Soul Suites

by Hulden Morse

  The CEO had been plunged into a darkness that consumed his room, causing the guard to throw commands at the subject in hopes of maintaining control without the aid of vision.

  “Sit on your bed!” he yelled violently. “Don’t move! Just stay there! It’ll be okay! Stay on your bed!”

  “Wha-what’s happening?” Charles said in a shaky voice as he grabbed a sheet from his bed and rolled it into a long strip of fabric.

  “I don’t know. But we have a protocol for everything. It’ll be okay.”

  The CEO crept toward where he assumed the door to be. It was difficult to know since he was relying on memory in order to navigate his tiny domain, though he felt confident that he could find the guard without alerting him to his sneaking presence.

  “Pearson? You on your bed?”

  Charles neared the invisible voice, holding the sheet between his outstretched arms, prepared to wrap it around his captor’s neck in order to subdue the much stronger man.

  “Pearson!”

  The subject lunged for his prey, throwing the makeshift weapon high into the air so that it had plenty of clearance over the tall guard. Once he collided with the thick man, he pulled his hands back in order to tighten the fabric around his neck. The already tense and frightened guard countered the attack by placing his hand in front of his face to block the sheet and flip it over his head. Having nothing to stop his weight after the guard moved, Charles tumbled backward and onto the unforgiving ground, crying out in pain as his elbows absorbed most of the fall.

  “What the fuck?” screamed the guard as he looked for the subject in total darkness. “You bastard! Where are you?”

  A metal chair was knocked over as the large man scoured the floor for his attacker. Charles scampered backward in the opposite direction of the door as he fought to avoid the furious grip of the guard. He ran into a table leg and quickly skirted around it toward the back wall. He then had a desperate yet plausible idea.

  Terrified, he reached his hand to the table surface and felt for his dinner tray. After finding it, the subject pulled the metal object onto the ground and held it tightly in his hand, prepared to use it any way he could.

  The guard groped his way through the room like an awkward Godzilla stumbling through a fantastical pitch-black city. He accidentally kicked the bunk bed structure and cried out in frustration. He then changed direction and walked into the table, cursing angrily at that piece of furniture as well, though he then realized that something else touched his foot. The man kicked his leg and heard a screech of pain mixed with the sirens from the hallway.

  “I got you, you fucker!” he yelled triumphantly.

  With adrenaline coursing through his muscles, the guard dove under the table and grabbed hold of anything he could, hoping that it would be the subject’s head, though settling for any piece of flesh.

  Charles suddenly felt hands on his torso and leg. He tried to wriggle free but was held fast by the powerful man’s grip. All at once, his weak body was pulled from under the table and pinned to the ground.

  “You’re gonna pay for what you did!”

  The CEO could feel spit against his face as the guard screamed at the shadowy figure in his grip. With great speed and dedication, Charles pulled the metal tray to his side and then swung it up to meet his captor’s face. He felt the vibration of the object in his hand after it collided with the man’s skull, sending him howling to the ground.

  Not wanting to take any chances, Charles got to his knees and took aim at what his eyes made out to be the head of the guard. He swung true and beat the man in his face once more, spraying a dark liquid through the air and across the ground. He hit the man again and again until there was no more crying, only silence intermittently disrupted by a blaring alarm.

  Having become decently accustomed to the darkness, the CEO found a set of keys and a gun on the unconscious guard. He removed the tools from the guard’s motionless body and felt his way to the door. After trying several keys, he found one that could unlock the door. At last, Charles escaped his cell.

  The hallway was now empty. Any employees in the building had rushed to the explosion site. Small amounts of natural light filtered in from neighboring hallways whose windows were fortunate enough to be blessed with illumination from the moon. That small glow was enough to guide the subject to the room next to his. He held the keys tightly in his shaking hands as he shoved wrong key after wrong key into the lock, praying to an absent god that one of them would be correct.

  After nearly a full minute, though what felt like an hour to Charles, one of the keys slid into the socket and released the lock on the door. He threw it open and rushed into the room to find it totally empty. The man searched the corners, the bunk bed, and the bathroom, but found no signs that the space was being utilized by someone. He accepted the result and moved on to the next room.

  Without much trouble, he found the correct key for room 38 and discovered that it was occupied by two men, one of them holding on to the other as if his life depended on it.

  “We’re gettin’ out of here. Let’s go,” Charles said against the background noise.

  Jake and Mr. Munich stared at the strange figure, unable to discern any features given that he was slightly backlit. They wondered if it were not another cruel trick put on by the facility.

  “Come on! We need to go. Now!”

  “Alright,” Jake said, accepting that they could be staring at their only chance for survival. “Let’s go, Mr. Munich. Hold my hand and follow me.”

  Neither man glanced back at their temporary home, having no desire to remember the pain they endured within those walls. They were prisoners in that building, confined to a single room and denied any luxury that a normal person, including a homeless individual, would take for granted. Yet now, thanks to that unknown man, they were finally released from their restraints and thrown into the world of possibilities where escape was no longer a lunatic’s fantasy but a workable dream.

  “We’ve got to release more people,” the stranger said to his companions. “I want to get out as many as we can. Increase our numbers.”

  “Ariana!” Mr. Munich cried out suddenly. “My friend! Jake, we need her!”

  “Shit, man,” Jake whispered loudly in his friend’s ear. “We’ll get her. Please be quiet though.”

  “Where is she?” the man with the keys asked them.

  “Right next door. They would talk through the walls.”

  Standing in front of room 36, it took Charles longer than the past few times to unlock the door. The younger man of the roommates—referred to by the other one as Mr. Munich—seemed desperate to see that woman and also showed signs of possessing some special need. Not wanting to disappoint the individual and striving to increase the size of their small group, he continued to try keys until one finally unlocked the door.

  Mr. Munich darted into the room, calling out for Ariana much to the protests of his friend. But his cries ceased as soon as a skinny woman, having followed the man’s voice, leaped toward the figure she could not see and embraced him with everything she had. As they briefly hugged, that woman’s roommate began to scream incessantly, screeching in the tiny room and sending her cries out the door and down the hall.

  “Shit. Oh shit,” Charles said. “Shut her up.”

  Pushing past his roommate and Ariana, Jake—as Mr. Munich had called him—raced into the room in search of the disturbed woman. After no change in volume followed Jake’s efforts, the CEO followed the man into the small space and they both worked to calm her down.

  “Please, miss. Please. Be quiet,” Jake said in a reassuring voice.

  “Ma’am. You’re going to alert the guards,” added Charles. “Please stop.”

  But the psychotic subject continued to stare blankly into the darkness as she emitted screams of terror, possibly frightened by the sirens ringing around her.
r />   “We’ve got to free more people,” Charles said to the other subject.

  “This noise is gonna attract guards.”

  “Then we need to go. Now!”

  The two men grabbed Mr. Munich and Ariana and dragged them down the hall toward another room. But as they stopped to unlock the door, a single guard came barreling around a corner in search of the screaming he had heard. The group of subjects froze when they noticed the dreaded security’s arrival, his muscular form and bewildered expression glowing in the faint moonlight. They were children found with their hand in a cookie jar; teenagers caught with a box of tissues; college students seen underage drinking; adults discovered escaping from an illegal human experiment.

  Both parties remained shocked in mind and body for a brief moment before the guard whipped out his radio to report what he was seeing. Devoid of thought or hesitation, Charles lifted the gun he had taken from the man in his room and pointed it at the guard. He kicked off the safety and pulled the trigger, sending his target to the ground with the echo of a gunshot ricocheting off the walls. The sound overpowered the siren for a few seconds until it faded away like the life of a bleeding man, killed while following orders.

  The CEO stared in disbelief at the action he had just committed. That person was dead. He killed someone. He, Charles Pearson, businessman and philanthropist, murdered another human being. The gun suddenly felt heavy in his hand as if it had doubled in mass, possibly bearing the weight of the souls that had been taken by its power. He wanted to drop the weapon and never think of that moment again, simply escape the facility through a window and pretend that none of it had ever happened. But it did. He just ended someone’s life. No matter the circumstances that led to pulling the trigger, Charles felt sick that he had done so.

  A tingling sensation ascended his arm, leading him to believe that his own nerves were rejecting the vile action they had initiated. The subtle stimulation escalated into trembles of the spine that worked their way into the extremities and brought about a general sense of horror and grief that rivaled the original fear controlling his body.

  Yanking on Charles’s grey shirt, Jake pulled the man away from the scene and further down the hall with Mr. Munich leading the blind Ariana behind them. The younger homeless man was elated that his friend had bandages around her head, hiding the wretched sight that had caused him to vomit embarrassingly in front of the guards. He cared about that person, feeling as if he had known her for years, but he dreaded seeing those empty sockets again. They were dark, endless, and made her face look soulless.

  Ariana stumbled through her permanently black world. She had been stripped of her sight only a few days before and had not yet adjusted to a life of groping for objects and running into furniture. Though her disability was debilitating at that point, her excitement at the notion that they could escape was growing ever more powerful.

  She would never again see her incredible surroundings, though she could still experience them. Ariana dreamed of feeling the sun’s rays lightly stroking her skin, providing warmth and comfort in the darkest of times. She imagined stepping into a river, the water rushing cool against her ankles and the smooth rocks massaging her feet. There was so much out there that could trigger her other senses. The smell of flowers near the intersection at which she used to sleep. The chirping of birds to which she would awaken every morning. In fact, those things of beauty would penetrate her body unhindered by the onslaught of sympathetic or disgusted looks lobbed at her by passing strangers. She would not be forced to witness the fights that broke out around her, the deaths of her friends, the inescapable drug use, or the despondent state of her dwellings.

  The woman longed to see that new world through her unseeing eyes, and enjoy everything it had to offer. She tightly gripped Mr. Munich’s hand and trusted that those other subjects would guide her to freedom and to a better life.

  “We need to find the basement,” Charles said as they rushed down the hall toward where he thought was the staircase.

  “The trial rooms? Why?” Jake responded next to him.

  “No. There’s a floor below the trial rooms. My roommate’s there. I’m not going without him.”

  “But we need to get out. This could be our only chance. Free the people around us and then get out of the building.”

  The CEO agreed that in order to increase the odds that the facility would get shut down, they needed to remain focused on escaping. Though he was not going to leave before finding Damian. Charles decided that he would help the other subjects find a way out of the building before he descended into the heart of that horrid place in search of his friend.

  “Alright,” he said to Jake. “Let’s get these other—”

  The yelling of men came from behind them, so loud that it was audible over the alarm.

  “Subjects! Subjects are loose!” the voices called.

  The four of them whipped around to find two guards sprinting in their direction, the faces too dark to discern, but shadowy shapes hinted at what looked like a gun in each man’s hand. Charles quickly aimed his own weapon and fired at the guards, sending off a couple rounds into the dark hall. One of the men dropped to the ground, seemingly hit, while the other returned the fire with his own gun. The CEO dove to the floor and saw the other subjects fall as well in order to make themselves smaller targets. He fired two more times and dropped the second guard, ending the shootout and any respect that he had held for himself.

  It was terrifying to think that he had become a murderer. He was now a killer, having slain two, possibly three people. Those men had a family and friends like his own. Maybe they were married with children. He tried to focus on the fact that they were working for a human experiment and how their cruelty should render them impervious to sympathy, though he could not help but imagine those individuals as actual humans who went out to restaurants and listened to music and bought presents for people. They had lives and opinions that mattered to the world, and he had just brought about an end to those thoughts. Did that not make him a monster?

  “Right. Let’s go!” Charles said in a shaky voice. But instead of a response, he heard wailing coming from his left.

  The man looked over to find Mr. Munich kneeling over Jake’s lifeless body, sobbing into his hands while Ariana stood in the background, unsure what to do with herself. The deceased subject was lying on his back, one arm awkwardly twisted behind him, his face obscured by shadow.

  “Wake up!” Mr. Munich screamed at his friend. “Wake up! Please!”

  “We need to go! Now!” Charles yelled at the remaining two. “They know we’re out!”

  “Mr. Munich. Please,” Ariana said softly. “We need to save ourselves.”

  But the crumbling man paid no attention to anything else around him. He shook his roommate, trying to rouse the man as if he were asleep. The limp body simply fell back into its final resting place, unfeeling and unmoving.

  They could hear voices growing closer to them, bounding around the corner and bouncing off the walls to the anxious subjects. Charles tried to pull the crying man from the ground, but he refused to move as he leaned over Jake’s corpse and screamed.

  “Please! I need you! Wake up!”

  “Dammit! Dude, we have to go!”

  Ariana began to cry and jerk her head around, unable to detect her surroundings and wondering if she could possibly find an exit on her own.

  Charles incessantly pulled on the hysterical subject while the yelling neared them from up the hall. He could hear the thunderous roar of heavy footsteps on the ground, while Mr. Munich continued to bawl.

  Chapter 54

  “Shit! Move!” Charles screamed.

  “Please, Mr. Munich. He’s dead,” Ariana said softly as she choked back tears.

  The man continued to cry, ignoring the other subjects. Having lost his patience, the CEO grabbed the blind woman and pulled her down the hall. H
e could still hear the yelling of approaching guards and the wailing of Mr. Munich, though he had a destination ahead of him. He had a dear friend waiting to be rescued.

  “But wait. We left him. He’s not with us!” Ariana yelled as she continued to run at the side of a stranger.

  “We have to get ourselves out. We can’t help him.”

  Screams, tears, and the alarm created a symphony of sounds that echoed through the hall like a twisted soundtrack to their desperation. With the theme song blaring, they turned a corner and Charles saw a large staircase not far away. The two darted forward, tightly holding on to one another, when a single gunshot filled the air behind them and they heard no more sobbing. The reality of the situation pained the duo, though they continued on their course, undeterred.

  After reaching the staircase, both subjects rushed into the darkness below—Ariana carefully taking each step one at a time—and were met by inescapable chaos. Smoke billowed out of two trial rooms, filling the already light-deprived area with a dark fog that made discerning the identity of anyone passing by nearly impossible. Employees of the facility raced around the space, yelling commands at one another and waving flashlights around, seemingly fighting to gain control over the situation.

  Knowing that they had been taken to a lower level after being found with the chisel, Charles led Ariana down another flight of stairs until they entered an equally dark hallway that was deserted, much to his surprise and pleasure.

  “I think it’s over here,” he said to the woman as they rushed through the small hall and toward a set of double doors that seemed to match the ones in the CEO’s memory.