Watchers of the Night

by Matthew Keith

  * * *

  Dittrich was right on the mark when he said Paul couldn’t miss the training area. After following the hallway no more than a dozen paces, the walls on his left changed from drywall to thick plate glass, giving him an unobstructed view of the training area in its entirety.

  It was enormous, containing rooms within rooms, every wall made of the same plate glass. Paul’s first impression was that this must be what Superman’s house looked like.

  One of the Walkers noticed him from one of the closer rooms and smiled, waving him over.

  “Hi Paul!” she said brightly as he entered the room.

  “Hi, uh… I’m sorry…” he stuttered.

  Smiling, she said in a very mid-western, down-to-earth voice, “Liz. My name is Liz. Don’t worry, it’s your first day and you’ve met a lot of new people all at once, I understand. You want the grand tour? Come on, I’ll grab Kenneth and we’ll show you around.”

  Trailing behind her, Paul followed through doorways and down hallways that, because they were made of glass, were very confusing.

  “How do you not get lost in here?”

  “Oh, you get used to it after a while. Once you’ve been in here enough times you won’t even need to think about where you’re going. Kind of like the way you probably move around your house or in your school back home. And trust me—you’ll be in here a lot. This is where most of us spend the majority of our nights. Aside from field training, this is where we learn everything we need to go out there and bring the Target back.” Liz looked back at him and pointed at the floor. “And if you still find yourself getting lost after being here for a while, well… just look down.”

  Paul saw that there was a thin blue line running down the center of the hallway.

  “If you’re in a hall, black means Training Area 1. Or, in the case of temporary patients, we call it ‘Therapy Suite 1’. Blue means Training Area 2. Each room within the training area also has its own color designation. So we have the green room, the red room, and so on.”

  “So where is everyone?” Paul asked as he continued to follow her, lost despite her explanation. “I would think that I’d be able to see everyone with the way this place is set up.”

  Stopping short, Liz replied, “That’s a good point.”

  Turning in a full circle, looking through the glass walls into the many rooms beyond, she narrowed her eyes.

  “That is a very good point.” Sounding a little worried, she began moving forward again, but less confidently than she had been. “Stay close to me, Paul,” she said quietly, a catch in her voice. “I’m sure it’s nothing, but in case we have to move quickly I want you to stay right on my heels. Do not lose me.”

  The fear in her voice and in the way she moved was very evident. Looking left and right as they crept forward, Paul asked in a whisper, “What’s going on? What is it?”

  “I don’t know. Keep your voice lowered. And listen.”

  Reaching the door to a room with a thin brown line running into it, Liz said quietly, “This is the brown room. Kenneth and Parker were supposed to be in here working on facial recognition.”

  Walking into the room, she turned in a full circle again. She looked at Paul with something close to panic in her eyes.

  “What?” Paul asked, more than a little scared now.

  “Everyone should be here. Not in this room, but here in the training area. Definitely within sight. They were all here a few minutes ago. I came in with them right after we left your room.”

  “Maybe they’re just not where we can see them.” Paul suggested. “Maybe they’re behind some of these desks or cabinets or something and we just can’t see them from where we’re standing.”

  “All of them? That just doesn’t make sense.”

  “What do we do? Where is Dittrich?” asked Paul.

  “I don’t know where he is. He doesn’t usually come into the training area at night. Most of the time he has other responsibilities.” Looking helpless, she said, “Come on. We can’t stay here. If something is wrong, we have to find out what it is.”

  Just then they heard the sound of someone screaming so loud and with so much anger that it was closer to a roar than screaming.

  “Who is that!?” Paul asked. “There’s too much echo, I can’t tell where it’s coming from.”

  “That’s Hodge,” answered Liz, wide-eyed. “Oh my God!”

  Heading out the door in a run, she didn’t look back or check to see if Paul was following, so he had no choice but to go after her. They rounded a bend in the hall and Liz slowed, pointing. “There! Over there!”

  Two rooms down, Paul could see Hodge, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. Hodge’s face was a mask of fury as he repeatedly brought his fist down against something on the floor, screaming incoherently as he did.

  “Come on!” Liz urged again.

  “What are we supposed to do? He looks like he’s gone crazy!”

  “We’ll find that out when we get there!”

  Running at full speed, they made it to the room quickly. Stopping in the doorway, they stared in shock at the scene before them. Hodge was straddled over top of Kenneth, repeatedly pummeling him in the head as hard as he could. The others—Juliet, Parker, and Lisa—all lay unconscious on the floor of the room, not moving.

  Hodge didn’t appear to notice them, still screaming in rage and smashing Kenneth, who was limp and unmoving.

  “Hodge!” Liz screamed. “Oh my God, Hodge! What are you doing! Why? What have you done!”

  Hodge looked up, a look of pure rage in his eyes.

  With no apparent thought for her own safety, Liz ran at Hodge as if to pull him away, but he was ready. As soon as she was close enough to reach, he leapt off of Kenneth’s comatose body and grabbed her by the throat, clothes-lining her with one hand and tossing her small body to the floor like a rag doll.

  Hitting the floor in a roll, Liz looked up just in time to see Hodge’s booted foot connect with her face in a well-aimed kick. She was knocked back against the glass wall, sliding down unconscious.

  Breathing heavily, fists balled at his sides, Hodge turned to face Paul. “What are you looking at, hero? You gonna do something?”

  Stunned, Paul didn’t move. What the hell? Everyone had seemed like they were such a tight-knit group, so friendly with each other. And Lisa—she was one of the ones lying on the floor unconscious. How could Hodge have hurt her like that?

  “Nothing to say, huh?” Hodge began moving toward Paul slowly. “I pegged you for a loser the moment I saw you.”

  Stunned, Paul stammered, “Hodge, whatever this is about, I’m sure…”

  “You’re sure? You’re sure?” Hodge was screaming again. “What the hell do you know, new guy? You know squat! What? You think you’re gonna’ reason with me? You don’t even know me, loser. Cause if you did, you’d know there ain’t no reasoning with me!”

  Watching Hodge come steadily closer, Paul took an involuntary step back… and that was all Hodge needed, that one show of weakness.

  Leaping at Paul, Hodge swung with everything he had, slamming an elbow in a direct hit into Paul’s temple. The force of the blow knocked him back out of the room and against the far side of the wall in the hallway, landing him in a heap on the floor.

  Paul lay there with his head throbbing and his ears ringing, wondering why he had ever made the choice to come to Astralis. Staring down at the black line running down the center of the hall, he groggily pushed himself up off the floor into a crouch.

  Dimly, he heard Hodge chuckling. Calmly, in as friendly a tone as his gritty voice could manage, Hodge said, “Damn, new guy. Didn’t anyone tell you? Keep your eyes open.”

  Shaking his head, Paul stared down at the floor, waiting for another round of punishing blows from Hodge, but they never came.

  Still chuckling, Hodge came over and took hold of Paul’s elbow to help him to his feet. Confused, not wanting to be hit anymore, and completely unnerved, Paul wobbled a little as he stood. He fe
lt his head begin to clear. In fact, once he concentrated on it, he realized his head was already clear. The pain was gone. Totally and completely gone. He shook his head a little from side to side, testing to see if there was any pain. There wasn’t.

  “Feels better already, don’t it?” Hodge asked with a smirk, and walked back into the room with the others.

  Looking through the glass wall, Paul saw the other Walkers sitting in chairs or on desktops, smirking at him. Kenneth made a motion with his head, inviting Paul to come back in. Looking left, then right, for no real reason except to stall, Paul could think of no other place to go, so he hesitantly reentered the room.

  “First rule to get through your dimwit head, new guy—you can’t really be hurt in the dream. Not never.” Hodge really was such a wordsmith.

  Grinning, Parker said, “Induction, my good man. Everybody gets an ass-kicking their first night.”

  “There really is no aspect of Walking more important to remember than this one,” Kenneth said. “Pain is only a feeling here, and it only lasts a couple minutes, if that. Next time you have someone or something come at you, you won’t be afraid. You’re a member now.”

  Sighing, Paul put his hand to his face to hide his embarrassment at having been so obviously duped. “Holy crap,” he grinned, and the rest of the group laughed.