“I’m going to be honest with you; the odds are a million-to-one, and that’s with some generous rounding.”
-GLaDOS, Portal 2
The corridors up here were much the same as they were below; dim, bare, and filthy. But there was much less of the sense of crushing dread that had haunted the rooms below, and after experiencing it for so long they found its absence almost cheering.
“You know,” said Helen. “It just occurred to me that we don’t know each other very well, do we?”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Well, we might as well talk as long as we’re stuck together,” she said. “Like, where’re you from? What’s your family like?”
“Uh, okay,” said Hendricks, who felt more than a little awkward. “I’m from a town in Massachusetts. It’s just a little fishing village set on an island. Kind of an insular little place, you know? Nothing happens there except the Fourth of July weekend when the summer crowds arrive, and the all of the sudden it’s a nut house!”
“Sounds great,” said Helen. “Only one crazy day a year? I’d kill for that! With me, every day’s a nut house. Even when I can get away, there’re always these annoying cops hanging around and…Oh, uh, no offense.”
“None taken. How old were you when your mom became governor?”
“About fifteen. None of us were very happy about it.”
“Do you have any other family, siblings?”
“Nope. Just me, Mom, and Dad. And, of course,” she burst out suddenly. “Mom always expects me to help her career! She expects me to give her a full report of my dreams every morning, as though the only reason I had this gift was to help her! I tried to tell her ‘no, I’m not a political asset,’ but then she comes back with talk about how its for the good of the State and the country and that we all have to do what we can and all that stuff. As if she cared!”
“Was that why you ran away?” Hendricks asked, shocked by her outburst.
“Kind of,” she said gloomily. “Mostly I ran away because I was sick of her controlling every aspect of my life without bothering to find out what I wanted. When I told her I didn’t want to go to law school, she just said ‘trust me; you say that now, but one day you’ll look back and be so grateful for the opportunity.’”
She shook her head.
“I hope your parents aren’t like that.”
“Not really,” said Hendricks, a little heavily. “I don’t think my dad’s very happy with me, but he never says anything about.”
“Well, that’s good,” said Helen.
“No, it’s not,” said Hendricks. “I wish he would say something! As it is, I just get this vague impression from his looks and the tone of his voice, but nothing definite. He doesn’t let on what he thinks I ought to do; I just know that it’s not this. I can’t complain or ask him about it, because he’d just say ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about Lenny; as long as you’re happy I’m fine with it.’ Makes things a little more confusing than they need to be.”
“What about your mom?”
“I don’t really see her too much,” he shrugged. “She left my dad when I was sixteen, you see; moved to Cape Cod. I used to visit her every other weekend, and then every month, and…well, she kind of moved on with her life.”
“I’m sorry,” said Helen.
They walked in silence for a little while.
“You want to know a secret?” she said suddenly. “Last night was the first time I really knew my mom loved me.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I guess I’ve always just kind of assumed she thought of me as an asset,” she said. “You know, something to help her career. I’ve even suspected that that’s the only reason she had me in the first place; to make her look better in the polls. But then I saw her at…at my funeral.”
She seemed to struggle to find the right way to describe it, then shrugged.
“Well, I don’t think that anymore.”
Hendricks looked at her sympathetically. Her face was very red, and her eyes seemed to be looking at something he couldn’t see.
“So, are you going to go back?” he asked. “You know, try to patch things up?”
Helen shrugged.
“I hadn’t really thought about it, to tell you the truth. I’ve been kind of distracted with by the whole ‘predicting my own death’ thing.”
Hendricks opened his mouth to respond, but stopped. A strange scratching noise, like a thousand mice all chewing wood at once, had reached his ears. He stopped, looking around for the source. But there was nothing in sight. The hallway was well-lit, stretched for a hundred yards in either direction, and was clearly empty except for the two of them.
The noise went on and on without cease and, Hendricks realized to his slight alarm, was growing louder, but they still couldn’t tell where it was coming from. He and Helen stood still, not daring to move in either direction for fear of running into the whatever-it-was (Or, thought Helen, remembering the cicadas, whatever-they-are). Hendricks pulled out his crowbar, and Helen instinctively drew closer to him. Then there was another noise that joined the scratching; a wet, throbbing noise. Hendricks was reminded of a time when he was six and had stuffed one of his socks full of mud and squeezed it about just for fun (his mother had grounded him for a week after that).
Helen and Hendricks drew even closer, so that they were standing back-to-back, pressing against each other. The noise grew louder, but they still couldn’t tell where it was coming from or see anything that might be making it.
The light directly above them suddenly flickered and went out. Then Hendricks and Helen finally realized where that noise was coming from.
They dove aside just in time as a horrible shape smashed through the light directly above them. It was a pale, tube-like object, rounded at the tip and semi-transparent, so that they could see the shape of gelatinous sacks shifting and moving under the creature’s skin. It looked, as a matter of fact, something like the front end of an enormous white earthworm. At least, it looked like one for maybe a second or two. Then its whole tip split open like a grotesque flower, and each of its four ‘petals,’ as well as the throat as far down as they could see, was lined with hundreds and hundreds of small, pointed teeth. A hideous smell came off of it; a combination of dog-droppings and swamp-gas. And when it opened its mouth it gave, not a roar or a scream, but a groan, as though the creature were in terrible pain.
Helen and Hendricks, now on either side of the monster, both backed away as fast as they could as the creature shifted more of its grotesque, wet body out of the ceiling. About five feet down, it suddenly bristled with thousands of small, hair-like legs, each only slightly bigger than those of a large centipede’s. These waved and scurried ceaselessly, whether they were touching anything or not. The effect was as though the creature was covered with bushy, wet brown hair, which, when combined with the pale, slimy front end, was nauseating; as though a puppy had sprouted a worm’s head.
“Run for it!” called Hendricks, who was so disturbed that he probably couldn’t have come up with a better plan even if he had taken the time to. He immediately began following his own advice, but only made it a few steps before something caught him around the ankles and he fell forward hard. Looking back, he saw that what had tripped him was a thin, pink ribbon. It took only a second more to realize that the thing was the worm’s tongue. And one second later, he found himself being dragged swiftly and violently down the hall towards the hideous, tooth-lined mouth.
Hendricks screamed in horror and, in his panic, tried to clutch at the floor, only to scratch his already-torn hands on the concrete without managing to slow himself down at all.
As though out of nowhere, Helen raced to help him, running right passed the distracted worm. Reaching him she dropped to her knees and grabbed at the tongue with the intention of untying it, tearing it off of his legs.
But the instant she touched it, Helen realized she had made a great mistake. Her hands stuck to the tongue as though it had been coated with super-glue. Not only that, but before she had quite understood what was happening, the tongue had detached itself form Hendricks, wrapped itself around her wrists, and, with a violent jerk, began dragging her towards the worm’s mouth.
Hendricks just had time to grab Helen’s leg as she was pulled away from him. This unexpected resistance arrested her development for a second, and Hendricks threw himself on top of her, pinning her to the ground.
The worm groaned and redoubled its efforts. Helen yelled in pain as her arms stretched out to their full length and began dragging her and Hendricks along the floor.
Hendricks climbed forward over Helen, raised his crowbar, and struck hard at the tongue. With a spurt of blood, the tongue was severed on the second blow. The worm groaned horribly and withdrew its tongue completely.
Hendricks seized Helen and pulled her to her feet, stumbling backwards. But before they could escape, the worm sent out five tongues whipping and squirming towards them.
A door stood ajar at the far end of the hallway and they ran for it, managing to slam it shut on the nearest of the tongues. Hendricks shoved a rusted refrigerator over across the doorway. A terrible groan and a soft, but heavy blow on the door told them that their safety was a temporary situation at best.
They looked around and found they were in a kitchen; long-since abandoned, judging by the layer of rust covering every metal surface. Helen seized a meat-cleaver that was lying on a counter and brandished it. Hendricks looked at her doubtfully; they both knew that, as far as their present situation was concerned, it might as well have been a butter-knife.
The door quivered under another blow.
“We’ll have to hide,” Hendricks muttered. “Then maybe we can slip passed it while it’s looking for us…”
It’s a mark of how desperate they were that neither stopped to consider the fact that the creature obviously didn’t hunt by sight.
But he and Helen cast their eyes about the room, looking for a quick hiding spot, Helen’s alighted on a small, square door in the far corner. She had seem something very much like it on numerous occasions; formal dinners and fundraisers and that sort of thing, but in her present state it took a second for her to recognize it as a dumbwaiter.
“Here!” she said suddenly, seizing his hand and dragging him over. She threw up the door (which, thankfully, slid easily) and looked inside. The tiny elevator was there, waiting for them.
They hesitated. It was doubtful whether one of them could fit, let alone both.
“Do you know how to work this?” Hendricks asked.
“Kind of,” she said. “At least, I think so. Just push this button and it should go up.”
“Will it work?”
“Probably not,” she admitted.
The door gave way with a crash. Behind them, the worm was squeezing its body past the refrigerator.
“You first,” he said suddenly. “Then send it back once you get out.”
“Hendricks…”
“Just go!”
Helen climbed into the dumbwaiter and Hendricks slid the door shut (pinching her fingers a little) and hit the button. He didn’t have time to wait to see if it worked; the worm was already moving in his direction.
Hendricks ran deeper into the kitchen. Behind him, the worm sent out another one of its tongues, which raced and coiled after him. With startling clarity, the idea flashed through his mind that the moment it touched him, he was doomed. And without forming any kind of plan, he began to grab and throw everything he passed at it; a plastic tub full of rusty silverware, a cracked set of dishes, a cutting board, and finally a whole set of shelves, which fell, by very good luck, directly on top of the tongue, pinning it to the ground mere feet from him.
The worm, meanwhile, kept coming. It wasn’t a fast creature, he soon found, but it could climb over counters, tables, and anything else that put between it. Speed, not agility, would be what saved him. Accordingly, he ran flat out straight across the huge kitchen. The worm, meanwhile, had to pause for a moment to try to extract its trapped tongue, allowing him to extend his lead.
Hendricks reached the far end and paused to catch his breath. The worm was turning over the shelves with its ugly, tubular head. Now he had to decide on his next move, but the worm was between him and the dumbwaiter. He looked around; the kitchen was divided in two by a partition, which, about halfway-down its length, was split up by a row of shelves.
The worm freed itself just as Hendricks made a dash for the shelves. It made straight for him, sending forth a pair of tongues. He passed almost directly in front of it and dove through the shelves. His knees collided painfully with the edge of the counter, catching him absurdly with his legs sticking up through the shelves and his face on the floor.
But he only had to remain in this ridiculous position for an instant. The worm jerked him up abruptly, like a fish caught on a line. Hendricks yelled in terror and grabbed the edge of the counter, holding on for dear life. The worm, whose gaping, tooth-lined mouth was maybe a yard from his feet, continued to pull, steadily, unhurriedly, as thought it were only mildly interested in eating Hendricks and had all the time in the world to do so.
It is harder than we think to admit helplessness. From an objective point of view, Hendricks’s situation was hopeless, but he didn’t see it that way. His mind simply refused to admit that. Instead, like a drowning man flailing his arms trying to find something to grab onto, his mind was racing trying to find some way that he could escape. The worm would lose its grip. Helen would come back and distract it. Another monster would come in and attack it. He would cut himself free with that knife over there…
And that is the reason why we have so much trouble admitting helplessness; because it’s much rarer than we think.
Hendricks let go with one hand, grabbed the knife, and tried to cut at the tongue. His body, however, was by now pulled taught, so that the only way he could reach his ankles would be to let go of his life-preserving grip.
He gritted his teeth, said a quick prayer, and let go, twisting around as fast as he could and slashed at the tongue. He caught it, releasing a stream of the worm’s clear, glutinous blood. The worm groaned, but didn’t release him. Hendricks slashed again, severing the tongue. The instant he was free, he threw himself through the shelves again, landing hard on the other side. The worm, moaning, squeezed itself after him, it’s mouth open and coming down right over his head as though it intended simply to engulf him.
Hendricks thrust the knife upwards with both hands, driving it into the creature’s throat, cutting his hands on the monster’s teeth. The worm gave, not a moan, but a shrill screech and jerked backwards through the shelves like a turtle pulling its head in. The screech went on and on, one long, unbroken sound of agony, as the worm convulsed and twitched violently.
Hendricks pulled himself to his feet and ran to the dumbwaiter. It was empty and waiting for him, and he clambered into it.
“NOW!” he shouted as loud as he could, banging on the top, “NOW, HELEN!”
The dumbwaiter creaked, and began to rise, horrible slowly, he thought, but the worm was apparently in such pain that it didn’t care about his escape anymore. Soon the kitchen was out of sight and he was rising in complete darkness, save for a tiny strip of light coming in around the edges. It was a cramped, highly-unpleasant journey, but it only lasted a few minutes. Soon the light grew brighter, and almost before he realize what was happening, he found himself looking into Helen’s pale, anxious, yet still beautiful face. It seemed particularly radiant at that moment.
“Thank God!” she said, helping him out of the waiter. “Are you okay?”
He nodded. “You?”
She nodded. “You don’t look it.”
“Well, neither do you, to be honest,” he pointed out.
“Yeah, but you look worse,” she said.
“I think I’ll look worse than you no matter what,” he found himself saying. He felt a little punch-drunk after his recent succession of near-death experience.
She gave him one of those ‘be serious’ looks and led him over to a chair. Now that he looked around, Hendricks saw that they were in what must at one time have been a fairly nice dinning room, though now the table was covered in dust, the paneled walls were cracked and rotted, and cobwebs covered everything. Helen swept these from a convenient chair and pushed Hendricks into it.
“I’ve been saving this,” she said, fishing about in her pocket. “I don’t know where it came from, but I suppose Ralph or Dr. Kipling must have slipped it in there.”
She pulled out a folded towel and very carefully opened it to reveal four red stains.
“Is that what I think it is?” Hendricks asked apprehensively.
“The goop,” she nodded. “I think we’re cut up enough to use a little.”
“No, no; I don’t think so,” said Hendricks quickly.
“Look, you’re bleeding badly,” she said. “You’re gonna get an infection! Let me at least take care of that.”
“You haven’t felt this stuff before,” he retorted. “I’ll take the infection.”
“Just take a look at your hands; you can barely use them now!”
Hendricks looked down at them. There was very little skin left on the palms and several deep wounds on the backs. They were luminous with blood. The sight seemed to remind his nerves of their job and he suddenly became aware of just how badly it hurt. Helen was right; with the adrenaline wearing off he could barely move them at all.
“Uh…”
“Exactly,” she said, kneeling in front of him. “Now hold still…”
“Wait, wait!”
“What?” she snapped. “Do you have a better idea?”
He considered for a moment and sighed.
“I guess not.” He took a deep breath and held out his hands. “Okay, just make it quick.”
Helen took towel carefully by its edges and wrapped both hands with it. Again, Hendricks screamed in unendurable agony as his hands felt as though they were on fire.
It seemed to last even longer this time, but when it was over Hendricks looked down on his sore, but completely healed hands.
“Well, if you don’t like it,” said Helen, folding up the towel and returning it to her pocket. “Try to stay in one piece from now on.”
“That was never a problem before today,” he muttered. Suddenly, he buried his face in his hands. “And I guess that’s why I’m here, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“I mean, if I hadn’t ducked the Army, or if I hadn’t lost it last week, then I wouldn’t be here at all. Maybe if I had taken few risks before I wouldn’t be getting my hands sliced open now.”
Helen stared at him, her mouth hanging slightly open and an odd look in her eyes.
“Well,” she said at last. “In that case, I don’t think I’d be here either.”
Hendricks lifted his head, realizing that he might have come off a little self-centered.
“I don’t mean…You know, I’m sure you would have been fine. Actually, if I weren’t here, you probably would have gone to Ralph or Hogan and they would have gotten you safe off the island by now.”
“Seriously?” Helen asked. “Hendricks, I think you’ve been doing as good a job as could be expected. And I don’t think Ralph or Hogan or anyone else would have been an improvement.”
She put a hand on his knee and smiled.
“Just try to stay alive for a while, okay?”
He managed to smile back.
“I’ll do my best. But you’ve got to try too, right?”
“Of course,” she said.
They fell silent for a moment, each suddenly finding it hard to look at the other.
“Should we rest here a bit?” asked Hendricks.
Helen was opening her mouth to say ‘yes’ when she was interrupted by terrible crashing and splintering noise. They both leapt to their feet and whirled around to see the hulking, masked figure of Hank Voyeur tearing his way through the door.
“No!” Helen yelled in answer to Hendricks’s by-now-superfluous question. Hank strode towards them, his blade gleaming, his eyes burning with anger beneath his helmet.
As Hank came down one side of the table, Helen and Hendricks of course tried to run around the other side to reach the door. Hank, with surprising agility, changed direction to head them off. So, of course, they turned back, and so did Hank. They tried again, but again he moved to head them off. This went back and forth a number of times, until the three of them found themselves facing each other over the middle of the table, each watching for what the other would do.
With an impatient jerk of the head, Hank brought his blade crashing down on the middle of the table, splitting it in two. He moved forward, still smashing bits of table out of his way with his knife, while Helen and Hendricks took advantage of his temporary preoccupation to make a dash for the door. They managed to reach it before he had extricated himself from the middle of the ruined table and flew out into the hallway.
This corridor, like the dinning room, seemed to have been designed to be more fancy and impressive than the rest of the facility; there was rotting paneling on the walls and moldy carpet on the floor. But the couldn’t stop to admire this, as they had first to put as much distance between themselves and Hank as possible. So, tired as they were, they ran flat out down the hall, around the corner, and into a stairwell.
They saw at once what the Dog had meant by the stairwells being blocked; there were maybe three or four steps leading down before the whole staircase simply ended over a yawning pit that was full of debris. Fortunately, the steps going up were relatively clear, at least as far as they could tell, so they started to climb. Bits of rubble littered the stairs and threatened to trip them up, and here and there the iron railing was missing. Part of the way up they found a huge chunk of concrete that had fallen across the stairs, forcing them to scramble over it.
“Okay,” gasped Hendricks after they had gone as high as they could and come out two stories above where they had stared (the stairs had collapsed shortly beyond that). “I think we lost him.”
The words were hardly out his mouth when there was a heavy blow on the door to the stairwell.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me!” Helen shrieked.
The door sagged under another blow and they began to run again just as a third blow knocked it down and Hank came stomping out after them.
Hendricks looked back and gave a cry of dismay. They were running as fast as they could, and as far as he could tell Hank wasn’t doing more than a brisk walk. Yet his was definitely gaining on them.
“How…the hell…is he keeping up!?” Helen gasped as they rounded the corner.
Hendricks didn’t have the breath to answer even if he knew. It was like a nightmare, giving all he could, yet unable to escape. And still Hank’s heavy footsteps were getting closer and closer.
A door appeared on their left. In desperation Hendricks made for it. Praying that it would close, he seized the handle as he passed over the threshold and pulled with all his might. Helen skidded past him, turned, and rushed to help. It wouldn’t budge.
Hank appeared in the doorway in moments, and Helen and Hendricks had to leap back to avoid a powerful slash from his blade, which instead struck the door with a deafening clang, denting it.
Hendricks looked around. They seemed to be in a huge warehouse of some kind. It was almost completely dark, but in the light from the door he could see the vague shapes of boxes, crates, and towering rows of shelves vanishing into the darkness. But he didn’t have long to take it in. Hank was right behind them, and Hendricks and Helen had no choice but to flee into the darkness. Once they left the comparatively small sphere of light cast by the open door, they had to feel their way around the shelves and boxes, not daring to use the flashlight and trying to keep as quiet as possible.
Hank, meanwhile, prowled along the rows, his head turning this way and that as he searched for them. As they retreated further into the darkness (doing their absolute best not to knock anything over), he became little more than a dark shape; a shadow moving among lighter shadows.
After they had fled some distance into the room (though they couldn’t tell just how far, as they didn’t know how big the room was), Helen and Hendricks ducked down one of the rows in he hope that Hank would pass them by and they could then slip out quietly.
For a moment, it seemed to work. Hank drew level with their row without pausing. But then, just before he passed it, he turned sharply and began striding straight toward them.
This was so alarming, so uncanny, that Hendricks panicked and ran for it, knocking over a pile of something that clattered and banged very loudly as he sprinted down the length of the warehouse, the shelves on one side, the wall on the other. Behind him there was a terrible sound of metal crashing to the ground, then a terrified scream from Helen.
He skidded to a halt, a chill running through his body. What was he doing? He had run off and left her behind! He turned around and began running back the way he came, whipping out the flashlight and turning it on so he could see what was happening.
The noise he had heard, he saw, came from one of the shelving units which had apparently collapsed upon itself, the supports on one side having been cut clean away. Now Helen was scrambling through a pile of debris while Hank was slashing and forcing his way through the pile towards her. And he was going a lot faster than she was. He was already taking swipes at her with his blade,
Hendricks, with no idea whatsoever what he was doing, leapt up behind Hank and wrapped him in a headlock. Hank immediately forgot about Helen and aimed a brutal slash over his shoulder at Hendricks, who had the sense to let go just in time, dropping to the floor and backing away hurriedly as Hank turned around.
“Helen! Run for it!” Hendricks called, drawing his crowbar and backing away as Hank stomped towards him. Hank swung at Hendricks, who ducked, causing the blade to spark against the concrete wall. Hendricks took a swing at Hank’s helmet, which clanged like a bell, but didn’t even dent. Hank swung again from the other direction, missing Hendricks by an inch and taking out another shelving unit. This one seemed to be full of huge spools of wire, which came roaring and rolling down on top of Hank and Hendricks.
Hendricks collapsed with a yell under the avalanche of metal. The wires got all tangled up around him and the heavy, sharp-edged spools cut and bruised as they bounced off his body. He scrambled to get up, but the wires bound him and cut deeply into his flesh as he tried to throw them off.
Hank, meanwhile, had taken an even worse hit from the avalanche. But he had his blade, which sliced through the wires as though they were fishing line. Hendricks fought to throw his own bonds off, but they clung painfully to him, and his struggles only seemed to make things worse.
Hank rose up out of the mass of debris, glaring down at Hendricks. He took a step…and was immediately tripped up by the wire still entangling his feet. Falling straight forward, he caught himself by driving his blade deep into the concrete floor a foot from Hendricks’s body. Hank was now suspended on all fours, his masked face less than a foot above Hendricks’s.
They both seemed to take a second to adjust to this unexpected position, but then they acted at the same time. Hank’s free hand seized Hendricks by the front while Hendricks pounded his helmet with the crowbar again. It was quite useless, and would have been even if Hank hadn’t had indestructible metal covering his head. Hank, for his part, didn’t even seem to feel it. He threw Hendricks up and through the air as though he had been a toy. Hendricks, screaming in surprise and fright, went at least ten feet before crashing painfully into another shelf. It toppled over with the force of his impact, colliding with the next one and knocking it over, and so on until at least three or four shelves had crashed into ruin with deafening sounds.
Hendricks, for his part, thought for a moment that the impact had snapped his spine. Certainly for a few minutes he couldn’t move for shock and pain. Meanwhile, to his right, Hank rose up again and began walking toward him. The sight gave Hendricks enough strength to crawl backwards away from the approaching monstrosity. But he knew it was no good; he couldn’t escape Hank like that. But at least Helen had gotten away…
Hank caught up with him as he was crossing the center aisle. He rose above Hendricks like the shadow of death itself, his blade lifted as he prepared to strike…
But at that moment, something distracted him. A low, rumbling noise, which Hendricks realized had been going for a few minutes now, was growing suddenly louder, though Hendricks was still too fuddled to recognize it. Then he and Hank turned just in time to see a large forklift come racing up the aisle and plow straight into Hank with a terrible splat. Hendricks felt warm blood splash onto him as Hank was dragged under the wheels and the whole thing screeched to a halt, still on top of him.
Helen climbed out of the forklift. Even in the darkness, Hendricks could see she was extremely shaken.
“Are you alright?” she asked in a trembling voice.
“Ah,” he said. “More or less. You?”
“Fine,” she said.
She helped him to his feet, with many a wince and yelp of pain. Hendricks was sure some of his bones were broken.
Helen looked back at the forklift resting on top of Hank.
“I…I killed him,” she whispered.
“I’m not complaining,” said Hendricks fervently.
He didn’t know what to say to her. He remembered how he felt when he thought he had killed Charles.
“Well,” he said. “Anyway, let’s…let’s get out of…”
Suddenly, there was a terrible scraping noise from the forklift, then a series of loud bangs and tears. Hendricks fumbled for the flashlight (which had miraculously stayed looped around his wrist this whole time), switched it on and saw that Hank wasn’t dead at all! It had just taken him that much time to extract his blade arm out from under the forklift and he was now hacking at it in an attempt to get free.
It’s always a shock to discover life where you don’t expect it; when you unfold a napkin and find out that an earwig has been taking a nap inside, or when the wasp you thought was dead suddenly starts moving again. This was worse; a thousand times worse. It was even worse, in a way, than it had been when Charles had suddenly appeared after being shot. Then, at least at first, there might have been some natural explanation. Besides which, seeing Charles walking along as though nothing had happened was, in itself, not unnatural or uncanny. But seeing Hank, trapped under more than a ton of metal, struggling and flailing like a half-crushed cockroach, was something out of a nightmare.
They ran for it, Hendricks hardly even noticing his injuries in the sheer horror of the situation. Though they were nearly exhausted by now, Helen and Hendricks raced out of the warehouse, down the hall, up a flight of stairs, around a corner, and on until they felt they couldn’t go any further even if it was a choice between flight and death. Coming upon a small closet, they staggered into it, closed the door, and collapsed amid the filthy, rusted mops and buckets.
They were too tired to even speak, or to wonder whether Hank was following them or had even managed to extricate himself yet. They simply leaned their backs against the door and sat, side-by-side, trying to regain their lost breath. As they sat there, their eyelids began to grow heavy, their heads drooped, and before very long they had fallen fast asleep, their heads on each other’s shoulders.
“Get up! Get up now!”
Helen started. The Dog’s voice was louder and sharper than she had yet heard it.
“Get up!” he barked. “You’re not safe here! Down the hall, left at the fork, and on until you see a large vent covering. Get in there and go as far down as you can. But run! Always run, or it will be too late! GET UP!”
Helen awoke as though something had slapped her. Hendricks was still asleep.
“Hendricks!” she said, shaking him roughly. “Get up! We have to go!”
“What?” he snapped, jerking awake. “What is it?”
“We have to run,” she said, getting to her feet (soreness coursed through her legs as she did so). “We’re not safe here. Come on!”
“Run?” he repeated wearily. “I can’t run.”
“You have to!” she said, trying to pull him up. “Please, Hendricks, we have to go now!”
“What did you see?” he asked, rising reluctantly to his feet. “What’s going on?
“I don’t know, but we have to go!” she said. “Come on!”
She threw open the closet door and ran. Her legs screamed in protest, but she forced herself to go on. Hendricks limped along behind her.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“Left at the fork…” she gasped. The hall was much longer than she had expected. “Left at the fork,” she repeated. “Air vent…big air vent…hide in there…”
They reached the fork and she turned left, stumbling in her exhaustion. Here the hall seemed to stretch on as far as they could see, too dim to tell where the vent that was their only hope might be.
“Helen…” Hendricks gasped.
“Just keep going,” she replied.
They staggered down the hall, Helen looking left and right for the vent the Dog had spoken of. But even as she did so, she became aware of another sound besides their footsteps and labored breathing. A sound of breaking wood, as though a door had just been smashed in. An angry, inhuman scream, and, coming up behind them, growing louder every minute, a noise like rushing water…
“Helen…”
“I know!” she gasped. “Here!”
A grate, about three-feet square, appeared on their right. Helen and Hendricks collapsed next to it, trying to pull it loose. It came free only reluctantly, and all the while the terrible noise continued to approach. Hendricks jammed the crowbar into the edges and pulled with all his might. The grate groaned in protest, then suddenly gave way all at once.
“Go!” he said. Helen threw herself into the cramped, dusty tunnel and began to crawl as fast as she could. Hendricks came right behind her.
“Straight on, as far as we can go,” she said, coughing both from dust and exhaustion.
They were moving blind. Helen had no way of knowing how far back the vent went, nor whether they were anywhere near it. All she knew was that they were still far too close to the entrance for comfort.
The noise of pursuit reached a crescendo, and suddenly the whole vent shook as Python rammed his head against the entrance. He shrieked in rage at finding the tunnel too small for him. If Helen and Hendricks had thought they were going as fast as they could, this showed them that they were wrong. They redoubled their pace as Python slammed into the wall again, hissing and spitting in his rage.
Suddenly, Helen slammed headfirst into the far end. Small lights winked before her eyes as her head throbbed with pain. Hendricks, not noticing this, crawled straight into her, which bumped her head against the wall a second time.
“Is that it?” he asked, looking back at the still-too-short tunnel behind them and at the confused view of white teeth and black tongue beyond.
“Yes,” muttered Helen, clutching her aching head. “No!” she corrected herself. “It turns! Come on!”
The vent did indeed turn a very tight corner to the right. Helen scrambled around it and kept crawling.
It was not a moment too soon. Hendricks had hardly squeezed around the corner after her when a loud splash, followed by a hiss like water thrown on a hot skillet and a pungent, burning smell right behind them told them that Python had managed to get a clear shot for his acid.
They crawled on for a while longer, neither wishing to stop in such an uncomfortable position. Python’s screams of fury echoed along behind them, and every so often the vent shook as he tried to break through the wall. These became less frequent, and finally died away altogether.
Helen stopped suddenly, so that Hendricks almost ran into her again.
“I’m sorry,” she gasped. “But I just…can’t go anymore…”
He nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see him and coughed out “sure.”
There really wasn’t any way they could shift into a more comfortable position, so they just allowed themselves to sink straight down, lying flat on their stomachs. For a long time they just lay there, breathing.
“You saved us,” Hendricks said after a little while. “I’m sorry, I should have listened to you sooner…”
“Well, we got away anyway,” she said. “It’s alright.”
There was another long pause.
“Just so you know,” he said. “I think I officially believe you now.”
Helen couldn’t help laughing.
Next Week:
Chapter Twelve: The Scientist and the Sharks
No comments:
Post a Comment