“Are you okay, Kelley?” I asked.
“Let’s take this to the third floor. There’s heat up there,” Tish said, before Kelley had a chance to respond or ignore as usual.
I stood on wobbly legs. I was hurting all over so badly that I barely made it up the single flight of stairs to the third floor. Warmth. There was heat… and electricity. I heard Tish close another metal door behind me. The clang of it locking was one of the greatest sounds I’d heard in a long time.
The first thing I noticed on the third floor was that all the windows were covered with a dark covering, giving the appearance of complete darkness to anyone trying to look in from the outside. Did I mention that there were heat and electricity? I was confused by that, but I sure as hell was happy about it.
Avery came out of one of the conference rooms. If memory serves me correctly, it was the same one Miley demoted me in. He didn’t even bother taking me into his office. Ah, nice memories to go with my current state of terror and astonishment.
Avery looked me up and down, no expression on his face, not even a blink of an eye, before saying, “Miley wants to see you after you get cleaned up. He will not talk to any of us about what is going on. Only you. And, I might add, you look terrible.”
“Good to see you, too, bud…But why won’t he talk…?” I just realized I saw everyone but Sam. “Where the hell is Sam?” I asked, afraid I’d get an answer I didn’t want to hear.
“He’s in the conference room, resting,” Tish said.
I exhaled. “I was afraid for a second.”
“He’s fine. Right now, you just need to clean up, and then find out what Miley knows,” Tish said.
“He hasn’t said a word to you guys?”
A flash of anger flitted across her face. “He’s acting weird. He knows something.”
“Okay,” I said, leaving it at that.
I walked over and peaked into the door in the conference room. Sam seemed to be napping. People sometimes tell you things they think you need to hear. I just wanted to make sure what Tish said wasn’t an example of that.
I unslung my backpack and took my parka off and placed it on the restroom floor, along with my bloody boots and gloves. It only took a short glance in the mirror to see what a mess I was. I couldn’t tell if my tri-colored face consisting of purple, red, and black was from one gigantic bruise or a bunch of smaller ones. I had the gash I received from the corner of the table back at the patch, and to top things off, my left eye was nearly swollen shut. I could also see that the screwdriver wound had stopped bleeding, but damn it was sore. I looked like shit.
I stayed in the bathroom for what seemed like forever, basking in the wonder that was warm water. I soaked a rag in hot water, draped it over my face, and left it there until it cooled off, and repeated the process several times as I rested on the toilet. It’s amazing how much the little things mean after not having them for a short period of time.
I was met outside the bathroom door by Titouan and Avery. I dropped my gear by the wall, and before I could ask why the long faces, Titouan said, “That woman you picked up. She was covered in the same mucus the lady back in the house was.”
We had both fought with the Grays. It made sense that both of us would be covered with the stuff. “Yeah, my coat is covered with it. So what?”
Avery gave me a skeptical look. “Perhaps.”
“Guys, I don’t have time for this…” The hallway was empty. “Where are Kelley and Tish?”
Titouan pointed to one of the small supply rooms. “Locked in there,” he said.
“If you two have something on your minds, why don’t you to just cut to it. I’m too damn sore and exhausted to be playing games with you two.”
“Sam asked me to check on Tish, but the door was locked. Sounded like they were arguing in there, but they hushed up when I called to them, acted like nothing was wrong,” Titouan said.
“Well, maybe nothing was wrong. I have to talk to Miley. I don’t have time for this,” I said.
Titouan flashed me a look that I recognized from the old Titouan. “Tell him I said hello.”
“I’d rather not talk to him at all, or at least not all cloak and dagger like he apparently wants. I’ll gladly trade you places.”
Titouan shook his head and walked away. That was the Titouan I knew and loved.
I heard a door open down the hall. Tish exited the room and walked over to where Avery and I stood. “Remember, Miley wanted to talk to you.”
I nodded, and then said, “Everything okay with Kelley and baby?”
“Yeah, I was just checking over her and the baby.” She gave Avery a quick glance before settling her gaze on me. “Why do you ask?”
“Just wondering, that’s all. The baby was in the cold a long time.”
“She’ll be okay.”
I was relieved to hear that. “Good.”
“How is Miley?”
Tish smirked. “Drunk.”
Miley sat at his desk, looking much more haggard than I’d ever seen him. “Mr. Miley,” I said and nodded hello. Miley always preferred to be called Mr. Miley. I’m pretty sure his friends, if he had any, were kept at the same arms-length decorum. He waved me over to have a seat across from him at his oversized desk.
“Hello, William.”
There was a long and awkward pause where neither of us said anything. He took several long drafts from a bottle I recognized. A bottle I couldn’t believe he was drinking from. He must’ve noticed me looking at it.
“When the world goes to shit, you can drink the good stuff. You want a swig?”
“I stopped drinking a while back.”
“Prohibition is so cliché, William. Drink with me.”
“What’s going on here, Mr. Miley?”
He pounded the gaudy decanter on the desk. “I’m getting drunker. That’s what’s going on.”
“In Barrow?”
“Do you know this was my brother’s favorite? He was much more sophisticated and refined than I’ll ever be. Take this bottle of Remy Martin Louis XIII Cognac. Seven thousand dollars I’m holding right here. Even the long name is pretentious as hell. Makes no sense, really, but it makes me think of him. You remember him, right?”
“Yes… I liked your brother a great deal. It was a tragedy what happened to him.”
“Too great of a loss to bear, I’m afraid.”
“I’m sorry about your brother, but there’s some shit going on. What the hell do you know?”
“I don’t know what’s happening…” He took another drink. “Well, I might know some of what’s happening. I just don’t know exactly how.”
“What does that mean?”
“I guess it doesn’t really matter if I tell you or not. What are you going to do, call the FBI or CIA?” He laughed and took yet another drink.
“I don’t understand.”
“Did you happen to see the front door to my office?”
“Hard to miss. It’s gone.”
“Exactly. I was attacked.”
“The Grays did that?”
“Grays?” he asked, beginning to laugh.
“Yeah, that’s what we’re calling them, I guess.”
“I prefer monsters.”
“Please, Mr. Miley, can you tell me what you know.”
He took a giant mouthful of the cognac; so much so that it trickled out of the corner of his mouth and onto his shirt and desk. He wiped his face and then pointed to a weapon that I hadn’t noticed in the dimly lit room. I wasn’t an expert on such things, but I believed it was an AR-15. I remember the magazine more than the actual rifle. It was one of the high capacity jobs that were popular with the wingnuts who shot up public places. Anyway, it was one of the drum-type magazines – maybe a hundred rounds. “No, the damn Grays, as you call them, didn’t pull the door out of the frame. No, the people who did that were fully thinking, non-monster son of a bitches. I took care of them. Except one of them, anyway.”