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Chapter 9: The Climb

              The crowd unfolded around me as I bolted around the furious, but slow-witted troop. A few hands reached out, but nothing held. Feet pulverized the ground behind me. Once more I was being chased, though this time at least I knew why.

              “Fuck, fuck, fuck…” I whispered. This wasn’t my domain. I didn’t know or even remember the corridors, alleyways, and whatever else was in this part of town. I wasn’t quick enough to keep out of reach forever. Eventually they would catch up, and then I’d be finished.

              Those bright, bold numbers lit up the streets, illuminating the entrance from the main street like an arrow pointing right at the doors. No one was really in this part of the area as it was too close to the barrier to make it habitable. The only faces now were directly behind me, but the numbers were picking up in pursuit.

              “Get back here you devil!” they shouted.

              “Kill him, kill him, kill him…” more voices chanted.

              The crowd hurled more like-minded obscenities at me. I prayed I didn’t trip. They would skin me alive if they caught me. It was almost a guarantee they would take it slow, my death coming long after I’d begged for it to end.

              I burst through the front entrance of the building with the timer. It must have once been an office structure. I made a spilt-second decision and ran directly to the door on the right side, sliding the flashlight out of my pocket and gliding down the stairs as I moved through another doorway. Shouts above tried to unravel which way to go. The door above the stairway slammed open and feet took to the stairs, moving up and down in pursuit.

              I had to hide. The flashlight revealed some kind of custodian’s room. Piping jutted out of the concrete, and there was enough room between the walls to slide through. The piping was old and caked in slime. I held my breath and squeezed into the corner, clicking off my light just before the crowd busted through the door.

              Lanterns cut through the darkness as three men moved into the cramped corridor.

              “Where is that bastard?” one of them asked.

              “I doubt he came this way, there’s no way out,” another answered.

They looked for a few moments, quickly flashing their lights about as they tried to find some evidence of my arrival.

              “Fuck it, he’s not here, let’s go,” the first one stated.

              They flushed out of the door and I could hear them sprinting back upstairs. Sighing, I realized I was safe, or safer than I had been. I wasn’t going to leave yet, as others could come looking in the same place.

I leaned back and fell against the wall, sliding to the floor. It was tight back there, but I had enough room to not mind being stuck. It was completely black without the flashlight, and hauntingly quiet. Occasionally I reached out and touched the piping to make sure I was still exactly where I meant to be, fearing that I was somehow moving, lost to a nightmare becoming real.

              After no one had returned for some time, I let myself step back out. I clicked the flashlight on and tried to wipe the black ooze that leaked from the rotting piping off my clothes but only managed to spread it further. The ooze was thick and disgusting, smelling almost worse than it looked.

              Something about the old, broken pipes struck me as familiar. These were water pipes, and must have flowed up the rest of the skyscraper. A network of metal jutted out in all directions before burying itself into the walls and beyond. Control panels, if that was what they were, rested on the far side of the room, though they lacked power to operate.

I hovered close to the old instruments and wiped away years of grime and dust. Gauges and mechanisms that might have once worked all registered absolutely nothing. Some were dented and broken, like someone had taken a crowbar to the system.

              “Tell me something,” I whispered, wishing the machines could talk. I moved towards the door, and rested an ear against the wood to listen for my pursuers. Wherever they were, they weren’t in the stairwell anymore.

Slowly, I pushed open the door, half thinking someone would be waiting. I squeezed through the door and switched off the light in mid process, reassuring myself that no one would be there. I strained my eyesight against the darkness, looking for a sign that someone was still around.

When I saw nothing, I hesitantly clicked the light back on and made my way up the stairs. I stopped at a half-opened door and ventured a glance out. A crowd was waiting in the building’s main lobby. Some searched while others argued. Their numbers had dwindled since initially forming, but there were still enough to not dare an escape.

              There was no way of leaving out the front entrance now, but I wasn’t ready to leave anyway. What I came for waited probably thirty stories up. I turned back to the stairs and started the climb.

After ten floors I reassured myself that no one was up this high. During the next fifteen floors I was sweating through the sweatshirt that I just couldn’t convince myself to get rid of. Upon reaching floor forty-one, my feet were raw and maybe bleeding, but a whoosh of wind caught me by surprise as I looked down at quite a view.

There was nothing but steel rods, loose chunks of building material, and open air where there used to be a wall. This was where the sky scraper had somehow managed to crack and lean to its left without completely falling apart. Floor forty-one was now the last floor that I could levelly stand upon.

              The office complex was leaning at an extreme angle, nearly horizontal. The crack in the building had caused a massive portion of the wall, which was now the ceiling, to crack and fall off. The floor was now the just windows, most of which no longer held glass panels.

Rubble was piled all over while some of it must have caused such an impact that it tore right through where I needed to walk. The hole in the ceiling traveled through four more stories before becoming whole again. Rot consumed parts of the walls and most of the furniture. Everything felt upside down, backwards and inside out. At least somehow the actual walls were intact and looked decently able to hold weight.

              Hopefully after a few stories I could look closer at what I had come for: the timer. But a slight problem reared its head as I stared down through the cracks in the floor. The far side of this building was over the
barrier
. I had never been so high up while trying to cross over, but could only assume the effects would be the same. If the pain came at the wrong moment it could send me straight out one of those glass-free windows.

              I took a deep breath and crept slowly forward. The floor pitched at a slight, upward angle. Desks, tables, and bookcases made formidable obstacles. Some rested in the open windows, as gravity hadn’t taken a toll just yet. I turned my flashlight’s beam to see a clear path against the hateful red glare.

Gently, gingerly, I climbed around, through, or over whatever was in the way, stepping where the support appeared best. The walls moaned and creaked, but held. My heartbeat stuck to my throat while my temples throbbed. It was far colder up there too, my breath coming out in long, visible waves. I was thankful I didn’t toss the sweatshirt away on the climb.

              The flashlight’s beam cascaded over the open floor. It was weird to see the stairwell above me hanging on by threads of steel rods. Some objects were still latched to the walls, held on by cords plugged into outlets. Light fixtures were fastened to the walls on my left and right, upside down. Paintings swung gently in the wind, thin wires screwed into the plaster the only thing keeping them from falling through the holes in the floor. Though the mess was disorienting, nothing compared to looking down.

I soon came upon a soft, cream-colored sofa that lurched halfway through an opening. Unlike gravity, the weather hadn’t been so kind to it. Rain had brought mold and the couch was literally being eaten away. I looked down through the opening and saw that the sofa would eventually fall through, smashing to the ground after a long fall. Just thinking about it made a shiver run up my back.

              I made my way through the next few floors with relative ease, until floor forty-five came into view. The floor had crumbled away. The steel rods that once lined the wall were pushed outwards, as if some sort of force had blown right through it. The opening carried on for about a full floor before the building became solid once more.

I was grateful to have ceiling once more between me and the dark clouds, but had no idea how I was going to get to the other side of the broken building. That red glow of the numbers had increased tenfold, indicating how very close I was to the source.

A humming came from up ahead as something mechanical buzzed to life. Machinery that only electricity could power was operating, and my mind was at work trying to understand what it meant. However, I had to first solve the dilemma of how to cross this breach.

              I looked at the left wall and saw it was intact. I took off the extra hoodie and my shirt, pulling the shirt to thick shreds and wrapping it around my hands. Then I put the hoodie back on. Aiming for the first vertical row of windows, I cautiously climbed into the open air. I reached the top window and started to move horizontally, crossing the few feet between windows without an issue while making sure not to look down.

              A jolting notion came over me as I stopped and looked over the gap that divided the next set of windows. A good six feet separated the two sets. Worse, not even a scratch was etched into the glass of the closet one. A draft rose around me, and a cold gust swayed the building as if it would tear to pieces at any second. Just how the hell could I cross the divide? It was too long of a stretch, and I couldn’t exactly jump from here, but there was no other path.

              A slight moan escaped up from the cinder and concrete wall. Just the tiniest crack appeared near my feet. It splintered the window sill in half and traveled out. The wall thundered as plaster sprayed all around. The crack widened into a breach that threatened to send the entire structure tumbling to the ground. My head whipped from side to side to find an escape. The only way was forward. The set of windows down and to the right were glass free. I had to jump for it.

              No time to think.

              No time to wonder.

              I putting my feet on a splintering wall and gained some leverage. Thunder exploded above as if eager to see the show. I pushed off the wall with almost too much force and sailed awkwardly through the air. The flashlight tumbled from my grip and spun end over end. I still refused to look down even as I fell.

              The target window came closer. Everything became detached. Time slowed.

My hands flew out in all directions, reaching for the opening. Plaster fell like snow. Somehow the raining bits of paint chips and plaster reformed into a time when I was a kid making a snowman when tiny flakes of snow began to fall gently from the sky on Christmas Eve.

              I touched the sill of the window with my left hand and held fast. My body hit hard against the wall. The shock loosened my grip, but a few fingers managed the keep. It wasn’t enough though, and before I knew it I lost the sill and was falling again. 

I didn’t comprehend what had happened, not right away. I had a hold on the opening, what happened? What was going to happen? Everything that had occurred ran through my head at lightning pace. From the events starting two years ago to this exact moment. It was everything in an instant.

              I looked over, still in slow motion, and watched as I flew past the end of the wall. I made a lame attempt to reach out and grab something, but I was just too far away. I think I already knew that. This was meant to be my end. I closed my eyes and let the fall take me.

Chapter 10:
Luck vs. Fate

              A sudden jerk brought me back as the falling stopped. I looked around. My stop didn’t make sense, not until I felt the fabric around my neck tighten, snugger than it should have been. I slowly raised my right arm above my head and touched the steel rod that had caught the hood of my
borrowed
sweatshirt. This damn sweatshirt had saved my life.

              I was hanging on by a thread, though, and grasped the rod, pulling with all the strength I could summon. It remained steady. The structure above didn’t seem to be crumbling anymore. The rod itself pointed out at a ninety degree angle before jutting up and back into the building. I managed to pull myself back up and stood upon the rod without it rocking. Several other rods weaved and crossed each other, making for a handy ladder back into the broken building.

              After a few tense minutes of climbing I was back on solid concrete. I touched the outside of the building, trying to find a way back in. The steel rods led me to the other side of the gap, but not back through the hole in the floor. I was stuck on the outside, looking through one of the lower windows that still had glass. The window itself was too small to fit through, like most of the others. I had to go up.

              I gently punched through the glass that was already cracked, making an opening big enough for my foot, and hoped the building wouldn’t react to the force. Stepping into the open window, I flinched, half expecting my foot hold to buckle and cause everything to come crashing down. This time it didn’t even yield a squeak. With renewed effort, I stuck both feet into the window and gripped the rough exterior with both hands.

              The next window was just above my reach, but there was no glass. Part of the window was missing, and a bigger hole formed on the left side that would allow me to squeeze through. I jumped the few extra inches and held fast, always waiting for that familiar cracking sound. I lifted myself up, reached through the hole, and looked about. Trying to ignore the view downward, I turned to look at the other side of the gap. The floor couldn’t be more than a few feet away.

              I pushed all the way through the hole and balanced myself in the opening, staring at the floor that appeared so far off. There were no lucky steel rods to grab me if I missed. Another whoosh of wind rose upwards, bringing the view back to attention. Forty some stories was a long drop.

              I jumped, but didn’t put enough force into it this time and fell short. I saw the floor coming and reached out my hands, looking for the edge. I caught the floor and pulled myself up quickly, climbing onto solid ground for what felt like the first time, and laid down. My breath came in hard gasps as I heaved a sigh of relief. I was finally across the opening.

              “You dumb son-of-a…” I said, shaking my head as I tried to clear my havoc-filled mind. I was wading through too much to just come up close to something I probably couldn’t even begin to understand. I stared at the other side of the opening and couldn’t believe I’d just made that crossing.

              The red light shone up ahead, pulsating. Dizziness washed over me as I pushed myself to my feet. I wiped the loose plaster from the sweatshirt as that red light throbbed inside my head. I turned to face what I’d come searching for, and suddenly yearned for the answers to my questions. What was this timer? Why was it aligned to my birthday? Was it tied in with my turning? It had to be.

I crossed into the next area and noticed that the room was alive with activity. Ripples of electricity caused the hairs on my head to stand on end. Wires and cables encircled the room, covering every square foot. Some sparked while others shook, and there was a clear humming that reverberated through the air.

Stepping carefully through, I followed what appeared to be the thickest cable expecting it to lead me somewhere. It corkscrewed throughout the room, an area that seemed completely unbroken. No cracks or breaches were in the walls. The windows still showed the dangerous decent through intact glass.

              The red glow lit my path so I kept eyes glued to the ground as I moved about. This way I could step between the open windows in the floor. I jolted my head against a metal container as I crashed headlong into the object that the main cable was attached to. I hung onto whatever it was, and tried not to fall over.

The object I clung to hummed with a high-pitched whine. It was about the size of a car, and had gadgets and dials blinking with tones of green and blue. I ran my hand along the metal. It was cool to the touch, which didn’t make any sense. There were many other smaller cables that expanded outwards from the mechanism. Several of those cables ran from the device, straight through the walls, and connected to the glass panels outside, the ones that displayed the ticking numbers. That was it. It was basically a giant black box with wires, yet it was still a complete mystery.

              I took a couple of steps deeper into the unexplored section of this tower, hoping I could find something else that might make a bit more sense.

A blistering pain erupted in my chest and forced me to one knee. It was like someone had reached through my rib cage and strangled the valves of my heart. I stumbled backwards, narrowly avoiding a plummet through one of the open windows, and gasped for breath. Incredibly the pain was suddenly gone as quick as it had come. I stood there horrified and confused, leaning back against the black box as a chill ran down my skin. The surface of the device felt unnaturally cold.

              Sparks of light exploded behind my eyes, but waned after a few deep, long breaths. Slowly sliding down the black boxes’ surface, I rested against it and tried to slow down my scattered vision. I put my hands on my knees and tucked my head in.

              Something triggered my attention from the corner on the other side of the room. It glowed with a soft, blue hue, but it didn’t exactly seem real enough at that moment. Squinting, I only managed to watch the blue color fade. Only when it shone again did I realize it was real.

              I kept the blue tint in my peripheral vision as I took a few, cautious steps forward, watching the ground. The exposed windows reminded me that one simple misstep and it was a fairly quick end to all of this. One more step and my right leg suddenly shook with mind numbing agony.

“Damn barrier,” I said.

I had apparently tried crossing over into the part of this forsaken city where I wasn’t meant to be. Even this far up the hurt still came. My leg continued to quiver, tightening and contorting, quickly followed by a thought-altering migraine. The pain immediately halted as I retreated backwards over the barrier.

              I stepped a few feet beyond the barrier again and an acute pain once more struck my legs before circling through my body. Taking another few steps was pure hell as the world spun with an unnerving, blood-boiling, muscle-contorting hate. The pain traveled further and laced into my arms, constricting and pulling them to my sides.

I stayed focused on the blinking blue light that was only a few strides away. Every step was more difficult than the last. The sparks began again and I had to backtrack, unable to see.

              “Damn, damn, damn.” I repeated. The sparks slowly faded from my vision. I slumped to the floor and found myself looking down through a window, watching the street below somewhat alive with activity. Tiny dots of light traveled along the street. I wondered if some people were still looking for the man they thought was long dead, or praying to find the man still alive so they could kill him. Of course from this far up it may just have been a trick on the eyes. This weird, red glare made everything look so different.

              I twisted around again and witnessed the blue light pulsate for the next few minutes, wondering what exactly it could be. I knew this must be what I came for; this was my prize. For whatever reason I knew in my bones that the timer was what led me here, but not what I was looking for. This tiny object, forty some stories up in the air, having to cross a broken bridge to reach, through derelict buildings after traveling through crowds filled with murderers to reach. But for of that, this was the end.

              Gathering my strength, I found a firm foothold on the black box. I exploded forward, rushing beyond the barrier. The pain was instant and intense. I squinted against the headache that arose. Tears streamed down and flew away from my cheeks. I couldn’t run anymore, but instead launched into the air with arms outstretched, keeping the piercing blue shade firmly in sight.

              Liquid dripped down my face. Blood was leaking not only from my nose but my eyes as well. A surreal pain radiated off my skin, heat so hot that waves of fire were burning off layers of flesh. The sparks propelled behind my eyes, and my vision was failing. I was almost there though, just a few feet away.

              I fell short by only a few inches, my fingertips so close but so far. A tremor pulsed in my hand, forcing it closer to my body. I pushed my left hand forward, blindly reaching for the object through haze-filled eyes. A shudder started in my legs, shutting down my ability to move, and filtered upwards. My abdomen pin-pricked before going completely numb. Death crept up my torso, but I remained resolute, reaching for that blinking blue. I didn’t feel my chest stop lifting, or my heart stop pumping. Just before darkness overcame me, I managed a weak grasp around the glowing blue light. Then I fell.