Nen (16 page)

“The room is fine, Sarah. It’s regarding those explosions. I presume the grenades didn’t work at all? If not, why are we still here?” John Chan asked.

“You’re right, John.” Sarah said with a sigh, “if it had worked we would not need to spend the night here.”

John’s face twisted into a combination of disappointment and sadness. He paused for a moment and said, “I am really worried about our chances of getting out. And I can’t help thinking that Howard and Paul are leading us nowhere.”

“Well,” Sarah said, “Howard and Johnny will be working on the rock boring machine to carve a tunnel through the arched entrance. And Nelson is fixing the radio station right now; hopefully we can use that old radio set to send out a distress signal. These guys have not slept a wink, John. So I think it’s good to cut them some slack and let them do their jobs.”

John Chan felt uneasy at first but he nodded after some time. “Thank you very much Sarah. I’m really sorry for what I said to Howard just now. But I am concerned about my family. If you see him, please let him know. Is there anything I can do to help?”

Sarah winked her eyes at Pete and Pauline and then she said to John in a whisper, “Take good care of your family no matter what happens. Keep them close. Conserve whatever food and water you have. We may be stuck here for a while and I have no idea how much fruits we still have in that garden.” Sarah glanced at her watch and said, “I have to go now. My room is down the hallway, in case you need any help.”

“We have troubled you enough, Sarah. Thanks.” John watched Sarah smiled and walked out of his view of vision. He shut the door behind him and strolled back to his wife and children.

“So what did Sarah tell you? I didn’t catch the last part.” Mrs. Chan asked.

“Well, she told me to keep you guys close and I kind of understood what she meant, you know, her underlying message for us.” John Chan answered, dropping into a chair beside the bed.

“What underlying message?”

John paused and realized that it would be much better if he kept his own thoughts to himself.

“I think she is hinting to me that even if bad things happen, we should stay together as a family.” John muttered.

“Of course we should stay together as a family. That goes without saying.” Mrs. Chan said.

“Yuck!” Pauline interrupted her parent’s conversation, “The mattress is so old and rotten. I am not sleeping here tonight.”

“Oh Pauline, do you think you are still on a tour? We are all trapped in this terrible place. Can you stop being so naive?” Mrs. Chan said to her sternly. In response to that, Pauline kicked the leg of the chair where John was sitting and turned her back on her mother. “I hate this room. I hate this place.” She muttered to herself.

Pete held his mother’s hand and said, “Mum, don’t worry. I think Uncle Howard can get us all out. He saved Pauline’s life. I trust him.”

“Son, the only people you can trust here is your father and me. We don’t really know all these people. Though Howard seems to be someone who can really help us.” Mrs. Chan said, looking at Pete’s glassy eyes.

“With or without Howard’s help, we will be getting out of here. I promise.” John Chan said, staring blankly at the grimy door.

“Let me try again, this should be working now.” Johnny said, yanking a crank that was connected to the rock boring machine. The tunneling machine rumbled. “Yes!” Howard shouted, and the two men gave each other a high five.

Howard picked up his bulky walkie talkie, pressed a button on it and held the hulking communication device close to his left ear. “Folks, we got the boring machine working! We are going to start drilling.”

A crackle of cheers and laughter erupted from the walkie. Howard spoke into the walkie again, “Big thanks to Johnny.” Howard said, gesturing a thumbs up at Johnny, the man who singlehandedly fixed the boring machine and get it working.

“Wong, is everything at your side okay?” There was an awkward silence, followed by an outburst of static.

“Wong, this is Howard. Is everything at your end okay?”

Howard’s walkie finally crackled with a familiar voice, “Yes, Howard. I am fine. The elevator landing is really a mess.” Wong’s voice said, on the walkie talkie, “And Lang’s body stinks like hell.”

“Sorry man, have you checked the elevator?” Howard said into the walkie.

“Yes I have. There is still no power. I have some bad news, there is a huge rock lying on top of the elevator now. I think it must have fallen from above.” Wong replied, his voice crackling on the walkie.

“How big is that rock, Wong?” Howard asked.

“As big as a mini cooper.” Wong said.

“That’s not what I expected at all.” Howard said, feeling disappointed once again.

“Yeah, but it didn’t block out the entire elevator shaft. I can see some openings here and there. If the rescuers arrive, they should be able to squeeze through those gaps.” Wong said.

“Thanks Wong. I’ll contact you again.” Howard passed the heavy walkie talkie from his left hand to his right. The walkie must have weighed at least five kilograms, he thought.

“Howard to Paul. How’s things at your side, Paul?” Howard said, pressing the ‘talk’ button on the walkie.

“We’re fine, Howard.” Paul’s voice came out loud and clear after a few clatters of back ground noises.

“This radio station is really ancient stuff. Nelson says he needs more time to fix it.” Paul said.

“Try your best, guys. I’ll be here with Johnny. Let me know if you need anything.” Howard said.

“Just one thing Howard, I had moved that zombie from the command center to the catwalk above. I can’t stand that thing staring at me when I work.” Paul said.

“Yep, that’s something that we ought to do. Thanks Paul.” Howard replied.

“Okay, talk to you later. Over and Out.” Paul’s voice ended with a buzz of static.

CHAPTER 26

Pauline awoke to a dull slapping sound coming from the hallway. She lay on her bed and looked around. The living quarter she was in was dark and humid. She cupped her hand around her ear to hear better. She could hear her father snoring and her brother Pete grinding his teeth in his sleep. Nothing else. She closed her eyes and tried to fall back into sleep when she heard a soft thud followed by some kind of muffled footfalls in the hallway outside the room. She rolled out of the bed she was sharing with her mother, slipped on her soft canvas shoes and went for the door.

Closing the door behind her, Pauline squinted at the glare of the corridor overheads. There was no one in the well-lighted hallway and the only sound she could hear was the humming of the overhead lamps on the ceiling. She stood still for a moment, scanning the other living quarter rooms along the hallway. The lights in Mr. Park’s room were switched on but it was all quiet. Probably the Koreans had purposely left their lights on while they sleep. Pauline looked to her left toward the main foyer of the barrack. The old cabinets, the chairs and the small coffee table in the main foyer were covered with a coat of dust and strands of cob webs were connecting those century-old furniture to the walls and the ceiling. Other than the unnoticeable breeze that swayed the cob webs back and forth gently, the main foyer down the hallway looked deserted and morbid, like the inside of a crypt untouched by humans for a hundred years. A flapping noise erupted from the other end of the hallway. Pauline jumped and jolted her head to the right. She squinted at the far end of the hallway with her eyes turning into narrow slits. She could see a dark shape moving away from her. It looked like some kind of an animal, about the size of a fully grown German Shepherd.

Pauline walked placidly toward the creature, which appeared as a blot of dark shape moving slowly away from her. She followed the dark shape as it led her through a labyrinth of narrow hallways, foyers and corridors. At one stage, Pauline could feel her heart thudding against her ribs and she was gasping for breath to keep up with that creature. She round a corner and the dark shape was gone. A long hallway stood before her and it was not lighted up at all. Pauline paused and she felt deterred by the patch of darkness ahead of her. To make things worse, she could not see the creature at all. Just when she was about to turn around and walk back to her room, the sound of a slammed door echoed down the dark hallway.

Pauline tucked into her trouser pocket and withdrew a mobile phone. She pressed a key and the small LCD screen on her mobile phone lighted up. Using that as a flashlight, Pauline moved gingerly towards the semi-circular limit of her mobile phone light, one step at a time. Finally, she came to a stop outside a corroded iron door that was ajar and in such a bad shape that it was barely held up by two pieces of rusty hinges. Pauline heard a clatter behind the iron door. She took a deep breath and stepped into the room.

“Hey doggy, don’t be afraid.” Pauline said, her voice quivering. The room was not totally pitch dark as some light had penetrated a small window on a wall directly opposite her. But it was still fairly dark and she could only make up some rough shapes and outlines suggesting loads of tables and chairs in the room. Pauline fumbled for the light switches at the doorway but she could not locate them. With a sigh of displeasure, she held up her mobile phone again and strode further into the room.

The relatively huge room looked like an abandoned classroom with long tables and chairs arranged in multiple rows, all facing a blackboard ahead. On each of the long tables, there were at least two or three bulging objects, each the size of a soccer ball draped by some kind of synthetic cloths.

Pauline beamed her mobile phone light across the room and she could see some weird diagrams and Japanese writings scrawled all over the blackboard. The ‘German shepherd’ she was pursuing seemed to have disappeared in that room. Unless it was hiding behind the stacks of boxes and cabinets to the right of the blackboard, there was no other place in that room to accommodate that mysterious animal.

Pauline stood still and the only sound she could hear now was her own breathing. She leaned forward to a long table before her and stretched her hand toward one of the bulging object on the table that was covered with a cloth. Her mobile phone light went out as she pulled away the cloth. That was normal because her mobile phone had automatically switched off due to an energy saving feature built into most modern age mobile phones. When no keys or buttons were pressed within a preset period of time, the LCD screen of a mobile phone would switch off by itself to conserve battery power. And that was what happened when Pauline was pulling away the cloth that masked the bulging object. Nothing was extraordinary about that. In the dark, she touched and fondled the ball-shaped object with her right hand and she realized that the object was slimy and cold. When she pressed the keypad on her mobile phone again to get the LCD screen illuminated, she withdrew her right hand abruptly and screamed at what she saw.

A human head positioned upright on a metallic plate was staring at her, its eyes at half-mast but were staring straight at her! Pauline shuddered uncontrollably and dropped to her knees. Her mobile phone fell to the ground with a thwack and its LCD light went out. Pauline tried to scream again but no voice came out of her throat. She froze in fear and couldn’t move for a very long time. She might be imagining things but for a moment she thought she saw a dark shape scrambled past her and went out of the doorway. Before she succumbed to dizziness and collapsed onto the cold hard ground, she reminded herself that she was damn sure the animal she saw was not a German Shepherd.

The location of the classroom was way too far from the living quarters for anyone to hear Pauline’s scream. God knows how much time had gone by before Mr. John Chan trotted in and dragged his daughter out of the room.

CHAPTER 27

“She’s alright,” Sarah Tan said, stroking Pauline’s ebony-black hair as she observed the young girl’s chest heaving up and down while lying on the bed with her eyes closed, “Let her rest with this pillow under her legs and she would be fine in a couple of hours.”

Mr. John Chan and his wife were standing by the bed watching. Pete was slumped in a chair, his face destroyed by shock although he tried so hard to suppress it.

“Is she still in shock?” John Chan asked.

“She was, but after I made her come around, she’s now way over that.” Dr. Sarah said, standing up. She looked into the eyes of Pauline’s parents and smiled, “I’ve checked, there are no physical injuries.”

“What do we need to do now, doctor?” Mrs. Chan asked in a frantic voice.

“Uh, keep her warm. And you may want to use a damp towel to wet her lips from time to time.” Sarah said, to which Mrs. Chan nodded her head rapidly.

There’s a knock on the door and Howard stepped into the room. “How’s she?” Howard asked empathetically.

“She’s fine now.” Sarah answered.

“Hello, Pete.” Howard waved at Pete. But Pete was staring at his sister and he did not acknowledge.

John Chan’s eyes connected with her wife’s and he gestured to both Howard and Sarah, “Let’s talk outside.”

They went out of the room and John shut the door behind him.

“Thankfully I found her, Howard.” John Chan said, his voice slightly trembling, “What kind of crazy place is this?”