Book One: A Storm of Glass and Ashes

Chapter 18: Escape

"We need to get out of here. Fast," Hawk said.

"There's a back door somewhere. Restaurants always have a back door. There wouldn't be anywhere else for employees to smoke if there isn't a back door." Em's words came tumbling out, rapid fire and breathless.

"How do we know they want to hurt us?" Alex said.

"How do we know they don't?" Hawk said. "And how do we know we can't hurt them?"

"Hold on, hold on," Henry Dyson said. "Why are we running away from monkeys? They're just monkeys. Big ones, but they're used to people."

"You didn't look through the window." Hawk breathed. Oh, god, she was shaking so hard. "And we're not going to waste any more time. Back door. Now."

They went through the darkened rear corridors of the restaurant, lit only by emergency fixtures. Everything was bathed in a harsh, white glare. Cold tones only. Exit signs glowed before them, and side doors promised a walk-in cooler, dry storage, janitorial. They passed each without checking. Hawk kept thinking about the mother-creature, her eyes. Wide with fear, yes...but could she call them wild? Could she? Or was it a more sentient fear she had registered? She kept thinking about how it...how she cut her feet on glass. She hadn't run. That female creature had gone forward, despite the fragments of window before her. Wouldn't an animal have run away at the first taste of pain?

The quartet of humans reached the rear door, exit sign glowering to indicate escape in case of fire or other disaster. And now it was time to measure what their next move ought to be. In here, they were discovered, but being inside the kitchen was a known quantity. Out there was the infinite. Out there was the void. It was the last place they wanted to be, and it was the place they needed most to go.

Henry broke the silence. "We could always call Kaiser for an extraction?" His voice made it a question, albeit a hopeful one.

"No," Hawk said. Alex nodded with approval. Em looked scared.

"Why not?" Dyson said.

"Because assuming he even would extract us—which is a big assumption, Henry—I don't think that's a good idea." She said.

Bangs sounded from inside the restaurant. The creatures were trying to get through the kitchen door.

"You'd rather be on Planet of the Apes here?" Dyson said.

"Right now, yes. Because everything else aside, even if we think the energy made these monkeys survive, somehow—"

"Holy shit," Em said. "You think that?"

Hawk waved her off. "How did they get the clothes? If they survived the energy, where'd they find the clothes?"

Alex said, "Well, fuck. Why not go with 'they made them', since I'm pretty sure they did."

"Great. So how did they have time for that? It's been...what, twelve hours since this Event started? Maybe, maybe they made the loin cloths. It doesn't take much for those. But I saw those...those robes the one was wearing. You don't make that in twelve hours. Not with the kind of embroidery and beadwork I saw."

"So what are you saying?" Dyson said.

"I don't know. I don't have enough information to know anything at all yet. I can still argue maybe somebody brought those robes and they were just sitting somewhere for a monkey to pick up, but...did you see the caps they wore on their teeth? All of the ones I saw had them. It was made for those teeth. That's not something you can just...pick up off the ground. And I don't think they could make those in twelve hours. You'd need a crucible, molds, blacksmithing gear...So there's something else going on here that we don't understand." She paused. Swallowed. "And I don't think we should get Kaiser involved in this yet. He will be. I get that. But...I think about telling him, and I'm more frightened than when we first saw those things."