by Lukens, Mark
I should have closed that lid, he thought to himself. It might have bought him some more time. But it was too far to go back to now.
He wrapped his fingers around the door handle. He looked down at his hand. His fingers seemed so long and thin now, like a spider. And many of the yellowish fingernails were gone. He turned the handle, expecting it to be locked.
But it turned. The door opened.
He stepped into the next room which was a long hall that ended in a set of steps that rose up to a wooden door nearly twelve feet above the floor. On each side of the hall were doors and he guessed that these doors might lead to more rooms like his with more tanks in them, with more people trapped inside like he had been.
But he didn’t try any of the doors.
To his right was a recess in the wall with a locker on one side of it and a bench built into the wall on the other side. Between them, a metal rod was fixed across the empty space and three baggy white suits hung on hangers. On a waist-high shelf near the bench were two helmets with the circle of a filter for the mouth, and a yellowish shield over the eyes. Next to the helmet was a large box of latex gloves.
He looked down the hall at the steps, then up at the door. That was his way out.
Making it up the stairs seemed to take a long time. He had to crawl, and when he reached the top, pinpoints of white lights floated in front of his eyes. He was afraid he would pass out and fall back down the stairs. He held on though until the dizziness passed.
At the top of the steps, there was a short landing before the wooden door. He shuffled over to the door, nearly falling against it. He tried the door handle, it was unlocked. He opened it and stepped over the threshold.
He was in someone’s house. He could see someone’s living room or sitting room. There was leather furniture, bookshelves overflowing with books, plants in the corner, and bright rugs on the hardwood floor.
And there were windows.
He shuffled over to the windows, dragging his aching feet, holding on to the furniture where he could. The noises he’d heard from down in the hall were louder up here. Someone was in another room. They were doing something. In the kitchen maybe? Preparing a tray of food? Music played. No words. Some kind of classical music.
He fell against a short squat bookcase that ran the length underneath the row of windows that looked out onto a city street. There were people out there walking. There were cars driving by. The hum of traffic. A horn blaring. Someone laughing.
Someone was humming inside the house.
He turned and saw part of the kitchen. He saw a person at the counter. The person’s back was to him. The person was humming along with the music.
He fell down to his knees and cowered against the short shelf of books, hidden partially by a large plant in a pot.
The person walked out of the kitchen with a tray of food in its Hands. The person was heavy and not that tall. Its body seemed shapeless underneath the white, papery suit. The hair was light and curly, and it went down to the collar of the puffy suit. Its voice was sweet; beautiful. Beautiful music came from the Hand.
The Hand stopped abruptly when it came to the open door that led down to the basement. It made a guttural sound, almost an animal cry and then the Hand ran down the steps. Down to his room. Down to his tank.
John pulled himself up out of his hiding place. He looked around with wild eyes. Where was a door? Could he open one of these windows and crawl out? Which way should he go?
From downstairs, in his room, he could hear the Hand throwing the tray and cup in anger.
He should’ve closed the lid. He should’ve closed the door to the basement. But it was so hard to think now.
He turned and looked out the window and watched the people, the cars, the buildings, the birds in the blue sky, the warm sky.
The Hand rushed back up the stairs, and he heard it stomp across the floor right behind him. He turned and looked at the Hand.
“I’m sorry,” John said and started crying. “Please don’t leave me.”
The Hand approached him slowly, cautiously. The person now had the rubber gloves and the mask on. The breathing sounded so loud, so heavy. The person stood there like it was contemplating what to do.
John collapsed down beside the low bookshelf, tears spilling from his eyes. He was too weak now to even stand. He could never have made it out the window or to a door. He couldn’t have made it outside. And what was out there for him anymore? Who would feed him? Who would take care of him?
The Person bent down and picked John up gently, cradling him in its arms as the papery suit rustled. The Person turned and walked to the doorway that led back down to the basement, back down to the tank.
“Please don’t leave me,” John mumbled into the Person’s shoulder.
“I won’t ever leave you,” the Person said as they made their way back down the stairs. “But you’re going to have to learn to never leave me again.”
AUGUST
WELCOME TO PARADISE
August can be a time for summer vacations, for travel, for adventure, for exploring new places. These four people have set out on just such an adventure, exploring the remote deserts of Arizona in a van. After they get lost, they stumble on a town where they discover the people don’t want them to leave.
The van sped down the lonely road that stretched off into hundreds of square miles of desert wilderness. Brown mountains ran the length of the horizon in the far off distance underneath the endless blue sky.
Nick turned around from the steering wheel and stared into the back of the minivan.
“What the hell’s wrong with her?” Nick yelled. “Is she having a seizure?”
“I don’t know!” Austin said. He looked to Cheryl for help.
Cheryl cradled Hannah in her arms, rocking her gently. Hannah gazed up at the ceiling of the van, her eyes bulging as she stared at something only she could see. Her body was stiff, yet at the same time it trembled. Her hands were frozen in claws, but her fingers on her left hand moved constantly like she was communicating some kind of rapid sign language. A string of slobber spilled out of the corner of her mouth.
“It’s okay,” Cheryl whispered into her ear.
Hannah didn’t respond; it didn’t seem like she’d even heard Cheryl’s voice.
Nick glanced back out the windshield as he drove, but there were no cars in front of them—the road was empty as far as the eye could see. He turned to the back of the van again.
“What’s wrong with her?” Austin asked Cheryl.
“She’ll be okay,” Cheryl assured him, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“We need to get her to a hospital!” Austin yelled as he tried his cell phone again, but there was still no signal out here in the middle of nowhere. No GPS, no nothing.
“Try your phone, Nick!”
Nick shook his head no at Austin and turned back around to the front. He was about to tell Austin that trying his phone again was useless, but instead he yelled:
“Shit!!”
Nick stomped on the brakes and the van slid across the cracked pavement as its tires screeched in the hot, silent air.
Austin, Cheryl, and Hannah were pitched forward as the van struck something. Austin took the brunt of the impact into the backs of the front seats and the girls slammed into him. Cheryl still managed to cradle Hannah in her arms even through the crash.
“Hold on!” Nick screamed as he wrestled with the steering wheel, his foot still jammed down on the brake pedal.
The minivan swerved and then finally came to a stop. The van’s engine was still running—a good sign—but it was making a strange ticking sound; not a good sign.
Austin struggled to sit back up from the floor. “What the hell happened?”
Nick sat in the driver’s seat, his hands still clutching the steering wheel, his foot still on the brake. He stared out the dirty windshield at the landslide of dirt and rock that had flowed down from the rocky ridge that ran parallel with the road for the la
st half mile.
“What the hell’s that?” Austin whispered.
“Some kind of landslide,” Nick answered. “No wonder we haven’t seen any cars for the last few hours.”
Hannah groaned from the backseat.
“Help me with her,” Cheryl said as she tried to make Hannah more comfortable on the floor.
Austin pushed a cooler and a suitcase out of the way, shoving them back behind the backseat of the van from where they had flown.
“What did we hit?” Austin asked.
“A rock,” Nick answered as he shifted into park and opened the driver’s door to get out. “A big rock.”
“Where are you going?” Austin yelled at him.
Nick didn’t answer. He got out and walked to the front of the van. The front end driver’s side corner was smashed in, the headlight shattered, the bumper and front quarter panel crushed in, but it still looked drivable. He looked back at the boulder they had crashed into.
Austin watched Nick as he got back in and slammed the door shut. He shifted into reverse and the transmission made a clunking sound. Nick turned back around and looked out the rear window to navigate his way around the boulders as he turned the van around.
“What are we going to do now?” Austin asked, almost on the verge of panic. They had driven out here to the middle of nowhere in the Arizona desert looking for some kind of meteor crater that Cheryl wanted to see, but they’d gotten lost and found nothing but desert wilderness. It had been fun for a while, an adventure into a cruel and unforgiving land, but now the adventure had lost its appeal—Austin was ready to get back to civilization.
“I saw a road about a mile back,” Nick said as he got the van turned back around. As he sped up, the ticking noise in the van grew louder. He checked the gauges on the instrument panel as he drove, but the oil and temperature gauges seemed to be okay for now. Maybe there was no major damage done.
“We’ll try that road,” Nick said as he drove, keeping his eyes on the road this time. “Maybe we’ll find a house or something. Somebody who has a phone.”
Austin didn’t respond to Nick. He watched as Cheryl gently brushed Hannah’s hair back. He thought he should be the one doing that—he was her boyfriend. But he and Hannah had only been going out for six months now, and Cheryl and Hannah had been friends since they were little girls.
At least Hannah had closed her eyes and the “sign language” with her fingers had stopped.
“She’ll be okay,” Cheryl said again without looking at Austin.
“What is it?” Austin prodded. “You know what’s wrong with her, don’t you?”
Cheryl hesitated for a moment like she wasn’t sure if she should tell, like she’d made a promise to Hannah. But then she looked at Austin.
“You wouldn’t believe me,” she told him.
“I see the road up ahead,” Nick said as he slowed the van down.
Austin was about to ask Cheryl what she had meant by that; why wouldn’t he believe her?
Hannah sat up like a piston, her eyes wide open, and she screamed: “NO!!”
Cheryl grabbed on to Hannah, trying to hold her, trying to comfort her. “It’s okay, Hannah. It’s okay.”
Hannah calmed down, but she was looking right past Austin, staring out the side windows of the van like she could see something out there in the desert that was so horrifying, yet she couldn’t tear her eyes away.
“It’s too late now,” Hannah whispered and then she slumped back down to the floor and closed her eyes.
“What’s wrong with her?” Austin asked and the panic was back in his voice now. “Did she pass out?”
Cheryl nodded. “She’s okay. She’ll be awake soon.”
Austin stared at Cheryl. “Tell me what’s wrong with her.”
It seemed like Cheryl might tell Austin, but then Nick interrupted her words.
“I see something up ahead,” Nick said, suddenly excited as he navigated the van up the incline of the hills along a narrow, bumpy road that was cut through the hard-packed dirt; both sides of the hill loomed on each side of the van like giant walls. The road rose up through the hill and then crested. At the top of the hill was a small wooden sign at the side of the trail that had the words: NO TRESSPASSING – PRIVATE PROPERTY etched into it. Nick drove right by the sign and the road wound down from the top of the hill down into a desert valley below.
Austin looked at Cheryl for a moment, then at Hannah who was resting comfortably right now in her lap, breathing easily. He brushed past them and sat down in the passenger seat beside Nick.
“Look,” Nick pointed out the dusty windshield.
Austin rolled down the window. The air conditioner wasn’t working anymore since their collision with the boulder and the air had become stifling hot inside the van in less than fifteen minutes. The passenger window let in more hot air, but at least it was some kind of breeze, some kind of movement in the air.
Nick idled down the steep decline towards a metal gate. The gates were wide open, a chain dangling down from the end of one of them. Built above the gates was an arch of wood timbers that looked petrified from the desert weather. A wooden sign hung from the top of the arch from two rusted lengths of chain. Engraved on the wood sign were the words:
COMMUNITY OF PARADISE
Nick had slowed the van down to a crawl now.
Austin stared at the fencing strung out from each side of the gates; the fencing meandered off into the desert. The fence didn’t look particularly strong. The whole gate and entrance didn’t look all that formidable, either.
They drove through the archway, past the open gates and farther down the bumpy road that crawled down into the valley of desert sand and brown brush. The road climbed again up to another hill in the distance.
“How far does this damn road go?” Austin muttered.
“We’ll just go over the next hill and see what’s there,” Nick said as he pressed down on the gas pedal, picking up speed over the road that had become more of a trail now, only two deep ruts in the hard-packed dirt.
Austin glanced back at Cheryl and Hannah as they climbed the next hill. Hannah was still passed out, breathing evenly and deeply, like she was sleeping. Cheryl looked at him, and they locked eyes for a moment. Austin thought about asking her again why she didn’t think he’d believe what was wrong with her, but he didn’t.
Nick tapped at the brakes constantly and wrestled with the steering wheel, doing his best to steer around the potholes and rocks in the road as they drove over the top of the next hill. At the top, he idled there for a moment. In the valley below them was a small village.
Nick whooped with delight and stomped his foot down on the gas, driving a little more recklessly down the twisting road, leaving a trail of dust behind them in the hot air. The road led towards the group of buildings, and the first building they came to was a gas station with a small motel a hundred yards down the dirt road. Beyond these two buildings were other structures dotted along the hillside that looked like homes. And in the far distance, on top of another small hill, was a white church that seemed to gleam in the sunlight.
The gas station looked abandoned. The building was gray with dust and petrification and the gas pumps looked rusty and ancient. The awning built above the gas pumps looked ready to collapse if a decent wind came along. The windows of the gas station building were dark and one of them was boarded up. A sagging fence surrounded something behind the gas station—perhaps junked cars. A string of tattered plastic flags flapped in the hot breeze, but the plastic flags, which had once been bright primary colors, were dull now from the relentless desert sun.
Nick pulled the van underneath the awning of the gas station. He parked right next to one of the ancient gas pumps. He glanced down at the fuel gauge—the tank was still half-full, but he wasn’t going to turn down gas if he had the chance.
He sat in the driver’s seat and left the van running. The ticking in the motor was louder now, but the gauges still seemed okay.
Austin looked out the passenger window at the gas station’s building, but it didn’t seem like anyone was coming out to greet them. He looked back at Cheryl and Hannah. Cheryl still had Hannah’s head in her lap, and Hannah still seemed to be sleeping.
Nick shut the van off and the world was quiet for a moment except for the hot wind that toyed with the tattered, plastic flags on the string above them. He got out of the van and slammed the door. “I’m going to go and check it out.”
Austin glanced back at Cheryl. “I’m going with him.”
Cheryl nodded and watched as Austin got out and hurried to catch up with Nick who was already halfway to the gas station building now.
Hannah stirred and Cheryl looked down at her. Hannah’s eyes were open and she stared right up at her.
“There’s something bad here,” Hannah whispered to Cheryl.
Cheryl nodded. “Are you okay?”
Hannah sat up and got to her knees. She sat down on the bench seat and put her head down and waited for a wave of dizziness to pass. She looked out through the grimy windows of the van. “Where are we?” she whispered.
“We got lost. The phones and GPS don’t work anymore.”
Hannah looked at Cheryl.
“Do you remember any of that?” Cheryl asked her.
Hannah nodded. “I think so.” She thought for a moment. “We were driving around. It was fun at first. But then we … and then it seemed like I passed out.”
“You had one of your episodes,” Cheryl told her.
Hannah sighed—she already knew that. How bad was it? she wanted to ask. How badly had she embarrassed herself in front of Austin? But that was the least of her worries right now.
She looked at Cheryl. “Wherever we are, we need to get out of here. We’re in danger here. We need to tell them I’m okay and get back on the road. Go back the way we came.”