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Dark Delight

Chapter 5: Condemned Sanctuary

   But I was overcome by an uneasy feeling. Some unseen artifact of my slumber was plaguing my thoughts, hiding just beyond the reach of consciousness. What was it? I tried to think back into my dreams, but oddly, I could remember nothing. It was as though I had fallen asleep only moments before, and time had forgotten me. I reached out into the darkness with my thoughts, trying to grab hold of something. Trying to find whatever had awakened me. My ears perked up, sensing a low hum. A sound floated by, produced by an unknown origin, and took on a visible pattern amidst the void. It spelled out, “No.”

   I was filled with a sense of dread. I had no idea what could have caused it, but it filled my mind nonetheless. I threw the blankets aside and stood up, tipping to the side. My balance was a bit off, and the fact that the visible world was on vacation didn’t help matters. I faced my watch in the direction that I could most closely approximate as “down,” and pressed the light button again. Sure enough, I could make out the fuzzy surface of the carpet. I took a few steps forward as the light drained, hearing the downward pitch that it produced. As the light died, I found the wall. I reached out toward it, found it with my hands, and shimmied along to the side until I found the doorway leading to Laura’s room. I rounded the corner, and found a small trail of light emanating from the bottom of her door. I lifted my hand, intending to knock lightly.

   I could hear a low mumbling sound. I focused on it for a bit, making it out to be a news anchor. I could not tell the individual words, only the speaking style, very matter-of-fact. It was overpowered by a whimper, which turned into soft sobbing. Something was up. I twisted the doorknob and cracked the door slightly. In my small field of view I could see Laura’s head at the foot of her bed, face pressed down against her pillow, hair flowing in every direction. She peeked up, then quickly raised a fist and slammed it down against the bed. Her face dropped back into the asylum of the pillow, her head bobbing as she sobbed.

   I opened the door and stepped in, feeling compelled to help in some way. “Is something wrong?” I asked. As she turned her head toward me, the soft light from the television illuminated her red nose and rosy, tear stained cheeks. My eyes followed her as she turned her head back toward the TV, a look of pain crossing her face. I walked over toward the bed, sensing that she could not bear to watch the images on the screen. I sat down beside her and draped my arm over her back, trying to offer some comfort, and realized just how much our pajamas matched. I looked up at the television, wondering what could cause her so much grief.

   The camera panned to the side following two police officers that escorted a young man in handcuffs. His black leather jacket hung from one shoulder, as though he had been cuffed while trying to put it on properly. He had a somewhat muscular build, a pierced ear, and short hair dyed orange. The anchor revealed that the police had made a sting, and that the man was suspected of arms trafficking. They had found several racks filled with tools of destruction of various sizes, and several boxes containing ammunition. “That idiot,” Laura sobbed, “that damned idiot. How could he?”

   The trio ambled past two men dressed in black business suits, each wearing dark glasses. Their mouths moved slightly in turn, as if they were speaking to someone. They didn’t appear to be directing their words to each other, but rather to some unseen third party. I didn’t like the look of them, which surprised me, as I had never met or even seen either of them previously. But yet, somehow, they seemed familiar. The anchor announced that the young man was being held in custody until a special hearing could be arranged.

   Laura raised her head up from the drenched pillow, and gave me a tearful look. “Did you sleep well?” she asked. I nodded. “Good, because we have a long day ahead,” she muttered in between sniffles. She swung her legs around to the floor and walked out of the room. I got up to follow. We walked through the bedroom door into the hallway. The light from the television cast a maneuverable trail along the floor. Laura opened a door, walked through and quickly closed it behind her. I heard water running, and came to the conclusion that it must have been the bathroom. I walked back into the bedroom and sat on the bed just in time to catch the weather report. The skies would be clearer today, with a chance of shower in the late afternoon.

   A few minutes later Laura emerged from the bathroom, rubbing her wet hair with a towel. She had laid out a set of towels for me, and said that she would find me some clothes while I showered. I took my turn of the bathroom, enjoying the aromatic scent of Laura’s soap. When I returned to the bedroom, she had already dressed, and offered me a pile of fresh clothes. I asked how she managed to own a set of men’s clothes, and she explained that a friend of hers kept a few pair there.

   After I was dressed and ready to roll, we embarked on our journey. Our first stop was a bagel shop down the street. Laura had forgotten to mention that the DD would strike me with extreme hunger, and thus I had some business to attend to. Once I had satisfied my aching stomach, we headed to a corner bus stop, where we waited for a few minutes. We stood tapping our feet and shrugging our shoulders to fight off the cold morning air. The bus arrived, and we climbed aboard. As we rumbled down the street, I gazed out the window, trying to imagine the television screen superimposed over the buildings flying past. Who was that young man, and why did his arrest upset Laura so much? I noticed that the buildings had disappeared, and we were driving past a small grassy park, where two happy children playfully kicked a ball back and forth between them. The buildings returned, and after a few moments, Laura reached up to pull the chord signaling the driver to make a stop.

   We got off the bus in front of an old dilapidated building. As the bus drove off, Laura stood still for a moment with her eyes closed. A small tear snuck out as she opened her eyes and began climbing the old cracked cement steps toward the building. I noticed a dull yellow sign duct-taped to the rickety front door of the building, and stopped dead in my tracks. There was no way I was letting this psycho chick drag me into a condemned building. She turned around and smiled at me, waving for me to follow her. I shook my head in defiance. She dropped her arms to her sides, tilted her head, and glared at me as though I were a bad puppy. I sheepishly followed her into the run down building, hoping that it would wait a few more hours before collapsing.

   We walked down a darkened corridor, the only light to guide us coming from boarded windows. I was careful not to touch the dusty walls covered in cobwebs. Paint peeled from the walls and ceiling, and the floor creaked beneath our feet, as though begging us to reconsider treading upon it. We turned around a corner and found an old metal spiral stairway. I looked up through the stairwell, which spanned two floors, momentarily blinded by the light cascading through the crevices in the rotten roof. I followed Laura down the stairs to the basement of the building. She pressed a button on the wall as we reached the bottom of the stairs, sparking life into an old light bulb dangling from the ceiling. A musty odor permeated from the old cement walls. The room was small, with a heavy looking metal door in the back. As we approached, I heard a clanging noise coming from the door. I paused in anticipation. Laura continued toward the door, as it slowly creaked open.

   A young man with green dyed hair, probably no older than myself, stuck his head through the door and smiled at Laura. She walked up to him, throwing her arms around his neck and giving him a big kiss on the cheek. He wrapped his arms around her waist, and for a moment they stared into each other’s eyes, then brought their lips together. I turned away for a moment, avoiding the display. I looked up as Laura pointed back toward me, saying, “This is the one I told you about.” He looked back at me and smiled.

   “Hey, you’re a perfect fit!” he exclaimed, examining my attire. I then realized that our dimensions were similar, and that I was probably wearing his clothes. After Laura and I followed him through the door, he let out a groan as he pushed the heavy door shut. After giving the lock lever a twist, he turned around to lead us down another corridor. The walls were covered in some black material. It looked more like some painted metal than cloth. We arrived in a large room with the same material covering the ceiling and walls, and a long table in the center. On one end of the table sat a small portable television. At the other end, a man was seated in a folding metal chair. He wore a long gray trench coat, the top buttoned around him tightly, the bottom flowing off to the side of the chair. He stared intently upon the television, watching some sort of talk show.

   “They’re here, Don,” our green-haired escort announced. The man seated at the table turned to face us. The light of the television reflected off of the lenses of his glasses. He rose and walked toward us as Laura stormed forward. I thought I heard the green-haired fellow mutter, “Uh oh.”

   Laura stood mere inches from the man. He towered over her by perhaps a half foot, and looked down to meet her icy glare. “How could you?” she demanded, visibly shaking. “How could you send him off to die like that?”

   “It wasn’t my fault,” the man responded, unaffected by her display.

   “You knew they’d find him! You knew, and you didn’t do anything to stop him!”

   “How could I have known?” he replied. “You know I can’t track them. If anything, you led them to him with your little joyride.”

   Laura threw her arms up in the air, yelling, “You told me to take it! You said they were on to me. You said that the Buffalo station wouldn’t be safe. You said to go to Gates, and that I’d know what to do from there.”

   Gates? That small town where my ride on the bus had ended? How had he known that they’d drop me there? I stepped forward and took a closer look at him. He seemed to sense my confusion, and pulled his lips into a half grin. His glasses slipped down the slope of his nose a bit, and the low light twinkled in his dark green eyes. I felt like I had seen him before, but couldn’t remember where. There was something about him. The green eyes, Gates, the bank dream. It all came together. “It was you,” I began. He nodded in agreement. “You planted those dreams in my head, didn’t you?”

   “Only on that particular day,” he responded. “And it wasn’t all my doing. Your brain did most of the work. I only helped it along. I didn’t want you falling into their hands at the station.”

   Laura got back up in his face. “So instead, you decided to give them Bronze. What the hell were you thinking?”

   “I didn’t give them Bronze,” he said in a deadly serious tone. “Bronze broke the sixth rule. I hadn’t anticipated his strike of brashness.”

   “Well, why didn’t you tell him to go someplace else?”

   “I tried, but he blocked me out. They were after him, and he was on the defensive. I couldn’t get through to him. In retrospect,” he said as he turned back toward the television, “I should have assigned him to the stadium instead of the warehouse.”

   “Well,” Laura said as she turned her head down toward the floor, “it’s too late now. They have him. If we don’t move quickly, they might get us too.”

   “Exactly,” he said, still staring at the television. “We have to rotate today. I already have the new map laid out. It’s just a matter of… Oh, no!” He bounded over to the table, dropping his head right in front of the television, squinting at the screen. Some local breaking news headline had interrupted the talk show. The hockey game that was to take place that evening had been rescheduled until further notice. The reporter promised that a new start time for the game would be given as soon as it became available. The talk show resumed, already in progress. “Bastards!” he exclaimed as he slammed his fists down on the table. The television bounced, nearly falling off the edge. He spun back toward us, the tail of his trench coat floating in midair. “We have to act now.” The green-haired fellow nodded his agreement and ran back toward the door. Laura stood still, a blank look on her face.

   “What’s going on?” I asked, looking around. I felt as though all hell was about to break loose. “What’s the deal with the hockey game?”

   “They’ve cancelled it,” the man began. “They probably closed the stadium down.”

   “To search it,” Laura said, staring blankly into the distance.

   “He must have told them.” He shook his head. “I just hope Crim made it out in time.”

   The ceiling shook under the force of footsteps. Don walked over toward a cardboard box that sat on the floor. He bent down to open the box, reached in and produced a small brown bag, and tossed it to Laura. She caught it in the air, only moving her arm. She still stared into the space before her. A moment later, I heard the creaking sound of the door opening once more. Laura suddenly shifted, as though shutting off her train of thought. A yell came from behind. “Donovan!” Don turned around to face the door. “Crim is all right, he’s on his way here.”

   “Good,” Don said, nodding confidently. “We’ll be out of here in the next hour.” He turned back toward the box, digging through it. I walked around the table, interested in the secrets held within the box. As I drew near, Don looked up at me, casually tossing a black bag in my direction. I wasn’t expecting the projectile, and jumped to catch it. I barely missed. I turned around to pick it up, but instead of finding it lying on the floor, I found Laura standing right behind me, holding it out to me in her hand. I took it from her, and as I was about to pull open the drawstrings to peek inside, she shook her head and said, “Just wait on it.” I nodded, and lowered the bag to my side.

   Donovan pulled a large, rolled up sheet of paper from the box. He walked over to the table and unrolled the paper, which showed a fairly detailed map of some city. Laura and I turned to examine the map. The first thing that caught my eye was the bold word in the upper left corner: Chicago.

   “We’re leaving?” Laura exclaimed, overwhelmed with frustration. “Do you have any idea how long my lease goes?”

   “Sublet it,” Donovan replied in a flat tone. “Get one of your friends from the place on Seventh to take it. I’m sure one of them would be thrilled to get into a single. Tell her you found a job in Florida.” He produced a small memo pad and a pen from his coat, scribbled something on the pad, ripped the page from the pad, and handed it to her. “Tell her to forward anything for you to this address.”

   “Won’t they find out about it, and track this place down?” she asked as she took the paper.

   Don grinned. “That’s the plan. We’ll set up here,” he said as he pointed to a pink rectangle on the map, marked as Base. “You and Aqua will be in this area,” he said, as his finger traced around a region in the northeast corner of the map, “and Crimson and Ray will take the west side.”

   “What about Rich?” Laura asked. Don turned toward me, examining me with his deep green eyes. “Are we bringing him?”

   “That depends,” Don said as he brought his arms up and crossed them over his chest. “As long as you feel you’re ready,” he said to me.

   “Ready for what?” I asked.

   “Ready for a lot of things,” he began. “Ready to take a chance. Ready to explore the world. Ready to explore yourself.”

   I shrugged. “I guess so,” I said. Donovan shook his head and turned to look down at the map once again.

   “There isn’t much time. Lavender, go take care of whatever needs attending. We’ll meet up here,” he said, pointing at a brown rectangle marked Mall. Laura nodded, and began walking toward the door. I looked up at her, and she turned around to face me, saying, “Just listen to him, and I’ll see you later!” She ran over to the door and flipped up the lever. As she pulled the door open, she reached into her purse and pulled out a small cell phone. She jumped through the door, which shut itself behind her a moment later.