CRYERS (9 page)

Trot had tried calling out to the
others, but his voice wouldn’t work. The inside of his mouth and throat were
dry as dust. The clanking, banging, rattling noises outside the door had grown
louder. Whatever it was coming down from above was still a few floors away.
What would happen when whoever—whatever—it was burst through the door and found
only him standing there, shaking and afraid?

They would go for the horrible
guns. They would crash through the glass and train the long barrels at Trot’s
face and gut. They would shoot him like the lawman had that howler back at the
fire. The little brain inside his skull would splatter all over the wall behind
him in chunks of gray and pink. Trot couldn’t allow that to happen. As stupid
and useless his brain was, he wanted it to stay inside his head—not turning into
dust balls like the ones in the little room on floor
A
.

Where was the lawman when you
needed him? Where were Cobe and Willem? He considered running past the guns and
trying to find them on his own. There was another bang from behind the door.
Trot picked at his nose frantically—a nervous habit he’d developed when folks
in Burn were especially mad at him. Trot picked his nose a lot. The more
rattles and bangs he heard, the deeper the finger went. When it was shoved all
the way to the first knuckle, he tasted blood. Nose bleed. He pulled the finger
out and a small stream of red followed. It dripped to the floor, sounding like
big drops of rain pelting stone. Trot panicked even more, afraid he would bleed
to death before having his brains blown out.

He grabbed the door handle—as the
lawman had—and twisted it open. Trot went through and almost jumped back from
another noise above. It was much louder with the door fully open again. He
heard the rattle-dragging sound and guessed it was still four or five floors up.
He wiped the remaining blood from his lips and made a jerking run for the
stairs.

It’ll hear my stupid foot on the steps.
His breathing was loud and labored. More blood bubbled from his nostril,
spraying the back of his hand as he pulled it along the rail.
It’ll hear me panting and dragging like a
fat, old dog.
He lurched his way up to Level
XYZ
and fell into the door. Trot’s fingers trembled as he took hold
of the knob. His hand, wet with sweat and blood, slipped on the metal. A crash
sounded overhead—more rattling. It was in the lower stairwell with him,
shuffling and clanking step after step. Trot saw its shadow cast on the wall.
It writhed and twisted in the dim, purple light, dropping closer in a twist of
black limbs and sharp, curled ends.

Not human. Not human. Not human.

Trot pushed at the handle.

Why won’t it open? Why doesn’t it work?

He could smell the thing after him.
It was like the urine-soaked alleys of Burn he’d been forced to sleep in most
of his life—only worse. It started making another sound—a high-pitched crying
noise. It took a few more seconds of futile pushing until Trot realized it was
his own blubbering he could hear. A flash of pure genius struck, and he
pulled
the door towards him, as he had
on the floor below. It opened with a squeal and Trot barged through. He pressed
his back against it, heard the handle click back into place, and sighed heavily.
The lawman would be proud, he thought. Something smashed against the other side
with enough force to rattle the hinges loose. Trot fell forward on his hands
and knees. He scrambled away and another bang caused dust to filter down from
the frame. Trot was crawling past the open elevator doors when he heard someone
calling his name. He ducked his head through the gap and listened. He heard his
name again. It was Willem, from the armory level. Trot wanted to call back—to
shout the boy’s name—but his throat was still gripped dumb with fear. He
squeezed his fat upper body into the dark, open space and prayed one of them
would be looking up.

The stairwell door flew open and
something shrieked. Trot looked back through the elevator doors and saw its
ghastly white limbs and curled gray toenails. Its head turned in his direction—the
gouged-out eyes unseeing, but the flat nose twitched his way. It could smell
him. Trot’s legs kicked and flailed as he pulled himself all the way into the
elevator shaft. The ledge was too narrow. He fell into darkness. His arms spun
in empty air and the fingers of one hand found a rope made of metal. He gripped
it with all his strength and swung his body. Trot’s other hand caught the cable,
but his weight was still causing him to plummet. He gripped harder—the metal
burned into his palms, tearing the skin away. Trot didn’t have enough sense to
let go and drop the last twelve feet. He gripped harder, slid and burned
another two feet, and finally came to a hanging stop.

Trot started back up, and the
howler was waiting. It raked the air as he climbed by—nails barely missing the shaking
bulge of his buttocks. They whistled frenziedly, like twisted blades whipping
in the wind. Trot pulled himself up faster, and the creature screamed its rage.
The sound reverberated up through the elevator shaft as Trot came to the open
doors of the next level. He pushed off the cable using his left foot and barely
managed to catch the ledge with his right forearm and elbow. Most people
would’ve given in to the pain and exhaustion. Not Trot. He barely thought most
things through at all. He pulled his bulk from the shaft and rolled, like a
big, flopping fish out of water, covered in blood and drenched with sweat, onto
level
17, Section W.

They searched every square foot on
the armory level. Just when Cobe had thought he’d seen the most lethal-looking
weapons ancient mankind had to offer, he would turn down another aisle and
discover guns capable of tearing down herds of rollers. There were blades with
fanciful hilts and comfortable handles, double-edged swords twice the length of
the rusty machete Lode had used to hack off his father’s toes.

But they hadn’t found Trot. They
had called his name as Lawson led them through the outer offices and washrooms.
The simple-minded man remained hidden. Willem tugged on the lawman’s sleeve
more than once, insisting the blood they’d seen vanished under the stairwell
door.

Lawson finally agreed. “I had to be
sure. Had to be certain he didn’t go crawl off to some corner to bleed to
death. People and animals will do that, you know. When they’re scared and hurtin’,
they’re more liable to seek a quiet, safe place, away from others.”

“Trot isn’t an animal,” Cobe said.

“Nope, but he thinks like one
sometimes.” They were back at the stairwell door. The blood on the floor had
already started to dry. “Good to check things out here first…Make sure whatever
it was makin’ all that noise hadn’t snuck through. We’re alone.”

Willem didn’t look convinced. “Maybe
that
whatever-
thing already done Trot
in. Maybe it ripped his head off before he had the chance to call for help. Maybe
it’s looking at us right now, ready to jump.”

“You smell piss or shit?”

Both boys shook their heads.

“Then we’re alone.” He indicated
the door handle with the end of his gun and whispered to Cobe. “Open the door. You
won’t have to hold the button down while we’re on the inside. Do it fast and
jump back. Things might get messy if there’s somethin’ on the other side.”

Cobe saw blood on the handle. He
gripped it and prepared.

Lawson raised his eyebrows a few
seconds later. “It’s now or never, son. Ain’t none of us growin’ younger while
you look fer courage.”

Cobe wanted to spit in his face.
Lawson had allowed his parents to be murdered. He had looked disgusted when
Cobe refused to carry a gun. It was the same look hanging off his face now.
Disgusted, disappointed. Cobe turned the handle and kicked the door open. If
the air hinge on top hadn’t worked, the whole thing would’ve crashed into the
wall on the other side of the stairwell. He jumped back, plugged his ears with
his fingers, and waited for the explosive crack of the lawman’s gun.

Lawson pulled his arm down so he
could hear. “All clear.”

They climbed the stairs slowly,
following the trail of red droplets. Lawson got a few steps ahead. Willem poked
Cobe in the back and whispered, “What’s wrong with you? Why you actin’ all
afraid?”

It wasn’t an act, and it was
more
than fear. “Sick of the way that
old fuck looks at me, all accusing-like.” He whispered the words so quietly he
wasn’t sure Willem had heard. When they reached the landing of the next level,
Willem whispered back, “You already kicked him in the nuts.
 
You ain’t no coward in his eyes, if that’s
what you’re thinking.”

Cobe’s little brother was a whole
lot wiser than his years let on.

Lawson put a finger to his lips for
silence—he’d more than likely heard everything that was said—and leaned against
the bent door frame of Level
XYZ
.

“Gawdamn,” Willem uttered when he
saw the dented door lying on the floor inside. “Somethin’ busted through hard,
and it wasn’t Trot.”

Cobe spotted a streak of blood on
the floor that ran into the open elevator shaft. “Looks like he went in here.”
He peered down, expecting to see the man’s busted body over thirty feet below.
There was cracked concrete and bundles of metal rope hiding in the shadows. No
Trot.

“Careful.” The lawman placed a hand
on Cobe’s shoulder and pulled him back gently. How could the man make him feel
so rotten one minute, then actually appear to care the next? Lawson leaned into
the shaft, saw something Cobe hadn’t, and looked up. “He grabbed onto the
cables, dropped some, and climbed back.”

“How far?” Cobe asked.

“Hard to tell. Some ways, I reckon.
His blood keeps on goin’, up into the dark.” Lawson shook his head. “Must be
hurtin’ like hell.”

Willem whimpered. “Whatta we do?
We’re not leaving without him, are we?”

Lawson wanted to, Cobe could tell.
He looked down at Willem and rolled his dead, gray eyes. “We’ll check the next
two levels on the way back up. After that, we’re outta here…Trot or no Trot.”

Willem was about to protest some
more but his words were cut off by a piercing scream. All three turned and saw
the howler rounding a corner less than twenty feet away. The gun fired before
it closed half the distance between them. Cobe saw the creature’s leg blast in
two pieces at the knee. It dropped to its hands and moved even faster. The last
few seconds dragged—before Cobe’s eyes—in slow motion as it collided into the
lawman.

The howler’s nails tore into
Lawson’s shoulders. The gun fell from his fingers and clattered against the floor.
They collapsed to the tiles in a twisted mess of snarling teeth, pounding
fists, and slashing gray nails.

So much blood in such a short
amount of time, Cobe thought dumbly. The floor was already pooled in it, the
elevator doors and walls spattered and dripping with dark red. A limb kicked
out violently—Cobe wasn’t sure if it belonged to howler or human—and caught
Willem in the thigh. He watched his brother fall back into the shaft and
disappear. Cobe’s mind struggled through the fog it was lost in—the howler’s
screams brought him back to full awareness.

It was too late for the lawman;
Cobe couldn’t have helped him if he tried. The howler had surely torn Trot to
shreds as well. That left only Cobe and Willem—as it had been when they first
set away from Burn, while their Pa was still swinging from the tree.

Cobe leapt into the shaft after his
brother, and darkness claimed him.

Trot didn’t give any thought to
exploring the corridors of locked doors on Level
W
. He needed to get out of this place. Badly. And the only way out
was up. He climbed level after level, up past the
T
,
S
, and
R
floors. Trot couldn’t read—he didn’t
even know what letters were—but so long as he kept climbing, he knew he had a
chance. His hands didn’t hurt so much anymore; the fingers had curled in and
gone numb. Only a throbbing pulse in the tips let him know they were there at
all. He could no longer use them to drag himself along the rail; his stupid
licking legs were all he had left to rely on, but they were getting the job
done. Slowly but surely, Trot was working his way out of Big Hole.

When he came to Level
E
, he discovered the door opened wide. A
green light was pulsing down the long corridor.
Why is this door open?
Where is
the pretty light coming from?
It comforted him, that steady, green strobe.
It beckoned him. Maybe he would find someone here, someone without long, curled
toenails and gouged-out eyes. Maybe they would bandage his ravaged hands and
give him water to drink.

Perhaps the light was a signal from the lawman. He might be farther down
that long, green-pulsing corridor with Willem and Cobe, waiting for Trot to
find
them
. Trot didn’t want to
disappoint the lawman. He was probably in big enough trouble as it was, for
leaving the lower levels. Trot wanted to show the three he could be smart, too.
He took three lurching steps, and the woman from the other corridors and locked
doors spoke:

“Installation compromised…Eichberg, Lothair cylinder
reactivated…awaiting further thaw and evac procedure orders.”

“Hello?” Trot called out feebly. Where was she? How did she manage
to be in so many places and still sound so calm and rested? Her voice was
soft-spoken and comforting. If she wasn’t afraid, maybe she could help him. “Hello?
My name’s Trot…I hurt my hands and my nose won’t stop bleeding.” He waited for
her to answer. Thirty seconds later her voice sounded again.

“Installation compromised…Eichberg, Lothair cylinder
reactivated…awaiting further thaw and evac procedure orders.”

He looked up and down the flashing
corridor. “My hands…” Trot stopped. He hadn’t understood a single word the
woman said....why would she comprehend anything he was trying to say?

He walked on and found the light’s
source under a metal grill set into the ceiling between inactive fluorescent
bulbs. Trot reached up and tried to touch the moving green with his knuckle but
couldn’t.

So pretty.

There was another flashing light
further along. Trot went to it and came to an intersection. More green lights
pulsed down either way of the next corridor. Trot scratched the side of his
nose, dimly aware he couldn’t afford to dig inside again.
Which way?
If the lawman was leaving him a trail, why was he making
it so difficult to follow? Why was he making Trot think so hard? The corridor to
the left seemed to go on forever; the one to the right was short—ending sixty
feet away with another door. Trot’s legs were weak and sore. He chose the
shorter path.

Trot’s sense of safety and
wonderment vanished as he made his way. The light pulsed like a beating heart,
casting the lone metal door farther down in shadows of moving black and
glistening green. The whole place left him feeling uneasy and scared—the door
at the end of the hallway felt
wrong
.

The woman repeated the words. Trot reached the corridor’s end and
saw a gold square set into the door with a series of black letters printed on
it. Trot studied them without having a clue what they read:

EICHBERG, LOTHAIR E

FOUNDER OF ABZE
CORPORATION

ORIGINALLY LAID TO REST IN 1976

Under the plaque was one of those
familiar keypads lined with buttons Trot had watched the others fiddling with.
Cobe had tried pressing them to make the door open, and failed. Trot wouldn’t
have bothered at all if it wasn’t for the one button that read ENTER glowing in
red. This was the signal the lawman had left him. Trot
had
chosen the correct path. He pressed it with his knuckle and
heard the familiar click and hiss. The door popped out towards him an inch.

Trot giggled. He had figured it out. The people back in Burn
wouldn’t think he was so brain dumb now if they could see him. He waited
excitedly for the door to open farther, overjoyed to be reunited with his
friends on the other side.

***

It felt like an explosion at the
front of his brain.

Light.

It had been so long, Lothair forgot
what it was at first. He had forgotten how to see, forgotten he even had eyes.
It flashed before him again. So bright. Too intense.

How? Where?

The third flash wasn’t as blinding.
Lothair remembered color, tried to place it. A fourth pulse.

Green.

It was steady, filling the small
window of his cylinder every two seconds. He moved a finger to the glass,
lifting the hand that had been resting on his throat and keeping his chin
company for the last hundred and twenty years. He tapped at it.

They’re still out there…Humanity survived.

The light continued to flash,
seeming to bathe Lothair’s fingers and face in warmth, even though he knew that
wasn’t possible. He hungered for the light. When it winked out his nails would
scratch at the glass, demanding its return. He counted the seconds between
flashes. A shadow of gray disrupted the rhythm and Lothair moaned, afraid the
beautiful green was gone forever. And then he saw the gray form take shape—less
than a foot away—a face, round and glistening. The eyes were open wide and unblinking,
the nostrils flaring and speckled with something dark.

Blood.

There was blood on the face’s nose.
It was smeared on the lips and fat chins. Lothair tapped at the glass harder.
The clock running in his head came to a stop. Lothair forgot the years and the
months and the seconds.

His mouth watered.

***

Trot saw the fingers tapping on the
other side of the glass. He leaned over the cylinder, his knuckles resting
against its curved, silver surface. It was unusually warm. For some reason, he
thought it would feel cold. The clicking continued—dull and far away-sounding,
through the thickness of a small window. Insistently, but without panic. The
light from the corridor behind Trot continued to pulse, throwing strips of
green over the cylinder in steady, silent waves. The withered fingers fell away,
and when the light returned he saw pink eyes staring up at him. Trot stepped
back; the tapping returned—faster, harder.

It can’t hurt me trapped in there.

He leaned in again, slowly. The
pink eyes blinked and Trot saw the tiniest hint of black at their centers. The
light flashed again and he saw brown teeth. The thin lips were moving, mouthing
a single word over and over. It was talking to him.

“I can’t hear you,” Trot croaked.

The face below kept repeating the
word. The finger reappeared. It was pointing down.

“What…what are you saying?” Trot
started to panic again, thought the thing—an old man?—was going to die right
before his eyes. If only he could understand.

Odin…Old friend…Oh Ben…

Trot wanted to bury his fingers
into both nostrils.

Open.

“Open!” Trot wailed. He saw the
three buttons beneath the window. White, red, green. The lawman had said
something about them—what they did. Trot was too stupid to remember the story,
so he pressed them one after the other.

The cylinder popped open and bumped
into his knees. There was a long, loud hiss that faded to a whisper, then
stopped altogether. A stench hit Trot unlike any foul odor he’d ever smelled
before, and Trot had smelled plenty. He covered his nose and mouth with a
curled hand and held his breath.

Whatever it was inside the cylinder
pushed up. Trot stepped back and watched it open in two pieces.

The old man with pink eyes, and
skin as white as clouds, sat up and inhaled deeply. He stretched his wiry arms
out and grasped the air with fingers, long and wrinkled. He had less hair than
Trot—only a ring of light-gray, trimly cut above and behind his ears. The pink
eyes found Trot’s once again and settled there. He could feel the points of
black drilling into his brain. Trot tried working his mouth—tried to say
something half intelligible.

“Go slow,” the old man said. His
voice was like rocks scraping. “I have all the time in the world.”

Trot took a couple of breaths and
tried again.

“I’m…I’m Trot. My hands hurt…and I’m
lost.”

“Hello, Trot. I’m Lothair…and I’m
starving.”