by James Stubbs
The entrance to the vent, which I am certain is big enough to climb through, is covered by a grate and what’s left of the light housing. I raise up my right hand and grab onto the metal grate. The gaps in the grate are only enough to get my finger tips into but I’m strong enough to hold my weight like this. I start tearing at the light fitting, what was left of it at least, and throwing the rubble down into the water. It’s just the odd sheet of metal, two parts of a fluorescent light bulb, and a few damaged electrical terminals.
Once that’s gone I start tugging at the grate itself until that becomes dislodged from its housing too. I let that sink to the bottom of the flooded hall too and start pulling my way through the narrow and dark hole over my head. It takes some effort on some of my muscles that I don’t often use to pull myself through the small gap. I have to grip the sides of the vent housing in different ways and slide my torso in first. Now to wriggle my chest and shoulders to pull my body and legs through. Good thing the water helps me feel a little lighter.
Once my entire body is in and I’m feeling as calm as I can, the space began to feel just that little bit bigger and I can start to move through it. The gap I have created by pulling the grate down is more narrow than the shaft itself anyway. I can just about roll my shoulders to gain momentum.
It’s dark in the vent shaft and I have to feel my way around. The metal it is made out of is solid enough and doesn’t creak or groan as I expected it would when I began to move around. It doesn’t bow under my weight either which makes the mammoth task of getting around inside of it that small amount easier. All I can see ahead is a reflection of light cast through the water, reflecting up from the corridor below at the next grate in the section of the vent.
I make a b-line for it as fast as I can. Even though I’m out of the water and out of the cold, I still want this to be over. I’m only in an air bubble after all and eventually the oxygen will run low and breathing will become more and more difficult.
Chapter 17
Drowning
With as much effort as I can muster, I keep rolling my shoulders and shifting the weight of my body about my knees, and move forward. The surface of the vent is smooth but my disgusting leather apron sticks to it regardless.
Looking down through the grate in the next section of the vent immediately makes me feel less claustrophobic. But I almost throw up when I see the body floating in the water below. I hadn’t seen it before. Was it because I just frantically made it to the air pocket and then the vent afterwards? Or was it that the person had just drowned and floated down the desolate hall?
In the light that danced through the currents of water, I can make out the uniform. It’s a guard from the mine. No doubt about it. But before I can make any further assessment of it, the body of what I now realize to be a young woman, starts to convulse. She violently wretches back and forth, twisting from the middle down to her knees and back again. Her eyes spring open and immediately, with a deeply horrifyingly pleading look upon them, lock onto mine. Wide. Pale blue and scared.
I ball up my fist and immediately start slamming them down hard on the vent cover. I would have watched them die before. I killed them myself. But that was a different me. That me was gone. I killed him too. I was going to save her. Just like I was going to save Lucy.
With all the fury and passion inside of me I bang harder and harder upon the cold metal grate until it became dislodged and sunk to the bottom of the abandoned hall. I swing out an outstretched hand to the desperate girl and grab her palm with mine. I feel the life in her. I feel the struggle and the need in her. Just with that fraction of skin contact.
I can see her pain and her fear. I grip as hard as I can as the water fights hard against me and pull her slowly relaxing palm towards me.
I’m not strong enough. I feel, to my horror and hers, her grip relax completely around my tired and brittle fingers. Her body goes limp but I have just enough time to pull her head closer to mine.
I take in a long gulp of air and instinctively pushed my lips against hers and blew hard into her lungs. Something must have worked because she snaps out of it and starts convulsing again. No more time to think. I slide out of the vent and back into the oddly comforting embrace of the still warm water.
I grab the thrashing and scared body, pull it close to me and start to swim frantically down the hall. The effort is immense but I think the new me has a Hell of a lot more bravado than the old me. She is thin with a boyish frame. No curvy features but she was still pretty. I wish I could tell her to relax but I can’t. She’s fraught with panic and her body still thrashes around. I wish she would calm but instead she just keeps fighting.
It’s not helping. I finally reach the end of the hall where I come upon a locked door. The same spinning lock as all of the others held two partitions of a large cargo door locked together. My access card! I let go of her with one hand and calmly reach for it in my pocket. I hold it against the door and with a surge of relief it opens.
The water drains out from the flooded hall immediately and the current washes the two of us through the gap and out into safety.
I cough and splutter hard. So does the girl I have saved. But at least I have saved her.
Chapter 18
Lost
I’m breathing hard and in pain but I still stand right up and pull the frightened girl to her feet. She doesn’t seem right though. I guess that much is to be expected. She coughs harder than before to the point blood starts rushing from her mouth and nostrils. She wore the same uniform Lucy did. The same one I do. I’m getting some information out of her if she likes it or not. In a ritualistic return to form, in spite of the new man I want to be, I don’t even care if she is near death.
‘Why are you here?’ I bark at her insensitively. Almost threateningly.
‘You don’t get it do you?’ She asks hauntingly. With pale and wide eyes.
‘Are you here for me?’ I shout even louder this time. ‘I’m not going back!’ I reach out an accusatory finger to her and snarl through every word.
‘You can’t go back.’ I don’t have an answer this time. I don’t know what she means.
‘None of us can.’ She fills in for my absence. ‘Not from here.’ Her words send more shivers racing down my already aching and worn out spine. I still have nothing for her. I had no reply. No answer.
Water still gushes out from her mouth. Every time she speaks. But she stands relaxed and poised. Like nothing is wrong. Her skin is drenched with water, saturated and wrinkled like the surface of a date. I’m starting to get a sense of her. Of everything. But like Kolt before this, it’s a truth I want to ignore. Something I think I had realized some time ago. But one that I just can’t face yet. Not even now. Not even looking at her pale and dead skin. Her colorless complexion and lost distance in her eyes.
‘You just haven’t figured it out yet have you?’ The dead woman persists. I can only hope, even though I know even before the thought crosses my mind that the thought and the hope too was hollow, I could but hope anyway that this was another of the meaningless visions I have seen here. That excuse is starting to wear thin.
‘Then tell me?’ My attitude loses it’s edge immediately. I change from aggressive demands to pleas and begs.
‘Tell yourself.’ She says, smiles, and walks back through the now open doorway behind us. Back to the hallway I thought I had saved her from. I can see, now that the room had emptied of the water that filled it, the burst pipe atop the ceiling filling it once again. She moves beneath it and casts her eyes, her cold and fearless eyes, back to me for one final time. As the door closes between us I can see the faintest hint of a smile. As the door closes for her to relive her death over and over again. As a ghost, a specter or a poltergeist. Whatever term might best fit. And I still can’t deal with it.
I still can’t bring my conscious mind to accept what it, and I above it, already know to be true. A vision. It must have been. The concussion or the blood loss. And I ignore it like all the o
thers before it.
Drenched. Confused and miserable. But I’ve finally made it. The airlock door is behind me. And Lucy will be behind it. I trudge over to the access panel in the centre of the parting doors and hold my access card to it. But for the first time aboard the ship, it has no effect. I’m too confused, impatient and ill to bother trying to figure out what was wrong with it. So I just start hammering on the door with balled fists as hard as I can.
Lucy must have heard me. Because not long after did the door start to part from the join in the middle. And there she is stood as gorgeous as ever. I can see her through the second door of the airlock. And she looks, I am glad to see, as happy to see me as I am to see her. The old me would have fought the smile back. But the new me doesn’t want to. She waves at me and smiles as I half fall into the airlock and the door closes automatically behind me.
I start pulling at my dirty and wet apron until it finally comes apart and falls to the ground. My armor is torn and broken beneath it but I can’t stand to wear the cover all any longer. I try so hard to fight the pain back. But I can’t. I hope for the sake of it that there are some pain killers in here somewhere. I really need them right now.
Lucy comes over to the glass door that still remains locked as the air purifiers and jet sprays start to work. I can see the look of concern wore blankly on her face before I lower my eyes to the floor. I can’t look at her. Not when I look like this. I just about see her hands pressed against the glass as she crouches down to my balled up level. But I still don’t want to see her. Must be that new found bravado kicking in again.
I’m almost dreading the door opening. Dreading having to explain why I look such a mess to the woman that I curiously love. But I have to deal with it eventually. The incessant droning of the air purifier finally ceases and the water it has sprayed all over me has dried sufficiently. The door opens and I feel her soft, tough and gentle at the same time, hand on my back. I place my hand over hers and through the wincing pain I manage some kind of hello.
‘I’ll be alright in just a minute.’ I can hear the decibels in my voice lower as I cringe through the pain.
‘Honey, what’s wrong?’ That sweet voice. It almost fills me with energy just on it’s own. It’s nice to be called by a pet name. Even though that might just be in her nature. She might call everyone “honey”. How would I know? I still, to be perfectly honest, know very little about her. I could lie to her. I want to. But I don’t.
‘It’s my back.’ I admit. I didn’t know that I had it in me. I wanted to just lie so much. I trust her a lot and I don’t know why. It’s just not like me to fall for someone head over heels. Not that I had the chance deep down in all the God-forsaken mines that company had us drill in.
She, without asking or checking if it was ok with me, starts rubbing her hands all over around my spine. It seems to do the trick. Either that or I’m so besotted with her that I just feel better to have her touch me.
‘What happened to it?’ She asks as I suck it up all over again and stand to my feet. There are more important things for us to be seeing to than my silly little back ache.
‘I’ve been slapped around so much I can’t even remember.’ She sees the humor behind my thinly veiled brave face. She stops rubbing my back and takes hold of me by both hands.
‘Seriously. What happened?’ She smiles so sweetly to me. I can at least look at her now. I still feel funny when I do but at least I can hold her stare.
‘First I crashed a damn space ship, then I swam an ocean, fell down a gorge or something. Got chased by a dinosaur. Then I ripped my head open on a sharp bit of ice.’ I tried to hard to make it sound like a joke. Even though both of us knew it wasn’t and far from it.
I manage to part from her tantalizing glare and take a look around at the lab we were stuck in. There are all kinds of machines littered around the place but it’s unkempt and disturbed. The fire hadn’t spread this far through the ship. I know that by the volume of papers strewn across the floor. I don’t need to bend down to take a look at any of them because I can see they’re all in Russian. No point looking unless it was a picture book. I don’t know what any of the machines are so there is no point in examining any of those either. It hits me that I selfishly hadn’t asked Lucy if she was ok.
‘Everything okay with you?’ I was nervous to ask but it seemed only polite.
‘Shut up.’ She playfully shoved me and took a tight hold of my hands again. I press her further.
‘Any memory coming back yet?’ As soon as the first word left my mind I could tell that I shouldn’t have asked. She started to sob with tears forming in both eyes straight away. Whatever has come back to her is clearly nothing good.
‘What is it?’ I soften my tone as much as I can and look her right in the eye.
‘A memory that can’t be a memory.’ She’s talking in riddles. I don’t like it. It makes me shiver in fear. I just want to get to the bottom of this place.
‘What do you mean?’ Back to my usual, and unforgiving aggressive tone. It clearly shook her but she says nothing about it.
‘Imagine… a nightmare.’ She starts opening up to me. ‘But not during it, after it.’ More damn riddles.
‘Yeah.’ I spit impatiently.
‘Well, think about remembering a day or something that happened to you in just a regular day.’ My malicious old mind imagines a beating from one of the guards. My unforgiving imagination casts her in my mind’s eye as the guard. ‘And then think about remembering a nightmare?’ I don’t dream much. But I get what she’s saying.
‘Okay.’ I humor her one last time.
‘Now swap them.’
What the Hell is she talking about? She’s just like Kolt. Doesn’t know if she is coming or going. She is just so confused. I don’t want to think what my mind demands me to think. That she is the same as he was. That will kill me. I just need to change the conversation or something. I hope so much that she just has memory loss or amnesia or something. Instinct tells me not to press her for more details about her nightmare memory. Even though I want to so much. It must be some kind of denial.
I’m just about to say something to her about the others that I have encountered on my journey around the ship but she gives me no time. She pulls me close and kisses. But more passionately than she had done before. I don’t fight it. I don’t want to. She’s playful and more cheerful. She parts with a smile and lets go of my hands.
I don’t know what drives me to ask. I guess I like her too much not to. I have to tell her the truth and see what memories it might reignite in her.
‘Don’t you remember what you used to be?’ I hated myself the second I started speaking.
‘No… I told you.’ I know she doesn’t like my tone and I know I have her on the back foot too. I’m going to tell her if she likes it or not.
‘Well you were a guard at the mine we both used to work at.’ I glare at her. Accusingly and unforgiving.
‘So we used to work together?’ I think she’s just trying to calm me down and lower the intensity of the conversation.
‘No. I was a miner.’ She still looks just as confused so that tells me she obviously doesn’t remember how the miners like me were treat by the guards like her.
‘We were like prisoners. Like slaves. And the guards like you were the ones holding the keys and the whips.’ I know she doesn’t get how serious it was. I know she has no idea.
‘I’m sorry… I’m sorry you felt like that.’ Another retraction. Hollow. Just like the lack of memories bouncing around in her mind.
‘No. It isn’t like that!’ I start to shout at her but I don’t mean to. ‘You beat us. Savagely and to within an inch of our lives at times! I saw guys get dragged off by the likes of you and never come back!’ I hadn’t noticed my raised hand and pointed finger. But she starts to cry and shiver. Maybe I had hit a nerve or a buried memory. Hopefully. Time to dig deeper. See what makes her tick.
‘And as soon as you remember what hole you fell d
own and what rock you hit your head on, you’re going to remember why you came here! Because I killed those guards, friends of yours no doubt, because I stole from the company and you want me to pay for it!’ I thrash my arms around and can no longer contain my rage.
‘No… I don’t want that.’ She cries and sobs in front of me. And like any guy, it made me feel like Hell. I hate he fact I have made her cry but I want it over. I don’t want to follow her through this maze of a ship to see her turn on me or worse turn into Kolt. I want it over. I care for her. I think I even love her. That’s why I shout at her. That’s why I confront her. Because I’m hurting for her.
‘And what makes it worse is a whole bunch of your buddies are aboard this ship looking everywhere for me!’ That’s it. That’s all I have. Time to let it sink in. Let the dirt settle and see what she had to say for herself. See what I might have unearthed.
‘I…I remember. The mine. Coming after you. Being sent here to kill you. With a small squad of the tougher guards. And yeah, they were my friends. Were.’ She slowly paces back over to me. I hadn’t realized that my animated rage had taken me to virtually the opposite side of the upturned lab. She’s calm. The direct counter to my flaring nostrils and persistent rage.
‘They, the company, had us on a short leash too you know.’ Right now is as defensive as I have ever seen her. But I haven’t seen that level to the story before. I had been naïve. Childish and had not thought about it. I just saw them as the enemy. And her too.
‘For every beating we gave to you, we got twice the same back from them.’ She’s still crying. And I’m starting to feel worse. What a jerk I had been to her. And for what?
‘I was sent here to kill you. I remember that in detail. Vivid. But everything else is hazy and I can’t grasp at anything. Just floating, meaningless memory with no order… But that’s not why I came here.’ I start pacing back to her. I wrap my arms tight around her so she can cry into my chest. I hug her tight to tell her I was sorry.