Rushed (21 page)

Apparently, the residuals weren’t restricted to the illuminated rooms.  His light fell on a man and a woman carrying on a silent conversation in the middle of the hallway, then an older man carefully examining a wall where a bulletin board must have once hung. 

He followed his dream self down the hallway and into another large, empty room, his eyes wide open, his cell phone illuminating dreadfully little of the space before him.  The fear he’d felt in the dream became contagious.  A sick feeling began to spread outward from deep in his belly. 

Yet nothing happened. 

He made his way deeper into this dark room, past a young man busying himself with invisible work, through another door into another hallway and finally down a narrow set of stairs into yet another unlit room where he found a pretty young woman who looked as if she might be flirting with someone, except whoever she was chatting with was not there. 

From here, another darkened corridor led to an illuminated room that he quickly recalled was the same room where the three men were talking. 

But when he returned, only two of the men were standing there.  The one without the hair net had either wandered off or vanished. 

In the dream, he returned to the first production floor he’d found and made his way down the other darkened corridor. 

Sometimes the dream came to him in bursts, giving him ample time to see what awaited him.  Other times, he was forced to relive the events of his dream as they occurred.  It seemed to be particularly stubborn in revealing the secrets of this factory to him. 

It was weird recalling the dream when so much looked so different.  It was distracting. 

He made his way back to the production floor and looked around at the dozen silent workers busying themselves with the empty line, going through the motions they went through ten or twenty years ago, oblivious to the fact that this factory would one day replay their actions for a stranger in torn and bloody clothes. 

His cell phone chimed again. 

I FEEL SOMETHING

Eric glanced around him at the room.  He tried to recall everything he saw in his dream, but too much had changed between then and now.  Thanks to the foggy man, it was almost impossible to know what was real and what wasn’t, much less tell if something had changed. 

I DON’T THINK YOU’RE ALONE

Swearing louder than he’d intended (he kept forgetting that the only sounds in this place were those he made), Eric turned and scanned the room. 

In the dream, he’d continued on to the left.  But he hesitated to go in that direction now.  Was it another golem?  How would he deal with it this time?  He had neither a tractor nor any dynamite.  And he didn’t know how to get to the roof.  No foul-mouthed father was here to help him.  All he had was a cell phone and a little girl in Australia. 

Residual remnants of people who hadn’t been here in years walked silently past him, carrying on their endless business as if he wasn’t there.  Because he
wasn’t
there.  And they weren’t here. 

It was strange being all alone in a room filled with people. 

“What am I supposed to do?” he wondered. 

A young woman walked away from the line for no apparent reason and vanished into the doorway through which he’d entered the production floor.  A middle-aged man simply vanished from his work station and a much younger man appeared a few feet to his left, silently nodding as if spoken to, though no one was talking to him.  Farther away, a grumpy-looking woman with curly blonde hair escaping from under her hair net hurried around the machinery as a heavyset man strolled thoughtlessly along the isle straight toward her.  The two came within a fraction of an inch of colliding and then both of them abruptly vanished, exactly as they did when he touched one of them. 

They didn’t match.  It seemed they weren’t all from the same point in time. 

By the far wall, a man in a hard hat was working on one of the machines, oblivious to the fact that the machine currently appeared to be in operation. 

A thin man without a hairnet entered from the next room and strolled silently toward him, looking as if he was on his way home for the day. 

From the darkened corridor to his left, where Dream Eric had wandered in search of the way out of here, a security guard strolled into the room with his flashlight, apparently going about his rounds in the dark after hours. 

Taking a deep breath, Eric set off toward the darkened half of the factory. 

He passed a very tall man with a very thick mustache, but found no golem. 

At the end of the corridor was a large, empty space.  Another corridor led to another illuminated area far to the right.  Between here and there was only more darkness. 

He stood against the wall for a moment, remembering the dream, letting it reveal the room for him. 

Phantom workers walked past him, some of whom he’d seen before in other areas.  There was the heavyset woman he followed into that first office.  And the large man who had nearly swatted him with his shovel.  He watched them as he recalled wandering around this room in his dream, revealing nothing of interest before setting off down the next corridor. 

Eric continued on as well and soon found himself in what appeared to be the packaging area of the plant.  Here, silent machinery thrummed and immaterial workers prowled the lines, tending to invisible product. 

Only about half of the machinery had returned here, however.  The conveyor belts abruptly began and ended over an empty floor. 

Eric walked up to one of the conveyor belts and watched it run.  It looked so real.  And yet no machine in the world could run so silently.  He reached out and tried to touch it.  The entire line was gone just like the people he’d tried to touch. 

A woman who had been standing beside the machine continued working, unfazed by the disappearance of her workstation. 

He looked around the room.  He recalled peering into the corners, probing the vacant darkness.  Again and again, nothing was here. 

Another corridor went on into the darkness ahead.  He turned and walked toward it. 

He was ready to be gone from this place. 

What was the foggy man up to here?  What was the point of bringing back all these people and machines?  Was he trying to hide something?  There had been more than enough opportunities to spring a golem on him.  If the purpose was simply to ambush him, why bring back so much of the factory? 

A young man in a black tee shirt and dark jeans with no hairnet was walking toward him from the next corridor.  He recognized him.  This was one of the three men standing together in the storage room where he ascended the stairs to the second floor a short while ago, the one who had disappeared by the time he came back around. 

Perhaps he was some kind of supervisor.  There might be offices down here, where hairnets didn’t have to be worn when the factory was up and running.  He didn’t like the wide open spaces of the factory floors, but the idea of searching dozens of smaller rooms was no improvement. 

No longer concerned with avoiding the residual people, he passed within a few inches of the young man and had taken a couple steps before it occurred to him that he felt a breeze as he went by. 

Startled by this realization, he turned to take another look at the young man. 

Before he could face the stranger who walked among the ghosts, something struck him in the side of his head and the world swam away. 

Chapter Twenty-Two

The world spun chaotically around him, swirling through his clouded mind as he struggled against the sleep that dragged him down into the darkness. 

Pain filled his head.  He couldn’t think. 

Eric had a vague sense of being dragged across the floor by his feet.  But that didn’t make any sense.  He was terrified, though he couldn’t seem to remember why. 

A door rattled loudly open.  The noise seemed thunderous. 

Sunlight flooded over him, stabbing at his eyes when he tried to open them. 

He fell.  He landed hard on the ground and pain exploded from his head and shoulder.  The world swam briefly into focus. 

Blacktop before his eyes. 

He tried to move, but he felt so heavy.  He squinted up, trying to see where he was. 

A pair of legs. 

A voice.  Someone said something, but he couldn’t understand the words.  He still couldn’t think.

Then something struck the ground in front of his face. 

Darkness came again, chasing away the sunlight, washing away the pain, leaving only peaceful sleep. 

Chapter Twenty-Three

The pain came back. 

Eric awoke to a harsh buzzing noise that sent jagged shards of pain deep into his brain. 

He opened his eyes, squinting into the blinding sunlight, confused.

What happened? 

Where was he?

What was that awful noise?

Gradually, his eyes focused and he found himself on the ground, looking at his cell phone, which was lying on the asphalt next to his face. 

It was vibrating. 

Grimacing at the pain, he reached out and picked it up.  Immediately, it quit ringing and chimed at him. 

He had a new text message. 

Groaning, he sat up and looked at the screen.

THANK GOD!

As soon as he had read the message, the phone chimed again and the message changed. 

THAT WAS SCARY!

“What happened?” Eric asked. 

Again the phone chimed. 

YOU WERE AMBUSHED

“Who?  The foggy man?”

WHO ELSE?

Who else indeed?  Eric rubbed at the swollen knot on the side of his head.  Slowly it came back to him.  The factory.  The residuals.  The young man in the black tee shirt and jeans. 

A real person hiding among the residuals… 

He felt as if he should’ve known.  But he’d been expecting more than a sucker punch.  He thought he’d find a golem.  He never expected to be attacked by a mere human. 

The phone chimed again. 

I DIDN’T SEE HIM IN TIME

“That’s okay.  Me neither.”  Eric realized that he had begun talking directly to Isabelle.  The phone did nothing but relay her messages to him.  Even from the other side of the world, she could hear him.  If his head wasn’t pounding, he might have found this unbelievably surreal.

YOU OKAY?

“I think so.  I have a pretty hard head.”  He rose shakily to his feet and groaned.  “Good thing, too.  What the hell did he hit me with?”

I DON’T KNOW

Looking around, Eric found that he was outside one of the factory’s loading docks.  The door was rolled up behind him.  He recalled being dragged across the floor.  There was a metallic rattling noise that must have been the door opening.  Bright sunlight.  Falling.  Landing on the hard asphalt. 

The bastard tossed him out the loading dock door. 

When he first looked down on this factory from the hilltop, it was standing amid hayfields with an old, paved road leading away from it.  But he could see no hayfields or roads from here.  A rocky valley stretched out before him.  Tall pine trees stood scattered across the terrain.  Once again, he appeared to have been transported out of Wisconsin and into a distant mountain range. 

He recognized this area.  Eventually, he had found these doors in his dream.  He’d continued onward from here, along the valley.  He was back on the path. 

Why the hell would someone club him from behind and then drop him off right where he’d wanted to be in the first place?  What was the point?

“Any idea where he went?”

I THINK HE WENT ON AHEAD

Eric gazed forward.  An odd-looking lizard was slowly making its way through the weeds where the broken blacktop gave way to hard earth and rock.  It was at least twenty inches long and bright red.  It had a long horn protruding from the top of its head.  He couldn’t recall ever having seen anything like it before.  It likely existed solely in the fissure. 

It didn’t seem concerned with him.  Hopefully it was as harmless as the coyote-deer and the mutant livestock. 

Again, Eric rubbed at the knot on his head.  He recalled seeing someone standing over him while fighting for consciousness.  Was it the foggy man?  Or was it someone else?  He didn’t recall seeing that weird illusion of invisible fog.  But then again, he hadn’t seen much of anything.  “I guess we should keep going.”

BE CAREFUL

He nodded and began walking, circling well around the red lizard. 

Just in case. 

The pain receded a little, but only a little.  His head continued to pound, his shoulder throbbed.  He ached all over.  But he was slowly regaining his focus. 

Making his way through the valley, he checked the cell phone, but still it had no signal.  Only Isabelle could talk to him without a signal. 

He also saw that his battery was starting to run low.  This surprised him a little, since he’d never had to recharge it after only a single day.  But then again, he’d never used the stupid thing this much. 

He hoped it lasted long enough to see him through the rest of this odd journey.  As much as he hated the phone, he’d grown accustomed to having some connection with the world outside the fissure. 

Besides, without the phone, he couldn’t talk with Isabelle. 

He returned it to his pocket and glanced up in time to see a hawk soar overhead.

The pine trees grew denser, the terrain flatter, the ground rockier.  Then, just as quickly, the mountain terrain gave way to hayfields again. 

His cell phone signal came back. 

He’d missed only seven calls this time. 

Among these missed calls, Karen had sent him the picture Paul took of the creature that chased him into the cabin.  It really did look like a little rhinoceros, except that it appeared to have legs more at home on a greyhound, though much shorter, and teeth similar to a boar’s tusks, though much bigger. 

He’d almost forgotten about his brother’s sticky situation. 

The next time he talked to Isabelle, he’d have to remember to ask her where Gold Sunshine Resort was located so that he could send directions to Kevin if he needed them.  But even as he made himself a mental note, his cell phone received a new text message.

I ALREADY TEXTED KEVIN DIRECTIONS

Right.  She could read his mind.  He kept forgetting. 

“When did you do that?”

WHEN YOU WERE TALKING TO PAUL

“Oh.”

FORGOT TO TELL YOU

SORRY

“It’s fine.  So you talked to Kevin, too?”

I JUST SENT HIM DIRECTIONS

“You didn’t tell him who you were?”

I SAID I WAS A FRIEND OF YOURS

“Cool.”  Kevin probably wouldn’t have thought much about such a message.  He would have even dismissed the curious way Isabelle’s messages were always fast-tracked straight to the screen, never bothering with those YOU HAVE A NEW TEXT MESSAGE notices.  He would’ve just thought it was an odd glitch with his phone. 

At least he knew Kevin was on his way.  Now he only had to worry about Paul remaining safe until he could arrive.  He would have to call him soon.  But for now, he might as well wait for Karen to call.  It wouldn’t be long now. 

And it wasn’t.  Within a few short minutes, the phone rang. 

“Aren’t you there yet?” she asked him. 

“Not yet.”

“This is taking forever.”

“I know.  Some idiot keeps leaving weird stuff in the path.  How’d Toni like her cake?”

“Loved it.”

“I had no doubt.  How did you decorate it?”

“Clown.”

“Oh.  I don’t like clowns.”

“I know you don’t.”

“They’re creepy.”

“Mine wasn’t.”

“I’ll bet he wasn’t.  Your clown would be cute and cuddly.”

“
Very
cute and cuddly.”

“That’s your thing.”

“It kind of is.”

“I don’t know what it is.  You see a clown on television, he’s fine.  You see one on a street corner, he’s scary as hell.”

“Toni said good luck, by the way.”

“You told her about all this?”

“Just that you’d been having some disturbing dreams and now you’re out trying to clear your head.”

“That’s a nice, clean summary.”

“The thought of trying to explain the whole thing to her was just way too exhausting.”

“I know what you mean.”

“So now where are you?”

“The usual.  More fields.”

“How’d it go at the factory?”

“Exceptionally weird.  And painful.”

“What happened?”

Eric told her about the residual factory workers and its one not-so-residual resident.

“Are you okay?”

“I’ll live.”

“Why would he hit you and then just dump you back onto the path?”

“I don’t know.  It doesn’t make any sense.  It’s like he just decided he wanted to go out of his way to hit me upside the head.”

“Well, there
are
days when I can relate.”

“Ha-ha.”

“I’m just saying.”

“I can’t figure out why he doesn’t just go to the cathedral, find whatever’s there and leave.  He had a huge head start.  Why does he feel the need to come back and torment me?”

“Maybe he can’t get at whatever’s in the cathedral.”

Eric considered this for a moment.  “That’s not a bad theory,” he decided. 

“Maybe he’s already been there, but he can’t get to it, or else can’t find it, so he’s trying to slow you down.”

“That would make sense.  Except why just knock me out?  Why not kill me?  He definitely had the opportunity.”

“I don’t know.  But I’m definitely glad he didn’t.”

“You and me both.”

“Be careful out there.”

“Definitely.  Hey, have you heard from Paul?”

“He called a while ago and said Kevin and Damien were on their way to pick him up at the resort.”

“Good.”

“He said a friend of yours sent Kevin directions.  Isabelle?”

“Yeah.  She’s pretty awesome like that.”

“She is.”

“I should call and make sure he’s still okay.”

“You should.”

Eric said goodbye and dialed Paul’s number as he scanned the fields around him.  He seemed to be alone for the moment, but the foggy man couldn’t be far. 

Paul answered on the second ring. 

“You okay?”

“No, I’m not okay!  The stupid thing still won’t let me out!”

“Still?”

“It’s just lying there!  Sleeping!”

“Did you try sneaking out while it was asleep?”

“It jumps up and charges the door!  Last time, I think I heard the wood crack.”

“Patient little freak, isn’t it?”

“No shit!” 

“Have you heard from Kevin?”

“He called a few minutes ago.  They should be here any time.  But I don’t know what we’re going to do when he gets here.  I’m guessing the stupid thing isn’t going to let them out of the truck.”

“You’ll figure something out.”

“I guess we’ll have to.”

“Just remember, I told you not to follow me.”

“I know!  Don’t be a shithead.” 

“Oh, I definitely reserve the right to be a shithead.”

“You would.”

“Yes.  I would.  You’re lucky that’s all you ran into.  It could be a lot worse.  The thing in that biggest building would be just as relentless, but it would’ve ripped the roof off that cabin and kept coming.”

“Got it.  Thanks.”

“Any time.”

“I’m going to hang up now and keep waiting for the cavalry.”

“Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

Eric hung up and chuckled.  “Serves you right.”