A Perfect Machine(21)

Milo looked hard at his friend, then. Felt something like breath come into his lungs.

Faye glanced behind her. More people still. They were bound to start coming in and out of the loading dock doors soon.

She opened her mouth to speak – maybe even to give an answer, she didn’t know – when two of her co-workers walked out of the door she’d come through a few minutes ago. They were laughing and talking shit about someone. One of them, a woman named Joan, looked up and saw Faye standing near the dumpster. “Faye?” she said. “What are you doing? Dumpster diving?” She and her friend, Marissa something-or-other, laughed some more, kept walking arm in arm.

“Ha,” Faye said. “Your face is a dumpster.” She tried to act as casual as she could so they wouldn’t stop and come over. They were work friends, but not close: the occasional joke here and there, acting silly in the break room, that sort of thing.

They just made faces, flipped her the bird, and kept walking, headed for the bus stop.

Unsure exactly why she was doing this – clearly there was something incredibly wrong with Henry – she stepped closer, whispered, “Alright, then. Follow me.” She felt strongly that she needed to help him, that there was truth to this. And that no one else would help him.

She strode past the shadows where Henry hunkered, purposely not looking, afraid to see more of whatever she’d glimpsed before in that wash of headlights. Henry said nothing as she walked past, just scrambled to gain his feet.

She opened the door to the loading dock, poked her head in, looked around.

No one coming.

She stepped inside, held the door open, but still didn’t look behind her. When she felt the weight of the door removed from her hand, heard breathing close to her ear, she carried on.

Down the stairs, moving quickly. Behind her, Henry grunted, “Slow down. Can’t move so fast.” She ignored him. Then, two flights down, she said over her shoulder, “Keep up. I’m not waiting around,” and kept going. Henry shambled along behind, occasionally forgetting his size and cracking his head off the cement stairs.

“And try to be quieter,” Faye said, reaching the bottom of the staircase.

Milo grinned a little at that, whispered along in both their wakes.

“Wait here a sec,” Faye said. “I’m going to check the boiler room, make sure no one’s in there. Should be somewhere in there you can hide – at least for a little while.”

Henry nodded, looked nervously around, expecting at any moment for someone to come out of one of the many doors along this hallway. But the hospital was still fairly sleepy at this hour of the morning. He didn’t know what he’d do if someone came out and panicked at the sight of him. Would he lose his shit and just crush their tiny skull? Christ, he hoped not.

Since he’d woken up this morning, intense dread had welled up in his chest when he thought too long about what was happening. Surely his mind would also be changing as his body was, but the pre-change part of his thought processes occasionally choked on the reality of his situation. He’d feel panic burst into his brain, a mad feeling of suddenly needing to be outside his changing body. Then, fairly quickly, that feeling would be tamped down by another part of his brain – the part that subconsciously knew what was happening. Or that at least was becoming used to his new form. That dread filled him now, but he didn’t know whether this time it was because of his own situation, or because bringing Faye into this was setting her up for whatever disastrous road must surely lie ahead.

Faye walked down to the second door on the left, opened it, went inside. Ten seconds later, she emerged, waved her arm frantically for Henry to follow. Henry, keeping his head ducked so as not to destroy the light fixtures in the hallway ceiling, closed the distance to the doorway in three strides. Once inside the boiler room, Faye closed the door behind him.

It was nearly pitch dark inside. A thin stream of weak sunlight filtered in through a small window near the back wall. Machines hummed all around Henry, easing his nervousness a little. He instantly felt more at home here. Unseen. Surrounded by steel and mechanical things.

Is that what I’m becoming? A machine? He shuddered at the thought. If he was a machine, how would he start to see Faye? What would she be to him? He brushed these thoughts aside. Shook his head quickly, physically trying to rid them from his mind.

“It’s dark,” he said.

“I turned out the lights,” Faye said. Henry sensed her close, but not within arm’s reach – not even his mammoth arms.

“Thank you,” Henry said. “For hiding me here.”

Faye said nothing. He sensed her move closer. Closer still.

“What happened to you, Henry?”

“I changed.”

“Into what?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why did you come here? Why did you come to me?”

“Because Milo is dead. And I wanted to see you. I thought you could help me.”

“I know. But what about other friends? In your… group. Society. Whatever it is.”

Henry had never shared much about the Inferne Cutis. Faye knew what he was to a certain extent – knew that he was different, that he healed quickly from injuries that would kill another man. But her mind somehow separated those facts from her growing love for him. She felt no need to ask more about what he did at night when he left her apartment. Maybe simply because the less she knew, the safer she’d be. That’s certainly why Henry never elaborated on his nightly Runs.