Untitled Eerie Indiana fic, part 12
Aug. 8th, 2011 10:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
froodleTitle: Untitled
Author: Froodle
Disclaimer: Still not mine
Claim: Eerie Indiana
Prompt: 7, Lose
Characters: Mars, Dash, Simon
Word Count: for this part, 3565
Rating: PG13, though sadly only for language
Summary/Warning: Where else would you go searching for a lost past in Eerie? Also, not even SLIGHTLY finished.
Part Twelve
PART TWELVE
If the bumpy helter-skelter descent from the Eeriemat down to the reception for Areas Two and Three was rough, the trip on the mechanical Claws was infinitely worse. And this time, instead of a pile of freshly washed socks still warm from the dryer, they landed hard on a dusty wooden floor almost identical to that of the room they’d just left.
While Dash, Marshall and Simon dropped to their hands and knees and tried to catch their breath and not throw up at the same time, Ginny and Charley alighted from their respective Claws with no greater display of concern than if they were stepping off an escalator.
“Get up,” said Charley, already keying a new sequence into a familiar-looking console.
“Give us a break, will you?” snapped Marshall. His head and his stomach were spinning at different speeds and different directions, and Simon and Dash didn’t appear to have fared any better after their journey either.
“I would if I could,” said Charley. “Unfortunately, we’ve only made it as far as the staging grounds between Areas Three and Four, and it won’t take long for the Radfords to send out alerts to all the other Areas to let them know we escaped.” As if prompted by his words, an old-fashioned microphone atop a battered, melamine-topped workstation sputtered to life. Charley clicked it off, then hissed in frustration as the lapse in concentration resulted in him entering an incorrect symbol on the keypad, which bleeped at him.
Dash rolled onto his back and lay with his eyes closed. “All that and we only moved one lousy Area?” he said. Next to him, Simon moaned, wordless but still managing to convey an identical sentiment.
“Each discrete system of Claws is only designed for travel within a single Area,” said Charlie. “Given that they cover an average of two-and-a-half thousand square miles, I’d say they do a pretty good job.”
With a colossal effort of will, Mars got to his feet and stood upright without leaning on anything, vomiting, or crying for his mom. “You’re saying we’re two and a half thousand miles away from where we started, and we’re still not safe?”
“No safe places when you’re Lost,” said Ginny. “Claws and Radfords and the Head Office watching everywhere.” Charley reached out and took her hand. She leaned against him and smiled that unnerving smile at Marshall. “No Claws inside the Intangible Three,” she went on. “No need for a Claw in a place where nothing has form.”
“We’ll ride the Claw network to the edge of Area Eleven,” said Charley. “After that, we’ll need to travel on foot, or risk using the Vacuum Funnels that the Radfords get around in – hah!” This last was evidently in reaction to having successfully activated the new Area’s Claw system, as five new Claws, subtly different in design to the ones they had just rode in on, descended from the ceiling and opened their pronged metal jaws wide.
As before, Charley and Ginny mounted their respective rides with the ease of long practice, using decorative wrought-iron scalloping around the edges as footrests and leaning their weight against the thick suspension cable attached to the gleaming Claw. Dash, Mars and Simon were more hesitant, but a distant tell-tale whooshing that could have come from one of two dozen corridors branching from the main room was enough to spur them into action despite their misgivings.
Though their second ride in the embrace of the Claws was every bit as terrifying as the first, the dismount proved a little easier, as the Claws extended almost to the ground before dropping them into a large pen filled with fresh, loose hay.
“I had a feeling I’d be seeing you,” said the middle-aged woman sitting comfortably in an overstuffed armchair whose original faded upholstery was barely visible beneath bright patches of various colours, shapes and patterns. Her cardigan was in a similar state, being so often repaired with sundry cheerful shades and thicknesses of wool that the original shapeless brown garment was barely a suggestion beneath the riot of colour. Her dress shirt and tuxedo pants were also much-mended, though more sedately, her bowtie was askew, if she was wearing braces they were invisible underneath a bright yellow apron decorated in pictures of sunflowers, and her green visor lay on a small side table to the right of her chair.
“Another Radford?” Mars guessed, feeling Dash and Simon tense beside him.
“That’s right, my boy,” said Radford, rising from her seat and coming towards them, beaming like some apple-cheeked story-book grandmother. She slid back the bolt that fastened the pen’s gate closed, and stepped back to let them exit. They did so, keeping a careful distance.
“How did you know we were coming?” Dash wanted to know.
“Oh, it’s been all over the radio,” said Radford. “One of you without a Code, another one five years early, and Marshall Teller, of course. I’m afraid you’ve made a frightful mess of things down here, dears.” She looked past them at Ginny and Charley. “And you picked up some of poor old Radford’s escaped Fives, too.” She shook her head in wonderment. “Young people today, the japes you get up to.”
“Any minute now, she’s going to say ‘I do declare’,” Dash whispered.
“I do declare!” said Radford. She clapped her hands. “Well, no use standing around chatting all day,” she continued merrily. “I daresay you have a lot to be getting on with.” She bustled – of course she would bustle, thought Mars - over to her counter, which was old oak, rubbed to a high sheen from years of use. There was a large earthenware dish that steamed gently beneath its cover, a pitcher of homemade lemonade, and-
“Is that a Black Cow?” asked Mars.
“It’s two, in fact,” said Radford. “With a nip of java, although normally I don’t approve of giving such things to youngsters,” she added with a nod to Simon. “Now, you eat quickly while I fetch a few things.”
“Oh,” said Mars. “Um, thank you very much, miss, but we really don’t have time for dinner…”
“Nonsense,” said Radford. She removed the lid from the covered dish. “It’s Swedish chicken. And besides,” she explained as she pulled down a lever that stood at a right-angle from the wall, “I’ve shut down all Claws and Vacuum Tubes in this Area for the next forty minutes.” She winked. “There are advantages to being a dotty old woman, after all.”
Mars was dumbstruck. Everything about this Radford radiated the best sort of grandmotherly coddling, and that disturbed him more than anything else he’d seen so far that day.
“You’re wondering whether or not to trust me,” said Radford, without a trace of ill-feeling. “It’s a fair question, of course – we’ve hardly put our best foot forward in greeting you here.” She picked up a spoon from a tray full of mismatched cutlery and helped herself to some of the Swedish chicken. “Quite delicious, though it’s the sin of Pride to say it,” she said. “And completely safe, of course.” She took a second spoon and repeated her demonstration with the Cow. “A little sweet to my mind, but of course young people do so enjoy these things.” She laid the dirty spoons carefully to one side of the table, poured herself a glass of lemonade, and took a sip. “You see?” she said. “Nothing to be afraid of.” She beamed at them again, and in a flurry of rosy cheeks and cooking scents, whirled off down one of the corridors.
“Now that,” said Dash with feeling, “was weird.”
Mars looked at Charley, who along with Ginny still hung back in the pen. “Do you think we can trust her?”
“Area Four’s Radford has a reputation for being a bit… loopy,” said Charley. “I’ve never met her before, so I can’t say.”
“But she tasted the food,” said Simon, gazing with longing at the Swedish chicken. “It must be safe, right?”
“Don’t touch it, Simon,” Mars warned, though in truth, the black-and-vanilla swirl of the Cow was at that moment the most tempting thing he had ever seen.
“Not hungry, boys?” trilled Radford, returning with a small cardboard box under her arm. “Never mind, always plenty of mouths to feed around here, at least since that nice Mister Lodgepoole went on holiday to the Surface.” She plunked the box down on the oak table and pulled back the flaps. “Now, there’s a few things in here that you’ll need if you’re going all the way to the Intangible Three,” she said.
She removed three brown luggage tags bearing the now-familiar LOST stamp and beneath that, a small barcode. “These will hide you from the automated scanners,” she explained. “The barcode is printed with optically variable ink, designed to be read differently by the different security systems in each Area of the Bureau. When you’re in Area Two, you’ll register as the bit off the back of a remote control that stops the batteries from falling out. When you’re in Area Three, you’ll register as a drool-smeared stuffed rag doll. In Area Four, if you get scanned with these on you’ll register as Misplaced Jackalopes, and so forth.” She slid them across the table towards the boys.
“Of course, they won’t help you if you run into anything sentient, and down here that can be more than just people, so I have these.” She produced an hourglass with a large crack down one side. Despite this, the sand did not drain away through the hole, but continued to trickle upwards into the top half of the glass. “It’s lost time from an alien abduction,” she explained. “Simon, if you are discovered in Area Five, this will convince everyone that you have been properly processed and Misplaced, with no questions about your premature appearance on our doorstep. Dash,” she sighed. “I’m afraid manufacturing a counterfeit Code is a little outside my bailiwick, dear, so this is the best I could do on such short notice.” She produced a large flag, faded with exposure from sun and sea and smelling faintly of brine. “A little keepsake from a charming lighthouse on Eilean Mor. It transports the person holding it and anything in contact with them to a pocket dimension when you say ‘Gale north by northwest. Sea lashed to fury.’. To leave, you hold it tight and say ‘Storm ended, sea calm, God is over all’.” She hesitated before continuing. “I do suggest you use it only in dire straits, dear – the pocket dimensions are ever so unsafe these days.” She turned to Marshall. “And as for you, young man – well, of course you can’t be blamed for what happened to poor Mister Lodgepoole, but you have succeeded in making yourself ever so infamous in these parts.” She produced a familiar red box with yellow writing on. Dash groaned.
“My disguise-yourself-so-even-your-own-mother-won’t-recognise-you kit!” Marshall exclaimed in delight.
“The latest edition,” said Radford, beaming. “I’m told the new version has an exceptional array of moustaches to choose from.” She reached into the box again. “Of course, it pays to keep things simple wherever possible,” she explained. “And the simplest way to pass unchallenged around here is to look as if you belong.” She laid out three identical bundles of clothes – ruffled shirts, tuxedo pants, braces, bowties, and capacious brown cardigans. “The cardigans are a fright, I know,” she said, winking at Dash. “But the pockets are terribly useful for storing all your bits and bobs.”
“I don’t understand…” said Simon.
“Well, it won’t work if you meet another Radford, of course,” said Radford. “But Code Fives and… well, any other interesting types you might meet along your travels will assume you’re one of our merry band of shopkeepers and let you go on your way.”
“No, I understand that,” said Simon, “What I mean is, why are you trying to help us instead of tying us up and sending us to Area Five?”
“Well, I’m a little old to be tying people up, dear,” laughed Radford. Abruptly, some of her good humour dropped away, and for a moment she looked very sad and very tired. “I’m afraid some things are changing down here in the Bureau,” she said. “And not for the better, to my mind. That old sourpuss Radford, demanding I unLose some of my Fours just to feed his Fives, when any fool can see that the hunger is a symptom, not the disease itself.” She shook her head. “The truth is, it’s not just the Fives who are getting older. This whole place is sliding into entropy, faster every day. I thought, perhaps if I helped you three…” She trailed off into silence for a moment, then seemed to rouse herself. “Anyway, never mind all this gloomy talk,” she said. “It’s time you were on your way, before the others realise I’m off-network and come calling.”
She pushed the lever back into its original position, and there was a mechanical grinding as the Claw network sprang to life.
“I’ve awoken the Claws, but kept the Vacuum Tubes shut down,” she explained. “That should buy you a little more time.”
“Thank you,” said Mars, although he still wasn’t sure how much he meant it, or how much he could trust yet another bizarre new Radford.
“Oh, you’re welcome, dear,” said Radford. “Up you get now, no time to lose.”
Area Four’s Claws were large cattle pens, well-scrubbed and lined with straw. It might have been a welcome change from riding around in the precarious metal fangs of the Claws from Areas Two and Three, if not for the fact that they bore a discomforting resemblance to cages.
“Hurry now, dears,” said Radford.
Marshall, Dash and Simon exchanged sceptical glances. Then Dash shrugged.
“It’s not like there are a lot of options,” he said, and stepped inside. When nothing terrible happened for a couple of minutes, the other two followed him.
“Charley, hurry up,” said Marshall, but the two Area Five escapees hung back.
“You promised you’d help us,” Simon reminded him.
“Told you we should have left them behind,” muttered Dash.
“Charley, please,” Simon implored.
Charley’s gaze flicked to them, then back to Radford. His hold on Ginny’s hand tightened and he edged forward, keeping his body between Ginny and Radford.
“Are you sure that’s the best idea, young man?” asked Radford, her voice level.
“Yes.” Charley’s voice was a barely audible whisper, but his determination shone in his eyes.
“You know that she’ll be taken care of here,” said Radford.
“I can take care of her,” Charley replied.
“And everyone around her?” Radford wanted to know. “Who takes care of them?”
“I’ll help her,” said Charley. “The Intangible Three, there’ll be a way.”
“A way to do what?” Mars asked.
“I think you already know there isn’t,” said Radford.
“There has to be!” cried Charley.
“A way to do what?” Mars demanded, louder now.
“You can tell them,” said Radford. “Or I can.”
“It’s none of their damn business!” Charley all but wailed.
“What isn’t our business?” Dash said.
“Nothing!” said Charley desperately. “You mustn’t listen to her, she’s one of them!”
In his agitation, he had drawn closer to the Claw, and in doing so had also come closer to Radford. Now she reached behind him, seized Ginny by one thin upper arm, and pulled her away from the protection offered by Charley’s body.
Ginny roared. Not the scream of a frightened teenage girl, or the piercing shriek of the bedlam lunatic – this was the bone-chilling roar of a savage monster. Her face looked sunken, cavernous, and her pale skin was leprous with patches of ash-grey scales. Her small, even teeth came loose as her jaw lengthened and distorted, falling away as sharp yellow fangs forced themselves through grey-green gums.
“Ginny!” Charley’s agony was palpable. “Look what you did to her!” he accused Radford. Radford said nothing, but the pity in her eyes was fathomless. Holding both of Ginny’s rapidly elongating wrists in one hand, her other dove into the pocket of her bright yellow apron and emerged holding a large syringe full of a luminous blue liquid and topped with a wicked-looking large bore needle. She slammed the wailing girl-thing against the wall face-first, and jabbed the needle into the back of her neck, simultaneously depressing the plunger in order to administer the entire dose.
The unearthly noise stopped almost immediately, and Ginny slumped backwards into Radford’s arms. With a tenderness at odds with her decisive action a moment ago, Radford lowered the unconscious girl to the floor and sat cross-legged beside her.
Marshall craned forward from the door of the cage. Though she lay perfectly still, the transformation was still evident on Ginny’s face and body. She was taller and thinner now, like some cartoon character stretched on a rack. Her skin was mottled with patches of grey scale, her mouth gaped too wide for her thin face, and the gums in it were the grey-green of every zombie in every movie Mars had ever seen. Her fingers had one knuckle too many apiece, and black blood oozed from her gums where jagged yellow splinters of bone had pushed themselves through.
“What the hell is that thing?” said Dash, staring in revolted fascination.
Radford brushed an errant strand of hair away from Ginny’s face. “She’s in the first stages of the Wendigo transformation,” she said sadly. Charley made a strangled noise in the back of his throat, part hopeless denial, part wordless cry of grief.
“You knew this would happen,” Marshall accused him. Charley did not respond, but walked like one condemned to the prone creature on the floor. He sat cross-legged opposite Radford and drew Ginny’s head into his lap.
“It happens when a person eats human flesh,” Radford explained softly. “Sometimes they can stave off the transformation for years, but it always ends up the same way.” She got heavily to her feet. “She can stay in Area Four; I have some experience with cryptids.” She placed a hand on Charley’s shoulder. “I promise she’ll be well looked after.”
“I could have found a cure,” he said bitterly. “She was holding it back, I was helping her. If you had just left us alone, she would-”
“She would have what?” snapped Dash. “Freaked out and eaten us all? And don’t think you’re coming along for this ride anymore.” He turned on Simon. “I don’t care how much you think he knows, I’m not risking him going all Monster Island on us while we’re down here in a freaking labyrinth!”
“You don’t need to worry about that,” said Radford. “Because he isn’t infected.” She looked at Charley. “I’m right, aren’t I? You didn’t eat that poor man.”
Charley leant forward, his fringe brushing against Ginny’s distorted face. “She was so hungry,” he said softly. “Growing up so fast, we burnt up so much energy.” He looked up at Marshall through his hair. “She hadn’t needed to eat in over four hundred years,” he explained. “She wouldn’t have hurt anyone, but… she was just so hungry.” He began to weep openly then, his fingers convulsively threading themselves through Ginny’s long hair, pulling it out by the roots in his grief.
Radford moved away, towards the cage.
“I’m so sorry,” she murmured to the boys. “I wanted so badly to be wrong, but when I smelled it on her, I couldn’t let you go without warning you.”
“We know,” said Mars. “And we appreciate it.”
“Is there a cure?” asked Simon. Radford shook her head.
“I can give her drugs that will ease the hunger pangs,” she said. “But she’ll never go back to being human again.” She scrubbed at her eyes. “She’ll be a monster the rest of her life.”
Charley was still hunched protectively over the Wendigo-girl, and at first none of them noticed anything amiss. That is, until they heard Charley’s sharp intake of breath and saw the blood oozing from the cut on his palm.
“No!” said Radford. “You silly boy!”
But it was too late. Charley drew one of the sharp dinner knives from the mismatched cutlery collection across Ginny’s forehead, then pressed his own bleeding hand to the cut. Radford yanked his arm away, but she was too late, too late.
“If she has to stay here, then this way at least I get to stay here with her,” Charley said defiantly. He held up his palm, and they could see the shadowy grey scales already starting to form around the infected cut. He put his other hand in his pocket and produced a small notebook, held together with an elastic band and full of densely written notes.
“That’s all the Claw codes I was able to figure out,” he said. “As well as anything else I worked out that I thought might be worth knowing.” He tossed it to Marshall, then repositioned Ginny’s head on his lap and resumed stroking her hair. “Better hurry,” he said, not lifting his gaze from her face.
They stayed silent while Radford closed and bolted the Claw cage. She entered the code, and the Claw rose smoothly up towards a wide vent in the ceiling. The last thing they saw was Charley, still cradling Ginny in his arms, baring his neck for a syringe of bright blue liquid.
Author: Froodle
Disclaimer: Still not mine
Claim: Eerie Indiana
Prompt: 7, Lose
Characters: Mars, Dash, Simon
Word Count: for this part, 3565
Rating: PG13, though sadly only for language
Summary/Warning: Where else would you go searching for a lost past in Eerie? Also, not even SLIGHTLY finished.
PART TWELVE
If the bumpy helter-skelter descent from the Eeriemat down to the reception for Areas Two and Three was rough, the trip on the mechanical Claws was infinitely worse. And this time, instead of a pile of freshly washed socks still warm from the dryer, they landed hard on a dusty wooden floor almost identical to that of the room they’d just left.
While Dash, Marshall and Simon dropped to their hands and knees and tried to catch their breath and not throw up at the same time, Ginny and Charley alighted from their respective Claws with no greater display of concern than if they were stepping off an escalator.
“Get up,” said Charley, already keying a new sequence into a familiar-looking console.
“Give us a break, will you?” snapped Marshall. His head and his stomach were spinning at different speeds and different directions, and Simon and Dash didn’t appear to have fared any better after their journey either.
“I would if I could,” said Charley. “Unfortunately, we’ve only made it as far as the staging grounds between Areas Three and Four, and it won’t take long for the Radfords to send out alerts to all the other Areas to let them know we escaped.” As if prompted by his words, an old-fashioned microphone atop a battered, melamine-topped workstation sputtered to life. Charley clicked it off, then hissed in frustration as the lapse in concentration resulted in him entering an incorrect symbol on the keypad, which bleeped at him.
Dash rolled onto his back and lay with his eyes closed. “All that and we only moved one lousy Area?” he said. Next to him, Simon moaned, wordless but still managing to convey an identical sentiment.
“Each discrete system of Claws is only designed for travel within a single Area,” said Charlie. “Given that they cover an average of two-and-a-half thousand square miles, I’d say they do a pretty good job.”
With a colossal effort of will, Mars got to his feet and stood upright without leaning on anything, vomiting, or crying for his mom. “You’re saying we’re two and a half thousand miles away from where we started, and we’re still not safe?”
“No safe places when you’re Lost,” said Ginny. “Claws and Radfords and the Head Office watching everywhere.” Charley reached out and took her hand. She leaned against him and smiled that unnerving smile at Marshall. “No Claws inside the Intangible Three,” she went on. “No need for a Claw in a place where nothing has form.”
“We’ll ride the Claw network to the edge of Area Eleven,” said Charley. “After that, we’ll need to travel on foot, or risk using the Vacuum Funnels that the Radfords get around in – hah!” This last was evidently in reaction to having successfully activated the new Area’s Claw system, as five new Claws, subtly different in design to the ones they had just rode in on, descended from the ceiling and opened their pronged metal jaws wide.
As before, Charley and Ginny mounted their respective rides with the ease of long practice, using decorative wrought-iron scalloping around the edges as footrests and leaning their weight against the thick suspension cable attached to the gleaming Claw. Dash, Mars and Simon were more hesitant, but a distant tell-tale whooshing that could have come from one of two dozen corridors branching from the main room was enough to spur them into action despite their misgivings.
Though their second ride in the embrace of the Claws was every bit as terrifying as the first, the dismount proved a little easier, as the Claws extended almost to the ground before dropping them into a large pen filled with fresh, loose hay.
“I had a feeling I’d be seeing you,” said the middle-aged woman sitting comfortably in an overstuffed armchair whose original faded upholstery was barely visible beneath bright patches of various colours, shapes and patterns. Her cardigan was in a similar state, being so often repaired with sundry cheerful shades and thicknesses of wool that the original shapeless brown garment was barely a suggestion beneath the riot of colour. Her dress shirt and tuxedo pants were also much-mended, though more sedately, her bowtie was askew, if she was wearing braces they were invisible underneath a bright yellow apron decorated in pictures of sunflowers, and her green visor lay on a small side table to the right of her chair.
“Another Radford?” Mars guessed, feeling Dash and Simon tense beside him.
“That’s right, my boy,” said Radford, rising from her seat and coming towards them, beaming like some apple-cheeked story-book grandmother. She slid back the bolt that fastened the pen’s gate closed, and stepped back to let them exit. They did so, keeping a careful distance.
“How did you know we were coming?” Dash wanted to know.
“Oh, it’s been all over the radio,” said Radford. “One of you without a Code, another one five years early, and Marshall Teller, of course. I’m afraid you’ve made a frightful mess of things down here, dears.” She looked past them at Ginny and Charley. “And you picked up some of poor old Radford’s escaped Fives, too.” She shook her head in wonderment. “Young people today, the japes you get up to.”
“Any minute now, she’s going to say ‘I do declare’,” Dash whispered.
“I do declare!” said Radford. She clapped her hands. “Well, no use standing around chatting all day,” she continued merrily. “I daresay you have a lot to be getting on with.” She bustled – of course she would bustle, thought Mars - over to her counter, which was old oak, rubbed to a high sheen from years of use. There was a large earthenware dish that steamed gently beneath its cover, a pitcher of homemade lemonade, and-
“Is that a Black Cow?” asked Mars.
“It’s two, in fact,” said Radford. “With a nip of java, although normally I don’t approve of giving such things to youngsters,” she added with a nod to Simon. “Now, you eat quickly while I fetch a few things.”
“Oh,” said Mars. “Um, thank you very much, miss, but we really don’t have time for dinner…”
“Nonsense,” said Radford. She removed the lid from the covered dish. “It’s Swedish chicken. And besides,” she explained as she pulled down a lever that stood at a right-angle from the wall, “I’ve shut down all Claws and Vacuum Tubes in this Area for the next forty minutes.” She winked. “There are advantages to being a dotty old woman, after all.”
Mars was dumbstruck. Everything about this Radford radiated the best sort of grandmotherly coddling, and that disturbed him more than anything else he’d seen so far that day.
“You’re wondering whether or not to trust me,” said Radford, without a trace of ill-feeling. “It’s a fair question, of course – we’ve hardly put our best foot forward in greeting you here.” She picked up a spoon from a tray full of mismatched cutlery and helped herself to some of the Swedish chicken. “Quite delicious, though it’s the sin of Pride to say it,” she said. “And completely safe, of course.” She took a second spoon and repeated her demonstration with the Cow. “A little sweet to my mind, but of course young people do so enjoy these things.” She laid the dirty spoons carefully to one side of the table, poured herself a glass of lemonade, and took a sip. “You see?” she said. “Nothing to be afraid of.” She beamed at them again, and in a flurry of rosy cheeks and cooking scents, whirled off down one of the corridors.
“Now that,” said Dash with feeling, “was weird.”
Mars looked at Charley, who along with Ginny still hung back in the pen. “Do you think we can trust her?”
“Area Four’s Radford has a reputation for being a bit… loopy,” said Charley. “I’ve never met her before, so I can’t say.”
“But she tasted the food,” said Simon, gazing with longing at the Swedish chicken. “It must be safe, right?”
“Don’t touch it, Simon,” Mars warned, though in truth, the black-and-vanilla swirl of the Cow was at that moment the most tempting thing he had ever seen.
“Not hungry, boys?” trilled Radford, returning with a small cardboard box under her arm. “Never mind, always plenty of mouths to feed around here, at least since that nice Mister Lodgepoole went on holiday to the Surface.” She plunked the box down on the oak table and pulled back the flaps. “Now, there’s a few things in here that you’ll need if you’re going all the way to the Intangible Three,” she said.
She removed three brown luggage tags bearing the now-familiar LOST stamp and beneath that, a small barcode. “These will hide you from the automated scanners,” she explained. “The barcode is printed with optically variable ink, designed to be read differently by the different security systems in each Area of the Bureau. When you’re in Area Two, you’ll register as the bit off the back of a remote control that stops the batteries from falling out. When you’re in Area Three, you’ll register as a drool-smeared stuffed rag doll. In Area Four, if you get scanned with these on you’ll register as Misplaced Jackalopes, and so forth.” She slid them across the table towards the boys.
“Of course, they won’t help you if you run into anything sentient, and down here that can be more than just people, so I have these.” She produced an hourglass with a large crack down one side. Despite this, the sand did not drain away through the hole, but continued to trickle upwards into the top half of the glass. “It’s lost time from an alien abduction,” she explained. “Simon, if you are discovered in Area Five, this will convince everyone that you have been properly processed and Misplaced, with no questions about your premature appearance on our doorstep. Dash,” she sighed. “I’m afraid manufacturing a counterfeit Code is a little outside my bailiwick, dear, so this is the best I could do on such short notice.” She produced a large flag, faded with exposure from sun and sea and smelling faintly of brine. “A little keepsake from a charming lighthouse on Eilean Mor. It transports the person holding it and anything in contact with them to a pocket dimension when you say ‘Gale north by northwest. Sea lashed to fury.’. To leave, you hold it tight and say ‘Storm ended, sea calm, God is over all’.” She hesitated before continuing. “I do suggest you use it only in dire straits, dear – the pocket dimensions are ever so unsafe these days.” She turned to Marshall. “And as for you, young man – well, of course you can’t be blamed for what happened to poor Mister Lodgepoole, but you have succeeded in making yourself ever so infamous in these parts.” She produced a familiar red box with yellow writing on. Dash groaned.
“My disguise-yourself-so-even-your-own-mother-won’t-recognise-you kit!” Marshall exclaimed in delight.
“The latest edition,” said Radford, beaming. “I’m told the new version has an exceptional array of moustaches to choose from.” She reached into the box again. “Of course, it pays to keep things simple wherever possible,” she explained. “And the simplest way to pass unchallenged around here is to look as if you belong.” She laid out three identical bundles of clothes – ruffled shirts, tuxedo pants, braces, bowties, and capacious brown cardigans. “The cardigans are a fright, I know,” she said, winking at Dash. “But the pockets are terribly useful for storing all your bits and bobs.”
“I don’t understand…” said Simon.
“Well, it won’t work if you meet another Radford, of course,” said Radford. “But Code Fives and… well, any other interesting types you might meet along your travels will assume you’re one of our merry band of shopkeepers and let you go on your way.”
“No, I understand that,” said Simon, “What I mean is, why are you trying to help us instead of tying us up and sending us to Area Five?”
“Well, I’m a little old to be tying people up, dear,” laughed Radford. Abruptly, some of her good humour dropped away, and for a moment she looked very sad and very tired. “I’m afraid some things are changing down here in the Bureau,” she said. “And not for the better, to my mind. That old sourpuss Radford, demanding I unLose some of my Fours just to feed his Fives, when any fool can see that the hunger is a symptom, not the disease itself.” She shook her head. “The truth is, it’s not just the Fives who are getting older. This whole place is sliding into entropy, faster every day. I thought, perhaps if I helped you three…” She trailed off into silence for a moment, then seemed to rouse herself. “Anyway, never mind all this gloomy talk,” she said. “It’s time you were on your way, before the others realise I’m off-network and come calling.”
She pushed the lever back into its original position, and there was a mechanical grinding as the Claw network sprang to life.
“I’ve awoken the Claws, but kept the Vacuum Tubes shut down,” she explained. “That should buy you a little more time.”
“Thank you,” said Mars, although he still wasn’t sure how much he meant it, or how much he could trust yet another bizarre new Radford.
“Oh, you’re welcome, dear,” said Radford. “Up you get now, no time to lose.”
Area Four’s Claws were large cattle pens, well-scrubbed and lined with straw. It might have been a welcome change from riding around in the precarious metal fangs of the Claws from Areas Two and Three, if not for the fact that they bore a discomforting resemblance to cages.
“Hurry now, dears,” said Radford.
Marshall, Dash and Simon exchanged sceptical glances. Then Dash shrugged.
“It’s not like there are a lot of options,” he said, and stepped inside. When nothing terrible happened for a couple of minutes, the other two followed him.
“Charley, hurry up,” said Marshall, but the two Area Five escapees hung back.
“You promised you’d help us,” Simon reminded him.
“Told you we should have left them behind,” muttered Dash.
“Charley, please,” Simon implored.
Charley’s gaze flicked to them, then back to Radford. His hold on Ginny’s hand tightened and he edged forward, keeping his body between Ginny and Radford.
“Are you sure that’s the best idea, young man?” asked Radford, her voice level.
“Yes.” Charley’s voice was a barely audible whisper, but his determination shone in his eyes.
“You know that she’ll be taken care of here,” said Radford.
“I can take care of her,” Charley replied.
“And everyone around her?” Radford wanted to know. “Who takes care of them?”
“I’ll help her,” said Charley. “The Intangible Three, there’ll be a way.”
“A way to do what?” Mars asked.
“I think you already know there isn’t,” said Radford.
“There has to be!” cried Charley.
“A way to do what?” Mars demanded, louder now.
“You can tell them,” said Radford. “Or I can.”
“It’s none of their damn business!” Charley all but wailed.
“What isn’t our business?” Dash said.
“Nothing!” said Charley desperately. “You mustn’t listen to her, she’s one of them!”
In his agitation, he had drawn closer to the Claw, and in doing so had also come closer to Radford. Now she reached behind him, seized Ginny by one thin upper arm, and pulled her away from the protection offered by Charley’s body.
Ginny roared. Not the scream of a frightened teenage girl, or the piercing shriek of the bedlam lunatic – this was the bone-chilling roar of a savage monster. Her face looked sunken, cavernous, and her pale skin was leprous with patches of ash-grey scales. Her small, even teeth came loose as her jaw lengthened and distorted, falling away as sharp yellow fangs forced themselves through grey-green gums.
“Ginny!” Charley’s agony was palpable. “Look what you did to her!” he accused Radford. Radford said nothing, but the pity in her eyes was fathomless. Holding both of Ginny’s rapidly elongating wrists in one hand, her other dove into the pocket of her bright yellow apron and emerged holding a large syringe full of a luminous blue liquid and topped with a wicked-looking large bore needle. She slammed the wailing girl-thing against the wall face-first, and jabbed the needle into the back of her neck, simultaneously depressing the plunger in order to administer the entire dose.
The unearthly noise stopped almost immediately, and Ginny slumped backwards into Radford’s arms. With a tenderness at odds with her decisive action a moment ago, Radford lowered the unconscious girl to the floor and sat cross-legged beside her.
Marshall craned forward from the door of the cage. Though she lay perfectly still, the transformation was still evident on Ginny’s face and body. She was taller and thinner now, like some cartoon character stretched on a rack. Her skin was mottled with patches of grey scale, her mouth gaped too wide for her thin face, and the gums in it were the grey-green of every zombie in every movie Mars had ever seen. Her fingers had one knuckle too many apiece, and black blood oozed from her gums where jagged yellow splinters of bone had pushed themselves through.
“What the hell is that thing?” said Dash, staring in revolted fascination.
Radford brushed an errant strand of hair away from Ginny’s face. “She’s in the first stages of the Wendigo transformation,” she said sadly. Charley made a strangled noise in the back of his throat, part hopeless denial, part wordless cry of grief.
“You knew this would happen,” Marshall accused him. Charley did not respond, but walked like one condemned to the prone creature on the floor. He sat cross-legged opposite Radford and drew Ginny’s head into his lap.
“It happens when a person eats human flesh,” Radford explained softly. “Sometimes they can stave off the transformation for years, but it always ends up the same way.” She got heavily to her feet. “She can stay in Area Four; I have some experience with cryptids.” She placed a hand on Charley’s shoulder. “I promise she’ll be well looked after.”
“I could have found a cure,” he said bitterly. “She was holding it back, I was helping her. If you had just left us alone, she would-”
“She would have what?” snapped Dash. “Freaked out and eaten us all? And don’t think you’re coming along for this ride anymore.” He turned on Simon. “I don’t care how much you think he knows, I’m not risking him going all Monster Island on us while we’re down here in a freaking labyrinth!”
“You don’t need to worry about that,” said Radford. “Because he isn’t infected.” She looked at Charley. “I’m right, aren’t I? You didn’t eat that poor man.”
Charley leant forward, his fringe brushing against Ginny’s distorted face. “She was so hungry,” he said softly. “Growing up so fast, we burnt up so much energy.” He looked up at Marshall through his hair. “She hadn’t needed to eat in over four hundred years,” he explained. “She wouldn’t have hurt anyone, but… she was just so hungry.” He began to weep openly then, his fingers convulsively threading themselves through Ginny’s long hair, pulling it out by the roots in his grief.
Radford moved away, towards the cage.
“I’m so sorry,” she murmured to the boys. “I wanted so badly to be wrong, but when I smelled it on her, I couldn’t let you go without warning you.”
“We know,” said Mars. “And we appreciate it.”
“Is there a cure?” asked Simon. Radford shook her head.
“I can give her drugs that will ease the hunger pangs,” she said. “But she’ll never go back to being human again.” She scrubbed at her eyes. “She’ll be a monster the rest of her life.”
Charley was still hunched protectively over the Wendigo-girl, and at first none of them noticed anything amiss. That is, until they heard Charley’s sharp intake of breath and saw the blood oozing from the cut on his palm.
“No!” said Radford. “You silly boy!”
But it was too late. Charley drew one of the sharp dinner knives from the mismatched cutlery collection across Ginny’s forehead, then pressed his own bleeding hand to the cut. Radford yanked his arm away, but she was too late, too late.
“If she has to stay here, then this way at least I get to stay here with her,” Charley said defiantly. He held up his palm, and they could see the shadowy grey scales already starting to form around the infected cut. He put his other hand in his pocket and produced a small notebook, held together with an elastic band and full of densely written notes.
“That’s all the Claw codes I was able to figure out,” he said. “As well as anything else I worked out that I thought might be worth knowing.” He tossed it to Marshall, then repositioned Ginny’s head on his lap and resumed stroking her hair. “Better hurry,” he said, not lifting his gaze from her face.
They stayed silent while Radford closed and bolted the Claw cage. She entered the code, and the Claw rose smoothly up towards a wide vent in the ceiling. The last thing they saw was Charley, still cradling Ginny in his arms, baring his neck for a syringe of bright blue liquid.
