‘She’s got a point, buddy,’ said Pierre, getting his keyring out. ‘It’s my fault we’re all in this mess, and now I’ve gone and got you shot. Besides, you said you didn’t want to go any further. I should have listened to you back at the warehouse. The least I can do is make sure you get home without further injury.’
Wesker went to speak, then shut his mouth. When he opened it again the words came out slow and hopeful.
‘Really? Are you sure?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Pierre, leading him back to the door behind the pharmacy where the sheriff couldn’t see. ‘Get yourself patched up and make sure the hotel doesn’t burn itself to the ground under Ashley’s watch. And if the Council asks any questions, tell them everything is under control.’
‘Yeah, because that sounds believable.’
This time reaching the right destination took no effort at all. As soon as Pierre turned the golden key, the door swung open to reveal a small room overflowing with suitcases and backpacks with colourful stickers plastered all over their sides. Simon the bell-boy turned around halfway through sorting their labels and almost had a heart attack.
‘Pierre, sir?’ he spluttered, catching his breath. ‘Wesker? Viola? What the hell are you doing in a bloody desert? Why is Wesker’s arm bleeding?’
‘He’s been shot. Nothing too bad. Make sure a doctor takes a look at it, won’t you?’
Wesker walked through the door, shivering as the heat of the desert was swapped for Le Petit Monde’s cool air-conditioning. He gave Simon a pat on the back with his good arm.
‘Er… yes, sir. Are you not coming too?’
‘Got some business here to sort out first. Everything okay back at the hotel?’
‘One of the guests has misplaced their trans-dimensional duffel bag and there are some odd monks standing by the front desk.’ Simon shrugged. ‘Nothing we can’t handle.’
‘Good to hear, Simon. Keep up the good work.’
He shut the door.
‘Don’t suppose there’s any chance we could go find us a nice, quiet beach somewhere instead?’ he asked, pocketing the keys again.
‘Oh shut up,’ laughed Viola. ‘Let’s go get your inspector back.’
Chapter Twelve
With Wesker back at Le Petit Monde and Sheriff Ketchum reclining against the steps of the saloon porch, Pierre and Viola wandered through the hollow tunnel of the mine alone. The shaft sloped down at a slight and gradual angle. The only light came from the old oil lantern they’d borrowed from outside the entrance.
Ketchum had recited the route they’d need to take to find the hidden townsfolk, which of course the two of them had almost immediately forgotten.
‘How stable do you think this place is?’ Pierre asked, casting the lantern’s light over the wooden supports and scaffolding. Some of them were wet with damp; other parts had given way entirely. The grey rocks trapped behind looked ready to bolt from their pens at any moment.
‘Stable enough,’ Viola replied. She shrugged. ‘I saw my share of mines back in my where and when. Used a fair bit of coal to power the factory machines, you see. Most were a bit more advanced than this, sure, but not a hell of a lot safer. It’ll hold, so long as we don’t go hacking at the walls or anything. Or set off any dynamite.’
‘I’ll keep that in mind. Why are you doing that?’
Viola was tying a black bandana around her head so that it covered her nose and mouth.
‘Dust mask,’ she said, her voice muffled by the cloth. ‘All sorts of lung diseases down here. Tuberculosis, silica exposure, that sort of thing. Want one?’
‘Yes please.’
They continued down the tunnel in silence. All along its middle ran a set of rails, on which miners would have once pushed carts full of stone or, if they were lucky, gold. Tin, more likely. Every now and then they passed a weathered, cobweb-strewn crate. Their lids were crowbarred open, their guts scooped out, and a pickaxe or a helmet would invariably lie beside them.
‘These tunnels must go on for miles,’ Pierre whispered, after a while. ‘How long do you think they kept digging before they conceded that there wasn’t actually much here to mine?’
‘Much, much too long. Like this tunnel. Idiots should have built an elevator shaft first, would have saved them a lot of trouble.’
She sighed.
‘I guess there’s not a lot to hold onto out here ‘cept hope. That and a pickaxe. Sometimes that hope’s enough to keep a man going even when his heart tells him he shouldn’t. And why not? It’s not like those miners would have had any better prospects, if you’ll pardon the pun. Might as well keep digging.’
‘Even if there’s nothing to dig up but more soil?’
‘You don’t know that until you’ve dug the hole.’
They came to a split in the path. Pierre held out the lantern. One set of rails led off to the left, and another to the right. A rusty railroad switch-lever stuck out from the side of the tracks. Viola gave it a cursory tug. It wouldn’t budge.
‘Which way do you think that thing went with the inspector?’ Pierre asked.
‘Which way do you think all those people from the town went to hide?’ Viola replied.
Both tunnels were dark, and both tunnels were silent.
‘Hopefully not the same way,’ said Pierre. ‘I think Sheriff Ketchum told us to go left at the fork…’
‘Well I don’t hear screaming,’ replied Viola, patting him on the back. ‘In most cases that’s a good sign. Let’s check the tunnel to the right first then. The scaffolding looks like it’s recently had a bit of a hard time.’
Pierre raised the lantern again. A few of the wooden supports to the side were cracked inwards; another had collapsed completely. Some of the rocks had spilled down from the walls and blocked the track.
‘Still sure this is a good idea?’ he asked.
Viola sighed.
‘You can be a coward and take the left path if you want,’ she said, shrugging. ‘Go join the cowering children. I’ll come back and get you once I have the inspector, promise.’
‘Really?’
‘No! Now get a bloody move on!’
They walked down the tunnel to the right, which wasn’t all that much different to the tunnel to the left, or the tunnel they’d just been walking down, or any other tunnel in that damn mine. Still it sloped, degree by degree. Still it resembled the dead bowels of the earth. And still the only light was that of their lantern, which seemed to grow more dim with every minute and metre they descended.
Something scurried past them, squeaking. Pierre shrieked into his bandana. His echo shrieked back - once, twice, three times. Viola took a deep breath.
‘Honestly, do you even want…’
She was cut off by the sound of something much, much bigger crashing through the tunnel below.
Viola pulled out her revolver.
‘Did you bring your rifle?’ she whispered.
‘No?’
‘Why in God’s name not?’
‘Because I’m not any good with it!’
They stepped forward no faster than a crawling pace, Viola with her gun at the ready and Pierre wielding the flickering lantern as if it were some all-powerful Eye of Providence that could dispel more than just the darkness. From further along the tunnel came the sound of clumps of dirt spilling down from the ceiling.
The air grew hotter and hotter. Something tapped a wet rhythm on the shoulder of Pierre’s uniform. He wasn’t sure if it was the leak of an underground stream running overhead or the sweat dripping off his hair.
He looked to Viola, his heart thudding like the knocking at a heavy door. The look on her face told him she felt no better - like a condemned man walking the long corridor towards the electric chair waiting for him at its end, knowing he can drag that walk out for as long as he likes but the sentence at the end stays the same.
The tunnel turned left and then right, right and then left. Once they came across yet another fork in the path, only to find one
way blocked by a cave-in, forcing them down the other. Eventually the tunnel stopped descending and levelled out into a hollow clearing. Not far after that the mine cart tracks came to a stop too.
So this is the point at which the town’s hope broke, Pierre thought to himself. Even if their axes kept swinging for a little while longer…
‘Keep your breaths short and turn off that lantern,’ whispered Viola. ‘There’s gas.’
Pierre sniffed as he hurriedly killed the light, casting them both into sudden darkness. ‘My lungs feel a little tight but I don’t smell anything.’
‘It’s odourless, you idiot,’ replied Viola’s disembodied voice. ‘The miners used to call it blackdamp. Or stythe. Just keep calm, will you? We’ve no way of knowing how bad it is. As yellow bellied as you are, you’re still a piss-poor substitute for a canary. Get your phone out.’
‘What?’
‘Your phone. I know you’ve got one. Everyone does these days.’
Pierre tucked the bottom of his bandana into the collar of his jacket and put the lantern on the ground. Then he pulled out his smartphone and unlocked it. Its screen cast the tunnel in a pale and eerie light. With his free hand he held up a finger to ask for one more minute of searching before they turned back. With a nod, Viola agreed.
They had taken no more than a single step forwards when they heard her voice.
‘Mr. Pierre?’ asked Ms. Rundleford, her words fluttering about as confused as butterflies in a hurricane. ‘Mr. Pierre, is that you?’
‘Ms. Rundleford?’ replied Pierre, coughing. The gas was thicker than he’d thought. ‘Where are you? Thank God you’re alright. We thought you’d… well, we thought you’d been eaten, to be honest.’
He waved his phone around, sweeping the clearing. A great many shadows were banished before Pierre managed to direct its gaze in the inspector’s direction.
She shuffled towards them, her fingers tangled so tight together their combined mass resembled the tumbleweeds rolling about above ground. The blueish light of the phone danced across the thick, round lenses of her spectacles.
‘Thank goodness you found me,’ she said, peering around at the crumbling walls as if seeing them for the first time. Without a lantern or phone of her own, perhaps she was. ‘Where… Where are we? How did I even get here?’
‘That is a long, long story.’ Pierre’s lungs were starting to feel as if somebody had tied a noose around them. ‘Come with us. We’ll get you home, don’t worry.’
Viola sidled over to him. She was trying to look everywhere at once.
‘Pierre. If she’s here, then…’
‘So is the octowürm,’ replied Pierre, nodding and coughing.
‘Let’s make this quick, okay? I’m starting to get a real bad feeling.’
‘The last thing I remember,’ continued Ms. Rundleford, gibbering away to herself, ‘was some sort of grubby, smokey meeting room full of Japanese businessmen. Definitely against hotel regulation. You’ll be losing at least a star on your rating for that, I’m afraid.’
Viola stared around at the relics left behind by the despondent (and in some cases probably dying) miners. A cage hung from a nail hammered into one of the wooden beams; the skeleton of a little bird had fallen through its iron bars and smashed across the floor. The miners had had the sense to watch for gas, at least. Next to it, hanging from another rusty nail, was a coil of rope - twenty or thirty feet in length when unwound. Against a different wall were two derailed carts, their wheels covered in cobwebs, their bellies full of nothing but the last mine’s shipment of worthless rocks.
She felt the hairs on the back of her neck crawl upright.
What had Pierre said, back in the arcade warehouse? What was it he’d said about those… those untangled octowürm things?
They can take the shape of whatever they want…
She aimed her gun at the coil of rope, which seemed plenty worm-shaped enough already. Then she swung around and levelled its barrel at the mine carts, which remained just as inert as ever. Nothing stirred. Nothing transformed into a horrid, intergalactic beast. The only sounds were the echoes of the inspector’s shocked nattering and Pierre’s hushed assurances…
…anything living, that is.
‘Oh, shit.’
Viola spun around to see Pierre standing within a few feet of Ms. Rundleford, his open hand stretched out towards her.
He couldn’t see it, but Viola did. It was impossible to miss, if you were looking.
The inspector’s eyes - they didn’t match her voice. They weren’t afraid.
They were hungry.
‘Pierre, look out!’ she screamed, rushing towards him.
It was too late. Ms. Rundleford began to shift. Slowly at first, her flowery top stretching and blurring like different colours of fresh paint running into one another down a canvas, her figure growing taller, her mouth elongating like a scream. But then the change was as quick as it was violent.
Each of her arms and legs tore itself in two, dividing like fleshy zippers. Her flat shoes sunk into her skin as if fading from reality. The fingers on each of her hands glued together until they became single, meaty points. Her head snapped back with the force of someone falling from the gallows, leaving nothing above her fattening neck but a screaming yawn.
For Viola, time flowed like a glacier. And in that time Pierre didn’t move. He only stared, as if frozen within it.
Before him stood the untangled octowürm. The rumours were true. It was ugly. Nothing remained of what had been Ms. Rundleford except for her white pearl necklace, which now circled a fatter, pink-grey neck… though “neck” may have been a little too generous a word. The creature was either all neck, or all body. Splayed across the dirt like the arms of an octopus were eight long, wriggling limbs, each as thick as Pierre’s chest. They fattened as they came together into a single semi-gelatinous worm, and at the end of this worm, towering a good four or five feet above Pierre’s height, was a round and bulbous head, wielding a round and sharp-toothed smile.
One of its eight legs whipped out and coiled itself around Pierre’s arm.
Viola leapt and grabbed his other one just in time.
There was a rushing, sucking sound, and then all three of them were gone.
Chapter Thirteen
Hotels often don’t have a thirteenth floor. It’s seen as unlucky. Triskaidekaphobia, that’s what it is. Once I would have labelled it irrational superstition. Now, I’m not so sure.
Every building above twelve storeys does have a thirteenth floor, of course. It’s just called something else, usually fourteen. Thank goodness Le Petit Monde never had to concern itself with all that pretend numbering malarky. It had enough madness on its plate as it was.
All those thirteenth floors… perhaps there was a better reason for their omission than dodging a bit of bad luck.
But let’s not dwell on that just yet.
Back to the story.
Chapter Fourteen
Everything went white. Everything appeared to freeze. Not in temperature - though in comparison to the stuffy mine shaft the air was a terrible, bitter shade of cold - but in time. The universe took on a static quality, all of a sudden.
The universe is never static. For the past thirteen or fourteen billion years, the universe has defined itself by being anything but.
Then they arrived, and everything went black.
The first thing Pierre noticed when he came to was the taste of iron in his mouth. He rubbed his tongue around the inside of his gums. No, he wasn’t bleeding. He’d just been lying down with his face pressed against a cold and metal floor.
His head was swirling. Unless it was everything else in the world that was spinning, he wondered. He sat himself up, found a wall for his back to lean against, and waited for his eyes to clear.
‘Ah, so you’re awake then. Good.’
The shape of Viola came into focus. She was leaning against the wall perpendicular to his own, but she was standing. With her arms c
rossed. And a very concerned expression upon her face.
‘We’re in a bit of a predicament.’
Pierre cast his groggy eyes around the predicament in question. Their room was small but tall. The walls were made of tin sheets, much like the roofs of the stalls in the Japanese market. But they weren’t fitted together in a neat and orderly fashion, no. Sheets of different shapes and sizes were bolted on top of one another in whatever way smothered any leftover gaps. They looked more like the makeshift barriers in a zombie apocalypse than they did the walls of any room.
He looked around for a light but couldn’t see one anywhere. Yet still the room was illuminated. Given the state of the walls, Pierre doubted it was because of some alien technology he didn’t understand yet. A more natural, more… primitive solution seemed likely.
He raised his arm and let it drop. It fell to his side like a body sinking down to the bottom of a lake - not heavily, as such, but slowly, with the grace of a conductor’s arm as he guides an orchestra during a slow waltz. Nothing was pushing against it exactly. It had just become, as both he and Viola had become… displaced.
His watch had stopped. It never stopped. He made sure of it. It may have sometimes shown the wrong time for whichever universe Pierre happened to be in, but it was always, always ticking.
That meant he was outside of time. Most likely outside of space, too.
‘Oh God,’ he said, running his hands through his still slickly-parted hair. ‘No, we shouldn’t be here. We should not be here. Have you tried the door?’
‘What, that thing?’ Viola replied, pointing at two pieces of sturdy, misshapen metal which, if it weren’t for their handle, would have been indistinguishable from the rest of the wall. ‘Yeah, I gave it a yank. It’s bolted shut from the other side. Pierre, you’re freaking me out. Where the bloody hell are we?’
‘I think we’re… Hold on. Do you hear that?’
Pierre rose to his feet. Viola edged towards him; they met in the corner furthest from the makeshift door.
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