Page 37 of The Shade of Things
“I guess,” I said.
The sky glimpsed through the small hole in the pod changed to a toxic waste palette best suited to movies about the apocalypse, with an accompanying soundtrack of wails.
Duct tape to the rescue. I sealed that puppy right up. Even so, we covered our mouths and noses, not like that was any real protection.
I was strung tight, those ghastly moans an unholy melody set to the percussion of the pod chugging along the track. Never had I been so happy not to have a window.
When silence finally reigned, I lowered my arm from my face. “We survived the first gatekeeper together.”
“Team Feldman-Chu for the win.” Eli nodded at Emmett. “You got a last name?”
“Nah. I’m a one-name golem. Like Cher. Or Beyoncé.”
“Well, we’re a team and we’ll have each other’s backs no matter what,” I insisted, just as the pod came to a gentle stop, and the door unlatched with a soft hiss.
Eli cautiously poked his head out. “I think we’re clear. There’s no gap.”
The pod was flush with the platform, and though I was nervous when I clambered out, we exited without an ambush.
The pod sealed back up, the transport continued on its way, and I let out a breath. We were safe.
Eli nodded at the red door floating at the back of the platform. “Who wants to do the honors?”
Emmett and I exchanged nervous glances. The last time we’d been on a mission together and someone had charged blindly through a door, they’d ended up flambéed.
We played rock paper scissors to see who’d go first through the freaky door with no wall or structure attached. Even if it actually led to our destination, what kind of welcoming committee would we face?
I hadn’t been paying attention and wasn’t surprised to find that I’d lost. Great, I loved to be the first through creepy doors. I cracked it open, but with my eyes adjusted for the bright light out here, I couldn’t make out anything except a vast darkness. Sending Delilah through with her green vision didn’t help me see any better, but she didn’t trigger a motion sensor or booby trap.
I squared my shoulders and took a deep breath. “Showtime.”
Once inside, the door behind us vanished with an ominous clang, but I comforted myself with the fact that the pitch black had eased into a depressing gloom.
Eli was already inching forward, taking point, his gun aimed.
“Aw, maaaan.” Emmett covered and uncovered his eyes, but it didn’t change the fact that we stood in a graveyard, riddled with cracked tombstones and freshly overturned graves.
I clamped my lips shut tight, trying not to gag at the bloated female corpse with bloody foam leaking from her mouth and nose. Covering my nose with my arm did nothing against the stench of rotting meat with notes of a sickening sweetness like cheap perfume. I grabbed a small bottle of hand sanitizer from an outside pocket of my backpack and practically huffed the antiseptic odor, wishing I didn’t know that dead person particles had gone up my nose and that’s why I’d smelled her.
The woman was close to my age. She’d made it only a few feet beyond the large bright block letters painted on the ground like a starting line. Can you survive the Human Race? It read like a taunt.
The deceased wasn’t Teresa Wong, but it was a hollow win. She was still a human who’d remain forever lost to her loved ones.
The full ramifications of Ian being the sole survivor of his game hit me with a wave of nausea. It was one thing to talk about a game where people died and quite another to find their grisly remains. Plus, there was no respect for the dead. These people didn’t even get the decency of a proper burial.
Congealed blood from the woman’s slashed throat stained the dirt, her flesh bruised. Her lean runner’s frame and muscular biceps were evidence of her athleticism. Maybe she’d been a triathlete, burning off energy from her corporate job? She’d been kidnapped in her work clothes, a now-shredded cream skirt and jacket with the number three pinned to one sleeve.
One of her stilettos was broken, lying on its side at the start of a blood trail that disappeared into the distance. How much had her inappropriate wardrobe contributed to her immediate demise? If she’d been taken while jogging, would she still be alive?
Hoping she’d managed to inflict some awful injury on the monster that had done this to her, I gently pried a tear on her bloody silk shirt open, feeling for an implanted tracker. Sure enough, something dime-sized and hard was lodged under the skin in the same place that Ian’s had been before his was removed.
Shadows slithered over me as I imagined myself one of the players, my breath sounding too loud in a tight, dark hiding hole, praying I was safe for the moment, and ignorant of the fact that hiding was an impossibility.
Magic flared off my body like black fireworks.
Gritting my teeth, I forced it down. This woman had met a pointless, indignant end with no one to mourn her. I closed her lids, saying the first few lines of the Jewish Mourner’s Kaddish.
Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba b’alma di v’ra chir’utei; v’yamlich malchutei b’hayeichon u-v’yomeichon, uv’hayei d’chol beit yisrael, ba-agala u-vi-z’man kariv, v’imru amen.
