by Martin Kee
“Father Thomas, I think you misunderstood me,” she said, bracing her foot against the wall, just out of sight of the guards.
“What? How—”
“I meant difficult for you,” she said, lunging at the startled man.
She tackled the priest in his chair, knocking it backwards and into the shadows behind him. They fell through together as she clutched him to her. All around them the machine howled with metallic rage.
This time, John really did scream.
*
Laura stared at the backs of confused guards as they all peered into an empty room. It had to be an illusion, she thought. The wall panel must have been opened just enough for her to squeeze through. But the chamber… the chamber was empty now.
Nobody walks through walls. She then thought about what Skyla had said about the girl-shaped doorway, the severed finger.
Laura gasped. “I’m an idiot,” she said aloud.
“It doesn’t matter now,” Pall stumbled over to her. “The mains are all offline. The machine is a loose cannon now.”
She shook herself out of her stupor and looked at the man. “All of them?”
He nodded. “All the safeguards went down. It’s acting on its own now.”
“But without the controls it will just consume all the available fuel at once. It—” She cut herself off with a gasp. “It’ll consume fuel too fast. The true vacuum will—”
“Relax,” he said. “They were only down for a second. I’m trying to bring them up now.” Pall smirked.
God, how she wanted to slap that smirk off his face.
Her sudden anger at the man was interrupted when one of the guards shuddered. She turned just in time to see him implode, the hydrogen atoms in his body collapsing simultaneously. It wasn’t a clean burn either; the man’s chest caved in, crumpling him from the inside out, like a tin can. He flickered as his body compressed into a singular point, containing the mass of a two hundred pound man in armor.
The singularity, composed of mostly hydrogen atoms fusing together, emitted a light so intense it seemed to engulf her entire universe. She screamed as her retinas burned with the heat of a star. A hand grabbed her arm. Laura was being pulled backwards, out of the room. All she saw was darkness.
“I’m blind,” she said matter-of-factly. “I… I’m blind… Pall?” She reached out and felt his hands met hers.
“I know,” Pall said in her ear. “I guess it finally paid off for me to look at you when you talk.”
She wanted to simultaneously slap and hug the man. They shuffled down the corridor as klaxons, gunshots and screams echoed through the lab. Something brushed past her leg. It had the feel of wet fur. She froze.
“Pall what was that?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “The emergency lights are faulty… making crazy shadows everywhere.”
Laura thought of the other thing Skyla said before they forced her into the theater to kill a priest.
At least nothing got in this time.
“Oh dear,” she said.
*
Harold heard chaos. Blind and scared, the urge to open his eyes was unbearable. He turned towards his daughter’s voice. Just one look, he thought.
“Don’t,” she said. “You can’t look at them. Do you understand?”
“I want to see you.”
“No, Daddy,” she said, her voice small and shy. “Trust me. You don’t.”
Outside in the dark pink light of the hall, something crashed and splintered. There was more yelling and Harold thought he heard a scream pass from left to right as if the person were being thrown. A low wet gurgle flowed through the hallway, a sound that no human could make.
“Why can’t I see you?” he found himself speaking with his dad-voice. “I’m your father, Melissa. I—”
“You won’t see me the way you remember me,” she said. It was coming from the back of his skull. “You’ll see me as I was when they found me. Please, Daddy, if you want to remember me, don’t look at me.”
Harold squeezed his eyes shut. Gansworth was sobbing in long gasps nearby.
“Grab my arm Arthur.”
A shaky hand gripped his sleeve. He’s just a kid, thought Harold. God, I’ve gone and made a mess.
Had Harold been the same man he was a month ago, he would have found a way to dismiss everything he was experiencing as his imagination: the voice, the sounds of chittering insects coming from the hallway, the rattle of violence, and footsteps that weren’t human in the dark. All of it fell well outside his field of belief.
But then there was his daughter, Melissa, drifting through his mind like a warm breath. It was unmistakably her. Or perhaps he had finally gone over the edge. Harold considered the possibility for an instant and then decided that he no longer cared.
“Melissa, can you lead us out?”
“Put your hand on the wall,” she said, her voice as close as it was when he was once tucking her into bed. “Now follow.”
He did as he was told and something gripped his other sleeve, small and fragile. Images of walking Melissa to school flooded his mind, how that tiny hand would disappear in his own. Wetness bled through the cloth. It was cold.
“Who are you talking to?” Gansworth asked.
“My daughter,” he said.
“I thought she was dead.”
“She is,” he said. “Now just stay with me, and don’t open your eyes.”
“Umm… sir,” said the boy. “What if I have already?”
Harold froze. “Then close them again and try to just forget everything you’ve seen.”
Gansworth’s trembling hand squeezed his sleeve tighter.
He reached the door and realized the table had been moved completely out of the way. Small gasps from Gansworth told him that the boy was stealing glances at what was going on.
“Don’t look at any of it,” he said again.
They were led down a hallway. Harold kicked something soft. Afterward, he would remember it as a body. Cool, wet air swirled around his ankles like wet reeds as shouts and dull thumps echoed through the dim halls. A gunshot made him jump, followed by a rasping cry from somewhere behind him.
“Sir, I think—”
“Not now Gansworth.”
“But sir!”
“What is it?”
“Isn’t that the Reverend Summers?”
Harold’s eyes flew open, red with rage. He caught a glimpse of a white pant leg as someone ducked around a corner and down a hallway. He released Melissa’s hand, but she didn’t release his. It was a soft, wet vice.
“Don’t go!” she pleaded. He did his best not to look at her.
“But that’s—”
“Father don’t!” she screamed and her voice was raspy and hoarse. A chill crept up his spine.
He continued to focus on the place where Summers had gone off to. “But that’s the Reverend Summers!” he yelled, frustration welling inside him.
“Who?” she asked.
“The Reverend Summers,” he snarled. “The Pope of the South, the man in white, the bringer of wars, the—”
“So what?” she cried.
“But he killed you!” Harold wailed. All around them, things crawled and slithered between shadows. A guard fell and Harold thought he saw the man sink into the floor as tentacles pulled him twitching into solid matter.
“No he didn’t,” she said, confusion in her wet, gurgling voice.
A cold thrill ran to the pit of Harold’s stomach. He turned slowly to look at his daughter. She looked every bit as horrible as he had imagined in the photo. She was a parody of the walking dead, a sallow dripping mess of decayed and twisted skin. He stared into a vacant eye socket.
“Wh—what?” he gasped, the gun trembling in his hand.
“He didn’t kill me,” she said. “He was in the same room, he was asking the questions, but he didn’t do this.” There was no need to point out what “this” was. Her whole body was a testament to the treatment she had recei
ved.
“Who, then?” he asked. “Who? Tell me.”
She stood silently and Harold realized that she was looking at something over his shoulder. The withered corpse of his daughter began to shake. He turned and watched as a group of men filed out of a door, armed guards surrounding them in a circle. The man in the center stared at him indifferently, jowls dangling over a cream and red robe. The archbishop did not know Harold, but he knew his daughter. He knew her intimately well.
Harold stared as the archbishop looked around at the collapsing walls and ceiling, surrounded by an army. His mind raced. How could he get to him? He kept looking at the guards, their rifles raised.
One fired at something in the shadows. A line of black shadow shot out from a wall, spearing him. The archbishop jumped back as the soldier slid to the floor. Harold raised the gun, shaking as he tried to keep the archbishop in sight.
But the shadows closed in, obscuring his view. A vast, moving wall of black mottled flesh emerged from one side of the hallway, a walking nightmare of thorns and legs. It looked at Harold for a moment with voids for eyes, then lumbered past, through a wall.
When it was gone, so were the archbishop and his guards.
The gun fell to Harold’s side and rattled to the floor. A tiny, decomposed hand took his. “Let’s go, Daddy.”
Chapter 42
For John it was a lot like being physically born. There was pressure all around him, bearing down from every angle. He squeezed his eyes closed, fearing that they might pop from his skull. Something wet and warm dripped on the side of his neck and he decided that his ear was bleeding. A similar sensation occurred above his upper lip. He tasted copper.
“Just a little farther,” said Skyla in his mind.
“I’m coming apart.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m trying to find a way through”
“Okay…” He paused. “What does it look like?”
Talking about it seemed to make it hurt less. Something bumped his calf and he thought it might have been the chair.
“Nothing,” she said.
“That’s vague.”
“No I mean it,” she said. “It’s not even empty space. It’s just nothing.”
He was in a vacuum, but not a physical one. John felt that he had to constantly remind himself who he was, what he was, in order to keep his very mind from dissipating into the void.
“Can’t you get us out the way you got us in?”
“I… I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never done this before. I don’t know where to go. It hurts.”
“You’re telling me… Look, Skyla. Just go to the safest place you can think of. Somewhere close. This is killing me… probably killing us both.”
He inadvertently moved his feet and realized in horror that he appeared to be dangling. His stomach flipped as he imagined himself hanging from a tall cliff. The word nothing took on a new gravity in his mind.
Then there was silence. Slowly, John opened his eyes. They stood in a darkened room, in front of a lavishly decorated bed. Ornate, well-crafted furniture sat untouched, covered with a fine layer of dust.
“Where are we?” he said, sticking a finger into his ear. It came back bloody.
“This was my mother’s room,” she said, still holding his hand.
John took a step and recoiled. He had stepped on something soft, reminding him of the soaked cigarette butt in Skyla’s house. He reached down and winced.
“Is that—”
Skyla kicked the piece of finger with her shoe. “Yeah,” she held up her bandaged finger. “I guess we pushed it through. There goes my career as a concert pianist.” She smiled dryly.
Outside the door were the sounds of men screaming, dying. The klaxon continued to squawk at whoever would listen to it, while other, smaller creatures scurried by the door on sharp claws, ill-equipped for walking on tile. A gunshot made him jump.
“How safe are we in here?”
“I think it may be the safest room in the lab,” she said, looking around.
A flash of light lit the space under the door, so bright it looked like a lightning storm. It faded and the door flew open. A man rushed in, wearing a white suit. The Reverend Lyle Summers turned and froze with his back against the door. His normally white clothes were smoking.
“Hello again,” he said, dusting off his suit. “I suppose that’s one advantage of wearing white.”
Skyla scowled.
John wanted to do something, hit the man maybe, but he could only lean against the wall, exhausted. All he had the strength for was glowering at Lyle with every fiber of his being.
Lyle stepped across the room and pulled up a chair. “What?” He sat, crossed his legs and lit a cigarette. He exhaled like a man listening to a thunderstorm outside his cabin.
It was strange looking at him through the goggles. Skyla saw his hand leave trails as different possible Lyles all smoked in unison. Another Lyle stayed at the door, shaking.
“You did this,” she said to him.
He turned and looked at her. “This? No. I am but a proprietor of this lab. A facilitator, if you will.”
“That machine,” she said. “It eats people’s souls doesn’t it?”
“Oh, that.” He took another drag. “Well technically it runs on a type of fuel. But if it makes you feel better, sure it eats souls. That’s like saying a car eats coal, but whatever.”
“What is it then?” John asked. “How can we stop it?”
“You can’t,” said Lyle. “It’s designed to stay running. It will feed until its stores are full, and then it will stop. Of course, with the power to the failsafe cut, that might not be an option anymore.” He shrugged.
“So it will just keep killing people?” Skyla said. There was a loud pop from somewhere down the hallway as another person—an inmate maybe—imploded, into a tiny dying black hole and vanished with a burst of radiation.
“Yup,” he said, no longer looking at her.
John finally erupted. “How can you just sit there like that while people die?”
Lyle turned to face him, cigarette hanging from his mouth. “What do you propose I do, Father Thomas? Run out waving my Bible and rally the troops? Throw money at it?” He spat blood and wiped his mouth. “That machine is a generator, designed to be a self contained power source. It was made by men smarter than you or I. Probably too smart if you ask me.”
They stood there as Lyle finished his cigarette.
“How do you live with yourself?” John asked finally.
Lyle gave him an amused look. “Why, I live with myself very well, John. How about you?”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“What do you mean, Father Thomas? At least I know what I am selling people. At least I have the common sense to know what is theater and what is real. And reality is outside that door, Father.”
“I’m talking about Melissa. The Montegut girl,” he said.
“Ah,” Lyle looked pensively at the door. “What about her?”
“You want me to spit it out here in front of Skyla?”
Skyla tugged on John’s sleeve. “What about Missy?”
A look of surprise filled Lyle’s expression. “John, you never told her?”
“Tell me what?” Skyla said.
“No…” John said. “Why don’t you?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Lyle said innocently. John wondered if he had enough strength to strangle the man.
“Tell her how you killed Melissa.”
“What?” Skyla shrieked and leveled her gaze on The Reverend Summers.
She peered into his shadow, rage growing in her chest. A murderer! She knew she hated him for a reason. And her best friend! If she could have she would have killed—
“He didn’t kill her,” she said, surprised at hearing herself say it. “That isn’t to say that he didn’t have anything to do with it.” She squinted. “He was there.”
“He didn’t?” John’s glance went from her to
Lyle and back again.
“No,” said Lyle, “I’m afraid the fine art of Catholic interrogation was never one I had much use for, Father Thomas. I don’t like having blood on my hands, same with dirt. It stains the skin and the soul.”
Lyle took another puff. “I prefer to watch.”
“Melissa’s dead?” Skyla was saying it again, unable to fully believe the words.
John gave her a sad look. “I’m sorry you had to find out this way.”
“Oh, I believe that quite a few of the people you love are gone,” Lyle said to her. “Let’s see,” he started counting off on his fingers. “There’s Melissa, we all know about her. Your mother is gone, your aunt—”
“Rhia’s dead?” Skyla gasped.
“I never said that,” Lyle said. “But I’d be happy to show you where she is if you’ll give me a ride out of here.”
“A ride?”
“The same way you got in here.” He made a face. “Oh, don’t act coy with me. Rhia could do the same thing. You probably even came through the same tunnel, not that I can tell.”
Skyla looked behind her at the shifting void in the shape of a girl. She looked back at Lyle.
“How do we know you aren’t lying?” John asked him.
“You don’t,” said Lyle. “If you want, you can stick around and watch the entire lab get consumed. Roll the dice, see if your soul is the next to be devoured and stored in fuel cells.”
John blinked. “The gallery!” he shouted.
“The what?” Skyla said. Lyle scowled.
John turned to her.
“There’s a gallery,” John said. “Or that’s what I thought it was. There are pictures of people, their shadows aren’t right. It’s what I guess you see all the time.”
Skyla nodded, waiting for him to finish.
“Skyla, they aren’t pictures at all.”
“You’re a smart man, Father Thomas,” Lyle said. “But I doubt you are a brave enough man to leave this room to go there.”
John deflated slightly. “I doubt I could find the gallery from here. Everything looks the same.”
“I think you’ll find that the hallway has undergone some interior decorating since you last looked at it,” Lyle said, grinning.