Between a Bear and a Hard Place(8)

“Hello?” Claire called into the darkness. The hauntingly silent darkness that seemed to overwhelm her senses and suck everything into itself stood, gaping, like a maw opening into a black hole. “Anyone in there? Dr. Eckert?”

No answer. As she reached into the lab, the darkness was almost palpable, like the membrane of a jellyfish as she plumbed the depths with groping fingers. The air inside was somehow colder than the air without. A chill ran up her arm, followed by a flush of goosebumps that prickled the skin of her neck and all down her back.

“Hello? Dr. Eckert? Anyone in here? Sam?” Sam was the security guard who usually handed her the clipboard for note taking. It all seemed like pointless busywork, but as the door swung free on its hinges, and she flicked on her phone for the little light she could get out of her flashlight app, she suddenly missed the busywork.

Her footfall echoed off the sterile walls. Turning her light to the nearest one, revealed a whiteboard with some notes jotted down – Dr. Eckert was to come at eight this evening, Dr. Stanley would relieve him at midnight. Whatever was in here had been fed four times today, and was scheduled for four more.

Claire’s thoughts turned back to those eyes shimmering in the darkness in the instant before they vanished back in the mouse lab. She remembered the screeching and wondered – briefly – if that was less a screech and more a scream?

“What was that?” A sound drew her immediate attention. She whirled on her toes, trying to pierce the darkness with her phone. “Who’s there?”

A long, slow, almost leisurely scratching sound sent the hair on the back of Claire’s neck into a full-attention stand. She tightened her lips and narrowed her eyes in concentration, as though that would break the tension, the darkness.

Another scratching sound, behind her this time.

“Hello? Stop messing around, whoever you are. I was called to come down here to see you, Dr. Eckert, where are you?”

Messing around, she thought with a humorless laugh. No one’s ever messed around here. And especially not like this.

She began to back away, as good sense overtook her obnoxious curiosity. I need to get help, call the police, call the army, something.

Claire found when she began to back away that she’d walked further into the lab than she realized. But still she stared straight ahead, unable to contain the sense of fascination that drew her to this work in the first place. A PhD in molecular biology got her all the way to a desk job that bored her to tears, but still she was curious, thirsty for knowledge. On the weekends, she usually picked a cave system somewhere and went exploring. This wasn’t any different, except yeah, no, it was completely, totally different in every conceivable way.

Another noise, more distant this time.

Instinctively she took two puffs on her inhaler, then a third because she figured things might get serious.

“Okay,” she called out, “right, so whoever is in there, I’m gonna go now. I’ll come back, and, uh, holy shit!”

“Claire?” Dr. Eckert blurted as she backed straight into the rotund scientist, and immediately dropped her phone with fright and surprise. “What are you doing down here? And what the hell is B-3 doing open? Sam! Sam!”

Instinctively, she put her hand where she knew there’d be a light switch. The one good thing about buildings like this was that nothing was unpredictable. After trying the light switch to no effect, Claire crouched to scoop up her phone, and as she did, she noticed something move in the back in the darkness. Her pale blue eyes had always been sensitive to light, to the point that driving in the morning, with the sun in her face, was painful. Suddenly, as she saw another vague, almost blurry-looking figure move in the background of the lab, she was glad for it.

“Doctor,” she began, then trailed off. Something in the back of her mind told her to be quiet, not to call the man’s attention. Something seemed to soothe her anxiousness, to calm her nerves.

“Come on, Claire,” Eckert said, grabbing at her shoulder and pulling. “Come along. Nothing to see in here. Nothing at all. Just a mistake.”

She stood, but shrugged the damp palm off of her shoulder. “What’s in here?” she asked, suddenly emboldened. She’d never spoken to him so easily. “Something’s not right.”

The damp hand returned to her, though on her upper arm. “Nothing. Come on, nothing to see here.”

“Why are you so defensive?” she turned to face Eckert and noticed that she could make out beads of sweat on his upper lip.

Good night vision is one thing. This is... entirely something else. Why can I see like this?

The feeling of calm came again, even as Eckert’s heart began to race which, for some reason, Claire was able to sense. She moved her eyes rapidly around, and noticed a slight tremble in the fingertips that still prodded her skin in the instant before the sweaty doctor’s grip tightened.