There’s no water coming out of the faucets in the apartment, so we drink bottle after bottle out of the fridge.
How long were we out there?
The door is locked, but I don’t feel like that makes a difference. We don’t feel safe.
Jenkins is back to staring at the door.
“I can’t hear that voice again, Stephen. Not in this place. You heard it right? I’m not crazy?”
“I heard it. I heard it last night while you were asleep. I heard it on the roof coming from the light well.”
“I want to get out of here Stephen.”
“Maybe if we take the stairs…”
“I’m not going back out there again. I’m going to call for help.” She walks over to the window in the front room and pulls the shade up. Afternoon sunlight pours into the apartment and I walk over next to her.
Our window looks out over the alley and a parking lot for our building. We can see cars flying by on the freeway less than a mile away. People are walking up and down the alley while the valet is busy moving cars.
There’s life outside.
“Oh my God!” She smiles and starts crying while she moves to unlatch the window, but the latch won’t move.
I help her, but it doesn’t make a difference.
“Fuck it! Then I’ll try the one in the bedroom!” She runs into the bedroom. I listen to her struggle with the window. Both of us start banging on both of the windows and yelling at the people down below.
Nothing.
There’s life outside, but it’s indifferent. It goes on unaware of the fact that we’re trapped. I turn around and grab a stool from the bar in the kitchen. Helen runs in and grabs the other.
We both do our best to break the windows with the stools. Our energy is furious, but short lived. Within moments, we’re both crumpled together underneath the windowsill in the front room. I’m staring at the broken barstool lying on the floor in front of me.
“We’re only four floors up. Why can’t anyone hear us?”
“I don’t know.”
The power in the apartment goes out.
We sit underneath the windowsill, too exhausted to do anything else. We watch the sunlight begin to fade until there’s nothing left. I wait for the city lights to come through the window, but there is nothing. Our room is almost in total darkness.
We stand up and look out of the window.
Outside, there is nothing. The world is pitch black.
“Maybe we died on the way here and we’re in hell.”
“I have my cat with me, this can’t be hell.”
“True.” We sit back down. A small sliver of light is coming from underneath our front door.
“The power is still on out there.”
“Yep.”
I can see that Jenkins still hasn’t moved from his watch on the door.
-
I’ve sat for a long time and I feel my eyelids start to grow heavier and heavier.
Maybe I’ll sleep. Helen has been asleep for a while now.
I close my eyes.
Jenkins begins to hiss and growl in the dark and my eyes are open again. Helen inhales and tenses up next to me. I pull her into my chest.
“Shh… it’s ok. Try and go back to sleep baby.”
We hear the voice again from outside of our front door.
“Daddy…” It’s low, almost inaudible. “Daaaadyyyy…” Something begins to softly scratch on the door. Jenkins has backed up close to us and continues to growl as Helen buries her face in my chest and sobs. I hold her. I’m too tired to think.
She quiets down, but the voice remains. It goes on and on until it’s just background noise in my exhausted brain. My eyes are closed.
“Why am I hearing that voice?”
“I don’t know honey.” I barely get the words out.
“I want her back, Stephen.”
Everything is dark.
“That can’t really be her voice, can it?”
Her words are a dream.
-
I see him. He’s at his arraignment and I’m watching him. A sixteen year old child. He pleads guilty for what he did to Lily. Before they take him away, he turns to me and smiles. He says the same thing my daughter screamed at me as he threw her into his car.
“Daddy, help me Daddy!”
The mocking bastard laughs as they usher him out. I stand there while my wife is sobbing.
I’m impotent. My daughter is dead. I can do nothing for my wife to take away her pain. I have failed in every way of being a husband, a father, and a protector.
All I can think of is slowly taking his life with my bare hands. I won’t get that opportunity, but I’ll spend my life savings and find someone in his prison to do it for me.
I close my eyes and open them again.
-
There are two cops in our home. They tell us he committed suicide in his cell. He left a note, bragging about the things he’s done.
There will be no trial. There will be no punishment. It’s over, and this is what we’re left with. A ruin of life.
I close my eyes and open them again.
-
I see the sunlight that’s creeping through the window. Helen is purring in her sleep and her hair is a soaked mess that’s sprawled over my lap. I stretch as my eyes begin to focus.
Jenkins is gone and the front door is open. The hallway beyond is dark. My heart drops.
“Baby…shhh…baby?” I shake her gently and when her eyes finally focus on the open door. She sits straight up.
“Jenkins?”
“I don’t know.”
“Jenkins?!” We both move toward the kitchen; Helen calling for our cat and me reaching for the butcher block. I take out the two largest knives and I hand one to Helen.
“Oh my God, Stephen! My baby’s gone! Our baby’s gone!” The same words she used when Lily was taken from the park. I don’t think she realizes that, but I do. That same helpless feeling creeps back over me. I squeeze the handle of the knife.
“Come on!”
“What?!
“We’re getting him back! Come on!”
“Wait! Just wait!” Helen grabs my old backpack and stuffs it with the remaining water bottles in the fridge and a bag of chips. The only groceries we have. “Just in case.”
-
Hours and hours and nothing but halls, stairwells, and doors we can’t get into. The only light is coming from the exit signs now.
I don’t know what’s crawling around in the shadows but the scratching sounds will echo down the halls every once in a while. Our voices are hoarse from calling out for Jenkins.
We started carving arrows into the walls with our knives, trying to give us some sense of direction, but even after all this time, we have yet to come across one. Every hallway and stairwell that we’ve been in, we’ve not doubled back to. We’re getting further and further away from wherever we started.
“Maybe we’re in some kind of government experiment.” It sounds lame, and I know it, but we haven’t spoken for a while.
“What?”
“I’m just trying to make sense of everything.”
“Stephen, I don’t think the government experiments on people like this.”
“Seriously, that elevator went down floor after floor after floor…like we should be a hundred feet under the ground or something.”
“Ok, fine. What about the voice?”
“Shared delusion. Brought on by all the stress.”
As we walk on, I keep turning things over in my brain. Things I may have overlooked. Helen said something. I was falling asleep.
“What did you say last night?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m trying to remember. Forget it. I was probably dreaming. Hey?”
“What?”
“Hey, stop walking. Let’s sit for a minute. Can I have a cigarette?”
“Sure.” She opens the bag and hands me the pack. She looks at the half dozen water bottles in there. “Shit.”
“What if we run out?”
We sit in silence and then I remember,
“Her voice.”
“What about it?”
“You said, her voice.”
“What about it?”
“You’re hearing Lily’s voice, aren’t you?”
“You said you were too.”
“No. I’m not hearing Lily’s voice. I’m hearing his voice.”
“Who’s voice?” I grit my teeth and my face screws up. She realizes who I mean. Thank God, I don’t have to say his name. She starts crying anyway. “What’s he saying to you?”
“What he said in that courtroom. I take it that her voice is saying the same thing?”
“Yeah. My God, Stephen.”
Before we can say anything else, we hear the sound of an elevator door opening from the other end of the hall. We charge down the hallway and round the corner. In the middle of a hallway that looks like it’s the length of a football field are the three elevators. The one in the middle is open.
We run as fast as we can, and as we near them, we see him at the end of the hall.
“Daddy…” Both of us stop in our tracks. We’re breathing heavily. It’s dark, but I can see that he’s smiling. “Come get me Daddy…”
I’m gritting my teeth. He’s right in front of me. I don’t know what this is, but he’s right in front of me. I take a step away from Helen, and then another.
“Stephen, what are you doing? Stay with me.”
“He’s right there Helen. He’s right there.”
“Stephen, don’t leave me.” She grabs me by the arm.
I turn to Helen, and then I see someone at the other end of the hall.
“Oh my God.”
“Mommy… come get me Mommy.” Lily is calling to her mother from the other end of the hall. Helen lets go of my arm and covers her mouth.
“Oh my God, Stephen… what is this?”
“I don’t know.”
“She’s right there.” The flesh on my back squirms. Helen starts walking toward what looks like our daughter. I look back to the other end of the hall, and the thing is motioning for me to come get him.
By the time I look back to Helen, she’s started running down the hall.
“No! Helen!” I run after her and grab her from behind.
“Stephen! She’s right there! Let me go! Let me go!” She’s flailing and kicking so much that I drop her. She tries to get away from me, and it’s everything I can do to pin her down to the floor with my weight.
“LET ME GO! LET ME GO!”
“HONEY! LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!” She’s looking at me like she’ll kill me if I don’t let her go. “THAT IS NOT LILY!”
The thing that looks like our daughter begins to scream, and the thing that looks like her killer starts to laugh. The sounds are drowning out my voice. It’s maddening.
I put my mouth to Helen’s ear and shout.
“WHATEVER THEY ARE, THEY’RE TRYING TO SEPERATE US!” I scoop Helen up in my arms and I drag her into the elevator. The sounds continue from the hall.
“Are you ok?” She looks at me and nods her head. The doors close behind me as I hold my wife. She’s shaking. She raises her head over my shoulder and I hear her gasp.
There in those perfectly shiny stainless steel doors are our reflections, but they’re not us. Helen weeps.
Standing in front of Helen is a reflection of Lilly. Standing in front of me is a reflection of the monster who took her.
Lilly is holding out her hands toward my wife, as if she wants my wife to come pick her up. The teenager in an orange jumpsuit is motioning for me to come and get him. Both of them are saying something, but the only sound is the elevator screeching to a halt on its cables.
The doors open and the two apparitions are gone.
We’re in the lounge area on the top floor. The door to the roof is in front of us.
-
We’re back in the sunlight. We collapse on the narrow walkway.
“We can’t go back in there.”
“No.”
“Helen, it wasn’t her.” She looks at me and nods, although I’m not sure that she believes me. She looks back to the glass door that leads inside. I can feel something pulling me back inside as well. Part of me wants to go in there.
“We can’t stay up here forever.”
“I know. We’ve got to figure something out.”
-
“It might be the only way.”
“That’s insane.”
We both lean over the edge and stare at the palm tree out in front of the building. The top of it is well below us.
“Stephen, that has to be at least a ten foot jump away from the building, twenty feet down to the top of the tree, and then another forty feet to the street.”
“I know.”
“We’ll have to think of something else.”
-
We sit at a small table next to the pool. It’s so hot. So sticky. We haven’t spoken for a long time.
“Mommy…” The voice is muffled.
TAP TAP TAP
Lily is standing behind the glass door staring at us. Helen looks at me and I shake my head. Lily continues to call out, but we don’t move.
We both hear the voice of the killer. He calls to me from the bottom of the light well. Mocking me and coaxing me to climb down and get him.
-
We’ve stayed on the roof for five days. We’ve walked the entire length of it. We’ve watched people down below on the street. We’ve watched people through the windows of neighboring buildings. No one is coming for us. No one can see what we’re going through.
All the while, the crows will stare and caw at us, but they’ll never land on the building.
All the while, the air feels thicker and the sun feels hotter.
All the while the things we can’t let go of are calling out to us. Enticing us to follow after them.
There’s no more chips to eat, and we’ve both just had to fill our empty bottles from the pool after having run out of bottled water.
“This is how we’re going to end, Stephen.”
“No it’s not.”
Helen walks over to the glass door. I’ve watched her do this several times now. Lily will move away from the door, further into the building and continue to call her.
“We’re never gonna get her back honey.”
“I know…but maybe this is good enough.” She puts her hand on the door. I get up and walk over to her.
“Don’t. If we go in there, I don’t think we would ever find our way back out.”
“Die in there, die up here. What’s the difference? At least she’s in there.”
I’m losing Helen. This can’t keep going on.
“I know what we have to do.”
“What?” Her voice is weak.
“We have to jump. We have to try.”
“Suicide.”
“And what would this be?” I pull Helen back a few steps, and the thing that looks like our daughter takes a few steps closer to the door. “It’s tricking you.”
“Stephen, just look at her.”
“I can’t, because it’s not her. We both have to let it go.” She turns to me. “We have to jump.”
She looks back through the door and then back to me. She nods her head. I grab the backpack with all of our water and we walk to the edge of the roof. The boy is frantically screaming at me from the bottom of the light well. Helen keeps looking back. I don’t have to turn around to know what she sees; I can hear the thing pounding on the other side of the door. It’s crying out “Mommy”.
We get to the edge. Cars are moving below and people are going about their business.
“Hey? Baby?” She won’t look at me. She’s sobbing.
“I can’t Stephen. I can’t!”
“Yes you can!”
“You’re going to have to get help!”
“We cannot separate! Do you understand?” Her lips go tight and she inhales deeply. She nods her head.
“Ok.”
“Ok. I’ll jump up to the edge and then I’ll help you up.”
“Ok.”
“Hold this for a second.” I hand her the back pack.
I look back down at the tree. It’s so far down. As I jump up onto the edge, Helen turns and runs back toward the door.
“Helen! No Helen!”
“I can’t leave her, Stephen!”
Oh my God! I’m not going to catch her!
She opens the door and runs back inside. By the time I get to the door, it’s closed behind her.
No! Oh God no! I can’t open the damn door!
“Helen! Helen!”
I grab a chair and try to break the glass.
Nothing.
She’s gone.
I run back to the edge of the roof.
I can get help! I can fix this. I jump to the top of the ledge. I look back one more time. Helen isn’t coming. I can get help!
I jump.
-
I wake up in a hospital. Over half of my body is in a cast. No one will talk to me. I tell them my wife needs help. They only tell me that I’ve been in a coma for weeks and I need rest.
-
A cop comes in. I ask him about Helen. I tell him she needs help.
“Mr. Kerry. I am so sorry to have to tell you this, but we did find your wife. She’s passed.” I don’t want to hear this. “The day after you moved in, someone on your floor found your cat roaming the halls. They went to your apartment, the door was unlocked, and your neighbor found her body on the couch.”
“Oh my God.”
“We tried to find you, but you were nowhere in that building. While we were processing that scene, we got word that you had jumped off of the roof. I had officers on that roof when you jumped. They both swear up and down that no one was up there with them. I’m going to need you to explain that to me.”
“How did she die?”
“Well that’s where it gets even weirder. We’ve ruled out foul play, but I’m going to have to ask you a lot of questions. We’re quite used to strange suicides in that building, but this one is different.”
“How did she die?”
“Starvation. She was also severely dehydrated. The examiner said that she had been staying alive drinking water from the pool. I don’t understand Mr. Kerry. How does a woman starve to death in less than twenty four hours? She appeared to have been without food for weeks.”
I cry. I’ve lost them both.
“Again, I’m sorry for your loss Mr. Kerry. She also left a note. I don’t have it with me, it’s evidence, but I do have a picture of it, if you’d like to read it.”
He holds his phone close to my face so I can read it.
“You were right Stephen, I could never get her back. I’ve tried. I could never find my way back to the roof, and I’m too tired to keep trying. I should have stayed with you.
I know you. You tried to find help, but I don’t think it works that way.
I’m sitting on the couch and whatever it is that looks like Lily is standing in the doorway staring at me.
I’m just going to sit here and pretend and look at her and know that when my eyes finally close for good here, they’re going to open somewhere else, and I’ll get to see the real her.
We’ll be waiting for you somewhere.
I love you.”