Chapter 12 - She Wasn’t There

  There were two concierge staff in the lobby, helping usher the kids through the doors, and four more adults. All six of them were armed with some sort of makeshift weapon, either a baseball bat, big knife, or a big stick. None of the grownups present were the kids’ parents, unfortunately, so I still had work to do.

  Once we were all inside, I waved to Tom and he dashed back across the street into the building we’d come from. He made it back okay, and I turned to the guy who seemed to be in charge of the lobby for the time being, whose name tag on his jacket said ‘Benson.’

  “I need to get these kids home. They’ve had a rough day,” I said.

  “Haven’t we all?” he replied, then shook himself. “Sorry. Been a day, all right. Good job, getting them back here safely.”

  “I don’t suppose there’s any chance the elevators are working?”

  He chuckled. “No. But the stairs are.”

  “Of course.”

  The building had twenty-four stories. Thankfully when I quizzed the kids, I found out none of them lived that high. The highest was on the twentieth floor. Still not awesome, but it had to be done.

  I led the team up the stairwell, stopping on floors where someone lived. We knocked on one door after another, and thankfully there was somebody home at most of the apartments. Troy’s parents weren’t in, but there was a note on the door telling him to come to Unit 808, next door. Troy grinned at that—turned out he was friends with the kid who lived there, one who wasn’t on the team. They opened the door and let him in when we knocked.

  The last to be dropped off was Emmy. We took the stairs up the last two levels, just the two of us, and knocked on her door. It opened to her mom’s tear-streaked face, which brightened the instant she saw her daughter.

  “OhmygodEmmy!” She sobbed as she rushed forward to hold her daughter.

  A few moments of tearful reunion later, she looked up and smiled at me. “Cam, thank you so much. I don’t know how you managed to get her back to me through everything going on out there, but you did. I can never repay you and Amanda for that. Where is she? I want to thank her, too.”

  Of course she knew Amanda’s name; my girlfriend was the team coach. I was surprised she remembered mine, but hearing Amanda’s name again pushed all other thoughts from my mind. I stumbled over my next words, trying my best to get them out.

  “Amanda…didn’t make it home, Mrs. Flores.”

  She turned sheet white at that, clutching her daughter even tighter. “I’m so sorry. So Sorry. And thank you again.”

  They went inside, leaving me in the hallway alone with my grief.

  Somehow I stumbled my way back down ten flights of steps until I was back on the floor where Amanda and I lived. From there it was just down the hall to our apartment. I fished into my pocket for my key fob before realizing that with the power out, that probably wasn’t going to work anymore. I reached out and gave the handle a twist instead, and thankfully it opened. Whatever killed the electricity must have popped all these electronic locks.

  Whatever the cause, I was able to get into my home, which was good enough for me.

  The apartment was just as we’d left it. A bit warmer than it had been, maybe. Without air conditioning, it was going to get warmer still, for sure. I went through the space to the kitchen and yanked all our biggest pots out of the cabinet, bringing them to the sink. I turned the water on, filling one pot after another as much as I could. Turned out those old pipes held a decent bit of water. I filled up three pots before the tap ran dry.

  After that I went to the bathroom, plugged the tub, and ran that tap dry, while using the bathroom sink to fill every water bottle in the house. If there was one thing that everyone was going to need more of very soon, it was fresh water. I needed as much of it as possible, because my gut said H2O was about to become a hot commodity.

  Finally, there was nothing immediate left that needed doing. I wandered through the apartment, feeling dazed, and finally ended up in our bedroom, where I flopped down on the bed. I wasn’t really tired, not in a physical way. That Stamina boost was probably working for me. But mentally, I was wiped. Too much stress, pain, and loss, in too short a time, I guess. I closed my eyes, and sucked in a deep breath through my nose.

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  Which brought her scent to me with full force.

  I started sobbing and quickly found I couldn’t stop. I just lay there crying, wailing into a pillow, until the worst of the agony slowly eased away, little by little.

  I don’t know how much time passed. Maybe an hour? It was still daylight outside, when I finally lifted my head from the pillow. That was good, because I knew what I had to do next. It wasn’t going to be fun, easy, or safe, but it also wasn’t optional. I had to do this.

  Amanda was still down there, underground, in the train. Her body was down there, and I couldn’t just let that go. She couldn’t just be abandoned to the darkness like that. There’d been no way for me to carry her out, not while I was escorting the kids and fighting to keep them safe. Now that the kids were all back with their parents, though, I had to make that right.

  I moved through the apartment, gathering supplies. First off, I dumped the messenger bag. It was nice for day to day use, but I grabbed one of Amanda’s backpacks from the closet instead. A backpack would stay put on my back easier, so it wouldn’t be in my way as much.

  Into the backpack went all the remaining glow sticks, the last flare, the knife, two steel bottles I’d filled with water, a half dozen granola bars, and a tarp to wrap Amanda once I got to her. Getting back into the tunnels wasn’t going to be simple, but once I got her out, I figured I could find a shovel and bury her somewhere nearby. Maybe Tom over at the hospital could help with that.

  But first I needed to get her back.

  I glanced around the apartment, looking for anything else that might be useful, and figured a change of clothes could be in order. Mine were blood-stained and torn. I tossed on new jeans, a black t-shirt, and a pair of leather boots replaced my sneakers. With that, I was about as ready as I could be.

  Going back down the stairs was easier than climbing them had been. I kept my feet moving, and soon enough I was at the ground floor, not even winded. Those stones were really something. Thinking about it, I went down one more level, to the first floor of the parking garage. That’s where the bike storage was. Both Amanda and I had bikes there, and I knew our combinations by heart.

  The bike exit was blocked off, the door barricaded by an enormous pile of junk. Opening that wasn’t happening, so I hauled the bike back upstairs to the lobby.

  “Cameron! Kids all back with their parents?” Benson asked, when he saw me.

  “Yup.”

  He eyed my bike. “I don’t think now’s a good time for a ride…”

  Yeah, if he thought biking was dumb right now, he really wasn’t going to like what I had in mind. Better to tell a little white lie. “Tom asked me to come back over and see him. I figured I’d bring the bike along in case I need fast transport.”

  “Ah, I see. Well, if Tom okayed it, then sure. But be careful out here, eh?” Benson said.

  They opened the doors for me and let me out into the afternoon sun. As the doors shut again behind me, I tied the spear to my backpack, mounted my bike, and started pedaling, but I wasn’t headed for MGH. Instead, I followed Blossom Street west until it hit Charles Street, then shot straight south toward the Charles/MGH T station.

  By sticking to Charles Street, I had two big advantages. One was that I remained pretty close to the MGH buildings. If I ran into trouble, help wasn’t too far away. The other was the sheer number of stalled out cars on the road there. I had to weave my way through them, which slowed me down a little, but they also provided excellent cover.

  That was good, because something was happening in the green space just west of me, on the other side of Storrow Drive. I couldn’t see what, but there was a lot of activity there, and it didn’t look like humans. Maybe more goblins, like on the other side of the bridge, or maybe it was something else entirely. Either way, I wanted to avoid as much attention as I could.

  It worked. I made good time down the road and quickly reached the ramp leading back up to the bridge again. This time I used the north-bound lane for vehicular traffic, not the train tracks. My bike wouldn’t have handled the bumps very well.

  By the time I was across the bridge, the afternoon sunlight had taken on that orange tinge that meant sunset was only a few hours away, but I still hadn’t been jumped by any monsters, so I was calling it a win. Even the goblins on the Cambridge side of the bridge had pulled back in toward the little fort they were building. Probably getting ready to defend their new home once the sun set—something I probably should have been looking into instead of running back into danger again…except I just couldn’t.

  Amanda was down there, and I couldn’t just leave her in the dark.

  At the tunnel, I hefted the bike with one hand, a feat I’d never have been able to accomplish before, and vaulted over the fence. It was incredible how strong I’d become. I carried the bike about fifty feet down the tracks before hiding it against the tunnel wall in a pool of deep shadow. Then I pulled out my spear, cracked one of the glow sticks, and tied it to the pointed end again, just like I had before.

  The darkness seemed to whisper around me as I pressed on, but luck was still on my side. Nothing attacked me as I moved past the first train, then the pill bug crevasse, and finally to our train. That was where I stopped.

  I didn’t want to keep going.

  Part of me was thinking that if I didn’t see her body, maybe it didn’t happen. Maybe she would still be alive, somehow, if I didn’t see her again. Intellectually I knew that was bullshit, but emotionally? I was grasping for straws, trying to latch on to even the crappiest thread of hope.

  It wasn’t real. I knew that. But still I stood there like an idiot for a good five minutes, wrestling with myself, before I pushed on.

  When I was able to move, it was with a businesslike purpose. I had my emotions back under lockdown. Feeling was something that could happen later. For now, I needed to take care of Amanda, to handle this one, last thing for her. I moved through each car, one after another, and finally reached the front, where she’d been.

  But she wasn’t there anymore.