Deathbed

by Jason McIntyre

  Farrah offered a tiny, wide-eyed nod. She was listening intently. She realized her own breathing had started to mirror Gran’s shallow kind. She’d propped her head in her hand and her elbow into a yellow-stained pillow.

  Nurse Anne was likely out in the living room. She occasionally came back in to check on her patient and, so far, hadn’t scolded Farrah for keeping the old woman awake.

  Tonight was a time for throwing out old ways, for ignoring the rules.

  Gran closed her eyes again. “Keep reading Farrah. Your story here, this one about the boy and his dad and this guy they got stuck with, I want to find out where they get to. It’s the only thing keeping me going just now.”

  Farrah propped herself back up and turned the book over, looking for the place where she’d left off. Just then, a horrible thought struck her at Gran’s words.

  The only thing keeping me going, Gran had said.

  What if that was true? Farrah hoped the story never ran out of pages.

  Part VI

  The Yellow Brick Road

  1956

  1.

  It was Drumheller, all right.

  “If anyone can hear me, this is Doctor Drumheller. Come in please. Come in.”

  I had to shove my whole arm out into the elevator shaft to get a decent version of the good doctor’s signal on the walkie, and even then, it was still filled with static and choppy waves of in-and-out.

  I toyed with the notion of not responding. Of leaving Drumheller to his own devices and just switching the channel so I could tell Ketwood that I lost the signal from our mighty leader. But Drumheller’s voice had a certain pleading in it. And, in our silence, we had our own desperation. We needed help.

  Besides that, just a few feet away and leaning against the tunnel wall were the electrician and his son. I could feel their eyes boring into my back as I hesitated. The second or two that I hesitated, it went on and on. I felt the itch of sweat on my scalp.

  Finally, I clicked the trigger. “Come in, Drumheller, I read you,” I said. I hoped my exasperation didn’t register in my voice. Surely, I’d rolled my eyes at having to acknowledge my least favourite human being during this whole ordeal—whether I needed his help or not. But at least I had my mug pointed out into the base of the elevator shaft and Ketwood couldn’t see my look of disgust. One mixed with helplessness.

  A pause from Drumheller. Then: “Munn, is that you, over?”

  “It’s me, over,” I said.

  A longer pause. Certainly, Drumheller was cursing his own God for letting it be me on the other end of his call.

  “Where are you?” he said. Then added, “Over.”

  “I’m with the electrician,” I said. “We got trapped in Freight Four between floors when the power cut out. You know about the seepage? Over.”

  “Yeah,” Drumheller said. He sounded out of breath. “Bastards didn’t let me know about it. Heads are gonna roll,” he said. He didn’t add over. Knowing that the great and powerful Oz hadn’t been in the loop about it made me feel a bit better. Some moisture dripped and hit me in the forehead, running right into my eye. I hoped it was condensation and not some cast off from our nuclear facility above. I wiped at it, but not before it started stinging. I squinted against the pain.

  “Well,” I said with a grimace and trying to balance in the doorway while I held the walkie aloft and wiped at my eye with my sleeve. “We couldn’t stay in the elevator. The fresh air went out and we were cooking alive. Made it down to the tunnel under Twenty. You know about that, over?”

  “Of course,” he said, erasing my good feelings about both of us not being let in on the severity of the train spill.

  “What in sam hell did they do? Over.”

  “Not entirely sure,” Drumheller said, clicking through the static. It sounded like he was moving around as he spoke. He was a bit breathless. “You know how rail line B comes right in underground? Right inside for pick ups and unloading?”

  “Yes, over,” I said.

  “Pretty sure, one car derailed.”

  “A whole car?” I said. “Totally went ass-over-tea-kettle? Over.”

  “Maybe,” Drumheller said.

  I slumped my shoulders thinking how much more serious that would be than just a bit of seepage or cast off. I wondered if anyone had been burned. And then I realized it wouldn’t be a matter of ‘if’—only ‘how bad.’

  “Where are you, say again, over.”

  “I’m on Nineteen,” Drumheller said. “Just above you. If I can make it to the elevator doors, I should be able to come down to you. Over.”

  “Should?” I said. “What’s the trouble? Over.”

  “We had a breach of our own,” Drumheller said, still breathless, still moving. “The power on all our cages went out. The locks on all the restraints and doors are electronic—” I noted the word, ‘cages’ but didn’t say anything. Drumheller went on. “We had some escaped...subjects. We were...trying to contain them and a lot of my staff are...well...they’re dead, Dennis.”

  I went cold—no easy task in this oven down here. I could feel the colour wash out of me. And not that anyone would have been able to tell, not in the grey light of this pit at the bottom of an elevator shaft.

  “Are you...” I started to say, swallowing against the frailty of my own words. “Are you alone, then? Over.”

  “I think so,” he said with hesitation. “No one’s answered my calls. I hear breathing and some...noises...so the subjects are still on the level with me. At least some are.” As an afterthought, he added, “Over.”

  I thought for a moment. “If you have no power, you’re what? Totally in the dark? Over.”

  “That’s right,” he said with what sounded like a crazed smile in his voice. “Shitty day for me. Bad luck, I guess. First your...folder this morning. Now this. Emergency lighting didn’t even come up. I’m pawing my way around in the pitch black. Just trying to remember the number of paces to get to the elevator door. And I need to do it before they find me. They can see in the dark, some of them.”

  This time I didn’t wait for him to say, over. “Who?” I asked, feeling my heart beating hard in my chest as I pictured him in the dead black while something else watched. I swallowed and reiterated. “Who’s up there with you? Over.”

  “The animals,” he said.

  2.

  It took a few moments for this to sink in. I looked over at Ketwood who was sitting close to his son. He’d stopped prodding the boy and was looking over at me.

  I hit the trigger on my walkie and the red light on it went out. Static turned to silence.

  I gave it a smack and then another one. The small round bulb shone red again, but it was faint. It came back halfway through Drumheller saying something else. “—Trying for the elevator doors. If I can get them open, I’ll come down to you—”

  He broke out again and the walkie went dead. I squeezed the talk-trigger and called into the mic, “Drumheller, you’re breaking up. Can you hear me? Over.”

  I let the trigger go and the red bulb lit again. Once more, Drumheller was talking. “—I went back to my office for a flashlight but couldn’t find it. I got something we’ll need—”

  “What is it?” I asked. “What do you have?”

  “—Oh God—,” Drumheller said. He was really huffing now. “—Oh God, I think one’s coming. I think it’s the big one. I can see its eyes—” There was a scraping sound mixed in with scuttles and loud thumps. It sounded like he was running and banging into things as he went. “—A map—,” he said, but his voice was distant. “—a map to the tunnels—oh Jesus Christ—!” There was a roar that pierced through the speaker of the walkie and turned to an electronic squeal of feedback inside the signal. And then he cut out again.

  My walkie went dead. I smacked it with my hand but all the static and squealing—and Drumheller’s voice—were gone.

  3.

  The three of us waited. Ketwood and his son each sat in an excruciating silence while I stood in a s
tewing, jittery heap of my own. A minute passed. Maybe more. And then I thought I heard some far away noises coming from somewhere above but I could have been mistaken.

  In a moment or two, I was sure the noises were real. There was some thumping up above our heads. Then a clanging and some more scraping. I popped my head out into the elevator shaft and pointed my flashlight up. I could see dark shadowy movements quite a ways up.

  “Drumheller!” I called. No response. Just more banging and clanging.

  And then a roar. It reverberated down the metal and concrete shaft, rattling into my ears and bringing a shiver to my spine. The roar died away like thunder in the distance and I saw two distinct forms in the blackness above me. “Munn!” called a voice from above me.

  “It’s coming!” And then the dark mass was growing. The end of Drumheller’s words extended into a shout. As his elongated shout grew, so did the mass in my weakening flashlight. I ducked back in as I realized it was something descending straight down upon me. My heart thudded and I got back into the tunnel as something brushed past me. It was Drumheller whistling by as a big mass of blurry movement.

  He crashed to the hard ground at the bottom of the shaft, just a few feet below the opening to the tunnel.

  He cried out. He must have fallen fifteen or sixteen feet straight down. I gathered up my strength of will and peered over the edge. There was Drumheller, dirty, dusty in his lab coat, straining up at me, four feet below the doorway.

  His arms reached out and it reminded me of a wanting baby. This powerful man who’d caused me so many problems. I turned my head clear around in the other direction and followed the movement with the shaft of my torch. It went up and I saw another figure there. Only, it wasn’t a person. It was massive. And its dark eyes glittered in the light I showed them. My chest heaved and stopped with a hitch. I know that people always use the phrase, speechless. I really was. I couldn’t say anything or move an inch. A big, grunting breath came and I smelled an awful smell, like livestock that I remember from boyhood on the farm, but different. The massive shadow was up where Drumheller had been and it was descending on the iron rungs of the ladder. I heard its feet clang and I heard bolts straining against the heavy thing’s weight.

  I turned back to Drumheller. I could just leave him. Really I could.

  I could slam the heavy metal door and that thing up there would take care of him. It wouldn’t be my fault. But I’d be rid of him.

  I looked back at Ketwood. Both he and his boy were standing now and Ketwood senior was shouting at me. My mind was clouded and I couldn’t process the words coming out of his mouth. Everything slowed to a crawl in my vision.

  I thought of my folder. All the lies Drumheller had spun to get his lofty position. I reached out and took his forearm and started pulling him up. I couldn’t let Drumheller die. I’d been given a sweepstakes ticket and he needed to live to pay it out to me.

  Ketwood moved forward in the tight space and helped me haul the doctor out of the tunnel while that thing lumbered ever lower over our heads.

  We got Drumheller inside and I shut the big metal door with a whining squawk and a clunk. On this side, it had a thick metal bar that slid down into a set of welded claws.

  “Come on,” I said, trying hard to not betray the fluttery feeling in my arms and my chest. I was lightheaded.

  “I c-can’t,” Drumheller said with a stutter. “My leg.”

  Ketwood and I both looked down at the man whose weight we supported. His dress pants were torn and bloody and the white shaft of his broken femur sprouted from the inside of his right thigh just above the knee.

  4.

  It was more desperate than ever now.

  I forgot about the folder with the birth certificate and the incarceration record.

  I forgot about the map of the tunnels. I forgot about everything.

  “We have to move,” Ketwood growled. “Sean! Go out ahead.”

  Behind the steal door we heard straining metal: the movement of something massive. We also heard its grunting, groaning breath.

  As if reading our looks, Drumheller, who was propped between Ketwood and me, said, “He’s injured. He’s drugged. But he’s still coming.”

  Sean hustled out in front and his dad helped me prop up Drumheller on one foot between us. We rushed, stumbled, then tried it a bit slower until we got a rhythm of step, pause, step, pause.

  Behind us, the ‘something’ rammed the heavy steel door. It waited. It rammed it again.

  I couldn’t bring myself to even sneak a tiny look back. None of us did. Drumheller knew what that ‘something was. We didn’t. And we didn’t want to know.

  We found our rhythm and got going a little faster. The three of us men were panting and sweating as we hauled our stitched bodies down the narrow corridor. I was hotter than ever. But I couldn’t think on that just now. The only thing in my mind was that thing back there, making its ruckus, that thing ramming into the doorway with heavy clunking whams. It would break through—whatever it was—and then it would be after us.

  “Dad,” the boy called. He was only a disembodied voice now. Though we were in a section of tunnel with several overhead lamps, the boy had gone around a bend and we couldn’t see him anymore. “Come on, hurry!” he called back to us with a voice that echoed through the hollow.

  With a grunt, Ketwood shouted. “Go, Sean, just go. Don’t worry about me.”

  “I can’t,” the boy called. “I don’t know which way to go.”

  A spark of inspiration. “Do you have the map?” I asked of Drumheller who was hobbling between us and leaning heavily in my direction.

  “Breast pocket,” he said with a gulp of air.

  “No time,” Ketwood said, out of breath. “Son,” he called. “Take the left side.”

  “Likely the best—” Drumheller said looking up over the tops of his skewed spectacles. “That’s most a-assuredly—” He was spitting out short bits of what he wanted to say as we swept him along. “—the closest approximation—” He was clearly in a lot of pain. “—towards the C-cove—”

  When we arrived on the other side of this latest bend we came to a wide section. It didn’t branch off to two new tunnels as I’d imagined. It branched off in four new directions. With only a quick falter, we went to the furthest left of them. At its mouth, Ketwood called. “Sean, did you take the furthest left?”

  Nothing back from Sean. I could feel Ketwood tense, as though it could traverse through Drumheller like electrical current, then up to the parts of my arms connected to Drumheller.

  I could feel our collective pace quicken down into that far tunnel. The floor dipped about three or four feet vertically in about the same number of paces. I banged my head on one of the hanging lamps.

  Behind us, the ramming of the beast had ceased.

  “Sean!” Ketwood called again. I could hear the panic in his voice now. It had overrode his fatigue.

  “Sean—answer me!” Now it was turning to a mix of panic and anger, as though the boy was purposefully toying with his father.

  Up ahead, the tunnel kept going lower and finally it spilled out into another wide opening. Two tunnel choices at the far side of one big room. Before I could register anything else, I saw Sean, the Ketwood boy. He was over near the big dark mouth of one. Studying something large and mechanical. “Dad, come ‘ere,” he said. “Look at this.” The boy was enthralled. He’d quickly forgotten about the beast trying to ram its way into the tunnels and hunt us down.

  Ketwood’s voice took on a scolding tone. “Sean,” he said, as he left Drumheller and me and started towards his son. “Didn’t you hear me calling?”

  Distracted by the man-sized toy before him, Sean Ketwood barely registered his father’s admonishment. “No,” he said, simply. “I didn’t hear a thing.” He stood mesmerized before the object. I realized as I took two or three more steps into the big, deep concave that it was a hand-cart sitting on a length of full-sized rail. It was one of those things I’d seen in bla
ck and white footage of the cross-country railroads being built. Two men would stand on either side of the pump and teeter-tottered it up and down to propel the cart along a track. The rail beneath the cart was pinned into the rough-hewn floor and meandered out into one of the tunnels.

  “That’s the line,” Drumheller said and swallowed. I looked down at his crooked right leg and that awful bloody stump of his leg bone jutting up at us. “That line will take us clear to the Cove,” he said. I don’t need to consult the map. I remember.”

  Sean Ketwood reached out and touched the metal of the pump handle. As if the gesture flicked a switch, a low growl started up. It was heavy and guttural. It reverberated through the hollow cavity. My eyes immediately started to dart in all directions. I felt Drumheller tense against my support.

  In the blackness of the tunnel with the twin rail lines, there came a rustle of movement. Two iridescent eyes blinked and then grew larger.

  Sean took one furtive step towards the darkness. “What is tha—?” Out from the blackness jumped a small black beast. It was about the same size as the Ketwood boy but hunched and black. I realized it was covered in fur. It came at the boy and I saw the outwardly turned snout of a primate. It was a young ape. Or maybe a gorilla. I wasn’t sure since I’d only ever seen one such animal live and up close. That had been a travelling circus.

  This young beast was angry and it swung a heavy paw at Sean Ketwood, cracking him right in the side of the head and sending him against the rail cart and down to the dirt and rock floor in a cloud of dust. Ketwood Senior shouted at the animal. But the primate bared its teeth and let out a combination of a hiss and a howling growl at the older man, freezing him in his stance at least ten feet from his son.