Chapter 48
—Donald Dellman’s Field Guide to Possessors and Other Spectral Entities by Donald Dellman
I climb off Nico. The world crashes back to me so suddenly it’s as if I got a shot of cocaine to the heart, but my mind lags a few steps behind, unable to process anything beyond the feeling of Nico.
A man walks toward us from the opposite end of the room. It’s the same cop as before, not in uniform this time. Seeing him in this context, I’m struck by how ordinary he looks. If I met him in the grocery store line, I’d probably think he seemed nice.
Just like Stanley Daniels. He would have seemed nice.
But there’s nothing ordinary about his eyes. It’s like looking into the eyes of a shark, and right now, those dead eyes are locked on us.
Every hair on my body stands up.
“Well.” His voice is mild without the usual electronic distortion. “Isn’t this touching?”
Nico drags himself in front of me.
The Game Master tilts his head with interest, like he’s observing a particularly fascinating pair of animals in a zoo.
“It appears you both need some convincing,” he says.
He may sound calm, but he’s pissed. I can see it in the rigid set of his shoulders and the way his knuckles are clenched at his sides.
I look up at Nico, who’s watching the Game Master with the tactical focus reserved for full team leader mode.
“Do you know what he did to them? The Boy Next Door?” The Game Master turns those shark eyes on me. “He killed those women while they begged for their lives. And the whole time, he was rock hard for it.”
Gross. I wrap my hand around Nico’s wrist. He may not have moved one muscle, but I know those words found their mark.
The Game Master knows exactly which buttons to push, and he’s hammering on them like he’s trying to break Nico’s console.
But I want Nico to know that those words don’t have any power over me.
I scoot out from behind Nico. “I got to say, it’s funny you didn’t come down here to join the party until we were about to fuck. Tell me, Alan.” I lower my voice and try to sound as sultry as I can: “Did that get you hot?”
The Game Master’s eyes flash. His muscles bunch so suddenly that I brace myself for him to charge, but he keeps walking.
“I see now why you hide behind those cameras,” I say. “If you didn’t, your subjects would find out who you really are: a shrimp of a man who couldn’t keep it up long enough to keep his own girl, so he has to take other people’s away. It’s not our fault nobody wanted to fuck you.”
“You have no idea how much worse this can get for you,” the Game Master says.
It’s true he has supernatural strength coursing through his borrowed body, whereas I can barely stand on my mangled feet. What are the odds we could overpower him? Probably the same as Bob taking him down.
Screw it. At least Bob would try.
The Game Master is getting closer now. Nico hauls himself to his feet, helping me up with him. I lock my knees and force myself to stay standing.
I find Nico’s fingers, entwining my hand with his and gripping tight.
The Game Master is almost on us. He looks pissed we’re holding our ground. So much adrenaline slams into me that the edges of the world smear, and it makes the pain in my feet disappear.
He charges at us with a roar.
Nico pulls me around the column.
I stumble after him with all the grace of a drunk elephant. A hand closes around the back of my jacket, hauling me backward.
Shit shit shit.
Nico jerks me out of the Game Master’s grip so hard I slam into his chest. He spins us, putting his body between the Game Master and me.
“Don’t fucking touch her,” he growls.
Nico steers me around the column. The Game Master charges after us, but his next step lands squarely in the center of the daisy wheel, and suddenly, he can’t move.
His legs strain against nothing. Muscles bulge as he tries to force his way forward.
He sees the symbol drawn in my blood, and his face goes from confused to absolutely murderous.
Nico grabs my hand.
And we run for the door.
I run with everything I have, although calling it running would be generous.
Our feet pound hard on the broken tiles.
Each step is lurching and too big, our scabbed and infected feet weighed down by our boots.
The door that arrogant asshole came through is sitting ajar, enough that I can see a thin line of red light coming through the gap.
Probably because he didn’t think we could make it there, anyway.
We shove through the door, turning around and pulling it closed behind us. Nico grabs the handle, twisting the deadbolt until it slides in.
There are several doors behind us, but only one is already open. We head straight for it and burst into the hallway where we did the glass trial. Shards still litter the floor, but we have our boots now. There’s another door across from us standing open, and we throw ourselves through it.
It opens into another hallway, but this one is huge. I take in metal carts, empty door frames, a wheeling patient bed—holy shit, we’re in a hospital. No wonder the others haven’t found us yet. They’ve more than likely been looking for abandoned warehouses and factories.
Seeing gurneys and IV stands must encourage us, because we find another gear I didn’t know we had.
We lurch down the hallway together, Nico’s arm around my shoulders taking most of my weight, which is stupid when his feet are worse than mine.
I should be carrying him. Each step sends sharp stabs of pain through my soles, but it’s manageable.
Nico’s the one who’s hurting. I can feel it in the way he’s favoring his right side.
In how his weight keeps getting heavier against me.
Our method of following open doors stops working. There are so many doors to wards, waiting rooms, supply closets, and offices, and only a handful are closed.
Where’s the fucking exit?
The hallway stretches ahead of us, impossibly long. We reach a T-intersection and both stop, Nico’s hand tight on my arm as we whip our heads left and right.
I listen hard and hear a hint of that scratchy sound coming from the left. I pull Nico in the opposite direction, and he doesn’t question me.
We round a corner past an old circulation desk, and my feet nearly slide out from under me on a thick layer of dust. A yellowed EXIT sign looms in the middle of the hallway, its arrow pointing at a door marked FIRE DOOR STAY CLOSED in faded red letters.
Nico reaches it first, his hand slamming against the push bar. The metal groans but gives. He holds it open, his other hand tight on my shoulder as he practically shoves me through into a stairwell.
Down the hall behind us, a door slams so hard the sound echoes off the tile like a gunshot.
Our eyes meet.
The only way out is up. Narrow basement stairs stretch above us. Nico and I race up them as fast as we can, my feet barely landing on each step before I’m lunging for the next one. Nico grips the railing with one hand, and his other hand is fisted in the back of my jacket.
My boot catches on a step. I pitch forward, my bad knee smacking against the sharp corner, but Nico hauls me up before I can even process the pain. I do as much as I can to drag him up each step after me but he’s so heavy, and I can’t keep a tight enough grip on him with one hand.
The door to the stairwell bangs open.
We burst into a narrow hallway. Yellow streetlamps shine through grimy windows. I could sob with relief.
An exit door comes into view. Nico slams his shoulder into the metal push bar. The door doesn’t budge.
We both throw ourselves against it. My good hand lies flat against the surface. Nico puts all his weight behind his next shove, but we might as well be pushing against a wall. It doesn’t even rattle.
I hear the rhythmic pounding of shoes on the stairs.
I tug Nico away from the door, and we step around the corner and into the closest dark room. It reeks of mildew and old pipes.
I pull the door closed and we press our backs against it. His fingers tighten around mine so hard that my bones shift. I can feel his heart pounding through his shirt where his arm presses against me, and he’s trembling with how hard he’s working to keep himself standing.
The footsteps get closer.
Please walk past us. Please please please just keep walking.
The footsteps stop outside the door.
I can hear the Game Master breathing. Can picture him standing there, head tilted, deciding whether to check inside or move on. My lungs burn, but I don’t dare breathe.
Does he have the axe? I’d been so focused on evading him in the playing area, so relieved when the plan worked, that bringing the axe with us didn’t occur to me. I had my key.
The footsteps move away. Another door opens down the hallway, and the footsteps fade.
I try to focus on listening, but I have no idea how to control this, or even what I’m hearing. I can hear the scratching sound. Does that mean he’s still close, or am I just feeling that he was here?
We wait in silence for sixty seconds before we open the door.
He’s waiting for us.
And grinning.
Before I can even scream, he shoves us both backward.
My head smashes on the floor. Pain explodes through my skull in a burst that makes my vision go sparkly. I blink up to see the Game Master standing above me, his face swimming in and out of focus.
He throws on the lights.
I take in our surroundings quickly: black and white checkerboard floor, exposed pipes, a row of broken sinks on one wall that are stained brown with age. It’s the creepiest bathroom I’ve ever seen, but maybe that has more to do with the company.
The Game Master stands over us, his eyes gleaming with full-blown psychotic rage.
Nico launches himself at the Game Master with a roar, wrapping his arms around the man’s middle and forcing him out of the door and onto the ground.
“RUN!” Nico screams. “EDEN, GET OUT OF HERE!”