Elizabeth Hand: 12 Monkeys

“All openings must be closed,” the voice said. Cole tugged at the zipper, wincing as the metal teeth bit at his chest. “If the integrity of the suit is compromised in any way, if the fabric is torn or a zipper not closed, readmittance will be denied.” More zippers, a series of metal clasps. Then he stood there, breathing hard, already sweating in his heavy fabric shell.

“Proceed,” the voice commanded.

He looked around and saw another, smaller, door in the wall behind him. He started for it, stopped. He flipped the plastic helmet over his head, adjusting the visor, then bent and lifted one of the oxygen tanks. “Jesus,” he muttered, grunting as he slung it onto his back. He pulled the tubing from its casing and threaded it through his helmet. Then he stooped before the box at his feet, taking out first one object and then another, staring at them and frowning. As though in a dream he held up a bottle, squinting to see if it had a label, then replaced it and grabbed a larger one. The bitter taste in his throat grew more pronounced and he yawned, covering his mouth with a gloved hand. Bottles, vials, a map. Last of all he dug out a flashlight, testing it to make sure it worked.

“Proceed.”

Cole crossed the room, slowly and awkwardly in the heavy suit, his heart pounding with exertion and what he refused to recognize as fear. When he reached the door it slid open, revealing a tiny chamber, a kind of air lock. He stepped inside. The door boomed shut behind him. His breath came more quickly as he sucked oxygen from the air tanks on his back. On the opposite wall of the chamber was another door with a huge wheel lock. He turned the wheel, groaning at its weight, then slowly pushed the door open and stepped through. Immediately he lost his balance, catching himself before he hit the floor.

“Son of a bitch.”

The entire room shuddered. There was a grinding sound, a series of deafening clanks: he was inside an ascending elevator. For several minutes he leaned against the wall, trying to calm himself. Then the elevator jolted to a stop. Cole stepped hesitantly back to the door. A minute passed; neither elevator nor door moved. His own breath thundered in his ears. Finally he braced himself and slowly pulled the door open.

Outside, unbroken darkness streamed. He could hear the soft plink plink of water dripping, muffled by his helmet. His flashlight showed black water moving sluggishly through a wide underground channel. A sewer. Cole felt a twinge of gratitude for his oxygen tank. A few yards away a rusted ladder straddled a crumbling concrete wall. Cole fumbled at his belt until he found his map, unfolding it awkwardly with his gloved hands. He looked back at the ladder, with a sigh refolded the map, and sloshed out into the channel.

The ladder shuddered beneath him as he climbed, trying to shift his weight evenly so that the whole ramshackle construction didn’t send him crashing into the black water below. Once he almost lost the flashlight. When at last he reached the top step his head bumped against the ceiling, the cracked concrete slimed with black, trailing streamers of mold. Cole grimaced, peering up until he found what he was looking for. He clutched at the ladder with one hand, with the other pushed against the ceiling until it trembled. With a sudden sharp crack the manhole cover gave way. A circle of bluish light opened above him as he shoved it aside. He clambered out.

Night!

But not the artificial night he had known for so long, with its stench of caged men and decaying vegetable protein. Instead, above him loomed buildings, townhouses and skyscrapers and brick tenements, their broken windows like silver teeth glowing in the moonlight. Silver fell through the air as well; he held out one gloved hand and watched in amazement as it was dusted with crystal.

Snow. Snow!

“Sweet Jesus,” he murmured.

Real cold. Real snow.

He straightened, turning so that his flashlight swept across the landscape. He was in a square surrounded by dead buildings, immense trees whose limbs crowded empty storefronts, the crumpled spines of telephone poles. Vine-covered humps of metal that he knew must be automobiles. He couldn’t recall when he had last seen an automobile, but at sight of the vines he frowned, remembering something. Another dream: this one of a room filled with light, a circle of white faces and a monotonous voice reciting as images flickered across a screen.

“ Pueraria lobata , common kudzu. A noxious plant that serves as host to a variety of insects…”

He groped at his belt until he found a bottle, then cautiously approached the cars. With one hand he dug among the vines, until with a cry of triumph he captured a tiny wood beetle. Clumsily he popped the top of the collection tube and was dropping the beetle inside when something rustled behind him. Balancing the tube against his chest, he turned.

“What the—!”

In the flashlight’s glare an enormous creature reared, snarling. Cole stumbled backward; the creature remained poised before him, clawing at the drifting snow, its mouth open to show rows of white teeth.’

“Jesus!”

A bear. The snarl became a roar. For a moment Cole thought it was going to lunge at him. Instead it abruptly sank onto all fours, turned, and without a backward glance padded down the street. Cole watched it go, his heart thundering. When it was out of sight he walked slowly into the square.

The moonlight made a frozen circus of store windows adrift with snow and dead leaves. In one, a toy train set lay in pieces. Blank-eyed mannequins wore rags and bits of tinsel, their rigid hands pointing at stuffed toys oozing shredded foam and sawdust. Beneath a tipsy metal Christmas tree lay a fallen angel, her face pocked with dirt. Carefully Cole stepped through the broken window and walked up and down the aisles, his flashlight playing across crumpled metal racks filled with rotting clothes. He stopped when the light struck a mannequin wearing a Hawaiian shirt, grinning maniacally beneath a sign that proclaimed: START THE NEW YEAR IN THE KEYS!!! Between the mannequin’s outstretched hands an elaborate spiderweb glimmered in the flashlight’s gleam.

“Okay.” Cole breathed, reaching for another collection bottle. As his gloved hand reached and plucked at the spider, the web collapsed. With a sound like a sigh, the mannequin shivered. The Hawaiian shirt turned to dust as pigeons fluttered overhead, roosting in the shadows.

He went back outside, broken glass crunching beneath his feet. Snow blew in soft eddies against the sides of empty buildings. In the distance he heard a faint howling: wolves. At the end of the square there was a movie theatre. On the sidewalk beneath the marquee stray letters lay beneath a dusting of snow. Overhead the marquee read:

He barely registered the marquee, instead moved slowly and purposefully toward the crumbling brick wall that stretched beside it. Amidst obscene graffiti and tattered posters there was a stenciled image: twelve monkeys dancing in a closed circle. Beside it were the words: WE DID IT!

Cole stared at the stencil. When he swallowed his mouth tasted sour, with a bitter aftertaste. He turned from the wall and continued out of the square, passing a vast deserted train station. He did not see the crouching figures in the station’s yawning entrance — six wolves, their green eyes glowing balefully in the moonlight. But there were other, solitary footprints there, very large, with pronounced claws at the tips of each toe pad. He followed these, until he saw at his feet a small brown mound steaming in the cold. Cole bent and scooped some of the feces into another collection tube. Behind him the wolves slipped silently away, disappearing behind an abandoned baby carriage. Cole replaced the top of the collection tube and continued to follow the animal’s tracks.