by Powell, Lora
Copyright © 2019 by Lora Powell
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DISCLAIMER
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. While references might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
FIRST CONTACT
Bonus CHAPTER
The First 30 Days
LORA POWELL
The locker room of the gym always smelled like someone had left their dirty socks in some obscure corner, vaguely unpleasant and more than a little musty. You would think with as often as I walked into this space, I wouldn’t notice it anymore, but the smell was always there.
Guys were pigs. Not that I was really one to talk. I’d forgotten to exchange yesterday’s used workout clothes for new ones. Good thing I liked to come to the gym late enough that the after-work crowd was long gone. Fewer people to potentially be offended by my wrinkled and slightly smelly shirt.
When I pulled the balled-up shirt out of my bag, it was still damp. Gross, but I was planning to work up a good sweat anyhow. Shrugging a little to myself I guess, because the room was empty except for me, I changed into the T-shirt and shorts.
The long mirror on the wall told me that my recent dedication to leg day was paying off. Pleased, I took a second to check myself out in the mirror. I would be thirty next year, and I was determined to hit that milestone in the best shape of my life.
Walking back out into the brightly lit gym area, the silence struck me as a little weird. Even at this time of night, there was always a few other people around. Gym members were all given a key so they could let themselves in after regular hours, and I wasn’t the only one who preferred to come when it was less crowded.
Going to my usual treadmill, I punched in the program I wanted and hoped that Missy was just running late. She rarely missed a night at the gym.
Missy was around my age. She ran miles at a time, always late at night, and we usually talked a little if we happened to end up next to each other on the treadmills. She said that this was the only time of the day that she could get away when her kids were in bed. A few months ago, back when a guy had been in the news for attacking lone women at night, I’d offered to walk her out to her car after her run. She’d laughed, told me she could take care of herself, and we’d been sort of friends since.
By the time I was done warming up, I’d figured out that Missy wasn’t coming. She had said that she didn’t feel that great the night before. She must be too sick to show tonight. Or maybe her kids had come down with something. I hoped not. I hated to hear about even the tiniest thing going wrong for a kid. Kids should go to school and hang out with friends, not have to deal with the kind of troubles that this world could throw at them.
As I traded the treadmill for the leg press, I thought about the news article that I’d read earlier. It had said that some sort of super flu was sweeping the country and the death toll was rapidly climbing.
I snorted. Social media wasn’t exactly known to be a reliable source of news. The article had to have been greatly blown out of proportion. The flu didn’t kill people, at least not that many.
Nearly an hour later, my shirt was completely soaked, and I had that muscle fatigue that I’d come to associate with a good night at the gym. I was still all alone as I wandered back into the locker room to change. Telling myself that I wouldn’t forget to dump my sweaty clothes in the laundry this time, I slung my bag over a shoulder and headed for the exit.
The gym was on the second floor of the building and had its own set of stairs leading to a back door that was my way in and out after hours. The main stairwell wasn’t lit at night and besides, the cafeteria on the first floor, the main way in, kept its big glass doors locked when the building was closed. The gym had installed this other set of stairs just so its members could come and go at will.
I tromped down the dimly lit stairs, ready to go home and relax. One of the bulbs in the overhead lighting was flickering, casting crazy shadows on the walls. It had been doing that for a few nights now. Kinda creepy, and I hoped the maintenance guys would get to it soon.
The door at the bottom of the steps was one of those super heavy glass things. Outside, a single light bulb cast the only light. The narrow alley wasn’t typically used by anyone other than after hours’ gym goers or people who worked elsewhere in the building. I was parked right at the corner of the building in an attempt to get as close to the small circle of yellow light as possible.
I really didn’t care for the dark. It was a phobia that had started when I was a small boy. Back when I spent too much time locked in a closet, or in the basement, or out of the house. Night time could be terrifying to a little boy all alone.
I shook my head a little to clear the unpleasant memories as I reached for the door. So lost in thought, I almost didn’t see the guy on the other side until it was too late.
“Oh, sorry man.” I pulled my hand off the door, glad that I’d caught myself in time before opening it right into the other guy. Why was he standing so close to the door, anyhow?
A dull thunk sounded as the guy bumped his forehead into the glass.
I did a double take. What the hell was wrong with this guy?
He pressed his face to the glass hard, staring in at me with an intensity, unlike anything you’d expect from a normal person. A disturbing brownish smear covered most of one side of his face. The worst part was his eyes, though. Even in the poor light, they blazed out of his face, so bloodshot that they were pools of red.
I stepped back from the door. “Uh, you ok?”
The man cocked his head slightly, blinked once, and let out a hair-raising screech that was straight out of the nightmares of a boy alone in the dark.
He exploded into motion. Scrabbling at the door with both hands, he bumped and thunked against the glass.
Swearing, I backpedaled up a couple of steps, afraid to turn my back on the guy. What had he taken? Living in a city, even a slightly smaller one, you heard stories about people having bad reactions to some sort of drug and freaking out. It looked like I’d just been unfortunate enough to come face to face with one of them.
The guy snarled and shrieked again. He was really freaking me out. It was like looking at some sort of rabid animal on the attack, except it was a human on the other side of the glass, not some unfortunate dog. The display was unnatural.
Then another thought occurred to me. What if the guy had a key? Gym members were all issued a key to this door. It was always locked from the outside to prevent non-members from coming in after hours, but there were a lot of people running around out there with a key. What if this guy was one of them and he suddenly remembered that fact?
It didn’t matter how confident I was tha
t I could take care of myself, I didn’t want to mess with some strung out junkie. Who knew what he was capable of?
It was time to call for help. I reached for my pocket, looking for my phone. Not finding it, I checked the other side. Not there either.
That’s when I remembered that my phone had been almost dead when I left for the gym. It was at home, plugged in and sitting on my counter.
“Shit.”
I looked around, but the barren stairwell offered no help.
The guy banged into the glass harder. Just standing there was not an option. Still wary of turning my back on the guy, I kept looking over my shoulder as I hurried back up the stairs, even after the door below was out of sight.
I barged back through the doors and into the empty gym. A half-formed plan in mind, I rushed to the far wall. The gym’s office was through a door there. I was hoping to find a phone inside.
My headlong rush was brought to a screeching halt when I reached the office door. It was locked.
Feeling slightly stupid for not thinking of that, of course, the office would be locked after hours, I stared at the door in frustration for several long seconds.
Breaking into the office wasn’t an option. If I did that, the police were as likely to arrest me as the guy making a nuisance of himself outside when they came. There had to be some other way to call for help.
Spinning around, I searched the big room for clues. When my eyes landed on the locker rooms, I was off with another plan. A weak one, I’d admit, but a plan nonetheless. Maybe someone had accidentally left a cell phone in a locker. While I didn’t leave my things behind in one of the gym lockers, a lot of people did.
I swerved into the men’s room, going through stuff that belonged to women was just a little too pervy for me, and I would save that as a last resort, I went to the first locker. I quickly found out, however, that most people who left their things at the gym locked the locker. Nearly all of the ones that didn’t sport some sort of combination lock were empty.
I slammed what felt like the hundredth door closed and reached for the next. My frantic momentum had cooled with the disappointment of repeated failure. Imagine my surprise when the next locker I opened was stuffed full of someone’s belongings.
Amid an avalanche of crumpled up gym clothes and empty water bottles, something hard fell from the locker and bounced off of the top of my foot.
A baseball rolled across the floor and disappeared behind a trash can. Thrown off by the sudden rain of some guy’s personal stuff falling from the locker, I just watched it go, then turned back to the mess in front of me.
Judging by the smell that was coming from the pile of dirty clothes, this one locker could very possibly be responsible for the musty smell that always persisted in the locker room. I was not touching the clothes to put them back in there. No way.
I started to shut the door and move on when something hiding at the back of the cramped space caught my eye. The end of a well-used baseball bat stuck up through the top of the mess.
A bat could come in handy if I ended up having to defend myself from the crazy guy downstairs. It wasn’t looking like I was going to be calling the police for help any time soon.
Using just the tips of my fingers, I pried the bat free from its smelly confines. Until I was sure I wasn’t going to have to defend myself, I’d feel better keeping the bat nearby.
Quickly checking the rest of the lockers proved that no one had been careless enough to leave their cell phone behind. I shut the last locker with a bang. Feeling like some sort of creep, I edged my way into the ladies locker room, but after a few seconds just standing there, I rushed back out. Nope. Things were going to have to get much worse before I searched in there. What would they think if a woman came in and found me rooting through these lockers?
Maybe he was gone anyway. I mean, how interesting could he possibly find banging on a locked door? Taking my confiscated bat with me, I walked back to the top of the steps.
I hadn’t even started back down, and I already knew that he was still there. A muffled scream echoed up the stairwell, and another loud thud followed. This guy was really out of his mind if he was still down there, beating himself up against the glass door.
Stress and frustration mounting, I turned back into the gym.
I wandered around the gym but didn’t find anything that seemed like it was helpful to my situation. Flashing blue lights out in the darkness caught my attention when I walked past the windows.
Pressing closer to the glass, I looked out. Looking out of a brightly lit room, into the night, wasn’t easy. By the time I’d focused on what was going on, the police car was gone. I could faintly hear sirens in the distance. Whatever was happening, it sounded like it was big.
If the police were busy with a bad accident or something, even if I did figure out a way to call them, it would probably be a while before they came. As much as I liked the gym, I didn’t want to spend the night there. I was going to have to figure out a way out of this situation on my own.
While wandering around the room and between all of the various equipment, I had worked my way toward the door that led to the dark main stairwell. As I was going past, not expecting anything to come of it, I reached out and tried the door.
It opened.
I didn’t expect that. Standing there for a second, I deliberated. This door was usually locked after hours. But whoever was in charge of locking it up must have forgotten to do so today. I had no doubt that the main entrance down on the first floor would be locked, but maybe there was another way down and out, possibly another set of steps that led directly to the businesses located on higher floors.
Making up my mind, I heaved the bat and stepped into the stairwell. It got pretty dark as soon as I let the door close behind me. The only light came through the small window in the door. The landing I was standing on was dimly lit by that small patch of light, but the steps stretched into blackness both above and below.
Muttering to myself about how much I hated the dark, I grabbed the railing and put my feet on the first step up.
Something became apparent as I slowly made the climb through the dark. I was breathing hard. The air leaving me sounded harsh to my own ears. My palms were sweaty, and my heart was pumping frantically too. Feeling my way up, unable to see, had me imagining all sorts of hideous things waited in the dark. The silence was so absolute that my ears were ringing.
This was ridiculous. I wasn’t five anymore. There were no monsters in the dark. I just needed to find another way out of the building, and I could go home. I could use my phone to report the drugged up guy to the police, and this night would be behind me. Strange for sure, but ultimately not one of the more remarkable nights I’d spent in my life.
I hit the landing for the next floor up and could just make out a slightly less black patch in the darkness where a tiny amount of light tried to come through a window. Finding the door handle, I tried it. This door opened too, and I went through into an office space.
Rows of desks were set in military straight lines. It was dark there, too, but not as dark as the stairwell. Enough light made it into the room to see well enough to get around. I hadn’t been to this level ever before, and I had no idea if it had another way out. I began walking slowly around the outside of the room, looking for another exit.
When someone coughed somewhere ahead of me, I nearly dropped the bat. Freezing, I scanned the darkness, looking for whoever was there.
A glow seemed to be coming from a couple of rows over in the maze of desks. Straining to see, I thought I could make out a human shape sitting behind a computer.
“Um, hello?”
The head shot up, and now the computer glow was a little more obvious. The man’s face came into view. “Who’s there?” His voice sounded nervous.
“I don’t want any trouble. I’m just looking for an exit.” My eyes traveled to the bat in my hands while I spoke. Whoever this guy was, he was not going to be comforted by the thing. I qu
ickly put it down on a nearby desk.
The guy at the desk rolled his chair back and stood up. He must have figured out where I was standing because he looked right at me. “How’d you get up here?”
“Look, I’m sorry to have startled you. I was at the gym on the second floor, and there’s this guy outside the exit, he’s having a bad trip or something, and I’m just looking for another way out of the building.” I hoped he understood what I was trying to say. It sounded a little nuts even to me.
He came out from behind his desk and walked closer. He was tall, even taller than I was, and was a few years older.
“I’m Jack.” He held out his hand.
“Shawn.” I shook it.
“Nice to meet you, Shawn. This city, I’m telling ya. It just keeps getting crazier. I’m over there trying to get some extra work done so I don’t miss my deadline, and I’ve heard my phone sound an alert twice. Some breaking news about this flu and people getting violent. What’s next?”
“Yeah.” I looked around, trying to see an exit. I really just wanted to get home. “It’s crazy. So, is there another way out from this floor?”
“Nope. The only way off of this floor is the main stairwell. But I have a key to a back door in the alley. I was planning to leave that way when I’m done. I can let you out now, though.”
The drugged guy was in the alley. Leaving by a different door in the same alley wouldn’t change a thing. I’d still have to go past him to get to my Jeep. That wasn’t going to work, and I said so.
“Hmm, you think he’s still out there?” Jack frowned.
“I don’t know. Probably. He seems like he’s not planning to leave any time soon. You said you have a phone, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Great.” At least someone could finally call for help getting the guy out of the alley. “Do you think you could call the cops? I left my phone at home.”
“Yeah. I can do that. It sounds like it’s not safe for anyone to walk out there until he’s gone.”
Jack went back to his desk and grabbed a phone. He dialed, and I exhaled a sigh of relief. The end was in sight.
