Chapter 6

  Not So Empty Halls

  Weeds clawed their way through the cracks in the concrete walkway, like they were trying to reclaim the place. They led straight up to a pair of double doors, their frosted glass hiding whatever secrets waited inside.

  Stepping back I let my eyes travel up the building. The flat roof of the ground floor jutted out like a broken jaw beneath the main structure. Most of the windows above were shuttered, barred, the kind of look that said the place didn’t trust anyone, and maybe had good reason not to.

  “What’re you thinking, Barty?”

  Sam’s voice drifted up behind me. He’d walked the short path without a sound and now stood a few paces back, hanging there like my own shadow.

  I rubbed a hand over my stubble. “I’m thinking it’s strange there’s a security vehicle in the lot.” I nodded toward the small parking area set aside for staff and visitors. “But there’s no lights on inside. No sign of a security office, no guard on duty. No flashlight moving around, either.”

  Sam squinted up at the windows. “Could be further in. No windows?”

  I shrugged. Could be. Didn’t feel right. I crossed the lot toward the pickup with SECURITY stencilled on the side in tired lettering.

  The hood was cold under my palm as I circled it. Through the driver’s window I spotted a bulky security jacket slumped on the seat, surrounded by the greasy remains of fast food wrappers, cups, the usual confessions of a man killing time. The tires told their own story: worn thin, and the rear passenger tire was flat. Slow leak. Neglected. Like whoever drove it figured they’d deal with it later, or never.

  I scanned the rest of the lot. Two other vehicles. A school bus. And a faded blue Volkswagen Beetle that had seen better decades.

  “Find anything, Barty?” Sam asked, wandering over as I headed toward the Beetle.

  “Pickup’s been sitting at least a day or two.”

  I leaned in, peering through the Beetle’s windows. Sam came up beside me.

  “Looks like whoever’s working security now is driving their own car,” I said. “Different sized jacket in here. No fast-food trash, either. I’m guessing a replacement. New guard. Maybe temporary.”

  I straightened and looked at Sam. “Check the perimeter. See if anything’s out of place. I’m going in.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You got a lock charm or something, Barty?”

  I pulled a small case from my pocket and gave it a faint shake. “Nope. Just lock-picks.”

  And with that, I turned back toward the doors, already feeling the weight of the place pressing down on me.

  The lock gave way with a click sharp enough to sound like the disapproving click of a matron’s tongue.

  I pushed the door, bracing for a protest, a squeal or a tired groan, but it opened smooth and quiet, like it had something to hide. I slipped inside.

  The corridor stretched out ahead of me, long and hollow, a waiting mouth that had swallowed better men than me. The floor bore the scars of heavy traffic and heavier years, patches of repair showed at least an attempt in its care.

  Off to the right sat the security office, right where it ought to be. Through the glass I could see the remains of a shift interrupted: a jacket slung over a chair, personal junk left behind like its owner planned on coming back. I tried the handle. It opened without a fight.

  Inside, I flipped the switch. The lights snapped on with a nervous buzz, washing the room in pale, unforgiving white.

  “Funny, why not keep them on?” I muttered, keeping my voice low.

  The desk was cheap, the kind ordered in bulk and forgotten just as fast.

  A cold cup of coffee sat beside a lunch consumed in a hurry. In front of them, a line of monitors stared back at me six dead eyes where the cameras should’ve been. Every screen was black.

  And in a place like this, darkness was never an accident.

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  On the Desk a log book for the night shift sat open, they logged the cameras went out at nine thirty four shortly after their first patrol an hour later they went on patrol once again only this time they never came back.

  I flicked through the last couple of days of entries; I could see the change in handwriting.

  “Different guard alright.” I looked at the last log of the previous guard. ‘01:13 disturbance at gymnasium cameras went offline.’

  I looked around the office and spotted the very thing I was looking for a map of the school, while not very big the school was split into two buildings one the main building I was in currently the second separated by a reasonably sized court yard was the gymnasium.

  “I should clear this building first.”

  “Want me to message Sam and tell him what you’re doing, Barty?”

  Lila’s voice chimed from my pocket, smooth and sudden. It got me just enough to sting, as i had forgotten she was still with me.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Yeah. That’d be great.”

  Phone out, I headed down the corridor, lockers lining the walls like iron maidens. I checked classrooms as I passed dark, empty, holding their breath waiting for life to return to them.

  “Did you go to a school like this?” Lila asked.

  “No,” I said. “I was home schooled.”

  I stopped midway down the hall. Staircases rose on either side. One sign pointed toward the labs. The other toward the library. Knowledge on one side. Secrets on the other.

  I headed upstairs to the labs.

  Knowledge hurts, but secrets rot.

  The stairs creaked under my weight; each step complaining like it had something better to do. I kept one hand free, the holding onto my phone its light guiding my way.

  The lights up here were off, same as below.

  At the top of the stairs, the air changed. Thicker, like the whole building was alive and decided it didn’t like me.

  Lab doors lined the hall, narrow windows set into them like slit pupils. Inside, shadows hunched over benches and sinks, pretending to be equipment.

  I checked the first door. Locked.

  The second wasn’t.

  Inside, the smell hit me first, chemicals gone stale, metal, and something underneath that didn’t belong in any textbook. The room was a mess. Drawer’s half-open. Glassware shattered and swept into lazy piles. Like someone had been in a hurry, or worse, interrupted.

  I stepped carefully, boots crunching softly over broken glass. On the far bench sat a notebook, abandoned mid-note. The handwriting was tight, nervous, the same scrawl as the new Security Officer.

  Found lab in a mess, possible break in? Phone dead, no signal. Tried lights power appears to be off. Heard something moving in the courtyard. Too heavy to be wind. Why leave there notebook? Why here?

  I exhaled slowly through my nose. Everybody hears something before they stop writing, some old tropes where as true in fiction as real life.

  My phone’s light flickered in my hand. I moved on.

  Further down the hall, I found the scorch marks, blackened streaks climbing one wall, like something had tried to crawl away after it burned. The door opposite hung open, twisted on one hinge.

  That’s when I heard it.

  Not footsteps. Not quite. More like… weight shifting. A slow dragging sound, somewhere ahead of me. Deliberate, Patient.

  I froze.

  The sound came again. Closer this time.

  “Lila?” I murmured into the phone, keeping my voice low. “Any word from Sam?”

  A beat. Then static crackled distorting Lila’s voice.

  “Sam’s not responding, Barty.”

  I didn’t like it, old tropes where cautionary tales and I had messed up, I had split us up.

  “Try him again,” I said. “And keep the line open.”

  I eased forward, every nerve tuned tight. The hall bent left, ending in a set of double doors marked PREP ROOM. One of them was ajar, breathing out cold air that crawled up my spine.

  I nudged it open with my foot.

  The room beyond was bigger than the others, lit only by moonlight leaking through a high window. Tables stood overturned. Cabinets gaped open, their contents scattered like bones. And in the centre of the floor…

  A security jacket.

  The same bulky make from the pickup only smaller.

  It lay empty, folded in on itself, like whoever inside had simply stepped out of it. No blood. No tears. Just fabric, abandoned.

  “That’s not good,” I whispered.

  Something moved behind me.

  I spun, heart punching hard, but the hallway was empty. Too empty. The silence had weight now, pressing in, daring me to blink.

  Then I heard it again.

  Not behind me.

  Above.

  A slow, deliberate drag across the ceiling. Like fingernails testing concrete. Like something learning the shape of the place.

  Lila’s voice came through my phone, quieter now. “Barty…” then silence as the phone went dead.

  I closed my eyes for half a second. Long enough to regret every choice that brought me here, here without my bag of tricks, here without my revolver, what was I even thinking? Was I even thinking?

  “Okay,” I said. “Then we do this the hard way.”

  I slid the phone into my pocket. When the phone died the light died with it, leaving me in the greedy darkness, only thin blades of moonlight brave enough to trespass into the classrooms and hall.

  I stepped back into the hall, eyes up tracking the ceiling.

  Whatever was in this school wasn’t hiding anymore.

  And I was looking right at it.

  “Fucking Faelings.” I growled

  It clung to the ceiling like a bad thought that wouldn’t let go, the shiny black marble eyes stared down at me, unblinking.

  From its Slimy, slick nose to the tips of its three twitching tails, it had to be close to three feet long.

  An Alp Luachra and probably the largest Alp Luachra I had ever heard of, all muscle, mucus and malice.

  I bolted down the corridor.

  I tore down the corridor as the newt-like fae peeled itself free of the ceiling tiles and dropped behind me, its lamprey maw letting out a wet, gurgling cry that chased me down the hall. Even as its claws slapped against tile, fast despite its grotesque bulk to give chase.

  Despite its Prodigious size, it wouldn’t kill me. Not right away. Alp Luachra liked their meals breathing. It would force its way down my throat, make a nest of my insides, and turn me into a walking pantry.

  While I starved, it would be growing larger all the while. Then, when it was done with me, it’d crawl off in search of water and something new to ruin.

  The upside? I wouldn’t remember any of it.

  The downside?

  Starving to death from the inside out wasn’t how I planned to clock out.

  I hit the stairwell hard, shoulder first, boots pounding as I took the steps two at a time. Behind me, I could hear it, wet, eager, gaining. The school echoed with its hunger, and the walls didn’t care who they belonged to when the lights were on.

  I just needed one mistake.

  Preferably its.