“Yes,” she whispered in return. “Is he gone?”
“I think so.” I pushed against the floor, sat up, and checked for pain. Everything seemed fine.
Kelly rose and knelt next to me. “Where are we?”
“I’m not sure.” I climbed to my feet and helped her up. “I’m not hurt. Are you?”
“I don’t think so.” She wiped her hands on her shirt. “When did I put this hideous hunting outfit on?”
“You got me.” I nudged a violin fragment with a laced boot and sniffed the air. The odor of fresh paint permeated the cool chamber. “This is just like my dream.”
“I hope it’s a dream. Either that or we’re in the dark tunnel people talk about after a near-death experience.” She closed her eyes and tilted her head upward. “Somebody please wake me up. I’ll never shout at my alarm clock again if it will just wake me — ”
Laughter interrupted her plea. We turned toward the sound. A rectangular image hovered nearby, a pond-like reflection that showed a skewed picture of my bedroom. In the image, Kelly and I, still dressed in our sleep attire, lay on the carpet, the gunman standing over us.
Kelly clutched a handful of my sleeve, whisper-shouting. “Are those our dead bodies back in your bedroom?”
I heaved shallow breaths. “I don’t know. Everything’s going crazy.”
In the image, Tony burst through the doorway. He grabbed the intruder from behind in a headlock and wrestled him to the floor. The intruder freed an arm and smacked Tony’s head with the butt of the gun. When Tony fell limp, the man squirmed out, struggled to his feet, and hobbled away.
As the image shrank and faded, the roar of the Mustang came through as well as the sound of gravel spinning from under its tires. The scene reshaped into a tri-fold, floor-standing mirror, reflecting our dumbstruck faces, khaki clothes, and gloomy surroundings.
Kelly clutched her stomach and dropped to her knees. “I think I’m gonna hurl.”
While she vomited thin bile on the floor, I crouched and patted her back. “It’s going to be okay,” I said in a soothing tone, as much to settle myself as to calm her.
When she finished, I helped her to her feet. She pushed her hair back, her eyes flooded with tears. “We’re dead!” Her cry echoed in the empty chamber as she called out, “We’re dead,” again and again.
“We’re not dead. Somehow we transported into the mirror. This place is exactly what we saw from my bedroom.”
She set her fists on her hips. “Oh, well, like that’s a lot better! We’re either dead or nothing but reflections in a mirror world.”
“But we’re still in physical bodies.” I stooped and picked up a piece of a violin. With two curling strings still attached, the tawny wood carried a splattering of reddish stain. “And this place is too real to be just a reflection.”
She turned toward the coffins and rubbed her upper arms. “So, if this is the same as your dream, do you think the Rosetta pieces are over there?”
“I don’t think so. Did you see the lady’s hand?” I strode toward the boxes, Kelly following. Our shoes crunched violin pieces as we weaved around the music stands. “Like I told you, this is the performance hall where my parents died. But it looks different, like it’s been remodeled.”
“In just a couple of days?”
“Fast workers, I guess.” I stopped and pointed at the stage floor. “But the coffins were downstairs in a prop room.”
Kelly crept closer to the coffins. Just as I took a step to follow, a siren wailed somewhere outside. The front entrance door burst open. Gordon limped in, reaching into his jacket. “Stay where you are!”
I grabbed Kelly’s hand and pulled her through the stage’s side doorway. We ran through the dark corridor and down the darker stairs, our heavy boots clomping on the creaking wood. Not bothering to look for a light, I dashed with her into the maintenance area and clattered along the catwalk.
After finding the low exit door, already repaired since my previous visit, I dropped down, pounded it open with my feet, and leaped to the hallway below. Kelly jumped down and joined me.
Again with Kelly at my heels, I dashed into the fire escape alcove and threw open the window. A cool rush of air breezed in. This time, in the middle of the night, the black stairwell seemed invisible against the dark background. It would be like stepping out into nothingness.
While watching the street below, I pushed myself through the window and felt for the metal grating with my feet. When it caught my weight, I straightened, helped Kelly out, and hustled down flight after flight, listening to Kelly’s footsteps clanging to the rear.
As I ran, I glanced up at the dark window. No sign of Gordon. When I reached the horizontal ladder, I walked out onto it, grabbed a rung, and rode it down while Kelly waited at the landing. “Watch for him,” I said. “There’s an exit around the corner, so he might show up there and try to catch us from below.”
When the ladder hit the pavement, we clambered down and leaped off. It then lifted slowly back into place with a grinding squeak.
Kelly pointed. “There he is.”
From the corner of the building, Gordon jogged toward us, holding a gun close to his side.
I took Kelly’s hand and spun in the opposite direction. We hustled into the alley where Clara and I had found the limo. I pulled Kelly against a brick wall and pinned my own body next to hers.
She panted as she whispered, “What are we going to do?”
“Fight.” I raised a tight fist, held my breath, and listened. Heavy footsteps drew closer. When the pounding reached a climax, I leaped out and swung my fist, nailing Gordon square on the cheek and knocking him flat.
I crouched over his motionless body and looked for the gun, but darkness shrouded the area.
Kelly pulled my sleeve. “Let’s just get out of here.”
When I leaned to follow, Gordon latched on to my pant leg. “Without me, you’ll never get home. You have no idea where you are.”
“We’ll take our chances.” I jerked away and ran down the sidewalk with Kelly. The city of Chicago rose before us, towers ascending to dizzying heights. We turned right on Wabash and sprinted alongside the busy street. I listened for our pursuer, but the rumble of an approaching ‘L’ train on an overhead track overwhelmed every other sound.
I halted at the first intersection and pivoted. No one followed. We waited for the light to change and tried to blend in with the dozen or so pedestrians as we crossed the street.
A man in a lime green leisure suit and platform shoes approached from the other side. Something gold flashed on his chest, drawing my gaze to his open shirt where a gold chain suspended a silver-dollar-sized medallion in the midst of a dense nest of hair. A movie poster on a building across the street advertised the film Animal House opening July 28.
When Kelly and I reached the curb, I looked back again. Gordon jogged toward us, grimacing and favoring a leg.
The light changed. A bus rolled between us and Gordon and stopped to allow a late-arriving pedestrian on board. A Ford Pinto pulled up behind the bus and beeped its shrill horn. Although that model had been discontinued years ago, it looked brand new.
I searched for an escape and found a stairway leading to the train platform. “Follow me.” We sprinted up the stairs. When we reached the turnstile, I skidded to a halt and eyed the uniformed attendant leaning against a column and staring off into space. “What do we need? A ticket? A token?”
Kelly leaped onto the turnstile’s cross bar and vaulted over. The attendant jerked his head toward us and raised a hand. “Hey! You need a — ”
“Sorry.” I set my hand on the turnstile. “It’s an emergency.”
I jumped to the other side and dashed up another flight of stairs. After running out onto the passenger platform, I jogged along the line of cars, peering into each window. Where was Kelly? She couldn’t have just disappeared.
A signal chimed. The train was about to leave. At the last car, Kelly pushed out from the insid
e and wedged her body between the closing doors. “Hurry!” she called, straining against the panels.
The doors popped open. Kelly lurched back and fell to her bottom inside. Just as the panels began to close, I leaped in and tumbled on top of her.
After untangling from each other, we rose together and grabbed a support pole. I sucked in a long breath. “I think we lost him.”
“Maybe.” Kelly brushed dust from her safari shirt. “I saw a couple of people get on while you were running this way, but I couldn’t tell if he was one of them. It was too dark.”
I scanned the nearly empty train. One old man sat in the seat closest to the front access door. As a light snore passed through his nostrils, his chin dropped to his chest and nestled in a coffee stain on his white button-down shirt. A sign above his head warned passengers not to pass between the cars.
“Good job back there,” Kelly said as she punched the air. “Did it hurt?”
I raised my fist and looked at the knuckles, red but not bleeding. “It does now. I didn’t feel a thing when I decked him.”
As the car swayed from side to side, she braced herself against the back of a seat and peered out the window. “If he didn’t get on this train, he’s sure to follow on the next one.”
“Let’s get off pretty soon. He won’t be able to guess where we stopped.”
She slid into a window seat and fanned her face with a hand. “Give me a few minutes to catch my breath. I’m not an experienced spy like you.”
I pushed a newspaper section off the seat and sat next to her. “I thought you did great.”
“No, I didn’t.” She crossed her arms and shivered. “I was scared to death.”
“So? You don’t think I was scared?”
“You didn’t act like it.”
“Well, I was. I just did what I had to do. Survival instinct.”
“Experience helps you survive. Rookies like me get killed.” She hugged herself and shivered again. “But I do feel a little better knowing you were scared.”
“Glad I could help.” I looked at the newspaper on the floor at my feet. Bold type near the top spelled out “Nightmare Epidemic Continues.” I squinted at the smaller print but couldn’t read it.
Just as I reached for it, Kelly whispered, “Do you think your parents were in those coffins?”
I straightened, leaving the paper on the floor. “I don’t know. That reflection of myself didn’t mention it.”
She looked straight at me. “Nathan, what’s going on? Either this is the most vivid nightmare in history, or I’m going out of my mind.”
“I’m in the same boat. Life’s been a nightmare ever since I found my parents dead. One crazy event after another. And the girl in red showed up again.”
Her brow lifted. “She did?”
“You didn’t see her? It was when that guy shot at us.”
Kelly shook her head. “I couldn’t move a muscle. My eyes stayed locked on that bullet.”
I spread out my arms the way the girl had. “It was like she controlled the mirror. Like she pulled us in here and pushed our dead reflections out into my bedroom.”
A scratchy voice broke in. The driver announced the next stop, but it was too garbled to understand. As the train rounded a curve, the front half bent into sight, every car slowing as it approached a well-lit platform. A dark-suited man passed from car number two to three and limped toward the back of the train.
I grasped Kelly’s wrist. “Time to get off.”
“What? Why?”
I crouched and pulled her into the aisle. “Gordon found us.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Staying low, we crept behind a partition next to the side exit door. As the train slowed to a crawl, I peeked past the rows of seats to the car directly in front of ours. No sign of Dr. Gordon yet.
“Ready to jump?” I asked.
Kelly took in a breath and rocked on her toes. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
When the train halted, Gordon burst through the door between the two cars and limped toward us, aiming a handgun. “Don’t move or you’re dead!”
I froze. Kelly grabbed my arm. Her hot breaths puffed against my neck as the side door slid open.
Gordon pressed the gun barrel against Kelly’s head. “Give it up, or I’ll blow her brains out. Just come with me. Mictar wants to see you.”
I thrust Gordon’s weapon arm up and kneed him in the groin. When he doubled over, I kicked him in the chin. He snapped back and landed face up in the aisle.
After grabbing Kelly’s hand, I leaped for the loading platform and hit the ground running. We scrambled down the stairway and sprinted along a sidewalk through a construction zone, leaping over broken concrete and dodging orange barricades as streetlights guided our way.
We stopped at a corner and waited for several cars to pass. I looked back toward the station. Gordon limped down the stairs while scanning the sidewalk in the other direction.
“I don’t think he’s seen us yet.” When the final car passed, we bent low, crept across the street, and ducked into an alley. In front and on both sides, brick buildings stretched to four stories high. A fire escape rode up the wall to the left, similar to the metal stairs we had used earlier.
I looked at the horizontal bridge above. Hovering at least a dozen feet straight up, it might as well have been a mile in the air. I could never jump that high.
I scanned the alley and spotted a trash dumpster several feet away. “Think we can push the dumpster under the fire escape?”
Kelly looked at the suspended ladder. “If we do, he might use it to follow us.”
“Maybe not. I think he’s hurt.” I set my hands on the side of the dumpster and gave it a hefty shove. It budged an inch or two.
Kelly leaned her shoulder against the worn-away lettering on the back. Looking at me, she said, “On three?”
Setting my feet, I gave her a nod. “Let’s do it.”
“One … two … three!”
While I shoved with my hands, Kelly pushed with her shoulder. As the dumpster slid, the metal bottom screeched against the pavement.
I pulled Kelly back. “With all that noise, we might as well send up a flare.”
She looked at the ladder again. “Think we got it close enough?”
“Let’s find out.” I climbed the dumpster and perched on the edge closest to the fire escape, still a few feet away from directly underneath the ladder. I jumped and grabbed one of the rungs, but the rusted stairway stayed put.
Kelly scaled the dumpster, jumped from the top, and wrapped her arms around my waist. With a squeal, the ladder lurched a half inch but stopped. Swinging her legs back and forth, she forced our bodies to sway.
With every swing, my fingers slipped. As the hinges continued to whine, the stairway eased down in rhythmic pulses until we reached the ground. Once we set the supports in place, we dashed up to the first platform and waited while the bridge elevated, its hinges again squawking a rusty complaint.
Careful to keep our footfalls quiet on the metal steps, we hurried to the top of the building and ducked behind a parapet, a three-foot-high wall that bordered the roof.
I stretched out my numbed fingers and peeked down at the street. Dr. Gordon skulked into the alley, keeping a hand in his jacket pocket as he swung his head from side to side.
I jerked back and whispered, “He’s down there.”
Kelly leaned close. “Did he see us?”
“Hard to tell.” Staying low, I walked to an access hatch at the center of the roof and tried the latch. Locked.
Kelly skulked across the roof and joined me. “If he thinks we’re up here, he’s bound to find us. He’ll just come up the stairs on the inside.”
“Not if we can get to the next roof.” We walked to the far edge of the building and looked at the alley between us and the parapet on the other side. “What do you think? Maybe fifteen feet across?”
“At least.” Kelly backed up several steps, puffed a few breaths, and s
printed toward the edge. She leaped onto our parapet, launched herself across the gap, and touched down on the other roof, but her foot slipped, sending her into a tumbling forward fall.
I backed up a few steps, ran ahead, and vaulted over the gap. When I landed on the gravelly roof, I stooped where Kelly lay curled on her side. “Kelly! Are you okay?”
She gave no answer.
I turned her body face up and cradled her in my arms. Blood streamed from a scalp wound, forking into three rivulets that traced across both cheeks and over her nose. I brushed gravel from her hair and used my sleeve to dab at the blood on her nose. “Kelly? Can you hear me?”
Her eyes fluttered open. “Where am I?”
“On a rooftop. You jumped from one building to another.”
“Oh. Right. I remember now.” With my help, she rose to her feet, wincing while letting out a groan. “My head feels like a hammer’s pounding it.”
“No wonder. You were out cold. I hope you don’t have a concussion.”
“It’s not that bad. My vision’s clear, so I think I’m okay.” As she swept gravel from her pants, she turned to the other building. “I guess we’d better lay low for a while.”
We sat side-by-side with our backs to the parapet, low enough to keep our heads out of sight. A pair of sirens wailed in the distance, one somewhere in front and another to the rear, farther away. Now that we were above the streetlights, only the glow of a half moon and a single exposed bulb next to the roof’s access door illuminated our surroundings. Still, it was enough to shed light on Kelly’s wounds. Blood oozed from her scalp into her ear and dripped from the lobe, falling into her hair and clotting.
“You’ve got a pretty bad cut on your head.”
“I’ve had bad cuts before.” She touched her scalp and winced again. “Dad makes me play basketball with the guys. To toughen me up, or so he says. One of his buddies plays like a gorilla with razor blades for elbows. He caught me square in the nose once. I bled like a stuck pig for almost an hour.”
I grinned. “So that’s why you jump like a kangaroo. All that basketball.”
“Yeah. At least it’s good for something.” After staring straight ahead for a few seconds, she nudged me with an elbow. “Hey, you were awesome back at the train. Nice kick.”