“We chose,” she said softly, a note of understanding entering her voice.
“What?” Marty asked, but he was already making the connections, and they threatened to overwhelm the last dregs of sanity he had left.
I’m fine, I’m fine! he thought, but he didn’t think that was quite true. If he was fine—if madness hadn’t touched him—he wouldn’t have been able to do all the things he’d done. He’d be up there now, dead in the woods with Jules and Curt and Holden, not still alive down here with Dana. A little bit of madness never hurt anyone, one of his dope suppliers used to say.
In this case, maybe it had saved his life.
The elevator moved back into the shaft, sideways, down, and he readied himself for the shock of what might be revealed next.
“In the cellar,” Dana continued. “All that shit we were playing with. They made us choose. They made us choose how we die.”
“Yeah,” Marty said, remembering how nervous he’d been at the prospect of Dana reading the Latin in that little old diary. If he had stopped her, maybe Jules would have solved a kid’s puzzle and brought werewolves upon them. Or Holden might have smashed a bottle and brought them girls with teeth instead faces.
Holy fucking shit.
Dana started smashing at the glass with her fists. Her blows did no damage—they’d have to make the glass incredibly strong to contain all these things, he realized—but still she pounded, kicking as well, thrashing, and he had to hold her tight to stop her from hurting herself.
And it was like that, arms wound around each other, sharing the warmth of their bodies and the pain of their wounds, that they emerged into a huge underground space like a warehouse where countless elevators shifted left and right, up and down, running on almost invisible rails and columns and passing soundlessly across junctions, swapping position constantly. In each elevator was something of shade or light, and whether dark or light, it was always horrible.
Vampires, not of the limp, fluffy-collared variety, but with pale skin and too many teeth.
Three people—two adults and a child—with horribly cracked, blistered skin, beneath which lava seemed to boil.
A gorgeous naked woman with teeth in place of a vagina.
A man with six arms, each of the hands replaced with a grafted weapon of some kind, from a knife to a shotgun.
A screaming banshee with hair flowing around its head as if in slow motion.
Six elevators contained small babies that seemed to explode again and again, scattering bladed blood-red shards. A giant rabbit with oversized teeth, a woman with a scorpion’s sting curved from the small of her back, a child with three heads—vampire, zombie, werewolf—a shade of something terrible, a ghostly figure surrounded by fumes that must be toxic, a minotaur with a monstrous phallus, a woman with writhing snakes instead of pubic hair, a man with steaming pipes inserted into his chest and flames in his eyes, a dog with the head of an alligator…
The horrors were endless and almost beyond imagining, and Marty and Dana held each other tighter as their elevator was carried through the impossible space.
The creatures known and unknown seemed to recognize the intruders for what they were. Marty didn’t see them leaping or scratching at their glass walls to get at one another, but whenever he and Dana drew close they tried to attack.
We’re their meat, he thought, and though it was a horrible idea it stuck. Perhaps they were kept here like this, forever hungry, and when it came time to hunt…
The basement had been filled with lots of old, random stuff. And every shred of it had been linked somehow to something down here. He had no idea what it could mean, other than some sort of monstrous entertainment. But what lengths to go to. It was beyond belief.
“As soon as we stop,” he said. “We’ll get out as soon as we can.” Still they held each other, but they were beyond comforting. Their world had changed, not only their personal place in it, but their understanding of the wider reality.
Nothing could ever be the same again.
Control had cleared quickly. He hadn’t needed to shout at anyone to leave. As soon as Hadley replaced the receiver and muttered those few words, glasses and bottles were dropped, and everyone raced to try and put right whatever had gone wrong.
Sitterson could smell spilled champagne and there were potato chips crushed across the floor. Truman stood on guard by the door, upright and proper, and perhaps not really comprehending. All seemed normal.
Sitterson held back a giggle.
All seemed normal!
Lin was down in the lower area of Control, earpiece in place, tapping frantically on a keyboard and muttering to someone unheard. Sitterson and Hadley, chairs pulled closer than before, were scanning through the entire complex on their screens, moving quickly and efficiently. Hadley was checking corridors and stairwells, while on Sitterson’s screens were nine constantly changing views of the interiors of the elevators. He’d seen many of these things before, but some were new even to him. Still, he refused to let curiosity overcome the prime purpose of this search.
Survival, he was thinking. Of everything. It’s all at stake here.
So he checked all nine images, then tapped a button that would present nine more. How the Fool had been missed, how no one had noticed, how they’d overcome Matthew Buckner, how the fuck they’d managed to get down into the complex… all these were questions for later.
If there was a later.
“We saw them go down the access drop,” he said into his microphone. “They have to be in one of these! Internal security should be able to—”
“That’s not protocol,” a static-filled voice said into his ear. Static? That was unheard of. Their systems were perfect.
“I don’t care if that’s not protocol!” he shouted. “Are you fucking high?” He looked to Hadley, hand held up in a what the fuck? gesture.
“It’s the Fool!” Hadley shouted into his own microphone. “No, you can’t touch the girl. If he outlives her, all this goes to hell! Take him out first.” He shrugged back at Sitterson. Fucking amateurs!
There were security teams sweeping the complex, cameras everywhere, the creatures were contained… things would settle, everything would work out okay. But none of this was in the Scenario. Hell, the Scenario was fucked. Sitterson only hoped…
“Hope they’ll accept our apology,” he whispered. Hadley heard him, but said nothing.
Lin stood and turned to look up at them.
“Clean-up says the prep team must have missed one of the kid’s stashes. Whatever he’s been smoking has been immunizing him to all our shit.” It was a startling admission from the Chem team leader, but this wasn’t a time for cover-ups. Later they’d rag her on it, if they had the opportunity. And if she wasn’t executed for incompetence.
“How does that help us right now?” Hadley said. Then he spoke into his mic. “What? Yes. If the Fool’s a confirmed kill, you can take her out too. But for fuck’s sake… for all our sakes… make sure it’s a confirmed kill on him first. Dead. Headless. Blown up. A confirmed… fucking… kill.”
“There!” Truman snapped. He’d walked over from the door to stand behind Sitterson, and Sitterson couldn’t shake the irony that it was the newbie who saw them first. But that was good, that was fine. He’d buy him a drink if this all turned out okay.