“Any idea where to go?” he asks.
“No,” she says. “We need get out of these halls.”
A small alcove appears as Toby and Clarice run on. Inside is a small, spiral ramp. Clarice skids to a stop and pulls Toby’s arm so he’s forced to halt as well.
“Down here,” she orders.
Toby balks. “Why?”
“Why not?”
Toby shrugs and the two take the ramp down ten, fifteen, twenty feet before being dumped out on a new floor. The walls are of the same dark, stony construction as before, but the doors set in them—doors with half windows and horizontal bar handles—remind Toby of the same ones that litter every public school he’d ever been in.
“Go in?” he asks, leaning on the bar.
Clarice nods, and Toby pushes the door open.
As they step through, they enter a wide-open hall with lockers lining the walls on both sides. Two-foot, square tiles decorate the floor and are arranged in a green and white checkerboard pattern. Their footsteps echo loudly upon it. The scent of heavy air freshener lingers, while harsh fluorescent bulbs illuminate the hall.
Clarice takes him by the hand and leads him forward. “No time to slow,” she says. “No time at all. They’ll be on us quick.”
“Right,” Toby says.
The two barely move a dozen paces before Clarice’s prophecy comes true. Near the far end of the hall, three Freddies appear, sidearms drawn. Despite their alien nature, Toby can see both in their face and their posture they mean business.
The Freddie in the lead points directly at Toby and Clarice with his tail, and shouts, “Bad persies! You stop right there!”
Toby reflexively halts while a fourth Freddie and a Mr. Squid come through the doors that lead to the ramp, equally armed and looking non-to-pleased at having to chase free-roaming people.
Clarice clamps her hand on Toby’s forearm. “Oh, god. Oh, god,” she says over and over. “Said not to run. Said that was bad.”
Toby pries her fingers off of him, and he takes her hands in his. Her body trembles, and all he can see in her eyes is an immeasurable amount of fear. How she’s not running in a full state of panic is beyond him.
“Don’t fall apart on me,” Toby says, lifting her chin so she’s looking right at him.
Clarice shakes her head but doesn’t reply.
Toby glances left and right. Both groups of aliens are methodically closing in. Each one looks ready for trouble, and Toby doubts he’ll be able to sucker punch one again. Even if he could, there’s no way he’ll take on five aliens at once and come out on top.
“This is it,” Clarice says, seeming to share a similar sentiment. “This is where it ends.”
“No,” Toby says. He narrows his eyes, looks past her to a single door with a round knob, exactly like the ones back home, just ten feet away. He’s not about to let them take him away like a lamb to the slaughterhouse.
With an explosive move, Toby surges toward the door, half dragging Clarice along. How she manages to stay on her feet, Toby doesn’t know, but he gives a silent thanks to whoever may be watching over them that she remains upright. The two barrel through the door, and he’s quick to slam it shut behind them.
“Welcome to Preser Tech!” says a chorus of voices in perfect unison.
Toby, with a death grip on the doorknob, spins around. Thirty or so girls, all in their early teens, all dressed like they raided their career-oriented mother’s wardrobe, sit behind small, wooden desks in nice, neat rows. In front of them and at the head of the class stands an older woman near a chalkboard, mid-fifties, with a long, tattered and stained sundress, and cat-eye reading glasses. With one hand on her hip and another thoughtfully posing under her chin, she smiles and says to the class, “And what else?”
The class giggles and says together, “We’re so glad to have you aboard!”
Toby jumps as something hits the door behind him. It takes all his strength to keep the handle from turning. A part of him wonders how long he can keep it closed, while another part wonders when they’ll simply blast their way in. Hopefully, it won’t come to that because they won’t want to risk shooting the wrong person.
“Open up, persie!” comes a call from the outside hall. “We only want to make sure you’re safe.”
That call and a subsequent thump against the door spur Toby into action. With his free hand, he spins Clarice around. “Get me a chair!”
Clarice, visibly scared out of her mind, stares at him blankly. “What?”
“Get me a chair, damn it!”
Clarice shakes her head. “There are none.”
Toby scans the room and realizes she’s right. That said, the teacher’s chair looks free.
“Get that one,” he says, pointing to it. “That should hold them for a bit.”
Clarice sinks to the ground and curls into a little ball. “No, no, no,” she says. “No barricades...”
“Damn it, Clarice,” Toby yells. “Get me that chair and get it now!”
Clarice wraps her arms around her head and rocks. “They’re coming, Nick,” she says. “They’re coming. God, do something!”
“Clarice! If you don’t move now, we’re dead!”
The secretary doesn’t budge, and Toby, out of ideas, wonders how many of them he can take down before they get him.
Chapter Eleven
The handle turns, and Toby tightens his grip before cursing the world that has sucked Clarice into its shadowy depths. With seconds left to his life, Toby has an idea. He keeps one hand on the doorknob while pressing his entire weight against the door and then reaches into his pocket and pulls out the portal device. It’s silver and smooth, and try as he might, Toby can’t find a single button, knob, or protrusion of any kind that would operate it.
Despite that setback, he randomly pushes all over its surface, hoping and praying something will happen. He even bangs it against the wall a few times. He’s about to give up when glyphs appear on its skin.
“Hot damn!” he shouts.
The brief celebration draws Clarice back to the present. She stops rocking and looks up to Toby with hopeful eyes. “What?”
“I got it,” he says, haphazardly pressing glyphs with his thumb.
There’s a crackling in the air and the smell of ozone hits Toby’s nose. A portal springs out of the ground, tall, blue, and promising freedom. Clarice dives through with Toby following right on her heels.
The portal closes behind them, and now that Toby is on the other side, it takes his eyes a few seconds to adjust to the dim light. Once they do, he sees that they are in another hall, but instead of being cold and sterile, it’s warm and cozy. Carved teak panels cover the walls, and mahogany boards line the floor with a finish so perfect he could use it to shave. Candelabras hang from the ceiling and bathe the area in a soft, yellow light. The smell of smoke drifts from some unknown place, and upon the very same air carries the sound of alien chatter, muted, but jovial.
“Feels like a lodge,” whispers Clarice.
“No like about it,” Toby replies. “I bet you’re right on.”
Clarice says no more, and for the first time in their bizarre relationship, Toby takes both her hand and the lead. “Aliens have to leave too,” he says. “Let’s find the exit.”
Clarice follows, and though she’s silent as they travel down the hall, her hand tightens on his and trembles.
“We’ll make it out,” he says.
“I know.” Her hands shake a little more. “I know. I know. I know.”
Toby squeezes her hand, hoping to alleviate her fears. “I mean it, Clarice. We didn’t come this far to fail now.”
Clarice relaxes. Doors pass by at regular intervals, heavy oak ones with wrought-iron handles. Toby doesn’t take any of them. They each have a different glyph embedded on their center that reminds him too much of hotel rooms. The last thing he wants to do is barge in on an alien who’s enjoying some R&R.
They round a corner, and an alien that looks lik
e an undulating sack of potatoes with four arms and three legs enters the hall from a far off door. With three of its hands it keeps a book in its face and turns the pages. With its fourth, it closes the door behind it.
Toby immediately plows through the door to his left and yanks Clarice in. Relief washes over him, not only for the fact that the door even opened but because there’s an old-fashioned latch on the other side he can use to lock the door with.
“That should buy us some time,” he says, testing the handle.
Clarice digs her claws into his forearm. “Toby,” she says, tugging at him like a child. “Toby, turn around.”
Toby obeys. “Sweet Jesus.”
Like the hall outside, teak panels form the walls, and mahogany boards form the floor. At the far end of the room are three full-length windows, all of which are covered by drawn curtains. A large, leather couch sits in the middle of the room and faces a hearth where a fire steadily burns. Tucked away at opposite corners are two heavy, closed doors. But none of that is what shocks the hell out of him. None of that is causing Toby’s stomach to cramp. In front of the couch is a human-skin rug. A Matt, human-skin rug. His head is facing the fireplace, eyes glaring and mouth snarling, while his arms and legs are splayed to each side.
Clarice covers her mouth with her hand. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Don’t look.” Toby hurries to the windows, and as he makes his way across the room, he tells himself that the bowl sitting on a table filled with human teeth, and the wastepaper basket made from someone’s foot, aren’t real. By the time he gets to the other side of the room, he’s done a fine job of buying into the delusion.
“God, I can’t wait to see where we are,” he says.
“You and me both.”
Toby draws back the curtains, half expecting to see a close-up view of Saturn’s rings or an alien, double sunset on the horizon. Instead, what he’s greeted with are countless skyscrapers, some not even a hundred feet away. Toby leans his head against the glass and goes up on his tiptoes. Down below, fifty, sixty stories maybe, people walk the streets. Cars attempt to navigate gridlock. Humanity bustles.
Clarice appears at his side. “Oh...my...god...” she says.
Toby bangs on the window with the flat of his palms. “Hey!”
Clarice punches him hard in the shoulder. “Are you out of your mind?” she whispers. Her eyes are wide, and her voice trembles. “They’ll hear you!”
Toby curses and rubs his shoulder. For such a tight little package, Clarice packs mean punch. “Sorry,” he replies with a sheepish grin. “Got a little excited.”
Clarice shakes her head and mumbles under her breath. “It’s not real, anyway. It’s a fancy projection screen.”
Toby leans close to the window. It takes a moment for his eyes to notice, but when they do, he can see the tiny pixels on the other side of the glass. “Must be to keep the up the ambiance.”
“Yeah, but we need to go,” she says. “Can’t sit. Can’t wait.”
“I’ll try this door. You get the other.” Toby says and heads to his right. He presses his ear to the door and after ensuring that he can hear no sounds from the other side, he pushes the handle and the door swings open.
There’s no light coming from inside, but the light from the den and fireplace is more than enough to tell Toby that this is a bedroom. He can easily see the oak canopy bed that fills half the room. He can even make out the matching nightstands and dressers inside. Thankfully, both the bed and room are unoccupied.
“Bedroom,” Toby says.
“Can’t tell,” says Clarice, who is standing across the den and peering inside another dark room. “That,” she says, tentatively stepping into the shadows, “might be a light switch.”
Toby watches her disappear into the dark. There’s a thump and a distinctively feminine cursing. A bright, white light then pours out and spills into the den.
Toby smiles. “Nice!”
Clarice, still unseen, screams.
Toby rushes in, fists up and ready to hammer whatever freak of the galaxy happens to be inside. What Toby is greeted with is anything but alien. Inside is a warm office with high beam ceilings and a solid oak desk with a high-back leather chair. Next to that chair is a man who’s dressed in a pinstriped, charcoal, Gucci business suit. His hair is short, trimmed, and gelled. His shoes, black leather, are immaculately polished. In one hand he wields a fountain pen, and in the other, he holds a monogrammed portfolio. He has a serious look on his face, and if Toby wasn’t absolutely certain the man was stuffed and dead, he’d swear the guy was about to close a multi-billion dollar deal.
Toby’s attention snaps back to the here and now, and he turns to his secretary. “Clarice?”
Clarice stands rooted in place, slowly shaking her head. Mascara-filled tears stain her cheeks, and her hands weakly cover her mouth. “Nick...”
“Nick?” echoes Toby. He repeats the name in his mind a few more times, looking back and forth between Clarice and the stuffed man until the name finally registers. Toby puts an arm around her shoulders and leads her out. “I’m sorry.”
They get no more than a few paces out of the room before she collapses into him, sobbing heavily.
Toby hugs her tight. There’s nothing he can say or do. He knows that. He knows better than to even try.
“I always told myself he got away,” she says, her face still buried into his chest. “He was supposed to get away. Every day I said it. Every minute, I told myself it would be okay.”
Her hands claw his back, but Toby doesn’t let her go. Not even when he feels his skin tear.
“How could I be so stupid?” she asks.
“We all tell ourselves things that aren’t true,” he says.
Clarice snorts. “I guess we do.”
The two stand in silence for a few minutes, sharing the embrace, before Toby pulls back. “Clarice?” he says, tentatively. “Can I ask you something?”
Clarice sucks in a deep breath and clears her eyes. “About Nick?”
“Yeah.”
“If you want.”
“I thought you said he’s the one that cut you.”
“He did,” she replies, looking away. “He did it to save me. He did it to keep them from shooting me – so I could escape.”
Toby’s brow furrows as he’s not able to connect the dots. “How was that going to help?”
Clarice sniffs and shrugs. “Never had a specific plan,” she replies. “It was only to buy time. No one wants to bag an ugly girl; we’re not as prestigious, not worth as much.”
“But that’s what you were going to do to me,” says Toby, still not following her logic, still hoping her deceased boyfriend knew of a way out. “You had to have had some sort of idea.”
Clarice chokes on a snot-filled laugh. “It was a pretty crappy idea, to be honest. It was the only thing I could think to do that might keep you alive longer.”
“There’s got to be something he said, Clarice. Some way out.”
“No,” she says, shaking her head. A tidal wave of grief hits her full force, and she breaks down again. “I’m sorry, Toby. I’m so sorry. I’ve been here so long. Most of the time it’s hard to think straight. I can’t even count the seasons anymore.”
Toby lifts her chin and locks eyes with her. “Try, Clarice. What did he say to you? What was the last thing he said?”
Clarice stares through him, and it’s clear her mind is no longer in the room with him. “Oh, god,” she says. Her body shudders uncontrollably, and her fingers clench his back. She sucks in her breath and bites down on her lip.
“What do you see, Clarice?”
“They’re taking him,” she says, eyes wide. “They’re taking him, and he’s still alive. They won’t let go.”
“He had to have said something. Think, Clarice.”
Clarice shakes her head and buries her face into his shoulder. She takes a second to reply, but it’s lost in a whimper.
“What did he say?�
��
Toby feels her swallow, feels her tighten her grip. “He said he loved me,” she says.
Toby kisses the top of her head and squeezes her one last time. “We’ll get out. I promise.” The last part he tacks on for himself as much as for her.
“There you are,” calls a voice from behind. “You must be so scared out in a big place like this.”
Toby whips around to see Freddie standing in the doorway. In one hand, the alien is holding a small, cocked and loaded crossbow, and in the other, he’s casually keeping a high-tech, multi-barrel rifle tucked under his armpit.
Toby straightens. Realizing there’s nowhere to run, no point in trying either, he digs deep to stand his ground. “Going to kill us now?”
“Shhh, persie,” Freddie says, slithering forward a few feet. His tentacle drifts over his shoulder and produces a Rice Krispies Treat. “Here you go, little fella. Don’t be scared.”
“Keep your goddamn treat to yourself,” Toby replies.
Freddie extends the treat nonetheless. “This is all for your own good, Toby. Let’s go home where it’s safe.”
Toby feels Clarice hide behind him. Her body stays close to his, and one of her arms wraps around his waist and holds him tight. Her distraction, however, is momentary. “Back where it’s safe?” Toby says with a mocking laugh. “You shooting us is hardly safe.”
Freddie shrugs. “It might not be me,” he says. “Might be someone else. It’s hard to say who bags who in this sport.”
“This sport?” Toby repeats. “This isn’t sporting in the least!”
“Oh, Toby,” says Freddie with pity loud and clear in his voice. “If you were smart enough to understand the nature of things, you’d think differently. You’re going to have to trust me on this.”
“I don’t trust anyone so heinous.”
“Heinous?” Freddie says, clearly shocked and hurt at the allegation. “You seem a little smarter than the other persies, Toby, so I’ll try and explain it to you. I provide a very noble service. I give you persies all that you want and more. I let you live out your dreams, and in return, I provide a safe, controlled environment for hunters to enjoy.”
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