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Lost in Transmission
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Lost in Transmission — Tobias Lilja
Echoes of my far lost friend, the beating heart of my revenge—I WAIT—oh… why…
Stuck inside an endless circle, fool to you, the whole world letting go. How could I have known?
Machines beeped and oxygen pulsed through tubes, but Krystal would not wake.
It had been one week since the incident at the station. As soon as the camera had been destroyed, the woman went catatonic and resisted all efforts to wake her. After a few unsuccessful attempts, the paramedics, who arrived shortly after they were summoned, carried her away to nearby Morningside Hospital Center and interred her in a room.
One week since their son was taken.
Fox had not left her side since then, either. He refused to leave, throwing such a fit that first night he was told to leave that management butted in and told the doctors and nurses to let the man stay. His grooming suffered and his fur became disheveled; dark circles formed beneath his eyes until he resembled a raccoon; and a foul odor became obnoxiously noticeable the longer his vigil went.
He sat there now, a chair pulled up right up against the bed, facing the door. He held Krystal's ice-cold hand in his own, vainly staring into her closed eyes in the hopes that, suddenly, they would flicker open. Show movement, anything!
Fox was dead to the world around him.
"…and you say he's been like that since?" asked Falco, peering through the glass of the closed door.
"Yes." Lucy's expression was tight. "If I didn't force him to eat or drink he would waste away like that."
"Then what can I do?"
"I don't know, yell at him or something."
Falco smirked. "Not a chance."
His real name was Gawain, but nobody called him that except for official legal documents. He had known Fox since the earliest beginnings of Star Fox, after James' death. Although they hadn't always seen eye to eye, the two were as close as brothers when the situation called for it. It was Falco who encouraged Fox to accept and reciprocate Krystal's flirtations, and for that was his best man at the wedding.
For the past ten years, he had run Star Fox like a well-oiled machine. The work wasn't always glamorous but it was steady, and eventually Falco had come to enjoy the monotony. In fact, he had even begun saying "only fools seek after thrills" in direct contradiction to his wildfire younger days. When Lucy had suddenly called him up out of nowhere, begging—literally, begging—him to come and pull his old friend out of his funk, Falco had some misgivings but assured the rabbit he would do it.
Now that he was here, he took one look at Fox and thought I ain't paid enough for this shit.
"Please," Lucy was saying. "You must know something! You two were like brothers—"
"Whatever Peppy's told you is a big fat lie," Falco answered, still staring through the door. "We are brothers, and that also means he won't listen shit from me."
"Then he's doomed to be like that?"
"Oh, not really. Eventually he'll remember he's supposed to live." Falco tore his gaze away and moved to sit down on a bench, somewhere out of sight of the door. He sighed and put his face between his hands. "But that's up to him."
Lucy nodded.
"What actually happened?" interjected Slippy Toad. He sat on the same bench Falco had flopped onto. "The official report's all garbled nonsense."
"Would you really like to know, or would you prefer the report?"
"Try me, woman."
"Okay." Lucy inhaled once, then exhaled. "It happened like this. I was comforting Krystal. She kept telling me to go away. Her eyes wouldn't stop moving, back and forth, up and down. It… looked like she was watching something else, something beyond my ability to see. Then, just like that—" She snapped her fingers, startling Falco. "—she stood up and began walking."
"Walking?" Slippy's face scrunched up in thought, bulbous eyes looking even more pronounced as he pondered this information. "But the report said she was going straight to… to a camera."
"It wasn't that at first. She just walked straight, without thought or reason, but there was… there was purpose in that walk. Then she changed direction almost immediately and then went to the camera."
"And she… touched the camera?" Falco asked.
"Don't laugh."
He held up his hands. "Hey… hey, I understand this is serious. I'm not laughing."
"Yes, she touched the camera." Lucy shuddered. "And her arm sank through the lens instantly. I… I don't know how to describe it. The camera… was just an ordinary CCTV unit, yet it took her entire arm without… without… problem…"
"Is this where she started lifting up in the air?"
"I… I… went to help her, but there was shouting and yelling… the lights went out… I froze…" Lucy began trembling as she relived the memory again. "If I hadn't… perhaps she wouldn't have touched it. It took the entire station, I think, to pull her out. Then the Detective shot the machine, and Krystal…"
She gestured towards the closed door, upon which was inscribed the number 117.
"And you want me to wake Fox up so he doesn't kill himself," Falco finished for her. "I understand. I'll give it my best shot, then." He stood and went ahead.
He gave a cursory knock, received no answer, opened the door and went in. He busied himself a moment with making sure it was fastened before looking up.
Only to find Fox had locked eyes with him.
"…uh, hi," the bird began. "I hear you're in a bit of—"
"Get out."
"I'm… sorry?" Falco cupped an ear. "I don't follow you."
"Get out." Fox repeated. His eyes, which had formerly been fastened on Krystal's own, had come to life with a distant intensity as he stared maddeningly into his life-brother's own.
"Phew, this room stinks." Falco waved a hand about.
Put simply, the room stank like unwashed fox. One could almost see the miasma rolling off the seated man like a radiator expelling waste heat. Fox tolerated nobody, not even the nurses, to enter the room, fixing each and every intruder with an unwavering stare until they left. It soon became a sort of dare or ritual to see which new nurse would brave the dreaded specter of Room 117 in order to freshen up the place or to monitor Mrs. McCloud's life-signs.
Only once was it attempted to physically remove him. The violence that followed forthwith nearly hospitalized two nurses and a janitor, and left one nurse with a severe nosebleed. After that, management instructed the staff to leave him alone.
Falco had heard all of that and more, including plans to taser and/or tranquilize the man when it came time to relocate Krystal to a more permanent home. Not if, but when.
"What do you think she'll say if she wakes up in this mess of a room?" Falco asked. "Oh my, Fox," he continued in a singsong imitation of her voice, "this is awful. Why have you let yourself go?"
"Get out."
"You'll tell your own wife to get out? C'mon, man. Do you think she'll appreciate you wasting away like this? What good will it do her when she wakes up to find out you've gone and put yourself on life-support?"
Fox stared blankly at him.
"Think, man, think." Falco pointed at his head. "Suppose she wakes up right now. What do you think she'll see? A loyal husband standing guard over his sleeping wife?" His forced grin hardened into a grimace. "Or a beggar leering over an unconscious woman?"
There was no reaction. No expected shouts of betrayed anguish, no threats of undying vengeance, not even a hint of mindless violence was forthcoming.
Falco dropped the pretense. "Come on, Fox," he growled. "Get the fuck up and show me some life! Krystal didn't marry a wimp—she married the Fox McCloud, famed mercenary, savior of Lylat thrice over. You are the man she chose over that Panther Caroso, you are the man she chose to have your cute little carbon-copy son with. She didn't marry a pathetic [expletive deleted]!"
No response.
Falco sighed with explosive force. "Gods above and below, you are hopeless." He turned and swept out of the room, only remembering just in time to not slam the door.
"Well, there you go," he said to the others. "I tried my best." His arms, which he had thrown up in disgust, dropped almost immediately. "Who's the chick?" he asked curiously.
"This chick is Detective Jane Doe," answered the uniformed officer. "I've come to lend my support."
"I cannot thank you enough, officer," Lucy said, clasping the doe's hand like a garden pump handle and with just as much vigor. "Please, I'm at my wits end to get him out of there."
"I'm only doing my job," Detective Doe said with a small smile.
Since that embarrassing episode at the station, the CCPD had kept a round the clock guard at Morningside, officers patrolling the corridor Room 117 was located on and three patrol cars watching the entrances. Their skepticism had all but vanished. The destroyed CCTV camera was still being probed and dissected for anything that could possibly lead to a clue, yet there were no results, at least not yet.
"Isn't there anything you can say to him? Something to spark some life in him?"
"I'll see what I can do. Thank you, uh, Mr. Lombardi."
The bird nodded and stood aside to let her have access. "Good luck," he murmured.
Miss Doe entered the room and closed the door behind her. As before, Fox fixed her with an unwavering stare.
"Good evening, Mr. McCloud," she began pleasantly. "Thank you for keeping watch over her. I'll take over from here."
"No. Get out."
"I understand, sir. However, you are doing yourself no favors staying here." She walked over to stand beside him before he could react. "Look—" She took his arm, "—do you see this? Skin and bone. You are starving yourself. You are in no shape to stay here any longer."
"I will not go," he answered. His voice was rusty with disuse as unfamiliar words crackled through.
"Understand this, Mr. McCloud. When that… ghost… returns, do you think you can stop him?"
She manipulated his arm up and down. As she did so, the sleeve slid back and revealed matted fur over thin muscles.
"I don't think you can even throw off my grip." She suddenly twisted his arm; Fox yelped, and he tried to fight her off. Yet for all of his thrashing her hold on his arm never wavered. "You see? If you can't throw me off, there's no chance you can stop that man from repeating what he did with your son."
"Let… let… let go of me—"
"Even speaking is costing you strength." Jane Doe hoisted him up, and in his weakened state Fox McCloud could do nothing but obey her meekly. "I am issuing you an order, straight from the law, to get some rest. I don't care if you take it in the break room downstairs, only that you must." She began to lead him out.
Fox continued to try and resist, but for all his effort he might as well have been one of those tube men outside car dealerships, flailing and whipping about to the dance of the blower beneath. He did possess the presence of mind enough to try and grab ahold of Krystal's bed, but Miss Doe easily anticipated this and spun him around so that she held him in both arms. In this manner she got him to the door where, on the other side, Falco held it open with an equally open mouth of amazement.
"You," she said to Lucy, "take him downstairs and stuff him with food, then put him to bed. From what I hear he hasn't had a proper night's sleep since this started, understood?"
"Right away."
"And you, Mr. McCloud," Miss Doe continued, fixing his eyes—the only thing alive about him, widened with alarm as the implications sank into his torpor—with her steely eyed own. "If I hear that you have escaped them to come back here, you will be placed under arrest and removed from the premises. Understood?"
He tried to speak but, unfortunately, the lack of drinking even the slightest of liquids in the past ten hours and his expenditure of speech from before conspired to keep even the barest trace of a gurgle from leaving his body.
"Good," Miss Doe said, smiling sweetly. "I'm glad we've come to an agreement." She turned and went back into the room. The door closed with a click.
"All right, let's go." Lucy pointed down the hall. "Follow me, boys."
Falco and Slippy each took hold of one of Fox's arms, freeing Lucy to take the lead, and followed after her. They took care to not injure Fox, for in spite of his weakened state he did try to walk; and for once he wasn't resisting their efforts. On some level his brain understood what Miss Doe had told him, and he resigned himself to their ministrations.
"Let's see about getting a shower first," Slippy suggested. "The wait staff are going to throw you out if they catch a whiff of you."
"I agree," Falco said, "and I know the perfect place to do it. Let's go."
~X~X~X~X~X~X~
It didn't take long to fumigate the room. With Mr. McCloud out of the way, the hospital staff were more than happy to take care of things, including much needed maintenance on the machines keeping Krystal alive. Fortunately, not much was needed in that department, only to replace a few empty bags that once held vital fluids.
Now only Detective Doe remained. She took one glance about the room before taking a seat in its only chair.
Per McCloud's wishes, and the hearty recommendation of the police, Room 117 was as far from windows as was physically possible. Everything that had a screen, no matter how small, had been removed; the only electronics that were here were faceless, featureless black boxes that only held glowing light bulbs to indicate their function. Vitals were monitored in another room, which itself had two more officers stationed, keeping watch over not only the machines themselves but even the technicians in charge.
She checked her watch idly. It was an older model, mechanical rather than digital, to minimize risk. It read 07:26, per standard timekeeping measures, and it was getting on towards late evening.
"Don't you worry, Mrs. McCloud," Detective Doe said, her voice a near whisper out of respect for the circumstances. "We'll find your son… soon." I hope, her mind added an unspoken aside.
The constant beeping was all that answered.
Detective Doe watched as the oxygen tubes worked their magic, sending and recycling the air Krystal breathed. If it weren't for the slow, steady rise and fall of her chest, and the misting on the mask (specially designed to fit over vulpine muzzles) blurring and clearing regularly, for all intents and purposes she looked dead. Where her skin was exposed, from when the staff had shaved her to attach various medical implements, it was a stark ashen color not unlike a corpse; and Detective Doe was certain that she was as cold as one.
Time passed.
Miss Doe yawned. She checked her watch again. 08:09. Her shift wasn't to end until eleven that night, at which point another officer would come to relieve her.
She wished that it would end; graveyard shifts like this were nothing new, but before there wasn't the underlying sense of unmitigated dread that seemed to mock her.
That day had changed things completely.
Before, it was a standard afternoon. Answering a hysterical one one zero call, arriving to find a bewildering crime scene, escorting a sobbing family to the station for gentle questioning, and coming up with no leads. That was okay—no case or investigation was solved in a single afternoon as neatly as the holonovels liked to portray, certainly not in the same manner as Hercules Watson would have.
Afterward…
The knowledge that something… she wouldn't go as far as to admit it was supernatural… but, regardless, that something of that magnitude and influence, reaching through even the mundanity of investigative work, shattered all perceptions that this would be a "standard" case.
She had been in that room when she saw Mrs. McCloud rise from the ground and begin to disappear into… into that camera. Her mind was screaming at the defiance of logic and rationality; her instincts took over and she was the first to try and halt the ascent. It was her quick thinking that galvanized the rest of the station into action, and they managed to prevent the fox woman from disappearing.
Now, it was a waiting game, a race against time.
Waiting for the inevitable repeat—would that mysterious abductor (whom Miss Doe was now more inclined to take seriously his unnatural feats) reappear and try and make off with Mrs. McCloud?
A race against time, for no matter how much she kidded to herself, the longer they went without any leads, the further and further away Marcus went. Even discounting the… more unnerving aspects of the case… it would be the same: the victim would vanish, possibly for years, and likely never be found. At the very least, he was off-world, and that alone took the case out of the CCPD's jurisdiction. It would require government intervention.
Silly, silly, she told herself firmly. Now was not the time to descend into what-ifs. That was not her job—right now, she would do what she could, and leave the rest to the investigators working on that broken camera.
Her breath misted in the air as the temperature dropped.
Miss Doe wondered how far along her partners were in the case. Mr. Smith was heading the investigation, but a week of repeatedly scouring the Keiko park for any possible clues and turning up with nothing was disheartening. And Detective Jones, an ancient-looking but sharp-eyed moose, was in charge of hospital security; even now he would be checking in on the visitors in the break room, keeping an eye on Mr. McCloud.
Meanwhile, her job was simpler: keep an eye on Mrs. McCloud, and radio for backup if trouble appeared. There was another officer patrolling on the same floor, just in case, but she was the first line should… anything happen.
She let her gaze wander, if only to keep herself awake.
The ceiling tiles were somewhat faded, even in the dim lighting, but were clean and free of mildew. The walls were neutral in their coloration, to put one's mind at ease. Yet after the week of the husband's ceaseless vigil there was a faint sense of oppression about it, almost stuffy in spite of their stated intent. And the flooring was nothing special, other than again in calming colors.
Her eyes passed briefly by the door.
Miss Doe did a double take. She glanced more sharply at it.
There on the glass was a mistiness that should not exist in the climate-controlled atmosphere of the hospital.
Her eyes suddenly crossed as she registered her own breath rising in a cloud about her.
They said the air became unseasonably cold, her mind warned.
"This is Detective Doe," she spoke, holding her radio to her lips. "Requesting backup at Room 117 immediately." She clicked it off and stood—then slipped and nearly sprained her ankles.
There was a sheen of slippery ice coating the floor. Sure enough, the apparition had made its return.
She glanced briefly at the machines keeping Krystal's vitals stable. They were rated to work under adverse conditions, insulated against the cold, but she worried the oxygen could freeze and cause problems. There was no apparent change, except beads of water condensing on the bed frame and sliding down to near-instantly freeze.
With a grunt, she forced herself up and went to the door. Breathing heavily, adrenalin starting to course through her veins, she made the fateful decision to open it and step outside. She locked it quickly.
Before her, down either side of the corridor, was a thick sheet of ice.
~X~X~X~X~X~X~
Several floors down, in the break room and huddled about a table, was Fox McCloud nursing a cup of hot chocolate. He was shivering, for only recently had he been forced into a hot shower and scrubbed and soaped within an inch of his life. The hospital's room temps did nothing to alleviate his discomfort.
Over against the wall sat Lucy and Slippy, deep in conversation. Falco was over by the vending machine, not even perusing its contents but staring into the LED lighting.
And there was Detective Jones, who took it upon himself to station himself within the room for as long as they were here.
Fox couldn't believe himself. The shower had done more than just freshen him up but also woke him to the fact that he had made an absolute fool of himself. It reminded him… uncomfortably… of how close he had come to driving Krystal away from the Star Fox team out of a perceived desire for her own safety.
Therapy, at her insistence, revealed the root causes being centered in his own troubled upbringing. The fear of being abandoned, of losing one's loved ones and being unable to stop it from happening. First it had been his mother, lost to a car bomb. Then, nearly a decade later, his father in battle.
Krystal's arrival in his life eight years after the Lylat Wars changed him. He had meaning again, where before it was just one job after the other, enough to keep his mind off the past. Then, she announced she was pregnant with Marcus, and Fox's mind was made up as soon as he regained consciousness from when he initially passed out.
He couldn't have been happier when he held his firstborn son in his arms. Krystal had a tired but triumphant smile. They were united in that moment of moments… at least until he passed out when she tried mind-melding with him.
And now…
Now… there was nothing.
His son was taken from him, the police no closer to finding him, and his wife was unconscious, unreachable and untouchable. There was nothing he could do but wait.
And that was unacceptable.
For so long he had been a "do it/get it done" person that there was nothing that stood in his way once he set his mind upon it. Even in his arguments with Krystal over how to best raise their son, he had a plan and a goal for whichever outcome they settled upon.
He couldn't do anything now.
Fox lifted his cup of hot cocoa, barely registering that it shook in his grip, and took a fortifying gulp. The hot liquid seared his insides, burning away some of the unnatural chill that clung to his soul ever since the incident.
As he set it down, a shadow fell across him. Fox looked up.
"How are you holding up, son?" asked Detective Jones. In spite of his rough appearance, his grey eyes held some warmth in them.
"I… I'm okay."
Mr. Jones put a hand on his shoulder and gripped it. "That's good."
There was nothing more to be said. Yet it was that little bit of warm contact that reminded Fox that, in spite of the depression he'd sunken in, there were others who still looked out for him. He was not alone in this.
"Would you like another cup?"
"Yes, please," Fox answered. "Um… have one yourself, too."
Mr. Jones nodded. He took the cup and departed for the machine over against another wall, where it sat amongst a collection of cheap cups and cheaper chocolate powder packets.
Fox let his attention drift while he waited. He had spent enough time ruminating in the past and wallowing in self-pity; instead his attention wandered over to the pair chatting animatedly on the bench.
"—can't be too sure if they'll even help us," Slippy was saying. "They enforced the treaty as soon as we cleaned up that mess with the AI."
"But surely the Aparoids—" Lucy objected.
"No. That was special circumstances, and in any event they didn't really need Corneria's help." Slippy's tone was unusually grim. "They… have command over strange powers."
"And yet they didn't object when Corneria put that satellite over…?"
"That was before the Crisis, mind you. Once that… that god thing woke up and took decisive action, they decided they wanted more control over their affairs, please and thank you very much. If it weren't for the Aparoids gaining the advantage quickly, and requiring our help, they would have put a shield over the entire planet."
"Is such a thing possible?"
"Certainly. They don't have… er… advanced technology as we know it, but they can do that. And especially with that living god in charge—"
"Uh, excuse me," Fox coughed. "But what are you talking about?"
Both of them clammed up. Slippy turned to regard him with a penetrative look to his bulbous eyes. Even Falco left off his contemplation of the vending machine's price list to pay attention.
"I wouldn't go about thinking this is the answer to our problems, Fox," Slippy began, carefully. "But it is a possibility to consider."
"What he's trying to get at is going to Sauria and asking the… rulers in charge for help," clarified Lucy.
Fox frowned. "Rulers?"
"Oh, come now, Fox, you really don't know?"
At his puzzled look, Lucy sighed and launched into a brief explanation. Ever since the Saurian Crisis, nearly twelve-thirteen years ago by this point, the local tribes had unified under a shared theocratic "over-government" centered on protecting the three temples that held the planet together—the two Force Point Shrines which housed the mystical SpellStones, and the ancient Palace of the Krazoa. The tribes organized themselves into a duumvirate, headed by the EarthWalker and CloudRunner tribes, with the formidable SharpClaw being spread across all the others to keep them under control and to ensure a repeat of Scales' rebellion wouldn't occur.
However, governing over such a diverse group of species was problematic at best, and not even religious belief alone would help keep them together for long. Religious schisms would develop in the absence of a strong leader, like Scales could have been if he didn't start taking the orders of a malfunctioning robot. Yet a mysterious figure, calling itself "the Krazoa God", had arisen and laid claim over the peoples of Sauria; and it was this figure that kept the peace.
Part of that peace was enforcing a strict policy of such rabid and xenophobic isolationism that not even Cornerian archaeologists were allowed to visit.
"—and they'd sooner throw us out rather than even considering our plea," she finished somewhat lamely.
"Well, I do have a contact," Fox said. "Prince Tricky. He helped me during that crisis."
"Yes, but one dinosaur won't be enough to convince their god otherwise."
"See? This is what I'm saying," Slippy interjected. "They aren't likely to help us, even if we asked them pretty please."
"Then who else—thank you, Detective," Fox accepted the fresh cup, "—who else is likely to help us?"
The other two fidgeted as they pondered his question. Falco at last spoke from his corner. "We could try offworld. I recall Panther has a few contacts on Thaljista. They have some experience in this sort of thing."
"Really?" Fox was skeptical. "Well, at least they won't toss us out. How far off is Thaljista anyway?"
"About… about a month."
That killed the idea instantly. They didn't have a month. Sauria, however, was just a hop-skip-and-a-jump away.
"There is the government," Detective Jones began, his voice rumbling. "They have greater resources than the CCPD. One of your friends, Mr. Peppy Hare was it? is one of their employees. I'm sure you have a few favors to cash in anyway."
"I… don't want to rely on them," Fox said. "They have their own problems, and I don't want to drag them into this."
"You won't have much of a choice, Fox," Lucy cut in. "Eventually, the case will grow cold, and the CCPD can't help for long. We need to consider all our options."
Falco shuddered violently. "Speaking of cold, it's chilly. Did the hospital decide to turn off the heat because it's nighttime?"
It took a few seconds for that question to sink in. The ambient temperature was dropping such that, hithertofore unseen, their breath was misting into thicker clouds. Fox looked at his cup to find ice crystals floating in the cocoa.
"It's here," he said—or, tried to. What actually came out was a strangled gasp.
Detective Jones sprang into action instantly. "This is Detective Jones, calling all available units," he said, holding his radio up as he ran for the door. "We have contact, over."
There was no answer. When he clicked the button again, he discovered that it was shot, the electronics were dead.
It was a whirlwind of activity as all five of them hustled out the door. Already the lights were flickering and the ventilation had begun to shut down. Detective Jones beelined toward the nearest staircase and took it at a run, only just barely remembering his rack of antlers before he nearly wrenched his neck getting caught on the wall's edge.
Fox was quicker—he took the stairs three at a time and was rounding the landing by the time the others made it even halfway up the first flight.
A gunshot echoed.
~X~X~X~X~X~X~
Miss Doe shivered, out of nerves or cold she couldn't rightly say.
The hall was dark now, all of the lights had gone out. The ice had grown thicker, encasing everything until it looked as if she stood in a cave on an alien planet—a cave of sharp geometries and unpleasant angles.
She had her gun out, the safety off, but not readied.
Keep it together, girl, keep it together, her mind chanted.
Training took over where instinct screamed to run away. She stood resolute. Her eyes widened, trying to take in what little light remained in the building, to see anything.
It was then she heard it.
Heavy, echoing footfalls. Falling like distant hammers, muffled through layers of thick walls, but still present, oppressive, foreboding.
The hairs on her body rose in anticipation and fear. Shivers began to dance all throughout her spine. Miss Doe squeezed her eyes shut, willing her breathing to remain steady, before opening them again. If this is what Mrs. Krystal felt, then, yes, she was fucking terrified.
A rumbling sounded, distant, like that of some ancient predator about to throw a challenge. It came from behind.
Miss Doe turned, bringing her weapon at the ready.
At the other end of the hall, the darkness split open, and there was light. It was the elevator, working in defiance of the electrical blackout. Bright light streamed forth as if it were perfectly ordinary.
There was a shadow standing in the midst of that light. It was too far off—or was it a trick of the light? her mind wondered—to see clearly.
It was IT.
The shadow moved. No, IT bent down, almost double, to get ITs head through the doorway. Then IT began to move, with the same slow deliberate pacing the McClouds had described.
The footfalls were louder now, reverberating through the icy cavern like so many sledgehammers, discordant and painful.
"Stop in the name of the law!" Detective Doe ordered. "Put your hands up and get down on your knees!"
The shadow moved closer. In the light provided by the elevator, ITs silhouette was that of a tall, tall, tall man with a hat. IT was thin, emaciated. And IT did not slow down.
"Last chance," she said, suppressing her tremors. "I will shoot."
There was no reply.
Suddenly, there was a distant popping sound and the elevator lights vanished.
She squeezed the trigger.
A gunshot erupted, unnaturally loud in the dense silence; a burst of light flared forth in an instant.
But something was wrong—her finger did not release from the trigger. It remained frozen upon it. With a slow realization, as if ice cold water had been poured down her back, Detective Doe learned that she could not move a single muscle. Not even her heart was beating; her very breath was caught in a straitjacket.
IT had only advanced that much further. The flash of light remained, impossibly so, continuing to cast a pale glow.
It illuminated the bullet, the particulates of the powder disintegrating, even the minute shockwave that was the displacement of air forced aside. It hovered maybe a foot from the gun's muzzle.
It illuminated IT, throwing into sharp relief the strange clothing IT wore, the unearthly face that was not, the empty expression IT wore.
IT reached where the bullet lay frozen in mid-flight and went past it. Turning to the entrance of Room 117.
IT waved a hand. To Detective Doe's growing horror, she heard a distinct click, and it was open. The door swung open, revealing the forbidden chambers beyond.
This is not happening, this is not happening, this is not HAPPENING, her mind screamed in endless litany. She tried to force herself to move, even a little, but her body refused all conscious command. It remained locked into place.
The slow, deliberate footfalls stopped, rested for a few moments, then started up again.
Out of Room 117 came IT. Within ITs arms was Krystal, as if being carried like a baby. Her legs hung over ITs arm and her head lolled against ITs chest. She looked so small.
IT resumed ITs slow walk again. But this time, when IT passed the bullet, IT stopped.
IT reached out and plucked it from the air. Turning it over and over, regarding it with a cool alien gaze.
IT looked back at Detective Doe. She swore she could see the barest beginnings, a ghost, of a smile beneath the muzzle flash.
IT flicked the bullet, and it flew end over end right at her, to stop dead right before her forehead, between her eyes.
She went cross eyed keeping it in focus.
The tall, tall, tall shadow resumed walking. But this time, instead of going towards the now inoperable elevator, there was a gesture, imperceptible in the darkness; and suddenly, there was light.
A massive glittering portal of white static and particle diamonds erupted out of thin air, filling the ice-bound hall, catching and filling the entire place with reflective, beautiful light. It threw into clear relief the shadow.
IT was a man—a parody of a man—wearing a dark suit, a dark fedora with a medium brim. ITs skin was ashen, and ITs hair was dark, blacker than night. Mr. McCloud was right, Miss Doe realized.
The man stepped through the portal. As soon as his foot disappeared, the glittering rupture vanished, and time returned to normal.
A moment later, Detective Jane Doe's body hit the ground, her head blown apart by her own bullet.
By the time the others reached her, her blood had cooled and her body stiff. She was dead.
And Krystal was gone.
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