Enamel

by Tim Sabados

  The young woman sighed and bowed her head as if she were lost in thought. “I still need to contact my handlers. It’s been too long since I checked in.”

  Aryssa walked to the exit and gazed down the hallway. Sammy was long gone. So was Charlie. Where were they? Was Charlie alright?

  40

  Metal ground against metal. The harsh noise of wheels groaning under the weight of whatever they were carrying. Boom. Did something close? The rigid metallic sound clawed its way up the steps and slammed against Charlie as he peered down into the cave-like stairwell.

  Charlie had relentlessly pursued Sammy. Did his best to move as stealthily as he could as he drew closer and closer. He had followed that dim light through twisting hallways, across vast spaces and around all kinds of giant machinery. Now here he stood. A drop of sweat trickled down his back. Many more clung to his forehead. Sammy was somewhere down there—where exactly, he didn’t know.

  A faint, early morning light lay siege against the shadows that reigned over the factory’s interior. The few remaining pinpoints of starlight poked through the fading night sky and were framed within the ceiling’s gaping holes.

  Those giant machines were beginning to show their individuality as the darkness slowly receded. So too was the immense area filled with inanimate objects of a bygone era. Only a few feet away from Charlie, a bent stool lay on its side like a fallen soldier. There was the three-legged, rusted desk that seemed to fight against gravity in order to remain upright. He could smell the acrid odor of decaying metal and the pungent smell of aged grease mixed with the long-forgotten clamor of men and machines, clinging to the specks of dust that lazily drifted through the air.

  Charlie slowly rubbed his palms together. An electric jolt zipped along his nerves sending a shiver across his sweat-soaked flesh. He wiped the sudden chill from his shoulders, then crossed his arms over his chest so he could hold in his body heat, even though a dank humidity was completely surrounding him.

  That tingling sensation in his hands was stronger than ever. It had infiltrated his arms, swirled into his chest and pooled in his lower back. Somehow it pushed him forward. Persistently shoved him toward the steps.

  Charlie resisted. What exactly was urging him to move down the stairs? He needed to know before going any farther. He looked to the walls, the ceiling, the machines and even across the battered floor. Waited for the smallest of hints, but they all remained mute, as if the slightest sound would shake the factory’s foundation and send everything crashing into a heap of useless metal and concrete. The quiet was its way of refusing to reveal the things that were hidden in its darkest recesses—its way of choosing to protect the secrets that resided beneath the floor.

  Minutes ticked by before Charlie’s curiosity got the better of him. He needed to know what was down there, where Sammy had gone and why he had chosen to come here. He grabbed the solid metal railing and hesitated. There was something else that didn’t seem right. Something that existed underneath that tingling sensation. Whatever it was, it cooled his spine and allowed tiny flecks of dread to cling to his frosted bones.

  Charlie couldn’t wait any longer. He shook caution away and began his descent into the pit of darkness, which washed over him like a pool of ink. He made it to the bottom and cautiously walked the short distance to a large metal wall that blocked his path. Except this wall had wheels on its bottom and a handle near its edge.

  He carefully placed his palms against the wrinkled and dented surface. The metal was unusually warm. A warmth that wasn’t overly inviting. It seeped beneath his skin and morphed into hundreds of tiny pricks of needle-like pain.

  Charlie yanked his hand away and shook it. What to do now? He slowly exhaled. He had come this far; there was no turning back.

  He wedged his fingers into the space between the metal’s edge and the wall and pulled. Wanting to keep things as quiet as possible, Charlie increased the tension until it gave way. It groaned deeply as the space slowly opened. He stopped when there was just enough room to squeeze through. A rush of warm air spilled through the opening. A warm and pleasant yellow light illuminated the gigantic room on the other side of the door. He took a deep breath and stepped across the threshold.

  * * * * *

  Aryssa led the two women to the end of the hallway. The smoke’s sinewy arms crept along the ceiling, clouding the already dim bulbs.

  Kylee, the young-looking cop, coughed. “Which way?”

  Kami pointed up the flight of steps. “That goes to the outside.”

  “Are you sure?” Kylee asked.

  “She’s right,” Aryssa interjected. “I just don’t know if it’s the right way to go.”

  “If it takes us out of here.” Kylee brushed her free hand through her hair as uncertainty stiffened her fingers.

  Aryssa sighed. Indecision was eating away her ability to think rationally. She glanced down the pitch-black hallway leading into the factory. “So does that.”

  Kyle coughed again. “It looks like it leads to some kind of building.”

  “The factory,” Aryssa confirmed.

  “That made them scared,” Kami said.

  “Scared?” Kylee questioned. “Who was scared?”

  “Those men that watched us,” Kami answered. She shuddered. “I think they were afraid to go there. Eyes…I saw it in their eyes.”

  Kylee placed her foot on a step. “I don’t think that’s the way we should go.” She paused. “It makes sense that Sammy would want to get out of here as quickly as possible. And the fastest way is up.”

  Aryssa gestured into the darkened corridor. “I went that way when I escaped.”

  “You did?” Kylee leaned against the wall with her foot still on the step. “You went all the way in there?”

  “Yeah,” Aryssa answered. “It took awhile, but I found my way out.”

  Kylee looked up the flight of steps. “And this leads outside too, doesn’t it?”

  “To parking lot,” Kami said.

  “The path of least resistance,” Kylee stated. “It’s got to be the way he would go.”

  It seemed too easy. Too convenient. “Maybe,” Aryssa said simply. “The guards may have been scared to go that way, but it doesn’t mean that Sammy wouldn’t do it.” She coughed. Gestured back down the hall toward the room that had been their prison. “Sammy and the others had managed to refurbish this place to fit their needs. They could’ve built something similar to that room, or maybe a place to hide, somewhere in there.”

  Kylee nodded. “This place is huge. Trying to find another room like that one would be damn near impossible, especially with just the three of us searching for it.”

  “I don’t want to go in there,” Kami said with dread layering her voice.

  There was some truth to what Kylee had said. How impossible would it be to find this other hideout? That’s if it even existed. Still, there was something else that bothered Aryssa. “What about Charlie?”

  Silence pinched the women’s lips shut. It was as if they had been suddenly rendered mute. Aryssa fidgeted. The others didn’t move. Time was quickly becoming of the essence. A decision needed to be made and it needed to be done sooner rather than later.

  Kylee broke the stillness. “We’ve got to get help. We can’t do this alone.”

  “We can’t leave Charlie behind, either,” Aryssa said with desperation clinging to her tone. “He might need our help.”

  Kami stroked Aryssa’s arm. “We don’t know where he is.” Her eyes filled with concern. “It’s best to look outside.”

  “She’s right,” Kylee agreed. “I say we go up and out.” She hoisted herself onto another step. “It’s what I’d do.”

  Aryssa hesitated. Something kept poking her thoughts. Kept pulling her away from the easier solution. She rubbed her temple. Still, she couldn’t let her doubt stand in the way of a majority decision. She tipped her chin. “Let’s go.”

  Kylee immediately spun and bound up the steps. Kami followed close behind. Aryss
a grabbed the railing and stopped to peer into the shadow-filled corridor one last time. Had Charlie followed Sammy in there? If he did, then why would Sammy go there in the first place? She shook the questions away and leapt up the steps.

  41

  The honey-colored bulbs hanging from the girders coated Charlie in a layer of sweetened warmth. It seeped through his skin and numbed that tingling sensation he had been feeling in his hands and arms. It swam into his head, making him yawn. How many hours had he been up? How long had he been strapped into that adrenaline-fueled rollercoaster?

  He thought about that moment he had lost Aryssa in the back alley. How he had to make that split-second decision to abandon those kids. How he had aimlessly driven his boat along the river. That off-chance of docking outside the factory, then stumbling upon Aryssa. That relief that morphed into terror when bullets had zipped over his head as they sped away. The confrontation in the hotel, falling off the balcony, the gun going off in that room, the flames and now this. He looked to either side and then up across the ceiling. What was this place, anyway?

  Charlie yawned again. Fatigue weighed on his lids and nestled into his limbs like a dog napping by a fireplace. He started to walk along the extra-wide corridor that shot straight as an arrow under the factory floor. Was this a basement that had been used for some kind of storage? Maybe it had been a dedicated area that serviced those machines above.

  Whatever this place used to be, those warm lights nudged the questions from his mind. He tried to rub the sleepiness from his eyes. If only he could find someplace to sit. Some sort of soft chair would do, but there wasn’t anything like it along the walls. Not even a broken stool like the one he had seen upstairs. A soured sigh escaped his throat. Maybe he could just lay right on the floor, close his eyes for a few minutes and rest.

  Except that wasn’t what he had come here to do. What was happening to him? Why was he feeling so tired? He exhaled sharply to expel that exhaustion, took a couple of steps only to feel it come back.

  A thick paste of slumber oozed into his head. His limbs became heavy. Charlie couldn’t resist. He knelt and reached out toward the floor, started to close his eyes, but something made him hesitate. A distant noise, maybe voices, echoed from down the hall. He slowly stood and listened.

  Faint at first, it became louder the more he focused his attention. It wasn’t one voice, but several. It sounded like an entire crowd. Feet shuffled. Furniture squeaked. Odd as it was, there was no laughter, but rather the conversations seemed strained. Heavy. Nothing lighthearted about any of it. What was going on?

  A jolt of realization zipped through Charlie. Sammy. Was he somewhere down there, simply waiting, maybe even hiding? Charlie rubbed his temple with doubt. Didn’t he follow Sammy down here in the first place? So he had to be here. But where?

  Charlie tried to refocus his energy despite the clinging fatigue. He couldn’t risk being surprised, or worse yet, shot. He tightened his quads for fear that his legs would buckle under the strain of weariness.

  The concrete floor, the white plaster walls—all of it monotonously stretched forward, only to disappear into the distance. Charlie forced himself to press forward. He stumbled, leaned against the wall to keep his balance, yet the more he moved, the more his surroundings stayed the same. However there was one thing that kept changing. Those voices. The chatter from that hidden crowd was becoming louder. He was getting closer to someone, but whom? How was it possible that he could hear so many people, but not see a single person?

  Charlie cautiously crept forward. Should he turn back? He had made it this far; what use was there in stopping now? He glanced over his shoulder to find that the metal door he’d used to enter this place was almost the length of a football field behind him. How had he covered so much ground so quickly? Or had he lost track of time and had been down here longer than he realized?

  After a few more minutes the plaster wall gave way to what appeared to be a thick sheet of plexiglass embedded with a single column of evenly spaced holes that ran from the floor to the ceiling. Behind the transparent wall was a small room that looked like a prison cell. A bed with a torn mattress and a lone metal chair were its only inhabitants.

  Charlie walked several feet to the end of the small room, only to come upon another identical plexiglass wall enclosing another cell decorated with the same austere accommodations. On the other side of the hallway he saw a similar row of prison-like cells. What were these things used for?

  He passed another cell, then another and another after that. Each housed a bed and chair. That chatter was still coming from somewhere in the corridor. He was getting closer to it, but who exactly was he getting closer to?

  That all-too familiar tingling sensation managed to bully its way upward from the deepest depths of Charlie’s extremities. He shook out his hands and crept forward. Passed another cell. Then another. On and on it went, until he was about to totter past another when a movement made him freeze. He was about to spring backward, but it was too late. A middle-aged woman sitting in the lone chair lifted her head out of her hands. Her cheeks were sunken. Lips blue. Mouth fell open as her eyes widened with hope.

  “It’s you!” The woman lifted herself out of the chair and limped to the plexiglass wall. “You’re the one.”

  Confusion folded Charlie’s tongue. “I’m the…?”

  “Yes,” the woman answered with an assured tone. “I was told that I’d know when I saw you. And…and…it’s true. I just know.”

  Charlie stepped back from the glass. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “It’s him.” An elderly man, with a stooped back, was standing behind the plexiglass wall on the other side of the hall. He pointed at Charlie with an arthritic finger. “You’re the one.”

  A younger man wearing a backward-facing baseball cap was standing with his skeletal-like face pressed against the glass in the cell next to the old man. “Yo, man. You here to take us?”

  “Oh my god!” A woman wearing a blue denim skirt, in the next cell over, bounced on the balls of her feet. “I can’t believe it.”

  “You can’t believe what?” someone curiously asked from a cell near where Charlie stood.

  The lady wearing the denim skirt tapped the glass in front of her. “He’s here.”

  “Who’s here?”

  “The one we’re supposed to find,” the blue-jean woman said.

  “Are you sure?” a male voice asked.

  “Yes,” the man wearing the baseball cap shouted. “It’s like she said,” he pointed at the middle-aged woman standing in the cell behind Charlie. “You just know.”

  “I’m Marjorie,” the middle-aged woman said. “You’ve got to have me on your list.”

  Charlie scratched his temple. “List? I don’t have any list.”

  “How do you not have a list?” Marjorie thrust her closed hand forward. “How do you know who’s supposed to give you this?” She uncurled her fingers to reveal an object in the palm of her hand. It wasn’t just any object. It was the coin.

  Charlie silently gasped. The old man held a coin between his warped fingers. The guy in the baseball cap held up his, as did the woman in the denim.

  That tingling he’d been feeling in his hands finally made sense. But how…how did these people end up here?

  “I’ve got one too,” someone said.

  “So do I,” said another.

  More voices called out, confirming they had a coin.

  “You’ve got to get us out of here,” the man wearing the cap said. He pounded his fist against the glass. “Can’t you bust this thing?”

  Marjorie followed Charlie as he walked to the other end of her cell. “Please. I can’t handle this place any longer.” She wearily looked out into the hallway. “They keep trying different things to take these coins from us.”

  Charlie studied the coin in the woman’s hand. “What kind of…?”

  An obese man was crammed into the corner of his cell on the other side of the
wall that separated Marjorie’s room from his. “You’re the boatman.”

  “Hey, it’s the boatman!” someone yelled.

  “The boatman? For real?”

  More and more people called out. Still others screamed for Charlie’s help. There was pounding on plexiglass. Kicking of chairs. The noise grew steadily louder as the news of Charlie’s presence spread.

  A tall man, wearing a gray suit, leapt out from what must’ve been a nearby cell. Anger scrunched his face. Nostrils flared as if fire was ready to bellow from them. “You all need to shut up!” he screamed.

  No one heeded his demand. Instead, more and more people began to yell. Pounded the glass. Pleaded for their release.

  The man in the gray suit stopped in the middle of the wide corridor. Slowly turned to face Charlie. Daggers of rage shot out his pupils. Brows furrowed. Shoulders tensed. “You’re not wanted here.” Without giving it a second thought, he ran straight for Charlie.

  Charlie stood his ground. Tightened his body. Primed his arms and fists with fury.

  The gray-suited man moved like lightning and struck with the speed of a snake.

  Charlie quickly ducked to the side, but he wasn’t fast enough. The blow caught the edge of his jaw, causing him to stumble backward. Before he could counter, a second blow was rocketing toward his face.

  * * * * *

  Aryssa stepped out into the vanishing night, where a sliver of orange sliced the edge of the Eastern horizon. Kami and Kylee were standing near the middle of what had once been a parking lot.

  Kami threw up her arms and let them smack against her sides. “I don’t know.”

  “They could be anywhere,” Kylee said to no one in particular.

  “We should go,” Kami pleaded. “Just get out of here.”

  Aryssa gazed around the lot. Nothing stirred from inside the other buildings. She stepped up to the group. “You see anything?”

  “Nope,” Kylee responded. She gestured toward the large wall of the factory. “If they’re in there, we will never find them.” Pointed toward the city. “Don’t even want to try and guess.”