“That’s what we call the main section of this building, just on the other side of this door. The building is a converted hangar, and like a hangar, it’s all very open. And they didn’t build any lower ceilings when they renovated it, so it kind of feels like you’re in a stadium or arena.”
“What kind of office building is wide open? Aren’t there offices?”
“Yes, you’ll see. They put up all these privacy walls to create offices and...other types of rooms, so once you walk through the main area, there are a bunch of separate rooms all lined up leading to the back where they keep the changed. It’s laid out kind of like a shopping mall, the holding room at the back is the food court, I guess. But with the ceilings as high as they are, the place feels like you’re in a cavern.”
“What’s the point? What are they doing with them?”
“Who?”
“The ghosts...crabs, changed, whatever.”
Pam shrugs and frowns, as if the answer is so obvious as to be unexciting. “Studying them. Trying to figure out exactly what they created. And—I can’t know this for sure—but I think they’re trying to learn how to train them.”
Smalley scoffs and shakes her head. “Jesus.”
“And these internals you mentioned,” I say, “the people from the outside, who are they?”
“I don’t know.” Pam shakes her head feverishly, as if remembering again that there are, in fact, new visitors to their building, other than the three of us. “I barely saw them when they came in. They were with the colonel and Ms. Wyeth and one of the soldiers, and they took them away to one of the rooms.”
“How many were there?”
“I saw two. Both men. Looked like maybe a father and son. Grandfather maybe.” I have no further questions at the moment, and Pam recognizes the lull and steps to the keypad, preparing to gain us entry. And then she pauses, folding her hands properly down in front of her. “I won’t do this without the promise. I won’t punch in this code unless you promise that, if and when we’re seen, you’ll stage this so that Sydney and I look like your prisoners.”
Jones puts his hands up, a signal that says what other choice do I have? “Okay, I agree to that.”
Pam takes a deep breath and nods, confirming the deal.
“But you need to give us a chance in there. I need to know more about the layout. I need to know where the soldiers are.”
Pam nods again. “They always keep two soldiers on the roof, at the far end of the building by the landing area. They’re mainly looking for any approaching hordes. The other soldier patrols the perimeter of the building, so, lucky for you, he must have been at the opposite end of the entrance when you showed up.”
“Why didn’t they notice us when we drove up?” Jones asked. “Or when the ghosts showed up in the lobby?”
I don’t know, but I can tell you there isn’t much action around here—or at least there hasn’t been lately.”
“Why is that?”
“They’ve been trying to cordon them off in different sections of the county. Trying to block them off so they can’t just roam free. I think they realize they’ll eventually get out, so they’ve been corralling them in bridges and barns and any large structures they can find.”
“And they’re succeeding in that?” Jones asks, “Is that what you’re telling us?”
“I don’t know what goes on out there, not really, other than what we see from the air. But I do know the soldiers guarding the building haven’t had much to do. I catch the one on the perimeter at least once a week planted somewhere on the side of the building smoking—and not always cigarettes—and who knows what’s going on up on the roof. They could be sleeping for all I know. But the perimeter guard, he’ll be making his way around to the front at some point. And he’ll see the...”
“What is it?”
“I was just thinking about what you said, how they were coming through the door of the lobby just when we were entering the corridor here.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Terrence probably did get to the front. He probably ran smack into them.”
“Oh my God.” Sydney whispers, now understanding Pam’s point.
The soldier—Terrence—whose job it was to secure the ground perimeter of the building, likely walked right into the oncoming horde of crabs as he was making his typical, uneventful laps around the perimeter of the D&W building. It was a place largely untouched by the virus of the white ghosts. Until now. Until we showed up. Maybe it was the sight of our RV that brought them; perhaps they were scouting us from the woods of Gray’s Grocery, and then followed us along the interstate. Or, more likely, it was the noise of the crashing windows that drew them.
“Terrence is dead, isn’t he?” Sydney asks, and I quickly make another romantic connection, this time between Sydney and the guard.
Despite the potential tragedy, I have no urge to console Sydney. The truth is, I’m grateful to have one less soldier to deal with. And if the other two guards on the roof are as inept as old boy Terrence, maybe soldiers won’t be an issue at all.
“We’re doing a lot of speculating,” Smalley says, trying to restore some faith. “We don’t know anything about what happened, and there’s nothing to do about it now anyway. Maybe Terrence and Spence met up and are on their way to Cabo.”
No one laughs at Smalley’s attempt at levity. Pam simply turns to the keypad and lifts the Lucite cover protecting the device.
For just a moment, I feel a bit sorry for Pam and Sydney, knowing that two people they’ve come to know over these past several weeks, whom they’ve formed some kind of bond, are now likely dead. Just as the members of my group likely are. Tom and Stella. Danielle and James.
With the thoughts of my friends—as well as my dead wife and mistress—my sympathy for them fades quickly, and in its place, a new stoicism sets in, a new disgust at what has occurred inside this giant, wicked palace. Pam and Sydney and Spence and Terrence, and everyone that works here, are, at least in part, culpable for the destruction of Warren County and beyond. “One more thing,” I say.
Pam turns and meets my eyes, saying nothing.
“I need to know where Ms. Wyeth will be.”
Chapter 11
The deadbolt fires through the locking mechanism and unlatches the door with a bang. As Pam pushes the door wide, I expect to see a phalanx soldiers standing in a line, waiting for our arrival, rifles raised and aimed at our heads, the little laser sights quivering ever so slightly in the middle of our chests.
Instead, beyond the door, there is only the enormous room Pam described, though perhaps undersold a bit, and the smell of chlorine. In another life, the smell would have reminded me of an indoor pool, or perhaps a freshly cleaned floor, but now it only reminds me of Sharon.
The size of this new area is at least as large as an airport terminal, except instead of the bustle and brightness of an airport, the place is dark and empty, as if the terminal had been abandoned fifty years earlier.
This section of the D&W building mimics the expanse of the lobby area, except instead of the thin carpeting and minimalist decorations of the lobby, which was at least an attempt to make the room look civilized, here there is only cold, concrete flooring below us, above us an endless pattern of exposed girders. The space is breathtaking in its vastness, and the lighting is so dim that I can’t see all the way to either of the walls that border us on the sides. For all I know, there are two, symmetrical lines of armed guards along the perimeter, watching us at this moment, baiting us into some chemical trap.
But for all the darkness beside us, forward it only extends for the first fifty yards or so. Beyond the empty stretch of space in front, I can see the dividing walls of the offices, as well as the reflection of light from the glass windows. These are obviously the makeshift rooms that Pam spoke of earlier.
There is no second story space in the hangar, at least none that I can see from here, but spanning the front of the first set of offices, running from side to side ab
ove the height of the open ceilings, there is scaffolding which forms a metal walkway. On either side of the scaffolding are ladders leading up to the walkway.
“Jesus, this place is big,” Smalley says, understating the obvious as she seems predisposed to do. “And open. We’re sitting ducks out here.”
“Let’s get going then,” Jones says. “The back office past the hockey rink, right? That’s where the boss is?”
“That’s where her office is,” Pam corrects. “She just got here yesterday—for the first time since the blast—so I don’t know what she’s up to or where she is at the moment.”
“Where was she when you and Spence came out for your Fritos break?”
Pam hesitates. “With the colonel.”
“And where might he be at the moment?”
“When I left they were in the observation pen. We call it the penalty box.
“Keeping with the hockey theme?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I guess.”
“And what goes on in the penalty box?” Jones continues.
“It’s a way for the scientists to get close to them—the changed—without risking their lives or having to walk around the outside of the holding pen.”
“Do you think we could get moving?” Smalley says. “I’m starting to feel a little aquaphobic.”
“Aquaphobic,” Jones replies. “You scared of the ocean? I think you mean agoraphobic. And yeah, I’m with you.”
Pam nods toward the offices. “It’s straight ahead, toward those lights, at the end of the corridor that runs between those rows of rooms.”
We begin walking in that direction, Pam sticking close to Jones, making sure she’s near enough that should we be caught off guard by the security forces in this place, she and Jones will still be able to pull off the hostage charade.
When we reach the middle of the open space, I begin to feel like a character in a fantasy novel, sneaking into the lair of some sleeping dragon, just me and my trusty sidekicks, keeping a close huddle the entire time, heads on swivels, each watching his side for danger.
It feels like an eternity, but we finally reach the first of the offices, and I can see that the construction of the rooms is a little more impressive than I’d originally thought. From a distance, I had assumed the offices were shoddily made, thrown up with little more care than what’s given to the erection of a lean-to. But now, standing beside the divider wall of the first room, touching it with my fingers, I can feel that it’s sturdy, solid, made with purpose, each wall ten to twelve feet high with thick fiberglass windows fronting them and steel molding reinforcing the glass at every junction.
We pass the first room slowly, staring inside hypnotically, like we’re walking through an aquarium. But there’s nothing much to see; it looks to be a typical office. The room is dark, but there’s enough ambient lighting coming from further down the hangar that we can see a standard desk and a couple of office chairs, as well as a small sofa arranged along the left side of the room. The wiring systems for a phone and a computer snake across the desk and onto the floor, though the hardware itself is no longer there.
We turn to the office on the opposite side of the corridor and it appears to be a mirror image of the one on the right. Still, it seems odd and out of place, staged maybe, an office-building version of a Potemkin village.
We walk past eight more rooms, four on each side of the main walkway that splits the offices, and they all look almost identical to the first two.
And then we reach the sixth office on the right, about halfway down the corridor to the light at the back of the arena. And things inside are very different.
“What the hell is that?” Jones whispers.
Sydney just shakes her head and swallows, blinking several times, like a child lying in bed, pretending not to hear the thunder rumbling outside her window.
“We don’t look at it,” Pam says. Her voice is calm, matter-of-fact, like she and Sydney have thought a lot about this particular room and have made the sensible choice to ignore it, the way you would simply ignore a dirty piece of graffiti painted on a subway train.
“But what is it?” I repeat, and then I step close to the long window that stretches from the floor to the top of the ceiling-less room.
And then I see it clearly. At the back of the office, hunched in the darkest corner of the room, facing away from us, is a crab. But it looks thinner than the others, discolored and deformed, its bony gray spine bulging against the skin of its back like the edges of a mutated pie crust.
“It’s one of them,” Pam says, her voice directed away from me, not giving her eyes the opportunity to drift anywhere near the room.
“What’s wrong—”
With the speed of a greyhound—and nearly the build and color of one, as well—the crab scurries from the corner of the office and races towards the place where I’m standing. Its eyes are thin and focused, its teeth bared like a crazed baboon. It doesn’t growl, per se, but its heavy nasal breathing is somehow a more terrifying noise.
I’m frozen, unable even to exhale as I stand inches from the glass, watching the horrible thing approach. So instead of fighting the terror, I take in the vision with fascination, the way one would if a tiger shark were approaching the side wall of its tank, feeling that primal instinct of fear but knowing the shark is no real threat. The truth is, of course, I don’t really know that I’m safe in this particular environment, and unlike the shark, or any of the other crabs I’ve encountered to this point—save those at Gray’s Grocery, perhaps—this creature doesn’t have the detachment of feeling in its attack. The beast rushing at me now is deranged, angry, filled with hate.
The crab never lifts its torso more than two or three feet from the floor as it comes at me, seeming to maximize its speed by using this posture, and there is no deceleration as it crashes against the inside of the acrylic glass window, causing the entire row of offices to shake violently.
Sydney screams, and with that alarm now sounded, I have no doubt that we’ll be shot within the next few seconds. But I still can’t move, and I watch the dull white ghost attack me through the glass over and over again.
“Dammit, shut her up!” Jones barks at no one in particular. “She’ll get us killed.”
“It’s okay,” Pam assures, “if they’re in the penalty box, they’ll have a tough time hearing us. It’s not completely sealed, but it’s surrounded on the sides by thick glass, a lot like these offices.”
“But they might not be in there now,” Jones reminds her.
“Then it’s too late, Jones,” I say, turning slightly, trying to extricate myself from the maniacal draw of the monster behind the glass to take over for Pam in her side of the conversation. “We have to hope they are and not waste any more time. Let’s keep walking.”
“Hold on,” Smalley scoffs, an ironic smile on her face. “What the hell is going on here? What is that thing?”
“Smalley, we have to—”
“No!” Smalley barks at me, and I can see she’s almost in tears, on the verge of a breakdown, perhaps. “Why is that thing in there like that? And what’s wrong with it? It looks...just wrong.”
Pam looks down, assuming her earlier posture of shame. “He’s one of the tests. One of the guinea pigs, I think. For the next...batch of them.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask, turning completely toward Pam. My back is now facing the crab as it continues to press its hungry face against the barrier, gnashing its teeth against the impenetrable acrylic.
“Why do you think we’re still here? Why would this place still be open?”
I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.
“It’s not over. They’re not going to stop now. They’ve killed thousands of people.” Pam looks away and swallows, and then a nervous chuckle exits her mouth, as if she’s just now realizing the magnitude of what they’ve done here. “Why would—”
A banging sound rattles from somewhere in the back of the arena, and everyone stops in
place, their stares fixed to some invisible place in space, searching for the sound with their eyes. There’s silence for a beat, and then the faintest sound of a voice drifts in from the same direction as the banging.
“What the hell is that?” I ask.
Pam shakes her head. “I don’t know.” The answer comes a little too quickly, too assuredly.
“Come on. Let’s find it.”
We continue down the corridor toward the rink, leaving the white monster in a rage against the clear wall of his cell. I look back at it, and his eyes are following us as we leave, and suddenly a new fear enters my mind, that this is one of the new rulers of the world. It’s too late, they’ve been created, and by all accounts, these mad doctors are trying to make more of them. And even if we stop them, the people who are building these demons now, what difference will it make? The technology is out there; it’s probably been distributed through electronic means and is now floating around in cyberspace like some unstoppable virus.
As we progress further down the corridor, the crab fades from sight, but the banging grows steadily louder. By the time we reach the end of the rows of offices, however, the banging has stopped.
But then I hear the word again, distinctly this time, ringing through the enormous building like an echo in a canyon.
Help!
It’s a word humans are programmed to hear, no matter the language or circumstance, whether coming from a five-year old at a playground during a game of tag, or from a swimmer struggling in the ocean. The word rings softly, almost inaudibly, but I can see in the eyes of Jones and Smalley that they’ve heard it too.
“Is that them?” I ask, looking at Pam, my voice piercing with urgency. “The internals?”
“I guess,” Pam says, looking confused, a tone of irritation in her voice, as if helping these people wasn’t part of their deal and thus she doesn’t want to focus on them.
“Where are they, Pam?” I return to my professor voice, but underneath it the bubbles are forming, and it won’t take much to bring them to the surface.
“I...I don’t know. I said I would take you back to the rink. To the penalty box. I’ll take you to Stella and the colonel and we can—”
They Came With The Snow Box Set {Books 1-2] Page 21
