“All right.”
“No flames present.”
“No smoke either.”
“Correct. No visible damage to the interior or exterior of the case. Except the label, of course.”
“No smoke damage to the immediate surroundings,” Chloe added, inspecting the underside of the shelf.
“No visible damage or change to the rum, even though it’s highly flammable.”
“I’m at a total loss of words,” she laughingly admitted.
“I know what you mean. Physics just flew out the window.”
“I wonder if…,” Chloe began as she stepped out from between the rows of shelving.
“You wonder what?” Armada inquired, trailing behind her.
“Well,” she thought, peering at row after row of shelving, “if we’re to go by outward appearances only, we can then safely assume that the phenomenon affected all of the cases on this first aisle in the exact same manner. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“So the question now becomes,” Chloe stated, walking to the next aisle, “did the phenomenon affect all of the cases in the warehouse? Or … is this restricted and confined to a specific form of alcohol or section of the warehouse?”
“Hmm,” Armada hummed, glancing down the aisle. “How about we go through each aisle, making sure that every box has been scorched, and we’ll randomly select a carton and inspect its interior and bottle conditions.”
“Oooh, I like that idea,” she cooed.
“All right then, after you.”
They joined hands and slowly strolled up and down every aisle in the expansive storehouse. The sleuths carefully eyed every shelf and the exterior condition of the boxes. Chloe chose one case from both sides of each aisle to undergo examination. One by one the cardboard boxes chosen for inspection yielded the same results as the first. Finally, after more than a couple of hours of investigation, they reached the last shelving unit.
“Well, that wasn’t very productive,” Armada sorrowfully stated.
They turned toward the warehouse entrance and walked silently, still hand in hand.
“Man! I’m burning up!” Armada admitted while unzipping his body suit.
He casually peeled it off his shoulders and pulled out his arms, exposing his tight fitting, ribbed undershirt. The upper half of the one-piece suit hung down from his waist, inside out, with the sleeves dragging the floor. Chloe discreetly allowed her eyes to wander over his well-defined chest and biceps. She felt her heart begin to race as small beads of perspiration suddenly appeared on her forehead; she could smell him. As if she had inhaled a cloud of pure ether, Chloe felt lightheaded and couldn’t resist the urge to smile.
“What’s with you?” he asked, taking a quick glance. “You’re all flushed. You feeling all right?”
“Sure … I’m great,” she fibbed, turning away from him. “I’m probably just overwhelmed with all that’s happened today.”
Chloe then fanned herself and partially lowered the zipper on her suit, revealing the plunging neckline of her undershirt. She then turned her head back toward Armada and noticed that one of the strips of medical tape on his shoulder had come off.
“Hey, hold on,” she said, gently grasping his left arm. “The tape on your shoulder has come loose.”
Unable to resist the urge and desire to touch him, Chloe firmly pressed her body against Armada while repairing the patch. They both closed their eyes as she tenderly wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her cheek on his back. He slowly raised his hands to meet hers and they silently, instinctively, interlaced their fingers.
‘Is this what love is supposed to feel like?’ she quietly and contentedly asked herself as she listened to his heart beating.
“I feel … like … a complete idiot!” Armada declared, shattering the mood.
“What?” she asked, withdrawing her body. “Why?”
“Something’s missing.”
“What? What’s missing?”
“Correct me if I’m wrong here, but … did we, or did we not, open any cases of wine?”
He turned to face her and placed his hands on his hips.
“Um…,” she began, turning toward one of the shelving units. “You know, I don’t … no, no we didn’t come across any wine.”
“It’s pretty warm in here, dontcha think?”
“Yeah, so?”
“This is all distilled alcohol. Even though it’s boxed up, changes in light and temperature won’t have a detrimental effect on this stuff, at least not like it does on beer, and even more so on wine.”
“So you think we’ve overlooked something? Or not in the right place?”
“Oh, yeah. They’d put all that in something where they can control the temperature, like with the frozen food.”
“Sooo….”
“Sooo … now we need to find another walk-in, but for wine.”
“Ugh! I’m starving!” she gruffly stated. “Promise me we’ll find something to eat after this.”
“I promise,” he answered sympathetically.
He draped his left arm across her neck and shoulder.
“You know that thing did this, don’t you?” she asked, reaching up to play with his dangling fingers.
“Thing? What thing?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. That thing that brought us here in the first place. That thing you talk to. It did this … all of it.”
“Oh, that thing.”
She pinched his love handles as he drew her in and kissed her head.
“I don’t believe it!” she bluntly stated, stopping in her tracks.
“Believe what?”
Chloe shrugged her shoulders and held out her arm. “Hello? We walked right past it!”
There, adjacent to the wrought iron gate to the warehouse, was a shiny, wide, stainless steel door with a large sign above it that simply read CELLAR in large red letters.
Chloe slowly twisted her head and offered Armada a snooty smirk.
“Shut up!” he said with a strong hip check that knocked her off balance.
“Oh, yeah?” she responded, and retaliated by again jumping on his back.
This time, Chloe didn’t taunt or agitate him, nor did she tickle or pinch. She firmly encircled his neck, gently squeezed her legs around his hips, and relished the feel of his strong hands on her hamstrings as he carried her a la piggyback. The sensation of being enveloped by Chloe was intensely invigorating and stimulating. Armada began to sweat profusely; he could feel the pounding of his heart all the way up to his temples.
“Here we are,” he jovially announced. “The wine cellar. What’s the thermostat set for?”
He spun to his right, giving Chloe a better view of the gauge.
“Sixty-six degrees,” she replied.
“Okay; now, grab the handle.”
Chloe let go of his neck with her right arm and reached out and gripped the handle tightly before Armada backed away from the mammoth door.
“Ugh!” she grunted, straining against the weight and vacuumed seal of the door. “It’s heavy!”
The rubber gasket finally gave way and the couple happily entered.
“Wow! That’s cold!” Chloe declared after dismounting Armada and immediately pulled her zipper all the way up to the collar.
“Whoa! Temperature spike!” he stated and briskly put his suit on.
The temperature-controlled wine warehouse was every bit as impressive as the liquor house, but surpassed it in style and amenities.
“Do you smell anything unusual?” he asked as they approached the first rack of wooden crates.
“No, not yet.”
Unlike the liquor warehouse, the wooden crates of wine were segregated by country, regions, appellation, and varietal.
“Okay, I’m smart, but foreign languages wasn’t one of my applications,” Chloe informed Armada as they diligently perused the boxes. “I can’t tell you one thing about this stuff other than that one is from Chile … and th
at one … is from Argentina.”
“Well, as of now I’m not so concerned with what’s what and from where and who made it. What I’m looking for is evidence of our flameless, smokeless fire. And … thus far … I see no such evidence.”
While they initially began their second investigation with an up close and thorough examination of each shelf of wooden crates, that process soon eroded into a brisk walk up each aisle with a mere glance at one or two selections.
“Okay, I don’t see any reason to think that the wine cellar experienced the same phenomenon as the warehouse,” Chloe confidently stated. “Do you concur?”
“Visually, on the exterior, yes, I agree. But just to confirm this hypothesis, let’s pick out one crate, open it up, and see if any of the labeling is scorched. Okay?”
“Fine by me. Which one?”
“I don’t care, doesn’t matter to me. I’ve never had the stuff. You pick.”
“All right,” she agreed and turned the corner on the aisle with a nameplate of ‘France’ affixed to the frame.
She looked up and down the racks on both sides of the aisle and came to rest in front of a collection of wooden boxes.
“This one,” she proudly stated, pointing at the near chest-high stack of crates.
“Chateau Margaux, 1999,” Armada read aloud. “Why this one?”
“I don’t know; I guess I just like the way the name and picture is burnt into the wood.”
“Okay then. One side, please.”
Armada removed the case of wine from the stack, then hefted it up to his shoulder.
“Let’s go,” he said as he took her hand.
Chloe grabbed a mallet and pry bar that hung from a wall near the door as they exited and headed for the bar.
Armada gently placed the case of Chateau Margaux on the end of the counter. Chloe rounded the end of the long, smooth, black granite topped bar and took a seat in the first chair. She curled her legs up underneath her and leaned over on her elbows to watch Armada open the case. He firmly pressed the tip of the pry bar under one corner of the cover, then grabbed the mallet and struck the end a couple of times. With the bar now adequately wedged under the lid, he pressed down on the opposite end.
The top of the case popped loose with the greatest of ease.
After a shifty stir of his eyes, Armada quickly removed the cover and announced, “Ta da!”
Inside the wooden box there lay six bottles of wine, individually wrapped in tissue paper adorned with the Chateau Margaux name and picture of the charming French landmark.
“Looks nice,” Chloe commented as she reached in and grabbed a bottle. “Any smoke damage?”
He flipped the top of the crate over and inspected its underside. “Nope. Nothing here.”
He, too, then grabbed a bottle of the rare and expensive wine. “Any damage to the tissue paper?”
“No … not that I can tell.”
Like impatient children at a birthday party, they ripped away the flimsy wrapper but afterwards paused for a moment to examine and appreciate the elegant and sophisticated design of the label.
“Wow. I don’t even know what it is I’m looking at, but … I like it. I mean … it just looks … good.”
“I know,” Chloe said, smiling, as she turned the bottle in her hands. “There’s something about it I can’t explain. I wonder if this tastes better than your hundred-fifty Dabarci bat stuff.”
“I don’t know, we…,” Armada started to say, but stopped in midsentence.
Chloe watched him as he gazed intensely at the bottle.
“Come on! Bring the bottle!” he loudly commanded. “Hurry!”
He tightly gripped Chloe’s wrist and tugged on her arm, nearly yanking her off the stool as he came out from behind the bar.
“Hurry where?”
“Don’t ask questions, just come on!”
He pulled her back through the liquor warehouse gate to the ‘Cellar’ door.
“Okay, follow me on this! Oh, this is great!” he exclaimed, lunging forward to kiss her. “You said it! You said it!”
“Okay! I said it! Great! What? Tell me!”
“All right, all right,” Armada stammered, trying to calm down. “Okay, a while ago you said that thing did this. All right. So we tried to drink that … hundred bats stuff and it tasted like crap! It hurt! Right?”
“Yeah, so…?”
“Don’t you get it? This stuff here in our hands and this stuff in the cellar, we haven’t drank it yet!”
With her mouth agape, Chloe stared at him, impatiently waiting for a clearer explanation.
“Augh!” he grunted. “Let me explain it another way. This morning, right before we came down the hall to our room and the atrium, the orb thing blocked us from entering the other corridor by expanding itself. Remember? It was a warning to not use those elevators. Right? Remember?”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, hopping about. “I get it! It’s burning the labels to warn us about the liquor!”
“Yeah!” he ecstatically replied, wrapping her in his arms.
He lifted Chloe off the floor with an exuberant bear hug and swung her from side to side as they laughed.
“Oooh! I wanna check something,” he stated and promptly lowered her. “Follow me.”
They exited the liquor warehouse, passed through the bar, dashed across the cocktail lounge, and sped down the wide hallway toward the atrium and commons.
“Hey!” Chloe hollered. “What’s the rush? Where are we going?”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Armada quipped as he turned to face her while jogging backwards. “I need to test my theory.”
As soon as they arrived at the commons, Armada made a beeline for the kitchen and food services facilities. With Chloe hot on his heels, he barely opened the door that led to the dry goods storehouse. He paused, extended his arm, and felt the wall for the light switch.
“What’re you doing? Just open the door.”
“Okay,” he said, blindly fishing for the light switch. “If I’m correct in my thinking, we should expect to see something amazing!”
“Ah. There it is,” he said, landing his fingers on the control plate and flipped the switch.
“Oh, c’mon! Just open the stupid door already!” she demanded and began tugging on both Armada and the door.
She playfully wedged herself between him and the door frame and used her back and legs to force it open.
While Chloe was first to enter the dry goods storehouse, it was Armada who noticed the visible changes.
“Yes!” he shouted victoriously. “Yes! I knew it!”
CHAPTER 26
ENCOUNTER
Chloe stood in the middle of the walkway, mesmerized with their discovery and its ramifications.
“This is … this is…,” Armada stuttered with glee. “I’m gonna check the freezers!”
He leaned in, gave her a peck on the lips, and set his bottle of wine on a nearby prep table.
“Wow! Man, oh man!” he bellowed before running in the direction of the walk-in freezers.
Chloe remained unmoved.
‘How could this be?’ she silently asked herself.
Row after row, shelf upon shelf, charred and blackened labels appeared. The truly astounding aspect of the sight was that the scorched boxes and cans were interspersed amongst containers that appeared to be in perfect condition.
“Yes!” Armada yelled as he exited the first freezer. “It’s in the freezers! Chloe! Woo-hoo!”
She slightly sniffed the air and identified the same scent of burning rubber. Glancing up at the lights, she saw no signs of smoke. Backing away from the shelving units, she also placed her bottle of wine on the stainless steel prep table.
“It’s in the second freezer, too!” she heard him shout.
He ran to Chloe, scooped her in his arms, and spun around and around.
“I was right!” he excitedly announced. “It’s trying to communicate with us.”
Chloe remained si
lent as he set her down.
“Let’s check out a box!”
Armada darted to the closest shelving unit, one with a nameplate that read ‘Breakfast, Cereals, and Grains.’ He briskly scanned the fronts of the boxes, then hollered out, “Found one!”
After tearing away the plastic shrink-wrapping material, he pulled out one case and zipped back to the prep table. He carelessly plopped the cardboard box on the table and struggled to read the partially blackened label. “Kellogg’s Pop … Pop … oh, well, doesn’t necessarily matter anyhow.”
Chloe stood at the end of the table with her head down and fixed her gaze on the floor.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Armada asked, stepping beside her.
Chloe buried her face in her hands and wept. He embraced her and stroked the back of her head and neck.
“Augh!” she sobbed into his chest. “I’m tired! I’m hungry! I’m confused! I don’t understand what’s happening and why! I don’t understand what that … thing wants from us!”
“Ssshhh,” he softly hissed, patting her back. “We’re gonna be just fine. You’ll see. Maybe that thing is helping us to … to … learn more and help others like us. Mark my words, you and I are getting outta here.”
He placed his finger under her chin and tenderly pulled her face up.
“I promise you,” he reassured her, smiling, “I’m never leaving you, and we’re gonna leave this place.”
“Promise?” she squeaked with red, teary eyes.
“I promise. I won’t ever make you a promise I can’t keep.”
He kissed her forehead and gave her one final squeeze.
“Now let’s check out the box, grab some supplies, then we’ll go back to the room. Deal?”
“Deal.”
He broke his embrace and turned his attention to the cardboard box. Chloe wiped her eyes and joined him at his side. Armada peeled off one flap of the case and extracted a small box.
“Ah-ha!” he said, holding the box directly in front of her nose. “See? I told you. It’s trying to communicate with us.”
She laughed and pushed the blackened box of pastries away from her face.
“Thank you,” he loudly stated, looking up. “I don’t know if you’re listening or not, but … thank you … whoever you are.”
Xn Page 28