City On Fire

5

Ella wondered if she wanted to meet up with Benny as she sat in her room clutching her sketchbook. She paged thru the lifetime’s worth of nightmares and guilt and felt like crying. Benny was right she couldn’t live like this. She couldn’t ignore this. If there was going to be a life for her outside this place she needed an explanation. It wasn’t that late but she checked the shadow drenched hall before she stepped out of her room. Everyone would be in the recreation room by now. So instead of joining them by going left down the hall she went right to the library.

When she got there she found Benny feverishly rearranging a shelf. He stopped when he noticed her coming in. “Someone s...s...sorted f...fiction into non – f...f...fiction. C...c...come on.”

He explained and she followed. He led her to the very back, past all the shelves and into a small room where there was nothing but a desk with an ancient computer mounted on it. Benny settled behind the desk and started up the old dinosaur. It made so much noise when it loaded Ella quickly shut the door out of fear of being heard and caught.

“I don’t think we are allowed to use the Wi-Fi.”

“They never m...m...mentioned a...a...anything about it t...t...to us. Stop fussing, sit d...d...down.” Ella hopped up on the table next to the monitor and watched him hit a number of keys in seemingly random order before the screen turned blue.

“What are you doing?”

He grinned as he tipped in what looked to her as more gibberish.

“We need G...g...google. So I’m s..s...simply hacking i...i...into the g...good doctor’s l...l...laptop via a w...w...wireless c...c...connection.”

The tiny room was dark and the sounds coming from the old relic seemed to echo painfully not only through the room but also the rest of the library.

“Can’t you quiet that thing down?”

Benny laughed as the doctor’s desktop opened up.

“W...what do you w...w...want to see f...f...first? Browsing h...h...history, diary, p....p...p...patient files or y...y...your file maybe?”

Ella glared at him before shifting closer and reaching back behind her for the sketchbook. “I don’t want to know what that file says about me and as for the browsing history of an unmarried shrink who lives on the premises of a funny farm, I really don’t need to know.”

The two shared a laugh and ended up having to cover their mouth to muffle the sound. Benny brought up the Google home page and just like that the atmosphere turned heavy.

“Ready?”

She nodded.

“Ok. D...d...describe something t...t...t...that you saw. A b...b...b...building street s...s...some kind of l...l...l...landmark. Anything”

Ella wasn’t following and he saw it.

“H...h...here, let m...m...me se y...your d...d...d...drawings.”

She handed him her sketchbook. Something she would never ever do, but Benny was different and he had seen some if it before. Besides, he was trying to help her by either proofing what the doctor said, that she wasn’t playing with a full deck or that there was far more to this than any of them may have thought. He randomly paged through the sketched and though she knew he would never judge she waited for him to say something. Not that she could blame him if he did, there was some messed up s**t in that book, stuff not even the good doctor knew. If he knew everything she would have been locked in a padded room a long time ago. Benny finally stopped at a drawing of an airplane that hat crashed into an airport and everything was on fire. “This o...one?”

He placed the book on her lap and she studied the picture with more than a little discomfort. Benny waited with his fingers hovering over the keyboard but she just couldn’t do it. She shook her head but didn’t look up at him. “I don’t think I want to know.”

Benny tilted his head to the side.

“What if...”

“You can’t l...l...live on w...w...what if. You n...n...need a yes o...o...or a n...no.” He cut her off and reminded her of what she already knew.

Doing her very best Ella stared at the drawing and tried to remember. It wasn’t very hard, much to her dismay. She remembered that the airport was near a large body of water and that the crash was because something had gone wrong with the plane. She also recalled the plane’s logo had something yellow in it but she didn’t get a very good look at it and that was exactly how she relayed it to Benny. After a moment’s thought he tipped something into the search engine and in seconds a BBC news report of a plane which had crashed into an airport due to engine failure flashed up on screen. It came as no surprise when one of the photographs showed a perfect resemblance to the drawing and neither of them were shocked when the time of the accident was mere hours after her waking from the nightmare.

Benny looked at her with an ‘I told you so expression’ but she didn’t flinch. “Happenstance.”

Ella said paging through the sketchbook.

“Try this one.”

Benny looked at the sketch of a train lying on its side.

“There were a group of kids on the track. The train braked but couldn’t stop in time. Two of the cars bottlenecked and shoved the front of the train on its side.”

The article confirmed what she said but she didn’t want to look at it. Having seen it once already was plenty enough. The colour drained form Benny’s face as he read thru the remainder of the article. Ella rested her palm on the drawing. Just to be sure, there was one thing she didn’t tell and it was very clear that what Benny just found what she had neglected to mention.

“The kids ran off the track but weren’t fast enough. The train fell on them.”

Benny rubbed his eyes.

“Coincidence?”

Ella didn’t respond. Instead she handed him another sketch to look up. The drawing was of a little boy in a dirty room trying to hide from someone.

“His name is Henry, French not English, went missing from his front lawn. He died three weeks ago.” This was getting worse and worse and he had a feeling she wasn’t even getting to the bad stuff.

Sure enough just as she said Henry De Sur went missing from his home and was found dead three weeks later in the basement of a man who had been a suspect for years. Benny shut the sketchbook and put it aside. They were thinking the same thing.

“Pattern”

Benny nodded as Ella pushed the book aside.

“W...w...w...what do you w...w...want to do?”

Ella thought for a moment. Either she ignored what seemed to be just a little too real and she got out with bodies pilling up at her feet or she cemented her stay permanently and tried to do something about all the dying. She didn’t want to stay here anymore than she wanted to see all of this but it would seem there was no other option. The choice was already made. She hopped off the table and stood behind Benny’s chair. “Try looking for a city recently attacked by either military or terrorist group. Civilians would have been executed by firing squad.” Benny had wanted to ask for more detail but ultimately decided he really didn’t want to know. “How r...r...recent?”

“Make it the last week.”

The two of them spent the next hour trying a number of different search engines and phrases to try and find something, but came up with nothing. Finally Benny slumped back in his chair.

“This l...l...leads me t...t...to believe that w...w...whatever you saw h...h...hasn’t happened y...y...yet.” He rubbed his chin while Ella paced back and forth behind him.

“That’s even worse.”

Ella quickened her pace.

“How the high holy hell am I supposed to stop this when I’m institutionalized!?” She threw her arms up in the air and Benny went back to scratching his chin. She had a point. “S...s...suggestion?”

Ella stopped to listen as he shifted to the end of his seat.

“Escape”

She glared but said nothing. He was off his rocker just enough to actually do it and probably succeed. There was a slight beeping coming from the computer and Benny nearly fell from his chair as he spun around. “What is that?”

Ella walked over and watched him clear the browsing history, close the search engine and as fast as he hacked in shut everything down. By the time he had finished he was out of breath and sank down into the chair. “Benny what the hell?”

He waved a hand in the air to shush her.

“Don’t give me that!”

After a deep breath he sat upright.

“Doctor w...w...was t...t...trying t...t...to log i...i...in.”

Ella rested her fore head on the back of the chair.

“I can’t believe you.”

Suddenly the two leaped to attention. If the doctor had logged into his computer that would mean that recreation time was over and it was lights out. “s**t” The cuss was unanimous and while Ella gathered her drawings Benny deactivated the dinosaur and the two made for the hall.

It was pitch dark and safe to assume bed checks were currently underway. They ran down the hall to the sleeping quarters but were nearly seen by Mrs. Delanie who was on her way to the front office. The two pressed up against the wall and prayed she wouldn’t turn around. She stopped for a moment but was soon on her way again. The both of them knew they would not have this kind of luck again and after taking of their shoes didn’t stop until they were on the other sides of their bedroom doors.

Ella threw her shoes under the bed and leaped under the covers sketchbook and all just as Charley opened her door and peaked inside.

Just to sell her act a little more she shifted slightly and he bought it. The door closed and she heard him walking off. Once his footsteps were gone she sat up. That was just a bit too close.

Out of the woods she fell backward with a sigh.