Awake Page 24

  He went through the door the waiter had indicated and down the hallway. He found the men’s bathroom at the end, on the right. The bathroom was completely empty. It looked like it hadn’t been used in weeks. Slightly confused, but the call of nature overwhelming, Lee walked to the urinals and did his business.

  As he washed his hands, vertigo suddenly crashed over him and he nearly fell over, a last-minute grab for the sink the only thing that saved him from a spill. He soaked one of his sleeves and managed to spray his shirt with the still-running faucet, but it was the least of his concern as the vertigo descended into nausea.

  The taste of bile rose in his mouth as it often did when he was going to throw up. Covering his mouth, he dashed back to the stalls and crashed into the closest one. He wasn’t quite quick enough, but he managed to get most of his vomit in the toilet, the rest spilling on the ground in front of it.

  The sensations of vertigo and nausea receded as he finished throwing up, though he still saw stars circling at the edge of his field of vision.

  He pulled some toilet paper off of the roll and wiped the vomit on the ground as best he could, not wanting the hard-worked staff to have to deal with it. When he finished he went back to the mirrors. He had vomit all over his face, and washed it off with wet paper towels. He tried to dry off his shirt, but even after he’d done the best he could, it was still obvious that he’d spilled water all over himself. That or he’d been jogging in semi-formal clothes in the middle of the evening.

  Resigned that he’d done as best he could, he walked out of the bathroom. As soon as he was out of the door he stopped, shocked.

  He had come out of the left side of the hallway. There were no doors on the right side.

  “Please god, not again,” Lee said.

  “There’s no god here,” a deep, raspy, inhuman voice said from behind him, causing him to jump two feet into the air. He spun around, but there was nothing there.

  He turned back around, pausing just long enough to see that the standard male and female icons on the bathroom doors had become unrecognizable silhouettes of inhuman creatures. Starting to run, he made his way to the end of the hallway, realizing as he ran that the color of the walls had turned at least seven shades darker.

  He reached the door that led back into the restaurant and burst through, no longer caring what anyone might think about his odd behavior.

  But the restaurant had disappeared. It had been replaced by a dark forest under a sickly pink, dusk-like sky. The trees were unlike anything he had ever seen before, with limbs shaped like human hands reaching for the ground. He backed up to go back into the hallway, but only tripped on a rock and fell on his ass. The door wasn’t there anymore.

  He heard rustling in some nearby black-leaved bushes, and he hopped to his feet just in time to see something the size of a cat run from one bush to another, running on two feet like a human. He jumped back and nearly fell down again, then turned away from the bushes and started blindly running into the forest.

  As he made his way through the trees he saw other things that weren’t of his world. A flock of things flew over his head that were the size of birds, but looked and sounded more akin to insects, although that wasn’t quite right either. Something to his right, something huge, was crouched over something on the ground and chewing away at it. He veered away from the thing, no longer able to think about anything besides running for his life.

  The woods thickened as he ran, and he had to slow down his pace to avoid running into the mutant trees and bushes. Dodging a purple bush, his foot fell into something and he tumbled.

  He looked back at what tripped him and saw a hole about a foot across. There was something at the bottom of it making a screeching sound that reminded Lee of a screw being dragged across a chalkboard. Jumping back up, he thanked whatever was good in the universe that his leg hadn’t fallen far enough down for whatever was in the hole to grab him.

  As he moved on the forest got thicker, to the point where was barely able to move at a walking pace. He could hardly see between the dim light and the thick canopy of nightmarish leaves overhead. He watched his steps closely so that he didn’t stumble into another burrow.

  What is this place? Am I really here or am I on the floor of the bathroom hallucinating, he wondered as he moved on through the forest.

  He climbed up a huge downed tree blocking his path. It had slick, greasy, skin-like bark. Reaching the other side of the log, he tried to put one foot down, but couldn’t find the ground.

  His eyes suddenly adjusted, and he realized that he and the tree were on the very edge of a massive cliff. In the dim light he could just make out a black ocean at the bottom.

  He gave a startled cry and heaved himself away from the edge, pushing himself away from the tree with his legs and grabbing for whatever he could reach. His hands found a bush, and he grabbed on to it, ignoring the strange, squirming feeling of the bush’s stalks. He gave the tree one last push with his legs, and threw himself backwards into the woods.

  To his surprise, his last push set the tree wobbling. It teetered for a moment, then fell over the edge of the cliff. After what seemed like an eternity there was an enormous crash and a massive roar from some kind of creature, resonating at an impossibly loud volume. Whatever it was must have been larger than any animal on earth, to make such a noise.

  Blind, unthinking terror crept back through him as he started moving in the opposite direction that he’d come from. He wasn’t really that sure about anything anymore, for all he knew he was having a seizure while his food sat waiting for him on the table, the others wondering when he’d be back. Ben would be thinking about checking on him, but telling himself that he’d give Lee two more minutes.

  A huge, mosquito-like creature the size of a car flew over his head, so close that the downdraft from its wings nearly knocked Lee flat. He got a good view the thing’s twisted body as it flew off into the darkness. Its mouth was a long, jagged spear that looked like it could suck him dry with one gulp. There were things moving across the creature’s skin, but he could just barely see them.

  When the creature was out of sight he began moving at a jog again, veering his course away from the direction the thing had flown in.

  Gradually the forest began to thin out. In the distance, he spotted what looked like a light tower and started towards it, not knowing what else to do.

  He started to lose track of time as he moved towards the light. The terrain flattened out and the trees disappeared behind him. After a while, he realized that the lighthouse was much further away than it had at first appeared. It was tens of miles away at least, maybe hundreds. Undaunted, he continued on. The only other option was to sit and wait for one of the monsters roaming around to notice him.

  The ground started to get hilly again, but he could still see the light, so he made his way over hill after hill, following the glow in the distance like a moth. After what felt like an eternity the ground leveled out again, only to become hilly another eternity later.

  He trudged on towards the light tower, but his sense of time had completely disappeared. He had no idea how long he’d been trapped in the strange, dark world. It felt like both minutes and centuries at the same time.

  A shriek brought him out of his daze, and he turned towards it so fast that he felt a muscle in his back pop.

  It was another monster, perhaps the worst of all.

  It looked a bit like a human with pallid, nearly translucent skin, though it walked on all fours with its knees inverted forward, like a dog’s. Its legs were shrunken and its arms were huge. It was hideous. It screeched again, this time looking directly at him. In the dim light he could just make out that it had two eyes, but they were arranged vertically on its face instead of horizontally. Its mouth wrapped halfway around its head, and the creature opened it to reveal four long, sharp, rodent-like teeth, two on top and two on the bottom.

  It started running at him with uncanny speed, and Lee ran too, moving towards the light
house with the kind of speed commanded only by moments of sheer terror. He could hear the thing behind him for a while, but the sound of its footfalls stopped after a few minutes. Not daring to look back, he continued on at a jog for what felt like an hour, before finally stopping to take a short break, watching vigilantly for the monster the entire time.

  He estimated he was perhaps two miles away from the lighthouse, which felt like nothing at all, after the distance he’d already covered. He ran the rest of the way, feeling so elated that he giggled through his labored breath.

  The lighthouse was massive, stretching up further than any of the buildings in New York. It looked like it reached into space. It was made entirely out of a cloudy, glass-like substance that swirled with colors and glowed from inside. It filled him with a sense of awe that made him forget about his terror and where he was.

  He snapped out of his reverie after what could only have been a few minutes but felt like years, and he looked down to the base of the tower in front of him. There was a door. He walked up to it, relieved to finally see something that was familiar, and opened it.

  There was nothing but a wall that looked like asphalt three feet into the door and lit by some invisible source of light, cast from behind him. He could see what looked like garbage stuck to the asphalt wall in front of him, and took a step inside the room to get a better look.

  To his surprise, gravity suddenly changed direction and sucked him towards the wall, slamming him into it.

  24

  “Fucking bums, why don’t you all jump off a bridge!” a voice said out of nowhere.

  Confused, Lee sat up and looked around. He was in the mouth of an alley, mere feet from a sidewalk filled with heavy foot traffic. It was daytime.

  He felt both relieved to have escaped the nightmare and disconcerted that he didn’t know where he was. He supposed that he was still in New York, but there was no way to say for sure. If he was still in New York, it was an area he hadn’t seen yet. And the last thing he had known, it had been evening.

  “Excuse me sir, could you tell me where I am?” he asked a passing businessman. The man ignored him, save for quickening his pace. The other passersby on the sidewalk acted like he wasn’t there as well.

  He looked down at himself. He was still wearing the clothes he had been wearing the night before. Well, he thought it was the night before, but he didn’t know for sure. The suit he was wearing was absolutely filthy and torn in a few places. Almost as if you’d been running through a forest in it, he thought, sending chills down his spine. His back was sore too, he’d pulled a muscle in it for sure.

  He checked his pockets and was relieved to find that his wallet was still there. He pulled it out and flipped through it to make sure that everything was there. It was.

  Knowing that with his debit and credit cards he could get a taxi, he moved towards the street. He might not know where he was, but a taxi driver would, and know where the hotel was to boot.

  The first five cabs he tried to flag down moved on without slowing or stopping. “Fuck!” he shouted, to the surrounding pedestrians’ continued feigned ignorance. He knew that the cabs weren’t stopping because he looked homeless.

  Just as he was about to give up and start walking, the sixth cab he tried slowed down and pulled up next to him. The driver rolled down the passenger window and leaned towards it. “Yeah, what do you need?” he asked in a none-too-polite tone.

  “I need a ride, I’ve got money,” Lee said, pulling out his wallet and flashing his cards. “I uh, got mugged.”

  “Well that was nice of them to leave you your wallet and debit cards,” the driver said, still sounding suspicious.

  “Yep, I got lucky I guess,” Lee said awkwardly.

  The driver sighed loudly. “Get in, I guess. Don’t try anything funny or you’ll regret it,” patting his coat pocket as though he had a weapon. Lee thought it was a bluff, but as he wasn’t planning on robbing the man he didn’t care one way or another.

  Lee smiled and got into the passenger’s seat, wincing from his pulled back when he closed the door. “Thank you so much man, I know how it looks.”

  “Nothing worse than I’ve seen before. But, uh, could you go ahead and leave the card on the dash just to be safe? I’ve had guys skip out on fares before.”

  “Sure,” Lee said. He pulled out his debit card and put it on the dashboard.

  “Where to?” the man asked, satisfied.

  “The New Yorker Hotel.”

  The driver laughed. “Man, you’re a long way away from there, how’d you end up so far away from your hotel?”

  “I got lost, I guess. What part of town are we in?”

  “Staten Island, hope you got the money for the fare.”

  Lee had no idea where Staten Island was relative to Manhattan, but decided not to ask. “I’ve got the money.”

  The drive back was long, though Lee wasn’t sure exactly how much time it took because he fell asleep early on and slept soundly for the rest of the drive. He had exhausted himself so completely that even his condition couldn’t fight the need to sleep anymore. He was surprised the driver didn’t pull over and kick him out for a sure bum right then and there. The card on the dash was probably the only thing that stopped him.

  “Rise and shine, we’re here,” the driver said as he pulled the car to a stop in front of the hotel, pulling Lee out of his slumber.

  “Thanks man, just go ahead and run my card,” Lee said, wiping drool from his mouth.

  “I’m already on it,” the driver said.

  Lee tipped the driver 40% and thanked him again as he got out of the cab, apologizing another time for his sloppy dress. “No, thank you for the tip. Don’t worry about it, everyone has bad days,” the man said, gave a smile, and then pulled back into the heavy traffic when Lee closed the door.

  He entered the hotel and made a beeline for the elevators. A few of the patrons and convention goers raised their eyebrows at his clothes, but no one said anything. There were others waiting for the elevators, but when one opened its doors and Lee got in, no one else followed. That was fine; he didn’t want to deal with anyone but his friends right now.

  On the long ride up he realized that the numbness he’d felt from his lack of sleep had disappeared. He felt like he’d had a full night’s rest, the first he’d had in months. At least there’s a bright side to whatever the hell happened last night.

  When he got to his floor he walked slowly towards the room that he and Ivy shared, trying to figure out what the hell he was going to say to her and the others. At the least she’s going to think you were kidnapped, at the worst that you left with some other woman or something like that, he thought as he unlocked the door to his room, giving a light knock as he slowly opened the door.

  Ivy was sitting on the bed with Stella, with Ben sitting at the table. Ivy had clearly been crying, and none of them looked like they’d slept. They gave a startled gasp when they saw him, and they all stood up at once.

  “Where the hell were you?” Ivy asked, but she ran over and embraced him so tightly that it hurt.

  “Yeah man, we tried to file a missing person’s report, but the cops said you hadn’t been gone for long enough,” Ben said.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened. One minute I was in the bathroom washing my hands and… the next thing I knew I woke up in an alley in Staten Island.”

  “It sure looks like you slept in an alley,” Stella said, giving his clothes a once over.

  “Staten Island? Where is that?” Ben asked as Lee continued to hold Ivy, who had begun to weep.

  “I’m not sure, but the cab ride to here seemed like an hour,” Lee answered.

  “Well it was really damned inconsiderate. We’ve been up all night with Ivy worrying about you,” Stella said.

  “I’m sorry. Like I said, I don’t know what happened. I think I was sleepwalking or something.”

  “How’d you get past us and out of the restaurant? We should have seen you go by us
,” Ben said. “When we realized you were gone we asked a waiter if there was a back door you could have used, but he said the only one was in the kitchen and that they would have noticed you,” Ben said.

  “I really don’t know. I don’t remember anything from the bathroom until waking up in the alley,” Lee said. That wasn’t entirely true, of course, but there was no way he could describe what he did remember between the bathroom and the alley. He’d try to tell Ivy later, but not in front of Stella. He could see that Stella was starting to wonder about him already.

  “I thought it was something like that. I told the others what’s been going on with you. You know, with the visions. I’m sorry, we were just so worried,” Ivy said, her head still buried in his chest.

  “It’s okay, I should have told them a long time ago,” Lee said, glancing over to Ben and Stella. “Or Ben at least.”

  “Screw you, I waited here for you too. For Ivy,” Stella said.

  “Sorry, bad joke,” Lee said.

  “Can you guys give us some time alone?” Ivy asked, turning to them. “We can go get some lunch or something later, after Lee cleans up and stuff.”

  “That’s fine, let’s go Stella,” Ben said, heading to the door. Stella hesitated for a moment, looking like she wanted to say something else, but she followed Ben through the door that connected the two rooms.

  As soon as the door banged shut, Ivy turned back to Lee and gave him a long, heavy kiss that made him completely forget about what he’d gone through the night before for a moment.

  “I’m so glad you made it back, I was freaking out and bawling all night,” she said, breaking off the kiss.

  “I’m glad too. I didn’t tell them all of it. I didn’t just black out. I ended up in that strange world again, it was awful. I think I might be losing my mind.”

  “No you’re not,” Ivy said, giving him another peck. “Let’s get you showered and into some clean clothes and I bet you’ll feel better.”