone standing in the window. It was a person, Eli, and you were down here. It wasn’t you.’
Even as I kept talking, I knew I sounded crazy. But even as I kept talking, I knew I wasn’t.
‘What were you doing in the forest?’ he said.
‘That’s not…’ I sighed. ‘That’s not the point. I was round the front and I saw… You know what, never mind.’
I didn’t know who was lying, who was mistaken, why we were on opposite sides. I couldn’t believe that, even after all of this, I didn’t know him well enough to tell for sure when he was being truthful. He had no reason to claim to have not heard that voice. Why would he lie about something like that?
‘You really didn’t see anything?’ I said eventually.
‘No. It’s deserted.’
‘Then why does it emerge here?’
‘What?’
‘This ladder leads up to a clearing in the woods. It doesn’t go to another building.’
‘It should.’
‘You think it splinters off anywhere?’
He hesitated. ‘I don’t know, maybe I missed something.’
My heart rate was still insane, arteries overflowing with adrenalin. What disturbed me more was the possibility that I might have imagined it. How did you carry on once you’d admitted to yourself that sometimes you saw and heard things that weren’t there?
I still had bullets. ‘OK, we can check.’
‘You OK?’
‘OK as I’ll ever be.’
This time I felt more prepared. I took the right and he took the left, shining our lights along the walls.
‘People have been down here,’ Eli observed.
‘How can you tell?’
‘Because I didn’t trip over anything. It’s being kept clear.’
‘The entrance back there was hidden by a load of bushes on a wheelchair.’
‘So this must go somewhere…’
‘Sideways, not just forwards and back.’
I started dragging a hand along the wall. The tunnel was wide enough for about three people; two people and a gurney in width.
After a while, when we had built up pace, my hand fell into air and my light fell into another tunnel.
I backhanded Eli’s shoulder and he stopped.
‘I didn’t even see it,’ he said.
The brief sense of empowerment evaporated. I put my palm against the wall and followed the corner.
‘It’s meant to lead to the operating rooms,’ Eli said, following me. ‘The health centres.’
‘Labs?’
Now I was stepping into the light on the floor. The walkway was still clear.
‘Why would you come back here?’ I asked, my voice now significantly quieter. ‘If you’d been shut off here for your whole childhood, why would you come back?’
‘Because you’ve been shut off here for your whole childhood? If you were suddenly faced with the world, having never seen it before, wouldn’t you want to return to somewhere familiar, whether it was good or bad?’
I caught sight of some colour, out of the corner of my eye.
WANT TO COME AND PLAY?
In red.
I knocked my fist against the graffiti and called, ‘Hello?’
‘What are you doing?’
‘I want them to know where we are.’
‘Why?’
Tapping, like the sound of a dozen rats from far away.
I stepped back until my shoulder knocked against Eli’s, torch resting on top of my gun.
‘Sounds like dogs,’ he said.
‘Yeah, you keep telling yourself that. I’m sure dogs wrote that shit all over the walls too.’
He moved past me and there was a horrifying crash.
The noise zigzagged off the walls and ceiling with a violence that seemed to be visible in the air.
I almost fired into Eli’s back with shock, but then realized he had walked into a gurney. It had been left across the tunnel like a roadblock. We’d just tripped someone’s alarm.
‘Suppose that gurney just arranged itself into that position, eh,’ I said, shoving it to one side.
Tapping again.
Not rats.
Not dogs either.
‘I think we should go back,’ I muttered.
‘Why?’
‘We don’t know how many there are.’
Rustling from way behind us.
‘And they know these tunnels better than us.’ I took Eli by the shoulder.
‘But—’
‘I really think we should go back now.’
‘Bu
t can’t you hear—’
‘Let them follow us out.’
He shrugged me off.
‘Eli, for fuck’s sake.’
‘Gotta be quick, gotta be quick.’
From behind us, too close, way close, close enough to make me run, without even thinking, past the gurney, light strobing, illuminating nothing and distorting everything. I didn’t know if Eli was running with me. There was too much noise. My footsteps echoing, maybe not my footsteps at all…
‘Eli!’
I called over my shoulder and ran into something solid that swung open, heavy metal. I careered through it and went to slam it shut behind me before remembering, again…
‘Eli!’
But he wasn’t here.
I swung and aimed my torch at the new space, pushing the door shut with my shoulder. Something flew at me, casting light against gnashing front teeth and holed gums and eyes that looked like Eli’s – it looked so much like Eli – before my phone dropped and skidded away, and I was left blind and at the mercy of touch and noise, so much noise, my hands around a throat.
I emptied my bullets into the mass throwing itself against me, not thinking about direction. Forward, only forward. There was hacking, putrid breath against my face.
The thing went limp and fell, obscuring the thin sliver of light picking out an arrow of dust particles on the floor.
Clicking clicking clicking clicking…
I looked at my trigger finger, still convulsing. I couldn’t make it stop.
The door behind me opened.
‘Ron?’
I didn’t trust that the voice was Eli’s. Eli wasn’t here.
‘Ron, are you OK?’
I stared at the door’s outline in the dark.
It swung open slowly, metal creaking against hideous metal.
Eli shone light at his own face.
I looked at the form on the ground.
Lodging my foot under flesh, I turned it over. It had been lying across my phone. As I bent to pick it up, Eli crouched with me, and we both shone light into the thing’s face. All my shots had entered its torso, leaving artful crimson spatters across an already soiled shirt.
My mouth was dry, useless to language. ‘Trent?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’
‘I thought it was you.’
He looked at me, with no expression.
‘I thought it was you,’ I repeated.
Road Kill Page 25