“It’s okay,” he told the two, “no one can hear us. No thing, either.” He licked the mayo from his fingers—he was no Hellen Keller and had used it as a dip—before addressing the lock again. The hasp was not one of the protective sorts and the screws holding it to the wood jam were right there. “Who has keys? Any kind of keys? The screws are phillips head.”
Though none had a home to go to any longer, all three of them had retained their keys. It wasn’t just out of habit, either. Keys were also a symbol of who they were. This key is for my Toyota; it’s not just how I get around, it shows my sense of style and at the same time my socioeconomic status. This is for work; work defines who we think we are and who we show the world. This key is for my house. Here is where I’m safe, where I show my true self.
As great as symbolism was, getting out of the clinging darkness was better and Griff and Victoria offer up their keys. Plinkett handed over a multi-bladed pocketknife. One of the little items that folded from it was a screwdriver. Bryce took it and, within a minute, had the door open. Beyond it was a tunnel of slick black cobblestone. Its ceiling was low and curved, forcing Bryce to scrunch down to enter.
The darkness was deep but not perfect so that there was a sheen to the walls. Something moved in the tunnel. There were scurrying sounds, elusive and sly. “I’ll go first,” he said. No one argued. With back bent, he followed the big pipe, which had emerged from the other side of the wall. Both ran gently down until it reached a slightly larger tunnel. Here he could stand, but only with his back bowed.
A small opening above the larger pipe was the source of the “light.” He put his palm under it and barely saw a shadowy black ghost of it. “Left or right?”
“I doubt it matters,” Plinkett muttered. From the moment they had entered the sub-basement, he had been so turned around, he couldn’t tell up from down, and didn’t think he could find his way back to the elevator shaft if his life depended on it. Not that he had the energy to go back. With Griff’s sagging weight on him, each step came with an unspoken curse on his old body. Plinkett’s determination to find a safe place before he collapsed was the only thing keeping him going.
Although they were just standing there in the low tunnel, Victoria crowded close, desperate not to be left behind. For her, the light coming from above was not light at all and the darkness was still so pure that it seemed to extend forever. She clung to the younger woman with claw-like hands, afraid that if she lost contact with her, she would float away into the nothingness. At the same time, the darkness was so suffocatingly close that she choked on her words as she said to Maddy, “You tell us which way. We trust you.”
The two women shuffled to the opening where Maddy looked back and forth, though there was little enough to see. She cocked an ear with a hand on the wall, hoping to pick up any sound, other than the rats that is.
Victoria interrupted her moment, saying, “I say we go left.” The tunnel sloped down to the right and she could easily imagine it running deeper and deeper into some great, black pool filled with tarry goo that would suck them under. Picturing it, set her heart running dangerously fast.
“Just give me a moment,” Maddy told her. Now, she closed her eyes and concentrated all of her being on her sense of hearing. She picked up Victoria’s racing heart and Bryce’s incredibly slow one. She listened beyond Plinkett’s wheezy breaths and Griff’s shallow ones. Rats scrabbled about, some near, some further off. A single gunshot from far, far back the way they had come, pricked her ears—and that was it.
“We’ll go left,” she decided, for no other reason than to mollify Victoria. The woman let out a pent-up breath of relief.
Bryce picked up his pipe. “Left it is.” He had no strong feeling in either direction and slunk along, feeling strangely complacent. He did not fear the dark as he used to. Had he been in this tunnel a week ago, he would’ve been worse off than Victoria. Hell, he wouldn’t have been able to make the climb down the elevator shaft. It was different now. He knew there was nothing lurking ahead of him or beneath the pipe, besides the rats who scurried away at their approach.
Really, there were only two problems with the tunnel; its complete lack of available food and the fact the darkness dropped their speed down to a snail’s pace. The tunnel was old and far from perfect. The roof sometimes seemed to crush down, and in places old spars or beams jutted out ready to scalp the unwary. Below, the floor of the tunnel was far worse. Dealing with cobblestone alone was bad enough, they also had to maneuver over sudden gullies, and frequently, strange jumbled mounds of debris as if something down deep had erupted. Bryce was lucky to have the pipe, which he used as an over-sized cane. The others were forced to take tentative shuffling steps; each coming with a great deal of seizure-like handwaving.
To exacerbate Bryce’s issue with their slow progress, the dark seemed to effect time—seconds seemed to stretch out and out, and minutes were almost beyond measure. Conversely, his stomach rumbled constantly, complaining that it had missed two, maybe even three meals, and countless snack times.
The tunnel seemed to go endlessly on. Twice they came to junctures and both times Maddy pushed forward to sniff the air. Without anything conclusive to cause them to veer away, they kept going straight. Twenty minutes after, they came to a wall of loose rock blocking their way. The earth smelled fresh, like a newly dug grave.
“Let’s take a moment,” Bryce said, but instead of resting, he shoved his pipe into the mound to see how substantial the cave-in was. Very, it turned out as more of the ceiling came down almost burying him. He could’ve jumped clear away, but he was unwilling to lose the pipe. They would have to turn back. His stomach growled at the idea, and kept growling until he got them up again.
Afraid that Plinkett would have a heart attack if he kept going with Griff’s weight draped on him, Bryce took over after their break. From the start, it was unpleasant. Though nothing was said, there was tension between them, almost as if each was repulsed by the other. Griff had changed, and not for the better…and they both knew it. Griff had been handsome, intelligent and vibrantly alive, ready to take on the world. Now he was grey and weak, and he had anger in him that he’d never had before. He was angry with the world in general, with Magnus for doing this to him, and he was also especially angry with Bryce. Griff had given up everything for the little dweeb and now he was great and Griff was nothing.
Griff turned his head and stared at the outline of Bryce’s neck. Once a pencil neck that he could have snapped with ease, it was now thick and strong. The pulse of his heart throbbed, inches away. He could see it. The darkness didn’t affect him nearly as much as it did everyone else. He could see well enough; especially the people. Victoria and Plinkett had grey outlines, and a soft white glow came from where their pupils should’ve been. Maddy and Bryce shimmered silver and when they spoke their breath came out in plumes of gold mist; their eyes were bright—hers hard silver, his brilliant blue.
When Griff looked at himself, he was straight black, and didn’t want to know what his eyes were like. He was sure they’d be black as well. Maybe even darker than black, something that seemed like a terrible possibility. All of this and everything made him want to lash out and just then he wanted to lash out with his teeth. His anger was tremendous, but wrong. He knew it was wrong. He told himself it was wrong…and he kept telling himself that, hoping the hunger would pass.
But it didn’t. His hunger only grew and grew, until he couldn’t hold it back…
Chapter 18
His grip tightened on Bryce’s shoulder and with his next lurch he was going to take out Bryce’s windpipe. It would be mercifully quick and would make little more noise than a stumbling fall, something he’d done countless times already. And when Bryce was out of the way, the rest would fall to him one after another. They were in the land of the blind and here he was king.
Ahead of them, Plinkett kicked something and nearly ploughed into Victoria who had stopped suddenly, and now Griff fell into Bryce, his mouth
gaping shockingly wide.
“Stop,” Maddy said, sharply.
Griff’s mouth snapped closed an inch from Bryce’s throat. Guilt at being caught washed over him and he had the beginning of an excuse coming out from the back of his throat when she added, “There’s another cave-in.”
True guilt struck Griff like a hot wave, leaving him weak and sweating.
“Sorry. I need a moment,” he said and then let his knees sag. It felt like he had nearly taken a step off a cliff and he didn’t think he had the strength to stand. He sat on the uneven stones, shaking, glad more than ever for the darkness. It hid his frailties, his ugliness. It hid his guilt. For a long time, he sat there, and he didn’t stir until Bryce slid away to talk to Maddy, their golden breath lighting up their faces. This sent a shock of jealousy through Griff and he turned to the wall, ashamed of his thoughts. His mind kept straying to that moment when he could have bitten Bryce and had failed to do so.
Failed? “I didn’t fail anything,” he muttered. The two turned to look at him. He could feel their bright eyes on him. He went stiff, afraid that a shiver would give him and his thoughts away. What’s there to give away? he wondered. Being angry at the unfairness of his life was perfectly legal. It was only when he acted, that there was anything to feel… “If,” he said. “Not when, if. And there’ll be no if.”
“You okay?” It was Plinkett. Griff had forgotten he was there. “You were talking to yourself and it didn’t sound good. Should we be worried?”
Deny. Deny! DENY!
“Yeah.” In shame, Griff dropped his chin. “I’m having, uh, impure thoughts.”
Although this had been spoken in a whisper, both Maddy and Bryce had heard. They both turned their horribly bright eyes on him. “It’s the demon,” Maddy said. “It has a power. It can force…people to do things.” She had thought that it could only force zombies to do its bidding, but Griff was not a zombie and yet, now that it was named, she could feel an echo of the demon’s demand radiating from him.
Plinkett and Victoria stepped back from him. Their fear deadened the glow in their eyes. “What do we do?” Victoria hissed. “He can’t stay with us. I won’t allow it. He’s a danger to every…”
“That’s enough!” Bryce snapped. Her mouth clamped shut so quickly her teeth clicked.
The tunnel was filled with an odd drawing silence, one that lasted longer than it should have, and they all knew why; each of them had felt the power in Bryce’s command. It lingered forming a strange hurdle to speaking. Finally, Maddy swallowed with a clicking noise and whispered, “Y-you’ve been d-doing that all d-day.”
Bryce’s mouth fell open as he realized she was right. He thought he’d just been acting the part of leader—“acting” being the essential word. He was no leader and that had been proven true as he failed his first test. The wall had fallen, after all.
“Maybe, I guess, but I did it subconsciously,” Bryce answered, embarrassed. The idea of being in any way like the hideous creature left him feeling dirty.
“Don’t be ashamed of what you can do,” Plinkett said. “You should only be ashamed if you use your, uh, powers to do bad things.”
Remembering how he had little Billy running around all over the place in the freezing rain, Bryce grunted out an embarrassed laugh. “Yeah, well that’s the problem. Controlling people is pretty much as bad as it gets. One could argue that what I was doing turned normal people into slaves.”
“And one would be a fool for thinking that,” Maddy began, then she heard the edge in her own voice and softened her tone. “You didn’t make anyone do anything against their will.” This wasn’t entirely true. He had kept people from fleeing the fight; how many of those had died as a result of his commands? Maddy seemed to read these thoughts as he thought them. “And how many people did you save as a result of keeping them on the wall?”
He shrugged. “More. I suppose.”
“I wish I had some sort of power,” Victoria admitted. “I’m tired of being afraid. I wouldn’t be afraid if I could blast the zombies with my mind. Hey, maybe that’s something you guys can do.” She didn’t need light to know they were shaking their heads at her. “Have you tried it? So, you don’t know, do you?”
The two were quiet for a moment, trying to feel their minds with their minds. Maddy scrunched up her eyes, hoping to squeeze something out. “Nope,” she said, “I have nothing.”
Bryce wasn’t as sure. He didn’t feel like he could fry a zombie; however, his brain felt preternaturally alive with activity. It buzzed as if he were running a thousand volts between his ears and that feeling seemed bigger than his head, like it could expand outward if he wanted it to and maybe it would be enough to make his hair stand on end, but that was about it. “Yeah, I can’t blast anything.”
“You guys aren’t even trying,” Victoria insisted. “It takes time and training. Luke Skywalker didn’t blow up the Death Star in a day. Try reaching out with your mind.” She put her hand out and made a soft humming noise.
Although Bryce was rolling his eyes in the dark, Maddy wasn’t so sure. “It’s true, we haven’t explored the limits of what we can do. For instance, maybe your voice power can counteract the demon’s. You could try it on Griff.”
“I don’t need anything tried on me,” Griff spat, savagely. “I’m not a Guinea pig!” His voice had raised to a furious shout in the dark confines.
A second before the outburst, Bryce had no intention of playing along with Maddy’s suggestion. It was the same gross violation of a person’s individuality he had been regretting only a minute earlier. Griff’s sudden rage changed that. He needed help and perhaps Bryce was the only one who could do anything at all, save chain him up. Griff was barely a shadow in the infinite darkness, and yet Bryce could feel him; whether this was some ability on Bryce’s part or whether Griff simply exuded a stronger than average presence, he couldn’t tell.
Resentment and fierce anger radiated from Griff. These were easy enough to feel. They overpowered the fear which was their base, and they dwarfed the tiny bit of hope in him. They could not hide the demon’s echo either. Kill! Kill! Kill!
Bryce’s shoulders dropped as he relived the weakness he had felt facing the creature. It had not just been physical. Yes, he had been fighting at a tempo few could’ve matched, especially for so long, but the weakness had been inexplicably greater in the presence of the demon. It had been as if the demon had been stealing something vital from him.
And maybe it was doing the same to Griff. Maybe that explained why he was still so weak after so long. By this point in their transformation Bryce and Maddy had been wandering about the streets of New York, cringing with each step, but still moving on their own.
Though he couldn’t say why since it was so dark already, Bryce closed his eyes and reached out with his mind. It was exactly as if he were imagining a hand and arm stretching towards Griff. Griff was a black creature but unlike the darkness around them, he was real, tangible—he flinched back.
“What are you doing?” he growled. A wall sprang up between them, one that Bryce was unwilling to test. What lay on the other side was none of his business. The invisible hand melted away at the thought.
“I was trying to see if I could feel the demon in you,” Bryce explained. A pause, then, “And it’s there, isn’t it?” Griff paused a long time before he answered with a grunt. “Okay,” Bryce told him. “I want you to fight it. You will fight it. Do you hear me?”
“Yeah,” Griff said in a whisper. Bryce’s command had hit him like a slap and his head was spinning and his chest hurt. It was the kind of pain he used to get as a kid when he’d have those deep barking coughs. As he was trying to regain his bearings, Victoria asked if it had worked. At first Griff didn’t know, which was a good sign right off. The whisper to kill had been endless and insistent. Now it was just a fading voice that he could barely hear.
And now the pain in his chest was receding as well. “Yeah. I think it did. Thanks,” he said to Bryce, a
nd meant it. The idea of being controlled by anyone was enough to send him into a rage. Now he was just himself—though who that was, he didn’t know anymore.
Maddy didn’t know either. She sat in the dark taking everything in. Relief swept out of Plinkett as did the stink of old sweat. He hadn’t changed his clothes in days. Victoria was putting out a vibe of tempered relief. She didn’t know whether or not she believed Griff. Bryce believed him and was smiling with great benevolence all around. He had done something good that hadn’t involved killing anything or sacrificing someone weak.
The one person who was unreadable was Griff. He had put up the wall and it was still there. His mind was guarded and, even in the dark, he held his face in a stiffly neutral expression. But the echo she had felt earlier was gone and that was something to celebrate, only just not right then. There was still danger looming over everything and this little episode had done nothing to change it. In fact, as she stood a heaviness seemed to grow in her mind.
The entire experience made no sense. What Bryce had done was proper. It was good and necessary, so why the gloom?
The answer would not be found in the dark, she decided. “We need to get moving again,” she told them. “We’re wasting too much time.” Bryce’s smile left him, Griff let out a little groan, and Plinkett sighed, tiredly. Only Victoria was ready and willing to get moving again as quick as possible. She was afraid that they were already hopelessly lost in the maze and wanted out badly.
As Maddy could sniff their way back the way they had come, they weren’t exactly lost. Then again, she didn’t know where they were or where they were going, so it amounted to pretty much the same thing. They didn’t go far before they hit another cave-in and then, after retracing their steps and taking a new turn, they found a door similar to the one they had left behind hours before. This door was welded shut, and they were forced to find a new way, once again. It felt as though they were going in circles. Still, they persevered. They went on and on until they came to another cave-in but this time, it worked in their favor.
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