by Simon Holt
She dared not hope too much, but at least she’d made it this far. She opened the door to the stairwell and stepped quietly inside, listening and looking. She expected any sound to echo off the concrete walls, but it was silent and dark. Reggie took a deep breath and let the door close behind her. Now there was no place to go but down.
She made her way quickly but carefully, keeping the flashlight off and using the stair rail as a guide. Still, she stumbled at the bottom of the first landing, nearly dropping the briefcase, and realized that her legs were weak from months of inaction. After that, she went more slowly, counting the steps and keeping track of what floor she was on.
At the third-floor landing she stopped again to rest. Her body was incredibly weary, and even though the briefcase couldn’t have weighed but five or six pounds, her arm was tiring quickly. She switched it to the other hand, rounded the corner, and crashed straight into a solid object.
This time when she fell, she did drop the briefcase. She cried out involuntarily as she landed hard at the top of the flight of stairs, but hers was not the only sound of pain. She had run into a person coming up the stairs in the dark, and now she heard groaning a few feet below her. All her muscles tensed, and she wondered if she should flee back up, but she didn’t have the briefcase, and she didn’t know where it had fallen. Then she realized the flashlight was still in her hand. She clicked it on and shone it down the stairs.
“AHH!” the figure screeched. He was dressed all in black and wore night goggles, which he ripped off his head in the beam of the flashlight. He stared upward at Reggie, dazed for a moment, and fear blossomed within her. He was thinner, his hair was a different color, and he was sporting a beard, but she recognized him immediately.
Machen. The Tracer who had tried to kill her. This was the cause of the blackout—the Tracers were here now. They had found her and had come to eliminate her once and for all.
Reggie wanted to run, but she saw the briefcase at the bottom of the stairs, beyond the Tracer. And anyway, there was no escaping upward.
Reggie yanked the scissors from her waistband and dove at Machen, brandishing them. This time she knew she couldn’t just threaten. This time she had to do the deed. He would keep coming after her until he had completed his mission, and as it was, in her weakened state, she had only moments before he recovered. She had to kill him first.
She raised the scissors but looked away as she brought the points down toward his head.
“Reggie, no!” a familiar voice yelled, and something caught her arm before the scissors found their mark. She struggled but the hand held her wrist firmly, forcing her to drop the weapon. The scissors clattered noisily to the ground, and Reggie felt arms wrapping around her. “Reggie, Reggie, stop, it’s me. It’s okay, we’ve come to rescue you.”
It took Reggie’s brain a moment to comprehend what she was hearing. She raised the flashlight to see Aaron’s anxious, but smiling, freckly face.
9
“Oh my God, oh my God,” was all Reggie could say. She drew Aaron to her and buried her face in his chest. He was dressed like Machen, all in black, with his goggles propped up on his forehead. His arms encircled her and held her tightly. They were stronger than she had remembered, or perhaps she was just so weak now. “How are you here?”
“Sorry it took us so long.” Aaron examined Reggie’s face. Even in the dim light he noticed her ashen skin, her sunken eyes, and her gaunt cheeks, but he tried not to show his concern. “They hid you pretty well.”
“I knew you’d find me.”
Aaron pulled her close again and kissed her forehead.
“We’ve got to go, kids,” said Machen. He had recovered himself and was standing on the landing below them.
“What is he doing here?” Reggie demanded.
“He’s on our side now,” Aaron replied. “Trust me, Reg, we wouldn’t be here without him.”
Reggie looked doubtfully at Machen, but there was no time to argue. She leaned on Aaron and he guided her down the stairs.
“What’s this?” Machen asked, pointing at the briefcase.
“Take it,” said Reggie. “I stole some files from Unger’s office.”
“That’s my girl,” said Aaron.
Machen picked up the briefcase, and the three of them descended the rest of the way to the ground floor. But when Machen went to open the door leading out of the stairwell, Reggie grabbed his arm.
“Wait, we can’t leave yet.”
“Why the hell not?”
Reggie turned to Aaron.
“Macie Canfield. She’s here. In one of the basement cells. We have to go and get her.”
Aaron’s eyes practically bugged out of his head.
“Crazy Macie is a patient here? She’s alive still?”
Reggie nodded.
“They’re doing tests on her like they did to me. Aaron, we have to get her out.”
“There’s no time for that,” Machen hissed. “I’m sorry, Reggie, but there are a lot of patients here who are being tortured. We can’t save them all.”
“Macie isn’t just some patient,” Reggie retorted. “It’s because of her that I have the power that I do. Unger wouldn’t keep her here if she wasn’t important somehow.”
Aaron nodded briefly. “And I’m all for foiling his plans.”
Machen glowered, but he shouldered his rifle and turned the corner leading down to the basement, Aaron and Reggie following.
But when Machen pushed open the door leading into the basement corridors, Reggie hesitated. The memories of Unger’s dank, loathsome lab and the scent of death that permeated it slithered to the front of her memory. What new horrors awaited them down here? Then she felt Aaron’s hand on her back.
“Just focus,” he said quietly. “Ignore everything else. We’ll get Macie and we’ll get out.”
She nodded, and Aaron guided her through the doorway.
The air was close and the ceilings low, but it was still a hospital, not like the cavern Unger had used before. Still, Reggie felt little relief: The moans and screams of the hospital’s most damaged patients pierced the gloom. They came from behind bolted concrete doors; every now and then, they could hear sickening bangs as the patients threw themselves at the walls of their prisons. Reggie forced herself to block out the gruesome sounds and looked for signs pointing the way to their quarry.
They walked by blocks two and three, and Reggie pointed down a hall marked with a number four.
“This way,” she said, and they passed room after room until they came to door number eight. Reggie listened, but she didn’t hear anything coming from the other side. She took Unger’s keys from the briefcase and began trying each in the lock, Aaron holding the flashlight for her to see. Behind her, Machen stood with his gun raised, sweeping back and forth, on the lookout for company.
Finally a key slipped into the lock and turned. Taking a deep breath, Reggie nudged the door open.
At first all seemed quiet in the pitch-black room. But then Reggie heard a tiny voice coming from an unseen corner. It was scratchy and hollow, and it was singing:
“The dark has teeth and it will bite,
Its feast begins on Sorry Night.
When cold and fear are intertwined,
They’ll chew up your heart and feed on your mind.
Where have the souls gone? What do they see?
The gateway to Hell’s eternity.”
Reggie’s flesh crawled, and she felt Aaron tense beside her as well. The smell was terrible, like rotting meat. Reggie covered her nose and mouth with her hand as Aaron shone the light around the room. All the walls, from floor to ceiling, were covered with the nearly illegible handwriting Reggie had come to know so well. She shuddered; the letters were a deep red. They had been written in the only ink Macie had at hand: her own blood.
The flashlight beam came to rest on a gray cot in the corner and an even grayer woman sitting cross-legged on it. She looked like a skeleton, her ashy skin nearly translucent, thi
n white hair streaking down over her face and shoulders, almost to her waist. Her hospital gown hung off her bony frame like a doll wearing a pillowcase, and she stared at them with glassy eyes. She cocked her head, but just continued to sing her horrid little song.
Trying not to breathe in the foul air, Reggie took a few steps toward the old woman and knelt down in front of her.
“You’re Macie, right?” she asked. “We’ve come to take you out of here.”
“The dark has teeth…”
“You’re going to be okay, I promise.”
“And it will bite…”
Machen strode in and cringed at the smell. He looked with disgust at the corpselike woman rocking back and forth on the cot.
“This is your grand font of information?”
“Like I said, if Unger has kept her alive and is still doing tests on her, then she serves some purpose.”
“Then get her up. We need to be out of here now.”
Reggie stood and put her arm around Macie’s shoulders. The feeling of brittle bone beneath paper-thin skin repulsed her, but she scooted the woman to the edge of the bed and helped her to her feet. Macie didn’t struggle, but she made no effort to stand on her own. She fell against Reggie like a rag doll.
But then, out of the blue, her hand shot up and caught Reggie by the chin. With a surprising burst of strength, Macie swiveled Reggie’s face toward her own, and the old woman peered into Reggie’s eyes without blinking.
“Look who sees,” she whispered, then her arm fell limply at her side again, and her head drooped. She started singing again in a low, hollow voice.
“Can you get her?” Aaron asked.
Reggie shifted her arm to better support Macie. Though she weighed next to nothing, in Reggie’s weakened state it took all her effort to keep the frail woman upright.
“I think so.” She glanced at Aaron and was shocked to see him holding a rifle similar to Machen’s. She hadn’t noticed it slung across his back before; the sight of Aaron confidently handling such a weapon didn’t make sense to her, but she didn’t have time to question it.
“Come on,” Machen urged, already out in the hallway and heading back for the exit.
Reggie and Aaron breathed deeply when they were back in the relatively fresh air of the hallway. The sounds of the screaming patients were loud in their ears again, but they forged on, Machen a few paces ahead. And then they heard other noises: not the moans of insanity, but the commanding shouts of Vour guards. Streams from multiple flashlights bounced off the corridor walls ahead of them, and Reggie recognized one voice above the others.
“I know they’re down here. They’re looking for the Canfield woman. Find them!” Dr. Unger’s voice had lost all its unctuousness; now it was riddled with fury and, Reggie thought, barely decipherable tremors of fear. She guessed why: If he let his most important patient escape, who knew what terrors the Vours would mine from his psyche and push to the front of his brain. Maybe they would even turn him.
“They’re down here all right. I sense their fear,” said a deep, accented voice, which Reggie recognized as Clack’s. “Come out, Reggie, so we can play some more!”
Machen pulled Aaron and Reggie down another hallway out of the glare of the lights.
“I counted six, maybe seven guards. I doubt they’ll shoot to kill—they probably have tranq guns. Still, don’t get shot.”
“We have tranqs of our own, of a kind,” said Aaron. Something in his tone made Reggie glance at his rifle again. He was gripping it tightly. Machen leaned close to him.
“We’re going to have to do this bush league. Take them out before they know what’s going on. I’ll lead and you cover, like we practiced. Are you ready?” Aaron didn’t say anything but nodded. In the darkness Reggie couldn’t see his face, but she could hear his breath coming quick and heavy. She felt Machen’s hand on her shoulder. “Reggie, you stay right behind Aaron. Do not give them a shot. You are his shadow. Am I clear?”
Reggie’s pulse was racing. She felt like she was in a video game. “I’m his shadow. Got it.”
Just then Click leaped around the corner, but Machen’s reflexes were faster. When he pulled the trigger, the Vour jumped away, but the dart still hit him in the thigh. He stopped momentarily as if expecting the pain from a bullet, then laughed when he realized what the projectile really was.
“I heard you had a thing about killing Vours, Reggie,” he said, yanking the dart from his leg. “But tranquilizers? You think that’s going to stop us? There’s no way you’ll win this war fighting like such a pussy.”
Reggie glanced nervously at Machen, but he just waited. Click stepped forward and raised his own weapon, pointing it at the ex-Tracer.
“Not even going to run? Fine. I like a good chase, but if you’re ready to give yourselves up already—” He stopped abruptly, and his gun clattered to the floor. “What the—what did you do to me?” he gasped, clutching his leg where the dart had hit him. Then he began howling, an inhuman screech, and Reggie saw that his leg was withering like a dead leaf right before her eyes. The pain quickly spread to his other extremities, and Click wrenched at his arms as if he wanted to pull them out of their sockets. His skin wilted as if the very blood in his veins were evaporating. And then it appeared that whatever poison was doing this to him had reached his heart, and he clenched his chest, his screams dying on his lips. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell forward onto the ground, motionless.
“What the hell is in those darts?” Reggie couldn’t believe what she had just seen. Machen had rushed to the Vour’s side and checked his pulse. He nodded back at Aaron.
“He’ll live, painfully for a while,” he said, then turned to Reggie. “It’s a nitrogen cocktail. Specially designed to freeze their blood. Much more effective than bullets.”
“I’ll say,” said Reggie.
They heard noises coming toward them—Click’s cries had alerted the rest of the Vour guards, but Machen was ready for them. As each one turned the corner, a dart flew forth and struck them in the arm, or leg, or chest. Their screeches filled the dark basement as the serum coursed through their systems, turning their blood against them. But then Machen stumbled. He dropped his gun and reached for his neck, straining at something that wasn’t there. He began to choke.
“That’s better,” said Clack, stepping out among the writhing bodies of his comrades, his gun raised. He was staring straight at Machen, and Reggie knew that he was sending him a vision. “You can expect a lot more of that in the days to come.”
“I don’t think so,” said Aaron, jumping out from behind the corner, Reggie and Macie just behind him. Clack whirled on him and shot; Reggie felt something whoosh past her ear and cried out, but Aaron already had his rifle up and aimed. He planted his feet and, with a sharp intake of breath, pulled the trigger. The dart pierced Clack in the shoulder. He brushed it away immediately, but the serum had already found its way into his bloodstream. Moments later he was a shrieking body on the ground, just like the rest of them.
“Are you okay?” Aaron said over his shoulder to Reggie. It took her a moment to respond, since she was still processing having just seen Aaron so calmly shoot someone in the chest. “Reggie?”
“Y-yes. Yes, we’re both fine.”
She then noticed Machen, who was kneeling on the ground and panting. She started to run over to him, but Aaron stuck out his arm to block her way. “My shadow, remember?” His voice was so authoritative that Reggie dumbly dropped back, and he led the way over to Machen.
“I’m okay, I’m okay,” he said, rising. “But you hesitated.”
“I got him, didn’t I?” Aaron said, somewhat hotly.
“Let’s get out of here,” said Reggie. Macie clung to her neck, her eyes staring out like a frightened deer’s. She had stopped her singing, but now moaned incoherently.
The three of them raced out the front door and into the parking lot. Reggie inhaled deeply—it was the first time she’d breathed fresh air in month
s. Moments later headlights peeled around the corner, and the Coles’ SUV pulled to a stop in front of them. The passenger window rolled down. Quinn Waters leaned over from the driver’s seat.
“Thank God. I’d about given up.” His eyes lingered on Reggie and her cargo. She stared back, dumbstruck, and barely noticed Aaron taking Macie from her.
“Get in.” Machen wrenched open the backseat door and practically threw Reggie inside as Aaron went to the other side of the car and strapped Macie in. Then he climbed in next to Reggie. In the front seat Machen nodded to Quinn and he hit the gas. The truck sped off into the night, leaving the dark form of the Home Institute behind.
Reggie shivered. The car’s heater hadn’t kicked in yet, and the flimsy hospital pajamas she was wearing weren’t much protection against the November chill. Aaron noticed and quickly took off his own jacket, wrapping it around her and pulling her close to him. The weariness finally caught up to her, as well as the unbelievable reality of where she was and what she was leaving. She closed her eyes and leaned against him, her cheek burrowed into his shirt. The faint whiff of energy soda mingled with computer ink rose up into her nostrils and she smiled. It was the most wonderful smell in the world to her, one she had feared she might never experience again: the smell of Aaron.
10
Reggie felt Aaron shaking her awake. She looked out the window, expecting to see her house, her driveway, her street, but they were in a parking lot outside a roadside motel. Machen and Quinn were already leading Macie into a room a little way down the sidewalk.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“Somewhere in rural Connecticut.”
“Was the hospital so far from Cutter’s Wedge?”
Aaron hesitated.
“We’re not going back to Cutter’s Wedge tonight. You can’t go home, Reggie. Not yet, anyway. It’s not safe there for you.”
The realization hit Reggie like ice water.
“Because of my father. He doesn’t know about this little jailbreak.”
