by Leito, Chad
His armband said that it was 6:00PM, but the sun looked like it had hours to go before it went down. Asa went down the spiral staircase that he had entered through the day before. There was another spiral staircase on the opposite end of the room, that went up, but Asa was not sure where it went.
He came out into the curving, damp, lantern lit corridor that he had walked with the rest of the Fishies the day before. It was even darker now, and only one in three torches were lit. The screeching rats seemed louder, and alone, the shadows seemed more ominous to Asa.
He stood there, at the bottom of the stairs, at the end of the two-mile corridor, and wondered if free time really meant that he could go wherever he wanted. Thom saw me descend the staircase and didn’t stop me, he thought.
It was decided. He took a deep breath, cursed the pain in his back, and started off on a slow jog.
His run was a fight. In one corner stood all of the bad things: he was fatigued, his back felt like it was getting stabbed around his shoulder blades by thick knives, his stomach was still upset, and the air seemed thin. He hadn’t thought about it before, but the surrounding mountain ranges could mean high altitude. He found that around one mile in, when he should be getting warmed up, he was sucking for more oxygen. In the other corner stood all of the positives: he was in great shape (months of extensive cross country training ensured that), he was excited about the run (exploring new places always did this for his exercises), and he wanted to forget the threat that the Academy presented, if only for a moment. Running always had helped him in the act of momentarily forgetting whatever was going on. When his mother was sick with the Wolf Flu, he would sometimes run more than twenty miles in a single day, spread out into four or five sessions. When he would slow down and stop, and the act of momentarily forgetting was over, the realities that he had to face didn’t seem as ominous after the run.
With the hope that some of his gloom would sweat out of him, he kept moving. The corridor was cold, but Asa’s body was heating up. About halfway through, he turned down the heater on his suit by rotating the rubber on his armband.
When he reached the end of the hallway, sweat was beading down his face, and he was breathing hard. The doorway at the end, that led to the entry foyer of Fishie Mountain, was closed. He reached for it, found it unlocked, and pushed his way through.
The foyer was entirely empty except for Asa, two dark shapes sitting in chairs in front of the fires, and one lying by the fire. One of the figures in a chair spoke, rich and thick, and Asa knew the voice immediately—Volkner. “And why is my lesson plan color coded, Kayce?”
“I don’t know, sir. I-I-I thought that it would be easiest to understand,” said the other man. It was the scoliosis ridden, thin graduate who taught the History of the Academy class. He seemed to be Volkner’s assistant. And by his feet, lying on the rug, was his 130-pound pet mountain lion. It had the high arching head, like many of the animals did around the Academy. Its muscles were taut and vein ridden beneath its yellow fur.
“Well, I’m not a child you know. Get rid of it. All black. Never do that again.”
Asa stepped into the room, headed for the front entrance, and Volkner turned in his armchair and looked at him, a sneer on his pale face. Asa kept moving towards the door, not looking back to see if Volkner was still staring at him. The two men did not talk until Asa was gone. Asa could feel their eyes following him as he made his way out the door.
Outside, the air was much cooler, and Asa turned up the heater again. The cold air felt good as it filled his lungs. Asa tried to concentrate on the run ahead, and forget about Volkner and his assistant in the foyer behind him.
He wasn’t sure what he was doing, or where he intended to go. He was only sure that he wanted to go somewhere, and see something new. He was looking around from atop the large set of stairs that led up the Fishie Mountain; he hadn’t looked out at the snow jungle from this vantage point before, and was noticing things that he hadn’t seen the other day. Laced throughout the thick jungle there were a series of roads and paths running around the compound; this was perceivable from the breaks in the high trees. He could not tell, however, where they went. He could only follow them so far with his eyes before they were lost in a sea of snow sprinkled, green, winter jungle.
He remembered the warnings that Hubert Boistly had given as he jogged down the steps. He could hear the gap-toothed man’s voice in his head: Further, you may also notice an assortment of odd creatures in the jungles surrounding. Do not talk to these creatures, ever. They are wild, untamed, too smart for their own good, and dangerous. They may look like they are humans, they may act like humans, but they are not humans. I’ve seen far too many students killed for showing compassion to these animals.
Asa thought that it was probably a fair warning to give: he had seen the monstrous being swimming through the moat, and had seen the way the cleaning raccoons behaved. Things around here were off, different. He guessed that the tundra-jungle would be a perfect place for odd things to grow and reproduce. Deadly things, probably. But what did Hubert Boistly mean, that they may look like humans, they may act like humans? Despite his better judgment, his heart rate rose with excitement. He had always been fascinated with exotic animals and places, and the thought of coming into contact with a creature that only a handful of people knew existed, was exhilarating.
Before he reached the bottom of the marble steps, he had turned the temperature up on his suit even more. Snowflakes were falling in soft waves overhead, and the atmosphere was much colder than it had been when Asa arrived.
He began to jog off on the pebbled path before him, his breath as white as smoke when he exhaled. The pebbled path was steaming, and glistening with water; Asa could feel the heat coming off of the electronically warmed surface.
He was faced with the same challenges he had seen in the corridor that led to the boys’ dormitory: his back ached in his shoulder blades, his stomach was still in knots from the poison he had consumed the night before, and the thin air was making him more tired than expected. He pushed on, and did not notice her behind him. He rushed past the trees on either side of the path. A glance to his left or right gave him a look into a dark, dense mess of foliage tunneled by a thick canopy above.
The tropical sounds that he had heard with Teddy played in the air: the cry of a cockatoo, the hiss of insects, and the occasional screech of a lemur. Even though he had had over twenty four hours to get used to the idea that a jungle existed in such a cold, artic area, the sounds still seemed odd with the snow covered mountains looming in the distant skies.
Asa heard breathing behind him, and for one, terrible moment he thought that Volkner was following him: in his mind’s eyes he could see Volkner ripping into his throat with his virulent mouth dripping with black poison. He chastised himself for running alone after the warnings he had received—what had I been thinking?—but then he turned to see Charlotte. She had been sitting behind him in the cafeteria, and he had been careful to only take a couple of glances at her, so that no one could misconstrue what he was doing as communicating. Now, he noticed how attractive she was, how flattering the tight white suit was against her frame. She was jogging behind him, her springy brown hair bouncing with her steps, he long legs gliding beneath her waist and hips.
Asa didn’t smile, or do anything to acknowledge her presence, but just kept moving forward. There were several paths coming into view up ahead of him. He had completely forgotten that he had chastised himself for running alone, and his stomach did a flip as he thought of her behind him. He arched his back a little more, stood a little straighter, took his strides with a little more conviction, and picked up his pace. For a moment, he thought that he heard her falling behind, but he could still hear her breath a half minute later.
Asa was slightly ahead of her when he decided to take a right turn onto one of the paths that surrounded the main road. He had no idea where it led, and saw that it led forward half a mile, and then curved out of sight. When h
e made the decision to turn, he had resigned himself to the reality that she probably wouldn’t follow. She probably was out on her own run by herself, and it was just a coincidence that they ran into each other. Besides, she wouldn’t want any graduates to mistake what she was doing for communication.
Asa’s heart fluttered again, and he briefly shut his eyes with relief when he heard that she had followed him down the next path. It’s silly to construe meaning from her actions, he told himself. She just probably doesn’t want to be alone. The jungles are dangerous around here. It doesn’t mean that she likes me.
Asa tried to tell himself that her turning meant nothing, but still, he was smiling as he ran. He was so happy, so distracted with the thought of Charlotte running behind him, running with me, that he didn’t think anything of it when he passed the first crow, pecking at the pebbled path. Or the second one. Or the third.
As the two of them went around the first bend in the road, Charlotte was only ten feet behind Asa. Despite him picking up his pace some, she had caught him, and by the sound of her breathing, she was still going strong. Asa wondered if she had jogged through the corridor leading from the girls’ dormitory out to the front foyer, and if the girls’ corridor was two miles, just like the boys’. If not, then she had been running for two miles less than Asa. He was getting tired, an ache was building up in his side, and the pain that he felt in his upper back was exhausting to him. He wished that he had walked through those corridors. He figured that he was already a mile away from the entrance to Fishie Mountain, and if he turned around right away and jogged back, he would have traveled a total of four miles on the day. At this altitude, I should probably just stop at three. My body isn’t used to it, and I’m already so tired.
But, his muscles weren’t running the show, and silly as it may seem, he was truly enjoying the sound of her footsteps behind him, and knowing that she chose to run with him. In his mind, he was pretending that the act was some type of unspoken courtship.
There was a building sitting up ahead, on the right side of the road. Asa wanted to turn around—what am I doing out here? I should be back in the warmth of the dormitory. He hadn’t been able to see the structure from the top of the steps, and as he got closer, he saw that this was understandable. The building appeared to have been unused for years, and the fast growing nature that surrounded had taken its course. The structure was concrete, with white and green ropy mosses covering the outside. Two windows had once stood in the front of the buildings, but they were now both broken with jagged, gaping openings in the middle that led into the darkness inside.
Instincts told Asa not to go near the building, to turn back and return to his dormitory, but he found that he had actually picked up his pace and was moving faster towards the structure. His fear was pushing him onward, even though the thing in front of him was the source of his fear.
A crow was cawing in the distance, but Asa gave it no attention as he moved forward. Charlotte was still close behind. As he passed the building, a damp, cloying smell hit his nostrils. He briefly glanced into the moss-ridden darkness and felt himself shiver—There could be anything living in there.
He decided that there probably were things living inside of the abandoned building. Why not? It offered shelter. It was the perfect den for some large, bearlike predator to cave up in, and raise their young inside.
Asa was twenty feet past the structure when he noticed that Charlotte was no longer behind him. He stopped, turned, and looked back. She was standing before the building, frozen, looking behind them. Asa cocked his head and moved toward her.
Doesn’t she know that it’s dangerous to stand in front of a building like that? She doesn’t know what’s lurking in there. There could be anything, even—
Asa’s thoughts were interrupted as he heard it—a rapid, thumping sound coming from down the road. Pebbles were tinkling against one another, far off. The beat was rhythmic, a quick succession of one two, one two, one two, one two.
As Asa came up beside Charlotte, he resisted the urge to ask her what she thought it was. Her face had grown pale. They were both trying to slow their breathing down so that they could hear better.
One two, one two, one two.
The beat pounded on towards them.
They were standing in a relatively straight portion of the pebbled road, and could see for a few hundred yards. Before them, the road was empty. Yet, they still heard that sound. It was growing louder.
When it came around the corner, Asa felt Charlotte tug at his arm, pulling him towards the moss-covered structure. The front door of the building had long fallen inward, broken at the hinges. The door had sat on the inside of the hinges, and there was a deadbolt on what used to be the outside of the door, instead of the inside.
What were they trying to lock in there?
Metal bars lay on the pebbled road in front of the building; they used to block the now broken windows, but had since been ripped from the concrete and discarded. Pale light shone in through the back of the wide, expansive first story of the building. Counters ran along the floor with glass beacons, and broken jars atop the surface. There were cages with strong metal bars along the walls, big enough to hold a man inside. They appeared to all be open.
The thought of going inside there terrified Asa. And yet, Charlotte was pulling him towards it, and he found that his feet were carrying him over the threshold.
Why did I not just stay in my dormitory?
The thing rushing towards them (one two, one two, one two) was even more terrifying than the mystery of what could be lurking within the abandoned building. It ran forward with long, muscle stretched strides. Its paws dug at the pebbles as it flew over the ground. Its tongue was hanging out of its panting mouth.
That’s not a normal mountain lion, Asa thought.
It was the same animal that had sat next to Volkner and Professor Kayce while Asa walked out of the foyer. It was the same predator that had glared at Asa from the auditorium stage in his History of the Academy class, and Asa had thought that it knew him.
The animal must belong to Professor Kayce, Volkner’s assistant, Asa decided. It wore the same leather harness it had on stage. The small, scoliosis suffered man seemed weak, but he commanded a massive, beast of a creature. It was moving towards Asa and Charlotte at an incredible rate as they slipped inside the moss covered building.
Their steps echoed across the damp concrete. Charlotte spoke—“That thing is going to kill us,” Charlotte said.
Asa looked at her incredulously; she had put herself in great danger by speaking. Asa still did not feel comfortable replying.
One two, one two, one two. The cougar was moving closer.
Volkner sent it.
Asa walked forward, and turned to make sure that she was following. Charlotte stood, staring at the approaching animal as if mesmerized by it. “C’mon,” Asa said. Charlotte broke her stare and turned to follow Asa. There was a wooden door on the far side of the room. They both sprinted towards it; Asa felt as though his legs couldn’t move quickly enough.
One two, one two, one two.
As he moved, Asa took a weary glance down into the dark, windowless depth of the building. Hundreds and hundreds of cages yawned open like mouths. He stepped over shards of glass, and syringes that littered the floor as he made his way, following Charlotte, to the door.
What is this place?
Charlotte ran under the door jam, and Asa shut the door behind them, clicking home a metal latch near the top, and locking a deadbolt. He hoped that it would be enough to stop the thing following them. They were standing in a dripping stairwell, with metal steps leading up to another door at the top. They kept moving. They were halfway up the steps when the one two, one two was replaced with a smash, and the door pulsed towards them with the sound of cracking wood. It did not open on this attempt, though.
They climbed, panting and sweating, as quickly as possible up the remainder of the stairs.
There was another sma
sh as they reached the top, and Asa let out a groan as he saw that the wooden door now had a visible crack running halfway down the center.
It might hold one more hit. Maybe two, if we’re lucky.
Asa shut the door on the top, but found that it would be little more than a nuisance to the monster below: the knob rattled in its place, the deadbolt was lying uselessly on the tile floor, and there was no other latch. He slammed it shut anyways, and followed Charlotte, who was already dashing ahead of him.
The top floor had more windows than the bottom did, many of which had tree branches growing inside and scratching the ceiling. Most of the windows had yellowed, moth eaten curtains surrounding them. The openings offered light, something that Asa thought would be an advantage for them. Humans cannot win in a fight against a mountain lion in the dark, using brute strength and speed. They can, however, win in an environment where thinking is involved; they can win in an environment with resources. And the light made it so that the humans could take stock of what was around them.
Even with this being true, Asa didn’t find much hope in what he saw. Like the bottom floor of this facility, glass and syringes scattered the hard tile floor. These things seemed useless to Asa. Even if he could wrap a shard of glass in cloth to make a shank, he couldn’t possibly hope to deliver a fatal blow to the mountain lion before it killed him.
She’ll go for my neck first, Asa thought with a cold certainty of the enormous cat.
He heard the animal plow into the door below for the third time. The wood cracked some more, but he didn’t hear the cougar coming up the stairs. The building shook with the blow, and Asa was in awe of the creature’s power.
It could rip us both apart in a matter of seconds.
Asa would have liked to thoroughly survey the room, but he didn’t have time. He named off objects in his head as his eyes saw them: filing cabinet, sink, desk, lamp, chair, flowerpot, library, books, couch.
