The Loon

by Michaelbrent Collings

  He pulled out the guard's card, wiping some blood from it before sliding it through the card reader. A moment later, he entered a code – probably the guard's social security number, from the length of it – and was satisfied to hear the beep-click of the door opening.

  Daisies all over.

  BLACK

  Wade hung on for dear life, feeling his hands freezing to the guard rail bar as they went slick with terrified perspiration, then froze to the cold gray metal beneath them.

  He tried to pull himself up, but each time he did his dislocated shoulder screamed at him, and each time he ended up with a slightly looser grip on the guard rail than he had had before.

  Finally, he resorted to something he had not done in years: he prayed. His lips moved with the fervency of his wishes as he prayed to God to let him live. Wade promised everything, promised money, promised work, promised time, if only God would just reverse gravity in this place, just for a fraction of a second, just long enough to push Wade up.

  But God wasn't listening, it seemed, or was otherwise occupied elsewhere in the universe. Because gravity kept pulling inexorably at Wade.

  Finally, with a ripping of flesh his hands tore free from their frozen spots on the guard rails.

  Wade fell, twisting as he did, and managed to see the heavy spires on top of the generator shack rushing toward him before he hit headfirst...and then all was black.

  TAKEN

  Rachel watched her daughter sleep in her arms, Mr. Huggles the teddy bear clutched tightly to her. She felt a moment of peace there, watching the gentle rise and fall of Becky's chest, and knew that as long as her daughter was all right, the world could be dealt with. It was all about Becky, now. Nothing else mattered.

  She was content.

  Then her contentment turned instantly to horror as the lights in the office suddenly went out, plunging her into darkness. Becky woke instantly, a small cry on her tiny lips.

  "Shh, shh, baby," said Rachel. "It's all right."

  But even as she said it, she knew it was a lie.

  Then it was Rachel's turn to cry out as the door flew open with a bang. Two eyes stared at her in the darkness, and a dark form crowded the doorframe. She almost cried out again before the form said, "It's me. Just me, Paul. Just wanted to make sure you were all right."

  Gradually, Rachel's eyes adjusted to the murky darkness that now held them all in its cloying grasp, enough to make out pinlights that glowed feebly at the corners of the room and every few feet in the hall behind Paul. They were almost useless, but she could see enough of Paul's face to know that whatever was happening, it was definitely not normal.

  "What's going on? What's with the lights?" she asked.

  Paul looked around. "Battery-powered," he said. "They only go on if the generator goes out...and that's as bright as they get."

  With that, the contentment that Rachel had been feeling died in her breast. Terror was there again, the sole inhabitant of the prison of her heart.

  The dark had taken them.

  LIGHTS

  Crane switched on his flashlight, then pushed the refrigerator until it was flush against the secret door. It would have slowed down any normal pursuer...even any human pursuer.

  But Crane knew – even as he pushed a heavy desk over in front of the refrigerator he knew – that he was making a useless gesture. A human might have been slowed down, but not what was coming.

  Still, he put his flashlight on the desk, so it was pointed at the refrigerator. Perhaps the light would slow it down, if mere weight would not.

  Crane then grabbed another flashlight – the heaviest one he had – from nearby.

  Switched it on.

  The light was his only hope.

  Even though it wasn't really much hope at all.

  FIX

  Sandy felt her perfect evening – alone in a crowded room with Darryl paying more attention to her than he ever had – shatter as the lights went off. She and Darryl touched hands as they both reached under the desk for the emergency flashlights that sheltered there, but even the normally electric spark of Darryl's touch failed to lift her spirits. The night was dark. And darkness was not something you wanted to find in The Loon.

  "What the hell did you do? What the hell happened?" asked Leann, the tough older woman's voice cracking ever so slightly. That in itself almost scared Sandy more than the fact that the lights had gone out: both the darkness and Leann's fear were things for which there was no contingency plan; neither was ever supposed to happen.

  Sandy felt terror unfurl within her like the wings of some great bat.

  "I don't know what happened," Darryl snapped to Leann. "Why you asking me?"

  "'Cause you were sitting closest," retorted Leann.

  "What, you think I hit the 'everything off' button with my elbow?" said Darryl.

  Leann opened her mouth to reply but was cut off by the sudden emergence of Dr. Crane from his office.

  The man's face scared Sandy more than anything else could have. The man – so completely unflappable that she had more than once harbored the idea that he was probably a Vulcan or something equally alien – was utterly panic-stricken. No, more than that, he was terrified.

  "Darryl, Sandy," he said without preamble, his words almost falling over themselves in a fearful jumble, "come with me."

  "Where?" said Sandy almost unthinkingly. She never would have questioned Dr. Crane like that normally, but his face had shocked her into a base state of unconscious action.

  And normally, she knew Dr. Crane would have rebuked her – even suspended her – for such an insubordinate query...but this time he merely answered.

  "We have to go outside."

  "Outside?" said Darryl in disbelief.

  Again, Dr. Crane failed to respond with anger. Merely fear. "Something's wrong with the generator," said the older man. "We have to fix it." Then he repeated the words, and the way he did made it sound less as though he were telling them of a job that needed doing, and more as though he were prophesying their doom.

  "We need to fix it now." And then he added the words that Sandy had heard below his words. "We need to fix it or we're all going to die."

  DARKNESS

  Hip-Hop looked into the darkness of the tunnel that led to the staff area, and wondered what to do.

  He had seen Steiger go into the tunnel. He hadn't bothered checking on Jacky's situation: didn't want to leave any clues of his presence in there before others "discovered" what had happened. Instead, he had gone to the tunnel, to the door that should have been closed automatically...but apparently when the generator went out, the electromagnetic door seals unclamped.

  Hip-Hop felt a pit in the center of his stomach. The prison cells were on their own separate backup relay, and he knew they had enough battery power to keep them closed. But all the other doors in The Loon would now be hanging open.

  And who knew where Steiger would be?

  Hip-Hop didn't know what to do.

  He didn't want to go in the tunnel; what if Steiger was still in there?

  But nor did he just want to wait in the open darkness of the prison area, just a sitting duck in the no-man's land of catwalks and iron.

  What to do? he thought.

  Then his radio crackled. Darryl's voice rang out, harsh and jagged in the utter silence of the prison: "Paul," said the wrestler.

  Hip-Hop moved quickly, hitting the off button so hard he jammed his thumb.

  But the damage was already done: Steiger's black form lunged out of the darkness of the tunnel.

  Hip-Hop didn't even have time to scream.

  BONUSES

  Paul pulled out the walkie-talkie that he always carried in one pocket or another and spoke into it: "Yeah?" he responded to Darryl. He glanced at Rachel and Becky, smiling in what he hoped was a reassuring manner.

  "Dr. Crane thinks there's a problem with the generator," said Darryl. "Probably just a loose wire or something, but you might want to go down and make sure that the tunnel
doors are manually locked." Darryl paused for a moment at the other end of the walkie-talkie connection, and Paul could hear fear in the man's usually good-natured voice. "Just in case."

  Paul, however, almost didn't hear anything after the word "generator." The prospect of total power loss at The Loon rocked him, knocking into him as hard as a cannonball.

  Becky shifted, getting something out of her "Emergency" bag, and suddenly a Mickey Mouse flashlight turned on. A child's toy, meant to glow reassuringly in the night, the circumstances around them turned the cute mouse face into a glowing death's head.

  "Okay," Paul finally managed to say, hoping that Rachel and Becky didn't hear the unspoken "Oh, shit," he himself heard clearly in the tones of his voice.

  The door opened, and Paul almost yelped before he realized it was Jorge. The normally smiling and sarcastic expression Jorge usually wore had abandoned him, replaced by a look that Paul felt worried was also echoed on his own face: barely controlled fear.

  Jorge went directly to his sister and niece. "You two okay?" he asked.

  "Never better," said Rachel, glancing meaningfully at her daughter. "A little dark never hurt anyone, right?"

  Becky shifted her light to one hand; with the other she clamped hard on Mr. Huggles. Jorge nodded, then looked at Paul. "You okay? You look like crap."

  "I've got to go to the prison," said Paul in a low voice.

  Jorge immediately hugged Rachel. "You two will be fine here," he said.

  Paul, sensing Jorge's intent, said, "Jorge, I think you should stay with them."

  "Hell no, man! I'm not letting you go down there with me at your back. Who's gonna protect you, amigo?"

  He grinned, and Paul smiled back at him nodded, more grateful than he wanted to let show. Jorge smiled back and added, "Just remember this when you sign for Christmas bonuses this year."

  ORDERS

  Crane wrenched the walkie-talkie out of Darryl's hands. The idiot was talking to Paul, wasting time, wasting life, for God's sake.

  "Hey, Doc -" began Darryl.

  Crane didn't let him finish. "We don't have time for that!" he shouted, then threw the walkie-talkie down and went to the front door. The electromagnetic locks were no longer functional, so he just manually flipped the lock and opened the door. The elements blasted in, immediately outlining his body in a halo-like pattern of swirling snow.

  Behind him, no one had moved. Crane felt panic rising, bit it back, bit it down as hard as he could. Can't lose it, he thought. Not now. Everything was so close, can't lose it.

  Out loud, he said, "If we don't get the lights back on, we're dead. We're all dead." Looking at Sandy and Darryl, who were staring at each other like a pair of dumb teen lovers whose parents had found them feeling each other up in the car, he said, "Come on, come on." And as soon as the two threw on a pair of the "Crane Institute" parkas that hung behind them on the wall, he spoke to Jeff and Leann: "You stay here. If something – anything – comes through the door from my office, shoot it."

  He saw the four guards exchange a glance, saw Leann mouthing "Anything?" but didn't care. Sandy threw her flashlight to Jeff, who caught it, and then she and Darryl – Darryl still holding the other flashlight, thank God – walked rapidly to Crane.

  He turned on his heel and pushed out into the storm.

  He hoped they weren't too late.

  But he feared...and shuddered. What he feared was simply to horrifying to put into words.

  POSITIONS

  Paul and Jorge headed for the door leading from Dr. Bryson's office to the second floor hallway. "Let's get Marty to help us," said Paul. Then he turned back to where Rachel and Becky sat, the ominous Mickey Mouse flashlight still looking more like a skull than anything else. Paul resisted an urge to shiver. Instead, he said, "I'm gonna get Mitchell, the big huge guy who snores, to stay with you two." Rachel nodded and Paul turned his gaze to Becky. "Mr. Huggles is a little afraid of the dark, so you might have to hold him real tight if he gets hysterical on you, okay?"

  The little girl nodded seriously, her hand curling tighter around the bear's midsection.

  Paul smiled, and hoped the little girl couldn't see on his face how scared he felt.

  He and Jorge went across the hall, manually opening the now-unlocked door to the staff sleeping facility. Mitchell, Vincent, Donald, and Marty were all sitting up when Jorge entered, Marty holding a flashlight.

  "Marty," Paul said to the morose guard, "I need you dressed in five seconds. Mitchell," he then said, addressing The Loon's resident grizzly-bear-in-a-guard's-outfit, "would you go and stay with the little girl and her mom?"

  Marty fairly jumped into his clothing, something in Paul's tone clearly communicating to him that this was not a time to linger or joke around.

  "What do you want me to do with them?" asked Mitchell as the big man lumbered off his mattress.

  "Tell them stories or something," answered Paul. "Just keep them calm," he continued, biting back the urge to add "and safe" to the admonition.

  "Okay," said Mitchell.

  "And put some pants on first," said Paul. Mitchell smiled grimly as he put on his pants then moved – always surprising lithe for such a big man – to the door and disappeared into the hall.

  "What's going on?" asked Marty, still dressing himself.

  "Don't know," said Paul. "But we're going down to manually lock the tunnel just in case." He looked at Marty's flashlight. "Where'd you get that?" he asked.

  "Emergency kit in the corner."

  "Any more?" asked Jorge, beating Paul to the question.

  Marty and Donald both shook their heads, looking like a pair of twin depressed bobble-heads on a string.

  "Figures," said Paul.

  "What about us?" said Vincent, gesturing to Donald.

  "Stay here," said Paul. "Stay dressed. Just in case."

  "In case what?" asked Vincent, clearly covering fear with attitude. His usual – perhaps only – defense system.

  "Hell if I know," answered Paul.

  And he turned to go down to a door where God only knew what might be waiting for them.

  PROMISE

  The room is dark. It loves the dark. Eats it. Becomes one with it. Takes it in and grows until it fills up the entirety of the underground room where it has spent its whole second life.

  It has found what it needed in the computers.

  Knowledge is power. Words from its first life, but still true now.

  It moves, rippling toward the stairs, toward the way up to the monster's lair.

  It had promised to kill the monster. And again, from its first life it has a dim recollection: you should always keep your promises.

  The monster must pay.

  OBSCENITY

  Darryl didn't understand what was happening. The lights had gone out. That wasn't supposed to happen; wasn't even supposed to be possible.

  And then Crane showed up, frightened. That was absolutely impossible.

  Yet the lights were out.

  And Crane was most definitely scared.

  The snow was beating on Darryl's muscular frame like a battering ram. He moved over, trying to shield Sandy from the worst of the hurricane-like winds that threw snow at them so hard it stung. But he knew it probably wasn't helping her much: the snow was coming from everywhere at once, so shielding her was impossible. He focused on the generator shack that stood before them, close enough to touch. Only another couple feet and they would be against the walls, and hopefully the concrete would provide Sandy with some modicum of protection.

  At least they were together.

  Normally the thought would have warmed him. He had never gotten up the courage to tell her how much he liked her, but being around her had always felt like coming home. Not tonight, though. Tonight nothing was right. Not even being with her.

  It's all wrong, he thought. All wrong.

  A tap on his back. It was Sandy. He turned momentarily. She was pointing behind them. At first Darryl didn't understand what she was poin
ting out. He didn't see anything. Nothing but snow.

  Nothing.

  Nothing.

  "Shit," she said at the same time he realized what had happened, "how are we going to get back?"

  The Loon was gone. The storm had eaten it whole. And because the power was out there were no lights to guide them back. It was a miracle they had made it to the generator shack alive, Darryl realized. Forget about finding their way back. The weather had gone from dangerous to deadly in the space of their time outside.

  "Maybe Dr. Crane brought a compass!" Darryl hollered over the wind. He was trying to sound light and unworried, but even to his own ears his voice was higher than usual, strain making his vocal cords tense.

  Nearby, Crane was at the door to the generator shack. He was fumbling with his keys, trying to jam one into the door lock on the heavy steel door that barred uninvited visitors. Finally, one of the keys went in, and all three of them entered the shack.

  A hulking gas-powered machine filled the space. Wind and snow blew in through a hole in the roof.

  Wade lay across the machine. Dead. Pierced by machinery and cable junctions in a dozen different places, his body leaking blood that was rapidly freezing, his open eyes half covered under a layer of snow.

  "Oh, no," said Darryl, at the same moment that he heard Sandy whisper the dead man's name in something that sounded like a prayer.

  Before Darryl had more than a moment to take the horrific scene in, Crane went to the body and started yanking at it. Horrific crackling sounds issued from Wade's body, and Darryl thought that it was the sounds of bones breaking before he realized that it was really the sound of the body ripping free from the layer of ice-blood that had secured it to what remained of the generator.

  "Easy, Doc," said Darryl. Normally he wouldn't have said anything to Crane – rebuking the man or even hinting that he was anything other than omnipotent was not a good way to ensure job security – but the violent yanking of Wade's corpse bordered on the obscene. "Take it easy," he tried again.