The Wolf in His Arms (The Runes Trilogy) (9 page)

“Lucy—”

“Promise!
I’m not as strong as Rene. I don’t think I can,” her voice broke off in a
choked sob.

“I
promise,” Alec said.

Jared
turned his head sharply, took in a ragged breath.

“She’s
my sister. And I promise. I will do what has to be done.”

“Not you,
Alec,” Lucy said.

“Yes.
Jared will never do it. Jared never loses hope.”

“It’s
time,” Lucy said suddenly. “Shut the door. It’s time.”

Jared
leaped to his feet and placed his hands to the door. As he secured the door, he
watched Lucy’s face twist slightly in pain, her expression obscured by a
penumbra in the diminishing slant of light from the hall. He sat back in the
dim light of the camp stove and lanterns and took Alec’s hands, waiting for the
screams to begin.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*

“Shit,
there’s another car here,” Kevin said as he pulled up behind the only other car
on the empty block.

“Doesn’t
mean anybody’s in the building,” Molly replied, hooking her thumb at The
Fullerton Building.

“True.”

“Maybe
it’s just other explorers, like us,” Tristan offered. They had run into other
explorers before. And stray dogs. That was the worst. He shivered at the
memory.

“So
let’s start at the top and work our way down,” Kevin said as he unfastened his
seatbelt. Climbing from the car, he glanced at the car parked in front of him
again and then looked around the deserted street. He hated surprises. “Let’s
look around for an easy way in.”

Tristan
grabbed the cameras and followed behind Kevin and Molly as they searched the
outside of the building. He snapped a few images on his phone before taking
some establishing shots with his video camera. Being this excited always made
him have to pee—that and the soda he had chugged on the ride. “Hey, I’m gonna
go around back to take a leak,” he said, breaking away from them.

“Yell
if you see a way in,” Kevin said.

Tristan
charged into a dark corner on the side of the building, and looking around for
cops, unzipped and sighed in relief. When he was done, he noticed the boards
missing from the door not far from him. He hustled back to Kevin and Molly, who
were coming around the corner. “Found our way in,” Tristan said. He led them
back to the door.

“Perfect,”
Molly said.

Kevin
eyed the wood and, satisfied it hadn’t just been taken off, entered through the
door. He flipped on his flashlight. The beam cut across the tiled floor of a
back hallway.

“Terrazzo,”
Molly cooed as they entered.

“Check
out the entablature,” Kevin said as he shone his light toward the ceiling.

“Sweet,”
Tristan said.

“I
can’t wait to see the grand lobby,” Molly said.

“Last,”
Kevin said, grabbing her shoulder playfully.

“I
know. I know. We explore top to bottom.”

“Save
the best for last,” Kevin beamed.

“Take
your cameras, guys,” Tristan said, handing them each a camera. “I feel like
we’re gonna catch something tonight.”

Molly
puckered her mouth in a bemused smile. Tristan thought that they would catch a
ghost
every
time—even when he wasn’t
stoned. She flipped her camera on and set it to night vision. She panned the
camera around the room, enjoying the eerie green tint. She flipped the camera
off. “Good to go.”

A
service stairwell jutted off the hallway they entered. Kevin pushed the door to
the stairwell open, and cast his light around, looking for anything in the stairwell
before entering. A burial of dust, chipped plaster, and flaked paint coated the
floor, but the stairwell was otherwise empty. He entered, propping the door
open for Molly and Tristan. Molly shone her light up the stairs, admiring the
worn marble steps. The stairs stretched up into darkness, turn after turn. Her
light slipped between the spindles of the railing, casting shadows that reminded
her of a sideways mini-blind.

Kevin
trudged up the stairs, glad they were marble and not wood. “Watch in case
they’re slick,” he said. Molly smiled back at Tristan, who rolled his eyes at
his friend’s paternal nature.

On the
top floor, they began their exploration, enamored with the abandonment. Room
after room, they found long forgotten desks, with memos and files still inside;
shelves covered in dust, some toppled; intricately carved built-in cabinets;
closets with a coat or shoes left behind. The discoveries thrilled them as they
imagined who left them, whether they ever missed the item. They snapped photos
for their blog and grabbed video of their exploration.

Working
their way down, they had just entered the third floor, when they heard the
first scream. They all froze, the threat of laughter looming between them.

“Did you
hear that?” Tristan asked, though he knew they had. “I bet somebody was
murdered here.”

“That
was a real fucking scream,” Kevin hissed.

The
agonized wail of a woman rose through the building again.

“Shit,
Kevin,” Molly whispered. She clutched his arm.

Tristan
flipped his camera on. “Turn on your cameras.” Molly and Kevin remained frozen.
“Do it, now,” Tristan barked in his enthusiasm. He aimed his camera on their
faces to capture their reactions as the third scream echoed through the halls.
Their faces—terror-stricken—gazed back at him in the eerie green of night
vision.

Molly
fumbled with her camera. “I want to
go
.”

Another
shriek cascaded through the building.

Molly shrieked;
she couldn’t help herself.

“Shhh,”
Kevin said, pulling her closer to him.

Molly
nodded.

Deep
inside the building they heard the cries again, but it changed as it rose to
them, morphing into a roar.

They
all screamed.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Soft
light danced around the hallway as Jared and Alec cuddled on an open sleeping
bag. They tried to make the most of the time they had; however, with Lucy
snarling behind a wall, it felt anything but romantic and conversation was
difficult over the noise. Yet, lying in each other’s arms still felt like an
escape. Jared nuzzled Alec’s cheek, and said, “We should have brought the
paperwork to translate.”

“I
think it’s safer in the apartment.”

“True.”
Jared turned, watching the shadows on the wall. “Do you think we’ll ever
change?”

“Into
werewolves? Or is this a yearbook ‘Don’t ever change’ kind of question?” Alec
giggled to himself.

“Werewolves.”

Alec
didn’t answer immediately. In the lull of the conversation, the werewolf
continued to snarl and scratch at the walls. “I hope not.”

“If we
do...” Jared fell silent. He finished his thought, softly, guiltily. “I hope
we’re not like Lucy.”

Alec
tugged him closer. “I know how you feel.” Alec rolled on his side and kissed a
soft trail along Jared’s neck, over his bearded chin, to his full lips. Alec
pulled back. “Did you hear that?”

“I
can’t hear anything over Lucy.”

Alec
stood and walked to the locked door. He listened for a moment and then turned
the key in the padlock and eased the door open.

The
distinct siren of multiple, tremulous voices carried down to him. “We have
company,” he said, turning to Jared.

“I
heard it that time. What do we do?”

Alec
turned to him, his eyes flashing mischievously in the camp stove light. “They
sound scared. So let’s finish the job.”

*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Kevin,
Molly, and Tristan made their way to the stairwell, planning to descend to the
downstairs hallway to flee. They clutched each other, trembling, but still
half-giddy with the idea of adventure, as they panned their flashlights and
cameras in dizzying circles. They moved as a group of friends through a
carnival haunted house, never knowing if there was anything real to fear. They
swore each shadow moved of its own accord, only to realize that another
flashlight caused the shadows to loom and recede. Sounds of fear and laughter
erupted from their mouths in intervals as they crept toward the third floor.

Then
the howl—low, vicious, long—shot up the stairwell to them with the certainty
and speed of a lightning bolt that reveals the shadow of an intruder behind a
curtain.

A real,
live beast released that howl.

And it
lurked somewhere below them—trapping them. Tristan panicked first, plunging
through the door into the third floor away from the sound reverberating up the
stairwell.

“Tristan,
no!” Kevin called, cringing as his shout echoed up and down the darkness. He
and Molly followed after Tristan.

“Fuck,
man. Fuck.” Tristan repeated over and over, hunched like someone who had sprinted
through the woods. “What was that?”

“We
have to get out of here,” Molly said, sounding foolish to her own ears.

“How?
It’s below us,” Kevin snapped.

Another
muffled roar snaked under the door into the hallway where they stood.

Then,
closer, on the third floor with them, something clanged, the sound of metal
falling on the floor.

They
all spun, pointing their flashlights toward the sound. Only Tristan’s camera
mounted to his head pointed toward the sound. Molly and Kevin’s cameras were
all but forgotten, hanging in their hands, capturing images at skewed angles.

Down
the hall, lit by three, shaking flashlight beams, an office door drifted open,
as if pushed by a ghostly wind.

“Shit.”
Molly clasped her hand to her mouth as she saw a human silhouette move behind
the frosted glass in the open office door.

Tristan
saw the shape then, too, and again, he bolted back into the stairwell. Molly
and Kevin stumbled behind him. Another monstrous roar rattled up the stairwell.
Tristan froze and Kevin and Molly plowed into him on the landing between
floors. They stood in silence, trembling. Kevin pointed his flashlight up
above. The light shook in his hand, painting a tremulous orb of light as it
swooped from object to object. Molly trained her flashlight beam on the door
they had just exited, anticipating it opening. Tristan squeezed his flashlight
handle until his knuckles turned white as he focused the beam down the
stairwell.

Scratching
and banging, like something huge thrashing itself against walls rose up to them
with the force of a geyser—hot, dangerous, yet wondrous. “Run,” Kevin muttered
and stumbled down the few steps to the second floor door. He held the door open
as Molly and Tristan slipped through, and then he pressed it shut, and leaned
his back against it. “We’re almost out,” he exhaled, hoping to sound brave as
his voice cracked.

“The
sound’s coming from the basement,” Tristan whispered.

“What’s
down there?” Molly asked.

“What
if it’s coming up the stairwell?”

“Something’s
on the fucking third floor! We saw it!” Kevin’s chest heaved as he pressed
against the stairwell door.

“Dude,
I can’t go back in that stairwell,” Tristan cried.

“We’re
not going back in there. Let’s find the main staircase and get out of here.”
Kevin pointed his flashlight down the second-floor hall. Certainly, this
building had a main, grand staircase from the lobby to the second floor.
I’ll bust our way out the front door
, Kevin
thought,
and we’ll sprint to the car, and
we’ll never look back. We’ll never explore again.
His camera, the strap
still tight around his sweaty palm, dangled, pointing backward as he walked. It
captured Molly’s stuttering footsteps.

Kevin
took slow, silent steps down the hall, halting every time his or Molly’s or Tristan’s
foot crunched on fallen plaster. Offices branched off the hall all around them.
Some doors closed, others missing, still many ajar at varying angles. The
flashlights cut a path down the wide hallway. Yet darkness swirled in the rooms
branching off the hallway.

Tristan,
close behind Molly, fought the urge to shine his light into a dark office as
they passed it. If something was there, he didn’t want to know.
Please, Kevin,
he pleaded to himself,
please get us out of here.
He heard a
soft sound in the hallway behind him, and he recognized it as the sound a door
made as it clicked closed. The realization hit him, and he froze. “Kev,” he whispered.
“Something’s behind us.”

Molly whipped
around, focusing her light on the hallway behind them. Their footprints glittered
in the dirt and plaster dust. As her flashlight beam hit the stairwell door,
she caught just the faintest hint that the stairwell door had clicked closed.
So faint was the movement that she could easily rationalize to believe that the
door either had or had not moved. “The door just finished closing. It’s up
here,” her voice faded in and out, like a broken airwave.