Part 10
Three of them crossed over the line easily enough. Hesitating at the line of salt, Donatello's curiosity won out and he followed after them, jogging to catch up. Paranoia gnawed at him, the fear that the lights would dim suddenly and go out, and the more he worried about it, the stronger the fear grew.
The nearest light crackled, and Leonardo froze, putting his hand on Donatello's shoulder. He didn't look away from the railing.
"Don't be afraid," Leonardo said softly. "There's no reason for the lights to go out."
"How'd you guess?" Donatello asked, laughing self-consciously under his breath. "Sorry 'bout that."
"Just don't wanna get caught in the dark," Leonardo said, smiling to reassure him. "That's something we'll have to get later. Flashlights."
"Right."
They stopped at the railing. Donatello glanced at his brother to see if he would go down the steps, but Leonardo seemed content to lean against the railing and look over the edge. For a long time they stared at the water, feeling the deep rumble of the river shaking the steel.
"I dunno," Donatello said. "I don't think I see anything down there."
Leonardo frowned and pointed towards the far wall. "Back there, where the water meets the bricks."
They followed his look, peering at the far corner as the river splashed and swirled, a sharp line of white against the faint green stain of algae and muck. Something bobbed up and down, now appearing, now sinking under the waves, turning in quick circles as the water threw it around.
"What is it?" Michelangelo murmured, leaning on the railing.
"Proof the river's carrying stuff down here," Raphael said, and he put his hand on his little brother too pull him back firmly off the railing. "Like something trapped in the sink. Hey, think it'll—?"
Whatever had been bobbing suddenly went under as if pulled. They waited a few moments, but it didn't come up again.
"Strong current," Donatello said softly. "I'll bet there's a hell of an undertow in there. It'll just suck anything down."
"To where?" Raphael asked. "Where's the water go? I mean, we ain't flooding so where's the river going out?"
"Well," Donatello said, remembering the blueprints he had studied. "This is a water treatment plant. It gets filtered and then it goes out. There are huge grates down there—you could just see the tip of them before."
"'Filtered'," Leonardo echoed. "Like those screens we saw in the room downstairs?"
"You mean when you said hi to the ghost?" Raphael muttered. If he didn't say 'dumbass', then at least his tone heavily implied it.
"Yeah," Donatello said, not noticing how Leonardo glared at their sibling as he thought. "Those same screens. There's probably another plant farther along, so they could afford to stop running this one. I'll have to look up the policies, but I think they would've opened the grates wide and then let it be."
"Opened them up," Leonardo said. "So they didn't take them out?"
"I don't know," Donatello said. "I mean, I saw something that looked like it down there ages ago when the water level wasn't so high, but I wasn't really looking, you know? Of course..."
Donatello leaned on the railing and stared at the water.
"'Of course' what?" Raphael asked.
"Well, think about it," Donatello said. "We have filters in our bikes, right? And we have to change them out sometimes when they get too dirty. Same thing with the grates down there. Sure, they opened them up, but after enough time, they're gonna get clogged. And then nothing gets through, and the water level gets higher."
"Aw crap," Raphael cursed. "Does that mean the water ain't gonna go down again?"
"Worse," Leonardo said. "That means there's no way to get those filters clear. We'll just have to hope that the river'll go down when the storm-"
Steel groaned somewhere deep in the floors below them. Leonardo's voice trailed off as they turned, scanning in all directions. With the echoes that such a large space created, it was impossible to tell where the sound was coming from. A rumble went through the floors, as if something heavy was in the middle and straining to push its way out.
"I think..." Raphael whispered. "We should get back to the circle."
As he took a step toward the kitchen, however, Leonardo grabbed his arm and held him fast. A loud scrape came from the far staircase. Although the lights were on, although the stairs were straight ahead, the corner of the wall and their bedroom door, still flung open, cast a long shadow across the steps.
"What is it?" Donatello whispered.
"Maybe it's the chick from downstairs," Michelangelo breathed back. He blinked and looked over his shoulder. "Oh hell..."
They didn't have to look. The river had gone still, no longer splashing but lying calm, quietly lapping against the steel walkways. Water dripped somewhere out of sight, each drop punctuating how silent the huge space had become.
"It wasn't the storm making the river do that," Michelangelo whispered, barely loud enough to hear. His breath turned ragged, uneven as he felt cold jolts down his back. "There's something down there. There's something-"
Another long scrape, like nails on a blackboard, came from the stairs, and with it an overpowering sense of malice and cruel intent. As if something darkly intelligent were dragging itself up the steps in long, painful strokes. Closest to the stairs, a light bulb sparked and went out.
"We gotta go back," Michelangelo whispered, trying to make himself move. He managed to take one step. "We gotta-"
Inside the kitchen, a mug audibly tipped over and smashed on the floor. Stray bits of white glass fell out of the doorway, followed by the light flickering rapidly. Although the kitchen light stayed on, the light over the table hummed louder and louder until it popped. The dim light from the doorway fell across the hall as the scrapes on the staircase grew closer, until finally it stopped.
"Can you see anything?" Raphael whispered, not sure who he was asking.
"How'd it do that?" Michelangelo breathed. "The lights went out. How'd it get past the salt? How'd it get past my ofuda? How-?"
Water slapped the floor. Half in and out of the shadow, a small mark spread outward as if an invisible wet rag had been struck on the steel floor, discoloring it and gleaming in the light. After a moment, another mark appeared with the same damp plop, only a few inches further.
"It's walking," Donatello realized. "We can't see it, but we can see it moving."
"But what is it?" Raphael whispered.
Their bedroom door slammed wide open, startling them, and then an unused storage room was likewise forced open, the lock hanging broken in the door. As it came slowly closer, they could hear a raspy breathing—inhuman, as if whatever it could only drag air through the tiniest of holes.
"It's looking for us," Leonardo whispered.
Leonardo realized his mistake as soon as he spoke. The breathing stopped, but not as if it had disappeared. The air in the room changed as the thing stopped searching and instead turned to stare down the long hallway, past the rooms, past the kitchen, past the wide space of the open floor directly at the turtles in front of the river.
"Oh hell," Leonardo realized with a sinking feeling. "She got out."
What were now unmistakably footsteps suddenly came rushing directly for him. The splashes of black water were all he had to judge where it was. He had the brief flash of a woodcut picture from the books, of a samurai on a bridge facing a ghost, and he drew his sword as he stepped forward, using his momentum to make one clean cut.
Black water sprayed the floor in a line like blood. Leonardo held still, listening for the tiniest sound, even of one drop falling. He shivered. The sensation of biting ice crept up along his sword thorugh his hands and arms, and his breath misted in the air.
"Did you get it?" Raphael whispered.
"It's strong," Leonardo said, more out of shock than an answer. He blinked and made himself focus. "We're out of time. Don, you have to get those things out of here now."
"What?" Donatello looked away to the far wall, trying to make out the very tops of the grates. "But even if I could figure out the controls, they're over thirty years old. The rust alone would-"
He broke off, tightening his hands on the railing. Now that the river was still, he saw dark forms sliding under the surface, circling like sharks that came closer and turned over—he stopped breathing, choked as he saw their skeletal outlines and the empty sockets of their eyes. Despite his fear, he couldn't help counting them off. Two...five...eight, nine...twelve... He followed one as it moved towards the walkways that led to the river, disappearing under the rusting steel.
A grey hand surged out of the water and lay flat on the walkway, the arm bent up at an impossible angle. Like a broken doll, a second arm came up and then the—body? Ghost?—Donatello settled for dead girl as she pulled herself out of the water and dragged her body onto the walkway, her head barely lifted up as if she didn't need to see. More of her appeared, her shoulders and back, her...
Donatello recoiled back a step. Her waist and legs were gone, and black ichor spilled out of her torn waist. With a snap of her head, she somehow stared right at him, and then she was climbing, coming up the walkway too fast, intent on reaching him.
To be continued...