You started toward the entrance doors when another car turned onto the driveway. Because you were still covered in Mabel’s blood (oddly enough, cleaning up before leaving the house never entered your mind), the last thing you needed was to be seen like this. You leapt aside, cowering behind a trash Dumpster as the new-looking Mercedes drove up and parked in front of the entrance.
A man and a woman got out and opened the back doors. The man removed and unfolded a wheelchair while his wife helped a much older and frail-looking woman out of the backseat; once she was situated in the chair, the man reached into the car, removed a pet carrier, and the three of them went inside.
As soon as they were through the doors you ran across the lot toward the U-boat to see if Beth and the remaining Its were still there. Maybe she’d gotten here, parked, then froze as the shock of Mabel’s suicide finally hit. You’d find her sitting there, hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly their knuckles would be white.
It was empty.
You took a deep breath and tried unsuccessfully to steady your shaking hands. You thought about the day everyone had piled into the car and brought the other Its out here, the way Whitey had gotten so emotional about the leaving women, how Mabel walked through the selection area in a semi-catatonic daze, and the way you’d found Beth coming out of the room behind the large steel door.
Remember how you suddenly wished that you smoked? A cigarette would’ve helped right then, the feel of it between your fingers, the aroma of the tobacco as it was ignited by the flame, the first deep inhalation… oh, yeah. That would have been nice. Mom liked to smoke. Dad preferred a pipe. You missed them terribly. You missed Whitey and Beth and Mabel, missed the world you’d once known and had taken for granted.
You heard car doors slam, and then you slunk over to the front of the building in time to see the Mercedes’ taillights receding; the driver didn’t even signal or slow as the car reached the road, he just tore out of there with a squeal of tires and burst of exhaust and a sudden, violent leftward skid that he quickly corrected before gunning the engine and speeding away.
Wiping blood and perspiration from your face, you took another deep breath and stepped inside.
An old cat sat in one of the top cages; it was the only animal here, and you were the only person. You stared at the cat and it, in turn, showed its interest in you by yawning.
You knew this animal- recognized it, anyway-but couldn’t place it. It wasn’t one of the Its but, still… where had you seen this disenchanted arthritic bundle of fur and teeth before?
The selection area was dark and closed off by a collapsible, barred security door.
That left only the large steel door on the right.
You peered through its window but could see nothing, then realized this was intentional, that a person could only see through from the other side. You reached down and grabbed the handle. It never occurred to you that this door might be locked; if that had been the case, you might be a much different and happier man now, but it was unlocked and swung open with only a minimum of effort and besides, pal, I’m not doing this to play “What-If?” with you.
The cold draft from behind the door seemed less severe than before, but that was probably because the night itself was cooler and so the contrast in temperatures wasn’t as drastic.
You stood there pondering meteorological conundrums for a few more seconds, anything to not step in and hear that door clunk shut. If you’d followed baseball, you might have reviewed stats for the season. You could have counted the freckles on the back of your hand. Or recited all the lyrics to “American Pie” until the Chevy reached the levy only to find it dry.
“Do it, you fucking coward,” you whispered to yourself.
Three seconds later you stood on the other side listening to the door clunk shut behind you. The sound reverberated with the same cold, metallic finality a lifer must hear every night when the prison bars electronically screech into their magnetized locks.
Once the door has been closed, the animal cannot be retrieved from outside.
You were in a dim corridor whose sides were delineated by a string of ankle-level safety lights that stretched its entire length, then bent around a corner roughly a hundred feet away. The walls on either side were vaguely familiar. You could easily see the boards that had been used as forms for the concrete because several of them had warped before the concrete had set properly; they looked like ghosts trapped in the walls, stuck forever between this world and the one they came from and now wished they had never tried to leave.
Remember where you saw this before? That afternoon in the sub-basement of the hospital? On your way to the Keepers’ lab? Of course you don’t-or won’t. If you did, then I wouldn’t be pestering you with all this, would I?
It doesn’t matter. Here you are, in the facility, and you have to find Beth. She was in here somewhere, she had to be, there was nowhere else she could have gone, so you followed the lights until you turned a corner and slammed your shin against something left haphazardly in the middle of the floor.
A wheelchair.
Bending over to rub your leg, you saw the bright bumper sticker attached to the back of the chair: I ACCELERATE FOR FUZZY BUNNIES.
Then you thought of The Waltons with the sound muted, of a handmade quilt neatly folded at the foot of a bed, of a book of poetry and some lines from Browning and faded photographs on a wall and – and knew now why you’d recognized the cat.
You wondered if Miss Acceleration’s file was one of those lying on the floor beside Mabel’s bed, and if Whitey’s was among them, as well.
The dial clicked, another set of tumblers fell into place, and you moved on.
The air back here was slightly warmer but much more damp and smelled of a farm: wet straw, urine and feces, moist fur… But there were other, more disparate smells mixed among them: freshly laundered sheets, antiseptics, talcum or baby powder (you never could tell the difference between the two, could you?), and an eye-watering assortment of medicinal odors-cough syrup, rubbing alcohol, iodine, Mercurochrome, gauze and bandages. What was it you assumed then? That this was the area used for ministering to animals who were ill or hurt at the time they were dropped off.
Except there were no animal sounds; no dogs barking, no cats hissing, no birds chirping or pigs snorting, nothing. Even this late at night there should have been a few animals awake and making their discomfort or hunger known, but the only sounds were the hum of a hidden generator, the steady exhalation of the air-conditioning, and your own footsteps. You were so anxious about the silence you failed to notice the metal lip rising out of the floor ahead and tripped on the damn thing.
Stepping up and grabbing the rail to regain your balance, you discovered that this section of floor was raised and covered in a long strip of rubber tread. The railing extended the rest of its length on both sides; an automated walkway, one of those moving sidewalks used at malls and airports. To the left was a large red button with which to activate the motor.
You chose to move under your own power; the lack of noise might be disturbing, but at least it wouldn’t betray your presence.
As soon as you took your first step a light blinked on to the right and a dog leapt at you. Crying out, you jumped to the other side of the walkway, lost your balance, and landed on your knees. Crossing your arms in front of your face, you took a deep breath and readied yourself for the thing to sink its teeth into your arm.