FLOOR 21: Descent (The Tower Legacy)

by Jason Luthor

  Sunny’s voice bursts out from the other side of the room. “Why don’t you tell the commander, Jackie? It’s probably best if you let him know that he had not just one, but two people working for someone else. It looks like you had as much loyalty to him as I did.”

  The words just slice me up inside, and I take my hand off my ear. “Shut up, Sunny.”

  “Don’t worry. You won’t have to listen to me much longer,” he replies. “Like Pygmalion said, the mission ends here. We’ll be done with this Tower after a lifetime of this mess.” He looks over at Abbott. “I’m really sorry, commander, but you know better than anyone that we have to do what it takes to save the Tower.”

  “Sunny,” Abbott growls with a twisted smile, “You don’t give one damn about saving this place. You simply wanted a room with a nicer view on a higher floor. So, if you’re turning traitor, don’t try to decorate it so that you feel like a hero.”

  The captain sighs. “I really am sorry it had to be this way.”

  Everything happens so fast, I barely understand what’s going on. Sunny fires off a round and the room fills with the sound of the bullet as it cracks the air. At the same time, I see the flash from behind the barrel and hear Tommy screaming. And then? Then I’m crossing through the air in front of the commander, in time to catch a bullet that punches me across my chest. My body hits the ground hard, and I’m rolling to a stop at the same time that I’m watching Abbott’s hand whipping upward. It’s only a split second before blood paints the back wall as Captain Sunny Allen’s head snaps back, and then he goes tumbling to the floor.

  “Holy crap,” I heave. There’s no way I could have made that shot. I mean, the commander had just a few inches of space to clear Tommy’s head. Tommy knows it too, and he looks back and forth between the captain’s body and back over to Abbott.

  “Oh damn,” I hear him mumble across the distance.

  That’s when the pain surges through my chest, and I yank backward, feeling this unstoppable burning that feels like a hot poker jamming into my collar. My head rocks back, and I start wailing as the pain makes a quick sprint through my body, circling through my back a few times before focusing on a tight spot to the left of my heart. Everything around me goes blurry as I try and deal with what I’m feeling, and I barely make out Tommy and the commander hitting the floor around me. “Am I going to die?” I beg as the commander’s hands rip at my vest.

  Tommy shakes his head. “No, dummy, your vest caught the bullet.”

  Abbott nods as I hear the vest popping open. His hands are inside my uniform and pulling the top part of it away just enough to look. “Your friend’s right,” he says. “Although you’ll be dealing with this bruise for a few months.”

  “Is it bad?”

  “Not right now, but I’d guess that in a few days it will look as if someone painted your entire upper left chest purple.”

  “Damn it.”

  The words are barely out of my mouth when the room shudders, and I see more cracks tearing the roof open. Concrete falls in clouds and swarms of Creep tendrils start pushing through. Like there weren’t enough of those already. “It’s still out of control,” I say as I try to slide upward, my teeth almost cutting my lips as the pain just throbs with every move of my muscles.

  Abbott’s head fires back to the door, then over to me. “Mike’s still panicking. If the Creep keeps reacting to him, he’ll bring down the entire floor.”

  Tommy glances up to the second level. “Hey, Jackie. You and him were close, right? Like the two of you . . . you know.”

  I grimace as I pull myself to my feet. Abbott helps while I take a second to catch my breath. “No, Tommy. We never did anything.” I’m cringing as I stand up straight, and I can feel tears burning the corner of my eyes every time I suck in wind. “I mean, we were friends, though.”

  Abbott puts a hand on my shoulder and leans in until he’s creepy close to my face. “Vick said that this boy’s been on the run and in a state of constant emotional distress since the incident. At this point, he’s managed to evade the Cultists, and apparently he’s been causing massive tremors down here. If all that is true, then it’s no wonder we’ve been seeing the sort of damage we have. He’s the cause of it, and it will not cease until someone helps him gain control. Can you do it?”

  The floor shakes again, and this time huge chunks of the ceiling rocket to the ground as I watch a mammoth tendril punch into the room, lashing through the air like it’s looking for a victim. I glance back at the commander and give him a nod before rushing to the edge of the stairs. That’s a mistake, because every time I take a step, a jolt stabs me in the chest that makes me want to cry. Even with burning knives carving through my body, somehow I force myself to the second floor. As the wall on my right cracks open, I see the Creep punching through in bursts of thick mucus and muscle tissue that douse the side of my face. I’m bathed in the stuff, and my vision’s blurred behind a red tint. Everything’s shaking as I look down the stretch in front of me. For a second, I can make out the door I need to get to, but blackness is seeping out of the walls until I can see dark shadows forming up in lines. They jitter and shake as my vision jolts. Then, in one motion, they all reach out, their fingers flickering like black bursts of fire. I try to shake it off, and my legs beg me to move along the narrow upper level, but I can feel those shadow hands grabbing at me, brushing against my shoulder and sending chills burning through my skin. Every touch feels like its choking the air out of my lungs until I’m heaving, and my vision gets hazy as each new finger cuts into me.

  There’s a second when I hit the floor, and I don’t have the strength to get up. I’m barely keeping myself on a knee, and the entire walkway’s just filled with shadow men walking toward me. I’m so tired at this point, I’m just ready to accept that this is it. I’ve tried my best, but between the ice running through my arms and the pounding bruise in my chest, I’m done. I can barely get my head up . . . and then I see her.

  She’s standing behind them. Standing behind the shadow men. At first I can barely make her out. Between all the figures, she’s there, with her long black hair falling over her eyes and down to her waist. I still recognize the sundress she’s wearing, shredded up and barely covering her. Her fingers are like long razors and her jaw hangs with teeth that look like knives.

  “You’re dead . . .” I barely whisper it. “Sally. You’re dead. I . . .” I don’t want to say it, but it’s completely true. “I killed you.” The moment the words leave my mouth, I feel like she’s just going to start sprinting and rip me apart. Thing is? She doesn’t. She just keeps staring at me, and as the shadow men keep marching around, I can see her more and more. It’s like she’s waiting for something. “I’m not sorry I did it, Sally. I had to. You know I had to. I had to protect my dad. Don’t you get that?”

  She’s on the opposite side of the walkway, but I see her jaw creaking open, and somehow, even with all the noise, I can hear her voice burning the air. For a second, her face lifts up, and I could swear I catch a look of her actual eyes. They’re sad. Finally, her tongue flicks the air and she says, “Not here. Not now. Not alone.” Then she breathes in, and I can see the shadow men standing in front of her starting to shake. I don’t understand what’s going on, but then she’s screaming with a voice that cuts through the air. For a minute, the darkness around me seems to fade just a little, and suddenly I feel like I can walk again. When I get onto my feet, the shadow men are still convulsing, like the scream physically hit them. Still, when I look ahead, I realize that wherever Sally came from, she’s gone now, if she was even really there in the first place. It’s too much for me to think about in my condition, but I know I can move again. So, one foot at a time, I start stumbling forward.

  The pain actually starts going away, but only because I’m starting to feel my body going numb. I’m losing sensation in my legs, and soon the only thing I can feel is the pain surging out from my chest. It might be the only thing keeping me conscious. I force mys
elf forward the last couple of steps and practically collapse against the door, my hand slamming against the cold metal. “Mike,” I whisper as I bang against the entrance. There’s no answer, and I force myself to suck in as much air as my lungs can handle before screaming, “Mike!”

  My head rests against my arm as I push against the door and listen to the sound of the walls cracking apart around me. I don’t know if I can scream again. I mean, I can barely hold myself up. Then, just when my vision’s going black at the corners and I’m on the verge of losing it, the door suddenly swishes open. It throws off my support, and I pretty much fall into the room, my momentum throwing me into arms that catch me as I plunge to the ground. I’m almost not aware of what’s happening as I stare into eyes I haven’t seen in what feels like forever. Even with all the pain raging through my body, I recognize them. I’ve known these eyes for forever. I’ve known them since they rescued me years ago and finally gave me someone I could talk to about this place. And I’ve come all this way to pay that back. “Mike.”

  “Jackie?” He asks as a cracking boom shakes the walls. “How did you . . . did you come for me?”

  I place my hand on his chest for a second, then flick it back. “You’ve got to stop this, Mike,” I pant, as somehow I manage to pull myself off of him before falling back onto the ground. Everything in me just wants to sit there and rest. I can’t, though. “Mike. You’re behind this. You’re causing the Creep to go nutters right now, and if you don’t stop, this incident’s not going to stop either. It’ll bring down the whole floor. I mean, I don’t know, it might even take down the Tower.”

  “I know, Jackie, it’s just . . .” He throws his hands in the air. “Once it started, I just couldn’t. I couldn’t stop it. It’s like I just sank into this depression, and it kept getting worse every time I saw someone die. Then I was alone for so long and being chased . . . now I feel like I’m stuck in quicksand and I can’t pull myself out.”

  “Hey, dude, I get it,” I say as I lean forward. I can’t hold back a groan as I plant my hand on the ground, bracing myself so I don’t collapse face first into the floor.

  “Jackie. What’s wrong?”

  My teeth grind down for a second. “Oh, nothing, you know? Just took a bullet to the chest,” I reply as I half laugh and half moan. “Hurts like a mother.”

  “Shot? Are you okay?”

  “Who cares. I’ll live.” Well, I will for a few minutes longer, at least. “Mike. Honestly? Life sucks sometimes. This Tower is crapsack, and the longer I’ve been here in the Deep, the more I’ve kept thinking that, if we really did this to ourselves, then . . .” I shake my head. “Whatever. The point is that I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. I used to think I was alone. Then, you know, I realized the problem wasn’t always the people around me. Sometimes, I was the problem. People like Tommy and Abbott that I thought were total douchebags turned out to be real cool dudes. And guys like Captain Sunny? The worst. Like, he was seriously the most terrible person. But as much as the Tower sucks and Tower Authority sucks and the Deep Creep sucks, a lot of the people here don’t. The whole time I thought I was playing solo, I was being totally ridiculous to some awesome people.” The ground shakes underneath me, and I can hear the sound of the roof outside cracking even wider. “My point is, it sucks you were stuck down here, but you’re definitely not alone. Not anymore, I mean. It's been weeks of me just worrying about you, wondering if you’re safe or what happened to you, and now I'm here, Mike. Tommy and Abbott are here. And did you know Vick’s alive?”

  That seems to really grab his attention, and his eyeballs jump at the name. “The commander’s not dead?”

  “Dude, he really wants to see you come back alive, but you’ve got to pull it together.”

  Around me I can feel everything rumbling. Cracks snap along the ground, and I swear the floor feels like it’s about to just bust wide open and swallow us. Mike’s head dips as he wraps his fingers around his head, and all I can do is balance myself while the ground starts to bounce. I’m barely propping myself up as I watch the air around us burning crimson, and even though I feel it before I see it, it still sucks the color from my cheeks when I look over my shoulder to see a figure in the doorway. Whatever Sally did, it didn’t last. The figure is there and not at the same time, flickering in translucent black as its leg stretches outward. It takes stuttering, broken steps until it’s right over my shoulder, and no matter how hard I try to control my breathing, just being close to this thing is obliterating my ability to hit pause on my adrenaline.

  That’s when I feel Mike’s hand. It grabs at my wrist, and my head flips back to see him. He’s not looking back at me, but his breathing is starting to slow down. His fingers tighten in his hair, and his eyes look like they’re burning holes into the ground. The feel of his hand on my skin gets tighter until it’s almost painful, but I bite into my lower lip as I hold back my protests. I just . . . I have to be here for him.

  Everything around me is cracking and breaking, and I watch as rows of computers behind him start to spark to life and explode in flames. If not for Mike, I’d run, but I don’t. I can’t. I mean, how can I? This is Mike. Back when I thought there was nobody else like me, he’s the guy that helped me know different. He was interested in all the same stuff I was, about the Tower and the Creep. I’d never had that before. But, the thing is, it’s not just about him. I realize that if I learned anything from all this, it’s that Abbott’s just . . . right.

  You don’t leave someone behind.

  You don’t leave behind your own.

  You just don’t.

  The room aches as the walls start to split apart, and the only thing I can do is reach out to Mike. The burning in my chest is flaring as I look to the walls, watching as the Demons circle around us, pulling themselves free and standing there. Staring. There’s a cold feeling on my shoulder and I fight to control my breathing as a pain like ice drifts down my arm and through my hands. I can barely even feel Mike’s skin on mine, and I duck my head as, all around us, the shadows are leaning in and reaching closer. They’re so close I feel like the whole world’s going dark, and I have to look away as their fingers pierce my skin and take the breath from my lungs. The air’s sucking out of my body, and I feel like I’m starting to freeze. I can’t feel my legs, but I know I’m shaking as hands sink deeper into me, shuddering as the last of my breath is drained away and my vision’s going black. With the world starting to disappear, the only sensation I’m left with is Mike’s hand on mine.

  That’s when his head snaps up, and his eyes find that old spark they had when I first met him. The room groans a final time as everything around us bursts with one final explosion of the computers. Everywhere I look, all I see is the room igniting in fireworks as the red haze pulls away, like it’s being drained back into the walls. With one last scream, the room shudders to a stop, and the ground beneath me slams a final time before going still. I’m almost bowled over, but I’m able to brace myself with whatever strength I’ve got left. My eyes shoot behind me and out of the door, to the large tendrils stretching into the lab. They thrash back and forth like dying animals before pulling into the black gap in the ceiling and returning to wherever they came from. Then, all at once, everything is starting to go quiet again, except for one thing. Voices, I think. They’re calling out. Actually, they might be cheering. It’s enough to make me smile for half a second before I feel the stabbing in my chest explode with such a crazy fire that my eyes ignite with colors. Then all I see is white before I collapse to the ground.

  Recording Thirty-Five

  I’m not sure where I am at first when I hear it.

  “Well done, Jackie,” the voice says out of the darkness. It creeps into my ears and sends me flying out of the bed I’m lying in. My back slides up the wall as I shoot my eyes around the room, looking for the source even if it’s hard to make out anything. Everything around me is glowing red, like the Creep’s in full effect, but I can’t see any.

  “
Who are you?” My hands are clutching the sheets at this point. “Are you a hallucination? Are you a Demon?”

  What I hear comes out of the darkness, like a hidden laugh. “I am many things, and I know many things, but I also have many questions. Maybe that’s why I like you, Jackie. Your head is so full of questions, and this world is full of answers. I’m hoping we can discover the truth together.”

  “Together?” The thought of it makes my eyes buggy. “Are you following me?”

  “Following you? You’re the one that called me, Jackie.” The voice laughs again. It sounds like a younger man, but the end of every sentence dips with a bass that’s like a growl. “One day you will find the answers you seek. You may even happen to help answer mine. Or not. I suppose we will find out . . . in time.”

  “In time? How long? What questions are you talking about?”

  “Sally. The Creep. The Demons. The Angels. The numbers. This world . . . it’s so incredible. But it’s not for the faint of heart.”

  “So what do you want?”

  “You, Jackie. To follow you. To see what you learn, and what you become. The answers you find may be the answers I require as well. We shall see.”

  “At least tell me your question.”

  “Why, it’s the same one you have, Jackie.”

  “Which is?”

  There’s a long pause before I see a dark figure float off the wall, but it’s not a Demon, and it just hovers in the air. I can sort of make out his features. His short hair covers shadowy eyes, and his jacket hangs down to his booted feet. He gives me this smile . . . this smile that feels like it’s taking the wind out of me, and then he says, with a voice I can feel inside my chest, “I want to know why you’re here.” He laughs in a way that won’t stop pounding in my head. Then the room pulses, and the red haze just vanishes like it was never there. I’m in a room by myself, and after a second, I recognize it as an apartment bedroom. My mind flashes to Vick and Dodger. It’s like they’re reading my mind because, a second later, the door clicks open, and I see a silhouette standing in the doorway.