The Shaman Read online

slow and drawn out, Ayou tink does keys dere on dat table might open dose locks?@ His smile was smug.

  AOh yeah?@ I asked, a sudden errant thought entering my mind. AWhere=s all the dust an old assed place like this is supposed to have? There was dust outside when we dropped in?@

  AMan, shut yoe drunk-ass up. Why you askin= me some shit like dat now? How da hell should I know?@ He picked up the keys, and began unlocking the padlocks. AMessin= with me wid my drunk fadin=, and me hungry too. . .Dere we go, all unlocked.@ He pulled and tossed all the massive locks on the floor with dull clanks and thuds, and carefully set all the heavy bars on the table the keys came from.

  He pulled on the thick handle, but the door didn=t budge. He pulled with all his strength. . .and the door did nothing.

  ATry the big red button behind the glass on the other wall there -- not that wall, there, see it now? Maybe?@

  ALooks like a fire alarm,@ he mused.

  ANo, the fire alarm=s outside, and in the other rooms were labeled, and they had those levers behind the glass. That=s a big red button. I just noticed it myself.@

  ALet=s see.@ He picked up a gray metal skeletal forearm-with-hand from one of the shelves by the button, and holding it by the ball-joint wrist, one fierce blow shattered the glass, and pressed the button at the same time. The door hissed, and the steam of much cooler air billowed through the break in the pressure. The door made a lot more noise, and finally creaked slowly open, the sound of hydraulics pumping. Most of the noise stopped, all except three, all linked together in a two second pattern. The sound was faint, distant, metallic.

  Boom-scrape clack, boom-scrape clack, boom-scrape clack. . .

  I peeked inside to the much dimmer lights of the door-wide passage beyond, and felt an instant pang of dread from what I saw there. Laying on the steel-grate floor of the cold steel passage was the broken mummified remains of five bodies, their smashed and rended leathery flesh frozen in scenes of abject agony in their bloodstained white labcoats. Only one was close to the door, her prone body stretching its arm out in vain, her fingers only inches from the threshold of the door.

  AJoseph. . .@

  AI seen. . . I see it. You wanna go down dere?@

  I swallowed a fat lump in my throat. ASure. Long as we make sure that door don=t close on us. It smells funny musty in there.@

  Joseph snorted once like an irritated bull. AAre you crazy? I don=t wanna find out what=s makin= dat fuckin= noise.@

  AWhat, that? Sounds like some kind of machine, probably the generator or something.@ Boom-scrape clack, boom-scrape clack. . .

  AIt=s fuckin= eerie. I dread it. I have a really bad feeling about what=s down dere.@

  AI=m goin=,@ I said, and started slowly down the long passage.

  Boom-scrape clack, boom-scrape clack, boom-scrape clack. . .

  I must admit I felt a little apprehensive about it, but my curiosity was stronger. I didn=t walk too quickly down that dim-lit hallway, though.

  ATumoc! Wait up man. I=m bein= silly. Whatever did dat did it a long time ago. I=ll prop da door open. How >d you know dere wasn=t a way to open it from your side?@

  AI didn=t. I just don=t want that damned door to close while I=m in here. You=re right, it is kind of spooky in here.@

  AWell, said Joseph, Alets see what=s down here and get it over with, so we can get da hell out of heah, and go home.@

  AAlright.@ We crept slowly down the narrow hallway, and soon reached a room with a ceiling a little lower than the high one of the passageway. There were five doors on the far side of the room, the tall, wide door on the far right made of thick, heavy steel, instead of wood like the other four. The big steel door was slightly ajar. As we approached, the boom-scrape clack had grown steadily stronger, and its source seemed to be. . . I think I started sweating then. It=s comin= from the big door. . .shit. Why=s it got to be comin= from behind the big door. . .

  AHmn hmn hmn,@ Joseph hummed quietly.

  ALets look in the other rooms first,@ I said in a near whisper.

  AOk.@ He started immediately toward the door to the far left. He knew what I was talkin= >bout. It was unlocked. As with most doors he ever encountered, he had to duck to get through it. The first room was small, plain, the floor slightly tapering to the drain in the center of the rough concrete floor. The second was a pristine clean torture chamber with all the fixin=s, the third full of more monitors plugged into huge dead computers. The fourth room was a bathroom no different than the rest found throughout the complex.

  Boom-scrape clack, boom-scrape clack. . .

  AI=m not goin= in dere,@ said Joseph with a note of be-all-end-all in his voice.

  AOh, why not?@ I asked in baby-talk. AIs big stwong Josie-Wosie afwaid of the big bad noise?@

  AYou=re a very funny man, Tumoc. Why don=t you go first?@

  ANot without my guns. I=m goin= to get my guns first.@

  AGood idea. I=ll grab da rocket launcher.@

  ALike I said before, it=s probably just a generator or somethin=. Don=t you know that m'man?@

  ANo, and I ain=t gonna find out until I=ve got a rocket launcher, either.@

  We started to head back down the tunnel. AWe=re startin= to sound like a bunch of cacklin=, superstitious old hags, Joe.@

  AYeah, well, dat may be, but I still got dat feelin= in da back of my head dat don=t quite sit right. You know?@

  AYeah, me too.@

  ADen why da hell are we goin=?@

  A>Cause I gotta know what=s in there, man. Curiosity.@

  Joseph suddenly stopped, and grabbed me roughly by the shoulder.

  AWell goddammit Tumoc, I=m sick of dis place, and I=m sick and fuckin= tired of bein= afraid of da goddamned fuckin= unknown. Afraid of fuckin= Devils and deir fuckin= black arrows ta pierce my chest, like it did Cory, or my neck, like it did Quinton, or my head, like it did Leroy and Lamont. . .@ He took a deep breath. The whole time he spoke his voice became steadily louder, and in the close confines of the passage walls, the reverberating bass of his voice was almost unbearable. He then began to almost yell, as he began to rant about just about everything under the sun, ending with a cracking yell, A -- so goddammit Tumoc, lets go and see what da hell is in dat goddamned room!@ Then he smiled, and said calmly, AWow, I needed dat. Dat shit felt good.@

  AI=m sure it did,@ I said smiling back.

  AWell, you know Tumoc,@ Joseph began, with a springy stride back toward the room -- then he stopped. ATumoc, you hear dat?@

  AHear what?@ I asked.

  ANothin=, Tumoc.@

  ANothin=, then what the. . . Oh. Hmn. Oh shit.@ The noise from the room had stopped, and for the five or so seconds we didn=t speak, the lack of sound was almost ominous. It was what followed the silence that scared the ever livin= shit out of me.

  Scraaaape, clack, Scraaaape, clack, scraape clack, scraape clack, scrape clack, scrape clack, clack. . .. . .clack, clack. . .clack, clack, clack, clack clack clack clack, creak. . .

  When I heard that damned door start to slowly open, I didn=t stand and watch. I turned and ran.

  Clack clack, was followed by a squelching screech of heavy static, full of garbled sounds that were almost words. A scream of fear, then anger, roared from Joseph. What was left of my alcoholic buzz was now utterly gone. My mind at that moment felt more clear than I think it probably ever has.

  When I reached the open doorway, I turned around to see Joseph staring up into a heavily-rusted metal face. It=s twisted-up features were those of a horrible lonely agony, if it had been the face of a man. There was more of the static mumbling, and then Joseph turned to me, with the wetness of tears forming in his eyes.

  ARun, Tumoc,@ he said, with the most profound sadness I may have ever heard. ATell Tomeka I love her, and that I=m sorry.@ There was a strange note of something there I couldn=t define.

  AJoseph?@ I began, with a dull dread growing underneath my heart. A split second later the rusted broken form of the machine man raised up its metal arms -- one massive and weighty like a segmented anvil,
the other a lumpy, misshapen skeletal thing that might=ve once been an arm -- and brought them down heavily on Joseph=s shoulders before he could even flinch. Both the tech-aberration and Joseph=s screams melded together in a macabre roar, raising my hackles as it drug an icy claw down my spine. I didn=t have to hear Joseph croak ARun,@ to slam that heavy steel door shut, and start slappin= those heavy bars on it.

  I had about two bars on the door when I heard a choked gurgle, followed by a rapid clack clack scrape, clack-clack. . . I=d placed one more bar on the door when a terrible weight from the other side smashed into it, the unnatural force buckling the thick metal bars. That was enough for me to see. I turned and ran as fast as my fatigued legs would carry me, which was pretty damned fast with all the adrenaline pumping through them.

  I didn=t think to stop and bother for a gun, but I ran across one someone >d left laying on a pinewood crate. I snatched it up, and checked to see if it was loaded as I ran. It was. I stopped dead in my tracks, turned, cocked my weapon, and brought it to my shoulder.

  The sound of what was most likely the thick steel door slamming through the table and smashing into a wall filled my panic-scarred ears. It was followed by the unmistakable sound the hulking, rusted behemoth made when it tried to walk on its broken, incomplete legs. The doorway opening into the main area of the complex was too small for it to pass through, so it made its own way through the thick concrete opening, bursting through into the open covered in grey dust. It made the thing look like some ancient disfigured