Chapter 3: Disappearance

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was a ceiling fan. I looked around and blinked, waiting for my eyes to focus, but there was really no need.

I could already tell I was back in bed, in my apartment.

"What?" I said aloud as I sat up, "Another dream? But ... it seemed so real ..." For a moment, my groggy mind even wondered if the woman was right, "or could it be … was I really inside that woman's dream? No, that's just stupid," I said, dismissing it with a shake of my head, "what am I thinking?" It's only looking back that I can see that reaction for what it was: an identity crisis. It can only happen to someone who has been alone for so long that they begin to doubt their own existence.

Bitter disappointment quickly set in at the thought that I was still alone and still hadn't found a way out of the apartment. I didn't want to believe it was true, but what else could it be?

I sighed, and walked into the living room for no other reason then because the action would help distract me from my confusion and despair a little. When I did, I noticed that something was different.

There was a small stand with a lamp on it that had already been in the corner of the living room when I moved in. I never bothered to move it, I merely personalized it a little by putting two pictures on it—one of me when I was a kid, and one of me graduating high school (happier times to boot). But as I entered the living room, I noticed that one of the pictures had fallen over. It had fallen over because the stand had been moved slightly to the side, and away from the wall.

"That's weird."

I went to get a closer look when I noticed something on the wall behind it. I slid it away from the corner to find a pistol lying on the floor, writing on the wall to the left of the corner, and a big spot to the right of the corner where a gouge had been taken out of the wall.

First, I looked at the message, which was carved into the wall with a sharp instrument, perhaps an ice pick:

The faint hope I had is slowly changing to despair. I've somehow managed to tunnel this far, but no matter what I do, I can't get any further.

The hallway, the windows, the walls. It feels like this room is stuck in another dimension. Eileen never noticed.

Not the most encouraging message, but who could have written it?

I examined the damaged part of the wall, and noticed that a tiny hole had been made in the center of the gouge. It was too small to fit my finger through, but there was a beam of light coming in from the other side, so I looked through the hole, and saw my next-door neighbor, Eileen Galvin, in her room.

There wasn't much about what I saw that was notable except that it was inherently feminine. She sat at the edge of a bed that was covered with a patterned bedspread. There were wooden floors. A plant sat in the corner, barely within my view. A pair of dresses hung on the wall, the fancy type that were a bit revealing—apparently she liked to dress up on occasion. To the left was an opened armoire with lots of hanging clothes inside.

"Now where did I put that damn broom?" she muttered as she looked around. As her eyes scanned the room, they paused where I was. "Oh ..." She stood and approached the wall.

I tensed, and nearly made up my mind to call out to her …

"There it is."

She moved in my direction only because the broom she had been looking for was next to the hole.

I sighed, utterly deflated, as she walked out of the room with it, completely oblivious to my plight. Before long, I heard the sweeping outside my door as she cleaned up whatever she had dropped and broken earlier. I was so close, and yet completely out of her range.

Eileen never noticed.

I picked up the gun and saw that it was loaded. As I examined it, I began to wonder if there was any reason at all why I should hold out hope that I might make it out of this alive and found myself looking down the barrel.

That was when the phone rang. It startled me so badly, I fumbled the gun a bit and was lucky it didn't go off.

After taking barely a second to calm my nerves, I practically jumped to my feet and ran to the bedroom.

I picked up the phone, and heard the same desperate female voice from before: "Where did you go? Hurry … save me! If you need a token, there's one here!" and, with that, she was cut off again.

It was Cynthia, the woman from the subway station. It wasn't a dream. I'd finally made the connection that she was the same person who had called me, asking for help earlier. Strange that the way she acted when I met her in person was completely different than the way she sounded on the phone. Maybe now, she really did need help.

Armed with the gun (now tucked into the back of my pants for safe keeping) as well as the pipe, I ran to the bathroom, and went through the hole again.

When I came out of the hole, I found myself in the ladies restroom again. I had used that same hole to get back to my apartment—it was good to know that there was some kind of logic involved with the way the portals worked.

I saw something out of the corner of my eye that nearly caused me to jump out of my skin—a plastic female mannequin was seated on the toilet closest to where I was standing. It looked like Cynthia (it had her clothes, hair, etc.), except that it was completely chalk-white, and its hands were covered in blood to halfway up the forearms. It was holding its right hand up, with several subway tokens in the open palm. The thing was disturbing to look at, and yet I couldn't look away—the face had a horrified expression, and the mouth was wide open in a silent scream.

I gingerly reached over and took the tokens before slipping them in my pocket and hurrying out of the restroom—I told myself it was because the real Cynthia was in trouble. In truth, it was partly because this mannequin was giving me the creeps.

Once I was out of the restroom, I turned left and continued down the hall to the turnstiles. Looking at the tokens closely, I noticed that they all had Lynch Street engraved on them, so I put one in the Lynch Street Line token box. The turnstile unlocked for me with a click, so I pushed through it.

In front of me was a descending stairway, which I started to go down.

I stopped halfway, suddenly hit with a bad feeling that something was waiting for me at the bottom.

My head began to throb with a dull ache that felt hauntingly familiar.

Suddenly, black splotches began to form on the wall at the bottom of the stairs in one big cluster. A white hand reached out from it, dripping with black goo.

"No …"

I saw a head, also white, with dark, sunken-in eyes. The creature emerged and pulled itself away from the wall, moaning as it began to float in my direction, just as it had in that horrible recurring nightmare. The one that always ended with my certain death.

And, just as in the nightmare, the closer it came, the more intense my headache became, until it was almost crippling.

The thing reached out, as if to punch me in the chest, but I was able to dodge it. Its recovery was slow as well, allowing me to run past it. Somehow I managed not to tumble down the stairs, despite the distraction of the pain in my head. At the base of those stairs was another set slightly to the right, so I didn't hesitate to take those too. Fortunately, the ghost didn't (or couldn't) follow me beyond that point, and the pain subsided.

One more set of stairs to go, and I was at the subway platform.

"Someone's coming! Get me out of here!" a muffled voice screamed at me.

It was Cynthia. She had been locked inside one of the subway cars, and was banging on the doors, her eyes wide with panic.

I held my hands up as a gesture for her to stay calm. I looked to the left and realized that the engine was in that direction, so I turned to the left and ran.

"Hurry!" She continued to scream. "Help me!"

I could already hear moaning and feel another headache coming on, so I moved as fast as I could through the driver's doorway. The controls were to my left, and right away, I saw a big red button, so I pushed it.

In response was the hiss of exhaust and the sound of sliding metal.

I poked my head out and saw that Cynthia was already outside and moving toward me, so I left the car, as well.

She ran to me, grabbed me by the shirt and pushed her face into my chest in an awkward embrace. "Please, get me out of here."

As glad as I was to see her, I was more concerned with my returning headache, which was getting steadily worse, as the moans were growing louder. I looked over my shoulder and saw that two ghosts had already made it to where I had been standing, only seconds before. "Run," I said, taking her hand to make sure we wouldn't get separated again, as we ran alongside the subway.

I wasn't sure where we were headed—back up to the turnstile would be pointless—then I realized that on the other side of the tracks, there might be an exit. Just then, we came across an open set of doors that led across to outside the subway car, so we ran in. Unfortunately, all the doors in the next car were closed, so we went back into the first one through a different set of doors.

We ended up having to repeat this pattern several times, weaving between the two sets of subway cars, looking for a way out of the second one.

At one point, we were cornered by the ghost of what I could barely identify as an old woman. I readied myself and told Cynthia to back away so I wouldn't accidentally hit her. I could barely bring myself to do it, but in the end the threat of danger superseded any squeamishness about what I was hitting. As the creature advanced, I swung the pipe and discovered that these ghosts were corporeal and I could actually hurt them. Unfortunately, I couldn't kill them—I could knock them down, just as I did with the dogs, but they wouldn't stay down for long.

Another interesting thing to note about the subway station was that it was beginning to look less like one would expect. For example, sealed doors were not the only obstacle in this maze—some areas were blocked off by walls made of parts of chain link fences. Mannequin parts were scattered here and there, sometimes laid out on the seats, and sometimes chained to the barricades.

I nearly jumped as I felt Cynthia's hand close around my forearm. I stopped and looked at her to find that she had lost her feistiness from earlier—now she just looked worn.

She hesitated for a while before saying, "This is a dream, right?"

I bit my lip and didn't answer at first … because I didn't have an answer. Then finally, "I … I don't know." I shook my head and couldn't continue. Maybe it was because contemplating this place would mean giving it more substance … and maybe on some level I also needed to believe that it wasn't real. I couldn't bring myself to lie to her either, no matter how much she wanted me to.

Cynthia let out a nervous sigh. She continued to look up at me, and seemed to be seeking comfort of some kind. All I could think of was moving on, so I pulled away and resumed looking for an exit.

We eventually found the door and left the subway cars, making a beeline for a door at the other end of the hall. A ghost that looked identical to the one I saw in my dream and in the beginning of the subway station appeared behind us. I decided that trying to fight these things unless absolutely necessary was pointless, so we ran instead. Once there, I threw open the door and pushed her in first before going in myself and closing the door behind me.

I stood with my back against the door and my eyes closed for a second, catching my breath. I heard nothing, and my headache was gone, meaning we were safe for the time being. I opened my eyes. "We made it—Cynthia?"

She was gone again.

I sighed in frustration. Whatever force had taken her away before had apparently done so again. "Dammit!"