The Jackson - Final

9

The adrenaline that had spurred Corey on was beginning to fade and the throbbing in his ribs was unbearable. His entire body was battered and bruised and any movement, no matter how minute, sent his limbs convulsing in painful spasms. Corey sat with his back to the doors trying not to stare into the dead eyes of the mouthy guard, his body shaking uncontrollably. They had taken his hands and decided that his eyes might be useful too. But that silent scream on the dead man’s lips was bothering Corey. It was too loud. Too desperate. He had been so adamant that they shouldn’t open the doors.

“How the hell does this thing work?” growled the Aswang as he looked at the security desk. The guard’s severed hands sat atop the desk, dripping red down the polished silver. “There are so many buttons.”

“You’re wondering why a facility like this doesn’t have a big red button that says ‘open all doors’ in caps above it?” sneered Victoria.

The Aswang simply growled in response.

Victoria knelt to Corey and brushed her hand over his fevered forehead. “You’re in pain.”

His eyes rolled across her lovely blood-spattered face and he chuckled. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure there are a few busted organs in me. I’m not made as well as the two of you.”

“That’s not true,” she said. When Corey laughed out loud and then had to clutch his side in agony, Victoria’s lip quivered. “I need you to get up,” she said, her voice cracking like a worn veneer. “I need you to open the doors.”

The Jackson shook violently and a great roar trickled down to them from some upper floor.

“Shit! How the hell do we open this fucking door?” The Aswang roared in frustration back at the ceiling. “We need to get out of here.”

“What are those noises? How many more things could possibly be in here? There’s been so much blood already.”

Corey grit his teeth and moved to hold Victoria’s hand. “That guard said something about dimensions. If there are things in here that aren’t from our… whatever the fuck this is… then that means that there had to be, like, a doorway or a gate or something.”

“You think there’s a gate that’s spawning monsters?”

Corey muttered yes.

Victoria shook her head in disbelief and tightened her grip on Corey’s hand. “That can’t be true. Shit like this isn’t possible.”

“Until tonight, I thought people like you guys weren’t possible,” he said, and gave them both a measured look.

“Can someone please come help me before I destroy this thing?”

Victoria looked to Corey and he nodded his head. With her help, he hefted himself to his feet and staggered his way to the security desk, glad to be out of sight of that gruesome head’s gaze. The building shook again and the walls and ceiling began to crumble and rain little clouds of dust. Whatever was still up there was big, Corey thought. Something that definitely shouldn’t be out walking the city streets. Shit.

The security desk had been ripped to shreds by the Aswang earlier and Corey had zero hope that it would work. He looked it over. Screens and metal boards had jagged marks cut through them. Wires stuck their heads out where they shouldn’t. No. This didn’t look like it would work at all.

Corey shook his head hard. “Looks like you already broke it.”

“Well then what did we need his hands and goddamned head for?” cried the Aswang. “And the keys we got aren’t round.” His eyes were growing wild with every miserable second. The louder the cries from above, the more the walls trembled, the more the Aswang grew uneasy. Which meant Corey grew uneasy. If the Aswang decided to go ape shit, there wasn’t a damn thing Corey could do to help Victoria.

“Calm down.” Corey said it more to himself than to the Aswang. “Did you try putting the hand on the bio lock?”

The Aswang huffed. “Of course I did,” he said as he slid one of the hands down to the black pad and held it flat.

The pad lit up and began beeping and the roar that came from above was a lot closer than it had been before. Corey’s heart pounded against his bruised ribs.

“That means it’s working, right?” asked Victoria.

She and the Aswang both looked eagerly at Corey. It was working; Corey just wasn’t sure what to do next. It wasn’t like he had ever worked shit like this before. And with that thing bearing down on them Corey thought for a split second that maybe it was a good thing that they couldn’t open the barrier. But then he thought of Victoria’s kid waiting at home. Everything she had been through trying to get out and to get home. Everything they had been through together. He didn’t want to let her down.

Lights were blinking on a broken panel. Corey’s hope flared then plummeted again when he remembered he had no idea how to work the damn thing.

“Fuck it,” he mumbled as he started pushing every button he could find. More alarms went off. The lights came on and the room came alive like the Fourth of July as broken sconces and ripped wires sparked and spit. The ground shook and the creature that was descending the stairs screamed, sending a debilitating shiver up Corey’s spine.

This isn’t working. We’re all going to die.

His eyes slid to Victoria as he thought it. All he had wanted was a few flat screens, maybe some jewelry. Instead, he had found her and this bizarre organization. Corey needed to believe that he had found Victoria for a reason – that there was going to be a purpose to all of the pain they’d endured.

Then she screamed, “It’s working!”

The metal door was opening, those round holes were apparently just for show, but it was moving so slowly. The Aswang ran to it, trying to force it to slide faster. The thing on the stairs was almost there. When the metal barrier was little more than a foot from the tile floor, the Aswang kicked the glass door just beyond it, smashing a hole big enough he could climb through. He rushed through to the other side and Corey could see a glint of sunlight coming through. It made him yearn. And it made him heartsick. It was morning.

“Come on, Corey. Let’s go! We don’t have much time!”

Corey raced to Victoria after pushing one last button. The alarm rang afresh and the thick barrier began to close once again.

“What did you do?” she asked. Her lip quivered and Corey’s heart fell to the floor.

He couldn’t feel his hands as he lifted them to her face and pulled her into a kiss. “I can’t let them out.”

“No,” she said through thick tears, grabbing his hands hard, “that’s not your job. You don’t have to do this.”

Corey fought back his own tears. “You should go before the door closes.”

The Aswang was yelling for them to hurry, that he was trying to hold it.

“I can’t let you do this,” she whispered.

“And I can’t let you stay.”

Victoria fought Corey as he forced her quickly through the small gap that remained. She had a kid to get home to and Corey knew that she wouldn’t fight him too much. Victoria wanted to get out – she needed to survive. Corey, however, didn’t have anyone waiting on him. He didn’t have anyone who cared if he made it to the next day… until Victoria. She was the first person in years who had really depended on him.

He could hear her and the Aswang screaming as the door sealed itself shut again. The stairs, the world, seemed to shake as whatever monstrosity found its way to him.

Corey couldn’t feel much of his body. Not after the night he’d had. He sat back against the cool metal and laughed remembering all the time he had put into trying to break into this damn building.

“All that work,” he chuckled.

A black cloud of tentacles tore down the staircase. It would have surprised Corey – should have – but he was finished. He had done what he needed to do and Victoria was safe. He didn’t know if the Jackson could hold these things. It had stood for all this time, hiding an even darker and more dangerous side of the city than Corey thought possible. And it wasn’t because of the monsters. He knew better than anyone now that monsters didn’t always come with fangs and claws. Its victims were loose now. Its secret would get out eventually.

As the creature lunged for him, supposing that a cloud could lunge, Corey smiled. "Looks like it's just you and me."