by North, Geoff
“I was the one what woke it up,” Lawson said. “See those three buttons?” Cobe looked away from the glass and saw them in a single line under the window. The first was white, the second red, and the last one was green. “I pressed the white button, and that voice we heard earlier told me to wait twelve hours while the thing inside woke up. I tried the red one next and was warned it would only take another minute or so.”
“And the green one?”
Lawson shook his head at the boy. “Didn’t touch it. Figured it might pop another door open and let the damn thing out. Even armed as I was, I didn’t want to take the risk.”
Cobe could hardly blame him. Willem and Trot had already stepped back out into the hallway. Lawson stood beside the door, his hand back at his holster, ready to leave next. “You said you were the one that woke it up…when was that?”
“First time I was ever here; the same time as when I shot the howler dead over at that desk.”
“How long ago?”
“Thirty-four…maybe thirty-five years.”
Chapter 12
They left the silent screaming cat’s tomb and travelled down the corridor without trying any more doors. Their fear of discovering people in the same state as Smudge overrode any remaining curiosity. Cobe didn’t know what claustrophobia was, because he’d been born and raised in a walled community. As bleak and hopeless as it was, Burn still offered open skies and a sense of knowing where he and his family were.
Cobe didn’t know where he was now. His world had turned upside down. Family numbers had been cut in half. The choking sense of dread he felt—buried half a mile, if not farther, beneath the ground, where dead things were still living—wasn’t making matters better. “When are we going to get what we came for?” he asked the lawman.
“Books are below,” Lawson answered, pointing down at the floor. “Eighteen levels down.”
Trot didn’t understand the word. “Levels?”
“Floors. Eighteen more floors like this, all with hallways, doors, and rooms.”
“Eighteen more?” Willem wasn’t impressed. He swung his arm in circles. “Gawdamn! We’ll be walking around this place for days…Just for a bunch of stupid, ol’ books.”
“There ain’t no need to poke around on each level. There’s a quicker way through the heart of the place.”
No sooner had he said it, they came to a recessed area in the wall. Two heavy doors, open a foot in the center where they were designed to shut tight, were set into it. Willem looked into the dark space and Lawson grabbed the waist of his pants. “Easy now; you don’t wanna step in there.”
Willem whistled and the sound echoed. “That’s the deepest hole I ever seen.” He stepped back and allowed his brother a peek. It was the deepest hole Cobe had ever seen, too. The square shaft disappeared into complete blackness another hundred feet down. For all Cobe knew, it may have just kept going on forever.
“That would’ve been the easiest way down,” Lawson muttered. “Elevators were built to carry folks level to level in seconds.”
“I ain’t going in there,” Willem protested. “Don’t care how far it is.”
“We won’t have to.” Lawson went to another door beside the elevator and opened it. The ancient metal hinges squealed. “We’re taking the stairs.”
They went down, floor after floor. It was slow going; Trot’s legs weren’t made for stairs. His left foot popped out to the side each time he lowered it to the next step. He eventually figured a rhythm where he didn’t have to use it at all by gripping the handrail and sliding down, his right leg hopping step after step. His big foot clanged with every hop, echoing off down below them.
There were signs at each floor indicating where they were—for all the good it did them. They had started at Level A, and were now passing C. It was following the letters of the alphabet, Cobe realized. People and pets with names beginning in early letters were ‘put to rest’ above.
Down and down they went. As they left Level H, Cobe saw the floor sign for I combined with J. That explained why there were only eighteen levels instead of twenty-six. There probably weren’t as many people with names beginning with Is and Js. Q, undoubtedly, shared space with P or possibly R. He wondered if the cats and dogs farther below named Xeepa, Yippy, and Zaloo all rested on a single floor.
Lawson got tired of waiting for Trot. He wrapped an arm around the man and helped him along. Trot grinned up at him thankfully. “Sorry…I’m slow.”
“In more ways than one.” The grin vanished. “Should’ve left you with Dust. It’ll be a lot harder workin’ our way back up.”
They came upon Level XYZ fifteen minutes later, but the stairs kept heading down. The sign below read ARMORY. “We’ll find everything we need here.” He was about to open the door when a loud crash sounded somewhere above. They craned their heads up into the stairwell and searched for the noise’s source. A second bang followed it, not as loud. Something was rattling along the metal steps far above.
Willem whispered, “I thought you said the place was empty.”
“I said that?” Three sets of terrified, unblinking eyes answered him. “Appears I was mistaken.” He tapped the gun at his side. “Not to worry. So long as I’m carrying this, there ain’t nothin’ living or dead I can’t put down.”
“The door won’t open.” Cobe was twisting the handle unsuccessfully.
“It’s because this floor has to remain sealed…free of air.” Lawson pushed him out of the way and pressed the hidden button located on the handle’s underside. “The rooms above, those with people lying inside cylinders, and the ones like this for storage, they were meant to go long stretches of time without the folks and contents…going bad.”
Cobe was beginning to understand. There was a click, and the door popped open an inch. It wasn’t the hiss of air escaping from the other side he was hearing—it was the sound of air finally returning. “Long stretches…thirty-five years long?”
“Longer, in some cases. A whole lot longer.” They entered a dark space, a room of cavernous proportions, shrouded in shadows and dark, hulking shapes. Lawson found a series of switches on the wall next to the door and clicked them on. The room slowly lit in dull mauve. Trot squeaked and Willem whistled as the shapes revealed themselves. They were massive cabinets of steel with glass door fronts. Inside were shelves and racks filled with violent-looking weapons, similar to the ones Lawson carried at his side and on his back. There were small pistols and large revolvers cushioned on their sides in gray, bubbly material. Long rifles stood on end, one after another, silent and cold, in a seemingly endless line.
Cobe tapped the glass of one cabinet. It sounded thick and impenetrable.
As if reading his thoughts, Lawson smacked the glass with the butt of his gun using a considerable amount of force. “They weren’t made for easy entry.”
“I wasn’t trying to get inside.”
“You want one?”
“One what?”
“A gun. Maybe one of them smaller pieces to start with.”
Cobe shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
Lawson made a face like something stunk in the room. “Gotta learn sometime how to defend yerself. I might not always be around to look out for you and yer brother.”
“I don’t want a gun.”
“Suit yerself.” He squatted down, his old knees cracking, and slid a door open that looked like wood but wasn’t. These two-foot high cabinets without glass were at the bottom of each display case. Lawson rummaged around briefly through the small boxes stacked neatly inside. They were arranged by color. He grabbed two yellow boxes and a red one. He peered up at Cobe. “Ammunition.” The lawman started to slide the door shut but stopped halfway. He reached back in for a black box with small, white printing. “In case you change yer mind.” He stood, dug into the pocket of his shirt, and produced a little gold key flecked with rust. The key slipped into a lock on the glass case’s center that Cobe hadn’t noticed until now. The cabinet opened and
Lawson pulled one of the smaller revolvers from its snug, gray bed. He tucked it into the waist of his pants and locked the cabinet back up.
“Can I have a gun?” Willem asked.
Lawson looked the scrawny boy up and down. “Where would you carry it?”
“In my hand.”
“It would get awfully heavy after a time…Where would you put it when yer arm got sore?”
Cobe could see that look in his brother’s eyes. He feared Willem might tell the lawman he’d shove it up his gnarly, old ass for safekeeping. Instead he told Lawson he’d just keep on holding it; his one arm was strong, and it never got tired.
“Good to know.” Lawson grinned. “I’ll keep that in mind when we get into trouble. He looked at Trot, cowering near the door. “What about you? Aren’t you going to ask for one, too?”
Trot shook his head. “Too dumb to use one. Might blow another hole in my bum.”
“Smartest thing you’ve said all day.”
Trot placed his ear against the closed door. “I can still hear those sounds. They’re getting closer.”
“Keep listening. I’ll take the boys and get us some books.”
Cobe and Willem followed him past a hundred more feet of cabinets filled with guns. Neither said a word; Cobe was afraid the lawman would attempt to change his mind and make him carry a weapon, and Willem was pissed off and sullen because he couldn’t.
The boy paused at the last glass window. “What kind of gun is that?” It was longer than Willem was tall, with a barrel thicker than both of his legs.
“Rocket launcher. I fired one off years ago outside; ain’t had no desire to use another one since. Hell of a noisy thing, and damn destructive. Unless yer planning on blowin’ up a building, there ain’t much use for ‘em.”
“What about the green balls beside it?”
“Grenades. Hold the handle, pull the pin on top, and throw for all yer life’s worth. Makes about the same amount of damage.” Lawson handed the ammunition boxes off to Cobe and opened the cabinet with his dirty, gold key. He shoved a grenade into each back pocket and closed it up again. “These might come in handy, actually.”
They came to a small office with a big window that the boys could see their reflections in. Inside was a desk—its top holding black trays piled with messy stacks of paper. Behind it was a shelf containing more books than Cobe had ever seen in one place. He started counting them by spines and stopped when he reached twenty. Who could’ve written so much stuff? How could there have been so many people able to read and write that could even understand them? He remembered how sprawling the alphabetized levels were above, and had his answer. But still…There must have been a hundred or more books in front of them.
“There’s rooms on other levels where it’s nothin’ but books. Thousands of ‘em. Go on—grab one a piece, and take one fer Trot.”
Willem reached for the most colorful—a thick, yellow spine with bold black letters that read The Shining. Cobe went for one of the multiple titles with the ABZE logo. Lawson grabbed his wrist before he could pull the book out. “Use yer imagination some. The folks on Victory Island ain’t interested in the workings of this place.”
Cobe picked out a black spine, thicker than Willem’s, with white lettering—Great Expectations. “Will this do?”
Lawson shrugged. “I reckon. Seen a copy or two already on the island, but the folks there don’t seem to mind none.”
“There’s more of the exact same book?” Willem asked. “Why would they make two of them?”
“They used to make hundreds the same. There were a lot of people back when this place was running…cut down on havin’ to share.”
They started back the way they’d came. At first, Cobe thought they had wandered down a different aisle—Trot wasn’t waiting for them at the stairwell doorway. He saw the scowl deepen on Lawson’s face. There were spatters of fresh blood on the tiles disappearing under the door’s edge.
“Aw, shit.” Lawson pulled out his gun.
Chapter 13
Trot had tried calling out to the others, but his voice wouldn’t work. The inside of his mouth and throat were dry as dust. The clanking, banging, rattling noises outside the door had grown louder. Whatever it was coming down from above was still a few floors away. What would happen when whoever—whatever—it was burst through the door and found only him standing there, shaking and afraid?
They would go for the horrible guns. They would crash through the glass and train the long barrels at Trot’s face and gut. They would shoot him like the lawman had that howler back at the fire. The little brain inside his skull would splatter all over the wall behind him in chunks of gray and pink. Trot couldn’t allow that to happen. As stupid and useless his brain was, he wanted it to stay inside his head—not turning into dust balls like the ones in the little room on floor A.
Where was the lawman when you needed him? Where were Cobe and Willem? He considered running past the guns and trying to find them on his own. There was another bang from behind the door. Trot picked at his nose frantically—a nervous habit he’d developed when folks in Burn were especially mad at him. Trot picked his nose a lot. The more rattles and bangs he heard, the deeper the finger went. When it was shoved all the way to the first knuckle, he tasted blood. Nose bleed. He pulled the finger out and a small stream of red followed. It dripped to the floor, sounding like big drops of rain pelting stone. Trot panicked even more, afraid he would bleed to death before having his brains blown out.
He grabbed the door handle—as the lawman had—and twisted it open. Trot went through and almost jumped back from another noise above. It was much louder with the door fully open again. He heard the rattle-dragging sound and guessed it was still four or five floors up. He wiped the remaining blood from his lips and made a jerking run for the stairs.
It’ll hear my stupid foot on the steps. His breathing was loud and labored. More blood bubbled from his nostril, spraying the back of his hand as he pulled it along the rail. It’ll hear me panting and dragging like a fat, old dog. He lurched his way up to Level XYZ and fell into the door. Trot’s fingers trembled as he took hold of the knob. His hand, wet with sweat and blood, slipped on the metal. A crash sounded overhead—more rattling. It was in the lower stairwell with him, shuffling and clanking step after step. Trot saw its shadow cast on the wall. It writhed and twisted in the dim, purple light, dropping closer in a twist of black limbs and sharp, curled ends.
Not human. Not human. Not human.
Trot pushed at the handle.
Why won’t it open? Why doesn’t it work?
He could smell the thing after him. It was like the urine-soaked alleys of Burn he’d been forced to sleep in most of his life—only worse. It started making another sound—a high-pitched crying noise. It took a few more seconds of futile pushing until Trot realized it was his own blubbering he could hear. A flash of pure genius struck, and he pulled the door towards him, as he had on the floor below. It opened with a squeal and Trot barged through. He pressed his back against it, heard the handle click back into place, and sighed heavily. The lawman would be proud, he thought. Something smashed against the other side with enough force to rattle the hinges loose. Trot fell forward on his hands and knees. He scrambled away and another bang caused dust to filter down from the frame. Trot was crawling past the open elevator doors when he heard someone calling his name. He ducked his head through the gap and listened. He heard his name again. It was Willem, from the armory level. Trot wanted to call back—to shout the boy’s name—but his throat was still gripped dumb with fear. He squeezed his fat upper body into the dark, open space and prayed one of them would be looking up.
The stairwell door flew open and something shrieked. Trot looked back through the elevator doors and saw its ghastly white limbs and curled gray toenails. Its head turned in his direction—the gouged-out eyes unseeing, but the flat nose twitched his way. It could smell him. Trot’s legs kicked and flailed as he pulled himself all the way into the
elevator shaft. The ledge was too narrow. He fell into darkness. His arms spun in empty air and the fingers of one hand found a rope made of metal. He gripped it with all his strength and swung his body. Trot’s other hand caught the cable, but his weight was still causing him to plummet. He gripped harder—the metal burned into his palms, tearing the skin away. Trot didn’t have enough sense to let go and drop the last twelve feet. He gripped harder, slid and burned another two feet, and finally came to a hanging stop.
Trot started back up, and the howler was waiting. It raked the air as he climbed by—nails barely missing the shaking bulge of his buttocks. They whistled frenziedly, like twisted blades whipping in the wind. Trot pulled himself up faster, and the creature screamed its rage. The sound reverberated up through the elevator shaft as Trot came to the open doors of the next level. He pushed off the cable using his left foot and barely managed to catch the ledge with his right forearm and elbow. Most people would’ve given in to the pain and exhaustion. Not Trot. He barely thought most things through at all. He pulled his bulk from the shaft and rolled, like a big, flopping fish out of water, covered in blood and drenched with sweat, onto level 17, Section W.
Chapter 14
They searched every square foot on the armory level. Just when Cobe had thought he’d seen the most lethal-looking weapons ancient mankind had to offer, he would turn down another aisle and discover guns capable of tearing down herds of rollers. There were blades with fanciful hilts and comfortable handles, double-edged swords twice the length of the rusty machete Lode had used to hack off his father’s toes.
But they hadn’t found Trot. They had called his name as Lawson led them through the outer offices and washrooms. The simple-minded man remained hidden. Willem tugged on the lawman’s sleeve more than once, insisting the blood they’d seen vanished under the stairwell door.
Lawson finally agreed. “I had to be sure. Had to be certain he didn’t go crawl off to some corner to bleed to death. People and animals will do that, you know. When they’re scared and hurtin’, they’re more liable to seek a quiet, safe place, away from others.”