The pain reared its ugly head again. If she was going to find any kind of medicine she needed to find a supply closet. At the end of the hall was a small reception desk, behind which was what appeared to be a medication closet. Kizzy tried the door. Locked. She searched the desk for the keys and came upon a picture that froze her in her tracks. It was her mother. Kizzy wiped the dust from the glass. Her mother stood with her arms around two other women, they wore smiles and nurse’s scrubs. It looked as if the picture had been taken at a party of some sort. A caption at the bottom read, “The Registered Nurse Crew”. Her mother didn’t appear to be any younger, but there was something different about her eyes. They had life in them in a way Kizzy had never seen before. Could it really be her? Or was Kizzy imagining things again?
“Hey!” she heard Diego calling.
She dropped the picture and walked to a bridge that stretched over the first floor to the other wing of the second floor. Diego was down below, behind another reception desk.
“Throw me the backpack,” he said smiling. “I found a whole room full of supplies.”
Kizzy dropped the backpack from her shoulder and tossed it over the railing. It hit the hard tile floor and made a shattering glass sound.
Diego grimaced as he approached it. He opened and took out the broken pieces of the whiskey bottle. Kizzy sighed as she put her face in her hands. That whiskey had been the only thing keeping her going. At least they had found the supplies now.
Diego took the dripping backpack into the closet and began to fill it with bandages, peroxide, morphine and syringes. Kizzy leaned on the railing and dreamed of the relief she’d soon be feeling.
There came a sound from downstairs. What was that? It sounded like that great suction sound of the sliding glass door snapping shut. But Diego didn’t seem to hear it, he just continued rummaging through the closet. Kizzy heard a metallic clang and then a long rough scratch. The clang repeated, followed by the long scratch. What was that? Kizzy turned and looked down over the other side of the bridge.
Iris limped with her eyes dead set on Diego, holding the flamethrower at her side. Her right foot stepped forward while her mangled left leg dragged along behind her. Her brass body was covered in oily black soot.
Kizzy looked back to Diego and tried to scream, but no sound came from her mouth. In a panic she searched all around for something to bang on the floor or the railing, or for something, anything to throw at Diego to get his attention. But there was nothing. She stomped on the ground, but the carpeted floor hardly made a sound. Iris was merely ten yards from Diego now. Kizzy had only one option. She climbed up onto the railing and jumped down. She hung in the air for many seconds – long enough to feel afraid of seriously hurting herself – before she landed on the hard tile floor. Her knees buckled and the pain in her ankle shot up her entire leg. She saw only white for a moment. She got back to her feet and limped to Diego.
“Hey what’s the difference between ibuprofen and aspirin?” he asked. Kizzy grabbed him and spun him around. He gasped and dropped the boxes from his hands. “No.”
“You ruined my surprise,” Iris said between labored steps. “You two went so far. Why did you leave me?” The flamethrower began to beep.
Diego was frozen. Kizzy grabbed and pulled him down behind the desk as the flamethrower sprayed fire above them. She glanced over at the backpack sitting inside the closet against a shelf. She scrambled through the papers that the flames blew from the desk. When she reached the backpack, it was still wet to the touch from the whiskey, she scurried back out to the desk. To her right Iris was waiting. Kizzy spun and pulled the supply closet door open against her back as a shield to protect herself. The flames roared against the wood. She began to feel lightheaded again. She looked over to see Diego climb atop the desk with a metal office chair in his hands. He swung his whole body and flung it at Iris. The stream of fire against the door stopped. Immediately the chair flew back at Diego at a crazy speed, knocking his feet out from under him. He toppled off of the desk.
In the distance Kizzy saw a way out down the length of a long corridor. Was she imagining that? She took the backpack and jumped over the desk. Diego was sprawled out on the floor. She pulled him up and ran down the long hallway towards the exit.
“Where are we going?” Diego asked.
To the exit, Kizzy thought. She looked back to see Iris advancing on them, limping like a madman, incredibly fast. Leaning forward she began to use her free arm push off the ground like a gorilla.
Kizzy tried to run faster, through the pain in her ankle and knees. They were almost to the exit. She slammed into the door and pressed on the push bar with all her might. But it was locked. She kicked at the door but it didn’t budge. Behind them the flamethrower began to beep. Diego yanked Kizzy to the right into a one person bathroom and pulled the door shut as the flames came spraying towards them.
Where could they go? There was only a toilet, a full body mirror and a plastic vent in the wall near the floor.
“Let’s open this,” Diego commanded, jumping at the vent. He tried to pull it from the duct but it was screwed tightly to the wall. He kick at it but the plastic was solid and wouldn’t break.
A loud knock came at the door. Diego backed up against the toilet. Another loud knock. There was a bang and a dent appeared in the metal next to the handle. Iris was about to break the door in. Another bang. The dent grew larger. The handle looked as if it was about to pop off.
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“I can smell you in there Diego!” Iris growled. “And it’s driving me crazy.”
She stuck the beeping flamethrower into the thin gap between the door and floor. Diego scurried up onto the toilet. Kizzy climbed into the sink. The fire came flowing in and filled the floor with swirling orange flames. The smell of plasma, like fresh plastic, filled the room.
Kizzy noticed that the bottom of the plastic vent beginning to melt and smoke. But it only as high as the flames reached. The top two and a half feet were still stuck fast to the wall.
She glanced her backpack in her lap. Their only hope was that bag. But the medicine, the painkillers, the bandages - she couldn’t just throw them away. She looked to Diego. He stared at the fire on the floor, clearly terrified. If she didn’t act now her whole body and his would feel the way her hand did. She reached in and blindly grabbed one bottle from the bag, then tossed the rest at the vent. The whiskey caught one lick from the fire and the backpack burst into flames. Soon the whole vent was burning, smoking and dripping liquid plastic. The black clouds billowed into the air.
Soon someone banged on the other side of the wall above the vent.
“Kizzy?”
“Who the hell is that?” Diego asked.
“Kizzy are you in there?”
It was her mother, but Kizzy was voiceless to answer.
“Yes, we’re in here!” shouted Diego.
“I can see the smoke, crawl through the duct if you can!”
When the fire from the flamethrower had stopped, Diego threw his jacket onto the pool of newly melted plastic in the vent’s opening. Kizzy got on her knees and crawled through the duct into the next room. Her mother removed the vent on the other end with a screwdriver. When Kizzy emerged from the tunnel she was met with the tightest hug her mother had ever given her.
“I just had to find you.”
Kizzy couldn’t speak to tell her mother that Diego was stuck behind her. He was pushing at her legs, trying to get out from the duct. The bathroom door busted open. Iris came barreling through. She reached into the vent and grabbed Diego by the sweater.
“Help! Help!” he shouted.
The flamethrower began to beep. Diego twisted quickly, ripping his shirt, but was he was still in Iris’s grip. Kizzy shook her mother loose and pulled him through the vent tearing the rest of his sweatshirt off completely. The fla
mes came roaring through the duct-work as Kizzy and Diego rolled out of the way. Her mother dove from the fire’s path and crashed into a hospital bed. As she stood up she grabbed hold of the bed and rolled it into the flames. The bed caught fire and began to smoke. Her mother grabbed Kizzy by her good hand and pulled her to the room’s exit. Iris launched the bed from the vent towards Diego. He dashed out of the way. The bed hit the far wall and burst into pieces.
Her mother ran fast, as if she knew where she was going. Kizzy kept looking back to make sure Diego kept up. He did. Her mother took them through a door that led down to the basement. As they were halfway down the long staircase Iris opened the door behind them. The flamethrower began to beep. Her mother was moving too slow, she didn’t know the hell that the flamethrower unleashed. Kizzy gently pushed on her shoulder, but still she wasn’t going fast enough. Finally Kizzy shoved her. Her mother lost her balance and began to tumble. She fell headfirst down the final five steps. Kizzy and Diego jumped over her and pulled her out of the way as the flames just missed them.
Iris’s limping footsteps came clanging down the steps.
“Ow,” her mother grimaced, rubbing the back of her neck.
Kizzy felt bad, but it was necessary.
Her mother got to her feet, took a ring of keys from her pocket and opened a nearby door. She let Kizzy and Diego in first, then slipped in and locked the door. A second later the knob shook. It shook again. Then a polite knock came on the door. Kizzy backed away. There was a loud bang. This door was heavier. Iris wouldn’t be able to smash it in. Hopefully.
“What the hell is that thing?” her mother asked.
“We found it in a house in the woods,” Diego said.
“But what is it?”
“It used to burn dead people,” Diego said, looking at her mother hopelessly. “Now it’s after me.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she answered. “Why are you so quiet Kizzy?”
“She can’t speak,” Diego answered.
“Why not?”
“The police got her with a dart.”
“And who are you?” her mother asked finally.
“Diego. I’m only here cause I’m unlucky.”
Another knock came on the door.
“Well we’re all going to be unlucky if we don’t find a way out of here,” her mother said.
Kizzy stared at her mother. Why had she come here? Was she going to take her to the police? It felt so strange having her there, like she was in a world in which she didn’t belong. But she did belong to this world, more so than Kizzy ever could. She looked at the ring of keys in her mother’s hands. This must have been her old workplace.
The room they stood in was small and had white tiles on the walls and floor. A chair, a desk and a stretcher was as there was as far as furniture was concerned. A long line of black plastic bags sat on the floor. They were about the size of a person and appeared to be filled. A few windows let in the daylight, but they were too small to climb through. Another door sat at the far end of the room. Kizzy nudged Diego and pointed to it. He ran over and was about to turn the handle when a knock came from the other side. Iris. How could she know?
“Where ever I go she can smell me,” Diego said, backing away from the door.
“Then we’re stuck here,” her mother said, collapsing onto a chair and putting her face into her hands. “I always mess these things up.”
How could they conceal Diego’s scent? Kizzy looked around for something to pour over him. Perhaps some paint or alcohol. She eyed the plastic bags. She got down on her knees and unzipped one. A man’s face, long dead and decaying looked up from inside the bag. Kizzy leaped away gagging. The room began to stink. She jumped back with her face turned away and zipped the bag shut.
“Kizzy what are you thinking?” her mother yelled, trying to swat the smell away.
“Yeah, run your ideas past us next time,” Diego said as he put his nose into his shirt.
The odor in the room was awful and nearly overwhelming. Kizzy looked at the bag in disbelief. There were dead bodies in all of them, yet there was zero smell. They were airtight. She looked to Diego. If he went in one of those bags, they could sneak past Iris. She pointed at him, then pointed to the bag.
“No,” said Diego. He must have followed her train of thought. “I’m not doing that.”
Behind him the bolts that connected the door to the wall slowly began to turn. Iris was twisting them from the other side.
Diego groaned and walked towards the plastic bag. He looked back at the door. The first of the bolts fell out and clanged onto the floor. He shook his head and reached for the zipper. Kizzy backed far away and put her nose into her shirt. Diego closed his eyes.
“Wait a second,” her mother said. “There’s empty bags here.”
Diego glared at her and went and snatched the bag from her hands. “Thanks for waiting til the very last second,” he said. He laid it out on the stretcher and climbed up into it.
Kizzy and her mother zipped it halfway up.
“Don’t leave me in here too long,” Diego said. His eyes were closed and his face was scrunched.
Kizzy tried to smile, but she felt to worried. He’d have no way of running if this didn’t work. She zipped it shut. A second bolt fell to the floor. The top half of the doorway sank away from the door frame.
“Are you ready?” her mother asked.
Kizzy put one finger in the air to say ‘wait’. They needed to buy themselves some time. She put her nose back into her shirt and unzipped more of the bags. The room began to reek. Hopefully it would keep Iris busy. Out of the corner of her eye Kizzy could see her prying her way into the room through the door’s opening.
Her mother pulled the stretcher to other doorway and unlocked it. Kizzy bolted after her. Iris hopped down to the floor. They wheeled Diego out of the room and flew down the hall. Kizzy could hear the flamethrower going off and bags being thrown about the room. Iris was searching for Diego. They rolled past the stairs. Her mother must have known of another exit. Kizzy followed along pushing as fast as she could. They turned a corner and came to sliding a glass door that led outside.
Her mother hastily unzipped Diego’s bag. He leaped up from the plastic with a gasp and a shudder. His forehead and t-shirt were soaked with sweat. Her mother held the door open and they slid out. She climbed through herself and led them across the street to stairs that lead down into a dark tunnel. After pulling a flashlight from her pocket, she walked through a large metal turnstile. It must have previously been used for tickets to enter the tunnels, but now it just turned freely.
They walked further down the steps into a large cavern. A perfectly squared ditch ran through the middle of the room. Her mother hopped down and Kizzy and Diego followed. Two iron rail tracks were down on the floor.
“Where are we headed?” Diego asked into the darkness.
Her mother said nothing.
That was just as well. Kizzy was afraid to know. Her mother seemed distant and scared. Where was she taking them? More importantly, why had she come? Something out there must have scared her. And it wasn’t Iris. It was something worse. Something that sent her miles from home to find Kizzy and to either hand her in or protect her from it.
Kizzy looked back at the light that faded behind them. Iris was back there somewhere. She turned back towards her mother’s flashlight. There were many questions about what she was doing, but Kizzy had no choice but to follow her further and further into the darkness.
The air was damp and smelled of metallic grease and old dust. Kizzy followed the glow of a flashlight that seemed to be suspended in the air. Her right hand shrieked in pain, the rest of her body throbbed. Every few steps she felt like she would faint. Then would come the nausea, only there was nothing for her stomach to expel. Still the light floated ever
onward, in the hands of her mother, whose intentions were still unclear. She walked slow and steady like clockwork. Kizzy’s own footsteps would occasionally trip on the rails and Diego had the same issues. These tunnels were dank. She could hear the bugs scattering from the walls around them.
Whatever these were must have been amazing back when they were running. People going about their daily lives to and from work, happy and mindless like cattle. Every bit of it must have felt so meaningful, since it was all over so quickly. Every breath of air and chain of thought, every meal, every sigh, every friendship and friendship’s end, they were all so rare. What Kizzy would give to be one of them. She realized in that moment that she had more in common with the citizens of that lost era than she did with anyone living in her time. Her days were numbered.
Far up ahead she noticed a faint brown light. Was it real? Or just her imagination? She continued to walk. A dozen steps later it appeared to be closer.
“What’s that up there?” Diego asked.
“Our stop,” her mother said.
So Kizzy hadn’t hallucinated it. Soon the tunnel around them opened up to another large cavern. Refracted sunlight gave the room a light brown glow. Kizzy noticed the shadow of tree branch dancing in the sunlight on the concrete up a flight of stairs.
Her mother turned off the flashlight and climbed onto the platform. Diego hopped up with ease and turned to help Kizzy. Her limbs had no power left in them.
They walked up the stairs to the street above. It was as quiet as death, but sunny and beautiful. The wind blew through the waist- high grass. Kizzy could smell the salty river. A flock of seagulls circled above them, cawing and diving for no reason.
The Enoch Pill Page 20