Riser (Teen Horror/Science Fiction) (Book #1 in The Riser Saga) ((Volume 1)) (34 page)

Ryan’s response was to ignore him, reach over and open the door.

No alarms.

Ryan raised his eyebrow at Bill triumphantly and held the door for all of us to walk through. Bill tried to look as innocent as possible to me and I gave him an encouraging look. He was putting himself on the line for me and any conflict he had with Ryan was between him and Ryan. I didn’t want to have anything to do with it (although according to Nancy the only conflict they had was me, but I was ignoring that for the time being).

We walked through and Ryan shut the door behind us.

Finally, this place looked like a regular building! We were in a hallway painted plain white with cheesy holo-pics of daisy fields and sailboats on its walls.

No cameras.

That we could see anyway.

“There should be a door up here to the right.” Ryan guided us forward. It amazed me that Ryan memorized the entire floor plan. No wonder Turner wanted his brain. He must have known Ryan’s potential and wanted it all for himself. It scared me to think of how many kids were taken by Turner.

Sure enough the door was exactly where Ryan said. He opened it and a gust of hot air blew in our faces. Once we entered the next room we stood on a metal grated walkway of a four-story labyrinth of stairways and platforms. Sporadically, a worker would enter from a doorway, walk up or down a flight of steps and enter another door. It felt almost factory-like with worker bees going to and from their destinations.

“Second doorway down on the opposite side.” Ryan led me with his hand and Bill and Nancy followed.

We tried to hide the clank clank clanking of our footsteps, not wanting to draw any unnecessary attention to ourselves. So far no one was paying any attention to us, which didn’t exactly put my mind at ease. It felt odd that we were able to walk freely through all these rooms. On one hand, this building was a public building and hundreds of strangers come through here every day, but on the other hand, it was my grandfather’s headquarters and I
knew
what kind of a man he was which meant bad things were most likely happening here. Bad things that he wouldn’t want the public to know.

We reached the door and Ryan pulled it open.

There were people everywhere!

It looked like the hallways at school, hundreds of workers moving in both directions trying to reach their respective destinations. Ryan took us to the left and we entered the fray like we belonged there. No one cared. No one noticed. Talk about zombies, but so far no spinning black holes here. Though after seeing that Turner’s staff was dead I was expecting a few at least. The thought honestly scared me a bit. After my last encounter with Grandpa’s staff, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to break through their wall of protection around their black centers. I did it once, but it was under the threat of death and I wasn’t sure if I could do it again.

Another fear was that even if I
was
able to do it again, would Turner be alerted somehow? I just didn’t know enough about my power to know any of the consequences of using it. It was all so confusing to me.

We shuffled along until Ryan took us through another door. It was another four-story metal melee of catwalks and staircases.

“We’re deep in the underbelly now,” Bill said almost to himself. Most of his excitement for adventure had been replaced by stress.

“The holo-footage vault is down three flights. We’re almost there.” Ryan tried to be re-assuring.

“Has Jason texted you yet?” Nancy asked.

“No,” I said softly. I could tell she was trying not to show how concerned she actually was about Jason. Like it or not, the girl was hooked.

The four of us went down the metal steps and finally arrived at our destination door.

“It’s through here. I’m not sure what we’re looking for, but we’ll have to be quick,” Ryan told us all.

“Let’s do it,” Bill said, followed by a deep breath to steady himself.

Ryan opened the door.

Crap.

The room was shelf upon shelf upon shelf of holo-storage. It was intimidating. Each row was almost five-hundred feet long and had millions, maybe billions, of data slots on each side, and there were hundreds and hundreds of rows. There was
no way
we’d be able to find the holo-footage of my trailer park. I didn’t even know where to start.

We entered the room, all of us with the same beleaguered expressions. There was no one to be found anywhere and no cameras. I was beginning to think that if there were holo-cams we just couldn’t see them. I couldn’t imagine a place like this not having visual security, but maybe Turner was that cocky. I hoped so, but I somehow doubted it.

“Um,” I said out loud.

“Yeah, um, sums it up.” Nancy shook her head. “Please tell me
Genius Boy
has some clue as to how we’re going to find this footage.”

“Give me a sec. Let me think this through.” Ryan let go of my hand and walked over to one of the storage shelves. He ran his hand down the side and examined it every which way.

“You mean this footage?” With an overconfident smirk and holding a small metal chip, Jason stepped out from one of the rows of storage.

When Nancy saw him she forgot all caution and threw her arms around him in a great sigh of relief. “I was so worried, you jerk!” She kissed him quickly on the lips and Jason’s arrogant stature turned into dumbstruck slush in about a split second.

“Hi,” Jason said lamely.

“Hi.” Nancy pulled away and gave him a small smile.

“You found it? In this mess?” I asked. My heart was singing with relief.

“I know holo-storage like the back of my hand.” Jason was starting to get his swagger back. “But we better get out of here before they realize the footage I took is not the footage I checked out.” Jason tucked the metal chip in his shirt pocket. “I can’t leave the way I came. They’ll scan the chip and I won’t be able to leave with it. I hope you have an alternate route?” He raised an eyebrow to Ryan.

“Yeah. Of course.” Ryan took us through the door we came in. Hopefully, we could catch up to our tour and no one would ever be the wiser.

“Why didn’t you text us if you had the footage?” Nancy, for the moment, was still being nice to Jason though one wrong word from him and he’d be back in the doghouse.

“Like I said, I needed an alternate way out. I knew Ryan would get you guys safely to the storage facility. I just had to wait.” Jason tried not to make eye contact with Nancy. He was obviously still struggling with how he felt about her.

Nancy picked up on it immediately. “You’re such a baby, really!”

“Guys. Not now.” Bill sounded like a dad quieting his rowdy kids.

It worked. Both Nancy and Jason kept their mouths closed as Ryan led us through the grated metal maze.

We were on the bottom floor of the four-story room, making our way up to the top floor.

Nancy pulled me back against the wall. She motioned for the others to follow.

“What?” Ryan whispered.

Nancy pointed upward. “Jill’s dad,” she said as quietly as possible.

Oh boy.

Jill’s dad, Owen Forester, was Turner’s number one man. I had never seen him before and I admit I was curious to see the man who created the monster that was Jill. What kind of a man would take orders from someone like my grandfather and do the things he most likely had to do in his name? I had to see him. It was becoming a craving I couldn’t control. It was almost like if I could see Jill’s dad, I could see why Jill was the way she was. Just a peek.

I poked my head out slightly to see.

Owen Forester’s spinning black chasm almost winked at me in greeting.

Even though I didn’t want to, I suddenly felt a pang of sympathy for Jill. How long had her father been dead? Constantly vying for daddy’s approval, but never getting it because he wasn’t alive anymore. It didn’t excuse her being the
nasty
that she was, but it did give some reason for it.

I was about to tell everyone about Mr. Forester’s condition when I caught a glimpse of Turner joining him on the causeway.

“Door?” Jason mouthed to Ryan.

Ryan shook his head and pointed up one flight of stairs.

“We’re screwed.” Nancy leaned the back of her head against the wall in frustration.

“Of all the staircases in this monstrous building, they had to come to ours,” I said, thinking out loud. It was feeling very fishy to me. Especially since it didn’t look like they were going anywhere anytime soon. Yet at the same time they made no show of acknowledging our presence. They were just talking, or Turner was anyway, zombie-man was probably just listening to orders. It made me think of how Turner kept these corpses animated. It was obviously a different process than mine because he looked genuinely shocked when I grabbed control of his staff. Some kind of spell, but what were the results of the spell? Did the dead people retain all their memories and sense of self? Were they simply puppets like mine were?
Or
were they truly back from the dead under Gramps’ spell? Whatever it was, it was some serious mojo. Turner almost gained control back over his corpses by rolling his eyes and spouting out his power words. And what was up with all the eye color changes? First, in my mother’s vision with Grandma, then with Grandpa, was that a part of the spell? Brady said my eyes dilated when I activated the cockroach. Was there some connection there? I had so many questions racing through my brain and the only man who could possibly answer them wanted me dead. Good luck with that.

“Are they going to move, or what?” Bill was starting to sweat. All the pressure and excitement and fear was bubbling over in a whirlwind of panic.

I placed my hand on his arm. “We’ll be fine.”

Bill’s shoulders relaxed visibly at my touch. He nodded.

Ryan squeezed my other hand tightly. I could tell he didn’t like me comforting Bill very much, but he didn’t say anything because he knew Bill needed it. Extra points in my book.

Before we could react, at least a hundred soldiers stepped out of every door from all four stories. All black spinning holes. An army of dead people. And all of them started marching down toward us. No wonder Turner had been standing there
forever
. He was waiting for us to try and escape to the door on the second floor. His master plan of having his men enter the room and grab us… not working out so well for him. As usual, his impatience overruled his good judgment. Good. Maybe we could escape from this. I tested the men’s black centers and they were just like his staff. Walls of resistance like bulletproof vests.

“Did you really think fake thumbprints would work?” Turner’s voice echoed off the metal. He sounded amused.

“What do we do now?” Jason asked Ryan. We weren’t near any doors, which was most likely why Turner decided to act impulsively.

“We go down.” Ryan nodded to the cement floor about ten feet below us. “There’s a vent opening that leads to the lower level of the building.”

The first of the dead soldiers jumped down to our platform and grabbed Jason’s arm.

I took a deep breath and smashed through the invisible barrier like it was made of glass. It was crazy at how easy it was. I was expecting some kind of opposition, but my mind remembered the sensation of ripping through the protective wall. I made the soldier release his grip on Jason. I slammed through all of the soldier’s invisible barricades and connected to their dark chasms of death. I tried to disconnect them from their black holes, but something was stopping me.

“Not this time, little one,” Turner’s voice boomed from above.

I looked up and his eyes were the same crimson as they were in Principal Weatherby’s office. He had more time to plan this time, to figure out how to prevent me from destroying his minions. And apparently it worked because I couldn’t disconnect the corpses from their swirling centers.

I’d have to settle for controlling them.

I made them all stop in their tracks.