by Brian Harmon
A hard shiver slithered up his back and he had to force himself to take a calming breath.
It was nothing. A rat, perhaps.
He took a cautious step toward the door. Then another.
Karen’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He withdrew it and glanced at the screen.
GET OUT OF THERE!
But he couldn’t. He came here for answers. Perhaps this was one. Perhaps peering through the glass was precisely what he needed to do. What was the alternative? Turn around and run? Leave without ever knowing what was on the other side of the door?
Yes, was the logical answer. He knew this even as he crept closer to the stairwell door. Something very bad could be waiting for him there, just like behind the kitchen door at Gold Sunshine Resort. But somehow he couldn’t help himself. Before he knew it, he was standing in front of the door, peering into that window.
The scratching stopped.
Silence filled the room.
He saw nothing.
He leaned closer, but still the stairwell remained empty.
Nothing. It was time to leave.
But he remained unsatisfied. He pressed his nose against the glass, trying to see all the way to the floor on the other side.
He knew this part of the movie. This was the part where the monster slammed into the glass and scared the living hell out of the character that was too stupid to leave when he first heard the scary noise. He’d stagger backward, screaming with all the manliness of a girl scout.
That, or something would reach right through the glass, shattering it and dragging his kicking, screaming body through the window and down into the cold, dark basement to be devoured.
But in spite of setting himself up for it like a first-class idiot, that didn’t happen. The stairwell remained empty. Nothing struck the glass. He wasn’t dragged to his bloody doom. He didn’t scream like a girl.
The cell phone buzzed impatiently at him. He didn’t have to look at it. Isabelle wanted him to leave. Now. And she was right. Something was very wrong here. He didn’t feel at all welcome.
He stepped back away from the door, still amazed that he hadn’t come face-to-face with something terrible, and then glanced around the room.
There weren’t any more shadows darting behind the other doors. Whatever was going on a moment ago was now over.
He looked back at the stairwell door one last time, still waiting for the horror movie fright. But it simply didn’t come. Whatever was behind that door a moment ago was now gone.
He turned and hurried back to the door that led to the waiting room. He shoved it open and then froze. There, standing right in the middle of the hallway, was another of those sleek, black creatures from the lot on Hosler Avenue.
Chapter Six
It was just standing there, staring back at him with its queer, white eyes and bulging teeth. Eric had no idea where the hell it came from. He’d walked the length of that hallway himself just a short while ago, peering into each room as he went. There was no place for it to hide and there were no windows. It was as if it had simply appeared there out of thin air.
But this was obviously not the time to linger and think about it.
Slowly, cautiously, with his heart thundering in his ribcage, he stepped backward, retreating into the nurse’s station and letting the door screech closed again.
Strangely, the creature showed no interest in following him. The ones on Hosler had been determined to rend him limb from limb, but this one only stood there and watched him go.
Maybe it wasn’t hungry.
As soon as the door had closed, he peered through the window at the creature. It didn’t approach. In fact, it settled itself down onto the floor and dropped its head as if it were nap time.
Clearly, he wasn’t getting out that way. But at least he hadn’t been mauled.
Yet.
Behind him, whatever was in the stairwell began scratching at the door again.
He needed to find another way out. Fast.
He recalled the fire exit in the large, corner room to his right. He’d already explored over there, so it should be safe to go that way. But as soon as he reached the door, he saw another of the creatures emerge from the room with the broken window and turn its milky eyes on him.
Where the hell were they coming from? Even if this one had entered through that window, it surely couldn’t have crossed the busy, wide-open hospital parking lot in broad daylight without attracting attention. It wasn’t the sort of thing people didn’t notice.
The scratching became more urgent. The door began to shudder on its hinges. Whatever was on the other side would push its way through very soon.
He had no choice. Eric turned and ran for the door on the opposite side of the room. All he could do was hope that there would be another fire exit on this side of the building as well.
No creature blocked his path as he passed through the door, but it was immediately obvious that the building was not laid out the same on this side. The hallway led only a short distance and then turned left.
This wasn’t ideal. Moving deeper into the building seemed like a bad idea. But he was out of options.
“You still here?”
Karen’s cell phone buzzed at him as Isabelle confirmed that she was.
“How are they getting in?”
NO IDEA
“Why are they here?”
I DON’T KNOW
Eric didn’t know why he thought she should have any of these answers.
There was a T-shaped intersection in the center of the hallway, branching to the right, and another at the far end. A shadow moved across the wall at that far intersection, encouraging him to take the first right, where a dozen dark, open doorways lined the corridor.
His awful imagination was in heaven here, feeding him all sorts of wonderfully grim and morbid suggestions for what might be lurking in all of these dark rooms as he passed, tormenting him with his own escalating anxiety.
But each room miraculously proved to be empty.
Finally, he emerged into a long, open room with another emergency exit directly across from him. He hurried to it, but it was sealed shut and wouldn’t budge.
He turned his back to the door and scanned the room. There were two more doors in here, one on each end. Either one could lead him right back into the waiting jaws of one of those foul creatures.
“This is really beginning to suck,” he growled.
STAY CALM
“Sure. Stay calm. Right. Why didn’t I think of that?”
SARCASM WON’T HELP
“It won’t hurt.”
Something began scratching at the door on his right, solving the problem of which one he should try first. He hurried across the room to the door on the left and peered through the window.
The way was clear.
But as soon as he pushed open the door, another of the black creatures trotted out of one of the rooms ahead of him and stood there, blocking the hallway and staring back at him.
Eric took an instinctive step back, but a squeak of hinges drew his attention to the other door. Looking over, he saw the other beast push its way into the room.
He was trapped.
He turned back to the hallway. The one here was crouched down, staring at him, but it wasn’t snarling. In fact, its head was cocked a little, as if it were merely curious about what he would do next.
Another stairwell door stood to the left, between him and the strangely calm beast. It appeared to be the only option available to him. He didn’t have any choice in the matter. Barely suppressing the overwhelming panic that was rising in his knotted belly, he took three cautious steps forward, his eyes fixed on the creature before him, and let the door behind him swing closed.
It didn’t attack him. Despite his experience with these things earlier in the day, it didn’t seem that they were all that eager to chase him down and disembowel him. But he still had no urge at all to walk up and try to pet the damn thing.
The stairwel
l door opened quietly enough, but the shadowy interior wasn’t very welcoming. He had two options: up or down. Neither offered much hope of escape, but the basement was clearly the less desirable destination, so he pulled the door closed behind him and began climbing.
Another creature was waiting for him in the second floor hallway, so he continued past it. The third floor door didn’t want to open. And as he approached the fourth floor door, something below him gave a short series of disturbing yips and he bolted from the stairwell and shoved the door closed behind him.
Now he was on the topmost floor, looking down an empty hallway, with no idea how the hell he was going to get out of this building.
And he was out of breath.
THERE’S SOMETHING STRANGE ABOUT THOSE CREATURES
“There is,” gasped Eric. “They’re not like the other ones at all.”
THEY’RE NOT AS AGGRESSIVE
“Yeah. What’s up with that?”
I FEEL LIKE THEY WERE TRYING TO HERD YOU TO THE TOP FLOOR
“Fantastic. So you think I’m in trouble here?”
I DON’T KNOW
PLEASE BE CAREFUL!
Eric nodded. She was right. Those things had seemed to be everywhere he turned, just like on Hosler, except those had tried to eat him. These… Well, he wasn’t sure what the deal was with these things.
He started down the hallway. The rooms up here were just as empty as the ones on the first floor, but the doors were different. The windows were larger, but the glass was reinforced with a heavy wire mesh. And a set of solid bars were bolted over each exterior window.
Suddenly, this looked less like a hospital than a prison.
Then it finally occurred to Eric why this building had felt so constrictive. This wasn’t a hospital. It was an institution. This was a place where people were not merely treated, but locked away.
What kinds of people had lived here?
His imagination was now gleefully constructing all sorts of awful horror-movie-worthy scenarios to torment him.
He made his way to the end of the hall, looked both ways and then turned left.
No creatures. No scratching noises at the doors. No moving shadows. The entire atmosphere had changed, and yet he continued to feel as if he were moving deeper and deeper into serious trouble.
At least if something happened to him here, Isabelle would be able to tell Karen what became of him. It wasn’t much comfort, but it helped a little.
The cell phone buzzed at him: DON’T EVEN THINK SUCH THINGS!
“Sorry.”
Eric pushed open a door and stepped into another open room. It was not like the ones downstairs. Those had the feel of common areas. This one was stark and sterile, more like an operating room…
What kinds of things went on in these rooms, he wondered. Did gruesome procedures take place here? Inhumane experiments? Brutal treatments? Or was this nothing more than another example of his imagination getting the best of him. Perhaps this was nothing more than an ordinary examination room, or even an observation area of some sort.
On two of the walls, someone had drawn strange, circular markings. As he approached one of them, he realized that he’d seen it before, back in the apartment over the tavern. These were the symbols that were connected to Aiden’s map by the two lengths of string.
He hadn’t paid much attention back in the apartment, but now he took a closer look. It was a spiral made up of a cryptic series of numbers. Starting at the bottom and working his way inward, counterclockwise, the numbers read 0893428007023116.
But what did it mean?
Reading the numbers from the inside of the spiral outward made no more sense to him.
He turned and walked to the other symbol. It was the same as the other, except the numbers were different. Here, they read 1351887622323116. Perhaps the numbers in the apartment were different, too, each one unique. They must mean something…
He pulled out Karen’s cell phone and fumbled with it until he found the camera, then he snapped a picture of one symbol, then the other.
The last five digits were the same, he realized as he compared the two more closely. But that still didn’t tell him anything.
No maps were laid out in this room, no string, no photographs. It didn’t appear that Aiden’s work extended to this building. But there was one more curious thing. A large, messy hole had been drilled through the wall near the corner and a narrow, steel pipe shoved through it. He walked over to this and peered into it. It ran into the next room and was aimed at the window. Through that window, Eric could see the roof of the hospital next door. He could also see a fairly impressive view of some of the city’s rooftops beyond it. As he looked out, he realized that he could also see that curious, square tower he’d spied through the holes in the plywood in the apartment. It rose up from the tops of the trees, a prominent feature of the modest skyline, yet he still couldn’t place it.
What was it about that building? Why had someone in both of these mysterious structures gone out of their way to point it out? It made no sense.
Eric stepped away from the pipe and glanced back at the two symbols. This was starting to feel like a Dan Brown novel, except he wasn’t nearly as talented as Robert Langdon. Blue’s Clues was more his level, to be honest.
Two curious symbols and a mysterious structure he still couldn’t recognize, despite the fact that it apparently stood right in the heart of his own home town…
Something caught his eye and he turned back to the steel pipe. Something that looked like a small drop of golden liquid was dangling from the end.
He bent and leaned closer. What was that? Some kind of oil? A lubricant of some sort? He was sure it hadn’t been there before.
And there was something very peculiar about it. It seemed to be trembling, as if the pipe were vibrating, but it was perfectly still.
As he watched, the drop suddenly and inexplicably ran up the curve of the pipe and perched quivering atop the rusty threads.
“What the…?”
Leaning close, he saw that it looked almost metallic, like mercury, except it was gold instead of silver. And it seemed to be growing. When he first saw it, it was nothing more than a tiny drop, but now it had grown into a quivering glob almost the size of a Hershey’s Kiss.
He lifted Karen’s phone, intending to take a picture of this mysterious phenomenon, but before he could get it lined up, it suddenly split in two, ran down both sides of the pipe and dropped to the floor. There, it sizzled and danced like water on a hot skillet. Smoke began to rise off it, emitting a curious, acrid stench. It also began to expand at an alarming rate, pooling into a puddle and forcing him to quickly back away before it encased his shoes.
“What the hell is this stuff?”
But before Isabelle could tell him she had no idea, the strange liquid rolled itself into several long ribbons and began to reach out for him.
Chapter Seven
Eric staggered backward, cursing. The bizarre liquid slithered across the floor like a nest of angry snakes, moving straight for his shoes. When he tried to step out of the way, the golden tendrils turned with him, following him, stalking him.
That faint smoke continued to rise. Was it corrosive? Would it eventually eat through the floor? Would it eat through him?
In danger of being backed against the wall, Eric turned to run, but more slithering tendrils had appeared from beneath the door.
He was trapped.
“Isabelle?”
Isabelle’s response was swift, as always, but utterly useless: GET OUT OF THERE!
“How?”
But Isabelle didn’t know.
The strange fluid converged on him in the center of the room, circling him, holding him captive. Within minutes, it covered the floor from corner to corner, leaving only the small circle directly beneath him untouched.
A light fog of white smoke danced across its rippling surface, wafting up in lazy plumes. He could see the room around him reflected in it, a foggy, golden mir
ror-world.
Then, most bizarrely of all, small drops began to lift up from the floor and rise to the ceiling. Within seconds, it was raining tiny, golden drops…upside down.
Unable to flee, Eric stood mesmerized by the display. It was beautiful…in a completely and utterly insane sort of way.
He lifted the phone again, located the camera and snapped a picture. But the picture didn’t do it justice. He wondered if he could find the video recorder. He knew it had one somewhere. He’d seen Karen use it. But before he could begin to look for it, he became aware of a long, serpentine shape descending from the ceiling behind him.
He turned to face it. Almost absently, he snapped another picture without even looking to see if the shot was lined up. It looked like a great, golden eel, twisting and writhing before his eyes.
Then a second one rose up from the floor. For a moment, both of them seemed to be staring at him, regarding him. Then both shapes twisted away from him, stretched into long, narrow bands and funneled themselves into the pipe.
All of the golden liquid drained out of the room in this manner, leaving not a single drop behind, but only that strange, ozone-like stench.
Eric stared at the pipe, completely lost for words, until the cell phone buzzed at him and he lifted it in front of his face.
OKAY…THAT WAS WEIRD, EVEN FOR YOU
Eric nodded. “Uh huh…”
MAYBE YOU SHOULD GET OUT OF THERE NOW.
That was a good idea. But was escape even an option? What about those black creatures?
All he could do was try.
He left the room and returned to the stairwell. But as soon as he turned the last corner in the hallway, he found his path blocked. Not by a black creature, but by a tall man wearing sunglasses, black dress pants and a pink shirt with a matching pink and black tie. He possessed an impressive aura of confidence and authority. Eric had never considered before just how intimidating a pink shirt could look. In spite of this brilliant splash of color, he found himself reminded of the Smith programs from The Matrix.