Geno stuttered for a moment before falling silent. He looked aghast, obviously having meant no harm. I knew Hillary wasn’t truly mad at him.
She was mad about him, and for him, but neither could express it well. Everybody could see it but those two.
“Hillary,” I spoke up. “Why don’t you just take the pup inside. Find Linda, she’ll figure something out. The kids will probably mob the poor bab with too much love, so try to be a bit discreet, yeah?”
Hillary looked at me for a moment.
“Poor ‘bab’? You’ve been spending too much time with Jessie,” she shot at me.
“Probably true. You okay with taking care of him? Give him a good once over, I don't know how the little guy stayed alive in the cold. His coat isn't very long.”
Hillary nodded and started back. The poor shivering pup was clasped firmly to her bosom, trying to burrow deeper into her coat. She hustled past, opening the door and disappearing beyond.
“Alright folks, let’s get started. I’m sure she’ll catch up in a moment.”
Geno nodded, then stuck his head beyond the door as if listening. He took a moment, then muttered ‘clear’ and walked into the stairwell.
I watched him with fascination. He was methodical, moving from each section of stairs and checking each section below. Anything he could see in the sweep of his flashlight was carefully studied before he led us farther. I thought it was a bit much, what with the environment itself being inimical to life.
“Hey Geno, think you could speed it up a bit? It’s been fifteen minutes and we’ve only gone five floors.”
Hillary caught up with us at that point and gave me a look. I wasn’t exactly able to decipher it, before she hustled past me on down to the front of the group. Then I heard her speak up.
“Geno, this ain’t no airsof’ tournament—” she said it like ‘tour-na-men’. “Hurry your ass up so we can get down there. We’d like to do that ‘fore we all freeze.”
Geno shrugged, though I could really only see the action from his flashlight bobbing up and down. We had determined that only two people needed their flashlights on at any given time, to save battery.
He had the lead, with Hillary immediately behind him. Larry was the hulking shadow in the middle, followed by Tracy—and I brought up the rear. Geno finally sped up, since the concrete stairs weren’t slippery.
Initially, progress was good. We would test the door on each floor. The majority couldn't be opened due to the cold. The door on sixty three opened, and we swept it. The office doors had failed to the open state, like our own. The offices were well used, but showed no recent activity.
We continued to test doors as we passed each floor. Geno put up a fight, but ultimately we decided as a team that finding supplies near our floor was more important. Survivors were also a possibility, especially considering the puppy. It had come from somewhere.
Some floors had layouts that were less generous. Occasionally, instead of a door on one side of the elevator lobby, a hallway would lead off to the far end of the building.
These hallways led to much smaller offices, though most had the basic amenities, such as bathrooms and even shared break areas. We tried to never take too long on any one floor, just making sure to check for survivors. Any supplies that might be useful were written down by Larry in a little notebook. I failed to notice it initially, but he would note anything of interest as we passed by. He kept us on track.
The first twenty floors went by in thirty minutes, including the time Geno spent lollygagging. Our pace increased a little after a short rest. We continued down the stairs, checking doors.
The 44th floor was wide open, the fire door held open by a wedge. We scoped it out, to see if anybody was still around. All we found was a massive frozen puddle in one hallway leading out from the central lobby.
The door had frozen solid as the water continued to pour into the office and the temperature inside the building fell. Most of the windows on that floor were entirely gone, with a biting wind ripping through the hallway. Many floors that we investigated were like that, simply open to the ravages of the elements.
We investigated a far more floors as we descended, but nothing of much use had been discovered. The doors lower in the tower were often already open or warped out of shape. It took another hour to reach floor thirty. There, we did find signs of recent activity.
The fire door showed marks where the paint had been scratched away by a tool. The scratchings weren’t legible, though it might have been a message at some point. It had only been just over a day. Still, the complete lack of bodies was weighing on my mind.
That, and the constant whistling of wind through broken windows and papers sliding across the carpet and concrete floors.
We stepped into the lobby, and could hear wind howling through the open plan office on the west side. On the east, it was much quieter.
The door on the west side was wedged ajar by a piece of broken furniture. I nudged the door open with my flashlight, having taken the lead a few flights before.
Larry stood across the door frame from me, ready to club anything that charged us. All we met was the pitch black of a closed office. This one had shades drawn across all of the windows, though more than a few billowed with wind.
I swept my light across the open floor plan, not particularly surprised at how closely it mirrored our own office. Movement was constant, as was the sound. Geno wiggled in past Larry and me, keen to explore.
We saw wood furniture broken into pieces near a burn mark on the floor near the center of the office.
“Geno,” I hissed. He ignored me, taking a few steps into the room.
“Geno, get back here. I don’t see anybody.”
“Shut it, Dante. That’s a fresh fire. It had to have been lit no more than an hour ago. Look, you can still see some embers glowing near the center.”
I looked past him, and sure enough, faint coals glowed in the makeshift pit. The walls of cubicles had been built up around the pit almost like an igloo, presumably to contain the heat.
Wind howled through the windows, stirring debris. Soot stained the edges of the walls over the pit and the ceiling above it. A blanket sat forlornly near the fire, abandoned.
Geno took another few steps forward. As was always the case, Hillary elbowed her way past us at the door to join Geno in the office. A massive gust of wind shook the building, causing metal to groan quietly.
I stepped through the door, though I stayed near it for a quick escape. Something felt off about the room. People had been there recently, but were completely absent by the time we arrived. The more I thought about it, the more certain I was the puppy had come from here. It had survived the extreme cold somehow.
Larry joined me, and I heard something in the floor groan again. I kept panning my flashlight around, trying to see if there was any clue to where the people had gone.
Something caught the corner of my eye. I looked over and saw paper flitting around the door to one of the enclosed offices, this one being the northern office. The building rumbled again.
A ping sounded, though it was more felt through my feet than actually heard. I looked over at Geno and Hillary as they advanced on the igloo of cubicles. Larry stood beside me, and Tracy stood beyond the doorway, still in the lobby.
Both Geno and Hillary stopped suddenly, seeming to hop a little. I felt the groan through my feet again, and watched as they lurched.
“Geno, Hillary!”
As I spoke, the floor buckled, sagging under them. They turned and looked at me, frozen in fear. Then a mighty shriek of rending metal sounded, and the floor collapsed, taking them with.
I started forward, but Larry grabbed me by the shoulder. A plume of dust shot up through the newly opened hole. I could see metal piping with frozen water sticking out of the jagged edges of concrete.
Time felt strange, like it was thick enough to cut with a butter knife. I stepped forward, nearing the edge of the hole.
I couldn�
�t believe how quickly the floor had collapsed. One moment they had been standing together, the next they were gone, disappeared into the darkness below. My flashlight couldn’t pierce the darkness.
“Geno? Hillary! Holy shit! Are you okay?”
11
June 14, 2033
Seattle, Washington, USA
30th floor, Illeni Building
-37°F
1003 Hours
“Mother fucker.” Geno’s words floated up through the hole in the floor. Larry and I both sighed with relief.
“Geno’s still alive,” said Larry. I looked around, trying to see if there was any way to pull them back up. Then I realized they had only fallen through the floor to the next story.
“Geno, Hillary, are you guys okay?” I shouted down. I heard some rustling for a moment, and pained breathing. The dust still swirled around the hole, with ice glittering in the cloud.
My flashlight threw shadows across the cloud, whirling shapes of menace and death. Metal particles winked and flashed. I still couldn’t see down to the floor below, and I was careful not to get too close to the collapsed hole.
The floor was weak and I didn’t want to take a fall like the other two had. Geno finally responded.
“Yeah, I’m alive. Took a nasty hit, can’t really move at the moment. Everything fuckin’ hurts. Hillary is here, but I can’t get her to open her eyes or nothin’. She’s breathin’, moanin’ a bit.”
I looked back at Larry, and to Tracy in the lobby beyond. “Hey Larry, maybe... hey, where’s Tracy?”
Larry turned around and looked into the lobby behind him. “Don’t know. Maybe she already headed down? We should catch up. Hillary sounds bad, and Geno sounds really banged up and pissed off.”
“Geno always sounds pissed off.”
“Fair. He sounds like he went three rounds with your mom.”
Larry winced. “I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. She's literally Amazonian. Let's go help them.”
I gave Larry the side eye before nodding. Then I walked back over the broken terrain.
“Keep your eyes open for Tracy. Not like her to take off without saying anything. What could have made her do something like that,” I asked the frozen air. Larry didn’t respond.
We started down the stairs, though I had to force myself to go slowly. My shoes could grip the concrete of the stairs, but even a small bit of ice would send me flying.
I wouldn’t be useful to anybody with a broken neck. So I took the stairs one at a time, pushing myself to move quickly but precisely. Larry followed me, quiet and prepared.
I hauled the fire door open, and noticed the door to the office that held Geno and Hillary was ajar. The doors opened into the office. I pushed against the steel door, but met resistance. Something was blocking it from inside.
I shot a look over to Larry, and he shrugged. He moved me aside and put his shoulder up against the door and gave a little shove. Nothing happened.
He stooped a little to lower his center of gravity, shifted his feet a bit farther out, and leaned into the door with an explosive surge. The door bent inward with a cacophony of clattering and screeching.
Larry shoved again and nearly fell when the door suddenly swung wide. It smashed into the internal stops with a resounding ‘whang’ and didn’t stop.
The hinges gave out and the door careened off the wall, before settling to the carpet with a ‘whoomph’.
Larry caught himself after a small tumble. Office furniture was arrayed around the door, having been used to block it closed. I looked back and saw the empty black of an open office in the other direction.
I had a deeply unsettled feeling, looking at the other office. Nothing was present there, only darkness glaring back at my flashlight. I shrugged it off and looked at Larry.
“You okay?” I asked. He nodded back, and I started looking around for Hillary and Geno.
Once we were past the makeshift blockade, it was easy to spot the pile of rubble. Geno sat reclined on top, bruised and battered, a little blood coming from small scratches.
Hillary was seemingly untouched, though she had a goose egg growing on the right side of her forehead. We hustled over, careful on the broken terrain.
Larry immediately stooped to check Hillary over. I knelt next to Geno and started looking him over as well. He had been insanely lucky, ending up on top of the pile without being crushed or filled with rebar.
He did have a fair number of cuts, but they only oozed a little, and the blood quickly froze. I checked his eyes with the flashlight, and he responded correctly.
“Fuck out of here with that bright fucking torture device!” It wasn’t the expected response, but he didn’t appear to have a concussion.
Just some bumps and bruises, and he would be in a bit of pain for a few days. Larry got Hillary to sit up and start talking, though he looked a little grim.
“Are you okay to get up and walk around?” He nodded, looking past me at the door to the lobby.
“Hey Dante, did you see that?”
I turned around, looking into the darkness. My flashlight beam swept over the door, and the walls near it, before I shined it into the lobby.
The darkness consumed nearly the whole of the lobby, refusing to let the light shine more than about forty feet. I turned back to Geno.
“No, man. What are you talking about?”
“Never mind. Must have fucked up my head in the fall. Just seeing things, I guess. Fucking darkness is maddening.” He winced as he put a hand to the side of his head.
I held a hand out to Geno, and he took it. We worked together to lever him up to a standing position. Geno stepped off of the pile of rubble, walking around to Hillary’s side. She and Larry were talking quietly, and Geno joined them.
I realized at that point that the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up. I examined the room again, but saw nothing important.
All of the windows on this floor were still intact, though wind could be heard moving through the office in the floor above. It whistled through the hole, creating little vortexes in the ice and dust in the air.
The lobby was still dark, though dust still floated through the air, causing shadows to dance and writhe occasionally. Shapes flickered at the far edge of the flashlight beam.
I squinted, trying to make out anything that might be there. Shadows flitted about in the beam of light. Then something else occurred to me.
“Hey, Tracy isn’t down here.”
I glanced at the other three. They all looked at me like I was dumb.
“No, seriously, we thought she immediately came down here to help you two.” I had a mild headache set in. I hadn't noticed it before.
Geno had a glazed look in his eyes. For that matter, so did Hillary and Larry.
“What? No, she uh... wasn’t she in... no, I don’t remember seeing her recently...” Geno said with uncertainty.
“Okay, you must have a concussion after all, Geno,” I said.
“No, I don’t remember seeing her either,” said Larry. I shot him a worried glance.
Someone falling ten feet and having a concussion is one thing, but someone that hadn’t experienced trauma forgetting something was something else entirely.
“Okay, this is very strange. She was with us. Prayed over us when we left?” The others looked at me blankly. “She was right behind us when you two fell through the floor.”
Finally, some light dawned, a little recognition. “Right. She probably went back up to the office. Maybe she didn’t feel up to the trip. No big deal,” said Larry.
“Dude, are you okay? That’s kind of a big deal. She bailed without saying anything. What if she fell or got hurt?”
“Nah, she’s probably fine. Maybe she went back to get help. We should get moving soon though, if these two are up to it.”
I stood by, gobsmacked over the strange behavior. Larry rarely ever said that much. To add to that, the cold was getting to me. The dry air was rasping down my nose and throat,
causing my sinuses to ache. I shook my head.
“Fine, Hillary, are you okay?” She nodded to me, though she was a little pale. “And you, Geno?” He nodded, and I looked at Larry.
“Let’s at least leave a note here, in case they come searching for us. Man, I wish we had radios or something.” I set about looking for supplies for a note.
Just like our office, far above, there was a dedicated open cubicle with a set of printers and their related supplies. I found a pack of paper and ripped it open. The first sheet slid out of the pack with a strange crinkling sound.
A pen sat abandoned on the desk, so I put the paper down and grabbed the pen. It did nothing, except make a strange scritching sound as I tried to write on the paper. I tossed it into the darkness, because the ink was frozen solid.
My hands were aching from the cold, even through my gloves. My nose had gone numb, since we weren’t moving much. I made a mental note to get balaclavas or ski masks.
Then I spied a pencil. I grabbed it and wrote in big block letters. The note said ‘If you're reading this, head up to 70. Going to store. Back soon.’
I wasn’t satisfied with it, but I couldn’t make it easily readable without adding more words. I shrugged and made a few more copies. Then I found tape and tried to pull a piece off of the roll. It shattered into glitter.
The tape was too fragile.
I glanced at the nearby cubicles. Some crazy cat lady had hundreds of magnets around her space. I snagged a handful, and set out toward the lobby with my signs. The doors were all, as were the door frames.
Most of the office doors had opaque glass set into the metal frame, which meant the sign was nearly useless on the door.
I heard lots of paper blowing around in the office above as I walked past the hole. I kept walking into the lobby, then the stairwell, placing signs on either side of each main door.
After posting the signs, I walked back to the group. All three sat, staring into darkness. It was a strange sight. My headache was back in full force. I took a moment and pulled the water bottle out of my jacket. I took a drink, letting the water wash over my parched throat.
Winds of Darkness Page 6
