The Kingdom of Childhood

Scott ran across the room to where she had disappeared. He stopped at the doorway and leaned into the blackness. She was still screaming.

“It’s an elevator shaft,” he said. His voice was hard but framed by panic.

“Oh, Christ,” said Zach.

“Get me out of here!” shouted Tally. “Get me OUT!”

Temple began tearing around the room, presumably looking for some sort of rope. Zach dared not approach Scott.

“We’re getting you out,” said Fairen. She sounded confident and comforting, like a nurse. “Don’t freak out. Just take a deep breath and hang on.”

“There are needles down here!” Tally cried. Then she screamed again. “Get me OUT!”

Temple returned to the group. “I don’t see anything around here. I’m afraid to go into those bags.”

“Just tear them open, man,” Scott ordered.

Temple raised his eyebrows. “You want ’em open, you do it. I’m not coming out of here with six kinds of hepatitis. Have at it.”

“Then go downstairs,” Scott told him. “Take Kaitlyn with you. See if there’s an opening down there.”

Tally began to sob. “I don’t want to die here,” she cried. “I don’t want to die.”

“Calm down, Tally,” said Fairen, her voice echoing in the shaft. “Nobody’s going to let you die.”

Scott squatted down and leaned into the hole. “I’m here, baby,” he called. “Temple and Kaitlyn are coming down to let you out.”

Fairen looked over her shoulder nervously at Zach. Scott caught the look and twisted on the balls of his feet to face Zach. “Go find help,” he said. “Just in case.”

“You mean leave the hospital?”

“Yeah. The place is crawling with cops. It shouldn’t take you long.”

“Temple ought to go,” said Zach. “He’s got the car.”

“That’s why he needs to stay. If we get her out of there and she’s injured, how else are we going to transport her?”

Zach stalled. He looked around the room and said, “Why don’t we give Temple time to find her a way out of there? He only just left, and if I bring the cops back, we’ll probably all get arrested.”

Scott sneered at him. “Quit being such a pussy and find a goddamn cop.”

“I’m not being a pussy,” Zach argued, his voice rising. “I’m being logical.”

“Oh, is that right?” Scott retorted. “I guess you get real smart when you hang out with teachers in your free time. You ought to be Albert fucking Einstein by now. Who do you think’s smarter, you or Fairen? Let’s ask her.”

Zach felt his stomach go cold. He glanced at Fairen, but she was leaning into the shaft again, cooing to Tally.

He took off.

The beam from Zach’s flashlight shivered against the floor as he ran down the hallway and into the center hall. Glass crunched beneath his feet. He paused just outside the main doorway and shone his light around, looking for police. Seeing none, he considered his path—back through the woods toward the town houses, or deeper into the hospital complex where the police likely were? He swerved his light toward the woods and recalled the journey through them: two blocks’ worth of underbrush and deadfall, with only the narrowest of paths marking the travels of derelicts like him.

He turned and ran along the access road toward the children’s hospital. The weather had turned cold, and his down vest, unzipped, provided only thin protection from the chill. His right hand grew slippery with sweat and he tried to switch the flashlight to his left, then immediately regretted the attempt. Even the small weight of the cheap plastic light sent hammering pain through his wrist. He stopped at a sharp turn and peered into the darkness, then looked down and shone the light onto his wrist. It was beginning to swell. The back of his hand looked pink and puffy beneath the glare. He stepped off the shoulder into the road, shone his light in both directions, and saw nothing but the low mist they had seen on their first visit. That, and black looming darkness.

A terrible thought occurred to him: what if the police presence was an urban legend, and the Bunny Man was real?

You’re losing it, Zach, he thought.

He looked in the direction from which he had come. The hospital was a fair distance away now. Somewhere in there was Tally, present state unknown, and Fairen, unprotected, and Scott, who might at any moment get fed up with Zach’s failure and start running his mouth about—about what? How in the hell had he found out?

Zach blocked it all—the pain, the fear—and began running again, up the road and past the children’s building. Beyond that were a series of decrepit outbuildings—staff quarters, laundry, a heating plant. No cruisers anywhere to be found. An access road looped past the heating plant and toward another large structure; maybe the cops congregated over there, where they would be less visible between the buildings. He held his left arm against his stomach and ran up the access road. Trying to hold his wrist motionless didn’t help much, and the darkness still offered no sign of help of any kind. Between the buildings he stopped again and set the flashlight between his neck and shoulder, cradling his wrist in his right hand. His nails were filthy from scrabbling around on the floor with Scott, and for a moment he thought of that creepy guy Judy had described. Der Struwwelpeter, here he stands, with his dirty hair and hands. And Zach was a monster indeed, in Scott’s eyes at least. That much was certain.

Around the side of the furnace building, he heard the snuffling and footsteps of an animal. The shock of it jarred him, and when he snapped his head to look toward the sound, the flashlight clattered to the ground and rolled away. He scrambled after it. Sweat stung at the corners of his eyes. The footsteps came closer, and as Zach groped for the light and pointed it in the direction of the noise he saw a tall grayish-white figure, much larger than a