Stirred

Didn’t hesitate, even though I didn’t want to touch the hot metal again.

I began to climb, legs still screaming from muscle strain, but I didn’t have the luxury to pace myself. Even with the windbreaker bearing the brunt of it, the heat was excruciating.

I reached the top rung in a matter of seconds, found it mercifully cooler than the ones close to floor-level. I held the bar with one hand, and leaned over to inspect the thermometer.

The circle was three inches in diameter, and the instrument had been attached to the panel with a magnet. I squinted, eyes burning from sweat and smoke.

It looked like a thermometer that belonged in a laboratory with a temperature range from –60°F to 500°F.

The needle nudged past 120°F as I watched it.

My sense of panic escalated with the temperature. So what did this mean? What did this have to do with giving me a code for the keypad? Would Luther actually let me die in here?

I leaned in closer as the rung I held approached a level of discomfort that would soon force me to let go.

I studied the brand name, the dashes, the numbers, the—

There.

I had to squint to pull it into focus, wondering if it was my imagination, or if that was actually a thin, manmade dash next to the bold line denoting a temperature marking of 375°F.

Was this intentional?

The heat was becoming unbearable.

I swung back over to the ladder and descended back into a heat which crossed the threshold into lethal, feeling certain I couldn’t stand much more than a minute at this temperature.

Flames shot out of the tomb.

The room had grown hazy with yellow smoke.

My shoes sizzled as I stepped down onto the metal grate, and one of my shoelaces which had come loose touched the floor and began to smolder.

I staggered over to the door.

As sweat poured down my face, I reached out for the keypad and punched in 3-7-5.

For a minute, nothing happened.

The heating element in the middle of the room now glowed bright orange, the priest in the tomb engulfed in flames, and the heat reached through my melting shoes, the soles of my feet growing hot, my nostrils burning intensely.

“Come on!”

Green light.

The deadbolt clicked.

The door swung back and a draft of the loveliest cold air I’d ever breathed swept into the room.

I pushed my way through and stumbled out of the sixth circle.

“Wow,” Luther said. “That was hot.”

For a moment, I thought I’d walked into another pitch-black room, but soon my eyes began to function.

“Nice work, Jack. Keep heading forward.”

I smelled rain and heard everywhere the sound of dripping water.

I ventured a step forward. My shoes felt strange, the soles uneven, having melted and re-hardened.

A blister was rising on my right hand from grabbing the burning step.

The taste of the smoke still lingered in my nasal cavity, even after several deep breaths.

It happened all at once—the darkness divulged its contents.

Long conveyer belts.

Robotic arms that hadn’t moved in years.

Giant machines. Drills. Presses. Planers.

Strong whiffs of old grease.

I stood at the far end of an abandoned factory, and through windows above, saw the orange glow of clouds tinting the night sky.

“Now what?” I asked.

There was no response.

I wondered if he was toying with me, or perhaps on the move.

I worked my way alongside a conveyor belt, passing what looked like the exoskeletons of cars. Wheelless, engineless shells rusted beyond recognition.

Halfway through the factory, I stopped, sat down on the forks of a broken-down forklift, and tried to catch my breath.

I cupped my belly in my hands, feeling a tide of tears coming on.

No time for that.

No time to break down and piece myself back together.

My friends needed me.

Even two minutes on my ass stiffened me up quite a bit and got the hamstring tight enough to strum. I limped on through the factory, finally arriving at a pair of double doors, uncertain if I was even heading in the right direction.

I pushed them open anyway.

Oh. Perfect.

Total darkness again.

I stumbled forward, my hands clutching the railing to a staircase, just as my right foot stepped out into nothing.

I followed it down, step by step, my hand gliding along the railing.

Reached the first landing.

Continued on to a second, still descending, losing all sense of direction.

I was on the verge of turning around, when my next step sank two feet into cold water.

They arrived breathless and groaning with pain at the double-doored entrance to the warehouse they’d seen Jack enter fifteen minutes prior.

“A keypad,” Lucy said. “Bet these are locked.”

Donaldson grasped the door with his claw like hands and pulled it open.

“Or not.”

He stared down a well-lit corridor, Donaldson feeling a smile expanding across the wreckage of his face.

“Is that what I think it is?” Lucy asked.

“Oh yeah.”

They stumbled inside, the doors closing after them, and pushed their way through the corpses that dangled from the ceiling.

“Someone’s been busy,” Donaldson said, pulling the Beretta out of his pocket as they continued down to where the corridor T-boned a shorter hallway.

To the right, the hall terminated at another black, metal door with a keypad mounted to the wall beside it. He limped down to it, tried the handle, but it was locked.

“This one’s open!” Lucy shouted.

He turned, saw her standing at the other end of the hall, beside a door that opened into darkness.

A few minutes after Luther had led him to a cold room and attached a chain to the collar around his neck, Herb heard a woman’s voice, a few meters away.

“Is he gone?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Herb said. “I think I heard him leave.”

He ached to pluck the thread out of his eyelids, or even rub them for some relief against the terrible sting, but his hands were still bound behind his back.

“Did he stab out your eyes, too?”

Herb shuddered. Whoever his companion was, apparently Luther hadn’t given her the option of stitches.

“My name is Herb Benedict. I’m a Chicago cop. Who are you?”

“Christine. Christine Ogawa.”

“Do you know where we are, Christine?”

“A man, he hijacked a bus, kidnapped all of us. We’re in Michigan somewhere. Are more cops coming?”

“I don’t know. How many people were on the bus?”

“Over forty. But…” Her voice trailed off.

“But what?”

“Not all of us made it.”

Herb listened to the woman cry for a bit, unsure of what solace he could possibly give her.

“Why is he doing this?” she finally managed.

“He’s insane.”

“Before he…did…you know…to my eyes…he asked me questions about my weight. I think that’s why he didn’t kill me right away. He put me here instead.”

“Are you overweight?”

“Yes. Are you?”

“I’ve never met a cheeseburger I didn’t like.”

“Cheeseburger. Oh, God. I know it sounds terrible, but I’m so hungry right now. I’m blind, and I’m probably going to die, but I keep thinking about food.”

“Don’t worry, Christine. I’ll order us a pizza.”