by Jo Schneider
What in the world? Lys stopped, shocked. She fluttered over the little girl, who must have noticed her presence because the little girl looked up. Lys met her eyes. They were filled with a blue-green swirling vortex. Lys recoiled from the alien orbs, flying away, arms pin-wheeling. But she didn’t get far before the Need swelled up inside of her. It stopped her retreat and propelled her forward again until Lys hovered within reach of the girl. The little girl waved, and Lys pounced.
Lys woke with a gasp. Her whole body shook. She always woke up shaking. These withdrawals made the flu feel like a sniffle. Sometimes she wished that the option of dying was still on the table. She had to use the bucket again. The lack of contents in her stomach almost made Lys wish she’d eaten more at her last meal. Whenever that had been.
They were expected to come down to meals. Nobody ate much—appetites were no real concern for anyone. Lys didn’t care if she never ate anything again. Ever.
But, three times a day a knock came at her door. One of the women on the staff would be outside, dressed in their green and khaki uniforms, ready to escort her down to breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Sometimes it was all Lys could do to not yell at them to go away.
Lys thought that sleep would drag her in again, but this time the dream left her wide awake. She lay there, one arm dangling off the bed and touching the bucket, wondering if a knock would sound. Maybe that’s why she woke up.
Had it been three days since they arrived, or four? She could clearly remember her arrival, Kenny and dinner, with Mr. Mason’s explanation that the drug’s effects were long lasting if not handled properly, and she remembered breakfast from this morning. Or was it yesterday?
Sleep did not come. Lys was grateful. She rolled onto her back and glanced at the window. No light filtered in through the green curtains. Could it be morning? She didn’t want to get up.
Lying on the bed was the only thing that felt remotely comfortable. Standing, walking, talking, and pretty much everything else was, well, it was hard. It hurt, and she didn’t want to do it. Any of it.
Unfortunately she had to pee.
Sitting sent waves of excruciating pain through her entire body. Working up to the effort of swinging her legs off the bed took a good ten seconds. Her head felt like it might split in half. The pain had begun after she’d drunk her first round of tonic, and it hadn’t stopped since—an angry little man with a big hammer was whacking the inside of her skull.
She placed her hands on the bed, one on each side of her hips. This was the really horrible part. Lys took a breath, which caused her head to throb even harder, and stood. She only got halfway before she doubled over, and she had to wait for a wave of dizziness to pass. Or at least abate. Reaching out for the dresser, Lys straightened up.
The first step was always iffy; having only one good eye didn’t help. Lys shuffled her right foot along the thin carpet, moving the heel of her right foot just past the toe of her left foot. Good, no falling.
The second step she actually lifted her left foot off the ground. Her hand stayed on the dresser. The foot made a tiny arch and came back down onto the rug, right on an orange patch of the pattern. If she could hit the orange patches all along the floor she would be at the bathroom in five steps. She’d tried to follow the greenish patches once, and the counselor had had to come in and pick her up off the floor.
She made her way slowly to the door that led into her private bathroom. It seemed to take forever to do anything, and using the toilet was no exception. However, by the time she finished, she felt even more awake than before.
An impulse from another life hit Lys, and she turned to look at herself in the mirror. Needles of pain ripped through the base of her skull. The dim light gave her just enough illumination to see by. Her eye met itself in the mirror and she glared.
Was that her? So haggard and sallow? Her sunken cheeks looked yellow. At least she thought it was yellow. Lys still saw things that weren’t there. As a matter of fact, suddenly, staring back at her in the mirror was her face from before. Her young, beautiful, perfect face. Not this horror that she had become—no eye patch, no deathly pallor.
Lys’s teeth ground together. She used to cry, in the beginning, but now she got angry. When she got angry, the Need came, and when the Need came, she wanted to hurt people. More and more she wanted to give in, to just let her body and her emotions do what they wanted to, but a small part of her was still sane, still Lys. She wondered how long it would last. The tonic helped, but not enough.
She turned away from the mirror, not bothering to brush her long, dark hair back or straighten her shirt. She went to flush the toilet, and nothing happened.
Another try didn’t improve the situation. “Figures,” she said to herself.
With a sigh, Lys moved out, following the orange spots until she reached the call button and pressed it. Nothing happened. Lys frowned and pressed it again. Still nothing.
A few seconds went by. There was supposed to be a counselor at the desk at all times. Usually one of them knocked on the door or buzzed the room right away. Strange that no one answered.
Lys took a firm grasp on the door handle. Once she balanced, she lifted her other hand and knocked.
“Hello?” Lys said as loudly as she could in a gravelly voice. It felt like talking through a mouthful of marbles. No one answered.
Okay, now she was concerned. Lys jiggled the knob and knocked again. To her surprise, the knob turned. It wasn’t locked?
Lys opened the door and slowly stepped into the hall.
Moonlight streamed in through the windows at the end of the hall, leaving illuminated squares on the linoleum. The rest of the lights were off. Lys took a few more steps. She felt her balance begin to return as she moved.
Well, since the door was open, and Lys didn’t want her toilet overflowing, she decided to make her way to the main desk. That’s where the call button should be directed to, right?
The world tilted back and forth as she followed the linoleum squares. Her fingertips stayed on the handrail attached to the wall, lightly caressing the wood surface.
Silence surrounded her. Lys could hear the sound of her own heart beating, and the slap of her bare feet landing on the floor. When she got around the corner, she stopped. A single reading lamp lit the desk, but she didn’t see a counselor.
Lys turned, looking back toward her room. Where was everyone?
The light from the main desk darkened for a moment. Lys turned back, hoping to find that the counselor had returned. No luck.
“Hello?” she whispered. “Is anyone there?” Her pale wisp of a voice hardly penetrated the air around her. No answer.
Someone, or something, had just moved between her and the lamp. Lys was certain of it. Or she could be hallucinating again. She didn’t like either option, so she turned to go back to her room. She didn’t want to meet anyone else. It could be Kenny, or one of the other guests. What if this person was about to give into their Need—whatever it might be? What if they hurt someone? Went on a rampage of killing, or whatever. Yeah, she would go back to her room.
But as she started to walk back, she heard a slapping noise, and she stopped in her tracks. It sounded like running feet. The footsteps, if that’s what they were, were headed away from Lys.
She went to take another step, but darkness engulfed her.
Lys tried to blink away the gloom, but nothing happened. Had she passed out? Was this another dream?
A fuzzy light came from her right, and Lys turned her head to look. A figure, roughly shaped like a woman in a flowing dress, floated forward, driving back the darkness as it came. Lys wondered if she was seeing a ghost.
Lys didn’t move, but her perspective did. Her vision turned and she found herself running away from the anamorphic shape. The hallway looked similar to the one outside her room, but dust covered everything. The linoleum peeled back in places—several chunks were missing, making a “U” shape on the floor—and the handrail hung loosely from the brackets on t
he wall.
The light began to fade the longer she ran. Or whatever body she was trapped in ran. It could be another dream. She felt like she was watching the scene through someone’s helmet camera.
An open door appeared on her right, and Lys bolted inside. Darkness filled the room, but she could see the light getting brighter in a mirror that hung on the wall. Her perspective looked around, maybe searching for a place to hide. The light continued to get brighter, and just before she turned back, Lys spotted a reflection in the mirror. She didn’t see herself, instead she saw Brady.
The light rose to a blinding level, and Lys saw Brady’s hands go up in front of his eyes. The floating apparition came through the door, fingers like fabric ribbons reaching for Brady. He stumbled back, falling . . .
Lys’s own eyes shot open. She stood in the hallway outside her room, hand gripping the rail along the wall so hard that her whole arm shook. One thought flashed through her mind. Brady was in trouble. Someone had to help him!
Logic told her that withdrawal caused the hallucination, but something else, a feeling she couldn’t explain, said otherwise. It was real and it was happening right now.
She turned back to the desk where the reading light glowed, illuminating some of the surrounding space. There should be a counselor. Where were they? The bathroom? That could be it. She started to move in the direction of the desk again, but her legs turned to spaghetti and she almost fell flat on her face. Lys managed to stumble over to the desk before she ended up on the floor.
The hallucination had left her weak. Well, not weak, she thought as she got her feet under her again, just feeling strange. Excited and shaking. Maybe a little terrified, too. Lys couldn’t decide. She glanced down, hoping to find a note there about where the counselor had gone, but found nothing.
How much time had passed since she’d buzzed the desk? Two minutes? Five? Surely if the counselor had been in the bathroom they’d be back by now.
She glanced around. Where else would there be a counselor? Downstairs? She hadn’t seen anyone at the desk down there at all. Upstairs? Where were their rooms?
In order to get downstairs, Lys had to get to the far end of the hall. That didn’t sound fun. Lys turned her head to look at the elevator. She hadn’t noticed before, but the elevator light glowed B.
The basement? That might explain the dust and run-down hall that Lys saw Brady in. He must be down there. She’d go down to the main floor and start yelling. That should wake someone up.
Walking to the elevator almost took more concentration than Lys had in her. Her legs started working again, but they didn’t respond with their normal speed. The trip felt like it took an hour, but it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds. She willed herself to move faster, knowing that whatever was after Brady would surely have him before she got help.
The down arrow lit up as soon as Lys pushed it, and she waited as the lights above the elevator went from “B” to “L” to “2.” The world paused before the doors slid open with a ding, releasing a soft wall of light.
Part of Lys hoped to find a counselor behind the doors, or Brady even, but that didn’t work out. Instead she found only empty air.
Before the doors could shut again, Lys stepped inside. She caught her reflection in the mirrors along the back wall. Her reflection, not Brady’s. She looked as bad as she felt, but Lys couldn’t stop thinking about Brady and the terror in his eyes.
Lys turned around and pressed the button to go down to the lobby. She watched the reading lamp until the doors slid shut. She willed the elevator to hurry. Why was it that when you needed to get somewhere fast, everything seemed to go twice as slow as normal? The ride down one floor shouldn’t take so long. Lys glanced up at the lighted numbers above the door and found that she’d passed the lobby level and was going into the basement.
“What?” she asked herself, pressing the lobby button again. The “B” above the door lit up, and the elevator settled to a stop. Lys didn’t want to go to the basement. The doors opened, but Lys kept pressing the lobby button. Then the double arrows to close the doors. Neither button worked. The light coming from the elevator only penetrated a few feet past the door.
Lys glared into the dark. She backed up against the far wall of the elevator, her fingers gripping the rail. After a moment, details started to stand out.
Dust covered the floor, Lys could see that. She could also see several sets of new footprints. One of them walked by the door and the other stepped right out of the elevator. One set had to be Brady’s. The apparition following Brady didn’t have feet, at least not that Lys had seen, so the other set must belong to someone else. A counselor? Maybe they followed him down here in the elevator. Would she be in trouble for being out of bed?
The thought seemed absurd. All she wanted to do was help Brady. He had looked terrified. Who in their right mind wouldn’t go after him? All of this flew through her mind, but Lys didn’t move to get off the elevator. She waited for the doors to slide shut, but it never happened. Go out? Lys didn’t want to do that.
A moan floated through the darkness, and Lys jumped. Was that Brady? Her own fear was overcome by worry—worry that something was down here chasing him. Lys stepped forward once, twice, and then out of the elevator into the dark hallway.
“Brady?” she said. It felt like yelling would loose the ghosts of fifty years, so she kept her voice down.
A scraping came from her left, and Lys turned that way and started to walk. Her hands shook, and a chill crawled up her spine. The sound of her heart beating had to be audible to everyone in the building. She took a dozen steps before the light from the elevator started to retreat, the dark replacing it.
“No!” She turned in time to see the doors sliding shut. Lys tried to run back, but her legs still refused to be rushed. She thrust her hand out, trying to get it into the gap, but the sliver of light disappeared just before she got there.
Darkness descended. Her shaking hands rubbed along the wall, trying to find the up arrow button. The hard surface gave way to the round indent. She pressed it again and again, but it wouldn’t light up. Another moan floated through the dusty air. Lys twirled around, keeping her back against the wall. Brady was down here. Something else was down here. Now she was down here, and she was trapped.
Chapter 6
The stairs. Where were the stairs from there? They had to come all the way to the basement. Weren’t there fire codes or something? There had to be a way out. Heart pounding, and hands still shaking, Lys pushed off and started down the hall. One trembling finger kept contact with the wall, and in order to distract herself from the dark closing in around her, Lys imagined the trail it would leave in the dust.
After a dozen or so steps, the surface stopped, leaving nothing but air. She groped ahead until she found the next corner. The opening was too small to be a hallway, so she kept going. The stairs had to be this way.
The dark pressed in on Lys, making it hard to breathe. Even though there were no eyes down here, at least none that she could see, the Need stirred inside of her. She imagined veterans walking these halls, their eyes wild, their memories haunted with things that Lys didn’t even want to think about. Stale air filled her nostrils—she could taste the old around her.
A whimper poked through the air, reminding Lys of the reason she came down here in the first place. Brady. Her eye must have been getting used to the dark because she could make out the gaping black hole that was the next doorway ahead of her.
Another step caused something to crunch beneath her feet. It felt like gravel or dirt. She stopped, flicking her foot like a cat. More crunching. But she hadn’t moved. Someone else was close. The sound stopped.
If she could barely see down here, no one else could either. Who would be sneaking around in the basement? Why would anyone be here in the middle of the night?
“Brady?” she whispered. She hadn’t meant to; it just came out. Fear pulsed through her body faster than her blood.
A dark
figure emerged from the gaping hole to her right, heading straight for her. Lys took a step back.
She drew in a breath to scream, hoping that someone would hear her. Before she got it out, a flashlight flipped on, illuminating the shadowy world around her.
Her scream came out as a strangled cry. The light split the dark, much like it had in her dreams. But instead of a shimmering ghost, a dark figure with shinning eyes stood before her.
“Kamau?” she asked, placing a hand over her fluttering heart.
“Lys?” he said, taking a small step back. “What are you doing down here?”
“I—” she stopped, dropping her gaze. What was she supposed to say? I thought I had a vision of Brady down here running from a ghost? Yeah, that would go over well. So she countered. “What are you doing down here?”
Kamau glanced around. “I was looking for Brady. He is not in his room.”
The two of them started at one another. Kamau’s gaze shot through her, and Lys felt the Need stir. She shifted her eyes to the ground.
“You should go back upstairs.” Kamau said.
Lys swallowed. “I’m fine.” Her voice held an edge that scared her. Her memory turned to Kenny and his swirling eyes. What was Kamau’s need? His guarded expression told Lys that Kamau was wondering the same thing about her.
The two of them stood there, the gloom pressing in around them, trying to penetrate the small pocket of light they resided in.
“We should go upstairs,” Kamau said after a few breaths of oppressive tension. He lifted a hand as if to gesture her back down the hall.
She couldn’t help it; Lys took a step away from him.
Kamau froze. “I am not going to hurt you.”
He meant it. At least it felt like he meant it. Lys didn’t get the impression that he was about to break into crazy. However, Kamau kept shifting his weight back and forth on his feet and glancing around, as if he expected someone else to be close by.
“Sorry,” she said, willing herself to stop moving. “I, uh—”