by Alton Gansky
We emerged from the partition maze into the open area. People littered the floor. Most were struggling to their feet. I heard the word “earthquake” a dozen times. I scanned the fallen crowd. Maybe I should have been concerned about injuries, but at the moment I could only think of Daniel.
“Let’s split up. I’ll go—”
“I see him.” Brenda pointed. “By the window.”
There he was, still on his feet, or maybe he had just gotten up. It didn’t matter. We raced closer to him, stepping around, and on a few occasions stepping over people on the floor.
Daniel was inches from the window, his bowl of ice cream on the floor next to him. Chocolate was spattered on the carpet, window, and Daniel’s pant leg. If that window had shattered during the earthquake—I still can’t think about it. What I could think about was an aftershock.
Daniel gazed out the window.
Then he began to scream like a siren.
I charged forward, hoping no one got in my way.
No one did.
I scooped Daniel up and hugged him tight. I barely glanced out the window, but even that set my teeth on edge. I ignored what I thought I saw and, at a slower pace, moved away from the glass wall. I hadn’t made it more than six feet when Brenda reached me.
“Let me have him.”
“In a sec. Let’s get someplace safer.”
She started to argue, but saw the wisdom in waiting a few moments. We walked around people, most of whom were now on their feet. Some of the women were crying. Some of the men were swearing. To be fair, a good number of women were swearing, too.
I found an empty spot and released Daniel to Brenda. She was on the verge of tears. If you knew Brenda the way I do, and if you’ve faced danger with her the way I have, then that statement would surprise you. She took Daniel in her arms as if she would never let go.
“Hey, buddy.” I began to look him over, best I could. “That was kinda scary, huh?” I kept my voice calm. He had stopped screaming, but he hadn’t stopped staring at the window. “Are you hurt? Did you fall during the earthquake?”
He shook his head.
“You sure. No bruises. No ouches?”
When I said “ouches” he looked at me like I had lost my mind. Sometimes I think that ten-year-old is older than me.
“Is he okay?” The professor joined us. Andi was with him.
“I think so,” I said. “I can’t find anything wrong, but he got a good scare.”
“We all got a good scare.” The professor moved closer to Daniel. I noticed he limped.
“Are you hurt, Professor?”
He waved me off. “I bruised a butt cheek.”
Then I heard the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard. In the middle of all the confusion, I heard Daniel giggle.
“Butt cheek.” He giggled again. The sound of it was better than music. “He said ‘butt cheek.’”
Andi stepped to Brenda. The two bickered constantly, but at this moment, all voices were quiet. Andi wrapped her arms around Brenda and Daniel. Where Brenda was holding back tears, Andi let them flow.
The professor and I helped people to their feet and checked on injuries. There was nothing serious, although the professor wasn’t alone with his butt cheek injury.
Then I heard a man’s voice: strong, loud, and filled with terror-laced obscenities. I’ve spent a lot of time on a football field so I’ve heard everything, but never in such rapid order.
I saw the man near the window.
He was staring out and down.
He vomited.
CHAPTER
5
Somethin’ Ain’t Right
The man’s outburst quieted the crowd for a few moments. No one approached. I can’t blame them. For a few moments there was a hush. I glanced at my friends. All the excitement and my fear for Daniel’s safety had forced the glimpse I had out the window from my brain. Now it was trying to worm its way forward.
“Tank, where are you going?” Andi sounded terrified. That just meant she was like the rest of us.
“Stay here.”
“Tank?”
“Stay here—please.”
I worked my way through guests. It was like pushing through a forest of small trees. I lost sight of the man at the window, but reacquired him a few steps later. He had turned. His mouth moved as if he expected words to come out, but apparently he had run dry. The smell of the vomit filled the air. The stain of it clung to the front of his tux.
Unable to speak, he pointed out the window. Out and down.
“Take it easy, sir.” I tried to sound calm and in control. I never was a very good actor. “Maybe you should step away from the window.”
“L-l-l . . .”
“Easy, buddy. We’ll get through this. We just gotta stay calm and focused. We all need each other now.” I kept a slow pace toward him.
“L-lo-lo . . .”
I smiled and motioned for him to walk toward me. He turned his back to the window, then to me. “Look!”
I did, and my mind started to overheat. Now I felt like vomiting, but I’m pretty sure that a dozen other people with sensitive stomachs might follow my lead. So I kept my last meal.
And I gazed out and down.
Out and down almost fifty floors to the street below, except I couldn’t see the street. Instead, I saw a fog. There was no way for me to be accurate about my guess, but the fog looked to cap out at just about five feet above the street. I came to that conclusion because hundreds of people had spilled from surrounding buildings and into the streets. I don’t know how good an idea that is after an earthquake, but I didn’t have any better ideas.
The fog was everywhere. I couldn’t see cars, just the heads of a few people and the noggin tops of a few shorter people.
Then I saw why the man had cursed. I realized what made him empty his stomach. Somethin’ was moving in the fog, and it wasn’t even close to being human.
What people I could see were running in different directions. They seemed to be running in slow motion. I caught sight of one man—I knew he was tall because I could see his shoulders. He wore some kinda baseball cap. He was doing his best to run up the street. As he ran he looked over his shoulder. I don’t know what he was seeing, but it had him scared. Really scared.
Ten steps into his sprint something broke the surface like a shark in the ocean. I couldn’t see it clearly. Fifty floors is something like five or six hundred feet. What I was looking at didn’t seem large, but I had a feeling it was deadly.
It was.
The thing moved through the fog with ease. It seemed to be swimming. Ridiculous, I know, but I’ve become used to seeing and believing the ridiculous.
I do know one thing: what I was seeing wasn’t human. People say there ain’t no such thing as monsters, but tell that to a seal being chased by a killer whale. Monster is in the eye of the beholder, and I was seeing something monstrous.
And it wasn’t alone. Another breached the surface of the fog, then another. Before I could draw a deep breath, they caught the tall man with the cap. He went down, replaced by a mist of red.
My knees threatened to betray me. I rested a hand on the glass, bent forward, and wished for amnesia. “Dear God. My dear Jesus.” I’m the religious one of our group, so those words were prayer. If not for them I might have used the same language as my vomit-tinged friend.
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Slowly. Slowly. Exhale. I forced my heart to slow. I resisted the urge to scream. I was determined not to lose control. I couldn’t let others see that. Most of all, I couldn’t let Daniel see it.
I straightened. “Professor. I need to show you something.”
“We’re coming.”
“No! Just you.” I turned. “Leave the girls behind.” My voice came out an octave higher.
“But Tank—” Andi began.
“I said no!”
That was a first. I had never snapped at Andi, or any of the others. Odd what watching people die could do to a man.
The professor looked shocked. “Tank, what is it?”
I couldn’t put enough syllables together to make words so I nodded to the window. The professor annoys me a great deal, but once you get past his arrogance, he’s an okay guy. I hated doing this to him.
“I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“No, sir. I’m sorry.”
He exhaled noisily. I couldn’t help noticing the unblinking eyes fixed on us. No one spoke. No one moved. It was group-wide paralysis. Wives hung onto husbands, dates hung onto each other. All of them were looking at us. Better they look at us than what was on the street.
The professor, always calm, always logical, always with a straight back and packing lots of extra superiority, forced himself to gaze into the darkness lit only by moonlight.
He stood as rigid as a goalpost. His breathing slowed. His back bent. His hands shook. He sniffed like a person about to burst into tears.
Then came a whisper. “Those poor souls. Horrid.”
I slipped to his side and watched the carnage below. I saw another man go down and the red smear rise where he had been. Then a woman. Then several young women, best I could tell, then—dear God—a parent with a child on his shoulders.
Both—
I closed my eyes. After everything I had seen. After the dangers we have faced as a team. After all the impossible weirdness, this terrified me more.
“Steady on, lad,” the professor whispered. “Everyone here is taking their lead from us. We lose it, they lose it. Understand?”
“Yep. I know. I was going to say the same thing.”
The professor nodded. “You might have to remind me.”
A familiar voice came from my left. Allen Krone was there. “Not to worry, gentlemen. This building is designed to withstand earthquakes. It has the latest features. We’re safe here. However, it might be good if you backed away from—”
His gaze shifted from us to the street.
I caught him before he hit the floor.
In two beats of my heart, two others joined us. One was an African-American woman with salt-and-pepper hair cut so close to her scalp she was an eighth of an inch from bald. Her features were sharp. To tell the truth, she was stunning. I recognized Ebony Watt from the pictures Andi showed us in the limo.
The second person was Jonathan Waterridge, Krone’s other partner. He approached quickly but calmly. He didn’t strike me as a man prone to panic. A good quality right now. Waterridge took Krone’s other arm. “What is it, Allen?”
“I’m fine, Jon. Just . . . um . . .” He pointed at the window.
“Can you stand?” Waterridge looked Krone up and down like a doctor with X-ray eyes.
Krone nodded. “I’m okay now.” His voice sounded stronger.
Waterridge slowly released Krone’s other arm and, seeing that his partner wasn’t going to do a header, moved to the window. Both looked out, then down. Neither reacted.
“The fog?” Waterridge asked.
I answered for him. “Yes.”
Waterridge and Watt exchanged glances, then turned their attention back to us.
“I don’t get it,” Watt said. I detected a slight accent in her voice. “It’s just fog.”
I caught the professor staring at me. He went to the window for another look. I was happy to stay where I was and serve as Krone’s prop.
Waterridge stepped back to Krone. “I thought maybe there was damage from the earthquake, bodies in the street, fires, something, but all I see is fog.”
Krone spoke in hushed tones. “There are things in the fog. I saw them. Creatures.”
“Creatures?” Waterridge looked at me. “We need to get Mr. Krone a chair. He needs to rest.”
I recognized the tone. I hear it each time I’m forced to tell someone what our team deals with: disbelief. “I saw them, too. So did the professor.”
The professor said nothing. He kept his gaze glued to the sights below.
“Tell them, Dr. McKinney. They’ll believe you.”
The professor turned. “Tank. The fog is rising.”
Not what I wanted to hear.
Ebony Watt and Janice Krone, who seemed to appear from nowhere, helped me get Krone to a chair. Waterridge decided the guests needed a little encouragement.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “thank you for your calm and courageous response. It’s been quite an evening. First, let me assure you, you are in a safe place. This building not only meets the most rigid earthquake standards, it exceeds them. You are safe here.”
“But we should leave, right?” some woman in the crowd said.
“No, not yet. As you can tell, we’re on emergency power. Buildings this size have only one elevator that can operate on emergency power. I will check to see if the generator is working or if the earthquake knocked it offline. Our best way out will be the stairwells, but I suggest we wait for a bit. There will probably be an aftershock soon, and you’re less likely to get hurt here than trying to walk down nearly fifty floors. Most likely, the power will be back on soon and the elevators will be online.”
“You’re sure we’re safe here?” This time it was a man’s voice, a frightened man’s voice. “I felt the building sway.”
“Absolutely.” Waterridge tucked his hands into his pants pockets like a man without a care in the world. “Not many people know this, but architects and structural engineers design tall buildings to sway. If they didn’t sway in strong wind or earthquakes, they would experience much more damage. I know it may have felt like more, but the sway was only a couple of feet in each direction. So, swaying is good—even if it feels otherwise.
“That being said, I suggest we stay calm. Help yourself to the food and drink. Not too much on the alcohol, just in case we all have to walk down the stairs. It would be bad form to survive an earthquake then break a toe on the exit stairs.” That brought a few chuckles.
“For now,” Waterridge continued, “I ask that you stay away from the windows. I’m being overcautious, I know, but humor me.”
The guy was smooth, I had to give him that.
I left Allen Krone in the care of his wife and worked my way to my friends. Brenda still held Daniel. I’m pretty sure it would take a crowbar to loosen her grip. Daniel seemed fine with that.
“What’s going on?” Andi kept her voice low. “What did that guy see out there? What did you see? Daniel said something about sharks. Sharks? Really?”
The professor raised a hand. “Easy, Andi. One question at a time.”
“Sorry. I’m a little shook. And I don’t mean by the earthquake. That didn’t help.”
I stepped next to her and put my arm around her shoulder. She was trembling.
“Not sharks,” the professor said. “Worse.” He tried to describe what we saw, toning down the gruesome details, probably for Daniel’s benefit.
“So this is why we’re here?” Andi looked around. “It must be.”
“Where’d they come from?” Brenda almost sounded like her old self. No doubt, she would be telling each of us where to get off soon. I looked forward to that.
“I don’t know,” the professor said.
“I don’t want to know,” I said. “I just want them to go back where they came from.”
“How are we gonna do that?” Brenda said. “If I heard right, we ain’t going down there and start exchanging punches with those things.”
“I have no idea,” the professor said. “I’m open to creative thoughts.”
No one had any.
The building began to shake again.
CHAPTER
6
A Rising Fog
The guests had clumped into small groups. Loud laughter had been replaced with mumbles and occasional nervous chuckles. Some ate. Some paced. Some stood around looking lost. For the first half hour nearly everyone pulled out their smartphones and pressed them into service, except there was no service. No phone calls. No texts. No e-mail. No Internet. I’ll admit it; I did the same thing as did
the professor, Andi, and Brenda.
Mr. Waterridge returned and told everyone that he had used a landline to reach fire and rescue. “They suggest we wait here. Apparently it’s a little confusing at ground level.”
A little confusing? After what I had seen of the murderous things in the fog, it was no problem believing there might be a bit of confusion. The horrible sights returned, and my fear elevated a good bit. I felt just as sick now as when I first saw the monstrosities mowing down people in the street.
A thin woman stepped forward. “Our cell phones still don’t work. Can we use the landline to call our families? They’ll be worried, and we’re worried about them.”
Waterridge’s face showed great compassion and understanding. It also tipped me off to the answer.
“I wish you could. I understand the problem, but I’m afraid the phone line went dead just before I finished the call. I’m sure it will be up in no time. The best thing for us to do now is be patient. I’m sure we’ll all be headed home soon.”
I wasn’t so sure. From the professor’s expression, he wasn’t convinced, either. The girls didn’t have to say anything for me to know they were carrying a load of doubt. We had seen too much in the past to know that all this would blow over if we just sat tight. At least Brenda had set Daniel down. He is a bit big to be held like a toddler.
While Waterridge continued to talk, the professor motioned with his head for me to follow him. I did, but I didn’t like where he was leading me. He made for the windows. Really? I had to look down there again? I kept my fears to myself. I’m supposed to be the macho guy of the group, but my machismo was paper-thin.
“What do you see, Tank?”
Now you know why I call him the professor. Okay, he was a professor, that’s the big reason, but if you hang with the guy you soon learn that he loves to teach and test. He always has an opinion and wants to make sure we know he’s the one with the brains.
“I see fog. It’s what I don’t see that scares me. Those things below the top surface of the fog.”
“I know what you mean.” He shuddered. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him shudder. “That, however, is not what I’m getting at. Look again.”