In the bed of the truck Diego found a small crowbar. He took it to the elevator door, stuck the wedge side into the crack and pried it open a few inches. Kizzy knelt down and grabbed the two metal panels and helped to spread them apart even wider. The door was spring loaded and wanted to snap back closed.
“Where is the elevator?” Diego grunted as he held the panels open.
Kizzy cautiously stuck her head through the doors, a little afraid it would slip from Diego’s hands and decapitate her. The flashlight beamed all the way down to the shaft floor. To the right there were metal rungs.
“You can climb down in here, there’s a ladder,” Kizzy said. She shined the light upwards. There was the bottom of the elevator. She quickly pulled her head out. “And the elevator’s above us.”
“Get something to stick into the door,” Diego said, struggling to keep it open.
Kizzy searched around the garage with the flashlight and spotted a stack of car tires sitting against the wall. Running over she grabbed one and brought it back and laid it flat between the doors. They sat opened just wide enough for a person to climb through.
They grabbed another tire and climbed the stairs to the second floor. They walked fast through the blackness. Kizzy wanted to finish quickly, but she knew these would be the last moments she would have with Diego.
When they reached the elevator doors Diego pried them open and inside was the elevator carriage. Kizzy laid the tire between the metal panels.
Diego took the flashlight and shined inside. “We can get to the cords through that vent,” he said, pointing up inside. “Better if we check now.”
He handed Kizzy the crowbar. She carefully climbed up onto a railing on the wall and used the crowbar to pop open the vent. Diego shined the flashlight up inside. Kizzy climbed through the vent and up onto the roof of the elevator. It was dark in the shaft, but there was enough light to see the cables.
“What do they look like?” Diego asked.
“Thick, but I should be able to cut them,” she said. “I’ve cut thicker cables back on the farm.”
“Here, take the cutters now,” said Diego. “So you won’t have to climb up with them later.”
Kizzy reached down and took the wire cutters. She stood up and felt the cords.
Suddenly the light disappeared and Kizzy was in complete darkness. She gasped and dropped the cutters. They clanged off the roof of the elevator. She froze while her eyes tried to adjust, but it was all total blackness. What had happened? Had Iris gotten Diego? She didn’t want to call out. That would reveal her hiding spot. What could she do?
In an instant the light was back, shining up into her eyes.
“Sorry,” said Diego.
“What happened?” hissed Kizzy.
“I thought I heard a door close,” he said.
Kizzy knelt down and felt around in the darkness for the wire cutters until finally her fingertips grazed across them. At least they hadn’t fallen down the shaft. She left them leaning against the cables and climbed back down inside the elevator with Diego’s help.
They took another car tire and went down to the basement floor.
“How are we going to lure her in?” Diego asked.
Kizzy was quiet for a moment, hoping he would figure it out himself. He pointed the flashlight at her face. She gave him the tiniest hint of an understanding smile.
“She has to chase me, doesn’t she?” he asked.
Kizzy nodded.
The hope in his eyes had retreated back into his head. “I guess it has to be that way. You’re won’t drop the elevator on me will you?”
“Not if you get out of there in time,” she said.
He didn’t laugh, just went quiet. He would’ve laughed an hour ago.
In the basement they pried apart the last elevator door and kept it open with the tire.
“So I’ll climb down here and pull the tire from the door. Iris comes down, gets stuck inside for a moment. And you’ll be up top and cut the wires. Is that right?”
“Hopefully,” said Kizzy. It felt as if there were too many moving parts. Too much could go wrong.
They slowly walked back to the grocery store. Kizzy, keenly aware that every step forward was another step towards confronting Iris, and another step towards losing Diego forever.
They reached the aisle where they had left Kizzy’s mother. The black blanket and the pink wrapped underwear for children were all that was left.
“Where did she go?” Kizzy asked walking across all the aisles searching. Each one she passed made her feel more and more hopeless. Had Iris taken her? There would have been evidence of fire if she had been in the store. “What should we do?” Kizzy asked, marching back towards the cash register. Diego was laying on the counter, drinking from a bottle of water he had found. His eyes were closed.
“I don’t know,” he sighed.
“Is Iris still out there?” Kizzy asked.
“Yes,” he answered.
“So we have to find my mother and hide her someplace safe. Then we can start this Iris plan.”
The words had barely left Kizzy’s mouth when they heard the glass shatter. Kizzy turned to see Iris climbing through a hole in the window at the front of the grocery store. Diego bolted for the back door and Kizzy sprang after him. He barreled through the doorway and turned towards the stairs to go down to the basement.
“No, you have to go through the elevator,” shouted Kizzy.
Diego stumbled to a stop and turned left towards the elevator door. Kizzy ran past him and up the stairs. She climbed two at a time. As the door to the grocery store closed the light became dimmer and dimmer. Kizzy realized she had forgotten the flashlight, but there was no time to turn back now. She continued blindly up the stairs and felt along the wall for the elevator door. She stepped over the tire, lifted her foot to the railing and carefully raised herself.
She blindly reached up towards the vent opening as the railing broke off from the wall. She fell hard and landed on her right hip and elbow. In an instant she jumped to her feet and reached for the vent, but it was too high. She felt around for something else to stand on. Her fingers skimmed over the rubber of the tire that kept the door open. If she took it out and couldn’t reach the opening she would be trapped inside the elevator forever. If she didn’t Diego would be killed and Iris would still be on the loose.
“Kizzy!” she heard Diego’s voice echo up through the elevator shaft. “I’m shutting the bottom door!”
She had no choice. She yanked the tire from the door. The metal slammed shut. Kizzy leaned the tire against the wall and reached up as far as she could. The tendons in her back and arm stretched. The opening in the ceiling was just out of reach. She’d have to jump.
She pushed against the wall and leaped up into the darkness towards the vent. Her hands caught the opening and she pulled up with all her might. The muscles in her forearms flexed and screamed. She used her stomach to get some leverage and was able to pull one elbow up onto the roof. She lifted her other arm, pulling herself up, using every muscle in her back to do so. She swung her right leg up, then her left, until she was finally on her stomach, panting in the dark, dusty air.
She heard the metal feet of Iris run into the elevator shaft, jump, then the sound of her landing on the concrete floor. The loud crash echoed all around Kizzy. She had to hurry. She felt for the cables and the cutters and grabbed onto them tightly.
Iris was pounding on the closed elevator door two stories below.
Kizzy pulled herself up to her feet with the elevator cables.
She heard another slam down below. The flamethrower erupted, lighting up the walls of the shaft bright orange.
Kizzy breathed to calm herself. She brought the wire cutters to the first of the two tight cables and pulled the tool’s t
wo handles together. The cable was incredibly strong. She put the one handle against her stomach and pulled the other handle with all her might. She could feel the cable beginning give. She imagined it fraying, string by string, untwisting. Finally it snapped. The elevator dropped down a couple inches and from the darkness the newly snipped wire whipped and slashed her across the forehead. Kizzy fell backwards, with the air sucked from her chest. She reached up and could feel a warm trickle of blood from her head. At least it wasn’t her eye.
Iris’s pounding against the door became faster and faster. She was getter closer to breaking through, Kizzy was sure of it.
She brought the cutters to the other cable and pulled the handles together again, until she felt the cord beginning to fray. Blindly she reached for the ladder on the shaft wall. She slung her elbow through one of the rungs, and made sure she faced away from the wire this time. She pulled the handles together. The cable snapped and she felt a gust of wind as elevator carriage dropped down away from her. But there was no loud crash.
Kizzy climbed down one rung and reached out with her foot. Nothing. She climbed down another rung and reached out. Her foot hit the roof of the carriage. It had only fallen two feet. What was it stuck on? She stomped down on it. It didn’t budge. She pressed down and pushed against the ladder. Still nothing. What was stopping it? There must have been some sort of breaking mechanism. She groaned and began to climb down. The shaft was illuminated by the burning garbage that surrounded Iris as she continued to bang crazily against the basement door. Kizzy descended in silence for fear of alerting her.
Finally she reached the bottom of the carriage, near the opened door of the first floor. She felt around the underside of the elevator for whatever was holding it. Her fingers found some sort of latch. If she pulled that the box would fall, she was sure of it. She grabbed hold but suddenly all the noise below her had stopped. Was Iris aiming up at her with the flamethrower? No. She had just broken through the door and climbed out from the shaft.
22
“No, you go down through the elevator,” Kizzy called out.
Diego turned on a dime and sprinted into the parking garage. He rounded the corner and approached the elevator door held open by the tire. Suddenly he found himself in perfect darkness. He had forgotten the flashlight. He stepped cautiously with his arms outstretched towards where he remembered the elevator door being. He had to walk quickly. Iris could be right behind him. He waved his arms about, but felt nothing. The door should be there already. Suddenly his foot kicked against the tire and he began to fall forward. He flailed his arm to the side and grabbed onto the door. He gasped. His heart racing. He would have broken his neck if he had fallen down the shaft. Quickly he got up and reached inside the open door until he felt the rough steel of the ladder. He grabbed hold, stepped over the tire and began to climb down. There was a flash of gray light from the behind him. Iris had entered the garage.
Her metallic footsteps marching towards him. He scurried down the rungs, his arms going as fast as possible. Faster, faster, he had to go faster. Suddenly his foot hit the floor. He reached out for the opening and crawled over the tire. Once on the other side he grabbed onto the tire tightly and yelled up to Kizzy, “I’m closing the door!”
He yanked the tire from between the metal panels, but there was no sound of it closing. There was a sinking feeling in his gut. He reached out and felt that the door was indeed still open. Should he run further into the darkness? The whole plan needed Iris to be stuck in that shaft. From the opening he could hear her footsteps approaching from the floor above him.
Cling, clang, cling, clang, cling, clang, cling, clang.
Then a pause.
She crashed down onto the floor of the shaft in front of him. The small pilot flame at the mouth of the flamethrower lit her face. Diego could vaguely see her eyes. She looked like an insect ready to devour its prey. Diego kicked the elevator door and it slammed shut. He guffawed, dumbstruck at his luck. There was an explosive bash against the inside of the door.
He jumped back. Another loud bang. Flames shot out through the crack in the door and around it’s edges. Diego backed further and further away into the darkness as Iris continued to pound from the other side.
The flamethrower torched the metal again. Diego noticed the top of the doorway was beginning to break. He looked around for something to jam in its way. He felt through the dark with his hands waving out in front of him. When he looked back he saw that the metal of the door was red and glowing as Iris blasted it with the flamethrower. She pushed at the hot metal and it bent inwards like an orange peel. She kicked at the door with her pneumatic leg and it fell onto the floor with a heavy clang.
“Diego, Diego, Diego,” Iris said. She hopped up into the garage and began to march towards him. “I missed you. I really did. Burning those policemen was nice, but it wasn’t the same as the feeling you gave me.”
Diego tried to run for the stairs, but Iris blasted the flamethrower in the way. He could feel the heat on his forehead and stepped backwards until he walked into a car. He felt his way around and stayed crouched down on the other side. Perhaps he could sneak underneath it and make a run for the stairs. Suddenly the car began to move away from him. Diego grabbed onto the bumper but his feet slid across the concrete. Iris pounced towards him.
He scrambled backwards and stood there in the darkness, feeling naked. The pilot flame at the tip of the flamethrower floated in the air towards him. It felt like an all-seeing eye. There was no way out. He continued to back away and soon he met the far wall. Iris continued to her approach. He slid to the left until his hand came upon a doorknob. A way out! He tried to open, but it was locked.
“Help!” he screamed.
“Diego?” came a voice from above him. He looked up into the darkness. Was it Kizzy? How could he be hearing her? He must have been below the construction site.
“I’m above you,” Kizzy said as she stomped on the wood.
“Get me out of here,” he said.
He heard the plywood scratching against the concrete as she pulled it away. A faint red light shined down from above. Kizzy’s arm reached down through the hole. He tried to jump for it, but it was at least six feet away.
“I can’t reach. Get something for me to climb up,” he said.
“Like what?”
“A ladder or something, I don’t know. Quickly!”
“Aww Diego,” said Iris. “Here we are at last. You can’t run away anymore. And we can finally be together.” She fired small flames up into the air, in celebration.
Diego backed away again, until he came to the cold concrete wall. He tried to sprint to the right. Iris blocked the way with a wall of fire. He tried to the left, but flames stopped him in his tracks. He looked up. No sign of Kizzy. There would be no help coming from above. He backed into the last parking space at the corner of the basement. It was the end of the line for him. There would be no adventure through the wilderness. No freedom of the road. No glorious isolation. It was all going up in smoke.
All because of that lie that Kizzy told him. That was why was losing everything. The reason he’d be burnt to a crisp.
“Don’t be afraid Diego,” said Iris, as she crept towards him. “I’m sure it will be enjoyable for you as well. I’ll try my best to make it so.”
Iris lifted the flamethrower and took aim.
Diego closed his eyes and looked down. He imagined himself on his motorcycle, flying along on the country roads.
“No, no, no,” he could hear Kizzy say.
It was too late Kizzy, the damage was done.
He could hear the cracking of wood. He saw a bright flash and was knocked off his feet by a huge explosion.
∞
Kizzy stared down the at the empty elevator shaft floor. Iris was marching towards Diego. Kizzy’s head began to spin. What could sh
e do? Looking out into the first floor of the garage, she noticed two red lights glowing ominously at the other end of the parking lot. It covered the entire construction site in a faint scarlet glow. What was that? Could it help?
She swung herself to the doorway, climbed over the tire and sprinted to the glowing red lights. There were on the back of the white box-shaped truck. Why were they on now? It must have been some sort of miracle. As she approached she felt the stiffness of the concrete floor give way to the springiness of plywood.
“Help!” a voice called out from beneath her.
“Diego?” she asked as she walked towards the voice. “I’m above you.” She stomped on the plywood.
“Get me out of here,” Diego pleaded.
She found the edge of the plywood, lifted and pulled it with all her might. Diego stood down below in the basement backed against the wall. Kizzy laid down on her stomach and stretched her arm out as far as possible.
“I can’t reach,” he said with terror in his voice. “Get something for me to climb up.”
“Like what?”
“A ladder or something,” he pleaded. “Quickly.”
Kizzy looked around the area. There was nothing. Just cars and the large box truck. She looked down at its wheels. They stood on the concrete right next to the plywood. Could it be rolled if she pushed it? Then Diego could climb up.
From the corner of her eye she saw the flashes of several small flames shooting off. Kizzy had to move fast. She ran to the back of the truck and began to push it forward. Fortunately it started to roll. She pushed with all her might. The front wheels crossed over onto wood. Just then she heard frantic tapping on the back window from inside the truck.
The Enoch Pill Page 23