by Kevin Lucia
He plunged ahead and ran, eyes forward, trying to ignore the flickers of white grasping things on either side of him, faces pressing against fabric, silently screaming. He reached the end of the aisle. Sure enough there was space to pass to the next. He turned left but was going too fast and his left foot slipped out from under him and down he went, hard on his back. He threw his arms out to break the fall but couldn’t quite catch himself before the back of his head cracked against the floor.
Pain and intense pressure clamped his head in a cruel vise. His hands flew to the sides of his head—oddly enough, the right hand still clutching the old Nokia—and squeezed, as if he could press the pain away. He felt dizzy, his head was pounding and his breath roared in his ears.
Something cold gripped his ankle.
Shane screamed and kicked out. The hold immediately released. Chest heaving, on the edge of full-blown panic, Shane forced himself to scramble upright onto his feet, throwing up his hands to ward off whatever was coming at him.
Nothing.
He stood, hands straight out, breathing heavily, staring at rows of mattresses stacked evenly and neatly, appearing utterly mundane, not threatening at all. No rippling beneath the fabric, no hands pressing through, no impressions of silently screaming mouths. Nothing.
His hands dropped loosely to his sides, his right hand still, after everything, clutching the old Nokia. He rubbed his face with his left hand. Pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. Had he seen those hands and silently screaming faces? Felt a cold hand—clothed in fabric—clutch his ankle? Or was this place working on him, as it had obviously worked on that lady, as it must’ve worked on Amanda.
Making her run in terror, and not answering his calls.
neurotoxins
paralyzing
The Nokia buzzed again, interrupting his jumbled thoughts, which he didn’t mind at all. Of course, it was curious and strange, how it kept ringing at these moments, or switching off right when he needed answers. Normal reasons for this offered themselves. Maybe the dying battery kept sending surges of charge through the phone, switching it on. Old phones did that. It sounded logical enough.
He kept thinking, more and more, about who this lady was, and how, for some reason, he hadn’t thought to ask for her name.
He pressed answer and raised the Nokia to his ear.
“Hello? Are you there?”
“Yeah,” he said, trying in vain not to sound breathless and scared. “I made it through the auditorium, about to come out the other side. You’re near the auditorium, right?”
A pause, and then, her voice—or the connection, Shane couldn’t tell—sounded scratchy. “I think so. It’s not the gym, I don’t think. We passed that before Mike ran off. It was full of clothes, I think.”
“All right,” Shane said as he neared the auditorium’s other set of doors, closed at the moment. “I’m on my way to you. Hang tight.”
“What was in there? I almost went in once, but as I said, I heard things moving in there. Something sliding.”
Shane pressed down the push-bar on the auditorium door, not thinking about hands grasping from inside mattresses and those gaping, silently screaming mouths. “Nothing. Stacks of mattresses, arranged in a maze. A little creepy is all.” The door swung open and he stepped out of the auditorium. “Okay. I’m here, I’m—”
Shane came to a halt, his words dying in his throat as he stared down a hallway lined with blood-red lockers on both sides.
The hall he’d left when entering the auditorium.
“No. Wait. What the hell is this? Are there lockers where you are?”
“No, I told you. End tables and nightstands. I stayed in this hall because there were no lockers.”
Shane turned to the doors behind him, leading back into the auditorium. They looked exactly like the ones he’d entered, but that didn’t mean anything, did it? They’d be uniform, and would be the same.
He faced the hall ahead. So far as he could tell, it was the same hall. Same lockers, with nothing holding them closed. Of course, all the lockers in a high school were going to look the same, especially as all the lockers he’d seen so far had been painted the same bright red. This wasn’t the same hall. It couldn’t be. Was a trick of the eye.
If he walked down that hall again at a brisk, breathless pace, past those lockers . . .
with nothing holding them closed
. . . when he got to the end and turned right, would he see rows of lamp stands lining the hall, proving he’d somehow ended up right back where he’d been before entering the auditorium? Or would it be full of some different kind of furniture, or more lockers, with nothing pressed against them to keep them closed?
Shane again closed his eyes.
Breathed deep. Fighting for control. Quietly, on the edge of hysteria, he rasped into the Nokia, “What’s happening.? I’m back to the same place I was before.”
“That’s why I stayed put. After Mike ran off I didn’t follow. I think things move around. I know it sounds crazy, but not any crazier than anything else, and I think things move around to confuse you, make you get lost.”
On any normal day, or any other day, Shane would’ve taken such a sentiment as signs of encroaching dementia. Now, however?
Some part of his rational mind (albeit, a rapidly shrinking part) fought back. No. He was not standing in the same hallway. It only seemed like the one he left. In fact, when he glanced left, down the hall he’d tried to avoid by cutting through the auditorium, he’d see something completely different than lockers.
He turned.
It seemed like the same hall (but of course, the halls all looked the same) except, instead of coffee and kitchen tables, he saw chests. Wooden chests. Chests of all shapes and sizes. Vanity chests. Toy chests.
He felt his stomach drop.
Hope chests.
“Oh, God,” he whispered, the words slipping out of him. “Oh my God, no.”
“What is it? What do you see?”
The Nokia cut out again.
It didn’t matter, because Shane had stopped listening. He stared at the chests, lined up neatly alongside both walls, stretching away to the next turn. He knew if he kept going what he’d find. Despite the quicksilver fear pulsing through his veins, Shane took a hesitant step down the hall.
As with all the other pieces of furniture he’d seen, the chests were lined up neat and square on both sides of the hall. Of slightly different sizes and shapes, Shane had to beat back the image of infant coffins. They were trunks, for God’s sake. Clothing trunks. Moving trunks, a few of them old Army footlockers, toy chests.
Hope chests.
He kept walking, clutching the Nokia, glancing back and forth between the rows of chests on either side of him. All different sizes, shapes and colors. Old polished cherry, with thick, black metal hinges and latches. Sandalwood, with bright, polished brass trim. A few simple trunks constructed of blond-wood and plywood, probably.
coffins
Toy chests, with simple brass hinges and latches. A green footlocker with faded white numbers stenciled on one end. Another cherry wood chest, this one duller, the hinges tinged with rust. A bright red toy box with white trim.
The one next to the red toy box. Another simple blond-wood chest, with brass hinges and latches. Stenciled on the top of the chest, in bright blue: Benjamin.
Shane fell still.
Everything which had happened—even those grasping hands and silently screaming mouths—faded and became unimportant. The hope chest before him, so simple and plain, yet lovingly restored and stained by Amanda early in the pregnancy, was the most impossible thing of all.
“Another Benjamin,” he whispered. “Some other Benjamin, from some other family. Not my Benjamin. Not our boy. Couldn’t be, it couldn’t be.”
His iPhone warbled.
Slowly, numbly, in a dream, Shane slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled it out, not even wondering how it could be ringing, when he’d turned it off b
efore going into the auditorium. He swiped his thumb across the screen, tapped “answer” and, without speaking, held it up to his ear.
Silence.
Shifting.
Whispering.
A slight breath. A sigh, maybe. A click. Dead air. Then, the rapid metronome of a severed connection.
Shane canceled the call. Glanced at the screen, saw: Call ended. Amanda. Pressed the green phone icon to call the number right back. He stood and listened to the call ring, staring at the hope chest with Benjamin stenciled on its top, gripped by the conflicting certainty Amanda wouldn’t pick up and the fear something would.
A ring. Muffled, distant. Shane gazed at the trunk marked Benjamin, heart in his throat, as he heard a phone ringing from inside. For several minutes Shane stood there, staring at the hope chest, mesmerized by the weird echo of Amanda’s cell ringing in his ear and hearing something ring a half-second later inside the trunk.
Amanda’s line kept ringing on the other end (which didn’t make sense; where was her voicemail?)
Something kept ringing in the trunk.
Ringing.
Shane put the Nokia in his pocket and bent over slowly, reaching for the trunk’s clasp, fingers flexing.
Something clicked in his ear.
Someone had picked up.
Whatever had been ringing in the trunk fell silent.
Shane stood there. Hand poised above the trunk’s latch, other hand pressing his iPhone to his ear, listening to the silence on the other end.
Breathing.
Slight rasping. Someone . . .
something
. . . breathing.
Shane’s outstretched hand shook. What would he find inside? All the things Amanda had collected throughout the pregnancy? Pillows and blankets . . .
like the ones which killed him
. . . little onesies and booties, the little baseball player’s uniform and the train conductor’s outfit? Or the things she’d collected during his first months, in anticipation of his future? Toys and trinkets for when he was older. Matchbox cars and trucks, a Gyroscope, a microscope kit. The small boxed set of Hardy Boys novels or Shane’s contribution, a collection of Choose Your Own Adventure novels and a crystal radio electricity set.
Would those things be inside? If not, what else? Was this Amanda’s phone he was listening to? What was on the other end, right now?
Silence.
Or.
Breathing. Whispering screams, like those silently gaping mouths pressing out from the egg-sac mattresses.
Shane clenched his fingers into a fist. Squeezed it so hard, his arm shook. Something on the other end gathered, a sound whispering closer, rushing near.
He thumbed his iPhone off and stumbled back from the trunk. He stared at it for several seconds, fully expecting in some deep, animal part of him that the lid would fly open and something would reach out, or something would start thrashing around inside, making the trunk rock and jitter . . .
because it was the right size
Benjamin would fit in there
wouldn’t he?
. . . and for a heart-twisting moment he flinched, thinking he’d seen the trunk shiver. He rubbed his eyes, surprised and shaken to find them wet, as if he’d been crying, but no, sweat must be running into his eyes—but the longer he stared at the trunk, he realized it hadn’t moved at all.
Still, he felt some presence looming. Something rushing toward him from a deep and dark place. He wondered, had he stayed on his phone a second longer, if he would’ve heard something speak. He felt it, now. Something rushing toward him up a long, dark tunnel; up from the depths, up to him in the light. If he stayed for one more moment, it would reach him.
Shane straightened, turned on his heel and walked hurriedly down the hall. He had to wipe his damn eyes again with the back of his hand—they were wet and stinging with sweat, and he was huffing because of the adrenaline rush, not sobbing—so he didn’t glance either to his right or left as he neared the hall’s end. He was still plagued by flickering illusions of the trunks’ lids peeking open and something inside them—things somehow part of one big thing—watching him as he walked by. As he neared the hall’s end, the trunks got smaller, more and more like infant coffins.
The Nokia vibrated in his pocket. He put his iPhone away, pulled out the Nokia and said, “Hello?”
“Where are you? I thought you were on the way.”
“Lady,” Shane said, his temper and sanity held together by bare threads. “I’m not sure I can get to you. Don’t think this place will let me. Think you better start trying to find your own way out.”
“No,” she rasped, voice suddenly angry and determined. Angry, Shane thought, at him. “No. I’m not leaving here without my husband.”
The long hall ahead—somehow, in his blind flight from the rows of hope chests, he’d stumbled through another intersection—stretched out forever, with no lockers or furniture. Shane was walking now, not running, taking his time, as if he had forever. Which maybe he had, because whatever was happening here, time apparently had no meaning.
“Look,” he said, forcing a steady voice. “I don’t want to leave here without Amanda either. I’m going to do my damnedest to find her and pull her out with me. And I know you want to find your husband. But I found his phone in a locker, and Amanda’s phone? First I thought it was ringing in a locker too. Just now, I maybe heard it ringing in a hope chest exactly like Benjamin’s. And I think something answered my call, but I don’t think it was Amanda. Something wanted me to open that chest.”
“Someone put them there,” she said flatly. “My husband and your wife have been taken, and their phones put there, and they’re trapped here, waiting for us to find them.”
“No offense, but your husband doesn’t sound like the waiting kind. And honestly, in her own way, Amanda isn’t either. Both of them are runners. We’re the ones waiting,” he said slowly, “because isn’t that what we’re always doing? Waiting for things to get better? Waiting for them to come around? They’re the runners, and we’re the waiters. It’s how this place works, I think. Whatever it is. It lures away or chases away the runners, and then tries to paralyze the waiters, keep them in one spot. And here’s something else. I think—don’t take this the wrong way—but I think what’s gonna happen to you has already happened. I don’t know how this is possible, but for me it’s 2016. So I think whatever ultimately happens for you happened ten years ago. Right now, I don’t think I can help you, or find you. If I was meant to, if I could help you in some way, I would’ve found my way through the auditorium to you, instead of being looped right back to where I’d started. So I think we’re on our own. I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”
“Wait. Wait!” The lady’s voice shrilled, sounding high-pitched, frantic. “Please. I have to find my husband. You have to find your wife. You can’t leave!”
“Actually, yes I can. I want to bring Amanda with me, I love her more than you can know, and I don’t want to leave her here, but maybe she can’t come with me. Maybe she can’t let go. And as awful as this sounds, I want to let go. Have to. Need to. And I want to get the hell out of here.”
Silence. A fumbling sound, as the phone shifting against an ear, and then a sob. “I want to find my husband.”
“Yeah. So you keep saying,” Shane said slowly, realization picking at his brain. “In fact, you say it a lot. Like it’s the only thing you can say. Hey, here’s something I’ve been wondering. What’s your name, lady? Y’know, it’s crazy, but I haven’t thought to ask for your name this whole time. Weird, don’t you think?”
“It’s just so confusing, everything that’s happening, I don’t know where my husband is, and I don’t know where I am!”
“I don’t mean to be rude, lady, considering the circumstances, but what’s your name? Can you tell me?”
More silence.
“You know what’s also interesting? You first called me right when Amanda walked away. Then you called me again, an
d while I was talking to you, I lost her. While I was distracted by your call, she disappeared.”
A throat cleared, and then, hesitantly, “I-I’m not, I can’t—”
“Also, why was I the one who thought of calling the store’s office? I mean, it didn’t do any good, but you had the number. Why didn’t you try to call?”
“I-I tried, I mean, there was no answer, no . . . ”
“Are you even a person?” God, it sounded crazy, something a paranoid schizophrenic would conjure up. “Is this the store I’m talking to? This whole time I’ve been thinking about a special I saw on Animal Planet about plants and animals which survive by luring other animals into their waiting jaws. Like the Venus fly trap, or the angler fish. Is that what you are, lady? The lure? If you’re a real person—or better yet, some weird consciousness which used to be a real person—you and your husband came here to buy furniture for your new house, in an attempt to save your marriage. If you’re real. Amanda and I were doing the same thing, only because we lost our baby boy, and were losing ourselves.
“How many? How many couples have come here, and never left? Y’know . . . I don’t even remember how we heard about this place.”
“The diner,” the lady who maybe wasn’t a lady at all whispered, sounding far away and not interested anymore at all. “We overheard someone at the diner talking about it. The Skylark.”
“Amanda got an email, or something. A Tweet. A Facebook message. I don’t know. From whom or what, I also don’t know. Maybe this place. Maybe there’s a Facebook page for Save-A-Bunch. Amanda ‘liked’ it, and then she got a message about a sale. Maybe that’s how it works.”
More silence. Another fumbling sound, and then, a strange sound.
A dull bang.
Against metal.
As if the lady on the other end of the Nokia was calling from inside a—
