The Whittier Trilogy

by Michael W. Layne

  He was on top of her in a second and flipped her over while she was still stunned. Two pairs of women’s running shoes were just a few feet away, and Trent reached out to them and removed their laces as fast as he could. Christina started to come around as he finished tying her wrists together with one pair of the laces and her ankles together with the other pair. He reached into his pants pocket and found the Xanax he had palmed earlier. He squeezed her mouth open and threw the pills in her mouth then put his hand over her lips to make sure they didn’t fall out. After a moment, he felt her swallow. He removed his hand, then made sure her bonds were secure, before standing up and getting dressed.

  Christina writhed around, growling and howling, naked on the floor, trying her best to break free, but he had tied the laces tight and had used multiple knots on top of knots so she couldn’t undo them with her teeth. She started to get louder and her sounds became more desperate, like that of a trapped animal. If the rest of the crazies in the hall heard her…

  He grabbed the first thing within reach that was made of cloth—his silk handkerchief—and stuffed it into her mouth.

  With Christina finally silenced and contained, he sat on the couch where he could still see her and let out a long breath. He checked the time, and it was 3:32 in the morning—only two hours and twenty-eight minutes until the tunnel opened and four hours and one minute before sunrise.

  Trent reviewed his options.

  If what Christina said was true, he could sit here until sunrise, watching over Christina, and waiting for her and everyone else to return to normal. Then he could leave The Towers, hope his car hadn’t been towed, and finally get the hell out of Whittier.

  His other choice was to go out into the hall and take his chances with a throng of people who believed themselves to be animals and who probably wanted to kill him.

  He decided to stay put and to watch over Christina.

  Until he heard the scratching at her front door.

  Chapter 9

  IT SOUNDED LIKE fingernails scratching against the doorknob, as if whoever was outside Christina’s apartment didn’t understand how to turn the knob properly. Trent heard the shuffling of bare feet and saw shadows appear under the door. Soon those shadows were joined by others, and the light seeping in from the hallway was completely blocked.

  Next came the stench. Even this far away, he could smell rancid fish and the body odor from the crowd gathering outside the door.

  Someone finally tried to turn the doorknob that Trent had thankfully locked. Then the door creaked as one of them pushed against it. Next there were several loud booms as the crowd outside pounded against the door, trying to break it down. Trent’s idea of quietly passing the time until sunrise evaporated. He needed a new plan, but he was twelve stories up from where he needed to be, with nowhere to go but out the window or into the hallway.

  He hurried into Christina’s bedroom and looked under her bed and in her closet. On the floor of her closet, he found a coil of rope, and in her dresser next to her bed, he found a Bowie knife in a leather sheath. He quickly made his way through the rest of her belongings, not finding anything else of use. Back in the kitchen, he was relieved to find half a roll of duct tape, perhaps the most useful substance ever created by man.

  Now he had to figure out how to get out into the hallway without dying shortly thereafter. Trent focused on what he knew best. Mentalism 101. Rule number one: when in doubt, misdirect.

  He went over to Christina who was beginning to calm down as the new dose of Xanax was already taking effect. Whatever was happening to her, he had to admit that her metabolism was revving higher than anything he had ever observed. She processed the drug like it was sugar. The good news was that the meds took effect quickly. The bad news was that the effects of the Xanax didn’t last all that long, hence her need to take multiple doses throughout the night. He felt bad about it, but she was all he had to work with in coming up with a distraction. The fact that she had just tried to kill him made it only a little easier to use her as a diversionary tactic.

  He pulled opened the living room curtains, slid the window up, and kicked out the screen. Cold air rushed into the apartment, and he shivered. It wasn’t winter, but it must have been in the low forties outside already. He cut off a long piece of rope that he wrapped once around the couch from front to back and then tied the rope to Christina’s already-bound hands. Then he carefully lifted her and placed her lower body so it hung outside the window. Christina immediately began struggling and kicking with both of her legs, but tied up as she was, she had no hope of overpowering him.

  He positioned her so that her waist was on the windowsill while her torso was still inside the apartment. He suspected that the mob wouldn’t hurt one of its own, but also figured that being tied to the couch would prevent her from sliding out the window accidentally just in case. She would be uncomfortable, cold, and pissed beyond belief once the meds wore off, but she would live through it while providing a great distraction for him at the same time.

  He lifted her chin and saw a mix of fear and anger in her eyes. He removed the shade from the end table lamp and placed the light close to where Christina hung naked halfway out the window. He wanted to make sure the animals were focused solely on her when they entered the apartment.

  Trent picked up his suit jacket and slipped it on. He moved to the front door where the pounding was growing more intense. He knew that if his plan didn’t work, he would be a dead man soon. He quietly undid the chain on the door, then unlocked the deadbolt and the door lock as quickly as he could before pressing himself against the wall where the door would strike when opened.

  The pounding continued for almost another minute, until one of them tried the doorknob again. This time, the knob turned completely and the front door exploded inward followed by at least six naked men and women bursting into the apartment. He braced himself and held up his arms tightly against his torso as the heavy door slammed into him like a metal 2x4 smacking him across the chest. Luckily, since the apartment was completely dark except for the light next to Christina, the half dozen people rushed straight ahead to investigate her situation and didn’t look back to where he was now only partially hidden by the door.

  As soon as the last of them cleared the entranceway, he moved around from behind the door and into the harshly lit hallway. In passing, he was surprised to find himself hoping that the fresh, cold air from outside would hide his scent, just in case the residents really did have a better sense of smell than normal humans. His logical mind told him that these people were just plain crazy, but a small part of him was entertaining the possibility that there was more going on than just a group case of clinical lycanthropy. He cleared his mind and focused on the task at hand as he tied a knot around the exterior doorknob, eased the door shut, and rushed to secure the other end of the rope to the doorknob across the hall.

  Looking around, he was relieved to find that the hallway was empty, but he heard noises coming from his right. He could only imagine that the nearly two hundred residents were scattered throughout the fourteen stories of the building—all of them hunting for him. The fact that they weren’t all gathered around Christina’s apartment meant that they were at least acting more animals than humans right now, which meant that Trent had an edge—his mind.

  The elevators were to the right and around the corner, in the direction from where the sounds were coming, and the stairs were to his left. He ran as far as he dared toward the approaching animals sounds while taking off his suit jacket. As he ran, he checked doorknobs to see if any were unlocked. Finally, one of the doorknobs gave way.

  Trent placed his jacket on the floor so that it was half way in the hallway and half way in the opened apartment and left the door cracked about six inches. Then, he sprinted as fast as he could toward the stairwell at the other end of the hallway, ducking under the rope that connected Christina’s doorknob to that of her neighbors. Already the taut rope was being pulled and stretched as the residen
ts trapped in her apartment tried to open the door.

  In seconds, Trent arrived at the stairwell door and pushed it open as quietly as possible. He closed the door behind him and took out the roll of duct tape. He knew that the cloth-based tape was incredibly strong, especially if twisted together to form a rope-like structure, but because the door opened inward to the stairwell, he couldn’t figure a way to secure it. He cursed out loud then looked over the edge of the railing. Far below, almost all the way to the bottom of the stairs, Trent could see and hear a crowd of growling, naked human beings.

  He pulled his head back quickly, hoping that they hadn’t seen him. The last thing he wanted was to move toward any of the residents, but he knew they would find him in short order if he just stayed put. There really was only one choice he could make. Luckily, the stairs were made of solid concrete and his feet fell quietly as he started to make his way down them. He went at a brisk pace but was careful not to make any noises that would alert the throng to his presence. He made it to the eleventh floor and stopped to sneak a look over the railing again. As soon as he did, he heard several loud, sharp sounds of alarm.

  He had been spotted.

  Fighting his instincts, he ran as fast as he could down the stairs, toward the maniacs who were now on their way up to get him. This was his one chance to get as close to the second floor as possible where he could hopefully find an open window and take his chance jumping to the ground below. If his pursuers were anything like Christina, they were probably moving faster than normal humans, but he had gravity on his side, and was taking steps two and three at a time. Soon he passed the ninth floor and was halfway to the eighth. He looked over the railing as he continued bounding down the stairs, his heart pounding so hard that it hurt the inside of his chest.

  The inhuman sounds were growing so loud now that it felt as if the mob were right on top of him. Trent was at the seventh floor and decided to go for one more flight of stairs. Half way down, he could see the first of them already at the sixth floor landing. He grabbed onto the railing, and his arm almost popped out of its socket as he used the metal rail to stop his descent. He pivoted around and leapt back up the stairs, the quickest of the animals right behind him now.

  When he got back to the seventh floor landing, he grabbed the doorknob and pulled as hard as he could, but he was not fast enough. The naked man following him growled and grunted as he wrapped his arm around Trent’s neck and pulled him backward. Trent bowed his head forward as much as he could, then snapped it back with all his might into the face of his attacker. He heard the crushing of cartilage as the man released his grip and wobbled backwards.

  His own animal instincts kicking in, Trent turned around and shoved the naked man over the rail just as more of the residents were coming up the last set of stairs. The man’s bloodied body fell on the crowd like a fleshy bag of sand, knocking Trent’s pursuers down and giving him the extra few seconds he needed to get through the door and into the hall. He pulled the door closed and sprinted down the hallway. Before he made it to the end of the hallway, he heard the stairwell door open and the sounds of bare feet slapping against the floor as the residents sprinted after him.

  He knew that if he made it around the corner, he could hit the elevator buttons as he continued on through to the other wing of the building. It wasn’t much, but even an opening elevator door might confuse some of them enough to give him time to find another open apartment he could hole up in. They had found him once, when he had been in Christina’s apartment, but she had been making a lot of noise before he had silenced her. He hoped that he would have more luck hiding in a random apartment unit by himself.

  As he turned the corner, he saw a naked man and a naked woman prowling past the elevator doors, crouched over, searching the ground for something. Knowing he had mere seconds to deal with the situation, he didn’t wait for them to attack. He pulled the Bowie knife and stabbed the woman who was just beginning to realize what was going on. The knife went in deep on her right side, and she howled so loudly that it actually scared Trent and stopped him cold for a moment.

  In that instant, the naked man grabbed Trent’s shoulders and pulled him off of the woman. The knife came with him, making a popping noise as it left her flesh. Blood poured out of the woman and slicked the floor as the man raked at Trent’s face, missed, and then tried to bite his face just like a grizzly in the wild.

  Because Trent had to use both hands to keep the man’s snapping teeth away from him, he couldn’t make use of the knife. He heard the pounding of feet getting closer from behind him and knew he was out of time. He pushed back on the man as hard as he could, but the man grabbed him by his shoulders and threw him into the elevator door. That was the second time in the last few minutes that his body had met a large piece of metal head on, and he could feel himself weakening from the blows.

  Trent tried to get up, but he slipped on the woman’s blood, cursing as he fell on his side. In a desperate attempt, he slid through the blood and lunged with the knife at the ankles of the man who was moving in to attack him again. Trent’s blade sliced straight into one of the man’s Achilles tendons as he went down with a scream.

  Trent picked himself up and continued running to the other wing of the building. He went around a few more bends before the hallway opened up into a long stretch of apartment doors. He looked on the carpeted floor and could see the trail of blood from his feet. There was no way he was going to be secretive about which apartment he chose this time. All he could do was test the doorknobs as he went and hope the scene back at the elevators would slow them down for just a few more seconds.

  Then he saw a set of light switches, and quickly slammed down on them with the butt of the Bowie knife, turning off the lights of the hall and breaking the light switches at the same time. If they really could smell or see as well as animals, the lights wouldn’t stop them, but every trick he could throw at them and every second he could squeeze out of the situation was just more time in the bank for him and one more second closer to sunrise.

  He started down the hall, testing the first doorknob and then the second. Both of them were locked. Then the third and the fourth. At last, the fifth doorknob turned, and he opened the door. He looked back and still didn’t see anyone even as his eyes were still adjusting to the darkness. More importantly, he didn’t hear or smell anyone yet. He raced ahead to six more doors and grabbed each of their doorknobs with his bloody hand. One of them was unlocked as well, so he left the door open before doubling back to the first unlocked apartment he had found—doorknob number five.

  He dove into the apartment and locked the door behind him. He felt his way back to the bedroom while walking in total darkness, closed the bedroom door, and switched on the light. It looked to be the apartment of a single guy. It was messier than Christina’s place and smelled much worse.

  Trent searched the bedroom while making as little noise as possible but found nothing.

  He turned off the bedroom light and sat for a moment, letting his eyes adjust again to the darkness before moving back out to the living room. He kept the living room light off as he looked around so the brightness wouldn’t show under the door and into the hallway. Other than some more knives, he didn’t find anything of immediate value. At least he still had the half roll of duct tape and the knife and was out of immediate peril, but his body was starting to rebel. His endorphins were leaving him, pain was blossoming, and his mind was starting to cloud.

  The reality of what he had just gone through and what he still had to accomplish came crashing down on him.

  He sat down on the single guy’s couch, suddenly exhausted and barely able to move. The digital clock on the kitchen’s microwave said that it was only 4:00 a.m. It had only been half an hour since he had last had sex with Christina.

  Christina.

  He had left her locked in her apartment, hanging halfway out a window with a bunch of maniacs. He had crushed in the face of the guy at the stairwell, had practically sever
ed another man’s Achilles tendon, and had killed a woman back at the elevator. He had taken her life.

  Trent suddenly was more than just tired. He felt ill and vomited on the living room floor. Soon he was dry heaving. A piece of his mind that was still operational made him cover his face with a throw pillow to muffle the sounds of his retching. He thought of the people he had been running from tonight and what he himself had done so far, and he wondered who was more an animal at this point—he or the residents of Whittier?

  When he was finally able to stop heaving, he stumbled over to the window and looked outside at the town of Whittier. It seemed so peaceful. Nothing was moving yet, but he imagined the fishing boats would normally start their days over at the docks sometime before dawn. He only had a couple more hours before the tunnel opened up, but another hour after that until the sun rose.

  He wasn’t sure he could remain undetected long enough to witness either one of those events.

  Even as he thought this, he heard a crowd of people in the hallway outside. This time, the guttural noises were louder than before, and it sounded like a majority of the animals had assembled on this floor. Soon, they would start pounding on all the doors, and with their strength and numbers, it wouldn’t be too long before he was discovered.

  Trent only had one trick left. It was time to throw down all of his cards and see how good of a performer he really was.

  He took a long and deep breath and wearily stood up from the couch, taking the duct tape with him. He went to the man’s kitchen and rummaged around until he found a garbage bag under the sink. He stripped out of his clothes and placed them in the plastic bag, along with his wallet and his cousin’s car keys. He closed the plastic bag and wrapped up the bundle with the duct tape to give it a better chance of staying dry and remaining in tact after the drop. He opened the living room window, aimed, and as gently as possible, tossed the bag to the ground below.