A Shrouded World (Book 2): Atlantis (15 page)

Mike is tense and I’d swear he’s gripping his rifle so hard that he’s in danger of cracking the wood stock.

“Birds always take off before the shit starts,” is all he says.

Slowly, the outlying buildings give way to the taller ones occupying the downtown area. The concrete, glass, and steel structures rise straight up from the asphalt avenues and concrete sidewalks. Painted lines mark pedestrian pathways, where people, running errands known only to them, once crossed busy streets. Stoplights, different yet similar to the ones I’m used to, hang blankly, swinging silently. Like the loading dock, and like each street we’ve encountered, a moment in time seems to have been captured.

Grime-covered cars sit wherever they happened to be the moment the event was triggered. Some of the streets have small lines of vehicles stopped for their corresponding traffic lights. Cars of all shapes and sizes line concrete curbs where the drivers were fortunate enough to find a parking spot. Small mounds of dirt are piled up around tires, along the gutters, and in the doorways of several buildings.

Also captured within the city streets and along structure walls are more bones and various objects protruding from asphalt and concrete surfaces. It looks like someone took a ball of thick mud, rolled it around on a bed of straw, snapping off the pieces close to the surface, added other miscellaneous debris, and let it dry. Glancing in one car parked just on the outskirts of the downtown proper, I see several inches of a pelvic bone extending from the dashboard. There isn’t any wreckage that would indicate the pelvis was forcefully embedded. Instead, it appears as if the two were melded together.

“Do you think he’s checking the oil?” Trip asks.

“I’m not opening that hood to find out,” Mike comments, staring at yet another of the oddities.

“Yeah, I don’t think I will either, even though I’m extremely curious to see what we’d find.”

“I’m afraid that we’d find that the eyes are still alive and following our movements.”

“Well, that’s what I’m curious about. But, hearing it stated aloud, I don’t think I really want to find out. And thanks for that visual—that makes everything sooo much better.”

“Anytime, man; maybe that’s what I’m here for.”

Further along, a scarf rises out of the pavement, fluttering back and forth in the swirling breeze. Along the wide avenue, other soft objects are embedded in walls, sidewalks, car doors, and the street itself. All waver with each eddying gust as if the avenue demands some way to indicate wind direction and speed.

Halting in the middle of the street, observing all this, my stomach clenches and begins to churn. Close to feeling overwhelmed, I am lightheaded from taking in so much information and too much strangeness. It’s all I can do to hold my ground, let alone take another step in this madness. And, through it all, the smell of decay that I would expect from so many bodies is missing. Sure, there’s a mustiness carried on the breeze, but far from the stench of death. Of course, judging by the actual contact we’ve had with body parts, it doesn’t appear that they are in any state of decay. There’s so little actual information and too much conjecture. So far, it’s as I thought earlier: no answers, only more questions.

A tingling sensation trickles down the back of my neck, making the hairs stand on end. I turn my head, trying to look as though I’m taking in the surroundings much like we’ve been doing. Looking amongst the vehicles, at alley and street corners, and trying to pierce the veil of the many windows, I see nothing, but the sensation lingers.

“We’re being watched,” I casually comment.

“I thought I felt something,” Mike replies.

“Do you see anything?” I ask.

“No, figured you had since you brought it up,” Mike answers.

“I don’t smell or hear anything. I just get the feeling that whatever it is, it’s behind us. It’s not close, but it’s not far away either. And, if that’s true, the wind is blowing in entirely the wrong direction for me to catch their scent or hear them.”

“You get the feeling there’s a bunch of them?”

“I think so. Well, we could press on, or circle around and set up an ambush. At the very least, we could get a glimpse of what we’re dealing with.”

“It feels the same as when I came across the smart ones,” Mike states.

“That doesn’t bode very well, especially within the confines of these city streets. They could be anywhere, and circling around at this very moment,” I say.

Trip leaves our tight gathering and walks toward the large structure we are standing in front of.

“Trip, where are you going, man?” Mike asks.

“Phritos…I want some Phritos,” Trip answers, pointing toward the glass-enclosed building entrance.

“Fuck,” I murmur. “Trip, now is not the time for that,” I state more loudly.

Mike begins chuckling. I’m not sure if it’s because of our horrible situation, one in which laughter is the only real way to take it, because of Trip’s sudden desire for fried corn treats, or because of what I said.

“Jack, look,” he says.

I glance upward, following Mike’s pointing finger. Emblazoned across the front of the building, almost hidden as the letters are nearly the same shade as the building itself, are words denoting the structure’s function:

“Ministry of Defence”

“Defence with a ‘C?’ What the hell? Did we get transported to England?” I ask, the significance of our find readily apparent, especially since Trip also wants to go inside.

Mike smiles again.

“You know, that really wasn’t supposed to be funny,” I comment, staring up at the building’s facade.

“No, I agree. I was just thinking that if this were Europe, it could just as easily be Amsterdam, so I was wondering what a night runner or zombie might look like stoned, or maybe in the throes of withdrawal,” Mike says.

The thought creates an image of a drug-starved night runner racing through darkened streets in search of something to cure an itch it can’t quite comprehend. Somehow, the thought of encountering a night runner like that is even scarier.

“Well, shall we head inside, at least as far as the radiant light will allow? At the very least, it will give us a good vantage point to look for whatever is behind us, and limit the number of ways it, or they, could come at us,” I say.

“I’m not so keen on going too far in,” Mike responds.

“Nor I.”

With Trip leading the way, seeming to tug against an invisible leash, Mike and I climb the set of concrete steps that nearly span the building’s width. A colonnaded portico spans a completely glass-covered entrance, allowing a lot of light to penetrate inside and illuminate the black-and-white tiled foyer. The undisturbed thin layer of dirt on the steps and at the entryway, along with unbroken windows covering the front and doors, gives hope that night runners aren’t inside.

Trip’s desire to go in, along with the building’s apparent function as a regional defense-oriented headquarters, makes me want to explore its interior. Having to penetrate deeper within its darkened hallways does not. I’m reminded of my trip to the CDC in search of what I thought was vital information, and barely escaping the madness that facility housed. Still, if whatever occurred here had any military or intelligence backing, then there should be some sort of information about it within. Staring up at the multi-storied building, I can’t even begin to imagine the square footage that would need to be searched. It could take days and we may still not find what we need. Hopefully, there is some sort of building diagram and department listing at whatever functioned as a reception desk in the foyer.

Still feeling the tingling sensations of being watched, Mike, Trip, and I cross to the front doors, the first people to disturb the grit-covered ground in some time. Mike pulls on one of the many doors leading inside. With a sharp tug, it opens outward.

“After you,” Mike says, sweeping his arm in front of him in a half bow.

“Don’t think for a moment that I’m leading you in with your arm on mine,” I say, stepping over the threshold.

Mike doesn’t say a thing, which is a little odd, given that we have taken to the occasional bantering. But, I let it pass and notice that it’s a little cooler inside. Not that I think the building systems are operational; it’s only an observation. The lighting inside also appears a little darker and more bluish than I would imagine from the amount of sunlight passing through the windows. This leads me to think that perhaps the large glass panels covering the front are tinted in some fashion, or perhaps coated to minimize the passage of UV rays.

I hear the soft click of the door closing. Turning to off-handedly mention the windows to Mike, more by way of conversation than to impart any significant information, I find that he isn’t there. I mean, Mike and Trip, who I assumed were on my heels with the closing of the doors, aren’t anywhere in sight. I look around the expansive foyer. Nothing. There aren’t any tracks leading through the fine layer of dust. There isn’t any place inside where they could be hidden, at least that they could have reached in the short seconds that I’ve been inside.

Looking at the tiled floor, there is only the short trail of my boot prints. Moving to the door, I can see the trail left as we all climbed the steps to the entrance. Beyond that, there are only my prints. I open the door again—the change in temperature is noticeable, but not vastly different. The shadows from the wide, tall pillars stretch at angles across the entrance. Expecting to see the shadowed outlines of Trip and Mike against one of them, perhaps conducting some prank on me, I’m confused by the lack of any sign. For a second, I think that they were taken down upon my entry into the facility by whomever, or whatever, is following, but there is no indication of their bodies, no spattered blood. They just, well—for all intents and purposes, they just vanished into thin air.

I walk back in, expecting and half-hoping that I will walk through some sort of barrier and see Mike and Trip standing within. Nothing. I didn’t notice any sort of field barrier that I walked through initially, and the coolness I felt was normal for transitioning from a warm day to a building’s interior. No tingling of the skin, no hairs rising on end, no mental brush against something. There is literally nothing to indicate that something odd happened: they just vanished as if snatched out of this place.

T
he defense building
was a nice respite from the harsh realities of the outdoors. Although in reality it was a false safety—those front doors weren’t going to stop any of
our
enemies. Jack was especially fearful of night runners having set up shop in this place. I needed another weapon and fast; this hunting rifle wasn’t going to cut it. I had hope that this building would have an armory of some sort, maybe some rocket launchers, a flamethrower, cannon. I didn’t give a shit. I had little hope, though; this was like going to the Internal Revenue Service building with the hopes of find billions in cash lying around.

“They at least have to have, like, a museum of relics in here or something, don’t they?” I said aloud, but not loud enough. Jack was a step or two in front and a recalcitrant Trip a few behind. Gotta admit, I wasn’t a fan of seeing the stoner less than his cheery upbeat self.

“Bye, Mack.” Trip did not look up as he delivered those words; I knew because I had been scanning for threats behind us at the time when he delivered the words. Jack had not heard. I wanted to question him on it, but he seemed in a rush to keep moving. We traveled down a long hallway that led to a door. I caught up to Jack—in case there was trouble, I wanted to be there to lend assistance.

“I got this,” I told him as I grabbed the door handle. Hindsight is one of those qualities that I think is uniquely man’s—I doubt that an antelope ever thinks, “Shit, if I’d only dodged right instead of left, this lion would not be ripping my hindquarters apart.”

The door handle was cool to the touch, much cooler than the surrounding ambient air. If I was really taking stock of the sensation, I could almost sense a minute electrical current. But it happened so fast: I grabbed the handle, turned, pushed the door open, and took a look inside. I saw nothing that I even remotely perceived as a threat. I knew something was wrong once Jack stepped through the door; he’d said something but it sounded like a recorded voice slowed down to a nearly imperceptible speed and distorted. I had the feeling he was being pulled through a tunnel at unimaginable speeds. And just like that, he was gone: no magician’s smoke, no abracadabra, nothing. One frame of my vision he was there; the next, nothing.

“What the fuck?!” I brought my gun up as I jumped back. I was convinced at first that something had snatched him and pulled him to the side. I knew—I fucking knew that wasn’t the case—I’d seen him disappear, just vanish, and my rational mind couldn’t come to grips with how frightening what had just happened was. I had jumped back involuntarily, but then I slowly approached the doorway. I poked my head in: the room was empty, save for the large desk, chairs, and numerous wall art. Fairly sparse as far as decorating goes, but it was a government building after all. When I realized that the room was empty, I stuck my hand in, not realizing at that point just how incredibly stupid that was. I’d already poked my head in, guess I was lucky that hadn’t been sucked into the void. I’m not sure how Trip would have reacted to my headless body slamming around into things.

“Trip,” I said, and like something had snapped in my brain I spun on him.

“You knew, you fucking knew! Where is he!? Where is Jack!?” Trip flinched and pulled back. “Tell me!” I gripped his shoulder hard enough to make him wince and then I shook it just as violently.

His teeth were chattering as he spoke. “I don’t know man, I don’t even know who you’re talking about.”

I let go and stepped away from him. Was it possible? Had Jack not only been ripped from this world, but also from Trip’s memory? Although it really didn’t take any tearing to rend anything from Trip’s mind, things just kind of withered on the vine and fell to the ground where a mind-cleaning Roomba came by and picked them up.

“Where’s Flack?” He said, stepping into the room. I’ve got to admit, on some level I was happy he too didn’t vanish—but on another, if he had, my stress factor may have gone down by a magnitude of ten.

“You don’t know?”

“I think I got stung by a bee.” He had pulled the corner of his shirt over to look at his rapidly bruising shoulder. A wave of guilt passed over me as I looked upon the damage I’d done to him.

“I’m sorry Trip. I lost my mind for a second.”

“Oh... don’t worry about it, I’ve lost mine for considerably longer.”

“Did he make it home? Jack, I mean.” Though I would be happy for Jack, I was wondering where my golden ticket or ruby red slippers were. I’d wear them proudly if they got me out of here; all Dorothy had to deal with was a less-than-water-resistant witch and some flying monkeys. Trip did not answer my question.

Then the next nauseating thought came to my mind: what if whatever had planted all those people into their surroundings had done the same to Jack? What if right now he were embedded in a copier machine, struggling to take a breath as an ink cartridge severed his larynx? My hand reflexively went up to my throat. And what if the anomaly that had done it to him came back around? Was anywhere safe? Were these just random events with no discernible pattern to indicate where and when they would happen next? Like a kid blowing multiple soap bubbles, there was no way to tell when they would pop. Usually “soon” was the only response. I had no desire to get intimate with a toilet or something equally as unsavory.

Where the hell was safe, though? Did lightning or displacement bubbles strike the same place twice? I had a feeling the only safe place was miles away from the city, and I couldn’t go there, not just yet. I owed Jack at least that much. If I couldn’t save him, I, at least, needed to be able to tell those who loved him what had happened—if I ever came across them, which also seemed highly unlikely. Plus, leaving wouldn’t do me any favors: I had a feeling the answers were in this city somewhere. The question now was if I would even know what I was looking at if I found it.

I spent more time looking around the office than I needed to. It had no secrets that it wanted to yield. It was merely an arbitrary place where something extraordinary had happened. It was time to move on. I needed a better weapon, or preferably a whole arsenal, before night closed in and all the fun began.

“I’m ready to go home Ponch, I think my high is wearing off.” Trip looked tired, or maybe haggard was a better word. On some level, he knew what was going on; that he chose to deal with it this way was his call. I sort of envied him for his ability to make the horror of almost any situation into his own fantasy world full of magic and drugs.

“Working on it buddy, I promise. We, or at least, I, need a better rifle, and soon.”

“These government buildings have security rooms.”

I paused, and gave honest consideration to planting a big wet kiss on him. I might have, if there weren’t the remote possibility of Jack just popping in much like he had popped out. I already had him encounter me checking out my junk—what would he think if he caught me kissing a hippie?

“Jack, we’ll find you,” I said to the room before we left.

We went back down to the lobby, where I found the building directory. Building administration and security were on sub-floor one. There was a moment of panic as I gripped the handle to the stairs leading down and discovered it was locked.

“Trip, go around the corner. I’m going to shoot the lock and I don’t want you to get hit with a ricochet.”

He stood sideways to me and placed his hands over his ears.

“Not really what I meant, man.”

“What?” he shouted. “I can’t hear you, I have my hands over my ears for some reason!” He was outright screaming now, like we were at a stoplight and had pulled up next to a construction worker running a jackhammer.

I escorted him ten feet away and gave him a nudge until he was behind the corner of a wall. I put the rifle up to my shoulder, got to the side of the door, nearly placing the muzzle up against the handle, and pulled the trigger. My ears rang out from the explosion as the handle blew apart into metallic missile shards, some digging deep grooves into the wall as they traveled down the length of the corridor. I waited a moment to see if the noise had brought any unwelcome guests before grabbing Trip.

“You done!?” He was still screaming, though his hands were no longer over his ears but rather in his pockets, I guess looking for some paraphernalia.

“Done,” I told him as I pushed the pieces of the lock that were still attached into the stairwell on the other side of the door. They landed with a hollow echo. I placed my head up to the hole, trying to hear anything that might be beyond the door; all I got for my efforts was the high-pitched ring of tinnitus. I’d done more damage to my already crucified eardrums. Much like Trip, who constantly assailed his brain, I for some reason did the same to my hearing.

“You going in there?” he asked.

“Yeah buddy, that was the whole reason I shot the lock off.”

“Who’s buddy?”

“Let’s go.” I pushed the door inwards. I was happy it moved silently, although in retrospect it could have squeaked like a clutch of mice being crushed under a heavy boot heel and I wouldn’t have heard. The stairwell was dark, at least compared to where we had been standing. A musty smell wafted out and around me. It wasn’t overly unpleasant, like the smell of decomposition—more like the smell of disuse. That was a good thing, as it gave me hope that we would not encounter any of our enemies, though it still didn’t make the dark and gloomy passage down any less foreboding. What I wouldn’t have done for Jack’s flashlight. My imagination led me to believe that just out of the visible spectrum of my eyesight, a whistler was waiting to grab me. Before he plunged his weapon into me, he would somehow let me know how he planned to eat me.

Trip going first seemed the best idea, as he wouldn’t care. Fear brings out the inner asshole in all of us. But apparently Trip didn’t like this place any better than I did; he was a step behind me as I descended, one hand on my shoulder. I think he wanted to make sure I didn’t vanish like Jack had. It was comforting for me to have this connection as well; I was fearful he would just stop following, and I could not spare the time to constantly look back and see if he was there as I scanned ahead for any sign of the danger I fully expected to be there. We were now on the mid-floor landing, and if Trip hadn’t been touching me, or more importantly didn’t smell like he’d swam in a vat of Phrito cheese, I would not have been able to tell he was still there.

“Sure wish I had a jar of fireflies,” he said.

“Yeah, me too buddy, or maybe a flashlight.”

“Or that.”

“You ready?”

“Lead on.”

Every sound we made reverberated throughout the stairwell, making it difficult to tell if we were the only ones in there. Trip seemed to be purposefully making more noise in an effort to quell his fear. I understood the logic: sort of like whistling while you’re home alone and you have to go down the darkened hallway to your bedroom and you’re convinced Spangles the clown or some shit is in the bathroom off to your immediate right. You glance in as you go by, and the flash of your reflection in the mirror momentarily looks like a red-wigged demon with a large nose. Your heart skips a collection of beats before you come to realize it was yourself. You laugh it off, even if the stress just skimmed a few weeks off the end of your life. And you know, you absolutely know, that motherfucker is hiding behind the damned shower curtain, so you continue to whistle long after you hop into bed. Not sure in what reality whistling is a monster repellant—must just be the familiarity of the sound.

My own fear had not abated; if anything, it was cresting higher as I took the final step onto the bottom landing. I fumbled until I found the door handle. I had a squirt of panic, fearing that this door would be locked as well. Making a shot in absolute darkness is not something I wanted to try, plus my true fear was that the muzzle flash would illuminate all the hideous creatures that were even now surrounding us, biding their time, waiting to pounce.

It turned, and my heart leapt a bit. Now I just had to hope we were alone. I felt fairly certain there weren’t any night runners or zombies down here, because the upstairs door had been locked; my guess was they didn’t carry keys around with them. That was a weak argument, as they could have been deposited here and were just waiting to extract themselves. That didn’t even bring into account the whistlers, who could manipulate the environment and most certainly did know what keys were. So basically, I was back to square one after my circular thinking: anything could be down here, and quite possibly even some yet-undiscovered beast. Just fucking perfect.

Trip’s hand fell off my shoulder as I pushed the door open.

“Trip?” I asked in a much too high-pitched voice.

“Yeah?” he asked as he flipped on his lighter. He was about an inch and a half from my face, the heat from the flame pushing me back. I now had blind spots the width of a hand in my field of vision.

I let the door shut. “Do you think you could have maybe let me know about that lighter?”

He didn’t miss a beat. “That’s on you, man. I’ve been smoking J’s all day. How do you think I was lighting them? Magic?”

“Fuck me Trip, you’re right, that one is on me.” It was an old school lighter with a flip top, gave out a pretty decent flame. I waited a minute until I found equilibrium with my vision before I opened the door. The smell was musty again, like water had possibly been left running somewhere and mold had begun to take hold. There was something else, too—very faint, but it was there. Lurking in remote corners was death himself. Trip’s flame gave us about a five-foot radius of light, completely fucking awesome compared to the zero we had previously, but about a hundred feet less than I wanted. Call me greedy.

The flame flickered and went out just as I heard the loud crinkling of a cellophane bag and then the heavy crunch of something being eaten.

“What the fuck, Trip?!”

“I’m hungry. Want one?”

I did not speak. I knew this game: He would shove something into my mouth before I could protest. Ended up getting something remotely cheesy shoved halfway up my nose as he missed his mark.