SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

And they were on the move again, wary of whatever may be on the prowl.

They were on one of the odd floors. There was cereal again—not in bins though—in little boxes with cartoon characters on the front. The milk cartons in the glass door cooler were foul, but they’d stretched the Parmalat and had plenty left. The next time he came across Parmalat, that was all Nate planned to carry. He was leaning back against the counter, a bowl of milk-covered Raisin Bran in his hand, his jaw machine grinding each bite. He was watching Raj.

Raj was sitting at one of the two small café tables to the side of the pantry, twirling an apple from one hand to another with the tips of his fingers, a waxed apple that appeared as if it could’ve been plucked from the orchard that morning. Raj was mumbling almost to an audible level, but it was what Nate deemed a happy mumble. He wondered if Raj saw an apple or a ball. He’d wait a moment and then tell him to eat. Raj moved better if he ate. Henry was rifling through the pantry’s top cupboards. Nate was used to this too, Henry’s search for something more than there was to offer.

“I’ll be,” Henry said.

Nate’s eyes rolled far right to see what Henry had discovered. It was a forest green cube tin. “What you have there?” Nate asked, though he was already aware of what was inside. One of his buddies had a tin like that, though he stored a different loose leaf inside.

“This,” Henry said, holding the tin high, “you cannot get stateside.” Nate noticed the tin was still plastic sealed. “Somebody brought this treasure here, special.”

“Well, there ya go,” Nate said. “It’s yours now.”

Henry gave the tin a closer inspection. “It’s mine now,” he agreed.

“How you going to heat it?”

“We’ll find a way. It won’t go to waste, I assure you. In fact, I think I may have a cup now.” He knelt down and opened a lower cupboard door. “And bingo.” He slid a full case of Sterno from the middle shelf. Nate tried to recall a smile on Henry’s face before this one. Another first.

A crash from the outer office stole the smile from Henry. Something heavy met the floor, a phone, or perhaps a monitor. Nate froze, the plastic spoon pinched snug between his thumb and fingers, hanging three inches from his mouth. He didn’t breathe. Another crash, definitely something flung from a desk.

Nate maneuvered the paper cereal bowl around to the counter and swapped it for his paper cutter machete.

Raj stared at Nate in wait for instructions to flee. He no longer twirled the apple. His fingertips pressed into the table; his hands were claws.

Henry gently, quietly, pressed the Sterno back into the cupboard.

Nate pressed a hand forward toward Raj, and then nodded to Henry, one gesture to remain, the other to follow. Henry held a butcher knife he’d retrieved from another office pantry. Not much of an arsenal, but Nate’s plan wasn’t to fight. He just wanted to see what was out there, because if one of those tentacle creatures loomed nearby he and Henry were going the other way.

The pantry was in the midst of a work area, two partitions and a café centrally located. The racket traveled from the other side of the partition, toward the corner. That was good. Nate wanted a peek, and if there was trouble, he’d grab Raj and head toward the stairwell door in the other direction.

He walked lightly yet held his blade high, ready to swing heavy. He approached the end of the pantry, prepared to round the corner, and then leaned forward, the cutter high behind his ear.

Another crash.

Nate froze.

He sucked a silent breath through his nose, and let his weight rest on his forward left foot. He leaned further in.

He expected to see the wavering mist, the fog, coursing across the carpeted floor, over the work tables, exploring, and from the thick creamy cotton haze a tentacle, probing, prowling.

But when Nate leaned forward that’s not what he found.

There was no mist stealing in from the corner of the floor, no break in the outer wall they’d missed, no tentacle exploring the surface of the tables.

There was something else.

There was someone else, a woman in a black dress. She was straightening the fabric, stretching the hem of the material down, and then she began to rake her fingers through her hair.

Slowly he lowered the cutter to his side and rolled his head around his neck, in awe of the stranger. Henry joined him by his side, and he too stilled upon seeing the woman.

“Terry?” Henry asked. But the Marketeer in the cocktail dress said nothing.

Nate had spent a day with Terry. That was all, one day, a lifetime ago. But once Henry mentioned her name, he recognized the young woman—her hourglass body, jet-black hair up in a bun before, now fallen to her shoulders. Her arms floated away from her hair and face, as if she was unaware of their presence. She didn’t set eyes on them. Nate was deciding if she was catatonic, as Raj had become. It was possible she’d been alone since leaving the eighty-fifth floor. Or maybe this was a ruse and she was aiming to flee.

She may’ve been ignoring them altogether, unsure if they were even real.

A rattle to Nate’s right caused her to stiffen.

He swung his head in time to see a pencil cup fall to the carpeted floor and gently roll to a stop.

She wasn’t ignoring them. There was something else on the floor, hidden from where Nate stood.

Nate’s eyes darted to either side of the room and then he slowly cranked his neck to peek toward the stairwell.

Slinking over the plain table desks was a single probing tentacle. He marveled at how long the arm must be, extending forty feet at least, yet only the fine tip explored the surface of the table, delicately swiveling around the lamp, the phone, sliding an abandoned legal pad to the edge and onto the floor with the cup.

The tentacle reached back to the exits, yet he saw no trace of mist to detail exactly from where the creature was entering. They could possibly go to the wall. This was an open floor with no outer suites and on arrival they’d found no glass disturbed—but that may’ve changed. Maybe they could wait it out, keep moving around the edges, outmaneuver the probing arm and make their exit in a loop. But there may be another and they would succumb to a trap.

A flush of heat filled Nate as his blood began to pump adrenalin.

He glanced at Henry. The Brit gave a nod down the aisle toward the stairwell, and Nate was glad for it. Best to scope the way out first. He repeated his gestures to Raj and Henry—remain and follow—and then he began to heel-toe forward, his cutter raised high in his leading right hand, poised to strike.

With a few short steps he was parallel to the tip of the creature.

Nate gave a hard look at the rows of tiny serrated suction cups lining the bottom half of the wriggling limb. The blood red tentacle appeared not to notice him.

He glanced back at Terry. She was watching his progression. The light behind her eyes let him know she was still very much there. He gave her a soft smile and she responded in kind. On that sole day they spent in the conference room she’d only had a stern look on her face. Annoyed her phone wasn’t working, that her plans were disturbed, that she was forced into the company of the others. The face she wore now was of a changed woman. Nate peeked to the tentacle, back to her, and signaled with his free hand for her to come. He sent the same signal to Raj and then raised his index finger to his mouth.

Henry stopped so that Terry and Raj could slip into line while Nate led the way.

And the way was slow. The four continued to the exit, Nate, Terry, Raj, and Henry silently hugging the shadowed wall as they went. Breathing as lightly as possible, taking gentle steps as the red writhing rope width of monster flesh running beside them continued to slither further into the room.