by J. S. Miller
Around the corner, with twenty feet of freshly stained linoleum between us, a huge figure wrapped in cloth bandages squatted over the remains of a woman in a white coat. At first I thought it was eating, and a wave of nausea rolled over me. But it was simply holding her hand, as if wanting nothing more than to comfort its own victim.
“What the shit is that?!” Brando squeaked as the gargoyles wheeled around the corner behind me.
The creature turned at the sound. It had clawed away the bandages covering its face, and the tattered fabric hung in strips made brittle by drying blood and froth. Beneath the cloth was a pitted slab of sun-bleached bone. All at once, I realized what was happening. Who the monster was.
The Chemslinger found its way into my hand.
“Did you see a security checkpoint when you came in?” I asked the gargoyles. “A place with extra guards and guns?”
“Yeah, I think I seen one, Boss,” Hanks said. “Back past the break room.”
“Go there. Tell them what’s happening.”
“What about youse?”
“I’m going to have a conversation with Agent Crusher here. Go. Now.”
The gargoyles did as they were told, flying back down the hall. I began centering the energy within me, but it was difficult. There wasn’t as much to draw on here, and I was already tired. The creature formerly known as Crusher stared at me with those black eyes but made no move to attack.
“Hey, man,” I said. “How’s it going?”
Crusher responded with a feral, wordless roar, but it faltered near the end, tapering off into the pathetic whine of a recently kicked dog. It seemed to say, “Back off, buddy. I don’t want to hurt anyone else, but I’m scared and confused, and I know I will.” A rush of pity for the Arclight agent momentarily stayed my trigger finger.
Beyond the monster, movement caught my eye. Inside an office on the other side of the hall, people were peeking out from behind a large desk. Their eyes met mine. In them, I saw the panic that consumes ordinary folk when confronted by unimaginable nightmares like the one crouching over their dead colleague. She had no such look in her eyes, and she never would again.
The familiar rage flooded my brain, and the air around me buzzed like a swarm of angry bees. Energy surged through me, crackling in my bloodstream and making my hair stand on end.
“Enough,” I said, raising my weapon, and pulled the trigger.
The gun exhaled, and a glowing cylinder spiraled through the air, smashing against the red thing’s chest in an eruption of … pale blue. Well, shit.
The beast thrashed as the glowstick scorched the backs of its eyeballs. Dazzling liquid whipped off the mask like a bursting incandescent bulb.
It was at this moment, of course, that someone upstairs decided to trigger the fire alarms. Chemical foam sprayed from the ceiling, and a siren started blaring like a B-movie military installation set to self-destruct.
The noise and foam only added to the chaos, causing Crusher to start tearing through walls and ripping down doors. I was preparing to make a mad dash past him toward the accidental hostages when a voice behind me shouted, “Freeze!” The order came with such authority that I nearly followed it, but when half a dozen red dots gathered on the rampaging monster’s hide, I deduced they probably weren’t talking to me.
A dozen figures clad in black body armor and brandishing assault rifles stood in tight formation behind me. The voice barked another command, and this time Crusher turned, still covered in foam and glowing residue like some kind of enormous ruined birthday cake. He let out a bone-chilling growl and lunged. I leapt to one side, and the beast bounded over me toward the assault team. The man who’d shouted “freeze” started screaming “fire.”
Crouching, I made for the hostages. Bullets hissed by and thumped into the walls. Trying to ignore the random instant death flying overhead, I slipped into the small office and ducked behind the steel desk, which had already caught more than a few rounds. A man and two women were huddled together there.
“Need some help?” I asked.
“Who are you?” one of the women asked. She wore blue surgery scrubs over dark skin, and her curly hair had been pulled back into a bun. “And what the hell is going on out there?”
“Oh, just your average, garden variety monster attack. I’m West. What’s your name?”
“Claire. Where did you—”
“Nice to meet you, Claire. Do you happen to know a way out of here?”
“Of course we do,” the man said. “But it isn’t safe. They’re shooting! And that thing … it killed Beth …”
“It’s even less safe staying here, waiting for it to find us,” I said. “I can get you out. I promise.”
Claire locked eyes with me. I understood her dilemma — her next words would put all their lives in my hands.
“OK, West,” she finally said. “If you think you can get us there, I’ll show you the way.”
“I’ll take point,” I said, nodding. “You just tell me where to turn.”
Our quartet sneaked out into the hallway. The Arclight assault team had retreated around the corner, and Crusher had followed, but the gunfire was still too close for comfort. We hurried in the other direction but kept our eyes peeled; several doors stood open on empty cells.
As we approached an intersection, a scream came from up ahead. I raised a hand and motioned the crew inside an open cell. Moments later, a solitary Arclight soldier raced by, panting and shooting blindly back down the hall. Soon a woman with long, black hair and wearing a blood-streaked sleeping gown floated silently down the hallway after him.
“What is this place?” I asked as we exited the cell and started off again.
“This is a secure Arclight facility,” Claire said. “If you don’t know that, how did you even get in here?”
I considered lying, but there wasn’t time to come up with something halfway plausible. Besides, right now, I needed their trust.
“I fell through a door from another world.”
“Oh,” she said with a look that said she totally got it now. “OK then. Well, it’s part hospital, part asylum. We patch up our people and lock up the things that injure them. But we’re not field agents, and we never expected a containment breach on this scale. If those things find us, do you think you can stop them?”
“I’m sure I’ll manage,” I said and lifted the Chemslinger in a way I hoped would be reassuring.
“I appreciate your confidence,” she said. “But I could do without more bullets flying by my head.”
“Oh, don’t worry. It doesn’t shoot bullets.”
“What, then?”
“Something … way more dangerous.”
“How reassuring,” she said. “Turn left up ahead.”
I leaned around the corner and saw the elevator. In front of it, two small stone figures were tapping their feet and scratching their heads. The path appeared to be clear otherwise, so I waved the group on. Claire saw the gargoyles and hesitated.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’re with me.”
As we hustled toward them, I heard the familiar sounds of their bickering.
“What’s wrong with this fuckin’ thing?!” Brando asked.
“What do I look like?” Cagney shot back. “Some kinda elevator expert?”
“There’s no such things as elevator experts, Cagney.”
“Oh yeah? Then who fixes the fuckin’ elevators, wiseguy?”
Claire walked up, swiped her ID badge, and pushed the call button. A red light flashed, and nothing happened. She swore under her breath.
“Whoa, where the hell did you come from?” Cagney asked. “Oh, Boss. Am I glad to see you. You seen Hanks?”
“I thought he was with you,” I said.
“We got split up. This place is a fuckin’ maze, Boss. Hopefully he follows the exit signs like we did.”
“It may not matter,” Claire said. “We’re in lockdown. Only field agents and guards can access internal systems now.”
“There’s nothing we can do?” I asked.
“Not unless you’ve been moonlighting as an Arclight Security field—”
A roar like a semi smashing through overpass concrete cut her off and made us all turn. At the far end of the hall stood Crusher, resting his weight on his knuckles like a gorilla someone had dressed up for All Hallows’ Eve.
“Get behind me,” I said, drawing my weapon and leveling it at the creature. The energy was waiting for me this time. My fear and anger coalesced and flowed into the gun, making the runes along its barrel smolder, its chambers pulse with light.
The Chemslinger coughed twice, and a pair of incandescent tubes — the first dark green, the second purple — whistled toward my enemy. Green splattered on the wall behind the beast and sizzled as it devoured mortar and brick, but purple flew true, smashing on the red scales and splashing into the creature’s cavernous eyes. When it touched the flame-retardant foam, the dark alchemical liquid threw sparks.
I felt something there. It was faint, as if the purple stuff might be willing to merge with the foam and create new reactions. Never one to ignore an opportunity for experimentation, I centered my energy again, focused on the bubbling ooze, and pictured a pair of fingers snapping as I released the concentrated life force.
Foam and alchemy ignited into black firecracker flames. Violet smoke boiled off the bone mask, and another cry, this one tortured, emerged from the creature as it lost its sight for the second time that night, and probably for good.
Fatigue hit me, just like in the clearing when I’d fought Stern, but my lips compressed into a satisfied smile. ‘Twas irony killed the beast … who knew fire-extinguishing foam could be so flammable?
But instead of dying, Crusher plunged down the hallway toward us, swinging his arms like twin wrecking balls. Losing his sight wouldn’t stop him from turning this hallway into a meat grinder.
My comrades pressed themselves against the elevator doors while I stood my ground, lifting the Chemslinger one last time. Maybe I could slow it down. Give them a chance to run. I was centering what little energy I had when the manic rattle of machine gun fire thundered nearby. The monster stopped, cocking its head. Dark flames still raged on its red scales, but it seemed not to care. It was listening, trying to pinpoint the source of the disorienting sound. But the gunfire had ceased, and a voice filled the silence.
“You lookin’ for a fight, you fuckin’ mook?”
Crusher turned, and I saw Hanks hovering at the other end of the hall, holding an assault rifle in both hands, his tail curving up to stabilize the long barrel. The ceiling panels above him were peppered with bullet holes.
“Boss, get the hell outta here!” he said. “I got this bum under control!”
“Like hell you do,” I said, taking aim but quickly realizing I no longer had a clear shot. The Chemslinger wasn’t a precision weapon, and any vials that missed Crusher could easily hit Hanks.
“Always’ try’na be a hero!” Cagney shouted, but I didn’t wait to see what he or Brando would do. I rushed the monster, unsure how to draw its attention but knowing I had to try. I lifted the Chemslinger into pistol whip position, but a blind backhand hit me like a nuclear-powered piston. My feet left the ground and I flew backward, slamming into the elevator doors. Stars exploded in front of my eyes. I looked around, dazed, and noticed with bewilderment that something had fallen out of my pocket.
“Claire,” I said, but some jerk had stuffed my head with cotton balls, and I was having trouble forming additional words. She looked down and gasped. Then she scrabbled for the item that lay on the ground. Field Agent Charles Denton’s Arclight Security ID badge.
She swiped it, and the elevator chimed. Its doors slid apart, spilling yellow light down the corridor and illuminating what appeared to be a fist fight between a little, flying guy and big, burly one. That didn’t look fair. I tried to push myself up, to go help, but my arms were made of rubber bands, and my vision filled with static fuzz. The others started dragging me backward by the arms, pulling me into the elevator, and all I could do was watch as the gorilla and the gargoyle met in glorious combat.
“Che bruta, asshole!” Hanks bellowed, holding down the trigger of his commandeered assault rifle. “Your breath smells like shAAAAHHHH!”
The little guy screamed as one stone wing was torn from his body. Pebbles fell to the linoleum floor as the elevator doors sealed in front of me, and Hanks and the monster were gone.
Chapter 15
Whether seconds, minutes, or hours passed, I couldn’t say. No one in the car spoke, so I sat on the floor and rubbed the bump forming on the back of my head while thinking of everything I’d likely just lost. Hanks had been with me for years. One of those fixtures in life that seems immovable until one day it isn’t. I’d been through this all before, but that didn’t make it easier. Rather, I knew what came next. The years would pass while the memories lingered. Like a monument built to honor someone that worked just as well in memoriam. You want to look away, give yourself some peace, but that would be a betrayal. So you keep coming back, gazing up at them and wondering why you ever let anyone get so close if losing them had to hurt this much.
“So, um,” Steve said. “Was that big red monkey fighting a lawn gnome or something?”
“I know we just met,” I said. “But I’m about this close to pistol whipping you right now.”
“Hey, buddy, who do you think you—”
“No, no, no,” Cagney said, wiping tears from his eyes. Yes, they could cry. You should see them at the movies. “You’re talking to the boss all wrong. Who the fuck is he? Who the fuck are you? Last guy talked like that ended up face down in a—”
A groan from the elevator cables interrupted this friendly debate. Everyone looked up, powerless to do anything more meaningful than listen as the alarms built and receded with each passing floor, as the neon numbers counted down. 31. 32. 33. Or counted up. Huh.
“Why are we going up?” I asked.
“This facility is underground,” Claire said. “At least some of our secrets are…”
She trailed off mid-sentence as her eyes glazed over. I opened my mouth to ask what was wrong, but a wave of dizziness slapped it shut. A familiar sensation washed over me. It was the way you feel standing on the cliff’s edge, the way gravity pulls at you from too far up — the primal undertow of vertigo.
The smooth elevator floor sprouted dull brown carpet. I blinked. Carpet doesn’t just grow like that, does it? That blow to the head must have been worse than I thought. Except other parts of the elevator were changing, too. My fellow riders didn’t seem to notice — they swayed dreamily, overwhelmed by the sensation I was sadly getting used to — as the panel above the door transformed. No more matte black screen with digital readout; that faded into a gold half ring with a silver hand pointing to a number eight.
“The dial,” Claire said, slurring her words. “Didn’t it used to go past 10?”
The elevator cables creaked again, and we all looked up, same as before. For a second, I thought I was stuck in some sort of loop. Then Claire shook her head, driving away the fog, and focused her eyes on me.
“You,” she said. “What just happened? What did you do?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I’m working on it.”
She pointed at the elevator doors.
“What’s going to be out there when those open?”
The others were staring at me now too, their dazed, glassy eyes starting to clear. What was I supposed to say? If they were looking for an expert on interdimensional travel, they had the wrong guy. Sure, I’d been on this ride once or twice before, but that was only because trouble had a habit of following me around like a psychopathic puppy. Did that certify me as a multiverse tour guide for this group of strays? Hell no.
The car lurched, and once again the cables made whale noises. We all grabbed hold
of the handrails as if that would save us from a drop. But, after another minute of tense silence, the doors dinged drunkenly and slid apart. Artificial light poured in. Outside, peeling wallpaper and ancient carpet lined a hallway that looked stolen from 1950s France.
“Where are we?” the other woman asked, her pitch rising into the octaves reserved for mounting panic attacks. Claire moved over and put an arm around her.
I wanted to be comforting and helpful. I really did. But I needed to find my friends — I needed to find Elena. These people would only slow me down. Plus, I’d already saved their lives once, right? Good deed for the day, check. I stepped out of the elevator, knowing my two remaining gargoyles would be at my heels without needing to issue commands.
“You brought us here,” Claire said as if reading my mind. “You can’t just leave us.”
“I don’t have time to babysit,” I responded. “Besides, you’re better off waiting here until reinforcements arrive.”
“I think Arclight probably has their hands full right now,” she shot back.
I looked over my shoulder at the hospital workers, really assessing them for the first time. They were tired, worn out, and terrified, but they were still people. Claire with her world-weary determination. Steve with his oddly punchable face. The other woman with her … being the third person in the group. Could I really abandon them?
“Fine,” I said. “But you better keep up. Also, I’m all out of disclaimer forms. Your safety is not guaranteed.”
“So chivalrous,” she said dryly.
I shrugged, then leaned toward the gargoyles.
“Cagney, Brando,” I whispered. “If we run into trouble, get them to safety.”
“You got it, Boss,” they said in almost perfect unison. To their credit, they only faltered slightly at the missing harmony in their usual trio.
Reloading the Chemslinger, I stepped out into the unsteady lamplight. Like every other part of Astoria I'd seen, the place seemed lifted from the set of some rundown fairytale, a cloudy animation cell from a movie you remember loving as a kid but your own kids refuse to watch.
