A Latent Dark (59 page)

“There’s a gallery,” John said. “Or that’s what I thought it was. There are pictures of people, their shadows aren’t right. It’s what I guess you see all the time.”

Skyla nodded, waiting for him to finish.

“Skyla, they aren’t pictures at all.”

“You’re a smart man, Father Thomas,” Lyle said. “But I doubt you are a brave enough man to leave this room to go there.”

John deflated slightly. “I doubt I could find the gallery from here. Everything looks the same.”

“I think you’ll find that the hallway has undergone some interior decorating since you last looked at it,” Lyle said, grinning.

The door burst open again and two figures stumbled inside. The burns on their hands and faces made them nearly unrecognizable, except for the man.

Ostermann was deep red and blistered on one side of his face. His eye was swollen shut, the surrounding flesh melted and blistered. The woman was a walking nightmare. Her nose had been burned back to reveal two small holes. Her eyes were white marbles, peering out from a soft wax mask. She spoke with a lipless mouth and John cringed.

“Is this it?” she asked. “Is this the room?”

“It is,” said Ostermann. He led Stintwell into the room and slammed the door just as another flash lit the hallway. He walked her, stumbling into the bed, and laid her down.

Skyla ran to her side, clutching her hand. “Laura!” she cried. “Laura what—”

The woman turned her face, the texture of a melted candle. “The singularities,” she said. “Like black holes… they emit radiation. They’re… so
hot—”

She rolled to the side and vomited. Fresh solid chunks of meat flew out of her mouth, spraying the bed. Lyle stood and backed away. Pall Ostermann wiped her mouth. She rolled back, dead useless eyes facing Skyla.

“When the space between the particles… when… without it. They collapse. We never thought it could consume… so fast.” She laughed and it sounded like an old woman. Skyla watched her through the goggles, her eyes hidden.

“What… Laura…” Skyla choked on sobs. “I don’t know how to fix you.”

“You can’t honey,” Laura said. “The shielding in this room won’t keep it out forever. I hope you know that.”

“I’ll say it again, Skyla,” Lyle said. “You best give us a ride.”

“But…” Skyla wailed. “I don’t know where to go!”

Laura gripped her hand. “You make the doorway, Skyla. I’ll show you where to go.”

“But, you’re blind.”

“That’s a matter of perspective,” she said, smiling beneath a lump of burned skin.

Skyla walked to the wall switch and hit it. The room went dark for everyone, except her. She scanned the walls, seeing through them, seeing a million possible routes, all of them overlapping and stacked on top of each other like countless sheets of thin paper. Light danced randomly across them, deadly light that killed the shadows. She thought of her finger and imagined that happening to a leg… or worse.

“Where?” she said, overwhelmed. “Where do I go?”

Laura’s shadow stood next to her.
“Go to something you know, Skyla,” she said. She was beautiful. “And go before the machine finds us. I’d rather leave this world with something that resembles me.”

Several walls away she saw a glow, so small it might have been a distant star. It winked out and winked back, bouncing through a hallway. It was her coin. Around it she could just make out the outline of her rucksack, bouncing along the back of a man. Skyla turned to the people in the room. “Be right back.”

She stepped through the space in between and vanished.

“I sure as hell hope she knows where she is going,” said Ostermann.

Laura said nothing. Her breathing was labored, her eyes staring at nothing. Wherever Laura was, she was not in that room anymore.

Chapter 43

James and Sarah were running down the hallway when the lights went out. He had given her his own backpack while Skyla’s ragged rucksack bounced along on his shoulder. He tried to get Sarah to stay and wait, while he checked to see if it was safe, but there was just no talking any sense into the girl. He relented, telling her to at least stay close.

The hallway went from brilliant white to pitch black in an instant, leaving purple afterimages smeared across his vision. He felt her bump lightly into him with a soft
“
Oof
!”
He stumbled blind for a moment until he found a wall. A small hand gripped his as the two of them began feeling along the corridor, the tile cool and smooth to the touch. Dull red emergency lights came on. As the afterimages faded, the walls were no longer white but pink as the alarm screamed down the corridor from behind them. Shadows were everywhere.

“The shadows,” Sarah said from behind him. “They talked about the shadows in the holding pen.”

James swallowed. He understood now why they wanted the walls so bright.

“I think I know how to get everyone out,” he said. “But we should—”

“They can find their way out,” she said. “Childers told me that he saw the way in through a small hole in his hood. They’ll be fine.”

James let out an exasperated sigh. “Then why didn’t we follow Childers?”

“You said you knew where to go.”

Her small hand squeezed his. “Let’s go,” she said. “I know you can get us out.” James’s heart thumped.

Further down the hallway, in the pink light, the shadows began to move, twisting around them; they followed James’s feet like flowers tracking the sun. There was another gunshot further down the hall and Sarah jumped.

They burst through the double doors and into the garage, running past sleeping steam cars and flashing emergency lights. The chaos echoed behind them like the memories of a war.

“It would be easier if we just stole a car,” she said in the dark behind him. “They have lamps you know.”

“Can you drive one?” he asked her.

“Women aren’t allowed to drive. Are you mad?” she said. “Why don’t
you
drive?”

James only grumbled a reply and kept moving. It would take time… he would have to find keys… and what if the engine didn’t start? And why was he even considering this, wasting time? The girl was such a distraction.  The priest was bad enough, but this was infuriating.

They nearly leapt from the tomb gate into the night air of the cemetery, resting on the soft earth, panting and leaning against one another. James looked back at the tunnel, worry on his face.

“You wait here,” he said. “I should go back.”

“Don’t worry about them.”

“Sarah…”

“I told you,” said Sarah. “They’ll find their way out.”

“No,” he said. “I know that. It’s the girl I came to here to find. She’s still in there.”

He stood, flexing his hands, and facing the distant alien echoes that floated down from the hill and out from the open tomb, the secret entrance to Hell. James let out a sigh and took a step back toward the darkened tunnel.

“Wait,” said Sarah, standing up, her eyes terrified. “You aren’t leaving me here. You can’t!”

He turned and faced her with a hardened expression, dark eyes bearing into her. Sarah recoiled slightly.

“No,” he said. “You should stay. This is my fault to begin with. I never should have sent her away. I should have tried to understand—what is it?” He paused; even in the dark he could see her expression change.

Sarah was staring at something over his shoulder, a quizzical look on her face. She then gasped, putting a hand over her mouth and stumbling backwards as something darker than the tunnel appeared in the corner of his eye. James spun around, but Sarah had his gun.

A long, oily shape was spreading from Skyla’s rucksack like ink in the air. It spread against the darkest patches of the wall until it was the size and shape of a girl. Skyla stepped out, wearing the goggles he remembered. She saw James and smiled.

“Hi James. I didn’t expect to run into you, but I’m glad I did.”

The man lost all feeling in his legs and sat on the wet grass, his eyes wide under his bushy brow.

Skyla noticed Sarah, still standing with a hand on her mouth, but even with the goggles the girl seemed to be looking past her, at something just over her shoulder. “Hi Sarah,” she said at last. “A long way from the pub…”

Sarah raised a hand slowly, still too frightened to smile. The girl continued to stare at her though, and Sarah swore she felt a tickling in the back of her skull.
This is why they are all scared of her,
she thought.

When Skyla finally did speak, it was directed at her. It held a grave honesty that shook her to her core.

“You really did love him didn’t you?” Skyla said. “Dale…”

Sarah managed to force a nod of her head as Skyla then turned abruptly to James. “What time is it?” Skyla asked him.

“Early morning,” James said. “Why?”

“I just want to make sure it’s still dark.” She walked over to him and rummaged in her rucksack.
“There
you are.”

She pulled out the coin, flipped it once in her hand, and then tossed it into the tunnel. She looked back at them and said, “Don’t touch it, okay?” They gave her confused nods. She then took off at a running pace, straight toward the tomb’s back stone wall. She vanished inside.

“Was that…” Sarah asked.

“That was Skyla,” he said. “That was the girl.”

He continued to sit dumbstruck on the damp ground, staring at the nothingness beyond the tomb gates. Clearly Skyla was alive and well, and clearly she could take care of herself.

Sarah took a step toward James as his shoulders heaved and shuddered, her heart crying out to him. The poor man, she must have really meant a lot to him. She reached a hand out to touch his shoulder, offer support. He turned and looked up at her and she saw he was
laughing
. He saw her face and laughed even harder, grabbing his stomach and rolling onto his back. Tears trickled down his cheeks and danced over his beard as the huge lumberjack of a man wailed in uncontrollable glee. Sarah frowned.

“What’s so funny?” she demanded.

James sat up and wiped a tear away, struggling to get control of himself. “I just realized,” he said, “that I was right.”

“Right about what?”

“I was right that it was me the whole time.” He sniffed and wiped away another tear. “The shadows… they were me all along.”

A few moments later Skyla arrived from the tomb with a beleaguered Father Thomas. James ran to him and scooped him up, helping the priest out into the graveyard and onto the damp ground. In the dim light, James thought John’s skin looked pinker somehow, irritated.

“I don’t ever want to travel like that again,” the priest said. “That is positively the worst way to travel. Being dragged behind an aerolore over gravel is better than that… or dragged by wild boars.” He kissed the ground.

Skyla turned to James and he could see her face was deadly serious. “James,” she said, catching her breath. “How fast can you run?”

*

Skyla popped back into her mother’s former room. She could tell where Lyle was by the glow of his cigarette in the darkness. That and his long shadow stretching out against the walls. He grinned at her coldly.

“I guess I’m up,” he said, standing.