Glitch. Part 27

It is a strange thing, to see a building that you know at nighttime. To me, the apartment looked like something wild. The concrete, rutted and stained, the windows, smudged and distant, the balconies, filled with junk, old beach chairs, piles of faded toys, seem less man-made and more like some desolate cliff where humanity was upended, and left to unravel.

In this darkened land, on a window fourteen stories up, blue search-lights lit up-columns of blue erupting from a dark room, reflecting in the walls and raising shadows where they pa.s.sed.

The Stalker Man.

The lights bobbed. A gigantic, white hand slunk out the window, trailing stark shadows beneath it. Long, thin fingers spread out on the concrete walls.

The fingers tightened across the stone. The Stalker Man's pale, thin head emerged and then its body, extruding snakelike from the window.

It crawled out.

The Stalker Man scurried like a spider-fingers and toes gripping the walls impossibly tight. Sometimes, the thing's arms turned at unnatural angles, full hundred-and-eighty turns that would snap a normal person. And its movement looked off to me: either too fast or too still, like a jerky claymation puppet.

The Stalker Man's glowing eyes scanned back and forth as it walked down the sheer wall. Except it didn't move its head like it was trying to look for something; it moved like it was smelling. It moved like a wolf moves.

The nightmare crawled, bound for me. And I couldn't turn away. My breath still came and went, calm and measured. Even the gagging at the back of my throat was fading, and I realized I probably didn't control my heartbeat. The Stalker Man owned it. It held my own heart in its grip.

The Stalker Man's skeletal hand touched the ground. The other came down as well and it righted itself back to regular gravity.

The Stalker Man rose. Its limbs stretched out, its double-joints unfolding. It was tall: twelve feet at least-taller than the trees. How could something like that fit in Level Zero's tiny rooms?

The Stalker Man strode towards me, eyes blazing blue, arms sweeping across the lawn, legs snapping, twitching, stopping in their horrible, shuddering way.

Scream, I thought. You have to scream.

The Stalker Man's feet pattered across the gra.s.s like rain. Its legs advancing like a thresher rolling closer and closer. The Stalker Man's headlight eyes fixed on me.

The light grew brighter. It washed out the Stalker Man-turning it into a stick-man as it came closer. Before my vision vanished completely, I realized that the stars ran in neat grid-lines.

The Stalker Man shook in front of me. Its head, blazing blue came down right in front of me. The light burned inside my eyes. It felt like the light was burning away my body like a fire burns the rock away from metal. It felt like deletion. It felt like metamorphosis.

"Open." The Stalker Man said.

My hands reached into my pocket. I felt something. The handle of a knife.

It was burning my palm.

Yellow lights.

Yellow lights, floating like dandelion fluff.

"What the h.e.l.l?" I whispered.

The lights didn't answer me. They just floated in the intangible breeze.

I was reclining against a wall, breathing stuffy air. The wall felt warm on the back of my neck-body temperature, like a toilet seat someone just sat on.

A s.h.i.+vering fit shot through me, then pa.s.sed. I curled my hands into fists.

I could move again.

And for a while, that was enough. The simple joy of control gave me hope in the sudden darkness. I squeezed my hands. I relished the pain of my fingernails digging into my palm.

I pushed myself up. My bare feet felt perfectly comfortable on the floor of Level Zero's womblike warmth. Of course this was Level Zero.

Now, how did I get here?

The lights swayed in random motions. They reminded me of the violets I'd seen before-only these were smaller, and unmoored.

One of them drifted past my eyes. I held out my hand to catch it and- "Ow!" I pulled my hand back. The light flew up and away from me-faster than before. It bounced off the ceiling and glided towards the other end of the room.

I inspected my hand in the mottled light. No marks. But there'd been pain. Heat. Like touching a bare light bulb.

I stuck my palm inside my mouth and looked around.

This room was like all the Level Zero rooms. Same four corridors. Same endless darkness. The only difference was the lights-and Lena said a long time ago that they became more common depending on the time of month.

There was no gate in this room.

So how'd I come here?

The Stalker Man.

I'd blocked out the events just a few minutes before. The memory returned now. My mouth turned sour thinking about the details, about the puppet I'd become.

But the Stalker Man wasn't here now. It was just me.

I noticed a digging sensation in my pocket. I still had the knife. I pulled it out.

I didn't get what had just happened, but I had the knife. That meant I could create a gate and go back home.

I unfolded the blade. The Konami Code caught in the faint dandelion-light. I grinned.

It didn't make sense to lock me in when I had a key out.

You're right, a voice inside my gut said. That wouldn't make any sense at all.

One of the dandelion-lights bounced off the back of my head. It burned. I swatted it away with my free hand. The light zoomed away. It collided with another. Then both the dandelions went off in a whole new pattern.

But the dandelions didn't matter; I was getting out.

I turned around. I propped one hand on the wall and pressed the knife against the wall. The metal shuddered in my hand. I sc.r.a.ped the blade across the warm, black material.

No blue light. The wall remained black, blank, warm.

I stabbed it again.

No light.

Again.

The blade folded. The metal bit the flesh of my fingers. I grunted and sucked the cut. Tasted like rank copper.

s.h.i.+t s.h.i.+t s.h.i.+t s.h.i.+t. I breathed deep. Had to stay calm.

I inspected the blade. A thin skein of blood marked the top end of the edge. As I watched, the blood slowly changed colour-neon purple, then green, then yellow.

I'd used this knife to open a gate in Level Zero just three days ago. It had done it then, it could do it now.

I got on my knees. Another dandelion bounced off my cheek. I yelped. I tried to punch the thing but it got away from me.

Okay.

I knelt over the floor with the knife in front of my chest, held out like I was going to fence with the floor.

Keep calm keep calm keep calm.

I sc.r.a.ped the blade across the floor.

No light, just a miserable little shck sound as the blade went across the warm, plasticy material.

"Huh." I said.

Don't panic.

Shck.I tried again.

No light.

Don't panic don't panic.

Shck. I tried again.

No light.

Don'tpanicdon'tpanicdon't- "f.u.c.k!" I roared. I threw the knife away. It vanished through the doorway opposite me, and I heard it clatter.

"f.u.c.k NO!" I screamed. I beat the ground like a toddler. I punched the floor and the pain just made me madder.

There were rules. And they told me if I followed the rules I could get back to my normal life.

I screamed. Tears mingled with the sweat on my cheeks. I tasted salt and blood. I spat and it dribbled down my lips.

So much for rules.

My breath shook. My chest rattled. My nose ran. I wiped it against my s.h.i.+rt. I pushed down my fear and my anger into a ball, deep in the pit of my stomach where it could be focused like a laser beam.

This room, like all of Level Zero's rooms, had four doors carved into the sides. I chose one at random and took it out of the room.

Whatever the Stalker Man wanted, I wasn't going to do it. I wouldn't disappear in Level Zero.

There had to be a gate somewhere here.

The dandelion-lights were in every room now. Sometimes a room had only three lonely lights, sometimes they held flurries of them. I walked through them all. They burned, but not for long before they bounced off of me.

After about half an hour of random walking, I heard a sound.

Zzzzzzzz.

It came from the room to my left-a room filled with dandelion-lights. Going in would burn like a b.i.t.c.h.

I tucked my arms inside my s.h.i.+rt and rode up the neck to cover the bottom of my face. It looked r.e.t.a.r.ded but the fabric would protect me from the burning lights. Thus equipped, I walked in.

Zzzzzzz.

The light-b.a.l.l.s parted as I walked through them. My exposed ears stung.

I saw the light that didn't move.

A square of yellow light, hanging in the air. It buzzed like bad lighting.

When I approached, it flashed off, and reappeared three feet away. The dandelion lights bounced off of it.

I took a step towards the square. It shuddered. It flashed away another foot, near the wall. It turned blue.

Cool.

I headed back through the other door.

As I continued into Level Zero I saw other squares running around. They all backed away from me as I came near, but never left their rooms.

The squares didn't behave like the flower-lights. They seemed to move how they wanted to, rather than to some sort of pattern. They didn't seem to like me.

I walked. My mind grew hazy.

What did the Stalker Man want?

In the crazy lights and the growing heat, my mind did funny things.

The lights grew larger. They made music, good music. Like an improv jazz band or a really nice day at the park. The dandelion-lights chimed and the light-squares croaked like exotic birds.

The tap-tap of my feet fell into step with the music, or maybe the music changed to suit my walking. It didn't matter. The music helped me move. After so long inside the dark with no goal and no direction, it buoyed my legs to keep walking.

In fact, after a while I felt stronger. The rhythm and the clanging melodies of the sparkling darkness enervated me. They stretched out my muscles, they filled my lungs and pumped into my blood.