J Duncan - Deadworld

“Gamble? Get them here. Now. Fire, ambulance, everyone. We’re locked in the basement of Tanenbaum’s Funeral Home.”

In the pitch blackness, Nick fumbled around for the girl’s hands and feet, hoping he did not cut her skin getting her free.

“Nick? You smell something?”

He did the moment she said it. Smoke. “Yeah. Something’s burning.”

The dim light of her cell phone came back on. “Gamble! Tell them the building is likely on fire, so the sooner the better. No. The power is out down here, I have no fucking idea how we’re getting out. Yes, I tried! It’s a metal fucking door. Just get them over here!”

“Keep the cell on, Jackie. We can use the light to see with.”

She began to walk toward him, but a thunderous boom shook the house, knocking her down the last three steps to the floor.

Floating through the foul air, Drake’s voice quietly taunted. “Speed, dear boy. Once again, you have gone for the rescue over the kill. I’d hoped just this once you would give in on that choice, but it seems you will be stubborn to the end. I am still the gentleman, however, and have given you one last chance. Figure it out, and perhaps we shall dance again. You are too predictable, my friend. Good-bye. I shall see you on the other side.”

Drake’s laughter faded into the smoky darkness.

“There has to be another door out of here,” Jackie said.

There should be, and odds were it was securely sealed like the other one. “There should be windows though,” Nick answered. “Painted over, maybe. If they’re big enough we might be able to push the girl through.”

“Okay,” she said, moving over to a wall and stumbling over something metal on the floor. “Ow! Goddamnit.” Her voice had a tinge of panic to it, and Nick could hardly blame her for that one. Trapped in a burning building was not high on his choices of ways to go.

Smoke was beginning to thicken in the air. Another boom, and there came the sound of something crashing on the floor above. The second-floor ceiling perhaps? If they had looked upstairs first, they might have found whatever materials Drake had situated to take the house down.

Carrying the girl in one arm, Nick felt his way along the back wall, lined with stainless-steel counters and cupboards. There had been a full-sized door for something over on this end of the room.

“Hey, I found a window!” Jackie called out. “And it’s maybe six inches wide. We’ll never get her through this, Nick.”

“Okay,” he said, finally finding the door that had been to the left of the stairs and across the room from the foot of the cadaver table. “Office or storage room here. Maybe an extinguisher inside.” Not that it would do them a lot of good in the end. It might buy them a minute or two. Holding the girl, Nick kicked the door in and was greeted by a shimmering wall of heat and bright flame. He turned his back to the fire to protect the girl. “Christ. The ceiling is down in here.”

That meant the first floor was already engulfed in flames-likely began the moment they came downstairs. They needed that basement door opened. It was only a six-foot span across to the back door through the mudroom. Even with the house on fire, they could make that leap without dying. Probably. Jackie had the same thought.

“Gamble! We need that basement door unlocked, or you’re going to have a very crispy agent down here.” She coughed several times against the thickening smoke. “Yeah, I realize the place looks like an inferno, but we’re dead if it doesn’t get open. Got it?”

To emphasize her point, another explosion shook the house, and this time part of the ceiling did collapse, bringing down a pile of flaming furniture from the sitting room. It narrowly missed Jackie, and she jumped back, a short scream escaping her lips. “Oh, my God. Nick! Any brilliant ideas?”

The fire lit up the room, allowing them to see at least, and Nick saw one last door past the office. It was large and metallic, with a handle much like one might find on an upright freezer. “Come on. In here,” he said, pointing at the cadaver fridge. “It might buy us some time.”

“That’s crazy. We’ll cook in there.”

“The floor is going to fall on us out here, Jackie. Move it.”

Nick ran over to the door and pulled the handle open. Even with the power off, the room inside was still cool relative to the rest of the basement. Once inside, Jackie was hesitant to shut the door all the way.

“Jackie. It’s forty degrees in here. Close the door.”

“But… Nick, it’ll be a goddamn oven.”

“It will be, but it gives us the most time.”

“Shit.” She pulled the latch shut, and they were closed inside. “Let’s hope they put out the fire before it can cook us.”

Nick gently laid the girl down on the floor, squatting beside her. He took off his hat and set it down over the wide, staring, and empty eyes. “Yeah, let’s hope.”

“Oh, no. Damnit, no!”

He could see that courage and determination, the desire to rescue the girl, which had been driving Jackie past the fear of everything else, slowly evaporate from her gaze. Nick rubbed a hand over his scalp. “I wish you’d have stayed outside, Jackie.”

She did not respond. Jackie was staring over the top of his head at the back of the freezer. Nick turned and realized the open-mouthed silence had nothing to do with the death of the girl. Oozing her way through the small ventilation grate in back of the ceiling was the faded, distorted form of Laurel.

Oh, my God. Why is she here? We’re about to fucking die, that’s why. Laurel’s ghostly image barely made itself present, a poorly lit hologram of her friend. She bent down immediately and passed her hand through the body of the young girl, a frown stretching the dark lines of her mouth. When she spoke, her voice sounded like it came from the end of a long tunnel.

“Nick,” she said, her words spaced out with apparent effort, “you must come. We need you.”

He stood up, hands thrust into his pockets. “We’re trapped here, Laurel.”

“Nick. You know how.”

“No!” he answered abruptly. In the dead silence of the freezer, it made Jackie’s stomach jump.

“Laur, can you help us?” She had no idea what a ghost could do for them, but maybe she knew something they did not. “Nick? What’s going on?”

Laurel’s foggy image faded to almost nothing for a moment but then sprang back with brief, brilliant intensity. “You must!” Her finger jabbed out at Nick, and she watched him take a hesitant step backward.

She could not see his face, but a second later, his shoulders visibly sagged. “I can’t do that, Ms. Carpenter. There must be another way.”

Her head shook. “No time. I’ll help, but hurry.”

Jackie tapped Nick on the shoulder, and he whirled around on her, startled. For the first time, she saw something she didn’t think possible in those depthless eyes. He looked afraid, which was the last thing Jackie needed to reassure her fraying nerves.

“Care to explain what the hell you’re talking about?”

Nick dropped back to his knees, reaching out to lift the hat and brush a strand of hair off the little girl’s face. “Blood. It’s all about blood.”

Something stung Jackie’s eye, and she reached up to realize it was sweat. Looking behind her on the wall by the door, the thermostat already read seventy-eight degrees. “Blood. What’s blood got do with our current situation?”

Nick stood up, moving with the effort of an old man. His face had gone into that unreadable zone again, except perhaps a droop in his eyes. Sadness? Haunted? Regardless, not a look Jackie was going for, under the circumstances.