I reached for him and snagged the back of his coat. “You can’t go outside! Are you crazy?”
Ramsey shrugged out of my grip, whirled around. “Yeah, I’m a little crazy, so what? But I ain’t goin’ outside.”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“Just stand back, Grady, you’ll see. I got a trick or two up my—”
He paused, screwing up his face in anguish. I wasn’t sure why he was doing it, not until I heard the sound of a helicopter overhead. My heart damn near leapt out of my chest, that’s how excited I was. A helicopter? My mind immediately went to a rescue team, a grizzled pair of soldiers riding around, shining their spotlight on wraiths and picking up survivors.
I turned and started toward the lobby. Ramsey’s hand caught my arm before I got more than a few steps.
“That ain’t a real helicopter…”
“What?”
Besides their false voices, I had never heard the wraiths use sound effects to lure us out. They had only turned themselves into dead loved ones or other monsters—
A near-deafening boom derailed my train of thought. It was followed by an urgent beeping and the constant spray of gunfire. Instinctively, I hunched over and covered the back of my head. Ramsey remained standing, almost dazed.
A voice shouted when the gunfire faded.
“Cobb! Cobb! Get over here! Ramirez is hurt! His leg—oh fuck, man, he’s bleedin’ all over the place! I need help! Ramsey, goddamnit, get off your ass and help us!”
I understood it then. Ramsey talked of Thumbprint People, yes, but I believe that was where his irrational fears stopped. The fears that affected him the most were of the real world. Of war. Of battle. Of bloodshed. And the wraiths were bringing these fears to life.
More gunfire erupted in the distance. Someone screamed in pain. Bullets whined off metal and thumped into wood. Frozen, Ramsey stared in the direction of the sounds.
“I gotta…I gotta go help Ramirez and Griff. I ain’t gonna let ‘em die like last time—” Now it was my turn to hold him back. He bucked, gritting his teeth, screaming, “Let me go, you bastard! Let me go!”
“It’s not real, Ramsey! It’s not real!”
His flexed muscles relaxed. He had opened the cut on his head in his frenzy. A thin stream of blood dripped from it. Once through the eyebrow, it wound its way down his cheek like a red teardrop.
“You’re right, Grady. Fuck, you’re right…”
I let go of him, and he stepped back and leaned against the wall. He put his hands over his face. With a shudder, he choked out a sob. A few seconds later, however, anger replaced the sadness. He ground his teeth together. His flesh burned crimson, nearly matching the shade of the blood he had smeared on his cheeks.
I raised my arm, wanting to grab him again, but the attempt was halfhearted. In truth, my curiosity prevented me from doing so. He seemed oddly composed for such an angered man. I wanted to know what he had up his sleeve.
He pushed the door open. The cold burned the exposed parts of my skin, but the wind blew no stronger than a light breeze. Laid out in front of me was a small corridor with walls of flimsy steel. It connected the main building of the theater to another smaller building. A lone lamp hung from the middle of the ceiling. Ramsey yanked on the pull cord, and a pale yellow glow gleamed off the other building’s silver facade. It was an old trailer annex. He brought his keys out again, found the right one on the first try, and unlocked the other door.
Undecided, I stood half in the theater and half in the corridor. Eventually, like always, curiosity bested my fear. It's a good thing I’m not a cat.
I stepped into the connecting tunnel and closed the door behind me. A wave of heat rolled my way. I felt like I was back to my firefighting days. I’d usually say any type of heat right about then was welcome. Hell, sometimes the idea of setting myself ablaze to combat the cold crossed my mind—and more than once. A joke, of course, at least for the first few times, but as my fingers inevitably lost feeling and parts of my skin darkened with eventual frostbite, that idea gained some weight, I’ll admit. But this heat that I felt from the inside of the trailer made setting myself on fire seem like Little League.
As I got closer, my eyes dried to the point that blinking was painful. I’m not joking, I thought the bug spray in my jacket pocket might up and explode at any moment.
Each step, even without snow beneath my feet, was a slog, like the heat was pushing back. I extended an arm and settled my hand on the metal. Warmth burned through my gloves. Without them, it would’ve hurt, no doubt—not third-degree burn hurt, but hurt nonetheless.
I climbed the two steps leading in. The heat grew almost unbearable, and a quick glance around told me why. I just wasn’t prepared for it. I expected guns, actual big guns—or the entrance to Hell—but that wasn’t the case. Far from it, in fact.
Car batteries—a boatload of them, like Ramsey spoke of earlier. I counted six rows lining the floor, but they were stacked a few feet high. If I had to guess, there were easily a hundred or more, all connected to one another by a few master cords which ran to a circuit breaker on the wall. Ramsey tiptoed through them without problem. I’m guessing he had done it many times before. I followed him about halfway. The fillings in my teeth ached, like I was walking through the graveyard of a malfunctioned nuclear power plant. I know, I know, this was probably mental, but I felt it, and when I think about it now, I can
