by Sean Oliver
He stopped in the center of the room and turned in all directions, sizing up the entire library. The computer monitors flashed screen savers along a far wall, all lined up on tables. Racks, books, more of each. Periodicals shelf. Beyond it a closet door open just a crack. He’d known Calhoun for less than a year, but she didn’t strike him as the kind of woman to leave anything in her room less-than-perfectly tended to. He moved toward the closet.
Moore raised the gun with both hands, his arms extended straight out, pointed at the door. He got to it and stopped. He listened.
Nothing.
He reached out and grabbed the side of the door and flung it open. There was nothing in there but shelves and supplies. He lowered the gun
Something pounded Moore in the back, shoving him into the shallow closet.
“Son of a—”
His chest hit the shelves as the closet door slammed behind him, sandwiching him into the shelves. He heard a click, like a latch being thrown. Moore reached back behind himself to turn the handle. He couldn’t. It was locked.
Deanna slid down the wall and sat on the floor inside the door of the boiler room. It was hard to breathe in there and she was only giving Moore about a minute longer. But she couldn’t even wait that minute for cooler air.
She grabbed the knob to the substantial metal door and gently turned it. She pushed the door open just a crack and put her face near it. The cooler air from the basement corridor hit her moist face. She closed her eyes and breathed. When she opened them, she noticed the fluorescent, overhead light just outside the door was flickering.
SEVENTY-SEVEN
JARED BENT DOWN and picked up the handgun that landed in front of the closet door. In the library. He was a touch woozy coming up, probably still lightheaded from the Smoke taking him. He stood for a moment and listened to the grunts coming from the closet. Moore wasn’t a small guy and those shelves hurt—he would know.
Jared turned away from the closet door and headed to the library door, and the boiler room just across the hallway.
George had cleared his two floors and now he was looking for Deanna and Moore. He bounced down the steps, puffing away with each landing he reached, all the way to the basement. Albrecht had to be down there unless he jumped out a window, but George didn’t remember seeing any open.
He opened the door at the bottom of the basement steps. If he saw Albrecht, he didn’t think he’d be able to pursue him. He was far too winded and his chest was aching. This was all too much, but it was the only end in sight. The children were likely on Route 78 by now.
George entered the basement corridor and caught the blinking of a fluorescent light in the ceiling, just as the boiler room door closed below it. George forgot all about his breathing and trotted to the boiler room. He slowed as he neared the door, crouching and listening for something inside. He was liable to get shot for spooking Moore and Deanna if he threw open the door, if it was them inside.
A yell, degenerating into something more guttural, came from a female voice just inside the door. A tide of panic flushed George. He was upon the door before his mind could catch up with him. He threw it open and just inside, at the top of the metal stairs, stood Albrecht, his hands around Deanna’s throat. She was pinned against the wall, swinging punches furiously into her attacker’s head.
George hunched over and thrust himself, head first, into Albrecht’s side. Albrecht was propelled down the stairs, and George’s momentum sent him down a few stairs, as well. Albrecht bounced down to the concrete floor near the furnace. George crawled up and poked his head above the top step to Deanna. She’d slid down the wall and was sitting on the metal landing beside the door.
“Go!” he shouted, motioning to the door.
She waved him off, unable to speak through her coughs. She pointed furiously down to Albrecht.
“Go, Deanna!” George shouted.
She shook her head, still coughing, and pointed down the stairs again.
“The last man…who tried to keep me safe…put me in here…and I got strangled,” she said between gasps and coughs. “So shut up!” She went back to pulling herself together as George went down the stairs to Albrecht. There was no time to sit and wait for the most stubborn creature he’d ever known to change now.
Albrecht was on his knees pushing himself up when George threw a kick at him. It hit him across the chest, but he held on to George’s leg. Albrecht stood, still holding on, causing George to fall backward with a thud.
“I guess you’re not coming to the hacienda, George,” Albrecht said as he advanced on the principal, who was still prone. He reached George’s legs just as he tried to push himself up. Albrecht stomped on his ankle with everything he had in him. George let out a yell and dragged himself backward, toward the cinder block wall. Albrecht followed, breathing heavily. He stood over George, who was blinking though pinpoint spots dancing across his eyes. Albrecht came into focus above him.
“Neither are you,” George said through wheezes. Albrecht began to reach down toward George’s throat when a blur of downward motion swept above Albrecht’s head, followed by a thump and the sprinkling of shattered glass and whiskey onto the concrete around George. Albrecht fell to the floor next to him. George squinted. Deanna was standing above them holding the broken neck of a bottle.
“Where’d you get that?” George asked.
“You have no idea what’s goes on in your own building, do you?” She tossed the bottle neck aside and it bounced off the thickest pipe in the room, which connected to the fiery, green monster down by the floor. The pipe ran straight up into the ceiling. It was as wide as two men.
Deanna watched the remnant of the whiskey bottle hit the floor, then looked down at Albrecht rolling in pain near the sizzling pipe.
“Give me your belt,” Deanna said to George.
“Huh?” said George, still groggy.
Albrecht was moaning, still down but within arm’s reach, holding the back of his head. He was kneeling now, leaned all the way forward, a puddle of crimson gathering on the concrete below his face.
“Hurry,” Deanna said.
George was squinting, trying to understand. “Wha?”
She reached down and undid her father’s belt and pulled it up and through the loops. It snagged a few times and she fought it like a beast of a fish was at the end of her line. It was freed from his pants and she held it above her head. The formidable leather strap touched the floor even at that height.
Albrecht was pulling his feet under himself. Deanna reached down and started pulling up George. Both men staggered to their feet at the same time. Albrecht was standing between Deanna and George.
“Dad, catch,” Deanna said as she tossed him the buckle-end of his belt. He grabbed it and she held the strap-end.
She caught George’s eye and nodded toward the thick, blazing hot vertical pipe.
“Pull!” Deanna said. She and George ran past the pipe, each with a belt end in hand. The center of the strap went across Albrecht’s back and pulled him face-first into the blistering furnace pipe.
Albrecht let out a cry as his body hit the metal. George stood on one side holding the buckle with both hands, leaning back as hard as far he could, like a tug-of-war captain. Deanna was pulling from the other side but losing the fight to meet her father’s strength. Her feet were sliding and she was slipping close to the pipe herself. George was pulling his end hard, unaware of how it was affecting Deanna. The furnace’s heat was stinging her face. Just her proximity to it, now only a foot or so, felt like a slow burn.
“Geooorge!” Albrecht screamed as he reached around the pipe, grabbing at the belt. He tried to push off the pipe but the immediate scald to his hands made him scream louder. He began flailing his arms and swatting at the belt. His right hand was coming dangerously close to George, so he moved farther around the pipe, almost touching Deanna. The residual heat from the pipe almost made George drop the belt.
Deanna was pulling back against her father’s tug
but coming still closer to the pipe. As she neared the hot metal, she threw up her foot, getting the sole of her boot against the back side of the pipe. She stepped her other foot onto it as well and leaned back, like she was climbing it. George was at her left, pulling his end but looking quite strained.
“Don’t…stop,” Deanna said through gritted teeth and a line of spittle stretching from her chin to her chest. Albrecht began to howl in a high pitch—panting and wailing. George could smell the rancid char of Albrecht’s flesh.
Screaming, wailing.
Deanna and George stayed frozen in their straining poses while Albrecht pounded the sides of the pipe with his fists.
Then, resistance on the belt gave way a bit. George even stumbled from its shift.
“Don’t let go,” Deanna barked when she felt it. She was still up on the pipe, both feet up, pulling back on the belt.
George rolled his head back and loosened his pull. He knees and legs were failing on him. Albrecht was slumping down on the pipe, making no sound. As he slid, George saw little black beads of burnt skin dotting a thick streak of blood marking Albrecht’s path down the thick pipe.
“He’s gone,” George said.
SEVENTY-EIGHT
Honduras—April 5, 1961
MARKUS TARKAY STUMBLED through the last few feet of brush back to his camp. Bodies were splayed out before him, most now still, but a few were writhing. The sight weakened his knees; no amount of planning or belief in a tomorrow could have shrouded the ghastly scene. He would finish this now. He would join them again, this day in another time, and they would continue.
There was no mistaking that this was the time to Transition. Evelio said the army was visiting and they’d no doubt happen upon the site. Members would have been jailed, maybe tortured. Some wouldn’t make it. Had they not done this together, they would be fragmented down the road—different birthdates, never meeting up again. It had to be this day for all of them.
Markus stood at the top of the line of bodies. He looked across the vacated corpses and raised a gun to his temple.
On some April 5th, across a few dozen years, they’d each start over. At this very age, they would all find themselves together again—of this he was sure. And as Markus began to apply pressure to the trigger, he realized that when they did this next, they’d need something else to ensure the Circle’s longevity beyond their advancing ages.
Children.
He actually heard the deafening pop, part of it. An indescribable pain hit him at the center of his head. Then he loosened completely, falling. He felt himself disappear, like his entire soul was a smoke emitting from a jungle in Central America.
SEVENTY-NINE
MARIANA THOUGHT SHE was fainting. Her eyes blurred and lost focus entirely. Taillights of the cars in front of her became red orbs. She was aware enough to hit the brakes and slow the school bus. Behind her there were laughs and hollers from the children. They were calling for their teachers.
She looked up into the large rearview mirror as they slowed to a stop. The teachers were slumping and falling into the aisles. Mariana realized what was likely coming, so she threw the bus into Park. She dropped onto the steering wheel as she felt herself evaporating, nearly losing consciousness. But she didn’t. Her head was still down when she began to smell the rubbery interior smell of the school bus, but so intensely. The kids’ voices were so damn loud. All her senses were flooding back in such an amplified state.
Mariana sat up and looked at herself in the mirror. She shook her head and unclipped her seatbelt. Horns from the cars behind her on I-78 were blaring. She didn’t give a shit.
She looked out the driver’s side window. Lorenzo’s bus was stopped a little behind hers, in an adjacent lane.
She stood in the aisle and turned to her passengers.
“Is everyone okay?” she asked.
Lorenzo was helping Doris Calhoun to her feet. She’d fallen into the aisle when he stopped short. A man began pounding on the bus door.
“Get this into the shoulder!” he yelled to the closed door.
“Gimme a minute,” Lorenzo called back. He turned to Doris. “You alright, Ms. Calhoun?”
She nodded and began primping her skirt. She looked up at Lorenzo.
“Did you feel it go?” she asked. He nodded.
“It’s gone.” He turned and dropped back into the driver’s seat and looked out the front window, over to Mariana’s bus. It was stopped in the center lane.
Lorenzo put the bus in Drive. “Hang on,” he said to everyone around him. “We’re turning around.”
EIGHTY
ELIAS ALBRECHT LAY a crumpled, bloodied mass on the concrete floor in front of the massive, chugging furnace. George’s leather belt was on the floor beside him and partly under him. Albrecht’s button-down shirt was untucked in the back, exposing some of his thick midsection and the top area of his backside. The hair on the back of his head was sticking up and mussed. Strange, Deanna thought, he’s just a chunky dead guy now. Nothing special.
She sat on the concrete floor with her back against the side of the metal staircase to the boiler room door. George was propped in that same position beside her. He was still fighting through breaths, staring straight ahead and probably thinking all the same things as Deanna.
They sat in silence. Deanna inched closer to George and laid her head on his shoulder.
“Retire,” she said. He reached up and tussled her hair.
BANG! A thundering shot blasted above them both, atop the landing. George instinctively threw himself over Deanna.
“You okay?” he said.
“I don’t know,” Deanna said. George kept her down.
“Does anything hurt?” he asked.
“I don’t think so.” She checked what she could see on herself. Then she looked up through the landing grate above them and saw Jared fall to his knees, then drop onto all fours. Beside him lay the gun he’d dropped only seconds before. It must’ve discharged on impact.
She pushed George off her and stood, watching Jared the entire time. He was out of it—still down and breathing heavily. She jumped up beside the staircase and grabbed on to the landing. She pulled herself up enough to reach out and grab the gun, then released the landing and dropped back down to the concrete. George looked up and saw Jared.
Deanna ran around the staircase and climbed it halfway, gun extended. Jared was still down atop the landing when she pointed it at his head.
“Wait!” George hollered. She didn’t bother to look over at him.
Jared raised his head and fought to focus his eyes on Deanna. He sat up and faced her, then closed his eyes and dropped his head.
“Go ahead,” Jared whispered, awaiting the shot. “Do it.”
“Just wait,” George said again, this time from just behind her on the bottom step. “Wait and see.”
She would do it now. She would close another chapter right there in that horrid machine room with just the quarter-inch pull of a finger. She could shelve everything she carried about Trisha’s demise. The muzzle was two feet from his head. He would be gone in an instant.
He waited for it, kneeling there with his eyes closed.
Deanna lowered the gun. She really didn’t know whom she’d be shooting. The shot she wanted to pump off was into her own head. There was no supernatural force responsible for shaping who she’d been.
She turned from Jared and walked down the stairs. She handed the gun to George as she passed. Jared would live. She walked to the far side of the boiler room, stood with her arms folded, and cried. She loved Trisha so much. She cursed the moments in life that most illuminated such a love. They were quite dark.
“Dee,” George called from across the room, atop the stairs. She looked up and saw Moore holding the door open for George and Jared. George was waving her over.
“Come with us,” he said.
EIGHTY-ONE
GEORGE WAITED FOR Deanna. He moved Jared out into the hallway with Moore and held the door
open as Deanna climbed the staircase. She stepped past him into the corridor with her head down and leaned on the wall beside the door. Her eyes were pointed decidedly away from Jared.
George looked into the boiler room one last time before closing the door. Albrecht was still down.
The four stood in the hallway, very much in their own worlds. George leaned back on the boiler room door. Jared was still and quiet, sitting with his head down across from George and Deanna. Moore stood, gently kicking some shards of splintered wood back into the library.
“Owe you a closet door, principal,” he said. George shook his head.
“Owe you more,” he said.
A cell phone dinged. George slid his out, looked down at the message, and dropped it back into his pocket.
“It’s Mariana,” he said. “They’re back.”
Deanna stood.
“I’ll call the parents for pickups,” she said. “I’ll say the buses broke down. Fumes made the teachers pass out.” She walked off toward the stairwell.
“Field trip roster with phone numbers is on my desk,” George said. Deanna raised her hand in acknowledgment as she walked. After she went through stairway door, the three men were alone.
“We got a body,” Moore said, gesturing to the boiler room. George nodded.
“I know.”
The doors opened at the far end of the hallway. Willie walked through and headed toward the three men. The school custodian was dragging his feet and looked totally spent.
“I got it,” Jared said, rising from his perch on the floor. “Willie, I need a hand.”
Moore looked to George, who then looked to Jared.
“You got what?” George asked.
