Chapter 60: Lost

I shouted Donica’s name.

My voice echoed up and down the hall for what felt like forever. I couldn’t count the heartbeats thudding in my chest.

Then, finally, as if from a great distance, I heard her call back.

“Wait up,” I yelled.

I jogged in the direction I’d heard her voice from, even though it seemed like it was the wrong way if we intended to leave through the warehouse. I turned the corner but didn’t see her. Just more lines of doors and fake doors.

I could still hear her, though. “What?” At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what she said. Both because it more or less fit what I heard, and because I figured she could hear me about as clearly.

I didn’t understand why she’d dashed off. She’d gotten embarrassed, fine, but enough to make her break into a run?

Lena, I would have suspected of pulling a prank, although she hadn’t done anything like that since I got upset about our first experiment with Air and Plastic.

But Donica? I couldn’t picture her wasting her own time with it.

I felt like an idiot, shouting back and forth. If I’d had her phone number I’d have called her; lacking it, I swapped my phone to Discord and tapped out a DM.

OldCampaigner: You lost me. y did u run off?

I winced at the mess I’d made, but I didn’t want to waste time cleaning it up. I sent it.

Hopefully, Donica had her Discord set to ping her.

She must have, because a moment later, I got her response.

DeepingShadows: Run? I walked. You must’ve taken a wrong turn.

I’d hardly taken a turn at all. But I didn’t see any point in arguing with her.

OldCampaigner: u want me to stay put, or should u? don’t want 2 get separated.

More than we already had.

DeepingShadows: I’ll come back. I can’t trust you not to get lost again.

I shook my head.

OldCampaigner: Im going back to that vets office or w/e it was.

She didn’t send an acknowledgement.

Up to now, I’d been willing to extend her the benefit of the doubt, but this exchange really grated. She can’t handle a compliment, runs off in the middle of a scouting expedition, and then gets pissed at me for not keeping up?

All of those were things I expected from Lena, and probably should’ve been annoyed with her about, too, but at least she would approach them with some humor. Maybe even some self-awareness.

I rolled my shoulders and stomped back down the hall. Donica should’ve appeared at the other end already, but I still didn’t see her. I started trying doors to find the one we’d come from.

How many had I passed when I jogged to the intersection? At least one, because the first I tried was a fake.

At least two. Three.

I frowned.

Even more than the lines of shelves in the warehouse, I found these hallways disorienting. Every door, real or fake, looked the same, whether I checked it in Third Eye or out. The walls had no decorations. I didn’t even see any imperfections in the pressed board, and damned if I was going to try to look for patterns in it.

I heard clacking behind me and turned around. So Donica really had gone that way? She must have burst into a sprint as soon as she left the room, and turned two corners in a hurry when we’d only rounded one on our way down here.

But when I looked back at the intersection, she still didn’t appear.

Another trick of the acoustics?

OldCampaigner: u really didn’t run?

DeepingShadows: Of course not. Why would I?

OldCampaigner: not back to vets office r you?

Had I gotten turned around somehow? I didn’t think I’d moved that far.

DeepingShadows: No.

DeepingShadows: We followed the left wall out of that warehouse, right?

OldCampaigner: y.

DeepingShadows: Did we cross over to the other side when we went to the place you’re calling the vet’s office?

I frowned at the phone. Had we? I realized I didn’t remember. Rather, I remembered not crossing, but that wouldn’t make any sense with the geography of the warehouse, would it? We must have. Right?

Although my hand was shaking, I took a moment to type properly. I didn’t want a chance of her misunderstanding.

OldCampaigner: Don’t use wall. Check your footprints. Hall is dusty enough.

I took my own advice and followed the disturbances in the dust past two more doors, which seemed like way too many. The footprints did lead to one, though, and when I pushed at it, it swung into the room where I’d collected the magazines. I left my phone’s light on, people seeing it be damned.

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I felt a sudden urge to charge the exterior glass and crash through it. It would be a quick way to earn myself a trip to the hospital, possibly followed by jail.

I left my foot in the doorway to prop it open and looked back up and down the hall.

OldCampaigner: back @ vets office.

DeepingShadows: I’m making my way there now. Good call about the footprints. I guess I got on the wrong wall somehow?

OldCampaigner: No worries. place is screwing with my head too.

Literally?

I turned the Third Eye app off. I didn’t know if it would help or not. Or if there was even anything to help.

But I couldn’t imagine it hurting.

The clack of Donica’s boots again. I swung my light around, hoping to signal to her. It passed over the intersection I’d initially jogged to when I went looking for her.

I snapped the light steady and squinted.

The sound continued, but I saw no Donica. Just swirling dust. I’d really kicked that much up behind me? It was a wonder I wasn’t sneezing worse.

I panned the light back across the four door frames I’d passed on my way back to the vet’s office.

That wasn’t right. Was it? I remembered counting three as I checked them, and then I started following my footprints. Hadn’t I passed two more? Of course, I’d had Third Eye turned on. Was it adding extra door frames for some reason?

My hand hovered over the three-eyed icon. All I had to do to check was tap it.

Most of the time I couldn’t wait to activate it, so how come my hand was shaking when it actually mattered?

Discord chimed.

DeepingShadows: Are you still wandering around?

OldCampaigner: No way. got back to vets office + camped out there.

DeepingShadows: Oh.

I forced myself to calm down and type.

OldCampaigner: Try closing Third Eye. Don’t want to get confused if it shows something that’s not there.

I didn’t want her wandering around with Third Eye open. Maybe it wouldn’t make any difference. The fewer variables we had, though, the better.

DeepingShadows: I hope this works better than your footprint suggestion.

DeepingShadows: It seems like somebody else did come in here since the fence fell. I started following my prints and wound up tracing a different set. That’s why I asked if you were moving around. These looked older, though, and I think I’m back to mine now.

I furrowed my brow. I looked up from the phone and swung my light back and forth, checking in both directions.

No Donica, which was becoming more and more concerning.

Nobody else. Which was a relief.

I jabbed the Third Eye icon and let it load. Back to my camera. I swept it down the hall.

Five doors. So it really had added one.

I swapped to Discord.

OldCampaigner: can confirm, 3rd eye adds extra doors to halls.

OldCampaigner: As if this place wasnt confusing enough.

No response.

I imagined Donica scowling at her phone, too annoyed to respond when I pestered her more.

I imagined her lying somewhere, bleeding out from a blow to the back of the head.

I felt soaked with sweat, like the hallway had turned into a sauna. I shook like the hallway was freezing.

Only the second one was true.

I could still hear Donica’s boots echoing, I reminded myself. That sound hadn’t stopped, just raised and lowered in volume as she stalked the halls. It meant that whatever else was happening, she was okay.

Unless those weren’t her boots I was hearing.

I hugged my arm and took a step back.

Something bumped into my back. I’m not saying I screamed. I’m not not saying that.

Then I remembered the swinging door to the vet’s office.

“Oh my fuck,” I muttered, and turned around to steady the damn thing.

“What the hell was that?” Donica shouted. Despite the echoes, she sounded closer than I’d heard her since I stepped into the hall. A moment later, I saw the light from her phone lance through an intersection. Not the one I’d tried to follow her down.

“It’s fine,” I said. “Just bumped into something.”

“Wonderful,” she said. It did not sound like she thought so.

Finally, blessedly, she rounded the corner.

Her eyes were narrowed, her smile was tight, and she walked with the same clacking steps I’d been hearing the whole time. She could pass for unconcerned, except that streaks of sweat ran from the brim of her hardhat and down her face.

When she reached me, she grabbed me by the arm and pulled herself halfway into a hug.

I didn’t think she’d appreciate me completing the gesture, so I settled for clapping her on the shoulder. “We’re good.”

“If we ever do this again,” she began. She drew in a breath. Gave a little shake of her head. “Just. Try to keep up.”

“I’m with that,” I said. “You ready to bag this expedition?”

“God yes.” She reached up and squeezed my hand on her shoulder. Her expression shifted, but it never quite made it to either a more authentic-looking smile or a frown.

She turned on her heel. “Follow the prints. Right?”

“Right.”

Judging from them, we had crossed over from when we were following the left wall. We swapped the hands holding our phones and trailed our right palms along the pressed board, retracing our steps.

The sound of those steps bounced back and forth as we walked, multiplying in the darkness beyond the light of our phones. Even though we’d managed to link back up, the acoustics here still freaked me out.

“Don’t tell Lena,” Donica whispered.

“What?”

She studied the floor. “Are you going to make me say it?”

“Yeah,” I said. “But afterwards, we’re even for when you kicked us. At least as far as I’m concerned.”

“Ha!” She sighed. “Don’t tell her I lost my cool here.”

I gasped. “You lost your cool?”

She glared back at me.

I spread my hands. “I won’t say a word. Feel free to tell her I bumped into a door and screamed my fool head off, though. She already thinks I’m a huge pussy.”

Donica laughed. There was the authentic smile she hadn’t quite lost control of before. She sagged against the pressed board wall. “Thanks. I needed that.”

“It was definitely a joke and not a statement of fact.”

She shook her head. Abruptly, she said, “Vince Carter.”

I blinked.

“When I was a kid, NBA announcers used to call him ‘half-man, half-amazing.’ That’s what I was trying to reference. When we first came back here?” She sighed. “I guess I’ve got to work on my reference game.”

“No, you’re doing great,” I said. “You’ve got to commit to the bit, though. If you managed to stump me with something, that’s a win.”

“I don’t think I’m ever going to understand what the two of you see in this.”

I smiled. “I’ll try to tone it down when you’re in the conversation. Thanks for giving it a shot.”

“Yeah. Well.” She picked herself up off the wall and rolled her shoulders. “We should be almost out.”

We passed four more door frames, at least by my count. I realized I’d left Third Eye open, so I could only really trust what I was looking at if I didn’t look through my phone. None of them opened when I pushed against them, whether they were physically present or not.

The fifth swung into the warehouse.