So Close to You (So Close to You - Trilogy) (6 page)

I take another step down and put my hand on the wall, feeling something sticky and wet. I step down again, then push my foot forward as I search for the next step. Over and over I do this, descending into the black. The rhythm of my steps is broken only by the unevenness of my own breathing. I try to stay calm, but the farther I get from the light at the top of the stairs the more my heart races, the tighter my lungs feel.

The low, beeping becomes a wail, a steady stream of noise, louder and louder the deeper I go. When I’m halfway down, I start to see a blinking light. I move toward it, down and down and down. The air is getting colder, and the flashing light is red, perfectly timed with the relentless, piercing noise.

I stumble slightly at the bottom of the stairs. The red pulse is the only source of light. Through the hazy flashes I see that I’m in a wide, dingy hallway that leads to several scarred, metal doors. Most of them look sealed shut and have keypads next to the handles. I pause as I realize that the doors are new, not some relic from the past. People must have been here recently. Fear chokes at my throat, and I have to force myself to keep moving forward. With my hands stretched out in front of me I pull on each door as I pass. Nothing opens. Finally, at the very end of the short hallway, there’s a door ajar.

I peer around the doorway, then step through into a long, wide hallway. Even through the red flashing light, I can see that the corridor is white—white walls, ceiling, floors. The alarm is louder now, and the acidic smell is even stronger here. It burns my nose and makes my chest hurt.

I press back into the wall. Camp Hero is not just a state park. I turn my head to look at the door behind me. It’s still partially open, and this time the darkness beyond it looks more inviting than scary. It would be so easy to walk back up those stairs, to show my grandfather what I’ve found.

But when will I have this opportunity again? By the time I find my grandfather and hike back through the woods, the concrete bunker will probably be sealed shut. Then I’d never find out the truth of what’s happening down here. I’d be just another conspiracy theorist who saw an unbelievable “clue.” What if my grandfather is right? What if Grant is right? What if the Montauk Project has always been real?

I take a deep breath. I’m a journalist. My job is to find and report the truth. And I can’t let my grandfather down. He’s spent his whole life trying to answer this question, and I may have stumbled upon the answer by accident.

I inch along the hallway. It bisects in a T shape with another long corridor. When I reach it, I peer around one side. I’m about to choose which way I go next when I hear new noises mixed in with the piercing siren: shouting. Footsteps. I stagger back, pressing myself tightly against the wall behind me. Men run along the opposite hallway, their boots heavy on the tiled floor. Through the throbbing red light, I catch a flash of black clothing, metal gleaming at the men’s shoulders. And then they’re gone.

I rest my head against the wall, breathing hard.
What was that?
What were they doing down here? And what will happen if they find me?

The reality of what I’m doing slams into me. This isn’t an article for the high school newspaper—this is something huge and possibly deadly. I don’t know if those men are a part of the Montauk Project, but I’m not willing to die to find out.

I turn to make my way back to the staircase when I hear a thud from the half-open door. The door that leads to the bunker. The door that leads to safety. I watch in horror as it starts to slide farther open with a long creak.

Before someone—or some
thing
—can emerge from behind it, I dash forward and sprint as fast as I can down the opposite hallway. It dead-ends at a trio of doors. I randomly pick the one on the right and shove it open. It leads to a new hallway. I run down it, then turn another corner.

Where am I?
I lean against another white wall, trying to think over the constant shriek of the alarm. My palms are slick, and I quickly wipe them on my jeans. I need to keep moving, though I have no idea where I am and no idea how to get out of here. Fighting the panic that’s rising in my chest, I try to focus: I need an exit, which means retracing my steps or trying to find a different way out. Either way is dangerous, but it makes the most sense to go back to the hallway I know leads out of here. Praying that whatever was coming through that door is long gone, I turn back the way I came.

I move slowly down the hallway and round a corner. Then I jerk to a stop, swallowing a gasp. A soldier is standing there with his back to me. He’s wearing a black uniform and carrying a gun, and he’s starting to turn—

Barely conscious of what I’m doing, I grab hold of the nearest door handle and shove.

I fall forward into a large room. The pulsing light is even brighter here. I regain my balance and stand up, then freeze. There’s a dark figure in the room and he’s coming right for me.

I jerk back, searching for the door handle. My fingers brush it, but the figure is suddenly upon me, pushing me against the door. He turns my body around and cold metal slams into my back. I see a flash of light as I struggle against the hands that settle on my shoulders. The grip is painfully tight, clamping me in place. Stunned, I look up into the face of my attacker.

The first thing I notice is that he’s a boy, not much older than I am. He’s tall and lean, with dark, dark hair. His face is shadowed, distorted by the red light, but I can see the sharp lines of his jaw and nose. The curve of his mouth. He’s frowning at me.

“Let me go.” My whisper is hardly loud enough to hear over the noise of the alarm.

He’s silent, his gaze intent on mine. His eyes are black in the dim light. Fear catches up with me, and I gulp air quickly. The action pushes my chest against his. He jerks back, giving me a strange, puzzled look. I twist under his hands. His grasp tightens and then relaxes. Slowly, he peels his fingers from my shoulders. There’s something deliberate about the way he does it, as though he has to force himself to let go of me. His dark eyes never move from my face.

As soon as his hands fall, I lunge to the side to put distance between us. He stands so still that I wonder if he’s breathing. He’s dressed in all black: a long-sleeved shirt tucked into slim black pants, and no embellishment unless you count the gun tucked casually into his waistband.

I keep one eye on him as I frantically scan the room, looking for an escape. The wall next to us is packed with computers mounted onto metal tables. The back wall is covered with what look like built-in flat screens and charts and graphs. All of the screens, all of the monitors are blank.

My gaze is drawn to the middle of the room, where a gleaming chamber stretches twenty feet up to the ceiling. It’s shaped like a wide tube, with smooth, round sides. The bottom half of the tube is metal, although halfway up it changes to clear glass. The door is open, and the inside is a darker metal, all in shadow. I have no idea what this strange contraption could be used for, but I don’t have time to dwell on it. I need to get out of here.

There are no other doors in the room; the final wall is one long, two-way mirror. Maybe someone is in there, and that’s why the boy let me go. He’s probably waiting for the guards to show up and torture me for knowing too much. The puzzled expression never leaves his face, but I’m not fooled. He could attack at any moment.

Quickly I break his gaze and whip around. The only way out is past the boy, but the room is large. I just need to get him away from the door so I can make a run for it. I sprint forward, aiming for the back of the machine. I hear the boy move behind me, his heavy footsteps approaching. I abruptly shift directions, but the rubber soles of my sandals skid across the slick white tile. Reaching out, my hand slides across cold metal. With no way to stop myself, I fall forward and land on my hands and knees inside the tube.

I scramble to my feet. The boy has almost reached me. I frantically run my hands over the metal walls, looking for some kind of escape. A panel next to the door lights up. It’s some kind of touch screen, with buttons and numbers. I glance at the approaching boy, then back at the screen. There’s no other way out of this strange hollow space, but I need to do something before he catches me. With my heart in my throat, I push my fist into a random button.

A metal door shoots out of the tube’s entrance. It slams shut. The last thing I see is the boy’s shocked face.

T
he
blackness around me is so thick it feels alive, crawling over my skin. I press my hands out to the sides, but all I feel is smooth metal. The silence in this hollow place is somehow more frightening than the sirens and the pulsing light.

Inside is a tomb, outside is a secret military operation waiting to kill me. I’m trapped.

I fight back the tears that threaten to fall and wonder which option is the lesser of two evils. Stay in here waiting to die, or go outside to face whatever’s out there?

Something flickers underneath me. The round floor starts to light up—a harsh white. In another flicker, the fluorescent light spreads up the sides of the metal walls in long, narrow strips. I spin around. I’m still trapped, but at least I’m no longer in the dark.

The touch screen panel near the door starts to glow. There’s a flashing series of numbers that look almost like coordinates on a map, then a series of unmarked buttons running along the bottom screen. I can’t make sense of what it means. As I’m trying to decipher the code, the light around me begins to fade. Then everything goes black again. I punch at the darkened panel, but nothing happens.

I wrap my arms around myself. It’s cold in here and getting colder. I’m only wearing my button-down shirt; my sweater is still on the ground outside the bunker. I rub my arms, trying to stop the shaking that seems to be spreading through my body.

There’s a flash of light so bright that spots dance in front of my eyes after it disappears. I hear a humming noise. It starts out soft but slowly grows louder and louder. Soon it’s a roar, like the sound of the ocean during a storm. The light flashes again, even brighter. I squeeze my eyes shut, but I still feel it sear across my skin.

Another flash and the noise screams and it shakes all through my body. Then I realize that it’s the machine that’s shaking: the walls, the floor, everything around me. My eyes snap open. The light steadily grows brighter and brighter. I put my hands out as I try to catch my balance but then snatch them back—the metal walls are burning.

What’s happening?
I tilt my head back and look at the ceiling—except it isn’t a ceiling but a swirling mass of color. The center opens to a hole that gets larger and larger, and the noise is growing louder, the light brighter, and the whirlpool closer—until suddenly my body breaks apart and I float out into something I cannot see or feel or hear. For one moment I feel solid but not whole, awake but not conscious, and then everything dips, dims, and is gone.

I come back into my body with a rush of vertigo so strong my stomach feels like it flips over, and I fall to my knees gagging. When I think I can move without being sick, I sit up in the quiet darkness.

I pull myself to my feet and grasp at the smooth metal of the walls. My head spins so much that I can barely tell which way is up, or where my body stops and the walls begin.

There’s a grinding noise when the door slides open. Light pours into the dark tube. I launch myself out of the machine and fall into a large room. The lights overhead are stark fluorescent white and the sirens have stopped. I scan the room, searching for the boy who was just here. Everything looks the same as it did before: white walls, tiled floors, large two-way mirror, and computer consoles pressed into metal desks—but no boy in black. I’m alone.

The door slides shut behind me. I turn to stare at it closing. I feel nauseous. I don’t know what just happened in that tube, but right now I need to get out of here. I run to the only door in the room and twist the handle hard. It opens easily and I glance into the empty hallway.

I hear footsteps approaching, then the sound of men speaking. I jump back into the room, frantically searching for a place to hide. I duck under one of the desks and notice a small crawl space behind a set of cabinets. I work my way into it, curling myself around the wires and dust that twist together on the floor.

The door opens. “There’s no one here,” a man with a deep voice says.

“Doctor Faust said there was activity. We have to check,” a second voice says.

“Maybe it was a glitch. This thing never seems to work right.” I hear the sound of a hand slapping against metal.

I hear footsteps coming closer, closer, and try to make myself as small as possible. The tip of a brown boot slides into my field of vision as one of the men approaches the desk. There’s the sound of fingers tapping a keyboard, and I struggle to keep my breathing quiet.