by David Wong
And then I saw the gathering crowd, onlookers on the other side of the fence—every one of them armed—with the exact same expression on their face. Two sides of a mirror, the same ideas dawning on both sides.
The fence was broken.
The sentry guns were not working.
Everything had changed.
Shots were fired. We plunged into the darkness of the trees, we scrambled across the muddy ditch, we emerged from the other side and ran for BB’s.
Assuming that BB’s is even still there …
It was. And this time, we didn’t even care where the magical shitter door spat us out, as long as it wasn’t here. If the door wasn’t working, if the network of interdimensional wormholes or whatever they were had been shut down by the shadowy fuckers in charge of all of this, then we were dead. We would be torn apart by the mob.
We tumbled into the bathroom and pulled the door closed. A gunshot punched a hole in the door right as the door did its thing and then, we were tumbling—
* * *
It was a baffling sensation. The whole world turned, like we were on an amusement park ride. I fell on top of John, both of us suddenly flat on our backs. The door that had been in front of us was now on top of us, we were looking up at it. I got a leg untangled from John and kicked the door. I was looking up at an overcast sky. I pulled myself out and realized I was emerging from the ground, like a vampire rising from his coffin after sundown. Boards and bricks and broken glass covered the grass around me. I climbed out, and looming above me was the old Ffirth Asylum. There was a huge hole in the wall, the debris of which was scattered all around me. We had teleported less than half a mile away. We were alone for the moment, but could hear the shouts of the mob down the street.
I stumbled out onto the wreckage and John emerged behind me. He stared down at the hole we had come from, confused, and then closed the door I had thrown open. I saw that the door and its frame were in fact laying loose on the ground, flung aside when the blast destroyed the wall. When John picked up the door again, underneath was just dead grass.
John said, “Shit, I left my shotgun shells back at the Caddie.”
I took a breath and said, “Look … you remember when we watched Star Wars with Amy? And she’s like, ‘Why is Princess Leia being such a bitch when those guys just rescued her?’ Well I don’t want to be the Leia in this situation and I completely appreciate what a sweet ramp job that was back there. But did you have any kind of a plan at all?”
“I’m working on it.”
“Because time is running out here…”
John was looking up at the old building, staring hard at the mossy brick walls.
I said, “What?”
“I took some Soy Sauce earlier.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. And I came by here.”
“Okay…”
“And … there were shadows here.”
I followed his gaze. The rows of windows in the moldy brick were boarded over with ancient, warped plywood. It kind of made it seem like the building had cataracts. I saw no shadow people.
I said, “Do you see any now?”
“No.”
He turned and saw something else, though, and said, “Here,” handing me the green mystery box. He jogged away from me, heading for the corner of the building. I spotted the ass of an RV parked there. I followed him. Faint shouts from the armed mob were growing louder.
“John! What are you—”
My words died at the sight of bloodstained grass surrounding the loose earth of a huge, freshly filled-in hole. Like a mass grave. John pulled out his ridiculous customized shotgun (he had it wedged down the back of his pants) and ducked into the RV. The windshield was busted out and when I followed John through the driver’s-side door, I saw that the tan upholstery of the driver’s seat was one big bloodstain.
Christ.
Leading with the shotgun, John quickly searched the inside. There were rows of hooks on the opposite wall that it took me a moment to realize were gun racks, all of which were now empty. John started throwing open foot lockers and found them stocked with at least four different types of ammunition.
“Bingo,” he said, stuffing his pockets with shotgun shells. “See? Things have a way of working out. We needed shells, and here they are.”
I looked around. On the floor was a busted laptop computer. At the very back, the floor was damp and it smelled like piss. There didn’t seem to be anything of use here other than the bullets—
I froze.
“Oh, no. Oh, fuck no. No, no, no…”
John joined me and said, “What? I think these were…” but his words trailed off. He saw what I saw.
Two objects, that a man in denial could have dismissed as meaningless: a mostly empty tub of red licorice, and an orthopedic pillow designed for people with back problems.
Amy.
It really only told me what I already knew. She’d come for me, because that’s who she was, and she’d find a way in, because she was too capable not to.
John glanced nervously out of a side window. The mob would wash in at any moment. He was saying, “Okay, we don’t know this was hers. And even if it was, we do know that isn’t her blood in the driver’s seat. Amy can’t drive…” but I was already jumping out of the RV. Outside, I immediately I saw another, smaller bloodstain, this one in the grass in front of an open basement window. Laying in it was a single empty shoe. A man’s.
I said, “Amy got somebody to give her a ride in. So they pulled up, something nasty came flying out of that window down there, and they killed the shit out of it. Look—next to the window. Spent shotgun shell. Maybe it got the driver first. Then the rest of the posse in the RV, and Amy if she was with them, they bail out and go inside. Probably in there right now. Then a hobo came along and pissed in the RV.”
“Dave, why would they—”
Ignoring him, I leaned my head down toward the basement window and yelled, “AMY! HEY! AMY? IT’S DAVE.” Nothing. “ANYBODY? IS THERE ANYBODY IN THERE?”
A shot was fired. A bullet took a chip out of the wall. We ducked and John grabbed my sleeve, yanking me around the corner, toward the front door. Neither one of us had to debate the merits of getting down and crawling through that basement window. That violated two rules of living in Undisclosed: 1) never put yourself in a spot where you don’t have an open, and fast, means of escape, and 2) don’t go through any entrance that has a huge goddamned bloodstain in front of it.
We reached the front door and John said, “Plug your ears.” He pointed the shotgun at the locks on the front door and blew a grapefruit-sized hole in the wood. We pushed our way inside.
105 Minutes Until the Aerial Bombing of Undisclosed
It appeared the feds left behind anything that would take more than five minutes to load onto a truck. Boxes of medical supplies and biohazard suits and filters for biohazard suits and every other thing lined the main hallway, abandoned in the evacuation. Halogen work lamps were set up on stands here and there, a few of them still on, blasting bluish beams through the shadows of the huge corpse of a building. We pushed the front door closed and dragged a huge metal cabinet in front of it.
Out of breath, I said, “We could have relocked that door but somebody blew a hole in it.”
“I’m sorry, princess.”
“And by the way, those shotgun shells in the RV? They weren’t there waiting for us because a guardian angel dropped them from the sky because you needed help. They were there because somebody else, somebody who believed in being prepared, paid for them with their own money. Keep that in mind the next time you get yourself in a bind and somebody is there for you with bail money or a sofa to sleep on. It isn’t providence. It’s generous people who work hard jobs to buy things you can take.”
We were jogging down a main hallway now, heading deeper into the building. John said, “Search one of these crates. See if you can find some fucking antidepressants.”
“All right, all
right—”
“Seriously, it’s an emergency. I’ll cram them down the barrel of the gun and blow them right into your brain.”
We moved in silence for a moment and I said, “How did we screw this all up so badly, John?”
He shook his head. “We always find a way.”
We had to stop to climb over a knocked-over pile of plastic storage bins in the hall. I said, “Damn, the feds left in a hurry. They got overrun? By infected?”
“Not exactly. I told you Falconer had to spring me out of here, we had to blow a huge hole in the wall to do it. They had us in like a big gymnasium and we saw a couple of liquid oxygen tanks along the wall and we’re like, ‘Let’s blow that shit up and get the hell out of here.’ It worked but I guess in the confusion a bunch of the infected they were holding here got loose and they decided to just leave town and let the situation sort itself out.”
“Wait, you’re the reason the feds abandoned ship? Jesus, John.”
“Well I feel like it’s their fault for trying to hold me. They should have known that shit comes with consequences.”
John clicked three shells into his ridiculous tri-barreled shotgun, glancing nervously back toward the front doors. Nobody came crashing through. Wait, was the armed, angry mob scared to come in here? That couldn’t be a good fucking sign.
“AMY? ANYBODY?”
Echoes bounced off moldy walls. The building seemed five times bigger on the inside. It had the tangled floor plan common to all hospitals, seemingly designed by someone who believed in the healing power of watching confused visitors aimlessly wander around hallways. It didn’t help that all signage in the place had faded, or been stolen, or painted over with graffiti. We came to a “T” in the hall.
I said, “Which way?”
“When I was here earlier I—HEY!”
John took off running to his right. I followed, the heavy green mystery box banging off my legs as I ran. I considered dropping the stupid thing.
“What? What did you see? John!”
We skidded to a stop at the end of the hall.
“I saw somebody.”
“Was it a … person?”
He shook his head, in a way that meant he didn’t know.
“Are you sure you saw them?”
“Is that an elevator?” It was. Down at the end of the hall. The doors were closed. “Probably no power to it though, right?”
I said, “I think you might be wrong. I rode in it. They had me down in the basement for a while.”
“They did? You didn’t tell me that. What’s down there? Surely nothing worth complaining about, or else you would have brought it up by now.”
“Don’t know. They had me knocked out the whole time and then put a bag on my head when they hauled me out to go to quarantine. I don’t want to shake your faith in government but I’m thinking this REPER is kind of a shady operation. Find the stairs.”
There was no need to debate getting on the elevator, thanks to rule number one I mentioned just a moment ago. You get on one of those things, and you’re sealed up and somebody else is controlling where you go. All of these rules were learned from terrible experience.
John said, “Boom. Stairs. Right over there.”
We jogged toward the stairwell door and at the exact moment John’s hand grabbed the handle, the elevator dinged behind us. We heard the doors slide open.
From behind us, a tiny voice said, “Walt?”
90 Minutes Until the Aerial Bombing of Undisclosed
I very nearly pissed my pants. John saw the look on my face and spun around with the shotgun. He led the way, and we inched toward the now-open elevator. Inside was a little girl. Long, black, straight hair. She wore a filthy nightgown.
John said, “Holy shit. What are you doing here?”
I said, “John, back up…”
The little girl looked at me and said, “Don’t be scared.”
“Anna?”
She nodded.
John said, “You know her?”
“Don’t lower the gun, John.”
“Do you want to hold it? I’m not pointing a shotgun at a toddler.”
Anna said, “Why are there so many holes on that gun?”
I said, “What do you want?”
“I can take you to see Amy.”
“Is she here?”
Anna nodded, silently.
John and I exchanged a look.
Quietly, he said, “Okay, I admit she’s pretty creepy.”
I whispered, “Man, if this was a horror movie the audience would be screaming for us to get the fuck out of here.”
“Well, they’d be thinking it. They wouldn’t scream it unless they were bla—”
“She’s downstairs,” interrupted Anna. “Your dog is here, too. Get in.”
John said, “Uh, no. If we go down, we take the stairs.”
Anna shook her head. “There are no lights in the stairs. We should stay away from the dark.”
I swallowed and said, “Because of the shadow man.”
She nodded. John whispered, “Jesus Christ.”
To John, I said, “I’m gonna leave it up to you.”
He clearly had no idea. This was so obviously a trap. And we so obviously had nowhere else to go.
John asked Anna, “Where is she? What floor?”
“The second basement. Mr. Bear is down there, keeping a lookout.”
“Okay, and is Mr. Bear a—”
“It’s a stuffed bear,” I said, answering for her.
“Right.” John said to me, “We do it this way. You wait here. For two minutes. I’m taking the stairs. If there is something waiting for us, I’ll find out how it likes buckshot. Then you head down on the elevator and I’ll meet you there. Then if she, uh, attacks you, you only have to last for two floors. Against a toddler.”
Anna said, “I think we should all ride together.”
John was already heading to the stairs. I took a breath, steeled myself, and stepped into the elevator with Anna. I hovered my finger over the “B2” button, and counted to a hundred. I braced myself for the sound of shotgun blasts, or screams, or anything.
Nothing.
I hit the button.
The door closed.
Anna stood to my left, motionless, looking forward the way people do on elevators. The elevator rumbled and we were heading down, and down. A tiny, soft, warm hand curled around mine. I looked down at Anna and she smiled up at me.
We jolted to a stop.
The light went off.
The little fingers squeezed around mine. I slapped at the door and yelled, “JOHN! HEY!”
No answer. Anna’s hand squeezed tighter. Strong. Too strong.
I punched buttons on the panel. Nothing. I kicked at the door. I tried to pull my hand away from Anna’s grip and I couldn’t.
The fingers changed. I felt them melt under my grip, fusing together, becoming something like a snake or a tentacle—
* * *
The light blinked on. I wheeled on Anna and she was just a little girl with little girl hands.
She said, “The lights do that sometimes.”
I stared hard at her. Her eyes were the picture of innocence. The door opened, and John was there, aiming a shotgun at my face.
I said, “Don’t shoot. The, uh, light went off. We all clear here?”
“Yeah.”
Anna led the way out of the elevator, stopping to pick up a teddy bear that looked like it had been bought and sold in three different garage sales over twenty years. She clutched it and headed down the hall.
* * *
I recognized the corridor and the rust-pitted steel doors, and the smell of shit. I followed Anna and John followed me. He had the shotgun by his ear, aimed at the ceiling, trying to look in every direction at once.
We turned a corner, passing more doors. We reached the end of the hall and a bullet-riddled maintenance door that had been barricaded from this side, metal bars laid over it with fresh welds locking t
hem in place. There were empty bags of cement and masonry tools scattered around the hall, and I wondered if on the other side of that door I would find a steam tunnel sealed with fresh brick and concrete.
Anna turned left, down another hall. Then it was through a doorway marked ANNEX, which opened to an impossibly long hallway that seemed too long for the building. We headed down, our footsteps echoing endlessly in both directions. The walls were covered with a faded mural, depicting huge, smiling faces that may have been clowns or mimes. Time and moisture had peeled the paint in patches, so that huge swaths of the colorful landscape were corroded and eaten away, the smiling inhabitants unaware that the very fabric of their world was crumbling. Graffiti artists had painted signatures and anarchy signs and cocks. Along the wall to my left, in huge letters, was the phrase:
THE END IS NOT NEAR
IT HAS ALREADY HAPPENED
WE JUST DIDN’T CARE
Anna looked back and me, and smiled. Invisible ants raced up my back.
I glanced back at John and saw on his face that he had already realized that what was up there, whatever it was, was not Amy. What was up there was bad news, and it was only a matter of how we would deal with it. We were not in control of the situation. We were never in control. The last of the working emergency lights was only halfway down the hall, and the light faded long before we reached the end. Our own echoes followed us down, and down, into the darkness. Anna slowed down and I once again felt the tiny, warm hand in mine. We walked together and at the end of the dark hall I could see a closed door, with light pouring from the bottom. Just like people describe in near-death experiences—the long passage with a door of light at the end.
“Amy is in there,” whispered Anna. And in that moment, I decided that this was probably right, but not in a literal way. Whatever was waiting behind that door was, almost certainly, the quickest way to see Amy. Or at least, to join her, if there is no such thing as seeing in that place.