by Hamill, Ike
Jack ignored his questions. “Try letting go,” he said to Stephen when the ladder had stopped descending.
“Okay,” said Stephen. He removed his hand from the panel and the plexiglass withdrew.
“Huh,” said Jack. “The ladder stayed here.”
Stephen joined Jack and Ben. “So why the hand trap?”
“I don’t know,” said Jack. “I was just wondering that.”
“Maybe he didn’t finish something, or he was just sloppy,” said Ben.
“There’s something written,” said Jack. He turned on his light and shone it into the dark hallway, but none of the boys seemed eager to cross from the well-lit white room, back into the tripwire hall. “Go look,” he said to Ben.
“You go look,” replied Ben.
“Fine,” said Jack. He walked the few feet across the hall to the dead-end they had found earlier and peered at a middle rung of the black ladder. He crossed back to the white room before announcing his find: “It says ‘Level 2.’”
“This is like a video game,” said Stephen. “We’ve finished level one and now we’re going on to the next level. But isn’t there usually a ‘boss’ at the end of a level?”
“What do you mean?” asked Jack.
“You don’t play the shooter games,” explained Ben. “When you play a shooter, there’s always a big, bad creature you have to defeat at the end of each level. Like that Mario game—you played that one.”
“So we should be looking for a boss?” asked Jack.
“Could just be a really hard thing to get past,” replied Stephen. “Who knows, maybe there’s not one—we’re not exactly playing a video game here.”
“Better safe than sorry,” said Ben. He shone his light up through the hole in the ceiling. “How come we didn’t see this hole earlier?”
“I don’t know,” said Jack. “I wonder how long it stays open, too.”
“Maybe the boss thing was that hand-trap back there,” said Stephen.
“Seems kinda easy for that,” said Ben.
“Yeah, but maybe we just got lucky—figuring that out.”
“Well, even if it had trapped your hand, couldn’t you just pull back enough to break contact?” asked Jack. “I mean the trap is only on when you touch the thing, right?”
“Another solid point,” said Ben. “And yet another thing that doesn’t add up.”
“Settle down, son,” Stephen said to Ben. “Just because we haven’t figured it out, doesn’t mean it’s not logical.”
“Why are you so convinced this place has to make sense?” said Ben. “I’m serious—I’m realizing what a really terrible idea this whole thing is.”
“I’m pretty sure this whole thing was your idea,” said Jack. “And what terrible things have happened?”
“All right, fine,” said Ben. “You need something horrible to happen? Let’s keep going then.”
“Roger that. Too much talking, anyway,” said Jack as he approached the ladder.
They each took a turn inspecting the ladder from all angles and shining their lights up through the new hole in the ceiling. Producing the letter once again, Jack compared the handwriting to that on the Level 2 sign. “I think it’s the same,” he pronounced.
Jack put the letter away, and then started up. He reached for each new rung cautiously—ready for a surprise each time. When he got within reach of the ceiling, Jack paused and pulled his flashlight from his pocket. He slowly extended it past where the ceiling started and waved it around.
“I think it’s okay,” said Jack. He tucked the light back in his pocket and reached for the next rung. Remembering the first ladder, he lightly touched the rung before committing to grabbing it. No shock was forthcoming, so he gripped the rung and pulled himself up. The rung shifted in his hand and dropped a quarter inch when he pulled. Jack released the rung and pushed away from the ladder to drop to the floor.
Before he could get away from the ladder a cascade of liquid rained down on Jack from above. Stephen and Ben were confused by all the sudden movement and stepped back. Unable to avoid the liquid, Jack was soaked. Ben’s light was trained on his face, and Stephen’s light showed his hands. Jack’s hands, face, and shirt were all bright, angry red.
“What happened?” asked Stephen.
“Gross. What is it? Blood?” asked Ben.
“Nope—I don’t think so,” said Jack. He sniffed his hand. “I think it’s just dye.” Jack was covered from head to toe. “The rung triggered it. I’m sure of it.”
“Holy shit,” said Stephen. “Does it come off?”
“I don’t know,” said Jack. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Yeah, sure,” said Stephen.
Jack wiped dye away from his brow and tried to clear it from his eyes. He held his arms out, away from his body and looked at his clothes. The dye had soaked in and covered almost every square inch of his shirt and pants.
“Maybe that’s the boss trap?” said Ben, smiling.
“Just lead the way,” said Jack.
They retreated down the trip-wire hallway and gingerly stepped through the Bishop’s room. Jack left faint red footprints on the tile. Down in the drawing room, Jack and Ben headed for their rope ladder, but Stephen studied the artwork.
“C’mon, man,” said Ben.
Jack was the first back in daylight. Ben and Stephen followed soon after. Accustomed to the routine, they quickly stowed the rope-ladder, reset the hatch, and hid the stepladder.
**********
“How’s it look?” Jack held up his dyed shirt.
“Better,” said Ben.
Jack was washing his clothes in the creek. He stood ankle-deep in the cold water, wearing only his underwear. Stephen was wringing out Jack’s socks.
“We should hide clothes over there,” said Jack. “In case something like this happens again.”
Ben was sitting on a rock, eating a sandwich from his backpack. They didn’t have to ask him his opinion of this plan—it was clear from his silence and his body-language that he disapproved of all their recent plans.
“You should wash your hair,” said Stephen.
The Boy
The boy woke with a clear head. He could tell the difference, and it was a tremendous relief to not feel drugged. He knew that he had to act now; he couldn't survive just by waiting for the crazy man to let him free. His next realization brought a warm glow to his neck and cheeks—he had hope at last: his wrist was loose and he could move his right arm.
He looked feverishly around the room and saw no trace of the crazy man. No lurking lab coats or bull’s heads were in sight. The boy clenched his teeth and pulled back on his right arm slowly. It was caught. Of course, he realized, it would never be that easy.
He lifted his head to look at his wrist, and hope dawned again. The strap that should be holding his hand in place was just caught on his thumb. Rotating his hand he quickly shed the strap and had his right arm free. His hand flew to his face and he swooned as he looked closely at his withered hand.
Instantly, he understood why his hand was free—he had lost so much weight that the straps had become loose. His hand danced across the strap on his chest until he found the buckle. Unlatched, he could lean over to work on the strap holding his left hand. At first his hand was trembling too much to grasp the strap, but he took a deep breath and unhooked it.
With both hands he removed the strap from his waist. A jab of pain shot through his left arm as he leaned forward to work on his feet. The port in his vein was being pulled back at a severe angle by the intravenous tube. The boy bit his lower lip and removed the tape from the inside of his elbow. He grasped the shaft of the port and pulled back quickly. He shuddered at the ease with which it slid out of his vein.
Back on task, he leaned over and freed his legs and ankles. The drug-fantasy of abdominal surgery and a half-skinned foot now seemed foolish. He had a bruised incision on his right thigh that was a bit swollen, but it didn’t look nearly as bad as he thought it would
. Only now did it occur to him that he wasn’t painted with pictures of organs.
The last thing holding him down was the catheter, taped on. He cringed and closed his eyes as he removed it.
The boy turned his body and slid his legs over the edge of the chair. He could finally see behind the chair and he turned quickly, expecting the man to be standing there. There was nobody there.
He released a sigh—so relieved he felt light-headed. He attempted to stand.
His legs had never felt that sore. He had difficulty straightening them. He settled for an upright hunch and staggered away from the chair. When he got to the wall he turned to lean against it. The chair he had been strapped to all this time was blue—he had known that already. What he was seeing for the first time was how much like a body the chair looked. It had a head, torso, arms and legs, with straps for each part. He pressed away from the wall.
He had to find a way out.
Ben
“You don’t seem too hungry,” said Jack’s mom at dinner.
“We ate lunch late,” said Jack. “We’ll probably be starved later.”
“That’s right,” said his mom.
“You boys want to earn some money?” asked Jack’s dad.
“I don’t know, Dad. What would we have to do?” Jack asked.
“I’m doing a big installation up the road,” said his dad. “I thought you guys could wrap pipes.”
“Jeez Dad. We don’t want to have to be inside all day,” protested Jack.
“Hey—no big deal,” said his dad. “I’m sure we can get someone interested in easy money.”
“Don’t forget—you all owe me another two-hundred words tonight,” his mom said.
“Okay, mom,” said Jack.
**********
Upstairs, each had a notepad and pencil.
“What did you put?” Stephen asked.
“I said we trespassed, broke in, and got painted by a boss-trap,” said Jack. “What did you put?”
“I can’t think of anything,” laughed Stephen.
“Just write about a frog or something,” said Ben.
“I know,” said Jack, “write about the puzzles, but say they were in a book or something.”
“We all have to write about the same thing, or we’ll get busted,” said Stephen.
“Nah, I don’t think we’ll get busted,” said Jack. “But, just in case, we should come up with something we were doing.”
“I know,” said Ben. “We’ll just write about that field-guide we were using before. We just need to figure out what pages to say we read, so we’ll all agree.”
“I’ll get it,” said Jack. He walked over to his bookshelf to retrieve the book.
“I can’t stop thinking about that dye,” said Stephen. “Maybe it was a warning.”
“Of what?” asked Jack and Ben in unison.
“Maybe it means that if you go up there, you’ll get covered in blood,” said Stephen.
“Jesus,” said Jack. “I hope not.”
“Could be the next rung, like, triggers a blade or something,” Stephen offered.
“How are we going to test for that?” asked Jack. “I mean, it could be really hard to detect that kind of trap.”
“Exactly,” said Ben.
“We should definitely bring a long stick next time to try to push on things before we go touching them,” said Jack.
“That’s a start,” said Stephen. “Do you have any night-vision goggles or anything?”
“Are you crazy?” answered Jack with questions. “Why would we have those?”
“I don’t know—just asking,” said Stephen. “Our flashlights aren’t helping us much.”
“I can’t wait to see what’s on level two,” said Jack.
“I can,” said Ben, getting up and stretching. “I’ll be back.” Ben went down the hall to the bathroom.
“Hey,” whispered Stephen when Ben was out of earshot, “I found this on the painting.” He handed a small memory card to Jack. “Check it out when Ben’s not around.”
“Why don’t you want Ben to know?” Jack asked.
“He’s already freaking out about the hotel, I think you should look at it before we let him know about it,” Stephen replied. “He’ll probably want to tell your parents or something. He’s really freaking out.”
“Yeah, I guess,” said Jack, putting the card on his desk, next to his keyboard.
**********
July 15, 2007
By Jack Randolph
Today is Sunday, July fifteenth, and my friends and I went into the woods. We were trying to see if we could find some of the plants listed in my field guide that I got for my birthday. I started out looking for the Ostrich fern. In the spring the Ostrich fern can be picked and they are called fiddleheads. My mom picks fiddleheads down near the creek so I thought she would like to know where else they grow. It is very difficult to find Ostrich ferns because they look so much like all the other ferns this time of year. The guide says that you have to cook fiddleheads because otherwise they could make you sick. While we were looking my friend Ben saw an Indigo Bunting so we checked that off the list of birds we have seen this summer. We also tried to find some Lady Slippers but I think it is too late to find those. You should not pick Lady Slippers if you see them because then they won’t come back. I would like to find those next year because I read that they can be found in the same spots as the fiddleheads.
**********
After Ben and Stephen had gone to the guest room, Jack powered on his computer and inserted the memory card. He made sure his machine was not set to automatically execute anything it would find on the card and then began to explore its contents. It appeared to be empty.
Jack poked around on the device, but couldn’t find any files. Unconvinced, he used some of his recovery tools to see if there were any hidden or deleted files on the card. He was startled by a light tapping on his door. Stephen let himself in.
“Hey,” whispered Stephen.
“Ben’s asleep?” asked Jack.
“Yeah—find anything?”
“I think so,” said Jack, “check it out. There’s a couple of spots with data.”
“What kind of files?” asked Stephen.
“Not files,” answered Jack. “Just data.”
“What do you mean?” Stephen asked.
Jack was accustomed to having to explain computer stuff to his friends and parents. He had an innate understanding of how things worked—it was like a puzzle to him. When he saw something interesting, his brain would keep working at it until he figured out how he would accomplish that same behavior. When he had devised a methodology, he discovered that he could predict behavior and verify his assumptions.
“Think of it like a bookshelf. All the books are really there, but someone has removed all the covers from the books,” explained Jack. “So, if we pull down pages, we can look at what they contained, but they’re not exactly books anymore. And, some might have been partially replaced by other books, so what we find might not make sense anymore.”
“So can you see anything that does make sense there?” asked Stephen.
“Let me look,” said Jack.
After a few minutes, Jack had found something he could recover. “This one looks intact, and I think it’s a PDF file.” Jack extracted the file to his computer and opened the file. His PDF reader launched and they saw a window filled with white pages and black lines.
“Looks like building plans,” said Jack.
“Hey,” said Stephen, “scroll down.” Stephen pointed to the label on the bottom of the page. It read “Level Zero.”
“So, if this is the hotel, then this must be the drawing room,” said Jack. He pointed to a small rectangle on the left side of the drawing. The line describing the right-hand wall had a small star affixed to it. “See, if this is the drawing, then the star shows where the card was.”
“Yeah, that seem about right,” said Stephen. “What’s the next page? Is it level one?”<
br />
Jack advanced to the next page of the document, but he and Stephen saw nothing but white. “There’s nothing there,” said Jack.
“Good job, captain obvious,” said Stephen.
“Hold on,” said Jack. He highlighted the page and the background of the area turned a light-blue color. Superimposed on the highlight, white lines showed them the next floor of the building and the words “Level One” at the bottom.
“Ah,” said Stephen, “white lines—tricky.”
“There’s the bishop’s room,” said Jack. “And the tripwire hallway.”
“Holy shit,” said Stephen. “Look at that.” He pointed on the diagram to where the hallway took the short right-hand jog. “That’s where the level two ladder is.”
Above Stephen’s finger the drawing was adorned with a skull and crossbones.
“That can’t be good,” said Jack.
They studied the drawing. The only rooms shown on the floor plan were the ones they had seen. It depicted the bishop’s room, the tripwire hall, the ladder, and the white room, but the rest of the floor was blank.
“Looks like a closet or something in the corner of the white room,” said Jack. He pointed to the lower left-hand corner of the depiction of the well-lit room. “Do you remember seeing anything there?”
“Naw, but I was trying to not get my hand chopped off by that switch thing,” replied Stephen. “I probably wouldn’t have noticed. What’s on the next page?”
“That’s it,” said Jack. “Just the two pages.”
“Any more data on that thing?” Stephen asked.
“Not that I can recover. I don’t think,” said Jack.
**********
The boys set off the next morning into the cool woods. Their backpacks felt heavier with the extra supplies—more clothes, a broken broom handle, chalk, duck tape, a box-cutter, fishing line, and a small mirror. Single-minded, they hiked through the woods silently and quickly. All three stopped and looked up at the sound of distant voices. Jack pivoted and looked back at Ben and Stephen. The voices sounded like they were moving their direction.
