Authors: Charlie Newton
Gwen is as scared as I have ever seen anyone. And screams; terror bounces off the walls. I spin, aiming at everything. Then turn back to her. "Where? Tell me where."
From her knees she points downstairs. The basement. Roland always loved basements. "Where in the basement?"
Gwen cringes. "Go with you. Show you." I can’t tell if she’s shaking her head or shivering.
"No, honey, you can’t. Just tell me. I’m a cop. I can save them."
"Won’t work. Won’t work. Won’t work." Gwen’s stretched tight under the face paint.
"Calm down, baby. Calm down." I make the best lie-face I can and pat the air. "We’ll do it together."
"The basement. He’s…they’re…it’s sooooo bad."
I stumble a step.
God, please don’t let this happen
. Please. I’ll do anything. Anything. Please. Gwen wobbles to standing. Her hands stay cupped at her chest like they’re still tied. She stares right at me as if she knows what we’ll find but can’t say it.
"I’m going now. You just go as far as you want, okay?"
Gwen doesn’t move an inch until I do, then shuffles chain-gang steps. If John wasn’t down there, I would still face Roland Ganz and kill him for Gwen. Kill this fucking monster. Face him. Kill him. Over and over. Kill Roland Ganz, Patti. It’s worth life in prison.
Gwen and I hesitate at the door. She’s at my shoulder, a trembling mixture of sweat, cigarettes, and cheap perfume. Roland loved cigarettes and cheap perfume. I feel him in her, on her, on me. Again. "I’m going down first; you stay back till I call, okay?"
Gwen nods, cow-eyed.
I do the basement stairs down to the landing, hesitate, then do the rest and flatten inside the stairwell against the doorway wall at the bottom. My heart counts it out. Going through the door is my only option. Not good, but if Roland wanted to trap me right here, he would’ve used the stairwell. But he hasn’t. I want to ask why but bolt through the doorway while I still have the nerve.
Low ceiling. Columns. Pipes in both directions. Dim. Mildew. A boiler clanks; I spin, duck and…don’t fire, jerk left, right, left-right. Empty? Columns—short, fat ones. Rows and rows of columns in every direction. Dim light. Straight ahead, to the short side of the basement. The light is coming from a doorway fifty feet away. I creep out into the open, loop left then angle toward the doorway. The basement’s a rectangle, maybe three or four times as long as wide. Far to the east of the elevator and fire stairs, there’s a maze of vertical pipes and metal boilers. I smell oil and grease as strong as the gasoline soaking my jeans and then perfume crawling up my neck.
I duck backwards and into Gwen. She pancakes hard onto the concrete. I snap back to the column forest. Nothing moves. I aim at the silent maze of pipes and boilers; the noise we heard on the stairs didn’t come from these boilers and isn’t audible now. Gwen’s panting half-breaths from her back. I use one hand and wave her to standing; I use the other hand to aim at everything else.
Her perfume reaches me before she says to my shoulder, "Through there." Her head nudges mine back east one hundred fifty feet toward the pipe maze and a wall now visible just beyond. "My son is in there."
"Where’s John?"
"In there." Gwen sounds like she’s twelve.
"Where’s Roland?" I’m focused on the nearest columns and the low ceiling getting lower even though it’s not. "Where’s Roland? How many are with him?"
I have to strain to hear: "Joe. A boy. Man, from the ranch."
"One or two, Gwen? A boy
and
a man?"
"Joe…from the ranch. The preacher’s boy. Joe is evil too."
"Where’s Roland?" I don’t have to ask where Joe is. It had to be him dumping the gasoline through the hole in the second floor. "Where’s Roland, honey?"
She mouths something I can’t hear. I ask again and the elevator rumbles. We both jump and run one hundred fifty feet to the pipe maze, bounce off a boiler, slide between two others, then crouch into a dark corner. The elevator motor stops. We can’t see the elevator when it opens. Door noise. Light spills forward into basement. The doors rumble closed and the light quits. We listen; all I hear is Gwen breathing and water dripping. Or gasoline?
Gwen whispers, "Next door," into my ear.
"What?" I’m concentrating on shooting the elevator’s passenger before he can toss a Zippo at us.
"Roland. Through there." She trembles a finger through the maze at an unseen, double-wide passageway/tunnel framed in dirty white tile. "Next door."
A number of Chicago’s older buildings are connected below street level; why these two are I don’t know. Now, even if Sonny gets my message and decides to help, he and HBT will go to the wrong building.
"He…made me…at the ranch. I didn’t want to. He made me."
I fast-glance Gwen—she’s in another time zone—then whisper "Easy, honey," still expecting the elevator passenger to charge. "I’ll stop it all, okay?" I lift my chin at the tunnel, knowing we have to go no matter what she says. "Is he in there?"
"We’re…married. I had his baby."
"We gotta go." I grab her hand, we slip through the pipes and sprint into the tunnel. Three strides and it’s pitch-black. We run ten more before I trip and we both tumble to wet concrete. She wails and I grab her to me, covering her mouth with my gun hand. The tunnel mouth is silhouetted behind us; when the elevator man chases in after us we’ll see him. If I wasn’t flammable I could shoot him. And I may have to anyway if he has a flashlight and a weapon.
Flashlight! I pat at my pockets.
Must’ve dropped it. My empty hand flattens in cold liquid, probably water. I cup, smell stale grime and no gas and splash it in my face.
Focus, now
. I holster the Smith, wash my hands and wrists, then my face again. The water tastes like shit but now I have a 50–50 chance of not igniting if I have to fire.
The far end of our tunnel where we’re headed is impenetrable dark. "Where’s Roland, honey? Down there?"
I feel her nod.
"Is this tunnel clear? Can we walk down the wall?"
She doesn’t answer or move.
"Gwen, baby. C’mon. Is it clear? Can we walk down the wall?"
She hugs against me. "Maybe."
We push up till we’re standing. She’s shaking so hard it trembles my leg. No, it’s my phone, but I can’t get my hand through to it. "Let go, honey. I gotta get my phone." The phone stops; Gwen doesn’t. I wriggle and she holds tighter. Both my arms are pinned. The phone vibrates again. I try, but she’s terrified-strong and I don’t get to it this time either. "Baby, you gotta let go."
She doesn’t and the phone vibrates again. I jerk hard out of her hug and hear her stumble. "It’s okay, Gwen. It’s okay." I pat air until I find her, grabbing at limbs from behind until I reach her shoulders and whisper, "We’re okay, baby. I got you. I’m not leaving; I promise."
"Please." She’s whimpering.
"He’s got my son."
I slide my hand down to her wrist, grab tight, and step out from behind her to flatten on the wall. "Follow me, stay on the wall."
Behind us the mouth of the passage is still clear. Maybe the elevator was a ruse, part of the trap to drive us in…here. Gwen and I take baby steps, then bigger. We stumble over conduit that rattles, but neither of us falls. The air gets staler and the light behind us at the tunnel’s mouth fades out. Gwen’s crushing my hand. Our backs are sliding on the dirty tile.
Noise. Behind us.
Dead stop. Squint hard. Listen, listen, listen…Someone or thing
is
there, already in and past the lights, and closing. And Roland’s up ahead, waiting. We’re trapped, bookended, squeezed…Gwen whispers words I can’t hear.
Forward or back, but don’t stay here
. I lurch us forward and Gwen follows, taking half steps.
She whispers again and I stop to hear, "He’s…going to burn us. Purify us."
I whisper, my lips touching her ear, "Is he close? In here?"
Gwen stutters, then says, "No. There’s…a…trap. First."
Every bit of me freezes. I think trip wire. "Where?"
"At the end…at the doors."
But there aren’t any doors. I can’t see a thing. No doors, no "end," just dark.
"D…don’t go through the door. The…the door with the l…light behind."
"You sure?"
"Uh-huh."
"You’ll have to show me."
We inch down the wall, thirty more feet of black-dark, and bump into a closed door. The collision doesn’t kill us. I recover, put Gwen’s hand on the frame, and ask if this door’s okay—a good door. She says yes. I feel for a trip wire to be sure, then grope higher, find a knob and a latch, throw the latch—
too loud
—turn the knob, and creak the door open an inch. Rusted hinges add echoes and corrosion to stale air. I fast-glance the dark and whatever’s moving behind us, then shoulder the door hard. It opens with a loud
screeeech
and I stumble into an odd space like a large kitchen but ending in a curving concave wall. I gunpoint in a stumbling 360, get balance, and 360 again.
Empty. No Roland Ganz. My heart’s in my throat. A string of naked construction bulbs illuminates three doorways set into the concave wall at four-foot intervals, each with puddles in front and scaffolding support instead of doors. All three are hallways that end in dark. I could be staring at a shotgun right now and never see it.
The hallway on the far right has the only light. Has to be the "trap" if Gwen’s right about the light. Thirty feet down the hall a doorframe’s edges are backlit in the wall, beyond that the hallway’s black. I push Gwen back into our tunnel, listen for whatever’s behind us, hear nothing, and whisper, "Roland? Which way?"
She shies and points to the hallway with the door’s dim silhouette, then squeezes her chest to my back. I wait and listen; her breath is what I hear and my heart racing again. I smell the rank water and corrosion air, and the gasoline that still soaks my jeans and shoes. Time to go…no choice…have to jump out, sprint down the hall to the silhouetted door that has Roland Ganz waiting. I could get lucky; he could jerk it open, thinking I passed, then it’s whoever’s better with their weapon. I pat for my speed loaders and bump my cell, then remember it vibrating—the call could’ve been Sonny.
Shit.
I flip it open, hiding the light, peek at Roland’s hallway, and hope I still have a signal. Four messages, all from Tracy. Gwen presses tighter to my back. Tracy’s first two messages are panic gibberish. The third is a series of gulped breaths and clearer words:
"Roland Ganz is dead. He’s
dead
, Patti. Bob Cullet found him. Ganz and four other bodies. All dead a week or more. Murdered,
before
all this started in Chicago. There’s a will. Bob found Roland’s will in a—" The message cuts off.
Roland Ganz is dead?
Then who’s ripping people to pieces? Arson, SUVs…I stare at the phone’s tiny screen like it will answer. Bob Cullet’s wrong. Roland Ganz isn’t dead; he’s right here, down that hall, behind that door with…
I turn to look at Gwen and a shape charges out of the black. I duck, twist and a man smashes Gwen into the wall. A thick tug wrenches my arm and the man’s all over me, hands and feet and—I duck again and two-hand the Smith. My left arm doesn’t work and I fire one-handed. Three feet away he silhouettes in the muzzle flash and dirty white tile. I don’t ignite, he spins into the wall, and I stumble down the other. My left forearm screams at me. So does Gwen. The man lunges and I fire again. He pretzels back into his wall. Pain rips up my arm; blood pumps in my mouth. The man falls and curls into a ball. I wheel to grab Gwen and all that’s left are her screams trailing back into the dark. My arm’s gushing from a ten-inch slice and I squeeze it against my stomach. The man groans; I jump over him and out of the tunnel, aiming at the three hallways until nobody comes at me, then step back to the tunnel’s mouth and kick him in the face. Gwen’s screams die. The man at my feet mumbles again. He has an earring and a biker bandanna covering stringy blond hair. I aim at Roland’s hallway until the silhouetted door doesn’t open, then belt the Smith and rip off the man’s bandana. This has to be Idaho Joe, the preacher’s son; he groans something to my shoes. I spin to put four into Roland’s door.
But Roland’s dead
.
No fucking way. No way. I pat for the phone I no longer have.
Roland’s been dead
. That’s why you didn’t feel him in Arizona.
Bullshit; he’s behind that door
. I hear scraping ahead in the hallways and bolt back deeper into the tunnel until I fall. My arm’s throbbing; I squeeze it hard against my stomach, flatten the rest of me against the cold tile, draw and aim shaky at the tunnel’s mouth.
My phone’s in the water, lit where I dropped it. My arm bubbles blood. I belt the Smith and cinch-wrap the gash with the bandana, then stuff my hand into my belt and don’t scream. I didn’t frisk the guy I shot. If Roland’s dead, who’s got John? This is a trick, part of the trap—Tracy’s taking the word of Bob Cullet. Bob Cullet’s a drunken idiot working with Roland Ganz and Roland’s alive in the next room and ripping people to pieces. Gwen’s been Roland’s captive.
I armpit the Smith and grab my cell. It smells like gasoline and won’t work no matter how hard I punch it. Choose door number one; use the .38; it’ll work. That’s the only answer. Kill Roland Ganz hiding behind door number one. I pocket the cell, draw the Smith, and ease back up the tunnel toward the mouth. Idaho Joe is prone at my feet. His hands are empty; I peek past him to door number one.
It’s no longer shut. I jerk back. Was it ever shut? It’s open now, but no brighter.
Run
.
I can’t. Have to find John. Find John; don’t die first.
I do the corner low and sprint into the confined hallway toward Roland’s door. Thirty feet down I’ve hit no trip wire, stop, wheel, and kick Roland’s door the rest of the way open. It bangs into the wall. The room’s empty. I lurch back out into hallway—left is lights and the prone Idaho Joe; right is shadows.
No, IT’S ROLAND.
No, it’s nothing. Silence and me panting. I run right, slam into a T dead end, bounce left and run lighter shadows to another T junction I see before hitting it, turn right for no reason and skid to a stop twelve inches before falling into the lowest level of a double-basement boiler room. Two bulbs light the deepest part of the pit and shadow where I’m standing. I jump left along the edge and slip into the spaghetti of pipes and furnaces above the pit. I’m panting and can’t stop.
Call for help; building’s too big; won’t find John.