Based on a dream. Aside from minor
modifications to clarify the story and larger sections to fill in gaps that
made more sense before I woke up, this follows it exactly. Sometimes my
subconscious alarms me.
The factory hummed like it was
alive. It was large, made of brick that might once have been red, but was now a
sooty reddish-brown that reminded the viewer, had there been any, oddly of
dried blood. Dozens of smokestacks oozed thick columns of black smoke in which
the same viewer, if he watched long enough, began to imagine contained hints of
a sickly green. The place was surrounded by a good-sized yard, bare except for
a few straggling yellowed strands of grass struggling to survive. Around this
was a high wall, also brick, topped by barbed wire; there was one gate, through
which traveled a sporadic stream of trucks containing unnameable substances,
heading to unknown destinations. It was guarded day and night by half a dozen
ill-shaven, scowling, almost simian-looking beings one hesitated to grant the
dignity of the title “soldier”.
The child crouched furtively
over a book ignored the hum, the distant groans and clatters of machinery at
work. It was part of her life, part of all their lives, as long as any of them
could remember. Sometime in the distant past, some executive, in a fit of –
what? Stinginess? Generosity? Efficiency? – had decided that children of
factory workers would be raised in the factory itself, in a wing built
especially for the purpose. Possibly their true purpose was as hostages; all
that was known was that the children were kept to themselves, in a sort of
large crèche, guarded and obtensibly taught by a handful of surly men and women
who, for whatever reason, had failed in the factory itself.
The one good part of the
children’s wing was the library, a large room which doubled as a study hall.
Pitifully few and generally poor its books were, but they were books, a way to escape into a better
world. Beyond that, there was a dormitory, a kitchen, and some bathrooms.
The child gave a start at the
sound of a particularly shrill, nasal voice approaching. This belonged to an
officious female overseer who was more or less in charge of the whole wing.
Gathering her book, the girl hastily darted around a shelf of books. Too
hastily – she nearly ran into the arms of a pair of older boys, who, at her
abrupt entrance, looked up with identical slow, nasty grins.
She tried to back up, but one
was already behind her. They began to circle her with a predatory stalk. The
slightly taller one purred, “What have we here?”
“If it isn’t our little
troublemaker,” the other responded, in a well-practiced duet.
“I wonder what she’s up to now.”
“I wonder where she thinks she’s
going.”
“I don’t think she’s going
anywhere, do you?”
Suddenly they lunged and grabbed
her, each expertly twisting an arm behind her. Simultaneously a shrill voice
startled them all.
“What’s going on here?”
It was the overseer. The boys
turned to face her with quick bobs of their heads, never loosening their grip on
the girl.
“Nothing, ma’am. This creature
was defacing Company property. It’s being taken care of.”
“Very well. I know you boys will
deal with it appropriately.” The woman strode off as the boys turned back to
their prey.
She made no attempt to defend herself.
It was futile and would only make things worse.
When they finally left, she lay
facedown for a moment, gathering her strength before picking herself up. She
took a quick inventory – no broken bones, good. She slunk off, trying to avoid
everyone. Crowds were no guarantee of safety.
She heard the sound of laughter
coming from a large conference room. That was right; by employee request, the
Company had brought in some sort of comedian to entertain the kids’ wing. She
edged closer to the door, trying to determine if the audience was sufficiently
entertained to ignore her.
The man seemed to be pointing at
different audience members. She heard a few phrases: “…face like a donkey’s
backside”, “…mother’s so fat that…”, “…too stupid to come in out of…”
She wasn’t watching where she
was going again. Suddenly she tripped on some mysterious object, stumbling into
the room. She was vaguely aware that the man was now pointing at her, spewing
forth vitriolic phrases that sent the audience into gales of tinny-sounding
laughter, but none of it mattered. Nothing mattered anymore. She turned and
fled blindly, no longer caring whether she ran into someone.
Possibly her enemies sensed
there was nothing they could do to her. She reached her goal unaccosted – the
bathroom. She huddled in her favorite corner, one of the few spots not covered
by a security camera.
What was this place? It was all so pointless. The children had no useful
purpose, the adults who watched them had no useful purpose; as far as she could
tell, the factory itself had no useful purpose. Yet there must be some reason, or they wouldn’t be there.
But what?
Her friends found her there, two
girls of nondescript age and appearance. They were as powerless as she, but the
three of them could and did hold each other, silently offering what comfort
they could against the darkness. In the dingy, foul-smelling corner, her
decision crystallized.
That night, she wouldn’t go
meekly to the dormitory to get locked in as usual. She would go exploring, find
the executive’s office, look for any sort of a rational explanation. In quiet,
terse sentences she explained to her companions; they smiled, but shook their
heads. They would help cover for her, arrange her bed so it looked like she was
there, but they would not go with her. She had not expected them to.
She went to the sink and looked
in the cracked mirror above it. Her reflection stared back, a face that might
have been called vaguely Oriental, if anyone had known or cared. She had the
beginnings of two black eyes and there was a trail of dried blood from her
nose. Mechanically, she began washing it away.
Her friends had followed her.
One silently offered her most prized possession – an old water bottle she had
found somewhere, and carried so she wouldn’t go thirsty if someone stole her
drink ration at mealtimes.
The door burst open, and an
overseer walked in, a woman far too young to be so bitter. Spotting the bottle,
her lip curled and she grabbed it, hurling it against the wall hard enough to
shatter it. “Keep that trash out of my bathroom!” she bit out, and stalked off.
The two girls looked at their
companion and shrugged fatalistically. These things happened, and there was no
way to stop them. The two friends darted off like wary deer, leaving the third
to curl up in her secluded corner again.
The last
hours of the day seemed to pass in a slow blur. She missed dinner. She was
hungry, but that was nothing new. Soon the curfew buzzer sounded, and she heard
the guards make a final round, checking for strays. One looked perfunctorily in
the bathroom, but didn’t see her in her dark corner. Finally the lights went
out, leaving only the dim red emergency lighting. Even the cameras turned off.
From outside, she heard the grinding of the gate opening, letting everyone
leave except the guards at the gate and one more inside. Deciding it was as
safe as it was going to be, she crept out of her hiding spot.
The building is bad enough in
daylight. At night, it is eerie. The constant background noise of distant
conversations is gone, leaving a silence only underscored by the never-ceasing
sound of poorly-oiled machinery. The moaning, grinding sound is made even more
unnatural by the night; at a time she instinctively associates with peace and
quiet, it brings a sense not of life, but of unlife, a grotesque parody of natural
movement where there should be none.
As the girl tentatively creeps
through the factory floor, a small speck inching between giant rusting pipes
and vats full of mysterious substances, she notices something else. The
lighting seems stronger than the dim, flickering red bulbs can account for; the
giant room seems lit by a faint, unhealthy phosphorescence, bringing the open
maws of machinery and lever claws out of the merciful darkness into her sight.
They seem to crouch, motionless while she looks at them, but merely awaiting
the opportunity to jump at her the moment she turns her back.
She ascends a steep set of metal
steps, flinching as they groan ominously under her feet. She knows where she is
going; the children are given regular tours of the working areas of the
factory, their guide extolling the virtues of working for the Company. But the
executive areas are at the top of the building, and she has yet to traverse the
maze of ladders and catwalks.
She flinches as a rustle passes
swiftly overhead, like the wings of a bat. Her imagination conjures up a
bloated, winged fiend, fangs glistening as it waits to pounce. It could not be
a normal bat; surely no healthy creature could exist in a place such as this.
But when she dares look up, she sees nothing, only vast metal surfaces lit by
the unnatural glow. She does not know if this is better or worse than the
feared monster.
Halfway up, she pauses for a
moment beside a control station, a large vertical panel filled with unlabeled
buttons and switches interspersed with flickering colored lights. Suddenly there
is a clanging approaching from an intersecting walkway ahead, heralded by a
circle of light so healthy and normal-looking that she involuntarily takes a
few steps towards it before the guard emerges, turning towards her.
As the beam from his flashlight hits
her, she jerks back to her senses and begins backing away uncertainly. There is
no challenge, no demands of “Who are you, and what are you doing here”. He
simply draws his gun and points it at her.
She dives down the nearest
hallway and begins running. She hears the sound of boots pounding metal as he
pursues. Her heart hammers, her breathing is ragged, her feet hurt from the
metal surface, but she cannot stop; he follows behind, each step as inevitable
as her own. She turns down one walkway, up a set of stairs, from one passage to
another, down a ladder. She makes each decision instantly, instinctively, yet
it seems she is being herded by unsensed beings, each step guided, predestined.
At last she is brought to bay.
The walkway dead-ends in a circle around the lip of a giant vat. Frantically,
she looks around; failing to see any way out, she backs up against a large pipe
coming down from unknown reaches above. The ominous figure approaches, slows as
it sees she is cornered. Deliberately, menacingly, it raises its gun once again
– pulls the trigger once, twice, three times.
She does not pause to see where
they land. In terror and desperation, she leaps off the walk; hits, stumbles,
regains her balance. She glances down only long enough to see that the pipe
took a right turn not far below the catwalk, before running for her life along
the perilously curved surface. As the pipe runs under yet another walkway, she
scrambles up and turns back to see her implacable pursuer.
He stands beside the pipe. He
must have hit it; it leaks thick smoke that appears bile-green, partially
concealing his shape. He appears to be inspecting the pipe where she ran.
Slowly he looks up; his unseen eyes fix on her. Once again the gun’s muzzle
rises. Terrified beyond terror, she is still too fascinated, almost hypnotized
to move. He fires.
There is a loud explosion. She
jerks her arm up, protecting her eyes. As the smoke clears, she sees a large
hole where the pipe used to be. Of the guard, nothing remains but a few
blackened chunks.
Her reason gives out for a
moment in shock. Slowly her mind clears. She finds herself curled up on the
cold metal, sobbing. Her feet hurt, her lungs hurt, her heart is still racing.
She feels sharp pains in her chest, and dimly remembers gunshots. Was she shot?
Was it merely a nightmare? She raises her head, half-afraid of what she might
see, but there is nothing. She cannot see the pipe, cannot see the guard, or
whatever remains of him.
Slowly her shuddering sobs
subside. Weary, she forces herself to get up. Terror or no, she must know what
it means. She will not be cowed.
At the top of the tower, there
is a door, marked “Executive”. She does not know what is behind it; none of the
tours included it.
Hesitantly she touches the
handle. It does not move. Locked! She grasps it in sudden fury, rattles the
knob, kicks the door, tries with all her strength to turn it – and there is a
crack, and the knob turns. She pushes the door open.
The corridor beyond is more
elegant than anything she has ever seen. The faint luminescence seems stronger
here; it reveals a long corridor, with pale walls with delicate wooden trim,
the floor covered in a luxuriously thick carpet with an abstract geometric
pattern. At regular intervals the wall is broken by elaborately carved wooden
doors, all closed. Some bear a golden plate inscribed with, presumably, the
occupant’s name.
The girl jumps nearly through
the roof as a light turns on in a room with an open door she hadn’t seen
before. Hollow voices float down the hall.
“What are you doing? What kind
of cigars are those?”
“Oh! I wasn’t expecting you,
sir…”
“Let me see – are those dollar
bills in there?!”
“I…well – sir, I can explain…”
“Your problem is that you think
too small, boy. Those should be $100s!”
“…Sir? You think so?”
Fascinated by the conversation,
the girl has drifted down the hallway, just beyond the stream of light from the
door. Gradually the light fades away, as do the voices. Cautiously, she peers
around the doorframe. The office beyond, while elegant, is as empty and as
dimly-lit as the rest of the factory. There is no place a person could hide,
except behind the desk. But her nerves fail; she backs away from the doorway,
half-running down the hall, towards the door at the end labeled “Chief
Executive”.
The double doors seem immense.
The rich, dark wood is carved with what appear to be human figures, but it is
oddly hard to identify them or what they are doing. They seem to shift in the
corners of her eyes.
She cautiously, almost
reverently pulls down on the golden handle. The door opens, its silence almost
eerie. She flinches as the door swings closed behind her. This office is far
larger than the other, with a massive chair behind an even more massive desk.
She feels like an insect crossing the vast expanse of carpet. The walls are
lined with enormous bookshelves and grand paintings of stern-faced old
gentlemen.
The desk is almost bare. There
is nothing but an expensively engraved fountain pen in a stand on one corner
and a gleaming nameplate on the other. The drawers are empty too; there is no
sign that anyone uses this office.
She whirls at the sound of a
knock at the door. She has no time to hide before a robot enters, a tall,
angular humanoid figure. Its movements are subtly wrong; there is nothing
definably off, but no one who saw it move would mistake it for human. It
speaks. The tone is a warm, comfortable baritone, but the words are jarring.
“Good afternoon! I am a Good
Humor robot. Is this a good time? I hope I am not intruding. It is a pleasure
to meet you, sir. Would you like – “
Suddenly, shockingly, it smashes
its head against the corner of the desk. It lifts, comes down, again, and
again. Slowly it comes up. There is a deep groove in the metal skull. One
eyedisk has come off, leaving a glowing, bloodred socket. It turns its head,
its eyes boring directly into her.
“Afternoon – Good
Humor…bzzzt…pleasure to meet, would bzzzt like – “
The now entirely inhuman voice
continues, but she no longer hears it. Her eyes glaze as a long-forgotten
memory resurfaces. She hears the metallic, erratic voice, sees the glowing
eyesocket…sees blood, blood everywhere, hears screaming. She dimly identifies
it as her own. She sees a kindly older face, receding in her vision. The same
face, a mask of blood. The crackling of flames, a bonfire shrinking, dying
down. And over it all, the ghastly broken robotic laughter.
She has forgotten where she is.
She is once again in the past, reliving that terrifying time. She is not aware
that she is hunched over, shambling in grotesque imitation of that awkward
uneven tread. Eyes glazed and unseeing, she follows the creature through the
door, the elegant hallway, the maze of catwalks beyond.
The pair approach the gate. The
guards take no notice, eyes staring ahead seemingly as unseeing as the girl’s
own. The gate looms ahead of them, closed and locked for the night. But the
robot walks through them unheeding, and behind him the girl. The gate flickers,
and for a moment, had she looked, she would have seen a bare patch of ground.
But she does nothing, sees nothing.
The robot continues down the
pitted, broken concrete. The girl follows blindly. Abruptly her foot lands in a
hole; she falls, twisting her ankle. Her head lands hard on a fragment of
pavement. Coming to herself, she looks around in confusion. It takes her a
moment to recognize the gate behind her; she has never seen it from this side
before. She approaches tentatively. Again, the guards ignore her. Suddenly
terrified, she only wishes to be safely in bed again. She tries to take hold of
the fence, to climb the gate, but there is nothing under her hand; she falls
through.
The factory now glows almost
blindingly with the greenish phosphorescence. She walks back to the children’s
wing. Strangely, it seems much dimmer. By habit, she approaches the door; but
when she walks through, she finds the door as insubstantial as the gate.
Inside, nothing is real. She touches the walls, the shelves; she tries to pick
up the book she had been reading, cast aside and forgotten during the beating. It
seems to gain substance under her hands. She draws them out quickly, oddly
afraid they would be trapped in the materializing book.
She is startled when she tries
to walk through the dormitory door and bangs her nose. Inside, the room is
filled with the quiet sounds of breathing, refreshingly wholesome. She flicks
the light on. Rows of startled faces appear in the beds. She speaks. Her voice
is empty, exhausted, drained of emotion.
“The factory is a lie. There is
nothing real here except us. I am leaving. Maybe I can find people who exist, a
life that is real. You may stay, or you may go. I am leaving.”
She turned and walked out. She
did not look back. But behind her were the rustling of many footsteps, the
murmur of hushed voices. As she walked through the gate at the entrance once
more, the susurration rose in astonishment, falling behind for a moment. She
turned at last. First one, then another child stepped through. In the end,
every last one of them had come through. Even the bullies looked strangely subdued.
The murmuring rose louder, growing into real voices, filled with awe and a
strange new tone – could it be hope?
She
turned forward and began to walk down the road. It must have led somewhere
once. Maybe it still did. Behind her, the children marched.
The dream ended here. Maybe once they walked far enough, they found
normal humans, who told them the story of the haunted factory, and how its
ghostly minions raided anyone who settled too close for children whose belief
could maintain some level of reality. Or maybe the children are ghosts too,
doomed to repeat this cycle of suffering, realization, and escape, only to be
drawn back into the rut, forever. Who knows?
