chapter six the storm

it was a dark and stormy night for Pam the security officer

Chapter seven the storm

 

           It wasn’t that Isolation bothered Pamela Valentine; it was simply that she had grown accustomed to it. People were supposed to be social creatures; they were supposed to long for understanding and the desire to be understood; But people were also liars, and unreliable. The silence was simplistic; the silence could never hurt or betray her. In it she was safe.

          The elevator opened onto a lobby of an empty office space, a smaller, less spectacular lobby belonging to a Tec firm that owned the top two floors stretched out before her. The metallic icon mantled on the far wall shinned in the light of the open elevator; the words Datacom, glimmered as Pam made her way into the empty lobby. This was a night for elusive explanations, a night of anticipated conclusions. a night of closure.

In the darkness her heart trembled with fear and excitement. Countless sleepless nights contemplating her sanity had led to this final moment, this eleventh hour.

After dark the sixty storied metro building reigned under the protection of the few, the proud, and the night watchmen. Once a coveted and honored position, the night watchmen loomed the hallways of the metro building afterhours; securing each floor, silently protecting the building from theft and intrusion. Now a disciplinary action to the disgruntled, the night watchmen were understaffed and vastly under qualified to monitor the metro building in its entirety. Such an oversight was perfect for Pamela's plan.

The tremor of thunder froze and shocked her as she turned her attention to the only source of light in the office space. On each of the far walls cascading windows framing the temperate beauty of the Boston skyline stretched out as far as the coast. Dark and ominous colors draped upon the horizon, foreboding an odd feeling of anxiety and gloom. Something was coming. the silence was followed by another tremor. The world beyond the multilayered windows howled a sharp restless moan, something was about to happen,

The room was gravely silent as the elevator doors closed behind her, a moment later a click followed and a steady stream of light beamed from Pam's flashlight, swiping her surrounding before proceeding further. She wondered why the automatic lights and the emergency flood lights were not responding to her hesitant footsteps .she stepped beyond the elevator, her eyes fixed on the tunnel of light as it guided her to the front desk and beyond.

. ‘Fuse must have blown out', she exhaled, the rational thought guiding her flashlight to the other end of the office space.

 The fiftieth floor of the metro-building was a spacious and wall-less work space that had been carved out the interior of the entire floor. Both walls beside her were replaced by a large cascading windows, blindness and transparent, Giving the illusion that the very walls themselves were missing. This filled the room with an odd sense of incompletion, a feeling of exposure none of the other office spaces shared.

An ominous, vast collection of cubicles stretched out before her. Cold and empty, the room echoed with the faint and distant cries of dead-end employment. A now closer and more powerful tremor shook the office space, Pam's attention diverted to the window on her left. Boston’s air space served as a vast battle ground, black thick clouds loomed overhead, spilling from the sea slowly blanketing over every star. With each tremor the clouds expanded, stretching and pulling, growing closer, reaching out for her. ‘Okay pam, start counting.” She told herself as she made her way closer to the window. ‘Count it down just like father taught you.’

The sky flashed with lightning, tearing across the sky slowly. She watched with impatient eyes as the bolt of the lightning’s brilliance faded into the darkness.

One, one thousands

Two, one thousands

Three one thousands

Four.one thousands

Five.. .”  The harsh and sudden smash of thunder echoed through the silence. It was getting close, she thought. It would be here soon, she needed to get ready. Another flash raced across the sky.

One, one thousands

Two, one thousands

Thee, one thousands

Four.. .” the bang of thunder echoed in the darkness.

For ten years she had burrowed into the events of that stormy night. Consumed by the slightest detail, she hoped that she could connect the pieces that the police and the newspapers could not. Though it remained uncertain what exactly had happened to her father that night, all she had recovered over the years pointed to this building, to this storm, And this night.

Her time here as a security officer was not by chance; though short, the year here had been productive. As she made her way through the maze of cubicles and rolling chairs she mentally reviewed the insurance records she had recovered from the storage archives. Floods and neglect had weathered and degraded most of the documents dating back more than six years, but she had got lucky and found a copy of the incident report of that night. It had been filed away by the legal department; Sealed in a damp box on the top of a forgotten shelf. Most of the documents were shift schedules, check in dates, and performance reviews, but it was in that damp, dark basement that she came across the piece of the puzzle she needed, the piece that connected all the others; A VHS tape recording Mr. Valentine's, her father’s, final moments on the roof. Another lightning strike flashed across the cascading window.

One, one thousands

Two, one thousands

Thee,.. She reached the back of the office space as another roll of thunder halted her counting; this one louder and more vicious than the one before. She kept her mind focused; focused on getting the power back on, whatever was coming was nearly here.

Most of the video was static due to the storm's interference and the dated technology at the time, but for fifty seconds the picture of her father standing at the edge of the metro building roof could not be mistaken. Confidant and still, she remembered watching him walk calmly to the edge of the building, the entire world around him in uproar, a typhoon like winds ripping potted plants into the air, bending satellite dishes and antenna until they snapped and were carried away. The memory haunted her, how he walked to the edge and stood there, unmoved by the wind, unfazed by the rain crashing upon him at unbelievable speeds. Like a marble stature he stared off into the void of black and grey, staring down the flashes of lightning without fear. And then just as quickly as he reached the edge, the video began to fuzz, a flash of darkness dashed across the screen, static distorted the camera for a second, when it cleared her father was gone.

 The cool metallic door to the circuit breaker swung open. Without delay Pam began to flip the master switch on and off.

Nothing happened. A flash of lightning lit up the now deadly quiet room

One, one thousands

Two..The room shook against the vibration of thunder, and this time Pam did not recover as easily. Her flashlight hand scanned the now darker, more foreign office space. It took only a second for the silence to turn on her, reveal how vulnerable she was, how alone she was. The kind of danger she could be in.

          ‘Calm down Pam, the power is out because of the storm.' Once more her rational thoughts soothed her. Pulling a chair towards one of the large windows she decided to sit and wait. As if on cue a flash of lighting lit up the sky before her, revealing to her the shinning detail of the city of Boston.

“One,” she exhaled as the floor and the ceiling shook viciously as the next and closest thunder descended upon the metro building.

          Expectations aside; Pam did not know what to expect as the final thunder clap released the first faint traces of rain against the window pane. She had spent so much of her life trying to prove that such a storm existed, that she was not insane; the thought of what would happen if she actually had been right had never come to mind. She had always assumed that all would become clear if she could make it to this building, if she could wade through the storm. She watched the world around her be set upon by thunder and lightning, showered relentlessly by wave after wave of constant and overbearing rain. The window began to fog. Pam leaned back in her chair. There was nothing to do now but wait.

…

          Constantly lost in thought she found that a silent and empty place allowed her to let her thoughts out into the air, allowed her to organize and make sense of things. However As impossible as it was to find silence now; she tried not to let the closeness of the storm affect her. Sitting tensely in her chair she could not shake the fear that the thunder would cause the ceiling or the floor to collapse, that a stray bolt of lightning would make its way towards the building, it crashing through the window and striking her where she sat. In an effort to calm herself she did what she always did, she escaped, escaped by throwing herself into the deduction of her father's demise, Pamela Valentine had sheltered herself from the pain of actually losing him by saving each memory in a vault she would often lock herself into. Now protected from her feelings her little trick had effectively and unconsciously alienated her form the world around her. She had spent countless hours researching the metro building’s history, badgering her mourning mother on any form of information she may have over looked, calling the police station for updates, constantly looking for suspicion around every corner. In time the innocent flower that was Pamela Valentine had become twisted and brown, forever changed, never trusting due to the darkness that she surrounded herself in. Soon her posters were replaced with maps and newspapers articles, stuffed animals given to good-will, and her friends that scarcely recognized her were pushed away completely.

          The storm had made up for lost time, attacking the metro building with what seemed like every drop of water in the ocean. The thick windows now fogged with the constant shower, Pamela leaded back in her chair and watched the down pour. So much she had sacrificed, so much she had given up for the truth. Tonight, all of it would have been worth it.

          "I'm close, I can feel It." she whispered to herself as she reached into her pocket and pulled out the only possession her father had left her. A silver clasped switchblade.

          Thunder bellowed as she rhythmically flipped the blade open, the silver stainless steel of the blade catching the light of the flashlight, gleaming into the darkness as if emitting its own source of light deep below its surface. Like she had done a million times before she began to twirl the blade back and forth; the clasps tumbling over and under, the blade swinging wildly in-between her fingers, over and under it glided, dancing to the sounds of the storm. As the thunder grew louder she began to Feel more alive than she ever had before, she could not hide her smug sense of accomplishment. Over the years she had imagined hundreds of different serious, each one of them resulting in her father's miraculous survival. Over time however, as facts began to discredit her theories the likelihood of his survival became more and more unlikely. As she continued to twirl her switch blade in her hand she could not help but return back to one of her first and by far one of the most preposterous theories.

What if he didn't jump off the building that night, what if the storm carried him away? Took him away….'

A burst of thunder smashed against of metro building, the sound so deafening, so close it shook her out of her rhythm and made her drop the switch blade. Suddenly all too aware of her surroundings Pam once more realized that the power had not been returned to the floor. Now slightly more cautious she pulled her blade out of the carpet and walked towards one of the windows. "It’s the storm, the blackout is city wide." She rationalized as she pressed her face against the cold vibrating window, her eyes peering through the haze and downward towards the skyline below. To her surprise the rest of the skyline was as lit as ever. The lights flickering in the silver downpour, she could still see the faint lights coming from adjacent buildings and nearby businesses. The wind howled and made the glass vibrate as Pam pressed her face closer to its cold refreshing surface, looking off into the distance, her eyes fixed on the massive body of dark and ominous clouds looming above the metro building, turning slowly it expelled lightning and rain in a way she had never seen before; The dark and grey colors of the sky twisting and folding onto themselves, shaping and reshaping as if they were alive. The rain seemed concentrated, the lighting as well. As graceful and as mysterious as a jellyfish the storm floated over the building, focusing the blunt on the storm down upon her.

          With the next flash of thunder she could feel that she was no longer alone. Her hands began to tighten around her flashlight as she reached for her Taser that hung loosely on her belt. In one swift motion she swept the room, her flashlight guided the scope of her Taser as it shinned upon every cubical and every revolving chair in the office space. It was possible that it was nothing; a bird, or some other creature, seeking refuge from the storm.

    ‘This high up?' the question, hung in the sudden thickness of the air. Her flashlight clicked on and she swept the room once more. With foreign eyes she swept the room. Nothing had changed yet she felt as if she was no longer in the room she had first entered.  The silence that had once been her ally that had once soothed her and protected her had turned against her. Hostile and murky, it fogged every corner, loomed under every desk and squirmed just beyond sight. Pam had not been a security officer long, but through her years of paranoia and conspiracy chasing she had built up a heightened awareness of her surroundings, the ability to notice and heed what others would simply displace. She took two steps forwards and stopped.

She was being watched

Impossible as it might have been to conceive, Pam could not shake the feeling that she was no longer alone. Slowly doubt and fear began to creep up the back of her neck, extend to her arms and legs and consume her totally. The room remained unnaturally still, a cluttered muffled haze that resonated in the wake of the lightning strike.

With the constant bombardment of lightning and thunder it was possible that she had lost power to the entire building, she walked on cats paws as she made her way down the singular walkway that split the office space in two. Time slowed as every hair on her body stood on end, Each step more cautious than the last, more dangerous than the last. Her anxiety bubbled to the top as she called out into the darkness, hopping, praying for silence and the signs of insanity. She received neither.

In the far right corner of the office space, cloaked in ominous shadow and, a cluster of concentrated thick blackness bellowed. A low mournful tone erupted; loud and pure, it echoed from the corner; eclipsing the sharp patter of the hurricane outside and shaking the footing Pamela had once believed to be steady, The tone consumed her distractions and heightened her senses, Before she fully realized it she had her Taser and her flashlight re directed. The tone jerked her forcefully. With the slightest of ease she stepped closer to the corner of the office space.

The flashlight shinned upon the darkened corner, but the closer she got to it the more she realized that her flashlight had done nothing to reveal the presence, as if impenetrable to the light. whatever it was, rational explanation could not be consulted. Twisting and flowing in fluid motions the shadow in the corner began to churn. The light from her flashlight only gave the darkness shape, magnifying its smooth contours, drawing notice to its superior height. Smooth and round it lurched upon the darkened corner. The tone persistent the shadows twisted more frantically. Pam found herself stepping closer. Her now fumbling grip on her flashlight was now focused on the center of the object. As the tone screeched into the night, filling the space between them and pushing away any space for thought, Pam could not explain what lay before her any more than she could explain why she felt compelled to step closer. But she did so anyway.