The guy saw Clint looking. He shook his head. “This isn’t… how can this be happening?” he asked. No reply was wanted or needed, though, since the guy turned away in the same moment and resumed his pacing.
Clint wouldn’t have answered regardless, he suspected. His attention was taken by the other thing the man was wearing on his neck. The tie was down far enough, the collar of the other man’s shirt open wide enough, to allow Clint an easy view of the dark collar that ran around the man’s neck. It looked like a dog collar, or something you might find in a sex shop that catered to extreme fetishes. Not leather, but some kind of plastic-looking mesh.
A green light blinked, steady and inexorable, on one side of the man’s collar.
Clint’s hand rose automatically to his own neck, spasming slightly as he found a similar ring around his throat. It was tight. He could breathe easily enough, but couldn’t get a finger between the collar and his skin without compressing his windpipe.
Is there a green light on mine, too?
What happens if it changes to a different color?
Green lights were usually a good sign, he knew. But they had a disturbing tendency to change to red. And somehow he doubted that, if such a change occurred on his collar, it would signal a party or a lotto win.
There was no seam or buckle of any kind on his collar. Just a perfect circle, bound to him for some unknown purpose.
Clint realized, too, that he was wearing a smartwatch of some kind. No buttons, but clearly electronic, with a band made of the same seamless material as the collar on his neck. He swiped a finger over the face of the watch, hoping to activate it. It remained dark.
“This ain’t happen –” began the gangster again.
This time, though, he was cut off by another of the room’s occupants: “Yes it is. And maybe this guy can help us figure out what ‘it’ is.”
Clint looked at the woman who had spoken. A bit younger than him, he suspected. She was gorgeous, if a bit on the used-looking spectrum of beauty. Blue eyes, blonde hair. A fit-looking figure that was hinted at but not overtly displayed by the inexpensive jeans and white t-shirt combination she wore. Long, bangly hoop earrings hung nearly to her shoulders, adding just the right dose of trailer-trash vibe to a feathered haircut that obviously was still striving to make it to the late 1990s.
She wore a collar and a smartwatch, too.
She smiled ruefully at Clint, and when she spoke again he realized her voice was thick with the accent of someone from back east. He wasn’t an expert in such things, but he figured it was probably New Jersey or New York. Maybe Boston. None of the upper crust tones he had heard on movies and TV shows, though – this was strictly working-class. The kind of voice that screamed of an upbringing in a home where Daddy worked a blue-collar job and Mommy held two more jobs to make ends meet.
“I’m Noelle,” she said. “Noelle Morgan.” She extended a hand. Clint shook it automatically. She had a firm grip. “Don’t suppose you know what’s going on?” She must have seen the answer in Clint’s expression, because the small hope that had illuminated her features darkened. She chewed her lip.
Clint tried to pull at his collar again. Wondering why even as he did it – what was the old saying?
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result.
He forced his fingers away from his throat as Noelle nodded and said, “Some kind of weird plastic mesh. It feels, like, military or something. Something that don’t feel like it’ll cut or break or nothing.”
“No seam, either,” said Clint. “How can it –”
The gangster, still pacing, shook his head and interrupted with a, “This ain’t happening. It ain’t –”
Again he was cut off. This time not by Noelle but by a fourth occupant of the strange white room. The man looked to be in his fifties, his eyes and skin tone marking him as someone of Chinese descent. Though Clint had rarely seen someone of that ethnicity as big as this guy. The dude looked like a dock-worker, wearing a wife-beater tank-top, shorts, and a “life-screwed-me-so-screw-it” expression. “You say that again,” he muttered at the gangster, “and I’ll twist your head off.” He shook a ham-sized fist in the direction of the man who had been pacing.
The guy with the tattoos stiffened. He shook his head like he was shaking away a bad dream, then focused on the big man who had challenged him. “Go ahead and try it,” he said, and stepped toward the other guy.
The fifth – and last – occupant of the room stepped forward. She looked like she was in her late thirties or early forties. Plump, but pretty in a matronly kind of way, with eyes that Clint suspected could be wide and caring, or hooded and severe, depending on her mood and the needs of the moment. She wore a fairly shapeless gray dress familiar to him – the look of any of a million office workers or government employees in any of a million offices.
She looked Latina, and sure enough when she spoke there was the trace of rolled “r”s and long, melodic vowels that marked many native Spanish speakers’ tones.
“This isn’t helping any of us,” she said, stepping between the two men who were busy having a stare-down.
Clint almost laughed. The woman was half the size of either of the other guys, but she showed no fear at all as she got between them. He almost laughed again when both men looked at her, then looked at each other, then back at the woman. It was clear they were trying to figure out what that woman was doing between them, and whether it would be worth their time to knock her aside before going at each other in earnest.
The black dude turned away first. The Chinese-looking guy stared at his back, scowling as the gangster resumed his pacing.
The Latina woman turned to Clint. “I’m Elena Ruiz,” she said, the brightness of her voice strange in this situation.
“He’s charmed, we’re all sure,” said the big man in the wife beater. Another odd moment as Elena Ruiz glared at him and he seemed to wilt away, cowed by the force of her stare.
Elena turned back to Clint. Gesturing to the black man wearing a furrow in the metal floor, she said, “That’s Solomon Black.” The big guy in the wife-beater guffawed at that. Barely batting an eye, Elena said, “And our resident optimist won’t tell us his full name.”
“Chong’s good enough for me,” said the big man. “It should be good enough for you.” Fishing in the pocket of his shorts, he came out with a lighter and a half-crumpled package of cigarettes. He shook out a cigarette and lit it.
“Can you not?” said Noelle.
Chong glared at her. The tip of his cigarette glowed as he inhaled deeply, then exhaled forcefully in Noelle’s direction.
For a moment, Noelle looked like she was considering mayhem, then she just sighed and looked back at Clint. “Can you tell us anything?” she asked.
At the same time, Elena said, “What’s the last thing you remember?”
“I… “ Clint’s brows bunched together. “Not really. I do remem –”
His voice cut off suddenly as he swiveled to his left, and saw for the first time what waited there. For some reason, he had assumed he was at the outer wall of the room. He usually had a good feel for spaces – another product of his upbringing in places where you never knew when you might have to fight or run, so you stayed aware of the geography of your surroundings – but supposed that whatever had knocked him out must have robbed his mind of a bit of its normal function. Because he definitely wasn’t at the edge of the room. He was at its midpoint.
There was no one to his left. Everyone else in the room had stationed themselves on one side, and Clint couldn’t blame them for their choice of position. What lay in the other half of the room was disquieting, to say the least.
Not disquieting. Nothing so gentle. It’s weird. Creepy.
Terrifying.
5
The other side of the room was decorated almost identically to the one Clint had first seen. No water cooler, no paper cups, no iPad behind a mesh cage on the wal
l.
But the beds were there. The same expensive-looking, white, hospital-style frames with the same expensive-looking, white, hospital-style mattresses. The head of each mattress was propped up to a forty-five degree angle, as though whoever had prepared this place wanted to display the occupants of those beds.
And there were occupants in them. Just none living.
Five beds. And in each, a mannequin.
Each mannequin was positioned the same – propped up at forty-five degree angles by the hospital beds – but each was a different size and wore different clothing. Three “men” and two “women.” And just in case it hadn’t already been obvious what they represented, whoever had placed them so carefully on the beds also had dressed them in the clothes similar to those worn by the breathing occupants of the room.
A big, dark mannequin wearing a cheap suit. Another big one, “skin” a yellow-gold, wearing a wife-beater and shorts. Another one, a bit smaller than the others, also dark and wearing jeans and a button-up. The others – the “girls” – wore jeans and a white t-shirt, and a boring gray suit, respectively.
All wore collars. All wore smartwatches.
Creepy. But none of that was as bad as the last little detail: each mannequin had had a huge red smile painted over its lips. Clownish, the kind of grin you’d expect to see on Ronald McDonald. Only no fast food chain in the world would dare to feature a mascot who also had huge white circles painted over their “eyes,” with a small black dot in the center of each to represent a sightlessly staring pupil.
The mannequins smiled, and their wide eyes stared at nothing at all.
Clint shivered and turned away. “What the hell is going on?” he asked.
“None of us knows,” said Noelle. She shrugged, her shoulders bouncing up and down in a jittery, nervous motion.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” asked Elena.
“Shit, lady,” said Chong, “who died and made you queen? What’s the last thing you remember?”
Elena took no visible offense at Chong’s attitude. She shrugged her shoulders. “I was working in my office.”
“Bet you didn’t expect your workday to end this way,” said Noelle.
Elena’s face took on a strange cast. “No. But it didn’t start out well, so for what it’s worth, at least the day was consistently crappy.” When Noelle cocked her eyebrows in an obvious question, Elena shook her head and said, “I work in a place that’s constantly on the edge of bankruptcy. Today was one of those days where we realize the money we need for things like rent isn’t there.”
“Sounds fun,” said Clint.
“Not really.” Elena laughed. “Here’s the funny part: I was looking at the ledger, and thinking what bad luck it was that the bank balance was at six-hundred-sixty-six dollars. ‘Bad luck,’ I thought. Then….” Her eyebrows drew together.
“What?” prompted Noelle.
“Some noise. Like… a bee? A swarm of bees?” Elena shook her head. “I was emailing, then I….” She frowned. “I don’t remember what happened. Just that buzz, and then I woke up in here.”
“Where do you work?” asked Noelle.
“What the hell does that matter?” demanded Chong.
Solomon Black had stopped pacing for the moment, and now stared at Chong. “Dude, just shut your –”
Before either man could resume their short-tempered feud, Elena answered Noelle. “St. Jerome’s,” she said.
Even though he was the one who had just objected to the line of questioning, Chong asked, “That the hospital near Sepulveda?”
“No,” said Elena.
A moment of silence prevailed. Chong cleared his throat. “Anyone want to know where I was when it happened?”
“Not really,” murmured Noelle. But it was so quiet Clint barely heard it, and he suspected it was too quiet for Chong to register.
“I was watching the game at my place,” said Chong. “Doing some work –”
“I thought you said you were watching the game,” said Solomon.
“Multi-tasking, bro,” said Chong, the civility of his words given lie by the clipped tone of his voice. “You ever hear of a home office?”
Another tense moment. Then Solomon sniffed dismissively. Chong nodded like he’d just scored a three-pointer in a pick-up game. “Dickhead team wasn’t doing shit for playing anyway. Eyes on the prize, guys, I always say, and their eyes weren’t even close, so I bailed for a minute. Went into the office while the eighteenth huddle-up was happening and….” He shrugged.
“What do you do for a living?” asked Noelle.
“I package and distribute cans of mind-your-own-beeswax,” said Chong.
Another staredown, this time between Chong and Noelle. The young woman looked away first. “Just thought it might matter,” she said. “Maybe we’re here because of something we do for a living.”
“Maybe,” agreed Clint. He looked at Chong. “So…?”
“So I still package and distribute cans of mind-your-own –”
“Good heavens,” said Elena. “What would it hurt to tell us?”
Chong glared at her. Then shrugged and said, “I’m a broker. I put people who need stuff in touch with people who have stuff. For a commission, of course.”
“What kind of stuff?” asked Noelle.
Chong’s only answer was a grin that Clint had seen before. Never from someone doing something legal, though. It was the smile of people who considered themselves outside – and usually above – the rules. People who thought of the world as something they could, and should, take bits and pieces of as they wished.
“Did you hear bees?” asked Elena.
Chong almost laughed. Then he squinted as though trying to see into the distance. Past the white walls of this place and into a faraway memory, Clint suspected.
“Maybe.”
Elena nodded, then turned to Solomon. “And you?” she asked.
“I was coming home from work,” he said.
Chong snorted – a sound that Clint was quickly coming to realize must be one of his trademarks. “A job, huh? What kinda job? Boosting some old lady’s car? Rolling a gas station?”
Solomon looked away, but not before Clint caught the guilt in the guy’s eyes. “I don’t do that stuff.”
“Sure,” said Chong. Another snort. “You’re probably an accountant. Wait, no – insurance salesman, right?”
Clint’s jaw dropped at Solomon’s answer. Turning a fierce glare on Chong, the big black man said, “I’m a motivational speaker.”
The strangeness of that statement was enough to quell every sound in the room. Chong was first to recover. No snort, though; this time it was an ugly, derisive laugh.
Noelle tugged at the collar of her shirt. “Damn, it’s hot,” she said.
Clint realized he was sweating. They were in a metal box with no visible vents or other outlets for the body heat in here, so of course it was hot. But he suspected that the box itself wasn’t outside. A roof and walls like the ones surrounding the group would have turned the place into an oven if they were exposed to direct sunlight.
Or maybe it’s just night. No way to know what time it is. No way to know anything.
“What about you?” asked Elena. “What’s the last thing you remember, Noelle?”
Noelle had been looking at the water cooler as she tugged at the neck at her shirt. Now she turned back to Elena. “Work.”
“Where?” asked Elena.
“I work at a bar on Cienega.”
“Anything unusual about it?”
Noelle’s lips pursed. After a moment, she shook her head. “No. Just the usual crowd of drunks busy grabbing drinks when they’re not trying to grab my ass.” Her eyes took on the same faraway squint that Chong’s had held a moment ago. “I went out to the alley behind the bar for a break, and then….”
“Bees?” asked Elena.
After a moment, Noelle nodded. “But I don’t remember anything else. Just work and –”
�
�I bet you like your work, too,” said Chong. Clint was really starting to not like the guy. “What do you charge for ‘work’?” he asked.
Clint stood up. “Back off, man. You’re not –”
“Who’s gonna make me, kid? You?” demanded Chong, striding forward until he was inches away from Clint.
“So hot,” said Noelle. She was obviously trying to shift the focus away from yet another imminent fight. It worked. Everyone turned to look at her. She was staring at the cooler next to the wall. At the paper cups on the floor. “Anyone want a drink?” she said with a nervous titter.
Clint did. But he wasn’t willing to give in to the desire. It was hot, but not intolerably so. And drinking water in a place like this… not a great idea, he suspected.
“Not me,” said Chong.
Solomon grunted. “You worried it’s poisoned or something?” he asked Chong, the tone of his voice making it clear that he thought Chong was a candy-ass, gutless wimp.
“No,” Chong said easily. “Not at all. It’s like Mom always said: ‘Don’t take candy from strangers, but if you wake up in a windowless, doorless room with a suspicious water cooler sitting there while dummies do Joker grins at you, be sure to drink up.’”
Noelle took half a step forward, and Clint realized now how damp the tiny hairs on the back of her neck were; how her skin glistened. “Whoever did this could have poisoned us while we were asleep if they wanted –”
“We don’t know what the guy could –” began Chong.
“Who says it’s a guy?” demanded Noelle, her accent thickening with ire. “Maybe a woman –”
Chong had been cut off by the question. Now he returned the favor, yelling over Noelle’s words, “Sorry, princess. Did I offend the social justice crowd?” He bowed low, a mocking parody of the kind of gesture you might see in a movie about English royalty.
Clint shook his head. He didn’t know what was happening, but he was sick enough of the bickering already that he was willing to do just about anything to shut it up. And he was getting thirsty, too, and figured that whoever went to all the trouble to set this up hadn’t done it just to poison them as soon as they woke. So he pushed forward, picked up one of the paper cups, filled it with water from the cooler, and upended it into his mouth.
Scavenger Hunt Page 2
