by M. O. McLeod
Chelsea came out of her dress, exposing her bra and panties, and dived head first into the deep end. The water felt like hot silk over her skin. She swam even deeper and opened her eyes underwater. She still hadn’t told anyone about her vision. She didn’t see colors any more since becoming a Raptor. All she knew was that she could see in the dark and at times, when she concentrated hard enough, through walls. But that was a secret that she didn’t want Kurma to know or anyone else. Chelsea didn’t trust Kurma ever since she had killed April, an old roommate of theirs. Plus, she didn’t know if Kurma would try and take out her eyes for her own use. She never knew what Kurma was capable of.
At the bottom of the pool the water was glossy and she saw how the marble floor gave the water a reflective shine. Off somewhere she felt the water shift and saw that someone had jumped in with her. Either it was Tommy or Michale; she was hoping it was Michale. When she came up she was met with a splash to her face. It was Michale and he was in his birthday suit.
Jackie hadn’t wanted to go swimming but that’s where the guys had taken them. Channon had told her that it was the only pool without a camera and that you needed to have an access card to even get into it. It was so large and spacious. She bet that a lot of people didn’t even know that it was there, let alone had an access card. These people who lived here were so privileged. Jackie had never learned how to swim, never been in a Jacuzzi, or even a sauna. And here it was that the tenants of the tower had all this at their disposal every day and night. They were truly spoiled and she envied them.
“Where do you live?” she asked Channon who was sitting next to her on a stone bench.
Channon replied, “north Alexandria.”
“Oh, you’re rich, huh?”
“No, my mom just works for the district, so we get a pretty good deal on the house.”
“You don’t even have to worry about what’s going on outside?”
Channon smirked, “Every time I come to work I have to cross those lines and see all these horrendous things going on. Do you think I like coming to work? Do you think I like leaving the safety of my house?”
“I bet you don’t,” Jackie was beginning to dislike Channon. He was spoiled, she could tell, and from the sounds of it, scared. There was nothing wrong with being scared for your safety, but to not even recognize the people on the south side and the east side of Alexandria. What about them? They didn’t have lights, couldn’t go to work, all the businesses closed down. Here was this big being of a man, complaining about the dangers of leaving his house to come to a job where there were lights and food. He probably never struggled a day in his life, unlike her. “You know anything about the Phantoms?”
Channon cocked his head to the side and pondered a bit. “I know that the city is in pandemonium. I know that three-fifths of the city is shut down.”
“Which parts?” Jackie quickly asked. She had only heard about the east and south side.
Channon ticked the names off his fingers, “South side, east side, and the west side have now been barred off. Downtown Alexandria has been overrun but the police and the RAID are still holding them off there so that the Phantoms don’t get into north Alexandria. But once downtown falls then it is only a matter of time,” Channon stopped talking and looked out at the swimming pool.
“A matter of time before what?” Tommy came and sat down besides Jackie and smiled.
“Channon here was telling me about the Phantoms.”
“Haven’t you heard,” Tommy asked Jackie. “They go around giving you this disease, this infection. You have this crazy urge to kill.”
Jackie played dumb, “Where did you hear that from?”
“I’m telling you,” Tommy went on, “after they make you a Phantom you can do all these cool things. Drop from high buildings, run crazy fast, you become strong, like…really strong. But you eat people…so, that’s not good.”
Jackie already knew this of course. She had come across a couple of spawned Phantoms earlier on in the week.
“They can dodge bullets you know,” a voice came from the water. Michale rose from the pool and walked to the group, putting his clothes back on. There was nowhere for him to sit so he stood and told what he knew about the Phantoms. “I saw one of them do it. A police officer aimed right for the guy’s chest.” Michale imitated a gun in his hand and aimed for the group. “He blasted him; I saw it with my own two eyes.”
“What happened?” asked Rimselda, who was now sitting on the edge of the pool with Chelsea.
Michale looked back at the red head and said, “Nothing, it didn’t even hurt the Phantom. The officer was killed though. I haven’t been back home ever since.”
“Where have you been staying?” asked Chelsea.
Tommy looked at Michale with a dark look.
“To be honest ladies, I have been staying here.”
Rimselda figured out why Tommy was looking like that. He must’ve thought that they were going to snitch on Michale. But who would they tell? Or maybe, Tommy didn’t want the girls knowing just in case they needed a place to crash.
“Tommy, what about you? You stay here too now?” asked Rimselda.
“No, I stay on the west side,” Tommy lied.
Jackie Raptored her eyes at Rimselda to signal that she had caught on too.
“It’s cool if you guys stay here,” Chelsea tried to ease the tension. “I wouldn’t want to go back and forth out there every day either. We won’t tell anybody.”
“That’s what you say now until you need a place to stay and then it’s, ‘oh those guys at the tower seem cool’,” Tommy said as he imitated a girl’s voice.
“Trust me…you stay here, and soon enough, so will we.”
Tommy wasn’t following. “What are you talking about? They aren’t letting any new tenants in, no matter how much money you got.”
Channon nodded his head in agreement. The Olivares Tower was centered downtown, which was on the verge of being shut down. He had overheard the manager telling the owner that taking on any new residents would mean a safety hazard. Channon agreed entirely. Who knew who was a Phantom until it attacked you and left you for dead?
“Who said anything about money?” Jackie said with a sneer on her oval shaped face. Her light brown eyes stared Tommy down. She stood up and walked towards her two friends.
Rimselda came from the side of the pool and stood, inched near Tommy. She would have to do the talking. Jackie seemed a little on edge tonight and she wanted the guys on their side, not running off afraid.
Chelsea, who was still sitting, saw everything coming to a head. She hoped nothing would come of it, but things seemed to have gotten tense once Jackie stood up.
Jackie started, “I have a proposal for you guys.”
Channon had had enough. “I think it’s time to go you guys,” he stood up to leave. Whatever these girls were up to he didn’t need to hear it. He had a home, had a job, his life was going good. Who were these girls and how did they even get into the party downstairs? That was the question.
“Before you go,” Jackie continued, “hear me out. This place, the tower, is spacious enough for a lot of people. Including you, Michale, Tommy, and more importantly, us.”
“No way man, I knew you girls were no good from the jump,” accused Channon.
“Yeah, that’s why you ended up in a private pool with us,” said Rimselda.
“I didn’t even want to come, remember that.”
“Oh please,” shrieked Jackie.
“Just here them out right quick Channon,” instructed Michale.
Channon stood where he was but seemed really irritated.
Tommy asked, “Are you sure about this Michale?”
Chelsea finally stood up and faced Michale in her bra and panties, drenched from head to toe. “What do you guys think about taking over the tower?”
“Impossible.”
“You’re out of your fucking mind.”
“Who the hell are you guys?” asked Channo
n. “Coming up in here, just some little girls. What, are you homeless, you afraid of the Phantoms or something?”
“You’re the one afraid,” Jackie got a jab in. “We are trying to do you guys a favor.”
“How is that?” questioned Tommy. “By getting yourselves killed and blowing our cover?”
“We’re not trying to go out there in the daytime and for sure not at night,” said Michale. “We plan to stay here until this all blows over. That means, keeping a low profile. Taking over the tower is not exactly helping us.”
“What if we had a way to take over and kick everybody else out, but us,” Rimselda baited the two guys. Channon was still in the back, scowling at the girls. “Wouldn’t that be better than sneaking around?”
Michale looked over to Tommy who shook his head in disagreement. “What’s your plan?”
Tommy blew air out his nose and threw his hands up. Yeah, it would be nice to not have to sneak around the tower, showering in public bathrooms, eating peoples left over room service, but it was also ten times better than having your life ripped from you or worse, becoming like those Phantoms who were being hunted down in the streets. What had gotten into Michale?
Rimselda spoke in a rush, “We need somebody on the inside who can get us into the control room. That’s where you guys come in. You get us in and we can make sure everybody gets outs and no one, not the police, not the RAID, no one gets back in. We put the building on lock down.”
Tommy had heard it all now. Yeah, he thought about it, he knew how to work the controls, knew the cameras and how to seal off doors, but he knew the Alexandria police; he knew that he had a family and that getting killed was not going to help put food on the table. He couldn’t go home because of the Phantoms, but he had to keep working for his family. Locking the building down would mean no income, no way out. This couldn’t happen, he wouldn’t let it. Unless, his family got to move in with them at the tower, then maybe he would consider the idea. But nobody had said anything about that.
Michale said, “It could work,” to Tommy. Michale knew what was at stake, but his self-perseverance was at an all-time high. He knew what was out there, and he recognized that if he got caught sleeping in a vacant room of the tower that he would be fired and thrown out without pay. He was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. “I say we try it. The tower has top of the line everything. It would be impossible to get inside once we shut it down.”
“We!” screamed Channon. “Who is this we that you talking about? I’m going back to work and finishing my shift.”
“Channon you better not say anything to anybody or so help me,” yelled Tommy.
“I can’t believe you Tommy. What about the families that you guys are trying to kick out? Where are they going to go?”
“Do you think they would care about you if you were banging down their door trying to get to safety?” Rimselda questioned Channon. “Do you think they would open the door to let you in while the Phantoms scoured the city looking for humans to eat?”
Channon had nothing to say.
“Believe me, they wouldn’t do a damn thing for you so why should we do a damn thing for them.” Rimselda had hardened since becoming a Raptor.
Channon turned to go, but said one last thing, “You’re wrong,” he shook his head. “All of you are dead wrong.”
“I want my family to be able to come,” Tommy quickly said. “Then I will help and only then.”
Jackie watched as Channon slammed the door behind him and listened to the echoes it bounced off the walls. She faced Tommy and spoke loud and clear. “If you can get your family back here by morning then everything will work out. But if not, then we’re taking the Olivares Tower with or without you.”
Tommy gulped deep. He needed to get a move on it. These girls didn’t seem like they were bluffing and Michale knew how to work the controls just as well as he did and he would be damned to come back and be locked out with the rest of the tenants.
“Wait for me, Michale,” he pleaded.
“No worries, just hurry back.”
Tommy left the building immediately and ran off into the cold snowy night, but the night now belonged to the Phantoms.
Chapter 5:
The Basement Floors
The owner of the Olivares Tower screamed into the microphone, “Everybody raise your glasses. If you don’t have a glass, then get one!”
Kurma watched as her plan unfolded. She had begun to get everyone drunk, including the owner, Doyle Packer. Every time she got the chance, she put another drink in his hand, and hers for that matter. For some reason, being a Raptor gave her a higher tolerance to liquor. Perfect for her since she was only seventeen. Nonetheless, she still pretended to be drunk, even though she felt sober as a nun. She made sure to mix his cognac and his vodka. Whoever Doyle talked too, Kurma made sure they had a drink as well. She put the bartenders’ to work. Kurma opened up a tab in Doyle’s name and began giving out vodka shots. She wanted these party-goers’ to be so drunk that they wouldn’t know how to get back up to their lovely condos and apartments. The easier it would be to kick them out.
“I just want to thank the manager of this place, Lisa James, a brilliant woman, for keeping the Olivares Tower as prestigious and refined as the first day the doors opened in 53’.”
Kurma watched as Doyle raised his glass higher and drunk deep. He shouted, “To Lisa!”
The crowd erupted in cheers and shouts as a woman was presented an award. Kurma caught Doyle as he came from the stage and half dragged, half pulled him away from the many cameras and guests.
“I think it is time for us to have a little alone time, don’t you think?” asked Kurma.
Doyle gave her a shocked look as he wiped sweat from his blotchy skin.
“Why don’t you take me some place quiet?”
“My suite!” Doyle yelled in Kurma’s ear.
Kurma ignored his obnoxious behavior. “I was thinking maybe someplace downstairs, the basement, away from all these people.”
“Oh, I get it now,” Doyle whispered. He almost tripped over his own feet but was held up by Kurma. “I know a perfect place.”
Kurma breathed through her mouth as Doyle talked drunkenly in her face. She picked up a bottle of champagne from an empty table and placed it in his hands. The drunker, the better.
Doyle stumbled through an emergency exit doorway and the couple was engulfed in red light. Stairs upon stairs lined the way down for the two. Kurma didn’t know if Doyle would make it.
“We have to go down then take a right. Remember that so we can know our way back.”
“Sure, I won’t forget,” Kurma promised.
Doyle’s body swayed heavily but he got them both to the basement sure enough.
“Here are the bunkers,” Doyle proclaimed with his arms wide. He opened his eyes big and tried to focus on the keypad in front of him. “There is a code to get in and a code to get out. If there was ever an earthquake or a bomb threat then we have these bunkers here for the tenants. They are sound proof, have their own ventilation system, emergency kit, stored food and water to last at least a week. The works.”
“Wow, pretty impressive. And you’re taking me down here. I feel so special,” joked Kurma.
Doyle screwed his face up and tried to kiss Kurma on the mouth but ended up only head butting her, he was so drunk.
“The code, what is the code,” Kurma asked.
“Ssshhh,” Doyle put his fingers to her lips. “I got this.”
He pushed her slightly aside and keyed the code in. A red button turned green, and then blue and the door of the first bunker popped ajar. “Ladies first.”
Kurma smiled her sweet innocent smile and took the bottle out of Doyle’s hand. She chugged a bit on the lukewarm liquid and walked into the dark empty room. Doyle came in after her, turned to close the door and was met with a blow to the back of the head.
He fell like a sack of potatoes, sluggish and heavy to the floor. Kurma placed the
bottle next to him and pulled his body deeper into the room. She moved closer to the door and saw another keypad inside the dark chamber. Silently, Kurma’s wrist split open and a long silver dagger came from it, her deadliest weapon. She stabbed the keypad until sparks flew and closed the door behind her.
That would be one hangover that Doyle would want to never remember.
***
Kurma took the stairs back up and turned right as Doyle had said to do but she was still lost in the tower. Maybe she had taken too many flights of steps, she couldn’t remember. Her adrenaline was pumping after locking Doyle away, and keeping count of what floor she was on hadn’t occurred to her. Stupid Kurma, she thought to herself. She would have to slow down next time, think things through instead of winging it. There was no room for failure. There were no do-overs when it came to something as serious as a legacy. She could hear Santino’s voice in her head, calling her a nobody. All the stairs were making her dizzy and she felt a panic attack coming on.
Kurma stood still and counted to five over and over in her head. She needed to calm down. What had Doyle said about a control room? It was somewhere in the building. The room was most likely in the basement because the top floors were for the guest and tenants. Kurma stopped counting and Raptored her eyes. She could see better at night with her Raptor eyes and in her Raptor state she felt more in control. Kurma strained her ears and listened for anything to help her. She heard the music from the party from her left. She could hear water dripping from a pipe from up high. Kurma walked a bit and steadied her breathing, slowing her pounding heart down. There, she could hear the sound of someone’s radio off in the distance.
Kurma ran towards the noise, upstairs and down the corridors. There were no signs, but she made a mental note of the number of exit doors and even the lighting of the hallway. She wouldn’t get lost again. Finally, the radio went off again and this time Kurma heard a voice, a man’s voice. She turned a corner and saw a tall guy leaving out of a door. There were no windows in the corridor, just one lone door and a stretch of wall. The guy, Kurma suspected, was a security guard and he had led her right to the control room.
She slipped up against the wall and slithered toward the door as quietly as she could. The security up ahead finally turned the corner and Kurma paused a beat. She strained her ears and listened through the walls. There wasn’t much movement going on inside. She turned the door knob slowly and peered in. She could see the edge of a chair and a fat leg sticking out at an odd angle. Kurma opened the door wide and crossed over the threshold. She saw an old man, sitting in front of several cameras, asleep. The room was dim and could hold at least seven. Kurma quickly closed the door behind her and stalked towards the bright screens. She had to work quick before the other security guard returned. Trying to memorize the tags on the buttons was hard work for Kurma, there were so many. A huge wall across the room had several levers, cords, and gadgets, all with labels. Some read garage door, pressure system, entry/exit lock, and Kurma memorized them all. She glanced back at the screens and watched as the cameras hit angles and vantage points to the multiple rooms. Kurma could see that there were no cameras in the tenant’s houses but all along the hallways, basement, and rooftop. She saw the gardens of the greenroom that Doyle had been referring to and a light bulb went off in her head. Slowly, she zoomed in on the gardens and noticed a shed off to a corner. Kurma quickly scanned the channels to see if there was a camera in there–there wasn’t. But, Kurma could bet that there was something in that shed that she could use to flush out everybody in the building. So, now having a way to control people getting in and out of the tower, Kurma would now have to make sure her plan was seen through. First thing first, she needed to go check out the greenhouse.