CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Callie wished she'd worn a sweater or something. But she had a funny feeling that wouldn't matter in this place. She understood now when Teresa said it was dark. When Tomas said he was scared. She can't imagine how she'd feel in this place as a child – she wondered how Dalton had lasted as long as he did.
Once the marvel of the fact that she actually succeeded in this wore off, she thought of a place to start. There was no direction as good as forward, so she stepped further into the darkness. She stepped further into nothing and figured she'd keep walking until she saw something more than nothing.
She could hear music somewhere in the distance. Upbeat piano music. She murmured to herself, "Cow Cow Blues…?"
She shivered at the chill and tried to follow it. She called out for Teresa. "Teresa! Teresa! Where are you? I'm here to help you!"
The sudden sensation of falling came over her. There was no floor and no ceiling and no ground. But then suddenly there was gravity. She opened her mouth to scream but no sound came out. Her hair whipped around her face. Just as abruptly, she was standing on the floor again. Not fallen. Just falling and then not falling anymore. And then standing on solid ground once more.
But she wasn't in Teresa's room, or the Sanchez's apartment, or the dark. She was in the apartment building, in the hallway on the third floor. The place looked newer to her though.
She was at the elevator and figured she may as well walk towards the Sanchez apartment door. Before she reached their number, another door creaked open at her side. She peered over and it was dark inside other than the small figure of a little girl in the doorway. She had pale blonde hair and dark blue eyes with crocodile tears in them.
Callie frowned and crouched in front of the girl. "Hi, I'm Callie. What's your name?"
"Penny…" the little girl said with a sniffle.
"I'm looking for a little girl like you," Callie told her. "Her name is Teresa. Have you seen her?"
Little Penny shook her head. "Mama is looking for her too."
Callie, if possible, felt colder at her words. Before she could ask anything else, Penny faded into the empty darkness of the apartment. Callie almost tried to chase her, but knew it was hopeless. She had no idea how long little Penny had been trapped in this place. And she needed to find Teresa.
She continued down the hall, calling for Teresa. "I'm here to help you! I'm a friend of your cousin, Valentina! Please, sweetie, come out! Call out to me!"
A cacophony of banging surrounded her as many doors opened around her. She saw an array of children poke their heads out into the hallway. A drenched little girl with limp braids, dripping a puddle of murky water onto the carpet. A pre-teen boy with a massive headwound. A little boy with a blue face and rope burn around his neck. Many – many others were suddenly crowding her and crying out.
"Where's my mommy!?"
"Save us from her, please!"
"Are you here to help us?"
"Mama won't be happy."
"I just want mommy!"
"Help us!"
She couldn't breathe. All the voices washed together like a tsunami. When she felt the ice-cold touch of one of their hands on hers, she ripped herself away from the wave and raced back for the elevator. "Teresa!"
All sound and light snapped away like a switch was flipped. She couldn't even tell if gravity was real. But then, she saw a muddled light in the distance. And decided to follow it.
She could hear different music. Rustic grunge, or rock metal, she couldn't tell. She could hear clacking, like when her college friends would go to the pool house by campus and play a few games. But it felt musty around her, like the air was heavier with something dark. She could smell the putrid scent of cigarette smoke. Almost taste it in her teeth.
She stopped approaching when she could make out the outline of some dingy wooden building with motorcycles lined up outside. This wasn't a place she wanted to find. She could tell Teresa wasn't here. But her timid voice still called out. "Teresa?"
A low growl emanated from the bar. Like it was a living breathing entity – a beast. Feeling panic choke her again, she decided to get as far away from it as possible. She turned on her heel and ran in the opposite direction, hoping she didn't end up in that hallway again. She couldn't bear those children's cries.
She was running in endless black for a while. But as the sounds and smells of that bar faded away, she just kept running. "Teresa, where are you!?"
She ran until she saw another building again. She could hear piano music, melodic and calming. She recognized it. It was Ludovico Enaudi. Her mother loved him and played his music on her record player all the time as Callie grew up.
"Mom?"
She ran faster. The whole scene was shrouded in a dark mist, but she could make out the front of her childhood home in LA. She could see her mother, twenty years younger, taking out the trash. With Ludovico Enaudi playing in the house. It was a recognizable scene from her childhood. It almost made her smile.
But then she heard the record scratch and something else filled the scene.
"Tip-toe through the window… By the window, that is where I'll be… Come tip-toe through the tulips with me…"
Callie could tell her mother heard the music too when she froze at the open window. She peered over her shoulder to see what she was seeing. And saw a little boy in a cute suit and newsboy cap dancing by the record player in the living room. She followed her mother closer to the door and saw that the boy disappeared when she peaked in the other window. The song became an echo as well.
She followed her mother to the side door as she rushed into the house to investigate. The boy wasn't there. As Callie followed, the glass door that barred the kitchen and dining room from the front room closed behind her. She saw her mother react, spinning around and inspecting it.
Childlike giggling echoed in the house. Renai Lambert took off towards Dalton's bedroom, and Callie quickly followed. Her mother grabbed a hockey stick as she eyed the fabric under Dalton's wardrobe in the room. She crept towards it, keeping as much distance as she could. Without second guessing herself, she swept the curtain aside with the hockey stick and revealed nothing but shoes Dalton hadn't worn in months.
Her mother breathed a sigh of relief and approached the wardrobe but then the top doors were thrown open, revealing a corporeal looking little boy giggling like mad. He hopped out of the wardrobe like he'd been caught in hide and seek as Renai collapsed against the bed on the floor. The little boy skipped past her as Renai cried. Callie couldn't bear the terror on her mother's face.
But she forced herself to follow the little boy. She reached out, stretching for the cuff of his shirt, and just missed as he turned the corner.
When she turned the corner, the boy wasn't there, she was no longer in her old house but in the first-floor lobby of the apartment building. And that big, nasty man with slicked back black hair and gnarly teeth was waiting for her with a grin.
Before she could utter a sound, he lunged for her. She rolled on the ground to duck and get away, landing on her side painfully. But he grappled with her and latched onto her ankle and yanked her towards him. He crawled on top of her, snarling in her face. She let out a strangled cry as he pinned her wrists down.
"Get off me!" she wailed.
'Remember that you are stronger than they are. You are the living; they are the dead! Fight back!' Was that what Nathan's voice sounded like? She couldn't remember.
'Callie, fight them!' That was Raul or Marco, she thought.
She could feel the dark man's stench dripping onto her, oozing like it was part of his black soul. Her feet couldn't gain purchase on the floor under her, but she tried to plant her heels down anyway. When his legs straddled hers, she aimed her knees for his backside and kicked up as hard as she could. It caught him unawares, and when his grip slackened, she was able to weave her upper body through his arm and elbow his side, so he toppled off of her.
Callie scrambled to her feet and went for the exit. She pushed against the doors, but they would only shake, not open.
"Let me out!" she screamed, roughly pushing at the doors. "Let me out of here! Teresa!"
'You are stronger than they are, you are stronger than their world. You're alive!'
Callie let out the closest thing she had to a battle cry and pushed through the doors. She toppled to her knees when they gave way and landed in something much softer than sidewalk. She dug her fingers into the grain and knew that it was sand. The sounds of the ocean breached her ears.