The Melting

by Christopher Coleman

  Jones still doesn’t meet my stare, despite the telepathic shouts I’m hurling in his direction, and instead presses two fingers on top of Smalley’s forearm. She snaps her head towards him, meeting his gaze, and Jones tips his head in the direction of the door, pauses for a moment, and then nods back to her. He then touches his chest and dips his chin in the direction of the clicking heels.

  Smalley blinks a couple times and then nods, a gesture that says she’s deciphered the charade and is ready to go. Her face is serious, focused, and for the first time since our original encounter at the Clam Bake, I see the soldier in her.

  Finally, I wave a hand low, and get their attention, and I flip up my hands. What about me? But Jones only holds up a hand and shakes me off, and then points to the floor, telling me to stay put.

  I’m offended at first by the snub, particularly after the heroic acts I performed inside the grocery store and at the gift store of the Clam Bake. I can hold my own. If it wasn’t for me, in fact, we’d all be dead now, massacred by the horde at the entrance of Gray’s Grocery.

  But that’s a pointless position for me to take now. It’s not a contest to see who’s been a bigger badass, it’s about continuing to survive. And Jones and Smalley seem better suited to lead that endeavor at the moment. I can feel the calmness coming from them both. They seem to be in their environment, hunkered down in wait while the enemy paces around us, silently sending codes to one another, having already formed a plan before I’ve even been acknowledged.

  I mouth the word “Okay,” and then Jones puts his hand against my right hip and presses, moving me to the side, out of the way. He crouches forward, taking my place under the desk, and then holds up three fingers above his head, making sure to keep it below the height of the desk. I look back and see that Smalley is fixed on his fingers.

  “What are we going to do, Spence? Maybe we should call in the airlift. They’ll want us to do that. We have to go tell them. Maybe they can get us out of here today instead. I mean they’ll want to leave, right? If someone is here, inside—if they’re inside—we have to get out.”

  “Stop talking!” Spence snaps. The voice is right in front of us, just on the other side of the desk, slightly past where the three of us are stooped, hidden.

  I look back to Jones, his three fingers still frozen above him. And then the three fingers become two. Then one.

  When the last finger falls and the hand becomes a closed fist, Smalley, still crouched, takes two steps toward the edge of the desk that’s closest to the interior steel door where the three D&W workers emerged. And then she rises up.

  Simultaneously, Jones explodes to his feet, almost causing me to shriek at the force of the motion. There’s not a single muscle twitch wasted in the movement, and within seconds, the man called Spence, recently promoted by D&W upper-management, is lying flat on his back atop the reception desk. Jones is hovering above him, his arm wrapped tightly around his neck.

  Concurrent with Jones’ attack, I hear the shrieks of the two women, presumably from the sight of Smalley appearing in a dash from behind the desk. But the two shrieks become one almost instantly, as the first scream is replaced by the sound of colliding bodies.

  There’s too much happening for me to stay put, and against Jones’ command, I follow Smalley’s path from behind the desk. I clear the view of the desk and can now see the result of the collision sound. One of the women is lying on the ground about six feet from Smalley, and Smalley has wedged her body between the steel door and the jamb.

  The second woman is standing about ten feet away from the door and is backing up slowly toward the front entrance, rotating her look between Jones, Smalley, and now me.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Spence asks, the crook of Jones’ arm around his neck severely limiting the clarity of his voice.

  Jones ignores the question. “Dominic, get behind her. Don’t let her leave.”

  I quickly run past the startled woman and position myself between her and the open glass façade. But it seems unnecessary at the moment. The woman is stunned, and she gives no indication that she plans to flee.

  “She’s not going anywhere,” Spence says. “Where is she going to go? She wouldn’t make it three hours out there.”

  “We have to get back inside,” the woman on the floor says, her voice teetering on panic, now recognizing their vulnerability. “We’re not secure anymore. We can’t stay here.”

  “Who are you,” Spence repeats. “What are you doing here? This is a private, legal business. You have no right to be here.” He squirms, kicking his feet out, testing Jones’ grip. But the soldier squeezes tighter, gagging the man, locking him down tighter in the bend of his elbow, using it like the jaws of a vise.

  Spence tries to speak again, and this time, Jones pulls him fully over the top of the desk and down to the floor. They both disappear from view, and for a moment, all we can hear are the violent sounds of a scuffle.

  In a matter of moments, Jones rises back to his feet, and then a second later, he raises his clenched fist and brings Spence up in front of him by the back collar of his shirt. There’s a small pistol in Jones’ hand now; the barrel of it is slanted up in the direction of Spence’s skull.

  “Wasn’t expecting this prize at the end?” Jones says. “It’s a good thing too, because I probably would have gone with a different strategy.”

  Jones looks over at Smalley for the first time since the plan unfolded and smiles weakly. “Thank god. You got there in time. Something tells me Mr. Spencer here would have died before giving us the code.”

  “Damn right I would.” Spence replies, and there’s nothing in his tone to suggest he’s lying.

  “Please don’t hurt us.” It’s the woman who Smalley shoved to the floor. She’s now on her feet, holding her left arm at the bicep. “We didn’t have anything to do with...whatever happened. We just work here. It was—”

  “Shut up, Pam,” Spence interrupts, but the command lacks energy and authority.

  “You didn’t have anything to do with what?” I ask.

  Pam averts her eyes from Spence. “What happened here. The experiment.”

  “Shut up!”

  “They know, Spence. They’re here. They wouldn’t be here if they didn’t know.”

  “What else?” Jones asks. “How far does it go? Is it everywhere? Is it the world?”

  “God no,” the woman answers. Her voice is a whisper. “The world?”

  I can see the genuine confusion in the woman’s eyes, the disbelief that we’re that out of touch with what’s happening.

  “Why would you think that? Is that what they told you?”

  It is what they told us, of course. The early radio broadcasts said the world was a frozen ball of ice now. But it was obviously just part of it, part of the whole plan to keep us contained. Stella, Tom, Danielle and I had floated that theory, that it was part of the experiment, and now I know it’s true. Thank God. There’s hope.

  I think of my other group again, whom I’m now certain are dead, but I shake the thought away, trying to stay focused.

  “How are you alive?” the other woman, the one I’m guarding from leaving, asks. “How could you be alive still living out there? They’re everywhere now.”

  “How do you know that?” Smalley asks. “How do you know what’s out there? I thought you couldn’t survive for three hours out there. How do you know what’s happening then?”

  She shakes her head, bewildered by the question. “I see them when we leave the cordon. We all see them.”

  “You leave?”

  Again, a head shake of puzzlement. “Of course we leave? Did you think we lived here?”

  “Goddamn it, Sydney,” Spence says, the words spitting out through tightly gritted teeth. He’s apparently re-energized and resuming his authority over the women. “If you say another fucking word, I will—”

  “You’re not gonna do a goddamn thing!” Smalley interrupts, pointing a finger of warning at Spence, who, with th
e muzzle of a pistol currently resting against his head, is in no position to argue.

  “How do you leave?” Smalley asks calmly. “I don’t see any cars out there. You have some kind of limo service that comes and picks you up?”

  “The airlift,” Jones says. “She mentioned an airlift a minute ago. They must have a helicopter come in. Is that it?”

  The woman nods. “Yes.”

  “Christ,” I say. “So how does that work exactly? You have a landing pad on the roof?”

  “No. Inside.”

  “Inside? Inside the building? You mean the roof opens up?”

  The woman nods again.

  “Jesus, who the hell owns this place?”

  “Nameless and faceless, that’s who. Like I said, we just work here. You have to believe us, we had no idea what was going on with the experiment. Not really.”

  “I’m getting very tired of hearing that.”

  “So the airlift isn’t coming today. When’s the next one?”

  “It’s supposed to be Wednesday,” Pam answers. “But sometimes they come a day early, sometimes a day late.”

  I look at Jones and Smalley, and I can tell instantly they’re having the same confused reaction that I am. “What day is today?” I ask.

  Pam frowns and looks away, embarrassed, ashamed at the suffering that she, if not the direct cause of, has at least played some role in administering. “Tuesday,” she says.

  “Looks like we have some time to kill then,” Smalley says, and then clicks her head up toward the front entrance of the building. “And we certainly can’t hang around here. Check it.”

  I turn around slowly, and in the fraction of a second it takes for my vision to span the vast expanse of the lobby toward the building’s front door, two crabs have crawled through the gaping holes where two glass doors used to be. The bloody streaks left by the shards of glass are already apparent on their heads and torsos, even from this distance, so stark white are their bodies.

  Two more crabs climb up behind the first two, entering with the same careless aggression, slowly but unceasing in their advancement.

  “Oh my god!” Sydney yells. “Oh my god, it’s them.” This sentence starts as a murmur, and then it crescendos with each word that follows. “They’re inside. We have to shoot them!”

  Jones frowns and keeps the gun pointed at Spence, but I can see a hint of concern steadily growing on his face. “They’re too far away. It would be a waste of ammo.”

  “As I was saying,” Smalley chimes in, “maybe now would be a good time to go have a look around.” She throws a look over her shoulder. “Back there.”

  I agree and begin walking back to the interior door where Smalley stands ready to go. I corral Sydney on the way, forcing her to move with me. Pam needs no motivation to go in the same direction and is already next to Smalley, waiting for the rest of us.

  “Let’s go,” Jones says, walking Spence from around the reception desk, his hand still gripped tightly on the back collar of the man’s shirt. They take the wide route to get to the door, exiting the confines of the reception desk on the side opposite where the interior door is located and walking around to the front. As they reach the midsection of the desk, about halfway to the door, Spence thrusts his shoulders forward and bucks his head like a horse, and in less than half a second, he has easily broken free of Jones’ grasp and is making a run for it, away from us and toward the oncoming crabs.

  “Hey!” Jones calls, and then takes a few instinctive steps in pursuit. But after three or four paces he stops abruptly, seeming to grasp the inanity of chasing.

  “Spence, no!” Pam commands. “What are you doing?” The last cry is that of a lover. Or perhaps of someone who wishes to be. I study her face as I approach the door, her age and features, and the match with Spence suddenly makes sense.

  Spence stops a little past the halfway point between us and the front entrance, which is just about far enough away that he no longer fears being shot. He then turns back, staring, first at Pam, and then at Jones. The crabs are still thirty yards or so away from him and, at the moment, still plodding forward, not quite attacking.

  “We’re not going to hurt you, Spence,” I call. “We just wanted answers. That’s why we’re here. The people here have destroyed a lot of lives, mine included. We just want to know what happened. Why it happened. And how to leave this place and get back to life.”

  Spence bows his head and puts his hand at the back of his neck. It’s a movement that signals both guilt and exhaustion. He lifts his head and stares at me. “I know. I know that’s what you want. And I can’t give it to you. Not the answers and not the escape plan.”

  “Who then?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I can’t stay. If I’m here when she finds out what happened, she’ll have me killed. One of them will.”

  “Killed?”

  Spence shrugs. “It’s my job to keep this place secure. To keep any internals out. The breach of the lobby is one thing, that’s not entirely within my control. But the labs, that’s something else.”

  Spence seems to be making an indirect plea for us to let the door close, to spare him the consequences that will come from allowing us to get inside. But that will never happen. We’re entering the lab area whether it means his death or not.

  “Who are you talking about?” I ask. “If you’re leaving anyway, then just tell us.” But Spence has said his peace. He turns and looks back to the crabs again, measuring their distance from him, calculating how long he has until he makes his ultimate getaway. He’s got another minute or two it seems; the white ghosts continue their desultory throng of the lobby, unconcerned with the unfolding of our drama. But I’ve seen it several times now—the escalation to madness can happen in an instant.

  I look from Spence to Pam and repeat my question. “Who is he talking about?”

  “Mrs. Wyeth,” Pam says.

  “Who is that?”

  “She’s the supervising manager of the lab—kind of like the CEO of this place. She’s been gone since the blast. Everyone thought she was dead. Everyone thought she got caught up in the blast.”

  “And you kept working anyway? You kept coming in?”

  “We kept getting orders. The airlifts in and out continued. Companies don’t stop operating just because the boss dies.”

  It’s not an exact analogy, but I let it go. “Who gives these orders?”

  “The colonel. And others. People above him, I guess.”

  “Nameless and Faceless?” I ask.

  “Exactly.”

  “And now she’s here? This Wyeth woman? Where was she all this time?”

  “We still don’t know. She just showed up yesterday. Walked in like it was a typical weekday morning, coffee in hand, barking orders.”

  “Spence said she would kill him. Is that true?”

  “I don’t know anything about that. I don’t know why he said that. The people who run this place are pretty uptight, military types, but I’ve never seen or heard anyone being treated inhumanely” Pam’s voice is nervous now, like she’s about ready for the conversation to end as well.

  “No? What about the thousands of people that were turned into monsters by this company? And then were prevented from leaving by armies at the borders. Does any of that count as inhumane?”

  “Leave her alone,” Sydney says quietly, uneasily. “She didn’t do anything?”

  “What kind of company is this? What kind of company produces weapons that kill innocent people? And whose management kills people that don’t do their job?”

  “Welcome to D&W,” Sydney says with a nervous laugh, and then immediately begins to cry.

  I look back to the entrance of the D&W building and watch as Spence begins his run to freedom. He takes a wide berth, nearly brushing up against the far wall of the lobby, and then sprints toward the shattered opening of the glass doorway. He steers clear of the crabs, passing them like he’s returning a punt in a college bowl game as he goes, dodging each of th
em easily before reaching the passage and exiting through the empty frame. Some of the white ghosts give a passive look as he flees, but they make no move to catch him. They’re halfway through the lobby now and advancing.

  I look back to Pam, whom I’ve decided is the more knowledgeable of the two women, the more experienced worker at D&W. “So what, you make chemicals here? Is that it? Is that what changed normal people into that?”

  Pam closes her eyes and cups her hands around her mouth, sliding them down her chin and joining them in a praying position. “Look, we don’t work on the chemical side of things. Sydney and I are IT; we just keep the computers running. I’ve been here four years and Sydney was brought on a little over a year ago. We started hiring to prepare for some big event, and Syd and I were kept on as the emergency staff. Triple pay.”

  I can see that Pam regrets stating the last part of her bio, as it lumps her in with the leaders that caused this. Greed, always the motivator. She bows her head and sighs. “Anyway, yeah.”

  “What about Spence?” I ask.

  “He’s the...was the floor manager. But I swear to god, we didn’t know what was coming. We didn’t know about the snow and the...destruction.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “I swear. We knew as much as we needed to keep the systems going, and we saw things we probably shouldn’t have—of course, but that’s the nature of the job. But we’re not like the doctors here. The scientists. They’re...” Pam’s voice cracks and she shakes off the rest of her sentence.

  “I would advise that you not let yourselves off the hook that easily. You are a part of this. You are responsible. Keeping the computers up keeps the process going. And that does contribute to the destruction. You said you saw things, and you’ve already admitted that you know about the monstrosity that occurred out there. While you’ve been seeing these things from your comfortable charter flights in and out of hell for the past few months, we’ve been living it.” My voice is as close to yelling as possible without actually being classified as such.