Eternal Maze

by Alexie Aaron

  “Let’s put it this way, if I was four years old I’d be wanting to do it again.” He grinned at Mia.

  “Hello! What do I do with this?” June called from the top of the cliff. She held up the sock encased in a plastic evidence bag.

  Butch groaned. Mia was embarrassed for all capable women law enforcers everywhere. Butch cleared his voice and suggested she put it in her pocket and come on down and join the fun. “No, not this way, go to the rock and slide down.”

  Mia leaned into Butch and asked quietly, “So whose relative is she?”

  Butch laughed in spite of himself. “She’s not bad just young. We work together in dispatch. She is quite efficient there,” he said as they watched the young deputy slide down the hill backwards on all fours.

  Mia winced inwardly. Dispatch officers. “You do know how to fire a gun and stuff like that?”

  “I assure you we have to qualify on the range. Don’t you worry, you’re in good hands.”

  Mia took a deep breath to steady her. She felt the sting of rain on her face. It was coming down harder now. “Let’s make our way over to that building and get out of the rain.”

  Murphy moved to Mia’s left side and made a few rude gestures regarding the deputies. “Not now,” she hissed. “Where’s Rita?”

  Murphy pointed ahead of them. Rita, the ghost, stood impatiently under the awning of the back entrance of the still-to-be-named building, tapping her foot.

  “Does she know she can’t get wet?” Mia mused.

  “Sorry, did you say something, miss?” Butch inquired, catching up to her.

  “Just talking to myself.” Her phone rang just as there was a clap of thunder shaking the ground. “Hello,” Mia said. She stepped inside the dark building as the rain came down harder.

  “Ted, here. I’ve got the name and former use of the building.”

  “The building I’m standing in right now?” Mia said as she for the first time noticed the bars on the broken-out windows.

  “Yes, it’s…”

  A clasp of thunder hit the ground outside and shook the building. Anything loose rattled.

  “Say again, Ted.”

  “St. Joseph’s Mental Hospital.”

  Mia sighed. “Of course it is.” She looked around as lightning filled the sky with light. It filtered in from the barred windows, illuminating briefly the interior. The building’s ground floor was a ruin. Curls of lead paint and sagging asbestos insulation gave the place a certain ambience. “I’m standing in the middle of a mental asylum in a thunderstorm with Laurel and Hardy.”

  “That’s Laurel and Hardy professional law officers,” Ted corrected.

  ~

  Whit pulled into the rain-soaked lot. He was waved on by the deputy at the gate. He pulled up to the large white tent as he had been instructed by an earlier call to the OIC. Sheriff John Ryan and Deputy Tom Braverman got out and ran inside to avoid being drenched by the heavy rain. Whit pulled his vehicle around and parked as close to the PEEPs command truck as he could. He wanted to check on Mia before joining the others on the manhunt.

  Whit pounded on the sliding door in the back of the truck. Ted raised it and ushered him in. He offered Whit a cup of coffee, pointing to a thermos. There was no light in the truck aside from the monitor and numerous keyboards.

  “Dark in here,” he commented.

  “I’m conserving battery power. Burt’s a few hours away with my backup generators.”

  “Mia…”

  “Dude, she’s holed up in a mental hospital a few miles from here,” Ted informed him.

  “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me. Care to elaborate?”

  Ted filled Whit in on the search and Mia tracking the kidnapper through the cornfields. “The tracks led to an old, disused mental asylum. Here, let me show you.”

  Whit looked at the map and memorized the roads needed to get him to the hospital. “Who’s with her?”

  “Murphy and two deputies from this county. Mia wasn’t impressed after finding out they normally work in the office, dispatch I believe.”

  “Deputy Martin, come in,” John Ryan’s voice filled the command post.

  Whit touched his com and answered, “Martin here.”

  “We’re to head immediately to the St. Joseph’s Mental Hospital.”

  “I have it mapped, and I’m ready to pick you up in two minutes.”

  “Make that one, Deputy.”

  “Roger that,” Whit said and started to climb out of the vehicle.

  “Wait! Take this.” Ted shoved a canvas bag at Whit and explained, “Mia’s in the dark. This has a thermal imager and some high power micro lights. She will know how to use the imager. Good luck.”

  Whit reached up with his free hand and shook Ted’s. “Are we related Mr. Martin?”

  “Only that we’re both superheroes, Deputy Martin. Go and save Lois,” Ted said before closing the door to the command post.

  Whit ran to his vehicle. A flash of lightning, followed quickly by a thunderclap, told him that the storm was right on top of them. He quickly navigated the field that was becoming slick with mud and pulled up to the tent. Sheriff Ryan and Tom got in the car, and Whit started off towards the abandoned hospital and Mia.

  Ted watched as Whit pulled away. He wanted to go with them. He felt his abilities could better be used there at the hospital instead of here at the maze. He called into the Officer in Charge and asked permission to relocate his vehicle to the hospital. He mentioned the condition of the field, and that he had instruments that would aid in the search for the missing girls if they were indeed in the hospital. After a few minutes he received permission and thanks for all he had done thus far.

  It didn’t take him long to secure his equipment. Ted took time to run to Mia’s truck, and using a spare set of keys he had made, he raided her equipment box. After storing the materials in the command truck, he started it. He carefully moved out of the space where his wheels had sunk into the wet clay of the field. Ted had sweated through his shirt by the time he was able to gain enough traction to move the command post out of the field and onto the road. He voice-dialed Burt.

  “Burt here.”

  “I’m moving the command post to the St. Joseph’s Mental Hospital. I will send you directions. Don’t waste your time at the maze. Go directly to the asylum.”

  “Any news about the girls?”

  “No. Mia picked up their tracks before the sky opened up, and she had to take cover.”

  “So she’s at the hospital.”

  “Abandoned, derelict mental hospital,” Ted specified and added, “In the dark with two inexperienced officers.”

  “She’s not happy.”

  “Nope, not at all. Prince Charming is on his way though.”

  Ted heard Burt laugh, “I wouldn’t exactly call you charming, Ted.”

  “Fuck no, not me. I meant Whitney. He, Sheriff Ryan and Tom Braverman showed up.”

  “So the big guns are headed there. Murphy is with Mia. Sounds like you have things covered.”

  “Burt, if you saw the condition of the two dead teenagers and the surviving kid, you would see that we are still at a major disadvantage. This is a monster we are dealing with, and he has friends.”

  “Hang in there. We’re an hour and change away according to Google. Oh and Mike requests next time you decide to fart around with your devices, you do so closer to Kansas.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Ted spat. “Tell Mister Hollywood I will no longer wait for him to put on makeup before I digitize his face.”

  “Be nice,” Burt warned. “Stay safe,” he said before disconnecting the call.

  Ted slowed down and navigated his turn. There did seem to be more happening ghost hunter wise in Illinois, Indiana and Michigan than in Kansas. He wondered why. He pushed the thought to the back of his mind and concentrated on the rain-slick road. He almost missed the last turn. There was no road sign, and if it hadn’t been for a well-placed lightning bolt he would have never seen the si
gn proclaiming, “St. Joseph’s Mental Hospital Welcomes You.”

  Chapter Five

  Mia knew to go any further into the hospital was foolhardy. Deputy Butch had been ordered to meet three law officers from a neighboring county at the front of the building. Instinct told Mia to go outside and walk around the hospital to the front, but she was vetoed by the two deputies who didn’t want to get any wetter. They were going to have to make their way to the front of the building by navigating the ground floor of the asylum in the dark during a thunderstorm.

  Mia walked slowly her penlight barely penetrating the gloom of the perimeter room. Once they exited this room and entered the hallways of the building they wouldn’t have the remaining light of the rainy evening to aid them. Murphy walked ahead of Mia, but she could only just sense his presence. Rita had gone AWOL the minute they entered the building. She went in search of her sisters. Mia feared for the entity, as she would soon learn the hard way that she wasn’t invisible to others in her plane of existence. Mia had to push her concern for Rita to the side because there were three girls, hopefully still alive, to rescue.

  “So, what exactly do you do for a living?” Butch asked Mia.

  She became irritated at the man. What did he want to do, turn this walk through hell into a church social? But then she realized that he was nervous, maybe talking helped. “I’m a handyperson. I do odd jobs,” she explained.

  “Oh. Why were you asked to help out here?”

  “I’m kind of a tracker…”

  “She found the sock and the trail down off the cliff,” June piped up. “She’s a good tracker.

  Mia felt guilty about her earlier assessment of the young woman, especially now that she was defending her.

  “You’re right,” Butch agreed. “But I heard you work for that PEEPs fellow.”

  “I work with,” corrected Mia, “that PEEPs fellow.” She held up her hand to silence the deputies. They had reached the door. It still had its frosted window panes intact. She twisted the knob and pulled the door inward. A teeth hurting squeal of metal on metal greeted the trio. It reverberated throughout the building. Mia listened for any sounds indicating that something had heard them and was headed their way. There was nothing. “Come on.”

  They walked down the hallway until they faced a bisecting corridor. Mia stopped and looked at Murphy. He disappeared for a few moments. When he reappeared, he nodded.

  “We go left,” Mia said and picked up the pace. She did not like the feel of this place. There had been a lot of death here. She prayed the girls had been taken elsewhere. The level of crazy and evil she felt inside this building made her ill. There was a strong chance that they could run into some bat-shit crazy ghosts who were still hanging around. And it was pitch black. She did not want to be messed with in the dark. No, that wasn’t in her contract. Not today anyway.

  “So are you…”

  Mia shushed Butch. She put a finger to her lips. She angled her head and heard faint footsteps. They were coming up from behind them. “Come on, run!” Mia took off running. She felt a tingle on her arm and knew Murphy was beside her. They reached a large open foyer where the gloom of evening was filtering in from the broken high windows. The main entrance door was ahead. Mia slid on years of accumulated dried leaves and could not get enough traction to stop herself. She barreled into the massive wood and steel door. Winded but determined, she grasped the handle of the door. She pulled with all her might. It was heavy, but she managed to open it far enough for them to get out. “Outside, get outside, now!” she ordered.

  The stunned deputies followed her commands, and soon the three of them were plastered against the face of the building, seeking the shelter of the overhanging awning from the rain.

  “What happened?” Butch asked.

  “We were being stalked,” Mia answered.

  “We have guns, lady,” June protested. “We have the law on our side.”

  “You can’t shoot what you can’t see, can you?” Mia spat back. She was tired, cranky and wanted no more of this babysitting chore. These two deputies were no match for what Mia felt was in there. True, they needed to find the girls, but they also needed to stay alive long enough to do so.

  Murphy scratched at the pavement, and Mia looked over at him. He pointed to the lush overgrowth beyond which the entrance road curved. Mia saw the welcome sight of her county’s sheriff’s car. The cavalry had come.

  Whit saw petite Mia and two deputies. They were pressed against the front of the hospital. They looked wet, muddy and tired. Mia was pacing and kept glancing back at the door of the hospital as if she expected someone or something to come out. He sensed her tension well before he pulled the car up next to them. John and Tom got out, and Whit reported their position before shutting down the vehicle.

  He walked over, and his boss’s presence be damned, picked up Mia and hugged her. “It’s okay, it will be okay,” he said softly until he felt the stress leave her small body. Setting her down, he handed her the canvas bag Ted gave him. “A present from Ted. He said you would know how to use it.”

  Mia glanced in the bag and nodded. She was about to speak but looked over at the sheriff who was interviewing her two charges, and she wanted to hear what was going on. She motioned with her head before walking over to the group.

  Whit followed.

  “So you’re saying you’re not sure the girls are inside,” Sheriff Ryan tried to clarify.

  “We found indications that they descended the cliff, but then the storm hit and we made for shelter inside of the building,” Butch explained.

  “Braverman, Martin, scout out the area to see if an automobile has been parked here. The kidnapper could have just used this as a place to hide his vehicle. I’d hurry before the rain obliterates any evidence.”

  Tom headed in one direction, Whit the other. Mia waited for the sheriff to get to her. She didn’t have long to wait. He motioned for her to meet him just inside the door of the hospital and asked for the two deputies to stay outside. “So, what’s your story?”

  “Best guess is that there is one human involved, a big one by the size of the prints I found. He is being helped by some nasty entities, powerful creatures. Why he took all the girls? I don’t know, but it’s the little girls he wants. I expect Melanie is only alive as long as she is compliant.”

  “Which is not long. How many compliant teenage girls do you know?”

  “If she witnessed what they did to Rita, she may be in shock, and thus will follow blindly.”

  “Was it bad?”

  Mia took time to describe the scene to the sheriff. “I think that we are outgunned here.”

  “Still we have to try,” he said, giving Mia an encouraging look.

  Mia smiled and took a deep breath. “Um, those two I was with, better stay outside.” She stopped, realizing she was being bossy, and amended, “I would suggest leaving them outside. They could be on the lookout for anyone trying to escape as we search the building.”

  “You think that they would be more of a hindrance than a help?”

  “Do you want to explain what an invisible entity can do to them? They can’t shoot it. We would be wasting time explaining things that you and your men already know about. Also, I think June’s a fainter.”

  He nodded. There was the noise of an approaching vehicle. He opened the door to see the PEEPs vehicle arrive. “Well now, there’s some help we can use.”

  Mia smiled and gave a silent attaboy to Ted.

  John Ryan looked over at Mia and his two returning deputies. He motioned for Butch and June to join him under the shelter Ted had erected between the PEEPS truck and the building. It was noisy under the rain-pelted plastic, but at least they were all dry.

  “This is Ted Martin for those who don’t know him. He is an expert on communication and in aiding us to see in the dark. We have to search this building. It is large, old and dangerous. It makes the most sense that the kidnapper would have holed up here when the storm came upon us. The only
tracks we found led into this place not out. I am going to ask our Harbin County officers to guard the door and be on alert for anyone trying to exit this establishment. Ted will supply you with a com link. Deputy Alar, we are expecting another group of people from Ted’s investigation group. They are less than an hour out. Notify me as soon as they arrive. We will be splitting up in two groups. Whit and Tom will take the ground floor and below. I assume with this age of building there will be one, possibly two, lower levels. Mia and I will start with the second floor and work our way upwards. The plan of attack will be up the central staircase, searching first to the right. That finished, moving left. Whit, I leave it up to you how you and Tom handle the lower levels. Ted will handle the communications. Keep the chatter off the coms, people.”

  Mia grabbed Whit’s arm and drew him aside. “Murphy’s going with you.” Whit started to protest, but Mia shushed him. “You and Tom can’t see what Murphy and I see.”

  “Are you sure he’ll go with us? From my experience Murphy will want to protect you, and I think that is the better use of him. Hell, I want to be there for you.”

  Mia touched his face briefly before speaking, “I know. I’ll be fine with the sheriff. He’s got my back, and I have his.” Mia pointed into the truck. “Ted will set you up with an IR camcorder for you to see into the dark. The range isn’t good, so depend on Murphy to take the lead.”

  “We have no choice, I guess. I’m under orders, and you, well, you are amazing.”

  Mia’s face brightened. “Why thank you, that’s quite a compliment coming from a law enforcement professional.”

  Whit smiled, letting the stress ease out of him. He followed Mia to the command center and watched as Ted handed her an earpiece. He stifled his jealousy as he watched how comfortable Mia was with Ted touching her while he set her up with multiple gadgets. He, however, could not ignore how Ted’s eyes lingered on Mia’s face when he handed her the backpack sans Murphy’s axe head.

  “You’re sure?” Ted asked.