Frightened Boy

Chapter Ten - House of Stairs

10. House of Stairs

“Not if you get me that hard drive,” the Voice said.

“Alright, alright. Just keep me alive, and it’s all yours,” I lied. The city streets were crowding with workers on their way to the grind, and the nearly empty bus was crawling along slowly.

“I’ve had time to do a little prep,” the Voice said. “There’s a small store across the street from the bus stop. I need both of you to run there. I left a gift for you in the back. There will be Strangers all over the city, so move fast.”

I told Guts. He pointed out the window at the bus stop. Amongst the crowd of people waiting to get on the bus, was a man in a trench coat. It could have been anyone, really, but not someone you’d walk up and talk to unless you knew him first, so it was probably a Stranger.

“So what do we do?” I asked. “There’s one right at the bus stop.”

Tall towers raked the sky like clawed hands and rose above me, caging me in. Their tips stretched out of sight even if I craned my neck. Trapped again.

“I’ll handle it,” the Voice said. There was a long moment in which nothing happened, in which I waited for the Voice to follow through on his promise.

And then, the buildings lit up. Shrill sirens filled the air, and warning lights flashed blindingly. The bus was stalled maybe fifty feet from the stop where the Stranger waited.

“I called in a bomb threat,” the Voice said. “To them all.”

Workers just arriving to their jobs were rushed out to the streets, spilling off the sidewalks and into traffic. The traffic lights signaled a complete stop for all vehicles as emergency services swept the scene.

Fairly routine for a Monday morning. There was always a threat, rarely an attack.

“Make a break for it,” the Voice said. “Get out of the bus and cross two blocks over. You’ll see a little magazine shop. Go inside.”

The bus driver opened the doors for me well before our stop, and I could see that the cloaked figure trying to make his way through the crowd toward me. I ducked in front of the hot, roaring engine of the bus and squeezed my way through the peeved hordes trying to reach their destinations despite the threat of eminent death. Glad I was still wearing my work clothes; I blended in perfectly.

Guts barreled through the civilians. The people around us were soft and small like me, and he towered over them.

Before long, the threat of the bomb would be diffused. Firemen would return from the buildings and tell its denizens to head back inside; tell them that today would not be the next in a too-long list of days infamous enough to be referred to only by mm/dd.

I reached the shop door and ducked inside. I stepped to the back and stooped down below an aisle with Guts. Guts motioned at the phone, then covered his mouth; I put the phone on mute.

“You think it’s a good idea to go to that tower? You’re gonna be trapped. You really trust whoever’s on the other end of that phone?”

No. I shook my head, looking at the mammoth man helplessly.

“So you gotta take destiny in your own hands. You need to get out of the city. You got two people way bigger and way meaner than you, the Strangers and this Voice, and their only interest in you is something you don’t even have. When you get to the tower and they find out, you’re fucked either way.”

“So where do I go? What do I do with the police and the Strangers after me.”

Guts stood. “You bluff, and you pray. Come on, get a backpack.”