I went by the madman hill, which was now one of my landmarks. Meyers – 'crazy white' as I called him – was busy with his own 'trips'. “All the way up! Up, without detours!” he yelled while running up and down. “I wonder where he sleeps, if he does at all,” I thought to myself while passing by.
It was a hot and windy day again. Gusts of wind blew in my face repeatedly, not particularly strong, but highly unpleasant because of the dust. Distant ridges weren't seen due to the haze. I walked on for about an hour after the hill until I noticed the building that I had been looking for.
Heading there, I started to notice swirls of the dust of unusual forms flying across my way. Some of them looked like hand-drawn revolving vortexes, the kind you'd see in a cartoon; some of them didn't even swirl, but swarms of whitish strips flying through the air. Some of those swarms looked like schools of fish that you could see in the ocean. Sometimes they even acted like schools of fish – when I happened to pass through them, the stripes would fly around me and get back into the crowd.
As I was getting closer to my target, the swarms started gaining complex forms. I was now seeing weird ghostly creatures running around me. They did it softly, without any sound, only the rustle of moving sand could be heard. It looked amusingly weird, but I didn't feel threatened – until I saw a form or figure, or shape, or whatever the hell you'd call it, that was walking at me with good speed, kicking up puffs of white powder with every step.
I stopped in a stupor, not knowing what to do; the shape reached me and disappeared – another gust of wind hit me in the face. My heart kept beating on after a short halt, I caught my breath and saw a new swarm of stripes float past me. Despite the wind still blowing, it slowed down right beside me and soared up, forming a finely outlined figure of a cartoonish ghost in transparent loose overall. It spread its 'arms', and in place of its empty face a single stripe formed a pale whitish grin; it then dissipated in the air, and I once again was hit by a gust of wind.
The building itself was now standing some 1000 feet away from me, and, to my surprise, I recognized it very well. Back in the day, when I was still a teenager, I spent a lot of time playing Sim City 4 with lots and lots of downloaded content. One of the things I downloaded was a factory building that had been modeled after the assembly workshop of the Highland Park Ford Plant in Detroit. It had been one of my favorite buildings in the game, and I had used to place it in almost every city (often to the detriment of 'industrial demand'). It was now standing in front of me – here, in this desert – shabby, dirty, dilapidated, with lots of its huge emerald windows broken, surrounded by a hoard of pale shapes flying through the air.
I didn't know what to make of it. The building was familiar, the shapes above, though eerie, did not look threatening (yet). A nasty feeling of interest was pushing me from inside, urging me to go in and study, but sober logic conflicted with it. Surely, entering this wreck with who knows what kind of clutter inside, accompanied by these flying shapes that are who knows what, was anything but a good idea.
“Look who's talking,” I thought to myself though. “As if coming to this desert at all was a good idea in the first place.”
Besides, judging by what I had seen and had been told, the way to the mountain may take very different forms and go through very different circumstances. What if this strange place has something to do with my way? Then I'll have to come here anyway.
“Can't know without trying.” I mustered up my courage and went to the entrance.
----------------------------------------
The gates were half-buried under heaps of sand; I crawled through upper apertures into the dim and cool, almost cold, lobby. Pale ghosts with circles instead of heads descended from above where they had been flying, followed me through the apertures, silently spread around the lobby, hid behind piles of metal bars, carts, stacks of furniture, and behind pillars. Their circle-heads seemed to be always turned to me.
“Are you my friends?” I asked them out loud. “Or are you enemies?”
They kept on hustling around without a response. A swish of sand and rustle of some stuff pushed by wind came from behind and from the front, and from above; it seemed like those were sounds made by ghosts, but I was pretty sure they weren't. Somewhere on the other side of the building two metal things were clinging to each other, making ringing sounds: dong; dong, dong; dong-dong; dong.
I went out from the lobby into the central aisle, which ran through the whole length of the building, and through all floors up to the glass roof. There was a lot of light and a lot of trash. With every step making a crackle, I walked along the aisle to the northern end of the building and stopped near a square hole in the floor with metal stairs leading down to it. Ghosts crowded on railings surrounding the hole, their circles now turned into it.
I looked around and behind me, searching for other items to study, and the ghosts followed my gaze in swarms. They then got together and surrounded me with their whole crowd, only leaving open the way to the stairs.
“So what, you want me to go there?”
I hesitated.
“And what if I don't?” I asked them and made a step away from the stairs.
A jaw flew at me with a 'puff' sound (or maybe without sound, maybe I made the sound up myself); it was with triangular teeth, just like that shark's jaw from the poster of the known movie. It was now gone, and I was now standing on heels clenching into handrails, trying not to fall down the stairs.
“You... little fucks!” I shouted when I gained my balance. The ghosts stood on the floor silently, their circle heads now supplemented with another line depicting a smirk. They waited, and I waited for a little too.
I tried to pass them again, and this time I saw a full-on ghost shark with its thick body coming from the floor. It leaned onto me, and I could not help retreating. I went all the way down, followed by the wretched creature, into the dark corridor.
“So you are enemies after all?”
The shark fell apart into little ghosts again, and they now were hanging on railings, standing on steps, flying over and crawling under, the same whitish smirk swaying inside their flat circled heads.
I looked out into the corridor and noticed several bulbs of lights burning further down. Doubtful an abandoned building would still have electricity, and if it still does -- well, then it's not that abandoned at all. And, it is hardly a good sign to be forced into a dark corridor of a not-so-abandoned building.
In the faint light from the staircase, I saw a bunch of metal bars standing in the corner. I took one of them – it was hefty but carryable.
“Talk to you later, assholes.”
The ghosts did not react. Their crowd remained on the staircase as I was walking into the corridor.
The sounds of the outer world soon faded; a weak hum and my steps on the metal floor were the only noises I heard. I passed the first bulb and was reaching the second one, when I heard a kind of scrunch or crackle somewhere above as if a bunch of stones and sand were spilling down a pipeline. The crunch soon stopped – probably reached the end of a pipe, – I was standing still and listening to a slight uproar in the otherwise monotonous hum, that sounded like a trail of a very far voice. At the very least, it seemed to me like a trail of a voice – I certainly did not want it to be an actual voice at that moment.
All became quiet again eventually. I listened a little more, checked my backpack, adjusted the hoodie in the straps, held the metal bar tighter, and moved on through the dirty and littered with industrial trash corridor. Further down it made a turn and ended in a gate that lead to a huge black expanse – an underground workshop, probably? Thick heavy metal doors were open, and above it burned the third light bulb.
I heard another uproar, and this time it surely was a voice.
I very carefully went through the gates onto the metal bridge that ran along the whole perimeter of the workshop. Long and narrow gaps in its ceiling let in scarce light and trickles of sand, that were spilling down with quiet rustle.
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'Hey-ya-a!' reached me from the farthest end of the workshop, sonorous and very distinct, followed by a clang.
Maybe I should turn back?
I was scared, but I was curious too. Until you're hurt, your interest does not die. For some people, it doesn't die even after they get hurt. This place was eerie and dirty, and overall unpleasant, but it didn't hurt me yet, and I was dying to know just what the heck was going on here. So I moved forward – to the right of the gate, along the bridge. On the left of me was a black void of the workshop, on the right – a concrete wall with doors. Some of them had signs with unclear inscriptions: 'GC', 'Prompt', 'Short Walk', 'SotBG'.
I passed the corner and went by a staircase leading down. I decided to stay 'up' – a better choice in given circumstances, I figured.
Another 'Hey-ya-a!' reached me from the dark, followed by three clashes of metal. I didn't know if I had been spotted, or if somebody was just excited; I pressed into the wall and heard another shout from the different of the workshop. Then another shout from the opposite direction and three more clashes. Then more clashes, then four more, and yet another four. The whole void started rattling with metal.
I noticed, that one of the doors near me was open. I slipped there – it was once again a dimly lit room, with beams of light coming from somewhere above. Rattling kept going, becoming more rhythmical; I went further into the room, trying not to stumble upon jumbles of scrap. A stuffy stench hit my nose.
'Things' were hanging on the farthest wall. Human corpses, half decomposed, with clothes still dangled around their rotten flesh, and flocks of hair still hanging from their heads. They were hung by the hands, in Christ's pose. Some of them had masks on, some didn't. Some of them didn't look human. Some of them looked somehow familiar. Kind of familiar; too familiar.
I dropped the bar, that I was holding, walking back away from them. Rattling went on and on, shouting getting louder.
This was too much, way too much. This is not how it's supposed to be. What the fuck? I came here to be your ally, what are you doing? How is this even possible?! What are these bodies doing here?
Somebody was walking down the bridge. I jumped into a shadow, then slipped into a niche in the wall. They passed by the door, plums of yellow light from torches sliding across the floor. Then one of them popped into the room – a human creature with an iron mask. It swayed its torch around, looking.
“Come on now, eh!” somebody (something) shouted from behind the doorway.
It went off and the steps on the bridge continued, followed by another set of steps and voices.
Getting out by the bridge did not look like an option – it was getting crowded. I checked the niche and found another doorway to the neighboring room – with 'things' looming on the wall too. I ran across it as carefully as possible, and on the other side, there was a door again to the next one. I ran through another room – again with 'things', – and then another room, kicking one of the last doors and hearing it slam shut behind me. I found myself at an exit that led to the bridge again. This, however, seemed to be some other workshop, probably adjacent to the first one.
“...Forks and spoons, sticks and stones, whatever is material, is a weapon.” A male sonorous voice was coming from below. Here several significant gaps in the ceiling let in enough light to see. On the ground of the workshop, there was a massive congregation of human figures, sitting in a circle, surrounded by torches. They were all in masks, and in the center there stood a preacher – masked as well.
“No limits exist for us. You need a beating? You take the stone and make the beating! You need cutting? You take that metal bar and do the cutting.”
Rattling became scarce, other voices went down. On the other side of the workshop, there burned a bulb, and it seemed, another corridor began under it. There was no way back with that door behind me shut. I could reach the corridor if I walked the bridge very carefully.
“For the sake of business. Our business, our matters!”
Nobody looked up; I started moving.
“We have spent here for too long, brothers!” the preacher continued after a sigh. “In this silence that is engulfing us! In this shadow, ceaseless fucking void. Enough! There is a storm coming. The storm is coming, and we will be part of it; fuck them! They did not decide what we do or not, they've been telling us to stay down here for dozens of years. WHO ARE THEY?!”
I almost fell. I clenched into the railings, looking below – no, this had not been about me; I remained unnoticed.
“And who are we? They are nothing, pieces of scraps, scraps of existence, pathetic copycats of surrounding nature. We might look like them, but that is not to be confused with disguise. Look at our masks – they're like them, but they are not, for it is iron. Body of steel is our body; our souls are oil and benzine; dust is our blood, and blood is our food, and we will have our food!”
I passed the middle of the bridge.
“Fellow brothers, we will have the food, and we will have it all for ourselves! They do not tell us what to do, what to eat, what to execute. They do not judge us! She – does not judge us! She is away, off, out, not here! In the presence here, there's only us. You! You judge yourself, you, and nothing else, nobody out there, but you! US!”
70 feet until the corridor. Nobody seemed to be in it. I crawled on
“We judge, we decide, we make the offerings, the decisions. We watch it go and we make it good. Brothers, good! Make it good – your good! You hear me? Good the our way, not hers, not theirs, their ways go over the dust hills, they spit sand and breath powder and think this is the thing. Nonsense, hubris, fucking foolery, whether it is a word or not. Those are their demise! And this – is our way.”
40 feet left. Very carefully I crawled on.
“Our precious, darling, dearest, nicest, sweetest way. Do not falter, do not waver, don't let yourself fear. Look at our masks – they're cast of iron. Body of steel is our body; our souls are oil and benzine; dust is our blood, and...
…
…
“Just WHERE do you think you're GOIN'?”
My heart dropped. Shriek and rasp – all masks turned to me.
“Fuck!”
I sprint the remaining distance with loud clashing steps.
The congregation got up in a terrible noise and spread around.
“Get that sucker!” screamed the preacher.
The corridor turned out to be a short passage into a big storage room. Rumbling ad screeching had been coming from everywhere – from the workshop, from below, from above, from the doorway in the front. I turned left, through another doorway; then another one into a smaller room.
Suddenly I found myself in a confined room with one small light bulb in the ceiling, no windows, and only one entrance. A human body in the mask was sitting there leaning against the wall, its limbs lay numbly, knees tight together. It looked dead, but it might have been alive. Beside it stood a gurney, several long metal rods were lying around down on the floor.
The rattling crowd was coming up to the door. It was a dead end – I was cornered.
What do you do when you're cornered?
You fight.
I picked up two rods, moved the gurney closer to the doorway, and aligned its position. I waited, I waited; the mob of masks rushed into the light spot – I charged at it screaming, the gurney in front of me. The mob spread away, I ran behind it swaying the rods in all directions, hit one body, smacked another one, got punched myself, smashed someone's mask, and got caught. The gurney went on; I felt dozens of hands clutching on me with bawl, I strained all my forces and fetched away, losing a shoe, a trouser leg, and, apparently, some of my skin; jumped on the gurney and rode it all the way back to the big storage room.
More masks were waiting for me there. I pushed the gurney at them, pierced another masked one with my rod, charging through a new doorway. There was another dark premise, but this time a brightly lit staircase was looming at the far end of it. I ran there, I ran with all my speed, breaking through invisible jumbles, getting cut and slashed, losing another shoe on the way.
Little ghosts were waiting for me at the staircase.
“Fuck off! You fuck off!”
I scattered them with the rod and ran up. These goddamn stairs were much higher than before, but I didn't care – as long as they end on the surface.
“Alex!”
I pretended that I did not hear that and kept on climbing. I was panting, suffocating, falling down; I dropped the rod and it clanged down a step, another step, and flew down the well.
“You think you can get away from us, Alex?”
I stopped and hung on the handrail to catch my breath. The masked crowd was hustling below, they did not seem to be following me anymore.
“You are not getting away, Alex boy!” I figured it was the preacher, that was now standing in the middle of the lower landing. “Come on down, boy, we will have a talk!”
“Go fuck yourself.”
I couldn't shout, so I whispered. I couldn't run, so I crawled with every limb I could use for that. I couldn't stop, so I pressed on and on, until my hands touched the ever-pleasing, unexpectedly lovely, soothingly soft, and warm white sand, my nose smelled the breath of fresh air, and my eyes were blinded by the ferocious sun.
----------------------------------------
And there it was. There it stood in all its glory. Grand. Magnificent. Indescribably huge. Its apex is sharp and shiny, pointing up in the sky. Just like in the picture, only much more enormous.
I crawled on the ground spitting out blood, sweat, and sand. I looked at the mountain and could not turn away; the howling of the wind made me think that there was some kind of solemn music playing. I knew I should not have turned away, but I had been followed. I still felt danger, and so my head turned back on its own.