Shudder Read online

  “Wait,” he said. “Have you gotten a chance to look at any of those books I gave you?”

  I stopped. “I didn’t know you were so into mythology.”

  His head moved back and forth nearly imperceptibly and his eyes widened only a little, but the message was clear. He didn’t want me to give away what the books were about. He was trying to send me a message then.

  I pondered how to put what I needed to say in such a way that it wouldn’t give away the fact we were communicating with the books. “I guess it’s all a little over my head right now. I peeked at two of them, but I had a hard time figuring out what was going on.”

  “Two?” he said. “Well, keep at it. It should get a little clearer.”

  “Okay,” I said. “If I get a chance.”

  * * *

  The whole place was silent and dark. I crept forward through the hallway. I wasn’t sure if it mattered if I made noise. Boone said they weren’t paying attention, so it was likely that it didn’t. But making a huge racket was probably a bad idea. I’d be quiet, to be on the safe side. I’d left Jason behind in our room. He was going to work up our wing, going into each room and breaking a camera. It didn’t make sense to do a lot of backtracking, since we weren’t sure when they might catch on to us and turn on the gas. It could be at any moment.

  Even now, the cameras tracked me as I walked. I peered up at them warily.

  I eased open the door to the main room and darted across to the wing I’d woken up in originally. It was “my” wing, I supposed, but I didn’t think of it that way since I’d been staying with Jason.

  Once behind the door, I slipped into the first room I came to.

  It was pitch black, but my eyes had adjusted so that I could see the shadows of objects in the room. The cot. The sink and toilet. The shower.

  The easiest camera to get to was the one mounted in the corner above the bed. Jason and I had talked about which camera to break earlier. We had talked about a few practical things, but mostly he’d been annoyed with me for promising to move forward with his idea without checking with him.

  I climbed up onto the cot and reached up for the camera.

  My fingers barely brushed it.

  Goddamn it. Why wasn’t I taller?

  The cots all had metal frame headboards. God knew why. Near as I could tell headboards were essentially decorative, and there was no need for anything decorative in this place. Still, I could climb up on top of it and get some more height.

  Balancing myself against the wall, I put one foot on top of the headboard. I shifted my weight so that the headboard was supporting me and brought up my other foot.

  One hand against the wall, I reached up for the camera again.

  Success.

  I jerked it out of the wall.

  It made a fantastically loud sound, and I started, freezing in place, expecting the gas to start pouring out of the ceiling.

  I didn’t breathe.

  Nothing happened.

  I took a steadying breath and climbed back down off the bed. As silently as I’d come in, I went out. I went to the next room.

  Jason had thought this was a bad idea. “How could you say we’d do it tonight?” he’d whispered frantically, his voice coming dangerously close to being loud enough to be heard over the water rushing from the shower head. “We need to coordinate with Boone. Who’s taking what wing? Who’s going to get the library? The main room?”

  I didn’t have answers for him. I’d been hasty. But Boone was going to do it tonight. I knew that. And if we didn’t help him, we’d blow our chance.

  I disabled the next camera the same way as I’d taken down the first.

  I went to the next room.

  Jason and I had tried to divide and conquer amongst ourselves. He’d take our wing. I’d take my old wing. He didn’t want Jude’s wing obviously, and I speculated that Boone wouldn’t want Grace’s. I suggested that Jason take Grace’s wing and Boone take Jude’s. I figured Emma would be less freaked out if I appeared in her room than if Boone or Jason did.

  Jason agreed, but he didn’t like the fact that we couldn’t communicate with Boone. But there was no way around it. We had to do it.

  I worked my way methodically down my wing, easily taking out one camera per room. They would have to fix one in each room, and that would mean that they couldn’t separate us. They’d put us all together in one place while they fixed the other rooms. While they did that, we’d break all the cameras in that room. It would give us time to talk. To plan our escape.

  I’d told Jason about the fact that the elevator out of this place was almost definitely at the end of Jude’s wing. I’d also told him about the escape video I’d watched and the other things that Boone said. Like me, he thought our best bet was to wait until they drew blood and to get guns away from the armed guards. “Maybe we can take some hostages,” he said. “Keep them off our backs long enough to get out.”

  I thought that was a good plan.

  This might work. It might. But I wasn’t sure.

  I emerged back into the main room. I’d finished one wing.

  It was dark. I could barely see the outlines of the tables. I was alone. I wondered if I should wait for Jason. Was he done with our wing? Would he come back out at some point? Or had he already started down Grace’s wing?

  Should I look for Boone? Was there time to whisper instructions to him? If they hadn’t noticed that I’d broken that many cameras thus far, certainly they wouldn’t notice a quiet conversation between the two of us.

  On the other hand, searching for Boone meant wasted time. I needed to get down Emma’s wing and get to all of her cameras. I hesitated, unsure of what to do.

  Then, slowly, deliberately, I went to the door of Boone’s wing. There was too much riding on this for us to screw up. I had to make sure he understood.

  I started to open the door, but it eased open of its own accord.

  I made a startled sound and then quickly stifled it, backing up from the door.

  Boone came through the door. When he saw me, he jumped.

  I made a sympathetic face.

  He flipped me off.

  I glared at him.

  I pointed up at the cameras in the main room and spread my hands.

  He pointed at himself.

  I nodded. I pointed at him and then at Jude’s wing. Then I pointed at myself and then at Emma’s wing.

  He gave me a thumbs-up sign.

  I scurried away, into Emma’s wing. It went as before. I went through each of the rooms, climbing up onto the bed and then yanking down the camera. I was moving quickly and efficiently now. Now that I’d gotten the hang of it, it was easy, like any task you do over and over can be. Once I figured out what to do, I didn’t even have to think about it. I could just hop in, get on the bed, and disable the camera. No sweat.

  I was feeling good. This was going to work. We were going to be okay. Boone was right. Night was the time to do things. Maybe the people who were watching us were even asleep.

  I climbed up on the next to the last bed. After this, I only had Emma’s room left to go.

  I placed my foot on the headboard and shifted my weight.

  And slipped.

  I fell back onto the bed, so I wasn’t hurt, but the headboard clattered against the wall, making a lot of noise.

  I swore under my breath.

  Surely, now, the gas would start pouring out. They had to have heard that, seen what I was doing.

  I waited.

  But nothing happened. More carefully, I climbed back up on the headboard and managed to get the camera down.

  “What are you doing?”

  I lost my balance again. This time I wasn’t so lucky, and I fell all the way to the ground. I landed hard on my back, the wind knocked out of me.

  But I scrambled to my feet as quickly as I could to see who’d spoken.

  “Emma,” I whispered. “It’s okay.”

  She shook her head. “What are you doing?” She w
asn’t whispering. She was loud.

  I put my finger to my lips. “Don’t worry about it. I’m almost done. I’ve just got your room to go.” I walked out of the room I was in, wincing a little. It still hurt from where I’d fallen.

  “You’re causing trouble, aren’t you?” Jesus, did she have to be so loud?

  “I’m not,” I said.

  “You’re going to make everything worse,” she said. “Every time someone tries to get away, things get worse. Why can’t you just let it be? It can be okay here.”

  “It’s not okay here,” I said. I went into her room and started for her cot.

  She grabbed me by the arm. “Stop it! Stop it, stop it, stop it!"

  “Let go of me,” I hissed.

  She turned to a camera. “Help,” she screamed. “Stop her!”

  “What are you doing?” I said.

  The lights in Emma’s room came on.

  “Emma, for fuck’s sake,” I said. I scrambled up onto her bed, climbing onto the headboard.

  “Stop her!” cried Emma.

  I saw them now. The white clouds were pouring out of the ceiling. I could feel sleepiness beginning to take hold of me. No. No!

  With my last bit of energy, I ripped the camera in Emma’s wing off the wall. I could only hope that Jason and Boone had enough time to get all of the others.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I swam back to the surface of consciousness, an urgent voice saying, “They’re coming out of it. We need more.”

  I opened my eyes and barely had time to make out someone wearing a gas mask hovering over me, before my vision was obscured by white clouds from the ceiling, and I slept again.

  When I awoke again, my mouth was dry. My head hurt. I struggled into a sitting position and looked around.

  I was in the gym. The lights were on, bright and brilliant. I squinted against them. Jason and Boone were lying stretched out on the floor, but they were stirring as well.

  What the hell had happened? I looked up at the cameras. They were all functional. All glaring down at us. It hadn’t worked, had it? Damn Emma.

  I stood up, clutching my head as it throbbed at me. I needed some water. My tongue was sticking to the roof of my mouth. Staggering, I managed to make it to the door. I tried to turn the door knob. It wouldn’t budge.

  Jason was on his feet behind me. He touched my shoulder. “You okay?”

  I cleared my throat. It hurt a little. I guess they’d pumped a lot of gas into us. “I’m thirsty.”

  “Me too,” said Boone, who had only just sat up.

  “The door’s locked,” I said.

  Boone got to his feet. He pushed past me to get at the door. He rattled the knob and then punched the gray surface in frustration. “Bastards.”

  “It’s my fault,” I said. “Emma saw me. She yelled, got their attention. You guys didn’t have enough time to finish. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s just it,” said Jason. “We did finish. Boone and I were waiting for you in the main room.”

  Boone nodded. “You didn’t get Emma’s camera?”

  “No,” I said. “I did.”

  “So then, what happened?” said Boone. “Why didn’t it work?”

  Jason started pacing, shaking his head. “I don’t know. They didn’t do what we thought they’d do. We thought they’d sequester us all in one room and we could break those cameras. But there are only three of us here.”

  “And all of these cameras are functioning,” I said, pointing at them.

  “Not for long,” said Jason, going to the exercise bike and scooting it into the corner. He climbed up on it and wrenched one of the cameras out of wall.

  Boone followed suit. There were only four cameras in the room, so it only took them a few minutes to finish the task. Afterwards, they high-fived and congratulated each other.

  I spoke up. “How did that help us?”

  “They can’t see us,” said Jason. “We can talk about an escape.”

  “But no one else is here,” I said. “And I want to get Grace out. We need to talk to her.”

  As if on cue, there was a knock on the door, and we heard Grace’s voice. “Boone? Are you in there?”

  Boone hesitated and then called back. “Yeah. So are Jason and Azazel.”

  There was a rattling of the knob from the other side. “The door’s locked.”

  “You guys okay out there?” I called.

  “We’re okay,” said Grace.

  “Are all the cameras functioning?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she said.

  I shook my head. “They just knocked us out for longer. They fixed them all, but they kept us sedated until they were done. We were idiots to think that they’d do anything different.”

  “So why are all three of us in this room?” asked Boone.

  No one said anything. Certainly, they hadn’t needed to put the three of us in here. They’d fixed all the cameras, after all. They couldn’t have wanted to give us time to talk about escape, could they? No, they must have some other reason for putting us here, and I didn’t think it would benefit us very much.

  * * *

  At first, Jason and Boone seemed pretty excited about the turn of events. Jason grilled Boone about when they would show up to draw blood and what they’d do when they arrived, but Boone didn’t have much more to share than when he’d talked to me earlier.

  “We can do it,” Jason assured Boone. “Trust me, if there’s anything Azazel and I are good with, it’s people trying to shoot us.”

  Boone wasn’t convinced. “I’ve seen them pump anyone who resists full of bullets. You can’t do anything when you’re temporarily dead.”

  “Temporarily is the key there,” said Jason. “They can’t keep us down for long, and they don’t want to really hurt us, or they wouldn’t be keeping us alive down here. They need us for something. We’re important to them.”

  “Fine,” Boone said eventually. “So maybe you can do that. What are the rest of us supposed to be doing while you guys are trying to get their guns?”

  “Waiting,” said Jason. “Lying low.”

  Boone looked disgusted. “So you want me to wait for you two to rescue me?”

  “Yeah,” I said. But I had to admit that I had doubts about the whole thing. Sure Jason and I were good at keeping ourselves alive, but we’d never had to worry about keeping this many other people alive too.

  “I want to do something,” said Boone.

  “You good with guns?” asked Jason. “You ever shoot anyone before?”

  “Well, no,” said Boone.

  “Then you keep your head down and wait,” I said.

  Boone looked disgusted. “How did the two of you become so good with shooting people anyway?”

  I sighed. “That’s a very long story.”

  “It’s not,” said Jason. “People shot at us a lot. When people are shooting you, you figure out how to shoot them or else you die.”

  “Except you guys wouldn’t have died,” said Boone. “Because you’re like us.”

  I shook my head. “We weren’t always like this. I had a gunshot wound that healed normal speed once. I’ve been hurt plenty of times. This is new for me.”

  “Really?” said Boone. “That’s weird.” He turned to Jason. “You the same way?”

  Jason raised his eyebrows. “Uh, well, sort of, yeah. It’s complicated, and you probably wouldn’t believe it anyway.”

  “Man, who are you guys?” Boone said.

  I took a deep breath. “You remember Kieran and Eve, right? How they made everyone happy and controlled the world?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well,” I said, “Kieran and Eve stole their powers from us.”

  Boone snorted. “Right. Whatever. Look, if you don’t want to talk about it, just say so. There’s no reason to make up stories.”

  Jason caught my eye and grinned.

  I shrugged. We were all sitting Indian style on the ground, and I shifted, because my bladder was full, and
it was uncomfortable. There wasn’t a bathroom in the gym. No running water. No sink. Just exercise equipment. I wondered how long we were going to be in here. I got up and went to the door again. I tried the knob. It still wouldn’t move.

  “Azazel?” said Jason.

  “I thought maybe they’d opened the door,” I said. I bit my lip. Now that I’d moved, my bladder felt painfully full. I needed a bathroom.

  But there wasn’t anything I could do about it now. I’d have to hold it. I picked the conversation back up, trying to distract myself.

  * * *

  Hours passed. We heard the dinner bell ring, a sign that everyone else was being fed. The door stayed locked. I still had to pee, but the urgency of it had become part of me now, something I was used to. I had to wait.

  We were thirsty. I was beginning to feel slightly like I had a hangover. There was a tight pain behind my temples. My mouth was dry. We stopped talking so much, because it only made our throats hurt.

  I knew why we were locked in here now. It was a punishment. We’d messed up all their cameras, and that had annoyed them. Locking us in this room was a display of strength. We saw just how much power they had over us. Our attempt to break the cameras and make them do what we wanted them to do had been futile. Locking us in here would break us down.

  I waited until the lights snapped off for the night before whispering, “I have to pee.”

  I heard Jason laughing softly in the darkness. “So do I.”

  “Yeah,” said Boone.

  We sat in the blackness for several minutes, before Jason said, “Let’s just each find a corner. It’s too dark to see anything.”

  “But the smell...” I said, grimacing. I didn’t want to empty my bladder in a room with two other people, especially since I didn’t even know Boone very well.

  Eventually, we did it anyway. The pressure had been building up in my bladder for so long, I had to have relief. I crawled through the darkness to hide behind the treadmill, and I let it go. I was surprised. There was a lot less water in me than I’d thought.

  The room stank. I crawled back to the center of the room and found Jason in the dark. I buried my face in his shoulder.

  “We probably won’t have that problem again,” said Jason. “We haven’t had anything to drink all day.”