Gallows Humour | Watty's 2023

The Second Floor

At least the stairs had handrails. And there were only five million steps. Wind and rain made the ceiling tarp dance and strain against its restraints. The second-floor door, a thing of steel and long-since fogged wire mesh windows, had been wedged open. They stepped into the relative safety of the hall. The floor transformed from groaning metal grates to solid concrete layered with peeling click-lock vinyl. Once again, the echo of voices gave them pause. High-pitched laughter. Children's laughter.

Sighing, they shoved the bomb back into their pack and trudged deeper into the second floor. The click-lock sagged under their weight as if the concrete below it had dissolved, and the lighting was sparser than it had been on the ground floor, they passed more unlit lamps.

The first fork in the road gave away the children's position. Halfway down the westward hall was the brightest-lit room in possibly the entire place. Shadows flitted across the lit square cast from the door and hushed voices danced from the opening. They motioned for Radio to check the opposite hall and tread forward, trying not to make any extra noise.

At the lip of the door they clipped their shovel in place and pulled down their mask. Lunging into the room, they grabbed the closest child, the biggest, no more than twelve or thirteen. By the time the laughter cut off, they had the child pinned to the wall by the throat. She scratched at their arm, face turning a startling shade of purple. Whoops. They let up the pressure until they heard her gasp.

"How many other children are here?" they demanded, turning their vicious monster stare on the younger children cowering behind a bunkbed.

"It's just us," the pinned child cried, "just us three. Please don't hurt us, please please." Fat tears rolled down her cheeks, her trembling hands struggled to keep a grip on True's arm. They dug their dirty fingernails into the calloused flesh of their palm.

"You have five minutes to pack your things and leave."

"B-but—"

"Nobody is coming to help you. Five minutes." They dropped the child. She stumbled out of arm's reach, folded inwards. The other children, two in total, rushed forward to clump around her.

She reached for something in her pocket and whirled on True, knife blade leading the way. True batted it out of her hand. She cried out, clutching her arm to her chest. The glare she gave them from under tear-soaked eyelashes was filled with hate. But True was bigger and meaner, and a hell of a lot scarier than anything she'd ever met.

They grabbed one of the smaller children clinging to her, ignoring the cries.

"You know where food and water is?"

The kid nodded so fast their head nearly bobbled off.

"Take your bag and go get as much as you can. If you don't come back your friends will die." They released the kid and watched them scramble out of the room, a backpack crushed to their body like a shield. True counted out five minutes, ticking off the numbers silently on their fingers. It helped keep the pit in their stomach at bay. They hadn't expected there to be children here.

Although, in hindsight, that had been a stupid assumption. Of course the Red Faction had children, of course Jonesy failed to mention those kids. He'd thought he was going to be there to interfere. Or maybe he just didn't care. Either way, it was too late for him and the fishery now. The bombs were almost all set. All they could do was force these kids out, terrify their fragile kid brains too much to even think of coming back on their own.

At minute four the two kids scurrying around the room had finished cramming all their possessions into packs. True beckoned them over, shrugging their own pack off. They opened the pack to show the children the explosives.

"These are bombs," they said, "there are more everywhere in this building. I'm going to blow these up and everyone in here will die, understand?"

The children nodded, slow, wide-eyed.

"Just us," the oldest answered, sounding small and full of anger and hurt.

"If you don't tell me and there are other kids here, they will die," True warned.

"No one else is here!"

They snapped the pack shut just as the last kid returned with their backpack stuffed full. Radio appeared, wraithlike, in the doorway. True pointed to it.

"That's Radio, it's a shadow dweller." They gave their statement a second to take root, watching terror spawn anew on the children's faces. "Radio is going to take you over the bridge and you better not fucking come back. And if you even think about giving Radio trouble, it will eat your fingers."

Ignoring the scowl Radio shot them over the heads of the kids, they marched the whole herd to the stairs.. Sent them clambering down. Watched until the kids slipped out the same door True had snuck in. One, two, three, and Radio. That was all they could do.

Turning their back, they knelt just inside the door to lay the third bomb.

Stepping back onto the nerve-wracking metal grated platform, they steeled themself for the climb. A crack of thunder rattled the fishery. Gritting their teeth, they tightened their death grip on the shuddering steps. The tarp snapped and billowed, more and more rain splattered inside. Raindrops slapped the concrete.

At the third landing, the tarp tore free and at once the storm was inside. Torrential rain and howling wind body-slammed True at the same time. The stairs shuddered, throwing them against the rail. Cursing, they found the lip of the next step with their knees and squeezed their eyes shut.

As if this night needed to be any more difficult.

Okay, they exhaled out their nose, prying a hand off the rail to pull up their mask. All they had to do was make it up one more flight, cross a catwalk, and plant the last bomb. In a downpour. With the very steps they walked on rattling. And then make it all the way back down. Great. No problem.

Another slow exhale, and they set their hand farther up the handrail. Put the other hand over that one. Put the first hand over the second one. On and up straight to the top. Eyes squeezed shut. Traitorous limbs threatening to give out and send them tipping over the slick railing.

Splat, True pancake.

Would the bombs go off when they hit the ground?

They had to pry their eye open to find the next leg of the journey; the catwalk. It spanned a cavernous gap, open air on all four sides. The roof and a long stretch of what had once been windows but was now a skeleton offered no protection from the gale. Warm light flickered in the window of the closed third-floor door, inviting friend and foe in from the storm.

They stepped out onto the catwalk. Sheets of rain sliced at them, wind twisting furiously through the metal fishery bones. Look down, it screeched, face your fate. The siren call of the ocean rose to a scream. True silently added oceans and hurricanes to the list of things they never wanted to see again.

Halfway across. The land beyond the empty windows lay under a blanket of shadow except for a pocket of brilliant orange. True hesitated, phobia squashed for an instant while they stared at the fire.

Alone, battered by wind and rain, realization's cold hand clenched their lungs.

The After Market's blaze lit the night, smoke as thick and dark as the thunderheads billowed from the flames. Something had gone wrong.