Written By: Pillowyspu
Edited By: Epicstu Wyyvernwriter
Three Months Later…
The city hadn’t been fair to the Woman. She missed those lush windswept U’Thuntu valleys that smelled of crisp pine needles; what she wouldn’t give to bask in their natural beauty one last time. Yet she found herself several thousand miles south of U’Thuntu in the entrails of Olympion’s most populated city. It reminded her of where she grew up; over seven million people were packed into one claustrophobic island that mostly consisted of government funded tenement homes stacked shoulder to shoulder crowding a soaring downtown skyline. The Woman hated it here; there was nothing beautiful about Laugar. The appeal of this city is its natural ability to stay under the radar. It’s built on an island a few miles from an active volcano that continuously spews volcanic ash into the atmosphere and buries the city under a constant blanket of black smoke. The sun never rises or sets in Laugar; it’s plagued with an endless night.
Laugar’s only saving grace: it’s one of the few places in the universe where one can truly stay hidden. At a glimpse, Olympion looks like a sparsely populated planet with less than 100,000 human-like forms. It’s only when one roams the planet’s surface and talks to the locals where they discover Laugar as one of the universe’s best kept secrets. But some secrets are meant to stay hidden and the city’s west side is a festering blemish that spoils the city’s reputation. This part of Laugar is a decrepit cesspool with virtually no laws; criminal industries control the neighborhood’s police force and the streets are soiled with violent crime and decaying infrastructure. Yet this is where the Woman and child ended up; she didn’t want to stay long but she was comforted by the fact that she was playing a game of hide-and-go-seek with the most dangerous man in the multiverse and he hadn’t found her yet.
As she lumbered down N.94th Street in Laugar’s infamous West Side, she choked on the noxious diesel-scented fumes that seemed to smother this part of town. Rusted iron bars jailed the city streets and police sirens wailed in the distance and howled at the night sky like rabid wolves. Auburn florescent streetlights and neon signs illuminated the canopy of low-hanging overcast clouds and painted the sky the dismal color of Hell-fire. Remnants of this evening’s acid rainstorm still glazed the city streets and the sickly scent of sulfurous death wafted from the concrete and asphyxiated the Woman. She paced down a residential sidewalk; her hands were tucked into the pockets of a tattered black hoodie, grasping a black-market butterfly knife she bought from some junkie over on 75th. She tucked her head down low, hoping no one would notice a single female jaunting down this desolate street after midnight. She knew she could defend herself but even knowing her own strengths didn’t mute her nagging sense of vulnerability. After all, these streets are where the worst of the worst come to hide.
It was a little before midnight before she arrived at the dilapidated apartment building she now calls home. This once stately historic apartment complex was tastelessly renovated with the cheapest materials and was now a filthy, featureless reminder this city had lost its sense of dignity. The Woman gingerly walked up the front stoop, pulled away one of the bricks and pushed a jerry rigged doorbell. She lowered her hood and stared directly at a security camera. After a brief pause, a metallic buzz followed by an echoing click interrupted her silent trance and she pushed open the door and made her way up four flights of rickety stairs.
Three knocks. Four knocks. Then three more knocks. The Woman tapped her bony knuckles on the aging oak door of Apartment 4B. After a brief pause, the sound of three deadbolts unlatching echoed in the empty hall of the fourth floor; she was greeted by an unkempt older gentleman as his jaundice eyes scanned her weathered body. He pulled the door open and instructed her to “hurry up and get in” before slamming the door behind him and re-engaging the locks.
“Annie.” The man spoke her name, “You’re home early.”
Her name wasn’t really Annie. It was the name she assigned herself to protect her true identity as she congregated with the drug dealers, convicts, and sociopaths that ran Olympion’s black market. Nid had instructed her from a young age not to trust too many people with her true identity.
She stepped into the living room. This was her home for the last three months: a five-room apartment with a small living area, two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen that could practically fit inside of a shoebox. She shared it with a sixty-one year old man and the three-year-old child she rescued only months ago. The boy – Ethan she named him – was sitting cross-legged on the stained carpeted floor; his miniature neck craned forward as he sat inches away from an analogue television set. He didn’t even notice the Woman come home; he was so enamored by the flashy images of cartoon violence that spoiled his young mind.
“What the Hell, Alan. I wish you wouldn’t let him watch that. Besides, it’s way past his bedtime.” The Woman dashed up to the television set and turned the channel to the local news. The boy groaned in protest and Alan hissed.
“You think the news is any better?” the old man rebutted, “At least the cartoon with the little crime fighting robots aren’t trying to influence his feeble mind into voting corrupt sons-of-bitches into offices of power so they can continue to royally fuck us in the ass – sans lube – while they bathe in swimming pools of cash they bamboozled from the brainwashed masses.”
“Hey! We talked about this. Number one rule. No swearing in front of Ethan.” The Woman demanded. Alan was unaffected.
“Lady, you’re forgetting that I own this apartment and all the contents inside of it so as long as you and your little pet are guests under my roof, you follow my rules,” Alan shuffled into the kitchen, fumbled through one of the drawers for a disposable lighter and lit one of his last cigarettes of the day. “And number one rule: I can say whatever the fuck I want.” The Woman rolled her eyes and watched him as he collapsed onto the couch, grabbed the remote control, and switched the television back to the violent cartoon. Ethan smiled and crawled back up to his faithful position in front of the TV.
Instead of arguing with the old man, the Woman sat down next to him, grabbed the cigarette from his trembling fingers and took a long, well-deserved drag, She coughed. “Did you work on the portal device today?” she reluctantly asked him. The man was silent. He didn’t bother giving her the time of day and instead chuckled at the cartoon and yanked the cigarette out of the woman’s hand. “Alan. I don’t know how much longer we’re going to be able to stay hidden from Noah.”
The man dropped the cigarette into an overloaded ashtray and faced the woman, “You still haven’t told me who this Noah guy is anyway.”
“That’s not important. What’s important is he is really dangerous and if he finds us before I can find what I’m looking for, he’ll kill me and probably gut you too just for fun.”
Alan once again remained silent and settled back into the couch, unaffected by the Woman’s attempt to invoke any sense of urgency in him. She already knew Alan didn’t have much to live for. His living room walls were plastered with symbolic reminders of the decades he spent in his distinguished career furthering scientific exploration; awards, accolades, and degrees from Olympion’s most prestigious universities were collecting dust and awaiting the day the old man finally croaks and the landlord comes through and tosses this man’s belongings into a dumpster moments after they wrap him up in a body bag and carry his festering corpse out of this five-hundred square foot apartment. After all, Olympion’s primitive scientific community shunned and banished him for his cockamamie theories of multiverse travel, so he now spends his retirement in this disgusting pigpen waiting for the day God will finally call him to the kingdom of Heaven, or more likely condemn him to Hell like the rest of his colleagues did.
But despite the fact that the Woman resented this revolting excuse for a man, he and his grandiose narcissistic fantasies of portal travel was her only hope for escape from this realm. He was so close to proving his life-long research of multiverse travel and the broken portal device was the ticket to earning back his dignity and his legacy. Why he’d rather sit on this putrid lime green pleather couch and watch cartoons with a three-year-old instead of working on the portal device was a frustrating mystery to the Woman.
“So – you want to order a pizza?” Alan finally spoke. The Woman sighed.
“Here’s an idea. Fix the portal device and we can teleport our happy assess to Italy and eat a slice of the real-deal on the banks of the fucking canals of Venice,” the Woman raised her voice.
Alan rolled out a fit of laughter to the point of coughing and the Woman was not amused, “See – even you can’t follow your own ‘no swearing’ rule. Besides, what the hell is this ‘Italy’ place you speak of?”
The Woman brushed off his cocky commentary and repeated herself, “Did you work on the portal device today?”
“Oh my God, Annie. I already told you. We’re basically trying to invent the atomic bomb on a planet that’s hasn’t even discovered the wheel yet.”
“We have the technology right in front of us. Nid – or whatever that thing was – said that we can rig it up with Barinium to get it working again. We have the Barinium. Why is it taking us three months?”
“You can’t just stick a Barinium crystal in the double-A battery slot and expect it to work. Barinium is a highly volatile substance, especially when you run voltage through it. One miscalculation and it will fry every other component and render everything useless. If we can actually find Flufonium ore, that would make it a lot easier to repair the NEC-Motherchip.”
“So where do we get that?”
Alan sarcastically stated, “Well isn’t that what you’ve been doing for the past month? What have you come across?”
The Woman paused and her eyes fell to the floor, “A lot of dead ends. Everyone on the black market runs away when I even mention Flufonium.”
“Well keep working at that. Until then, I’ll see what I can do with the Barinium but unless you have the proper calibration tables memorized, rigging the device up with Barinium is really risky.” He grabbed a nearby bottle of whiskey and took a swig, “Now piss off and let me watch RoboWarriors, goddammit.”
That stark realization settled over the Woman and she was weighted down by this man-child’s pessimism. When she heard that this genius scientist living somewhere in this city has expert theoretical knowledge of multiverse travel, it gave her the flame to continue fighting. That flame was now being choked of oxygen as she’s been living here for several months with zero progress.
The Woman sprang up from the couch, grabbed Ethan and made her way down the hallway towards the second bedroom. He started to fuss after she pulled him away from his cartoons but as soon as she laid him down in his crib, his eyelids grew heavy and he dozed off. As soon as he fell asleep, she tiptoed, trying her best to mute her footsteps as she paced around the boy’s bedroom and plotted her next move. Every time she swallowed, she felt an anxious lump in her throat; her heart felt as if it was tied in a frustrating knot. She marveled at the boy’s dreamy slumber; a faint smile pulled at the corner of his lips as he adjusted in his crib and his tiny hands pulled his fleece blanket closer to his chest. She grinded her teeth and picked at her cuticles as prophecies of the near and far future pirouetted in the back of her mind; she couldn’t imagine one plausible future that would include the boy. Maybe she could care for the boy until she fixes the portal device but after that, she hadn’t thought that far ahead. She was worried about Ethan – this cockroach infested death trap wasn’t the best daycare for a growing boy and Alan certainly wasn’t the best babysitter for him while the Woman goes out every day at double the hours of a full time job scouring the black market for a substance that instills fear in even the most ruthless criminals. And once she finally makes it out of this hellhole, she knew couldn’t take the boy with her; travelling the multiverse narrowly escaping death wasn’t the kind of environment a child should grow up in. She thought about her own childhood; Nid raised her to be a warrior but even at her tender age, she protected her from witnessing the utter cruelty of the multi-verse. Because of Nid, the Woman wasn’t the vehement psychopath she was destined to become. Despite being raised with one of the most ruthless Leon Aventis that ever walked the multi-verse, the Woman was completely naïve of true suffering and cruelty until she was a teenager. She miraculously had a fulfilling, relatively normal childhood. She wanted to provide the same for Ethan but the Woman wasn’t sure she could protect Ethan the same way Nid protected her. He already witnessed the tragic death of his parents and that alone is enough to turn someone cold.
The Woman felt that lump in her throat weigh her down; her legs practically buckled under the pressure of her flagrant angst and she stumbled towards the rocking chair situated next to Ethan’s crib and started to feel her own eyelids droop. She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye as she looked at the boy; she was going to have to say goodbye at some point and this realization was crushing her.
* *
The Woman didn’t sleep well that night but she was jutted out of the one ounce of sleep she managed to conjure when nightmarish images of Nid’s corpse flashed in her subconscious. She figured it was a little before dawn. The sun may not rise in Laugar but she could tell from the sound of the traffic wafting in through the open window that the trickle of early morning traffic hadn’t quite intensified into the morning rush hour. She wiped away a layer of restless sleep that seemed to permanently glaze her deep azure eyes and stretched her sore muscles before arising. She delicately closed the door behind her as she exited the child’s bedroom and headed for the bathroom. As she stripped out of the grimy tattered t-shirt and stained black jeans she had been wearing for the last three days and stepped in the shower, she could practically feel the city being washed away from her scoured body. She released a savory sigh as she ran the water through her hair and wrung out the ever-present oily dirt that seemed to stick to everything.
That moment she treasured was interrupted by the maddening sound of telephone ringing in the living room. She fumbled out of the shower, covered herself with a towel and hastened down the hallway towards the phone, leaving a trail of soapy droplets behind her. As she emerged in the living room, the old man was passed out on that putrid sofa and despite the fact that the ringing telephone was less than a foot away from him, his eyes remained slothfully glued shut and she could still hear his ear-splitting snore over the sound of the ringing telephone. She took a deep breath and answered the phone on its last ring, “Yes? Hello?”
“Annie.”
She leaned against the wall and faced away from the old man and muted her voice, “Yeah.”
“You’re looking for something. I have it,” the voice on the other end of the line was gravely and sinister and the Woman had to press the receiver closer to her ear to make out what the man was saying. The Woman couldn’t recognize the voice; she met countless men and women in the black market but this particular individual seemed to purposely mask his voice as if he was trying to hide his true identity. Still, his insinuation was intriguing.
“Go on.”
“I can give you an ounce for two million; meet me in the alley behind Fifty-Ninth Street Diner at ten o’clock with the money. Small bills; untraceable currency; in a duffle bag. Alone.” The man hung up before the Woman could get in a word.
The Woman didn’t have two million dollars. She barely had two cents to her name; she hadn’t eaten in two days because between her and the boy, her dire financial situation could only afford to feed one of them. She wasn’t going to be able to track down that kind of money in a few hours. Yet she still found herself slipping into a pair of black cargo pants and an unmarked black hoodie and racing around the apartment in preparation for this sketchy meeting with a man she knew nothing about. But she was promised an ounce of Flufonium and it was the best chance she had in months at securing even a molecule of the metallic ore.
Before heading out, she woke the old man. He groaned as she violently shook him out of his peaceful sleep and once he woke up, he flipped the Woman the middle finger and started to chug the last of the bottle of Whiskey he hadn’t had the strength to finish the night before. The Woman pulled the bottle from his lips and held it behind her back as she shot him a stern, motherly expression, “Where can I get two million dollars?”
Alan grunted, “Are you kidding me right now? Get the fuck out of here.”
“Someone just contacted me saying they have an ounce of Flufonium for two million and I’m meeting them at ten today.”
Alan rolled back over on the couch and shut his eyes; the Woman punched his shoulder and told him to “wake up and help!” He shot up and pushed the Woman, nearly tripping her over the coffee table and sending her backwards, “Woman. I spent my entire career as a distinguished professor at Olympion’s finest university and I’ve never seen that kind of money in my life.”
The Woman started pacing in circles; she took a swig of the whiskey and passed it back to Alan and he finished the rest, “Who would have that much money?”
“No one keeps that kind of cash lying around – except maybe…”
“A bank.” The woman completed Alan’s sentence before disappearing into the bedroom for a moment and reemerging with a duffle bag, leather gloves and a glossy black motorcycle helmet with a tinted visor. She fumbled through her pockets for a moment and pulled out a key, walked over to the hall closet, and grabbed a sawed off pump-action tactical shotgun which she placed in the large black duffle bag.
“You can’t be serious.”
“It’s the only conceivable way to get that kind of money by ten o’clock.”
Alan opened his mouth as if he was about to say something but deflated in defeat as he realized her insane plan was the only way. She continued to throw whatever she could find that might prove to be useful into the duffle bag and tied hair in a ponytail before fitting her head into the motorcycle helmet and checking herself in the bathroom mirror. Alan followed her around the apartment like a curious house pet and offered her nothing more than a vacant stare. He finally spoke, “The only bank that will have that kind of cash on hand near 59th street is Sutherland Mutual.” He looked at the flashing digital clock on his VCR, “It opens in about an hour.”
“I need some kind of getaway vehicle.”
“We can take my motorbike.”
The Woman stopped in her tracks and protested, “What exactly do you mean by ‘we.’ You are not coming with me.”
“Like hell I’m not! This is probably the closest were ever going to get to tracking down Flufonium and I want to make god-damned sure you don’t fuck this up.”
The Woman pulled in closer to Alan and looked him in the eyes, “Listen Alan. I don’t really like you – let’s get that clear. But right now, I trust you with the welfare of that child if something goes wrong and if I end up arrested or dead, you’re the only one on this whole fucking planet that will care for him. So please, I’m doing this alone.”
Alan stepped forward and raised his finger as if he was about to load a comeback but it backfired and he tumbled back into the pleather sofa. The Woman dropped the duffle bag by the front door and removed the motorcycle helmet before turning around and taking a moment. She threw her head back against the wall and swallowed her emotions as she adrenaline fueled her withered body. In all of this rush, she almost forgot about Ethan.
She tiptoed into the child’s bedroom; it still had an aura of innocence and serenity, which soothed the Woman’s nerves. Ethan was Heaven-sent. He was still buried in the depths of a peaceful slumber and he looked like he was having a wonderful dream. She walked up to the edge of his crib and ran her fingers through his unkempt mop of hair and laid a gentle kiss upon his forehead. She held back a bubbling fit of tears as she realized she was trying her best to keep this boy safe and it just didn’t seem good enough. Alan was standing in the doorway, watching this unfold and for the first time since the Woman met him, he looked as if he cared for the child too. They were an odd couple but right now, she was practically his mother and Alan was the only father this boy had left in this world.
She didn’t want to close the bedroom door behind her because for some reason, that felt like goodbye. She knew she could handle herself and had an unwavering sense of confidence but she also figured as soon as she gets her hands on that Flufonium, she was going to have to make a difficult decision she wasn’t ready to make.
* *
It was 8:17 and sixty-seven degrees. At least that’s what the digital clock above the bank’s front entrance said; whether or not that was accurate, the Woman didn’t know. She circled around the bank a few times before parking the motorbike behind a dumpster in the back alley near the rear exit. She located the power transformer, phone line, and street cameras and rigged explosives to each of those lines and set them to go off five minutes after 9 o’clock. She found an old payphone and used the last of her coins to make a phony call to emergency services claiming an armed robbery in progress at the jewelry store across the street. She sat on the fire escape above the bank and counted down the minutes before the police arrived. Within seven minutes of that call, several officers surrounded the building, some wielding assault rifle and riot gear. She watched the scene unfold and waited until the last of the officers cleared the scene before donning her helmet and loading her shotgun. Seven minutes; that’s all she gets. She was going to have to make this work and she wasn’t really ready to do this but she knew this was her only chance of getting out of this realm and so much was at stake.
As she walked down the sidewalk towards the front door wearing her black hoodie, motorcycle helmet and carrying the duffel bag and shotgun, she passed a few well-dressed pedestrians on their way to work; a blonde woman wearing a navy blue blazer and a tight dress skirt bequeathed to her a judgmental glare while the man in a tailored suit offered his expression of defenseless unease. The Woman was jealous; they just existed on this planet and had normal nine-to-five jobs and didn’t have to think about teaming up with an exiled scientist on the fringes of insanity and working with him to pull magical travel technology out of their assess so she can narrowly escape the most dangerous man in the multi-verse in search of an object that could ultimately alter her fate. She imagined the most exciting part of their day was eating a bologna and cheese sandwich on their lunch break and engorging in the latest breakroom gossip. They probably had a 401k, good health insurance, and maybe even an office on the seventh floor with a window facing the lobby. She wanted Ethan to have a life like that; it was so plain. It was so pedestrian. It was so safe.
The Woman walked up to the front door and placed her hand on the door handle and froze for a moment. She took a deep breath, pulled the shotgun from the duffle bag and entered the first set of double doors. After entering, she stood in the vestibule and wrapped a heavy-duty chain around the door handles and secured it with a padlock, preventing anyone from getting in or out. As soon as 9:05 hit, she heard a muffled explosion and the lights went dark. As she entered the bank’s main lobby, the first thing she noticed was the musty scent of day-old coffee that seemed to soak into her clothes the moment she walked in. She marveled for a moment at the antiquated Italianate architecture; marble walls supported an ornate plaster ceiling that appeared to be hand-painted. It was only a few minutes after the bank opened but a few customers were already standing in line waiting for the next available teller, their eyes were glued to their cell phone screens and they didn’t even notice the Woman until she pushed past them and stepped up to the counter. The line of customers shouted in horror as she unloaded a shotgun shell into the air and pointed the smoldering barrel towards a young woman behind the counter.
With her available hand, she set the duffle bag on the counter and unzipped it. The teller didn’t take her eyes off the tip of the shotgun and she was already starting to sweat profusely as her face lost color and she trembled uncontrollably. The Woman felt awful for putting this woman through this kind of trauma but she focused on the goal at hand and racked the shotgun. The Woman looked her in the eyes and spoke with a sense of fabricated confidence, “I’m not going to hurt you if you do what I say. Two million dollars. Small bills. In the bag. Now.”
The teller didn’t move. The Woman could barely look her in the eyes; it was too difficult to face her victim. She was young and slender, maybe only eighteen or nineteen years old. This was probably her first job and certainly her first time being held up at gunpoint. She was maybe making only a little above minimum wage at this job and didn’t want this summer gig to cost her the rest of her numbered days. The Woman lifted her finger off the trigger; she wasn’t actually going to kill this poor young woman over two million dollars and after all, killing her would render her no less of a monster than that Shapeshifter in U’Thuntu. But she made damn sure the teller didn’t know that. To prove it, the Woman fired another shot into the ceiling. A flurry of plaster rained down on the Woman as she racked another shell. The teller broke down in a fit of tears and quivered as she mumbled, “I don’t have access to the vault.”
The Woman’s tone of voice was eerily calm. “What’s your name?”
The teller didn’t respond.
“Your fucking name! What is it?!”
“D…D…Dana.”
The Woman’s tone softened, “Dana. I’m telling you this right now. I don’t want to hurt you or anyone here. The money is insured and this particular bank pulls in fifty million in profit each year so it’s in our best interest if you just open the damn vault and give me the money.”
“I already told you! They don’t give me that kind of access. I’m not authorized.”
“Who has authorization then?”
“I’ll have to get the bank manager.”
The two exchanged awkward glances for a moment before Dana picked up the phone and pressed a number on the speed dial. Her voice still trembled, “Mr. Miller. Can you come to the front desk, please?”
Mr. Miller.
The Woman hoped it was just an inconvenient coincidence. She kept her eyes locked on the frosted glass of the manager’s office and saw a tall silhouette stand up from his desk and walk towards the door. When he opened the door, a cloud of marijuana smoke billowed out of the office and danced around his shadowy figure as he stepped into the lobby. He fixed his eyes on the Woman and he smiled. The Woman’s knees nearly bowed and she felt a flash of terror suddenly strangle her like a gallows noose. He walked across the lobby in his polished black loafers and the sound of his footsteps reverberated off the marble walls and broke the smothering silence that flooded the empty hall. He pulled out a brand new Beretta M9 pistol from behind his sport coat and pointed it towards the Woman; the smile never left his face.
Noah Miller.
“Dana. Get this woman two million dollars. Fifty-dollar bills. Counted and wrapped. I already approved the authorization,” he said, his tone of voice was strangely calm and collected. Noah stepped up to the Woman, leaned in, and whispered in her ear. “I’d like to have a private chat in my office. No weapons – nothing funny. Just a chat.”
The Woman was in shock. She writhed uncomfortably in her half frozen state and felt beads of sweat form at her hairline; her helmet was beginning to fog up. She took a few shallow panicked breaths and lifted the motorcycle helmet, threw it to the side, pulled her long, stringy orange hair out of the ponytail and ran her fingers through her hair, “Noah. You’re not going to believe a word I have to say to you.”
“You’re making a huge mistake trusting Alan. Come to my office and we’ll talk about it. Then I’ll decide whether you live or die,” Noah said. The Woman knew she was dead already; as far as Noah was concerned, there was nothing stopping him from killing her right now. She already knew he had the upper hand. This was an ambush – even if she killed Noah right now, he already knew where she lived, who she was working with, and most importantly, he knew about Ethan.
Suddenly, white-hot pain swelled from a fresh wound the back of her head. Her vision darkened for a moment and she nearly collapsed. As she turned around, Dana was holding a briefcase above her head ready to strike again. “Here’s your fucking money!” Dana shouted as she prepared to deliver another blow. The Woman dodged the swing, dropped her weight and tackled Dana to the floor. Dana screeched as the Woman slammed the butt of the briefcase to her temple, knocking her out cold. The Woman felt Noah’s hand grab her and pull her towards him. She immediately resisted Noah’s grasp, held onto his wrist and twisted it backwards, sending him to the floor squirming in pain. She delivered a hearty blow to his torso and stepped on the hand holding his pistol, forcing him to release it. She unloaded the magazine and threw the pistol to the side. Noah grabbed her ankle and attempted to pull her to the ground but she managed to escape his grasp and she bolted towards the rear exit. She didn’t want to look behind her but she knew Noah was already after her.
She burst out into the alley and could already hear the sound of police sirens whining in the distance. As she pulled the motorbike out of it’s hiding place behind the dumpster, she heard the sound of the rear door being forcefully opened. She kicked the starter, shifted into second gear, and spun the rear tire as she left Noah behind in a cloud of blue smoke. She watched him in her rear view mirror. He sprinted down the alley towards her but as soon as she turned the corner, she felt relieved.
However, her sense of relief was short lived and a squad car pulled in front of her and attempted to ram her off of her bike. She narrowly dodged the front bumper of the police car and took a sharp left down a residential street. Another cop car nearly t-boned her in an intersection and she found herself driving on the sidewalk, dodging pedestrians as she looked in her rear view mirror and saw a string of blue and red lights racing towards her.
She kicked the bike into high gear and weaved in and out of the oncoming lane, passing up morning rush hour traffic. As she took a hard right and entered the freeway, another squad car pulled behind her, nearly clipped her back tire and sent her on an uncontrollable tailspin. She threw her weight around and shifted from side to side to control the bike as she pushed past 90 miles per hour and watched the last of the cop cars exit her rear view mirror. However, it wasn’t over yet. She made the grave mistake of exiting the freeway and before she knew it, another cop car bolted out in front of her and sent her heaving face first down a ravine into a concrete sewer canal. She lost control of the bike and was launched several feet in the air; she flailed her arms and prepared for a hard landing. Her body slammed on the concrete and she rolled into the shallow stream of sewage. She lost consciousness for a brief moment before a swell of adrenaline pulled her out of that trance and forced her to keep running. After she lifted the bike out of the sewage, the Woman attempted to start it again but the engine sputtered and died almost instantly. As dozens of police sirens surrounded her and several uniformed officers slid down the ravine and converged on her location, she sprinted away from the wreckage towards a small sewage outlet pipe a few hundred feet down the river.
Once again, she was afraid to look behind her. As she approached the entrance to the sewer, she quickly glanced over her shoulders and was relieved to find the cops were relatively far behind. She crawled into the pipe and followed it until she could no longer hear the sound of police sirens. The pipe was never ending – she found herself crawling on her hands and knees through raw sewage until it opened up into a massive drainage chute that plummeted hundreds of feet below. The sounds of cascading water echoed in the cavernous chamber and she could feel a cool wind blasting upwards from the bottom of the seemingly bottomless pit.
The Woman took a moment to catch her breath. She pulled a small flashlight out of her pocket and aimed the beam down the pit, trying to search for a bottom. A glint of water appeared about a hundred feet below; she had no idea how deep it was or where it leads to but her only other choice was to turn around and fight with the police. She removed her shoes and her hoodie and dangled her feet over the edge of the shaft. Her body tensed as she held her breath, whispered a prayer to herself and slid off the edge of the shaft and dived feet first. Her stomach launched into her chest and the icy wind rushed past her ears; she tucked her feet in, pinched her nose, and felt her body slam against the surface of the water, nearly knocking her out of consciousness again. Waves of intense pain radiated throughout her entire body as she fought the frigid water and climbed towards the surface. It reminded her of nearly drowning in that grotto moments after she landed in this nightmare; the Woman panicked as she felt those memories weigh her down and pull her back into those traumatic depths.
As soon she forced her head above the surface of the water, she looked above her; she could only see a glint of light from a sewer grate hundreds of feet above her. It was intimidating and she felt entirely helpless. She pointed the flickering flashlight towards another drainage tunnel and swam towards its entrance. The Woman vaulted herself up on the banks of the canal and rested on the cold concrete for a moment, gazing into the abject darkness and listening to the sound of the trickling sewage.
What did Noah mean when he said not to trust Alan? Why didn’t he just kill her right away; he let her escape. Thoughts unleashed in her frontal lobe and assaulted her like bullets; she was more confused than she’s ever been but if Noah was telling even an ounce of truth, Ethan was in danger.
* *
When the Woman emerged back above street level, she was a few blocks away from her apartment. It was already late afternoon and the sunlight filtered through the thick volcanic smoke and created a hazy gloom that illuminated the city streets. She lifted a manhole cover above her head and crawled onto the sidewalk; the Woman didn’t seem to care that she had literally just crawled out of the sewers and was the center of attention of an entire street full of locals. Her legs trembled as she tried to stand on her feet but she was battered and bruised from the impact of her free drive so she limped into the shadows of a nearby alley and crumpled to the ground.
She stared up at the murky orange sky and tried to catch her breath but the smog made her cough uncontrollably. A younger local towered over her, offered her his hand and asked her if she was okay but his voice was muffled and she couldn’t hear him over the ringing in her ears. She rolled onto her stomach and crawled away from him; he felt his hands wrap around her shoulder and pull her up. She thanked the man and continued to waddle down the alley towards her apartment.
As soon as she arrived on the doorstep, she collapsed on the front stoop and shimmied up to the loose brick, pulled it away and then flipped over on her back facing the camera. After a few eternal moments, she heard that metallic buzz and the door clicked open. The Woman lifted herself off the ground and drunkenly made her way up the four flights of stairs before slamming her fist against the door of Apartment 4B and shouting for Alan to “open the fucking door.”
Alan didn’t respond.
She continued to bang on the door, nearly driving her fist through the solid oak. She cursed Alan – telling him the things she’ll do to him if he doesn’t open the goddamned door. After still hearing no response, the woman fell into a fit of hysteria and curled up into a ball. Finally, Alan popped open the door and invited her inside the apartment. She stood up and walked inside; it was dark, the apartment was only illuminated by the flickering television, which was showing an infomercial and playing at a low volume. Alan replanted himself on his beloved sofa and didn’t say a word to the Woman. Empty booze bottles surrounded him like friends at an alcoholic’s intervention; he took a swig from a half empty bottle of gin and fixed his glazed eyes on the television and began to tear up.
“Alan. Noah found us. We need to leave,” the Woman demanded.
Alan didn’t say anything. The Woman fumbled around the dimly lit apartment and stripped out of her soaked clothes. She opened the hall closet and slipped on a dry tank top and a pair of baggy sweatpants; she then pulled out a cardboard box and started packing the essentials. She filled the box with a few outfits, two M1911 pistols, ammo, a MP5 submachine gun, and a few other items. She blundered towards the kitchen and grabbed a plastic garbage bag and shoved cans of food into the sack until the bag nearly tore from the weight.
“Pack whatever tools you need to fix the portal gun and anything you might need for the next couple of months,” she ordered Alan but he was insubordinate and remained glued to the couch. The Woman ignored him at first but when he started flipping through the channels, she walked up to the television, unplugged it, and shot him a heated glare, “Stand up, Alan. I’m not fucking around here.”
The look on Alan’s face could have conjured a nightmare to even the most callous of killers. Alan slowly shifted his head and looked the Woman directly in the eyes, “A man stopped by earlier.” Alan mumbled. The Woman froze.
“What man?” Alan didn’t say anything. The Woman walked up to him, pulled him by his collar and slammed him against the wall, “Was it Noah?”
“No.” Alan remained stone cold, un-phased by the Woman’s intimidating gaze. He was probably numb from all of the alcohol and had no way of appreciating the gravity of this situation, “He was older than Noah. He said his name was Robert.”
The Woman tightened her grip on Alan’s collar and continued to interrogate him, “What did he want?”
Alan rolled out a tense chuckle and his eyes fell to the floor, “He wanted to send a message from Drak Mountainheim.” The Woman panicked; she didn’t remember ever telling Alan about Drak Mountainheim. Alan began to sob and drunkenly slurred an apology before continuing, “He said that until you tell him what you’re after, things like this will keep happening to you.”
“Like what?!” she shook Alan violently and threw him across the living room. He fell against a bookshelf and it toppled over, sending its contents sprawling across the floor. She grabbed him and pinned him against the wall again, her noxious breath choking him as she pressed her forehead against his and placed her hand on his throat, “What’s going to happen to me?!”
Suddenly, the energy in the room dropped. Alan was still chillingly calm; he apologized again under his breath and broke into a fit of tears. The Woman felt lukewarm water pool at her feet and she looked down at her bare toes and saw she was standing in a puddle of murky water. She followed the stream of water with her eyes and noticed it lead down the hallway and under the bathroom door. She dropped Alan; her heart nearly collapsed from the unreserved dread she felt as she limped down the hallway. She could hear the bathwater running and the echo of its gentle trickle created a haunting omnipresence as she paced down the hallway and approached the bathroom door.
She tried the doorknob but it was locked. After one forceful blow, the wood splintered and it swung open. As soon as she entered the bathroom, she immediately fell to her knees and entered into a dark fit of mania. She crawled up to the edge of the claw foot tub and saw Ethan’s lifeless form floating inches below the surface of the water. He was colored a deathly shade of blue, his eyes were wide open and a permanent expression of trauma was plastered on his innocent face. Individual strands of his hair floated on the surface of the water and his glassy lifeless eyes looked up at the Woman and begged her to save him. However, as she pulled him out of the bathtub and started pumping at his chest, she knew it was too late. She felt absolutely powerless. She dry heaved a few times, crawled over to the toilet and vomited. As soon as she felt her body give way, she screamed in utter agony and shouted incoherently until her voice was raw.
Alan stood at the bathroom door and once again spat out a weak apology, pulled out his cell phone, and dialed 911. The Woman stared at him with a primitive urge to kill – this disgusting excuse of a being that let this child suffer and she was going to stop at nothing to serve him the brutal justice he deserves. He continued to stare at the lifeless body as he waited for the operator to pick up the phone. He then locked eyes with the Woman and smiled. He said to the woman, “This isn’t going to end.”
The 911 operator answered the phone. Alan’s hands shook and his voice cracked as he rapidly slurred his phony plead, “My name is Alan Hutchings. I’m at 724 N. 94th Street, Apartment 4B in West Laugar. My roommate just drowned her son in the bathtub and I’m afraid she’s going to kill me next…”
He took a few steps into the bathroom with that chilling grin still plastered on his face and continued, “Her name is Annie Withers. She’s a 20-year-old Caucasian female, has orange hair, and she’s five-foot five inches. She’s wearing a black tank top and grey sweatpants. I’m scared what she’s going to do to me. I’m hiding in the bathroom right now….”
The woman crawled towards him and tried to pull the phone from his ear but he pushed her backwards, placed the sole of his foot on her chest and pinned her down as he continued, “She drowned him in the bathtub. She’s trying to break down the door… wait… Annie! Put the gun down!!! Please!!”
The spine-chilling smile never left his face. He stepped over to the other side of the bathroom and faced the door. She sprung to her feet and tried to fight him but it was painful and she was too weak. The Woman stood by helpless and watched him pull out one of her M1911s from his belt. He dropped the cell phone, pressed the barrel of the gun to his skull, and apologized to the Woman and boy once more.
He murmured, “Just give in to Drak.” Those were his last words. The Woman flinched when he pulled the trigger. Sixty-one years of consciousness hit the tiled ceiling and he fell backwards against the back wall and slid into his final resting place.
Epicstu 