The Two Tulsas

Pest Control, pt 4

Six people step into view: two men, four women. All dressed in similar clothes. All of them armed with something. A couple of long knives, a couple of guns, a couple of something in their hands I can’t identify. They’re carrying electric lanterns set pretty dim. When they get to the stair, one of them glances into the stairwell, sees us, and suddenly all kinds of unfriendly is pointing our way.

“Who are you? Who are you with? Why are you here?” asks the tallest woman.

We all look at each other. Lauren stands up.

“We’re from beyond that door,” she says, pointing up the stair. “We can’t get through it now because there are about a dozen shadows and what looked like a giant slug on the other side.”

One of the men begins to climb the stairs. We stand to get out of his way. He seems to lean against the door for a moment, then mutters under his breath before walking to the step just beyond us toward the door.

“It’s a gate,” he says. “It’s open.”

“What?” the tall woman says, sharply. She looks accusingly at us. “Whoever you are, you’re in a lot of trouble. Get off the stairs.”

“Whoa,” I say. “We’re just trying to figure out how to get back through that door and go home. We didn't do anything.”

Lauren steps up. “The gate was already open. We were trying to find it and close it from the other side.”

“You were messing with things you don’t know how to handle, is what you were doing,” says one of the other women. She’s carrying one of the weapons I couldn't identify.

“I was given a job and am going to do that job,” Lauren says.

Jimmy asks, “Lauren, do you know these people?”

“No. I don’t. But I see that they do what I do.”

The tallest woman looks at us, says, “Right now you’re coming with us. McAffee, Kimm, stay here to watch the door.”

“We’re not going…” I start to say. Two guns and a knife turn my way and kill the sentence. I look at the others.

“I guess we’re going for a walk,” Jimmy says.

Our escorts take us up and out of the building onto what looks a lot like Boston Avenue in Tulsa, but at the same time doesn't quite seem right. It’s off-color. The textures aren't what they should be. The sky is gray, like it’s about to snow despite the June heat. We’re put in a van and driven a couple of blocks, then all of us pile into the lobby of a building our Tulsa doesn't have. They sit us in a conference room. Waters on the rocks all around.

The tall woman asks our names. Says hers is Detective Barrow. Offers coffee, which we take. I’m starting to get tired, actually. Expected some fun exploring the underside of Tulsa. Didn’t expect all this.

We tell the Detective everything. She seems to be aware of the X-Files nature of the story so we don’t leave anything out.

“That’s how it starts,” she says. “They find a crack. Some door that’s been left open or wasn’t shut well. Then they come through.”

“They who?” I ask.

“Shadows. And their pets,” she says.

“Their pets?” Lauren asks. We didn’t think they were connected like that.”

“Sometimes they’re not. The dark places have wild things as well as… more sophisticated.” The Detective grimaces a bit at that word.

“Ok. So we go home and close that door, they don’t get into our Tulsa,” Megan says.

Barrow ignores Megan, looks at Lauren. “What was your plan?”

“Find the door. Megan would close it…”

“What?” Megan says.

“And then hunt down the pests,” Lauren finishes.

“I’d close it? How?” Megan asks.

“You’re a gatekeeper.” Barrow looks at Megan. “Does she not… How would she not know?” This last was directed at Lauren.

“We only just heard about this stuff tonight,” I say.

“Why weren’t you identified as a child?” Barrow asks. “Your incursion must be pretty new.”

Lauren stands up and begins shifting her weight from foot to foot. “This is my fault. When I found you I should have told my boss.”

“Incursion?” Jimmy asks. “What the hell have we stepped into here?”

A loud bang from outside the room draws all of our attention to the window. There’s a shadow, there, somehow being restrained by two… police officers? I guess? The shadow fights against the restraints and seems to break away towards the outside door. Another couple of cops block it there, so it makes it’s way back, diving through a window in a door without breaking it. Looks like it wound up heading deeper into the building.

“I’m not a big fan of this,” I say. Jimmy looks at me, agreement in his eyes.

Megan stands up. “We’re going to head home now. Whatever was beside the door is probably gone by this time, right?”

“Right,” Lauren says.

We all stand and Barrow speaks up. “I haven’t said you can go yet.”

“Are we under arrest? If so, on what charges?” Megan asks. She’s a big flex your rights kind of person.

“You could be. Trespassing, for one. Opening a gate without authorization…”

“Wait, no,” Lauren says. “That gate was open already. We were trying to close it.”

“And close it we will. But you’re being a bit abrupt. I don’t like that.” Barrow meets Lauren’s gaze. I look to her as well. Not sure when Lauren wound up in charge, but she knows more about what we’re dealing with than I do, so I figure I’ll follow her lead.

“What do you want us to do?” She asks, not sitting.

“Have a seat…” the detective begins.

“Nah. We’re good,” Jimmy says.

“…and we can talk about that. I want to know more about how you were planning to hunt down the pests. Is that what you’re calling them? Pests?”

“That’s… yes,” Lauren says.

“Not a bad word for it, if understated. These things have been in our world for sixty years. We’ve been fighting to get rid of them…”

The detective is interrupted by a muted shout outside the room. We glance toward the lobby and a cop, bleeding, is pointing at us. Or past us. We turn the other way just in time to see the shadow from earlier pass through the window in the door. It hits the ground in a roll and comes up standing right in front of Jimmy.

“No!” Megan yells.

The shadow reaches for Jimmy when a loud whine and a pop come from the detective’s side of the table. She’s standing, gun out, and shooting at the shadow. It stumbles back against the wall and turns toward us again. I pick up a chair to swing and the detective fires again. The shadow recoils, then steps toward her.

Then it starts to glow and stops in its tracks. It turns toward Lauren, who is doing that glowing-eating thing again. Her mouth is open and there is a glow around her and the shadow. It pulls away, but tendrils of fog drift from it towards Lauren. It pulls harder and screams.

Jimmy, Megan and I all get behind Lauren. She seems to be straining. This isn’t like the pile of fog in the tunnel. That went easily. This is a real fight.

I glance at Barrow. She’s got her gun up and pointed at the shadow, but she’s watching it and Lauren with wide eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me she can do this?” She says to me.

“I have no idea what she’s doing!” I say.

Jimmy grabs another chair and moves as if he’s going to take a swing at the shadow.

“Don’t!” The detective yells. “You’ll break it!”

“I think I want to break it,” Jimmy says.

“I mean you’ll break the absorption… you really don’t have any idea what… stand back. Over there.” Detective Barrow seems disturbed, but again, she seems to know more about this than we do so we stop moving. All except Megan. She walks to stand right behind Lauren.

Lauren is sweating, now. The shadow is losing its human-looking shape, and a lot more fog is drifting towards Lauren, but it’s still pulling its own in this weird tug of war. Megan reaches out and touches Lauren on the shoulder. Lauren stands up straighter. Her eyes get wide and bright. She exhales a bit, pushing the fog away, then inhales like she’s never breathed air before.

The shadow suddenly breaks apart and rushes into Lauren’s mouth. The glow lasts for a moment. Lauren just stands there. Shaking, then she sits hard on the floor and shudders violently. Megan and Jimmy kneel beside her. I walk toward them, but stop as I notice the scene outside the window.

The lobby of the station is full of cops. All of them seem stunned. For a moment. Then they start clapping. There are two more standing at the door to the conference room. They’d opened the door while Lauren’s fight was going on, I guess. I didn’t see.

Detective Barrow is standing where she was. Her gun in still in her hand, but she’s dropped both arms to her side.

“I don’t understand…” Lauren finally says in between shallow breaths. “I don’t… why was that one so hard to get?”

The detective holsters her gun. “It was not a normal shadow. That was one of the strongest we’ve taken in a while.”

From her seat on the floor Lauren looks at the detective. “None of the pests in our Tulsa are like that.”

“None of the absorbers in our Tulsa can do what you just did,” Barrow says.

Lauren stands, Megan and Jimmy helping her. “I had good teachers, I guess.”

We’re all just looking at her.

“Stay in school, kids!” Lauren says, then coughs and seems on the brink of tears. “I need a drink. Water. Something.”

One of the cops at the door says he’ll bring water and leaves.

Norman sits, quietly on the step outside the door to the building where they found all the weirdness. He checks Twitter and Instagram. He thinks about pulling up his tumblr account and posting about what’s happening, but then he realizes that he doesn’t want to go to jail so he leaves it alone. This alternates with just sitting in the quiet and listening to the sleepy city around him.

He can’t hear anything from inside the building. Tries texting Allen. No response. Waits several minutes then texts Jimmy. Silence.

“Ah, this is bullshit,” Norman says.

He stands and turns toward the door, which the others left propped open. He pulls it all the way open.

A very dark shadow says, “Well, hello.”

Lauren is sitting at the table, drinking water and juice. Megan sits with her. Jimmy and I stand behind. The detective has stepped out for a moment.

“I… um… yeah… I think I’m ready to call this one,” Jimmy says.

“Me, too,” I say.

Lauren looks at us. “I just want to go home, have some breakfast and sleep for a while.”

As she speaks Detective Barrow enters the room.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to stick around for a bit,” she says.

“No,” Megan says.

“Yeah, no,” Lauren says. “I've got to get back to my boss. Tell him what’s happened.”

“We need you.” The detective looks sympathetically at us. “You’re the strongest absorption specialist we've seen in a long time.”

“That’s nice, but we’re going home,” I say.

“I’m sorry, but word’s come down from the powers that be. You’re staying. We’re sealing the gate you came through right now.”