WnW 1.8 Say Nothing

I took the stairs five at a time, spinning at each landing and using the handrail to nearly throw myself down the next flight. My body protested, it had already been flung around enough tonight. I leapt down the last flight of stairs to the second floor and my legs buckled. My knees crashed painfully into the cement. Taking a moment, breathing heavily, I realized that I was in the wrong stairwell. This one would have the entrance destroyed by Squish. I needed to cross.

Taking the door, I jogged across the empty parkade. The beam of light from the spotlight on the vehicle was sweeping one of the floors above me. I heard voices speaking loudly to each other, over the noise of the engine. Then pop, pop, pop, three methodically timed gunshots echoed through the empty space.

I stumbled and ducked low, even though there was no way they were shooting at me. Staying crouched, I crept over to the side that we had pushed the monster off of. I could make out what the voices were saying.

“Tough skin but the seven six twos did the trick. Aberrant suspected death confirmed, switch to level one overwatch.”

“Did it fall? Its limbs are broken.”

“Occam’s razor I suppose, but we’re not supposed to assume that.”

“Where are we at with the signal?” An authoritative voice asked. “Can you get a more precise location?”

There was a pause, then a response. “Still offline, I’m afraid. It might be getting jammed if the device is underground though.”

“We’ll start at the bottom, work our way up, pincer each floor. Martin, Cormier, switch to non-lethals and go north side with me. Davis, non-lethal, Choi, stay armed, go south side. Medic will be called if we find anyone. The rest of you stay here, watch the thing, make sure it stays dead.”

The fall hadn’t killed it? 

I heard their boots on the parkade floor as they moved efficiently. I kept my back against the wall, thoughts racing. I was trapped, with no way to retrieve my phone. But what had they been saying about a signal and a device? Were they tracking something? I thought back to when Conrad had abruptly stopped asking me questions to tap on his phone. Were they tracking my phone? What else would have brought them here, unless it was Chase, but he had never made it into the basement.

I thought about how the man had died, crushed to death between the monster and the car. That had happened while he was wearing my backpack. It seemed likely that had broken my phone. Which meant that my texts with Chase would hopefully remain unknown to these people.

With that tenuous assurance in place, I thought about the more pressing issue: how to escape. The broken door might slow them down, but they would be ascending soon enough, driving me further up.

Chase had decided to go up. He probably was planning to escape through the bridge to the abandoned mall, even though it was almost certainly locked. I looked across the parkade to the openings on the other side. If Chase got caught, I didn’t want to be with him, and I think he would appreciate it vice versa.

Keeping out of view, I went across to the other side and looked tentatively over the edge. Good, there were no soldiers on this side. The ground looked awfully far away. There was a grassy patch, where a sorry excuse for a tree grew. The tree definitely wouldn’t handle my weight but the grass would cushion the fall. I just had to time it right.

I waited, listening. A few minutes crept by. The soldiers by the monster’s corpse were talking but I couldn’t hear them from here. Just when I started to reconsider, I heard the sound of boots on the floor below me. Flashlight beams waved back and forth. Once the sound grew quieter, I hoisted myself over the edge and lowered myself slowly until I was hanging on by just my fingers. My feet dangled down into empty space.

The pain in my shoulder was making me tear up. Not yet. My fingers started to tremble and slip. Then I heard the footsteps coming up the stairs. I released my grip, wind rushing past my ears. The ground came up quickly and my feet stung as they made contact. I collapsed into the grass, a new pain radiating from my ankle.

A flashlight cut through the dark, hitting the point on the tree trunk where I would’ve been if I was standing.

“Did you hear that?” One of the soldiers asked. I lay very still, seeing every detail of the tree’s bark made pale by the light.

“Nope. Don’t get jumpy now. If you’re worried about outside threats, keep an eye on that fire.” His comrade replied, presumably referring to the fire I had seen in the distance before. “We don’t want to get wrapped up in that.”

The light moved on.

I rose up slowly and limped away. There was a park just a few blocks away from the parkade. I headed there, knowing that there was a path that led through the woods to the university. Feeling every little piece of gravel through my socks as I walked, I prayed that I wouldn’t step on anything worse, like glass or a needle.

Making it to the park was a relief. Although the gardens had been overrun by weeds and wild plants, the grass was gentle on my feet. The path was difficult to find in the dark. All my light sources were gone and the lamps that once hummed with power hung darkly over benches in the park. Eventually, I decided to just wing it. I didn’t want to stick around in Old Town any longer. Judging the general direction of the school, I entered the trees.

Danger avoided, my weary mind started to wander once more. It hadn’t felt that long ago that I was practicing in these woods alone. I’d been barefoot at that time as well, wanting to imitate more closely who I was secretly watching. Wonder and curiosity had trumped shame then, and it had proven to overcome my fear as well. I smiled and did a lazy spin, almost tripping over a root in the dark.

Here, in the forest, I was free from the eyes of the city.

Lost in thought, I exited the trees to find the back corner of Sillwood University.

“Oh shit!” someone said, then immediately started to have a coughing fit.

I turned to see two people sitting between a tree and the wall of the university. One of them held a blunt and was doubled over coughing. The other had their phone up and I was suddenly blinded by light.

“What the… Nick?!” I recognized the voice. It was Kay, the person from the night this all started, who had barely missed seeing the Pianist.

“You know them?” The other asked weakly, managing to stifle their coughs. “That gave me a heart attack. I thought we were about to get stabbed by a ghost.”

“Holy shit, you’re beat up,” Kay said, standing up and coming closer.

I brought a hand up to shield my eyes. “I got jumped,” I said. It wasn’t a complete lie.

“In the middle of the woods? What were you doing in there?” The other person asked. 

Kay turned off her flashlight. “Not now, Bailey. Do you need me to call somebody?”

I shook my head. My eyes started to readjust and I could see Kay’s concerned expression and Bailey, who had their hood up, dressed in all black. I could just make out lip piercings and short black hair.

“Well, we don’t have much in the way of first aid. Just water and weed.” Bailey held up the blunt.

My stomach turned at the first whiff. I shook my head again.

Kay pushed a bottle into my hand. “Drink some water at least. Christ, that scared me.”

I couldn’t find my voice. Perhaps that wasn’t unusual for me. It was more unusual that I had been feeling so free to talk with strangers in recent days.

“Will you drink some water if I tell you how I know you?” Kay said, trying to inject some playfulness into her voice.

I stared at her for a moment, before unscrewing the bottle and taking a sip. As soon as the first drop trickled down my throat, I started to gulp down huge mouthfuls, feeling like I was washing away the dust and decay from the basement.

“Well, funnily enough, we’re only a few walls away from the place I know you from.”

I looked up at the vacant school building, with its rough white stone walls.

“Room 160-B. Biology,” Kay explained. “I’ll be in my third year this coming semester. Bailey is the same, they’re majoring in Robotics.”

“Hey. Don’t go volunteering my information to strangers.” Bailey said, only slightly annoyed.

I finished the bottle and took a deep breath.

“Feeling better?” She asked.

“Loads. Thank you,” I said. “So… did we do a group project together or something?”

She turned away and took the blunt from Bailey. “Nah, I was part of the welcome committee last year. You left an impression I guess. Barely could say your own name, but yet you immediately ran over to help that guy that collapsed from heat stroke.”

“Ah,” I wasn’t sure how to parse that information. Honestly I wasn’t sure I could parse anything after what I’d just run from.

Kay took a hit and passed it back to Bailey. She blew out the smoke, the thin curling trails masking her eyes in the dark.

“You know you didn’t take up my offer last time. Now I’m starting to think you should at least have my number.”

I looked back at the woods longingly. “I just lost my phone.”

That got a raised eyebrow from Bailey as Kay turned to rummage around in her bag.

“What are you, a fucking wood fae?” Bailey snorted. “You should ease off whatever you’re taking, man.”

“Bailey,” Kay said warningly.

“I’m not taking anything. I got jumped,” I repeated again.

“Pen,” Kay demanded, holding out her hand to Bailey. Bailey sighed and searched their pockets before pulling out a pen.

Kay uncapped it and came up to me. I backed up a step. “I’m okay. It’s fine.”

Kay waved the pen threateningly. “I’ll give you a choice. Let me write down the number, or you can explain why you’re apparently ‘fine’ after walking out of the woods after midnight with no shoes or phone, looking like you got mauled by a bear, and I don’t mean just physically.”

Bailey nodded. “You got a wide eyed look. Did you see an alien in there?”

I mutely stuck out my arm and Kay nodded sagely, as if I had made the right choice. “If you don’t want me asking questions, that’s fine. I get it. Life is crazy and I don’t judge what anyone does to survive. God knows I don’t want my dad knowing about half the things I get up to. And it’s just a feeling, but I feel like we’re kindred spirits,” Kay said as she wrote down a number on my arm.

“How’s that?” I asked.

Kay ended the last number with a light poke of the pen. “I suspect that you would run into a burning building to save others, but if it was your house on fire, you’d sit there and wonder why you were smelling burnt hair.”

I took that in.

After a brief goodbye, it was time for me to trudge home. At least I wasn’t covered in blood this time. It was a long walk, but it gave me time to come up with an explanation to tell my mom for why I was covered in bruises. Whatever excuses I had come up with, they were gone by the time my head hit my pillow. My last thought before drifting off was wondering if I would be getting another visit from HESP in the morning.