Mary Robb - Down the Rabbit Hole

And then he’d blown it.

She’d tried to warn him, but he hadn’t listened to her. Thinking back on it he recalled multiple conversations about his phone use. Most of them joking—he’d thought —but some of them serious. Heartfelt.

Why hadn’t he paid more attention ?

Why hadn’t he realized that if she left him, he’d be heartbroken—even in the face of an apparent psychotic break?

The elevator doors opened with a clamor of hinges and electronics. He pushed himself off the wall and stepped inside. Just for the hell of it he pressed all the buttons again, but was not surprised when he ended up back on 5. The doors eased open, and he was back in the sterile world of non-glowing, non-throbbing, non-dinging cubicles.

Just outside of the elevator alcove he stopped and listened. Still silent. He glanced left, the route he believed went to his cubicle, then right, and nearly jumped out of his skin at the appearance of the elusive red-haired guy. The one he’d seen just before spotting Brian.

Impossibly tall and stooped with self-consciousness, he was thin, with a hangdog look to go with his past-due haircut and indoorsy complexion. He was older than Jeremy by probably ten years, and his eyes looked faded.

He addressed Jeremy with a dead gaze. “Hey.”

Jeremy looked up—way up—and held out a hand. Between the giant Mrs. Hartz and now this guy, he wondered if he’d accidentally ingested something that said Drink Me on it. Or was it the Eat Me that had made Alice small?

“It’s you!” Jeremy beamed. “I’ve been looking for you. Did you hear me calling earlier?”

“Yeah.” The red-haired guy glanced down, then offered his hand. It felt like a collection of popsicle sticks in Jeremy’s.

“I’m Jeremy Abbott.”

“Kyle.”

“Listen, I’m glad to meet you. Do you mind answering some questions? What is this place? Do you know? Have you been here long? Have you got any idea how we get out?”

Kyle nodded his shaggy head. “Yeah, so, we got, uh, sent here by stuff we did, you know?”

Jeremy raised his brows. Kyle seemed to think that was enough information. “Sent here? By who? What stuff? How do we find out? Is this some kind of purgatory?”

Kyle took a deep breath and let it out, as if fatigued by the questions. “Yeah, so, I’m not sure? But it seems like somebody, maybe some kind of witch or alien? Or maybe God? Sent us here.” His arms flopped up and down in a bizarre expression of ignorance. “Yeah, so we need to work on ourselves, fix stuff, and then we can go home.”

Jeremy’s heartbeat accelerated. “So we’re not dead?”

Kyle gave an incredulous look. “No, we’re not dead .”

Jeremy had no idea how much he’d feared the opposite answer until he got this one. Muscles he didn’t know he’d tensed let go and relaxed. “Okay, good. So we did stuff we need to fix. I think I figured out what I did. So how do we get out once we know?”

“Yeah, so, um, I know I need to get better with girls? Uh, women . Stupid,” he muttered to himself. “And I know ’cause I’m here. This is some stupid dating app, where we are, and we can only get out when we get dates.”

Jeremy held out his hands. “Hold on. You’re saying this here is an app?” He spread his arms out to encompass the room. Why wasn’t it dinging and flashing and whirring like the apps upstairs? “The whole floor?”

Kyle nodded.

“For people who need to get better with girls ?” This wasn’t what he’d expected. It was the phone thing—it had to be. Jeremy had never had women problems. Not until Macy dumped him. Unless . . . “Or with a certain girl?”

Kyle did that thing with his arms again. “Whatever. Some people have, like, money problems or whatever, and they go somewhere else. Other places like this. Rehabilitation apps.”

Jeremy rapidly put the pieces together in his head. “So you’re saying I’m here because I’ve got relationship problems.”

Kyle’s mouth turned down. “I don’t know. I think it’s, like, online problems. I think it all has to do with the device, you know?”

“Ah. The device.” It was all coming together, his thoughts, the photos on Macy’s phone, that poignant note in her voice when she’d said to someone in an audio text, I must be the most boring person on the planet.

He could kick himself.

Macy’s last words flew through his mind again. Someday you’re going to get sucked right into that thing . . .

“Yeah, like if you like being on your phone or your tablet or computer or whatever a lot you can do that here. It’s like device heaven, you know? I loved it, at first.”

“Here,” Jeremy reiterated, to be sure. “You loved it here.”

“Yeah. Except for the other people. I hate it when there’s noise. Like that day you got here, yelling across to Brian over there.”

“Wait, that day I got here—that was today . Right? That was earlier today.” Sweat broke out on his brow, under his arms.

Kyle wheezed a short laugh. “No, that was, like, a week ago. Look at your calendar.”

A sudden dizzy spell had him searching for the wall with one hand.

“Look, so, I got a question for you,” Kyle continued.

He’d lost a week. A week! He pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. Maybe he hadn’t figured everything out.

“Where’d you go?” Kyle continued. “Because, I think I’ve decided to go home now. I been here, I dunno, months, and it was great, but now . . . I think I discovered I want someone. Like a girlfriend.”

Jeremy looked up. “Months?” He thought Kyle might be blushing, because his wan face suddenly looked alive.

Kyle shifted, pushed his hands farther into his pockets and stepped closer. “Yeah. So where’d you go, how’d you get out?”

“I took an elevator.” He swung an arm back toward the elevator alcove, only to see a blank wall where it once had been. “Oh shit.”

Kyle looked at where Jeremy gestured, then looked back. “Uh-huh.”

“It was there. I swear it.”

“Uh-huh.” Kyle was nodding. “I meant how’d you get a date? Cuz I can’t get one.”

“A date ?” Jeremy’s neck was starting to hurt from looking up to see Kyle’s face. “ No . What are you talking about?”

“You gotta get a date, man. That’s how you get out.”

“ That’s how we get out?” Kyle had just given him the magic formula! He could have kissed him. “We get out!” He laughed, somewhat hysterically. “Come with me back to my cubicle, okay? Let’s figure this thing out. We’ll both get out of here.”

They walked down the hallway, Jeremy—who wasn’t short—taking twice the steps that Kyle did with his never-ending legs. His mind was spinning, thinking about how often he went for his cell phone, and how many times Macy had mentioned that he might want to put it away. The key to this whole thing was there somewhere, he was sure of it. Did he need to do some actual rehab? Was that how to mitigate this prison sentence and get back to Macy?

In a sudden flash he remembered what she’d said shortly before she’d walked off—what he’d thought was a joke. “I can’t compete with your phone. I’ll never be able to give you what it gives you.”

Hah. What a jerk he’d been.

The thing was, it wasn’t her ! He did it to everybody. Hell, he remembered hearing his text alert go off and checking the phone in the shower one time. Damn near ruined the thing—but he’d answered! Thank god for the talk-to-text feature.

By the time they’d found Jeremy’s cubicle, Kyle was panting for breath and looking paler than ever. Jeremy looked at him in concern. “This isn’t a moment too soon for you, buddy. You need some fresh air and exercise. You’ve been sitting in front of these computers too long.”