Exit

by Thomas Davidson

  Mariott put his hand out, opened the door, terrified that the crowd might rush them within these walls. If they could just get outside. Then it hit him: inside, outside. Something was profoundly wrong. From a nonexistent McLane and Jumper Cable TV, to the truly unidentified flying object flying over a Cambridge street. The world seemed so…hallucinatory. They needed to retrace their steps, and re-enter the theater. Get out of Dodge, go back to Square One. It seemed irrational, crazy even, but that was their only option, only route. All else would end in a disaster. He knew it in his gut.

  That was the plan.

  Four words came to mind: Man plans, God laughs.

  The plan changed when someone tomahawked a beer bottle. Mariott heard a sick, wet sound. A gush of red rain appeared. The side of Dennis Warciniak’s head opened. Warciniak’s free hand flew up, touching blood and tissue. The crowd swarmed, closed in. A gunshot. A young man fell, his eyes bright with fear. Now bottles and anathemas flew through the air. Blood and spit. A thunderstorm of noise as the phalanx closed in. Warciniak was writhing on the floor, getting stomped by a dozen shoes. A woman wearing a Boston Bruins jersey grabbed Warciniak’s gun, shouted “jumper!” and shot the detective in the head.

  A second later…

  Mariott shot the shooter, tempted to unload on the crowd, shoot his way through a massive hallucination, a surreal fog, where rational thinking clearly did not apply. Reason scuttled, he was now aboard the Wide-Eyed Express. Because there was no logical explanation for what he next witnessed. His identical twin broke free from the crowd. Perry Joe Rittenhouse, the Steven Mariott clone, locked incendiary eyes with Detective Steven Mariott.

  Me looking at me.

  This stare-down put a whole new spin on the term self-hatred. A century on a psychiatrist’s couch couldn’t untangle this.

  Adios.

  Cold air hit Detective Steve Mariott as he rushed outside. He ran across the street, toward the cemetery. He could hear the angry mob boiling out of O’Henry’s, spilling into the street, chasing the jumper. The mad doctor without borders.

  Mariott needed to reach the exit door, the only border that mattered. If he could just outrun the mob, stay ahead of the roaring tidal wave of rage. His partner was dead. His clone was alive. And the mob was coming.

  And then things got worse.

  He spotted something overhead, following him from up in the air.

  CHAPTER 32

  Rayne stopped the car in a commercial district not far from MIT, surrounded by mostly dark office buildings. The high-tech employees were gone for the weekend. She got out of the car and opened the trunk. Digging beneath a spare tire, rags and a screwdriver, she found an L-shaped tire iron. Perfect. It saved her from making a trip to a store. The screwdriver would work, too, but the tire iron was better.

  She got back behind the wheel and sat for a moment in the dark, smoking her second cigarette of the day. Right now, she imagined Tim sitting in the waiting area, wondering what was taking her so long. He had planned to sign in after she joined him, thinking they could be arrested or taken into custody simultaneously. Once the woman at the admissions desk saw his name and face, it would be the beginning of the end. If she didn’t recognize him, surely the next doctor or nurse would. Rayne had no intention of being arrested, at least not yet. And it was pointless to have Tim accompany her for this final task. His vision was too limited; his eye too vulnerable. He couldn’t be caught in the middle of a melee.

  Earlier, after much thought while lying on the Crown Victoria’s front seat in a dark garage, she had seen only three possible outcomes to their horrendous plight. One: get arrested by the police, and possibly shot. Two: get killed by EyeSoar. Or, three: hit the movies because, after all, this was Friday night. And everyone loved to hit the movies on Friday night.

  She hoped this was the right move. She also bet C.C. Seymour had never reported his car being boosted. She couldn’t imagine that orange-haired egotist admitting that a woman had given him a beatdown at a car wash before stealing his wheels. Most of all, she hoped that she and Tim could get a break. The two couldn’t continue on their downward slide.

  Earlier, Tim had summed it up: “All we’re doing is reacting. We need to be proactive.” He was right. She had to return to where it began, and spark a wake-up call. No one would believe them unless she opened the floodgates.

  I want my life back. I want to be left alone.

  All day long that simple wish had echoed in her head. Well, this was no time for a pity party. She stubbed out her cigarette, put the car in gear and headed for Harvard Square. She cut through the neighborhood with the Portuguese and Brazilian storefronts and credit unions and banks, circled around the back end of Harvard University, shot over Mass Ave, and got into the vicinity of the Gateway.

  9:29 p.m.

  The reflection of a Crown Vic appeared in the plate glass window of a dark bookstore on the corner. The Crown Vic rolled to a stop. Bright headlights sparkled in the glass, illuminating a row of books on display facing the street: The Count of Monte Cristo, Hamlet, Frankenstein, The Iliad, Carrie, The Princess Bride. A sign on the window announced:

  This week’s discount special: Revenge

  Come in, get even!

  The Crown Vic rumbled. The window also reflected exhaust from the tailpipe, which, as if by magic, issued over the book covers. The carbon smoke lent an interesting fog over Shakespeare, Shelley, King, Homer et al. The glass showed an image of a driver putting a cell phone to her ear. One long block away, a singular theater was featuring a singular movie.

  #

  Shay stood in the chilly air, wearing a headband and leather jacket, remembering Reggie while fighting back tears and playing a medley of Jimi Hendrix songs. She strummed her way through All Along the Watchtower when a ringtone erupted inside her guitar case. Her cell phone was surrounded by a handful of coins. The rest of her earnings were discreetly tucked away; too much visible money in the guitar case thwarted potential earnings.

  Her current audience stood ten feet away, an elderly gentleman in a tattered gray overcoat. He was a music lover. Or his surgically reconstructed knee was flaring up and he made a pit stop. She assumed he wouldn’t mind her taking the call.

  Shay thumbed a button and heard:

  “Get set.”

  Shay thumbed a different button and set the phone back into the case. She thought of her last song, Watchtower. She flashed on the lyrics about a wildcat off in the distance, a growling wildcat, and how two riders were approaching, and the sound of a howling wind.

  Tonight, only one rider was approaching.

  Shay turned to her right and looked down the street, only seeing pedestrians on the sidewalk.

  One, two, three…

  Two tiny headlights appeared. Two white suns cracked open the night. Sunrise on a dark horizon.

  The headlights swelled in size.

  Shay turned to her enamored fan and said, “Sir, I think you better move along.”

  The headlights stopped advancing. A moment later, they blinked twice.

  Shay leaned down and lifted her open guitar case. Hidden beneath it, a rectangular, red can lay on its side on the sidewalk. A yellow band circled the can like a ribbon, highlighting a single word in red letters: gasoline. Set next to the can was her souvenir from the night before, Rayne’s gas mask. The mask resembled a monster’s head staring up at her, a pissed off monster erupting through the sidewalk. Her hands trembled as she set the case down by her foot, and unstrapped her guitar and put it inside, praying no one would steal it.

  Shay had one minute. Get in, get out.

  #

  The cashier was half asleep inside the ticket booth, bored, waiting for Gone to end, the crowd to exit, and the next showing to begin shortly thereafter, along with the coming attractions.

  She faced the rectangular window. The booth’s window always reminded her of a stained glass window in a church. A theater was similar to a church. Here, the audience worshipped movies. The Gateway pro
vided a unique vision of reality that extended beyond the screen, an alternative world. The alternative world could be viewed as an afterlife. Because after you arrived there, your life was over. If an afterlife meant heaven or hell, well, this was probably not paradise.

  Tsk. Tough luck.

  The cashier looked down at her counter. Next to her clasped hands was a small tablet with a keyboard. For her amusement, she had composed the opening page of an imaginary book. A drone bible.

  The Book of Gateway

  In the beginning…over here, Gateway said, “Let there be light.” And there was light on the silver screen. Then Gateway said, “Let there be an exit door.” And a red sign lit up in the theater. Then Gateway said, “Let there be volunteers.” And there were.

  Gateway provided access to another city, another world. Over there, in the near future, darkness was upon the face of the other Cambridge. The dreary city was in decline and despair. The people were hopeless, the walking dead. Until the Spirits of EyeSoar and DR1, the Saviors, moved upon the face of the city. And showed them the jumpers, renewed the people’s spirits, and gave them a crusade.

  Indeed, the booth’s window always reminded her of a church. The booth itself was the size of a confessional. Therefore, she was the high priestess. The ticket buyers were the sinners. They paid for their redemption. Oh did they pay. And pay. And pay. They went from this life, into the afterlife. At that point, they were Gone.

  The police were on the lookout for the two terrorists, the Watchdogs. What fun it had been to write the script for the video. Their accomplice, Alex Portland, had been pulled through the exit door and into a new world. Initially, he had resisted giving any information on the two escapees. So he had been taken to the Harvard Boathouse and shown the body of James Carney inside a drainpipe. Soon the information had flowed, like liquid through a pipe. Names, addresses, occupations, artistic pursuits, all of it. Tim Crowe, Rayne Moore—see you soon.

  Carney’s body had been returned home and given a proper burial in a flaming car. Cremation inside a sedan.

  Carney’s double had been located in the other Cambridge, and offered a well-paying theatrical opportunity, a cameo role involving a brisk walk down the street.

  Portland had been escorted home via EyeSoar security, and then dispatched. Blunt force trauma to the head. Reminiscent of the character’s demise in Moore and Crowe’s darkly comic screenplay, Up. Life imitating art.

  The look-alikes for Moore and Crowe had been quickly tracked down, thanks to the helpful public and the drones with facial recognition software. They also had been given a theatrical opportunity, including a session with a make-up artist. The two had relished making the video, an indie short film. Perfect fodder for YouTube fans. The frog, the only unhappy cast member, had been boiled to death in a pot—an amphibious tragedian who gained posthumous fame on social media. Great art carries a price.

  Only Moore and Crowe remained, the only ones to ever escape. But the EyeSoar team had framed them within hours, and now their little run had to end. They needed to be erased in a creative fashion. And then…business as usual. The show must go on.

  Because at this theater, you never go out…the way you come in.

  The cashier knew that wasn’t entirely true. A thin smiled played across her lips. No, there was more than one theater, more than one portal to the other side. According to the latest report from the DR1 team, a second portal had been discovered. The old Capitol Theater in Boston, located off the Boston Commons. So, two portals so far. Translation: more jumpers running for their lives, more fodder for the corporate cannons. More diversion for the masses. The jumpers kept the masses from droning on about their wretched lives. The masses, seeing a fleeing jumper, would conclude: “I feel better; at least I’m not him.” Meanwhile, EyeSoar, DR1, and their corporate headhunter, Gateway (”We find top talent using manipulation-based hiring…”) made money. Business was good. The whole enterprise was strictly business. And what’s good for business is good for…both Cambridges. Market growth and parallel worlds were an intriguing combination. Cutting edge.

  The cashier wondered if there were three or more portals; if there were portals in other cities. The potential for recruits was unlimited. And with that in mind, she touched the tablet’s screen, called up her Twitter account. Tweeted:

  Tickets2Paradise‏@Gateway

  Tired of being a worker bee? A drone? Go to the movies. Movies can change your life…http://isOre.crp/dr1ZY

  She sent the tweet. She stared at the screen, considered another message for the benighted masses. Her trance snapped upon hearing: knock…knock…knock.

  Knuckles rapped the left side of the window, covered in a fingerless glove.

  The knocking knuckles blossomed into an arm, a body—a bizarre creature edged into view. The cashier did a double take, and saw a stranger wearing a black, rubber gas mask. Inside the mask was a young black woman. A headband crushed her wild hair. This was the nightly guitarist across the street. The busker’s right hand appeared on the other side of the glass, rising, holding a throwaway cigarette lighter. She flicked the tiny metal wheel. A flame brightened a small spot by the window, flickering in the breeze.

  The people on this side of Cambridge were peculiar.

  The masked guitarist snapped off the flame, held the plastic lighter. Her left hand rose, holding a red can with a nozzle. One word:

  Gasoline.

  The masked lunatic then held the can with two hands, jerked it in the air: a light blue liquid splashed against glass, rained down on the rectangular window. She sang, “Let me stand next to your fire.”

  The cashier rocketed up from her stool. 3-2-1…blast off.

  Gas Mask sang, “Move over, Rover, let Shay take over.” She inserted the tip of the nozzle into the aluminum money-tray at the bottom of the window, the small, half-circle opening, as if pumping gas at a gas station.

  Metal clicked against metal, followed by a splashing sound.

  Glug…glug…glug.

  The cashier was already rushing through the back door of the booth.

  #

  Shay wondered if the cashier recognized the Hendrix song, Fire.

  She smiled darkly, heard an engine in the distance, and darted across the street to her guitar and case. She threw the empty gas can into the bushes in front of the corner church. A couple ounces of water remained in the can. After Rayne had called her, Shay had filled it with water from the church’s drinking fountain in the basement, along with her bottle of Blue Bull, a blue, energy drink. The goal was to scare the cashier out of the booth, not commit murder.

  Shay thought: mission accomplished.

  CHAPTER 33

  Rayne set the tire iron beside her on the front seat. She checked her seatbelt, raked her coat sleeve across her sweaty forehead. Her stomach was a knot, a clenched fist. Breathe in, out. She put the car in gear and pressed the gas pedal. She told herself, for the tenth or hundredth time, this last action would be quick. A lightning strike. Soon everything would be resolved, for better or for worse. She drove under the speed limit, twenty miles per hour, snaking up the street. She glanced through the passenger’s window, checking pedestrian traffic on that side. The Gateway was a block away, the right side. The sweat on her palms made the steering wheel slick.

  Rayne squeezed the gas. The theater emerged into view. She veered to the side of the street, imagining herself a pilot landing a small plane on a tiny tarmac. She hit the horn, hit the brakes. An empty sidewalk bordered the entrance.

  Here…goes.

  The front right wheel banged against the curb with teeth-grinding force. Another wheel…bang. She angled the skidding Crown Vic up over the curb and onto the sidewalk, a ribbon of cement. Two headlights appeared on the plate glass window, shining on an empty stool within. Vehicular homicide would not be added to her list of woes. As if a steel shark, the car crashed, bit the booth. Glass shattered, raining down like hail onto the hood.

  She needed to attract a crowd, needed t
he police to arrive and find a car linked to C.C. Seymour. The Gateway needed to be the center of attention. The public needed to see the other side, the Coming Attractions that were Coming Soon.

  What’s behind the door? See for yourself.

  Rayne unbuckled the seatbelt, grabbed the tire iron with her right hand and dragged it across the front seat. She popped the buckled door, hearing a metallic groan, and fled the damaged car. She lunged through the glass door facing the street and entered the empty lobby. Across the floor, the door to the viewing room was closed, but the loud soundtrack inside vibrated the lobby, sounding as intense as a live concert. When she turned, off-balance, her world upended. Her feet flipped out from under her as if on melting ice. From behind, someone dove, grabbed her waist, tackled her onto the faded red carpet. Oomph. Her open mouth inhaled dusty air, tasted dirt. The tire iron fell from her hand, bounced, and thudded on the floor.

  Rayne’s head struck the musty fabric, jarring a light switch inside her skull. Flick. Her vision blacked out for a moment. The dull drumming sound of her pumping heart filled her ears. Pump, pump…pump, pump. With her wind sucked out, she gasped, felt dizzy. Her vision: a dust storm of swirling dots of colors.

  The dots coalesced in front of Rayne, resolved into an eerily dressed apparition, a time-backward hallucination—the woman wore a black vest over a silver satin shirt, and a turquoise head scarf. A short distance behind the anachronism, the walls were decorated with cheerless posters of Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, the Mummy, Alien, Alien 2.

  The cashier reached down for the tire iron. Behind her blue-tinted glasses, fury filled her wide eyes. She stood over Rayne, feet spread. In one hand, she held the iron bar up in the air like a club, and said, “You bitch—gasoline?”

  The movie’s soundtrack pulsed behind the door.

  Rayne struggled to rise and get her breath, her lungs screaming for air. She was unable to roll out of harm’s way.