STIRRED

by Blake Crouch J. A. Konrath

  I rushed to the keypad.

  Found it harder to gather my thoughts as the temperature spiked.

  Okay, in the last room there was no code on the plaque, but a corresponding police code worked. So what’s the corresponding police code for…intense heat?

  Arson?

  I wiped sweat out of my eyes and punched in 447.

  Red light.

  The temperature was rising faster now. I glanced over my shoulder, saw flames licking up at the priest’s face inside the tomb. The smell in the room was beyond offensive—the odor of a human being turning to smoke and ash.

  I tried something else.

  Code for fire.

  I’d been out of the game a while, and it took me a moment to recall, but I got it.

  904.

  Red light.

  All right—scanner 11 codes.

  Fire alarm…shit, what was it?

  1170?

  I gave it a shot.

  A third red light blinked at me as I smelled the soles of my shoes beginning to scorch. The scent of burning rubber comingled with roasting BBQ.

  Fire report.

  1171.

  Red light.

  “Goddamn it!”

  The heating element was turning a stronger orange, and I could feel the warmth in my wet socks, my swollen feet.

  I was missing something.

  Stumbling out into the middle of the floor, I studied the room once more as smoke poured out of the flaming tomb, filling my nose with a sweet, nauseating acridity.

  What the hell was I missing?

  I’d already made a close inspection of the tomb, but maybe I’d overlooked something when I’d first entered the room.

  Through the smoke, I stared up at the air duct.

  There.

  I’d completely missed it.

  The panel had closed back into place over the duct, and on its surface, I spotted a small circle with a silver perimeter and white interior that contained numbers and dashes.

  A clock, perhaps?

  No.

  Of course—a thermometer.

  But I was going to have to climb back up there to get a closer look.

  I hurried over to the black iron bars that served as a ladder and reached for one at chest level.

  The moment I grasped it, I screamed and withdrew my hands.

  The metal was burning hot.

  I glanced down at my shoes, where black smoke had begun to rise off the soles.

  Any thought I might have had that Luther didn’t want to kill me vanished in the fear of being cooked alive.

  I tugged down the sleeves of my windbreaker, and used them as gloves to buffer the palms of my hands from the blistering heat.

  Didn’t hesitate, even though I didn’t want to touch the hot metal again.

  I began to climb, legs still screaming from muscle strain, but I didn’t have the luxury to pace myself. Even with the windbreaker bearing the brunt of it, the heat was excruciating.

  I reached the top rung in a matter of seconds, found it mercifully cooler than the ones close to floor-level. I held the bar with one hand, and leaned over to inspect the thermometer.

  The circle was three inches in diameter, and the instrument had been attached to the panel with a magnet. I squinted, eyes burning from sweat and smoke.

  It looked like a thermometer that belonged in a laboratory with a temperature range from –60°F to 500°F.

  The needle nudged past 120°F as I watched it.

  My sense of panic escalated with the temperature. So what did this mean? What did this have to do with giving me a code for the keypad? Would Luther actually let me die in here?

  I leaned in closer as the rung I held approached a level of discomfort that would soon force me to let go.

  I studied the brand name, the dashes, the numbers, the—

  There.

  I had to squint to pull it into focus, wondering if it was my imagination, or if that was actually a thin, manmade dash next to the bold line denoting a temperature marking of 375°F.

  Was this intentional?

  The heat was becoming unbearable.

  I swung back over to the ladder and descended back into a heat which crossed the threshold into lethal, feeling certain I couldn’t stand much more than a minute at this temperature.

  Flames shot out of the tomb.

  The room had grown hazy with yellow smoke.

  My shoes sizzled as I stepped down onto the metal grate, and one of my shoelaces which had come loose touched the floor and began to smolder.

  I staggered over to the door.

  As sweat poured down my face, I reached out for the keypad and punched in 3-7-5.

  For a minute, nothing happened.

  The heating element in the middle of the room now glowed bright orange, the priest in the tomb engulfed in flames, and the heat reached through my melting shoes, the soles of my feet growing hot, my nostrils burning intensely.

  “Come on!”

  Green light.

  The deadbolt clicked.

  The door swung back and a draft of the loveliest cold air I’d ever breathed swept into the room.

  I pushed my way through and stumbled out of the sixth circle.

  “Wow,” Luther said. “That was hot.”

  For a moment, I thought I’d walked into another pitch-black room, but soon my eyes began to function.

  “Nice work, Jack. Keep heading forward.”

  I smelled rain and heard everywhere the sound of dripping water.

  I ventured a step forward. My shoes felt strange, the soles uneven, having melted and re-hardened.

  A blister was rising on my right hand from grabbing the burning step.

  The taste of the smoke still lingered in my nasal cavity, even after several deep breaths.

  It happened all at once—the darkness divulged its contents.

  Long conveyer belts.

  Robotic arms that hadn’t moved in years.

  Giant machines. Drills. Presses. Planers.

  Strong whiffs of old grease.

  I stood at the far end of an abandoned factory, and through windows above, saw the orange glow of clouds tinting the night sky.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  There was no response.

  I wondered if he was toying with me, or perhaps on the move.

  I worked my way alongside a conveyor belt, passing what looked like the exoskeletons of cars. Wheelless, engineless shells rusted beyond recognition.

  Halfway through the factory, I stopped, sat down on the forks of a broken-down forklift, and tried to catch my breath.

  I cupped my belly in my hands, feeling a tide of tears coming on.

  No time for that.

  No time to break down and piece myself back together.

  My friends needed me.

  Even two minutes on my ass stiffened me up quite a bit and got the hamstring tight enough to strum. I limped on through the factory, finally arriving at a pair of double doors, uncertain if I was even heading in the right direction.

  I pushed them open anyway.

  Oh. Perfect.

  Total darkness again.

  I stumbled forward, my hands clutching the railing to a staircase, just as my right foot stepped out into nothing.

  I followed it down, step by step, my hand gliding along the railing.

  Reached the first landing.

  Continued on to a second, still descending, losing all sense of direction.

  I was on the verge of turning around, when my next step sank two feet into cold water.

  They arrived breathless and groaning with pain at the double-doored entrance to the warehouse they’d seen Jack enter fifteen minutes prior.

  “A keypad,” Lucy said. “Bet these are locked.”

  Donaldson grasped the door with his claw like hands and pulled it open.

  “Or not.”

  He stared down a well-lit corridor, Donaldson feeling a smile expanding across the wreckage of his face.


  “Is that what I think it is?” Lucy asked.

  “Oh yeah.”

  They stumbled inside, the doors closing after them, and pushed their way through the corpses that dangled from the ceiling.

  “Someone’s been busy,” Donaldson said, pulling the Beretta out of his pocket as they continued down to where the corridor T-boned a shorter hallway.

  To the right, the hall terminated at another black, metal door with a keypad mounted to the wall beside it. He limped down to it, tried the handle, but it was locked.

  “This one’s open!” Lucy shouted.

  He turned, saw her standing at the other end of the hall, beside a door that opened into darkness.

  A few minutes after Luther had led him to a cold room and attached a chain to the collar around his neck, Herb heard a woman’s voice, a few meters away.

  “Is he gone?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Herb said. “I think I heard him leave.”

  He ached to pluck the thread out of his eyelids, or even rub them for some relief against the terrible sting, but his hands were still bound behind his back.

  “Did he stab out your eyes, too?”

  Herb shuddered. Whoever his companion was, apparently Luther hadn’t given her the option of stitches.

  “My name is Herb Benedict. I’m a Chicago cop. Who are you?”

  “Christine. Christine Ogawa.”

  “Do you know where we are, Christine?”

  “A man, he hijacked a bus, kidnapped all of us. We’re in Michigan somewhere. Are more cops coming?”

  “I don’t know. How many people were on the bus?”

  “Over forty. But…” Her voice trailed off.

  “But what?”

  “Not all of us made it.”

  Herb listened to the woman cry for a bit, unsure of what solace he could possibly give her.

  “Why is he doing this?” she finally managed.

  “He’s insane.”

  “Before he…did…you know…to my eyes…he asked me questions about my weight. I think that’s why he didn’t kill me right away. He put me here instead.”

  “Are you overweight?”

  “Yes. Are you?”

  “I’ve never met a cheeseburger I didn’t like.”

  “Cheeseburger. Oh, God. I know it sounds terrible, but I’m so hungry right now. I’m blind, and I’m probably going to die, but I keep thinking about food.”

  “Don’t worry, Christine. I’ll order us a pizza.”

  She let out a small laugh.

  “You a pepperoni and sausage kind of girl?” he asked, trying to keep her mood up.

  “I’m from California originally. I like pineapple and sprouts on my pie.”

  “That should be illegal.”

  She laughed again. “And tofu. Nice, roasted chunks of tofu.”

  “Sacrilege.”

  “There’s a place in Arcadia called Zelo. They do a cornmeal-crust pizza with smoked mozzarella and fresh corn. It’s so good…I…I…”

  She went back to crying. Herb had no idea what to say to her. He felt like sobbing himself.

  “We’re going to die here, aren’t we, Herb?”

  Herb set his jaw. “I’ve been in some bad situations before. Some even worse than this. You can’t give up hope.”

  There was a moment of silence. Herb tested the length of the chain around his neck by carefully walking forward until it went taut. The chain was thick, heavy, perhaps five feet in length, which was long enough for him to sit down. But he had no desire to do so. There was some sort of thick muck on the floor, and it was cold. Damn cold.

  His mind began to go to bad places, think terrible things.

  “What’s your favorite thing to do, Christine?” Herb asked. “Favorite thing in the world?”

  “I love to sing. I’m in the church choir.”

  “I’d be honored if you sang a hymn for me.”

  “Seriously? Now?”

  “Absolutely. What’s your favorite?”

  “There are so many. But I really love the ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic.’”

  “Glory, glory, hallelujah, his truth is marching on?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “That’s my favorite, too.”

  Christine burst into song. She had a powerful, beautiful alto, as fine as any he’d ever heard. He tried to pay attention, to lose himself in her voice, but then he began to think about Jack. Where was she? What was Luther doing to her?

  Christine went into “Rock of Ages” without being prompted.

  Herb backed up against the concrete wall, which was so cold it hurt his hands. He had to assume Jack was dealing with the same thing he was. The same, or worse. Ditto Phin and McGlade.

  Luther had planned the cemetery abduction brilliantly. He obviously had other things planned as well. Herb cursed himself for being so easily misled. If they were in Michigan, like Christine said, there was no way the Chicago police would ever find them. No hope of rescue.

  Christine was right.

  They were going to die.

  The warehouse was cold, dark, and endless.

  He had a hunch Lucy couldn’t see for shit, because she kept clutching onto his arm and stumbling into things.

  There was a time he might have had a little fun with her. Ripped his arm free, gone and hid behind one of the massive machines. Watch her stumble blindly around into hard metal objects.

  Okay, even now, that would probably be fun.

  He chuckled at the idea of it.

  “What, D?”

  “Nothing?”

  “You just laughed.”

  “Oh, I was just thinking of something.”

  “Fine, don’t share.”

  He sensed the hurt in her voice, and suddenly the idea wasn’t funny anymore.

  They reached the end of the warehouse and arrived at a pair of doors.

  Pushing his way through, Donaldson flicked on the froggy flashlight, swinging the weak beam across a stairwell that descended beyond the light’s reach.

  “Better hold on to me,” Donaldson said.

  Lucy clutched his waist.

  For some reason, it felt even better than Norco.

  My other foot slipped out from under me, and I was sliding down a steep, concrete embankment into a foot of freezing water, goopy mud sucking at my knees.

  I scrambled up, gasping from the cold shock, spinning around and instinctively trying to climb through the darkness back up onto dry ground. But the concrete was slimy and I couldn’t get any purchase on it.

  I slid back down, the water to my calves and a putrid stench rolling off the top of it, almost like the gaseous emissions of a swamp. Decaying organic matter and human waste in competition for which smelled worst. I gagged, feeling my gorge rise, biting it back.

  Either I was losing my mind, or something had changed in the last five seconds, because I saw a light that hadn’t been there before. Some distance away—impossible to determine in the virtual darkness—the wavering of a flame.

  I hesitated for a moment and then started toward it, wading through the frigid, stinking water, which now came all the way to my waist, each step a struggle as the mud suctioned my feet to the ground.

  The noise of my splashing echoed through whatever room I’d entered—a bright, contained sound. Somewhere out in that blackness, away from the light, I thought I heard the sound of human groans.

  The putrid water eased the pain of the blister on my right hand, so I trailed it underneath as I pushed on toward the light.

  Drawing near, the water level dropped below my thighs, and then my knees, and then I climbed another concrete embankment and found myself standing on dry ground, legs coated in mud and worse.

  A torch had been placed in a wall-mount, and beside it, in the flickering light, I studied another brass plaque.