Terah chose wrongly. As he tried to scramble down the dark corridor he hit an unseen snag and felt himself falling. Throwing his left foot out he had a moment of optimism that he’d be able to right himself against the momentum, a hope that diminished by the time he got his right foot ahead. Gravity was winning and even pinwheeling his arms couldn’t help. Concrete met bare hands and enthusiastically banged his left knee. The presence behind him engulfed and then passed over him. Aching and obvious about his location he let out a groan. No one responded.
Mich, it seemed clear, had had enough and had abandoned the place. Maybe he’d come to his senses and returned home. Still, in the short time their paths had crossed, Terah had grown to like the boy. His consistently dropped g’s suggested lack of education, but he’d demonstrated himself bright and capable. Groaning again, Terah rolled over and slowly sat up. The moisture on his palms informed him they were bleeding. He would leave his own red blazes now. The phantom after him, if that’s what it had been, had simply passed on. The harm had come from Terah himself. Massaging his aching knee, he could feel his cargo pants hadn’t torn, but that told him nothing of the state of the flesh beneath. He knew he had to wash up or infection would set in. The homeless and healthcare don’t mix.
Whoever the human intruder had been, they’d made no move to find Terah. They might’ve left, or they might’ve climbed the stairs and disappeared on one of the two floors above. On his feet, Terah limped, wincing at the pain in his left knee. Throwing aside the terror of being heard, he took his time and went down each corridor to find the outside. Outside where there’d be snow. Snow could wash out a wound. He’d be able to see if it was daylight. Not enough time seemed to have passed for night to have fallen, even in January. The outdoor corridor was the next one to the left.
The steel door stood ajar. New snow had fallen and the relative brightness, although the sky was heavily clouded, made him blink. Terah thrust his hands in the snow, rubbing them painfully together and leaving a pink slush behind. The abrasions stung, sending needles up his palms straight to his brain. Still, he knew he had to get himself as clean as possible. He thrust his hands into a new bank of snow. When he could see no more grit, he steeled himself and dropped his pants. He had to see his left knee. Brush burns, but no obvious bleeding. Still he knelt in the snow, cleansing as best as he could. Then he heard a most unwelcome thing.
The door slammed shut with the unmistakable sound of a barrier being set behind it.
Stumbling to his feet, Terah jerked up his pants and raced for the handle. The door opened inward, and it had been pulled shut and locked. Whoever had snuck in now banished him. He slapped his throbbing fist to the door, but dared not cry out. He couldn’t leave without his pack. Mich had warned him about making tracks in the snow, but now he had to get his property back. Stepping back, he was reminded just how large this building was. Leaving his pink slush behind he began to make a circuit of it. In that strange, possessive way of humans, he’d begun to feel a right to this place. He’d found it before this new interloper. Possession, they say, is nine-tenths of the law.
Mich, he suspected, would’ve yelled about him leaving so much evidence. The fact was that a tangle of footprints led up to the building now, and Terah needed his pack before he could even think of leaving. The forbidding concrete looked like a dour castle from the outside. Walls implacable with windows only high up. Only four sides on the exterior, but eight inside. Not quite a prison but not quite not a prison. His knee ached and his hands stung, adding to his desperation to get back inside out of the cold. Back to the small fire Mich had kindled. It had felt like a holiday, compared to this painful snow-trudging. He reached a corner at last, and glanced up and down the side of the structure. No purchase was evident. Concrete was like an impossible lover—it showed no feeling, no weakness. Since it was symmetrical, the side was as long as the front, but there was no entrance, no portal. Castles, of course, had to limit egress. What’s a fortress with picture windows?
A sudden weariness struck him as he gazed the length of the wall. All he’d eaten was a granola bar. The cold was wicking away his energy. A wind gust kicked up to punctuate the point. He slogged on. The wall was implacable as that of Jericho when first seen by trumpet-bearing Joshua. Terah mused that if the insane could get out they’d certainly not be able to find their way back in. He suddenly felt as if he had to know the name of this place, as if knowing the name would somehow give him a measure of control. Arkham Asylum, after all, said far more in its title than first appeared. Such thoughts caved in on him as he stomped through the snow, each left footfall reminding him not to run in the dark.
He came to the next corner, the rear of the building. All buildings, like animals, had to have a head and a rear, right? Was there no way out back here? Before safety regulations required an escape route. The rear was disappointingly featureless. And long. Terah stomped through the snow, looking up as he went. He’d seen prisons less secure. He couldn’t leave without his pack. And, truth be told, he wondered if Mich was okay.
A sudden loud crack froze him in place. Had a gun just gone off?
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