by D Haltinner
Darren’s stomach tightened and tried to heave.
He slid the section of glass back in place and pushed Audrey away from the cabinet, guiding her along the added wall. Her breathing was fast and her body tense, but she seemed to have her emotions controlled as they tried to take over her.
“Why would someone do that?” she said as they passed a long desk with a series of scales and beakers-a half dozen filled with a green liquid.
“I don’t have a clue,” Darren said.
“This place seems almost like a sort of science lab,” she said, her eyes lingering on a desk with a pair of computers sitting side by side upon it. “But that was more like Ed Gein’s version of science."
“There’s a chance they donated their bodies to science.”
“Yeah, right, for something like that?”
“I don’t know,” Darren said. “I don’t have a clue why someone would do that or how it could have anything to do with the void. We must be missing something.”
“I’m not so sure we are.”
“I don’t understand.”
“What if it has nothing to do with the void?” Audrey said. “What if this is some science lab the professors made, but only because they already had this space here? What if this is something separate than the whole deal with the void?”
“I guess it’s possible.”
“I think this place is someone else’s problem, not ours.”
“How could this not be ours?”
“Instinct,” Audrey said as if that answered everything. “My gut tells me that this isn’t related to the void. It’s important, but not for us.”
“For who then?”
Audrey shook her head.
“That doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Darren said.
“Either does that,” Audrey said, stopping and pointing ahead along the wall.
“What?” But then Darren saw it.
A door. A standard door like found in a house, with a gold colored knob and painted to match the drywall.
“I suppose that’s how we get to the other half of the room,” Darren said.
“Yes, but there’s more,” Audrey said.
“What?”
Audrey twisted her penlight in her hand and shut it off. “Turn your light off.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
Darren shrugged and flipped his Barney light off, leaving them standing in darkness with a pair of corpses on display behind them.
There was still light in the room. It was dim, like a match trying to light the entire room, but it was coming from underneath the door.
“Someone’s in there,” Audrey said, her voice now at a whisper.
Chapter 49
“How can you be sure?” Darren asked.
“Shh” Audrey said, swatting at him. “Keep your voice down, we don’t want them to hear us out here.”
“I think they would have heard us already,” Darren said at a whisper anyways.
“Well, let’s just be safe.”
“Fine by me, but who are we trying to prevent from hearing us?”
“I don’t know.”
“Either do I.”
“But someone’s in here,” Audrey said. “Why else would the light be on?”
Darren looked over at Audrey in the darkness, not seeing anything more that a glare off of her eyes and a hard to distinguish silhouette. “Do you think we should find out?”
“What are you suggesting?”
“That we crack the door open and see what’s going on in there.”
“What if they see us though?”
“I think we need to take the risk to find out who’s down here,” Darren said.
“I guess,” Audrey said. “But how will that help us anyway?”
“Maybe they’ll know something.”
“You plan on asking them?”
“I don’t know. Let’s just take a peek, maybe the room’s empty.”
“Fine, but you’re going first.”
“Okay by me.”
Darren reached out for Audrey’s hand, bumping the side of her hip bone before she grabbed his. She squeezed his hand tight, her skin slick against the sweat still forming on his palm. Darren led them in the dark toward the closed door, tucking his flashlight into his jacket’s pocket when they neared the line of light cast into the darkness.
“Read?” Darren asked when he reached out for the door handle, grasping the cold metal in his free palm.
“Yeah,” Audrey said at a whisper.
“Here goes.” Darren turned the handle as slow as he could so that he didn’t risk a single noise. The knob hit its limit, and Darren pushed the door inward.
The light blinded Darren at first as it spilled out of the growing crack between the door and its frame. He squinted, keeping his eyes focused on the light to force his eyes to adjust. Shapes began to come into focus-bookcases around the wall, a few desks side by side at the edge of view. As Darren pushed his head in further, he saw a line of whiteboards splitting the room in half, but he couldn’t see what was past it.
A light hum droned from inside. At first, Darren thought it might have been the fluorescent bulbs on the ceiling, but it sounded more like a microwave than a bad light bulb.
“See anything?” Audrey said from behind him.
Darren turned his head over his shoulder. “Not yet,” he said. “Come on.”
Darren stepped through the door with Audrey close behind him. They let the door stay open an inch or so as not to risk the latch clicking into place being heard by anyone who might be on the other side of the line of white boards. Darren gestured for Audrey to follow him, and led her to a gap between the wall and the last of the boards.
The whiteboards were suspended from the ceiling on rollers riding along a long pipe that stretched across the room. They were attached to another railing on the ground that kept them offset so they could all be moved to one side of the room. The surfaces of the boards were mottled by colored stains from markers past, some of the writing spelling out long chemical formulas and other mathematical work.
“I wonder what tha-” Audrey started to say, but a shrill beep caused her mouth to snap shut and her hand to clamp down on Darren’s.
The sound ended as quickly as it started, but now the hum was gone along with it. There was a thunk, followed by what sounded like a small door slamming.
“It is a microwave,” Darren said so quiet that he couldn’t hear himself.
“What?” Audrey said, her hand growing tighter by the second.
“A microwave.”
Audrey’s face went from confusion to near shock in two seconds.
Darren held his finger up to his lips, and then moved as slow as he could to the edge of the whiteboards, pulling his hand free from Audrey and positioning himself to block her. He leaned his head into the opening, and then pulled it back so fast that he felt his neck strain to stop the momentum of his head.
“What is it?” Audrey asked.
Darren looked over his shoulder at her. “There are people there.”
“What are they doing? How many?”
Darren inched his head back to the opening and peered into that half of the room.
Four people sat at a long table surrounded by oak chairs. A fifth man walked back to the table from a small kitchen area built into the far corner where a microwave sat on the counter top.
Each of the people at the table was looking over a pile of papers in their hands, reading in silence. Darren recognized one of the faces as the architecture professor, Lasser, and one of them as Jack’s father. The other faces were a mystery.
Audrey’s hand slid onto Darren’s shoulder, and he felt her weight shifting to it as she leaned around him to see for herself. She let out a light gasp, but made no other sound as her hand tightened on Darren’s shoulder.
“Have you all had a chance to read it?” The man walking back from the microwave said. Grey, curly hair covered his head, looking more like a
mop than actual hair. He carried a large plastic coffee mug in one hand, trying to push the cover onto it with the other hand.
Mumbles came from the other sitting around the table.
“These two are getting in the way, and we need to do something,” the man said. “And we need to do it now before it’s too late.”
“But Kurt,” Jack’s father said. “I really don’t think they are trying to hurt our efforts. They’re just kids, and they don’t know what the scope of this really is.”
Darren looked to Audrey, locking eyes for a moment. He wondered if the men were talking about him and Audrey.
“We know what you think,” the man, Kurt, said. “We told you before to get your own son to knock it off, and look how well that worked.”
Professor Coleman’s eyes dropped to the table in front of him.
“We’re meeting to decide what to do with those two before they cause a problem,” Kurt said. “Scaring them off didn’t work, so we’re going to have to be more drastic.” He set his cup on the table and leaned on it with both hands.
“Why not let them keep it up?” A balding man with a thinning comb-over said. His neck twitched as he spoke. “Let them end up like that first kid, whatever his name was.”
“That is an option,” Kurt said. “Mr. Embers and I discussed that earlier, but we both believe that these two are too smart for that. We aren’t so sure they will venture into the darkness on their own.”
“Could we lure them in?” The architecture professor asked.
“Perhaps,” Kurt said.
“Why not barricade the hatches? We’ve been meaning to do it anyways, so why not do it now?” Coleman asked. “They can’t interfere if they can’t find a way down into the tunnel.”
“It’s not the time,” Kurt said. “Blackburn designed the tunnels to ensure easy access to the entire campus for when this occurred-now and in forty four. We are going to need that access ourselves the next two days to do what we need to.”
“I hate to suggest it,” the balding man said. “But if you really think they are that much of a risk, we should find an excuse to get them arrested before they can cause a problem. It wouldn’t take long for them to get released, but it would keep them away for awhile and make them think twice about coming back into the tunnels again.”
“It is an option,” Kurt said. “But unless we tell the police about the tunnels, the kids will be able to hide down here.”
“The answer is clear,” the man at the end of the table said. He was a burly man, his wide shoulders growing wider as he crossed his arms in front of him. “We kill them.”
“That’s a bit extreme,” Coleman said.
“You only say that because one of them is your own son who you could not control yourself,” the man said.
Audrey’s hand relaxed on Darren’s shoulder, she must have also realized that there was something amiss about the man’s statement. If they knew that there were only two of them exploring the tunnels, then they should have also known that Jack had been probably killed by the thing in the void. There was some piece of information these men were missing.
“I could force my kid in the car and drive him to Alaska myself,” Coleman said. “That would be easier than killing him.”
“We all know the consequences if we allow these two to interfere before Tuesday,” the man said.
“We do, so you don’t have to remind me of how important it is,” Coleman said. “But I don’t think we need to go to that extreme. There are much safer and easier options than killing anyone.”
“He’s right,” Kurt said. “No one will be killing anyone. If Tuesday comes and those two are still causing problems, we may have to rethink that, but I don’t think it will go that far.”
“I have a suggestion,” professor Lasser said. “We need to stop these two, no matter what, but not limit ourselves at the same time, right?”
Nods went around the table.
“Then I suggest that we kidnap the two, and keep them under lock and key ourselves until Tuesday.”
“The police will have a field day with that one,” the burly man said.
“I don’t think the police will be much of an issue after Tuesday.”
“I suppose not.”
“It’s only two nights. I think we can handle it. There could be potential consequences afterwards, but the consequences of them interfering could be worse.”
Kurt nodded, and a couple other heads joined in.
“I agree,” Kurt said. “I think having them under our control will be the safest option.”
“I am also in agreement,” the balding man said.
“Me too,” Coleman said with a sigh.
Kurt looked at the burly man. “Any other objections we should discuss?”
The man shook his head.
“Good,” Kurt said. “We’re in agreement. But which one of us will volunteer to take care of the preparations?”
Professor Lasser raised his hand. “I know of a place to put them.”
Kurt nodded and looked to Coleman. “I know it may be hard for you, but I think it would be easiest if it was you who took care of getting them there.”
Coleman nodded. “I’d rather do it in than leave my son in someone else’s hands.”
“Alright,” Kurt said. “That part is settled.”
“I already set a flag on their ID cards to notify me of their position at all times,” the balding man said. “It’s a pity that we don’t have the students scan their cards to enter the open buildings, but we can at least know when they return to their dorm rooms. We can send Coleman there to collect them.”
Kurt nodded. “Good idea,” he said. “You have flags set for both Coleman and Ansari?”
The man nodded.
Audrey’s hand disappeared from Darren’s shoulder as she stood back up straight.
Darren looked back at her. She had a puzzled expression on her face that caused her nostrils to flare.
“Why didn’t they say my name?” she said at a whisper.
“I don’t know,” Darren said. “I guess they don’t know about you.”
“How could they not know about me?”
Darren shrugged. “I guess-”
A thunk from the table stole Darren’s attention. He leaned back around the whiteboard to see.
Coleman had stood up from the table and pushed his chair in hard. “Is that the end of the meeting yet?”
“I believe we have a lot more to discuss,” Kurt said, standing up straight. “We’ve waited for years for this time to come. We still have a lot of preparations to make.”
“Well, fill me in later then,” Coleman said, turning from the table.
“We’re all a part of this,” Kurt said.
“I know that,” Coleman said, facing away from the table, standing still. “But I don’t believe you need my voice to discuss things.”
“No I suppose we don’t.”
Coleman left the table without another word, moving to the far corner. A steel ladder was bolted to the wall, reaching up to a gap in the ceiling that Darren assumed led to a hatch into the science building above them. Coleman climbed the ladder and disappeared.
“Sometimes I wish we didn’t need him,” Kurt said.
Muttered agreements came from around the table.
“At least now we can get some real work done,” Kurt said as he walked around the table.
“We already plotted the darkness’s growth, but there seemed to have been a peak in strength last night.”
“Last night?” The balding man said.
Kurt nodded.
“That means all our calculations are ruined!” the balding man said. “We need to adjust them all to correct for the unexpected growth.”
“I assumed as much, so I left the formulas on the white boards,” Kurt said, turning to the board Darren and Audrey hid behind.
Darren yanked his head back when all the faces turned toward them. He wasn’t sure if they spotted him, but they couldn
’t take the risk.
“Go, now!” Darren said to Audrey.
Audrey spun without question and ran toward the door they entered from. Darren followed at her heel, hoping beyond hope that none of the men had noticed him.
Audrey swung the door open, not caring if she made noise by the carelessness she used, and ran through with Darren behind her. Darren left the door open and followed her into the darkness.
“Here!” Darren said, pointing to a desk along the wall.
He helped Audrey to the ground and into the space below the center drawer before slipping himself along side of the desk, out of view of the doorway. The room was lit in a dim glow from the open door, making the furniture easy to see in the darkness, but still dark enough to hide in.
Audrey’s breathing was fast and shallow, echoing out from below the desk, and at the moment the light dimmed even further, her breathing stopped. Darren sat in silence, trying to keep his own lungs as still as he could as his heart pounded away.
The shadow of a man spread across the floor, but Darren didn’t dare risk moving when he could see who cast the shadow. The silhouette stood still for a moment, then shrank as the man moved further into the room.
Chapter 50
Darren’s heart raced. He wanted to reach around the desk to take Audrey’s hand-in order to comfort himself or her, he wasn’t sure-but if the man was moving further into the room, he might see Darren’s arm in the dim light that the open door cast into the room.
The men’s plan of kidnapping Darren and Jack-?-would have to be exchanged for something much more confrontational if the men found Darren and Audrey before they could get away. But they’d have to catch the pair first, and by the thickness of the dust on the tunnels’ floor, it had been years since these men-if ever-have been in the tunnels, which should give the couple an advantage.