Despite the oppressive heat in the building, I felt a chill spreading across my skin as I made my way toward the stairs. Gordon was already scouring the lobby for valuables, and Becca was doing whatever she wanted. We both knew better than to give her orders. She helped when and how she chose, and despite her having no defined role in the group, she usually ended up doing more work than both of us.
I noticed she was trailing me as I started up the stairs. She was staying a few steps behind, her obvious caution causing my anxiety to soar. What did she think was up there? I was so distracted that I paid no attention to the structural integrity of the stairs themselves, which was supposed to be my primary focus. I made sure an area was safe, Gordon came and scavenged what he could out of it. But I realized that I was chasing the whispers, terrified that I might actually catch them, but driven to try anyway.
Stepping out onto the second floor, I was met with nothing but silence. The walls on this floor were still mostly intact, and I shined my flashlight. I told myself I was checking for signs of instability, but if I saw any I didn’t even register them. After a moment I clicked it off and started to climb once more. The third floor was silent, as was the fourth.
I was starting to breathe heavily from the fast climb as I stepped out onto the fifth floor. The far wall was completely gone and the wasteland once known as Atlanta was visible. I could also see into several nearby apartments, their doors little more than a pile of ash in the threshold. In one, there was a box of jewelry spilled open, the glint of metal visible through the black ash and soot. It pulled me out of the strange spell I was under, reminding me why we were here. I began to walk toward it, testing the floor beneath me, making sure it was sturdy enough to hold Gordon so he could safely scavenge the area.
A hand on my shoulder almost caused me to jump. I turned my head to see Becca, her eyes wide, as her fingernails dug into my skin.
“We have to keep going up,” she said.
She was never close to what I would call stable, but something about this place had set her on edge. I knew what that something was, but for some reason I didn’t even want to think it.
“The voices aren’t here,” Becca said.
We’d never discussed the whispers before, but I knew she’d always been drawn to them. They were usually so faint that there wasn’t much to discuss; a simple, dark look between she and I would confirm we both heard them, and then we’d move on. But here, in this place, they’d captured her, and she clearly wasn’t going to stop until she found them again.
I pulled my arm away from her.
“We checked five floors, Becca, we.”
“Have to go higher,” she snapped.
Her usual scowl was gone, replaced with something far less welcoming. She was desperate. She was clearly not going to stop. For a moment, her expression softened. As I stared into her eyes, I saw tears gathering there.
“Please, Charlie.”
I stared at her for a long moment, then did the only thing I could in that moment. I nodded, then turned back toward the stairs. She let out a long breath, relieved we were continuing on. But I could feel her tense again as we started back up the steps. Did she truly want to find what it was she was searching for?
We moved, quick and quiet, both of our ears searching the dark for any sign of the whispers. We cleared ten floors in a matter of a few minutes. In the few moments we spent on each floor, I’d seen several promising items for us to take. Gordon was going to be very pleased. If he didn’t die falling through a weak spot on one of the lower floors I hadn’t properly inspected, that is.
I paused just below the sixteenth floor, sweat running into my eyes. I rubbed at them, but that just caused it to sting more. Becca was behind me, breathing heavily. I was about to voice my frustration when I heard something faint, barely there. I wanted to convince myself it was nothing, to keep us both from moving any closer, but the way my whole body tensed in that moment gave me away.
“What is it?” she asked.
Our eyes met and she knew. She closed her eyes and focused, searching for the noise. A moment later her eyes shot open and I knew she’d heard. So up we went.
The whispers grew louder with each floor, and by the time we reached nineteen, they were almost as loud as they’d been in the lobby. I didn’t want this, not anymore, for me or for her. But still, I spoke.
“I think this is it,” I said.
Becca shoved past me and rushed out onto the floor. I was right behind her, but as I saw the shape this level was in, I paused. It had been hit hard by the blast, entire walls, exterior and interior were gone, and the floor was splintered and cracked.
“Hold up,” I said.
She wasn’t listening. The whispers felt like they were everywhere now and she was running toward them. I could hear the floor groaning with each step she took.
“Becca!”
My voice boomed but she didn’t stop. I cussed under my breath and started after her as she disappeared down the hall. I could feel the concrete shift as I moved. Looking down at it, I knew that this floor wasn’t going to hold.
I looked up and saw her. She went from apartment to apartment, trying to find the source of the whispers. I don’t know how she was discerning one voice from another, they seemed to be all around now. She disappeared into the last apartment down the hall. I took a deep breath, then rushed after her.
The whole building was talking now. The cracked and broken floor cried out under my weight, the splintered load bearing walls cursing at me for adding to their stress. I didn’t want to die like this but I couldn’t leave Becca. She didn’t realize how unstable this floor was.
I nearly slammed into her as I rushed into the last apartment. She was kneeling in the doorway with her eyes closed and head turned, her ear slightly tilted toward the far corner of the room.
“I can almost make out what they’re saying,” she said.
I was too preoccupied with not dying to worry about the whispers. There was a massive hole in the ceiling and the floor. It looked like where some of the magma poured through.
“I’m coming,” Becca said.
Suddenly she was in motion. I reached for her, but was too slow. I don’t even think she saw the hole in the floor. By some miracle, she naturally stepped over it, rushing toward the far corner of the room. It wasn’t going to hold. I knew it before she even got there. The second she reached the corner, there was a sharp crack followed by a deep rumble. The building shook as the entire corner of the room began to splinter off and tip away.
I’m not smart enough to know if anything is faster than the speed of light, but in that moment the speed of thought was king. Because I played out an entire shameful scenario in my mind. In it, I backed away quickly, putting as much space between me and the growing break in the floor as possible. Even though I’d never heard her even raise her voice, I perfectly imagined her scream as she fell away into the open air. In that split second, as I imagined myself choosing self preservation over heroism, I knew the way her eyes would pierce mine, the way she would damn me with her whole soul as she fell to her death. I knew the sound it would make as her frame smacked into the pavement below, quickly turned to paste by the cement and rubble of the falling building. All the while, I’d still be on the nineteenth floor, cowardly, but alive.
I blinked, forcing the dark scenario from my mind. Only a split second had passed but I silently prayed that she hadn’t sensed my hesitation as I sprinted forward. I stopped at the edge of the break and leaned forward, reaching as far as I could. She was completely silent. Our eyes met and I don’t even know that I saw fear in hers. Surprise, but also a chilling acceptance. For a moment, I wondered if she was going to reach for me. For another moment, I saw her falling again, heard her hitting the pavement again. She almost appeared stunned when her body finally moved, her arms reaching for mine desperately.
I gripped her around the wrists and jerked myself backward, swinging her up and into the remains of the room. I turned,
almost losing my balance then released her, the momentum sending her crashing into a blackened dresser, soot and ash flying into the air. She cried out in pain from the impact. I fell to my knees, breathing heavily, thankful I was still alive.
I could barely hear anything over the sound of my heart thudding against my chest. I desperately scanned the floor, making sure it wasn’t going to give way beneath me. For now, it appeared to be safe.
A moment later, I became aware of a sound. It was Becca.
“Charlie. Charlie.”
She was whispering. I looked up at her, and suddenly my already pounding heart started beating so fast I was convinced it was going to burst. Standing in the space between me and Becca were two figures. They were barely there, only visible where the soot that had been knocked loose had landed on them. I’d seen invisible heroes before; that’s not what this was. This was something else entirely, something not meant to be, given form by the ash.
“They’re still here,” Becca said.
My blood was ice cold, yet she was smiling from ear to ear. She started gathering up handfuls of soot and ash and tossing them onto the two figures. The more it hit them, the more they took shape. One was clearly a child, and the other an adult woman.
“Help me, Charlie!” Becca said, her voice almost impossibly chipper.
I stood and stumbled forward, careful not to make contact with the two, whatever they were. Becca looked at me and smiled. I preferred the scowl. I moved past her and backed toward the door. She looked confused for a moment, then tossed a handful of soot at me. I ducked but I never heard the soot hit the floor. I didn’t have to turn around to know what I was going to see, yet I found the urge to turn uncontrollable. I straightened myself and turned. At the last second I squeezed my eyes closed. It was childish, and somehow it made it worse instead of better. I forced them open and found myself staring at a soot-covered face. All the ash Becca had thrown hit it right in the face, so the rest of its body remained invisible. But the face was there, and the mouth was open in an eternal scream. I could actually hear a cry of terror coming from deep within it. It was barely above a whisper, but it was there.
“They’re all still here!” Becca squealed.
I backed away from the thing in front of me, putting myself back into the room with Becca and the two ash covered ghosts there. She was still covering them with the black stuff. They almost looked whole, yet I saw her hand go completely through the child. The more she put on them, the louder their whispers. I still couldn’t understand what they were saying, but Becca seemed to be able to make it out.
“Please, tell me where he is,” she said. “If you’re still here then so is he, I have to find him.”
Whatever the things were telling her, she didn’t seem to like it. Her face was twisted into a desperate frown.
“Please, I can’t understand, help me understand.”
I didn’t know what to do. Part of me wanted to run and never look back. Most of me wanted that. But I still didn’t want to leave her behind.
“Becca, I don’t know what’s happening here, but we have to leave.”
If she heard me, she showed no signs of it.
“You used to live here, didn’t you.” I said, beginning to understand.
She ignored me, continuing to chatter with the two figures, trying desperately to negotiate something that I didn’t understand. She seemed to be making some sort of progress.
“But anyone who’s been killed by Living Furnace, right? Not just you here?”
She closed her eyes and smiled as they responded. But a moment later her expression changed to confusion.
“Why do you need that?”
Her eyes settled on me for the briefest of moments, then away. There was something in that look that unnerved me even more than the ghostly figures gathered around me.
“Is there no other way?” Becca asked.
Again, she looked at me. This time I took a step back. I wasn’t okay with whatever was being negotiated.
Loud footsteps on the stairs drew my attention. I looked down the hall to see Gordon appear.
“What the hell’s going on?” he said loudly, jogging toward me. “Sounded like half the building fell down.”
I wanted to warn him, to tell him to stop, to stay where he was. But in that moment, no words came from my lips. I watched him as he approached. He was more annoyed than concerned, and I was certain he was already preparing the lecture he was going to give us about the importance of going floor by floor and finding every valuable item we could. He moved carelessly, oblivious to the weak and dangerous floor beneath his feet. And as he neared, I realized he was even oblivious to the ghostly face in the doorway. Gordon really was an idiot.
“How many times do I have to tell the two of you that…”
His voice trailed off as he entered the room and saw the two ash covered ghosts.
“What is this?” he asked.
The two figures turned toward him, then back to Becca. She looked at Gordon, then back at the two figures. Becca nodded.
“Yes, you have my permission.”
The two figures turned slowly, then stopped and stared right at Gordon.
“Who are these guys? You guys scavengers too? We got dibs on this places, bros.”
He never ever saw the two figures rush him. I leaped back, certain that I wanted no part in what happened next. I expected a graphic impact, an explosion of gore and blood. What happened was much worse. They stopped, one on each side of him. Gordon was frozen in place, unable to even look at either of them. Then they spoke, and this time we all understood the whispers.
“Give us…” the adult ghost began.
“...the blood,” the child finished.
Gordon’s eyes bulged and his body began to shake.
“Please God, no,” he muttered.
Words could never accurately capture the horror that came next. The two ghosts got what they asked for. Gordon began to bleed. From every part of him. It was almost too surreal to process. My eyes were glued to what was happening, yet my brain almost refused to believe what it was seeing was real. The truest horror of it all was in the lack of sound. It reminded me of that scene in Indiana Jones where that guy’s face melted off—but like watching it on mute. The two figures positioned themselves below him, allowing the blood to spill over them. The blood covered them, giving full form to their ghostly bodies.
Gordon collapsed. His body looked like a balloon that had lost half its air, a deflated corpse robbed completely of its essence. His eyes remained wide open.
I opened my mouth to scream but stopped. The two blood soaked ghosts weren’t looking at me and I wanted to keep it that way. They turned slowly and walked back over to Becca. She’d lost some of the color in her face, but her jaw was rigid and set. She was a woman committed to the path she’d chosen.
The crimson ghosts spoke. I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying but their voices sounded more human now. The blood had done something to them.
“That would be delightful,” Becca said. “I’ll do anything to see him again. Anything.”
They spoke to her again, and for the last time her eyes met mine. She looked genuinely sad.
“I’m sorry, Charlie, I really am, you’ve been good to me. Please understand, it’s for my little boy.”
I stepped toward the door.
“They can’t take me to him until they have more.”
The two ghosts turned toward me.
“They have to have it to become whole again. I’m sorry, it’s the only way.”
The two blood soaked ghosts looked back at her and spoke. She looked at the floor and slowly nodded.
“Yes, you have my permission,” she whispered.
I ran. There was little time to think and little to think about. I could hear them behind me and I just ran with everything I had. I might’ve even stepped on Gordon, but I couldn’t be sure. I reached the stairs and began leaping down three at a time. I was going too fast, of
f balance and almost certainly going to fall and possibly break my neck. It would be a lovely way to go compared to what happened to Gordon. I thought about my dad, about his suicide. What I wouldn’t have given for a gun in that moment. But instead all I could do was flee. I dared not look behind me. I knew they were there, that’s all that mattered.
I heard Becca at the top of the stairs.
“Don’t run! Think about it, you’d do the same for those that you loved!”
But I’d never loved someone enough to kill. In a sick way, her final words to me stabbed at my heart, reminding me of yet another thing I wasn’t going to live long enough to experience. Was there someone left in this ravaged world who I could love enough to do what Becca was doing? Was my soulmate just around the corner, now doomed to walk the earth alone since I’m clearly not going to live long enough to find her? Would she have loved me with the same passion? A passion that would slay others if it meant being reunited with me?
They were all empty questions. Just the chatter and rhetoric of a mind trying to distract itself from the fact that it was about to suffer a most gruesome death.
For a minute I started to feel the slightest touch of hope. I somehow hadn’t lost my balance yet, and was flying down the stairs faster than what I thought possible. I could still feel the presence of the ghosts, but they were falling behind.
Then it happened. It’s true of all of us: one missed step and your life could be over. It could’ve been a slogan for a company, could’ve been a popular saying that inspired people to seize the day. Instead, it was simply my reality. As I started to fall, I braced myself for the impact, hoping it would kill me before the ghosts did.
I repeated something in my head as I fell.
I don’t believe in ghosts.
I don’t believe in ghosts.
I don’t believe in ghosts.
I don’t believe in ghosts.
Something told me it didn’t matter what I believed.
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