Chapter 8 Chapter 8

Leo ran through the double door and kept going.

Maya came right through after him. Her boots were slapping tile. Her breath came out hard behind him

The door swung shut on its own.

He didn't stop. He had no idea where he was actually headed. He just knew the mannequins were back there and the delivery driver was back there with that smile that wasn't his smile anymore.

Red carpet. White walls. Numbered doors. The hallway kept going ahead of him. It was like they were in a loop. The interlocutor was messing with them. Foodcourt to hallway to an unknown room and back to food. They have been unable to get inside the anchor room and complete the mission.

He ran past 113. 114. 115.

Maya grabbed his arm. "Stop." She said with a heavy breath.

He stopped. His chest felt like it was full of something hot and tight. His legs had gone shaky underneath him. The distance they ran wasn’t long but it felt like they had been running for ages.

He doubled forward with his hands on his knees and worked on remembering how to breathe properly.

"What?" he managed.

Maya was pointing at a door a bit ahead of them. Number 121. The number sat crooked on the wood, slightly off-center, and the paint around the frame was coming away in thin peeling strips.

"That wasn't here before," she said.

Leo looked at it. Dark wood. Brass handle that was losing its shine.

"So?"

"So the mall doesn't just put new doors somewhere for no reason. It only does it when it wants you going through one. This is part of the task to complete this mission one. I know because I have had three different mission one in three years. You have to go through it and overcome it. The mall won't allow you to just walk in the Anchor room just like that."

"Then we don't go through it."

Maya shook her head slowly. "If we don't do it ourselves it'll find a way to make us do it anyway. This place is patient. It just waits for you to get frustrated. You will just keep landing in that food court. You will be trapped in a loop."

She went to the door and put her hand on the handle.

Leo stretched forth his hand. "Wait.”

She waited.

"Just give me a second to breathe… before we embark on this journey."

She nodded and leaned herself against the wall next to the door. Her arm was still bleeding from the glass that struck her as they ran in this room. The cut wasn't so big. She had her other hand pressed over the wound.

Leo looked at her. "You okay?"

"I'll be fine."

"That's not a proper answer.”

She looked back at him. Her face was tired in a way that wasn't about running. "No. Really. I'm not okay. But I don't get to sit with that right now."

Leo nodded. He understood that feeling already and he'd only been here a few hours or less.

He looked back at door 121. Crooked number. Paint falling off around it.

"What do you think is on the other side?" he asked.

"I have no idea."

"Another task or something?"

"Maybe. Or just a room. This place has hundreds of them. Some are empty. Some have things in them."

"What kind of things?"

Maya didn't answer that one. She just pushed the door open.

It was completely dark. They couldn't see the walls or floor or ceiling. Just darkness going in every direction with no end to it.

It had a smell which hit them right away. Like meat sitting in a warm room for too long or something that had died.

Leo pulled his sleeve up over his nose and mouth.

"What could that be ?" he said.

Maya walked into the room without answering.

Leo went in after her.

The door swung shut behind them and the dark was total. He put his hand up in front of his face and couldn't see it. Couldn't see Maya. Couldn't see one single thing.

"Maya," he said.

"Right here." Left side. Close enough to touch.

"Get the torch light on."

“I am trying to.”

She got it on. The beam pushed into the dark and Leo immediately wished she hadn't.

It was a big room. Concrete on every surface, walls and floor and ceiling up high with pipes running across it. And hanging down from those pipes on ropes, there were bodies.

They weren't dead nor were they exactly alive. Something in the gap between the two things that had no good name for it.

Twelve of them. Some had gone gray, skin dried out, eye sockets empty, mouths hanging slack. Some were newer. Still had some color. Still had eyes in their heads with their mouths shut.

Leo counted without deciding to. Twelve.

"What is this?" he said. Barely any volume behind it.

Maya said nothing. The torch light was moving. Her hand was shaking and the light shook with it.

Then one of them moved.

A woman. Second from the right end. Her head turned slowly. Her eyes came open and they found Leo's face.

Her mouth opened.

"Run." Her voice was dry, cracked and rough like someone who'd gone years without using it and had forgotten the shape of words.

Leo's feet stayed where they were like it was glued to that position. His face went completely pale.

The woman twisted on the rope. Both arms reached out toward him, hands open.

"Run," she said again. Louder this time.

The others started. Every head turning. Every pair of eyes opening. Every mouth coming open.

All of them said the same word.

"Run. Run. Run."

Maya grabbed Leo's arm and pulled him forward hard.

They ran.

The bodies were swinging on their ropes with arms reaching, fingers catching Leo's hair, his shoulders, the back of his neck. He pushed himself faster and still felt hands on him.

He tripped.

Something on the floor caught his foot and he went down hard. Both palms hit the concrete. His knee came down right after and the pain went straight up his whole leg and he made a sound he hadn't planned to make.

He looked back.

One of the bodies was on the floor. It had somehow come down off its rope and was dragging itself toward him by its arms, legs not doing anything, eyes on Leo's face the whole time.

"Stay," it said. "Stay here with us. Please stay."

Leo pushed himself backward on his hands. They kept slipping on the concrete. His knee was screaming at him.

Maya grabbed him by the back of the collar and pulled him upright.

"Move," she said.

He moved.

They ran again. More of them were coming down off the pipes now, dropping and dragging themselves across the floor.

Leo spotted the door at the far end of the room. White, plain handle. He aimed himself at it and ran.

A body dropped right in front of him from above. It hit the floor hard, legs folding the wrong way, arms already reaching up before it had even stopped moving.

Leo jumped.

His foot caught on the body's hand on the way over and he went down again. His chin hit the concrete floor. He bit his tongue and his mouth filled with the taste of blood.

A hand grabbed his ankle. The fingers were cold and hard and completely dry.

"Stay," it said.

Leo kicked and his foot hit its face. The head went back. The hand stayed on.

He kicked again. The grip came loose.

He crawled the rest of the way to the door with his hands and one working knee. He left blood on the floor behind him. Maya had already reached the door and had it pulled open. She turned back to look at him.

"Come on," she said.

He crawled through. She came right after him and threw the door shut.

Red carpet. White walls. Numbered doors.

Leo just lay on the floor with his chest heaving and in pain in too many places all at once to figure out which one was worse.

Maya slid down the wall and sat on the floor with her head resting back against it and her eyes closed.

Leo sat on the floor and was staring into nothing. “You need to be strong.” He said slowly. “You have to find your fat

her…and go back home. Your mother…she would be worried sick by now. Nothing should happen to you Leo. It will kill her to know.

Then Leo heard footsteps.

He lifted his head.