Have Spacecat, Will Travel: And Other Tails by John Hartness (top ebook reader .TXT) 📕

of his mind he noted that the showers were off, the scalding water no longer pouring out of every faucet.

Mike didn’t move, didn’t respond in any way. Billy took a deep breath and gently tapped his toe into one of the puddles, ready to jump back at the slightest spark. Nothing. He stepped completely into the shower room. Nothing. He reached down and touched Mike’s shoulder with one finger. No shock. He put his hand on his friend’s shoulder and gently rocked him back and forth. No shock, but no response, either.

“Mike, quit fucking around and get up,” Billy said, kneeling by Mike’s side. He reached out with two fingers and pressed them against the side of Mike’s neck. Nothing. He put his head to Mike’s sopping wet chest and listened. Nothing. He shook, slapped, and finally punched Mike’s lifeless form. Nothing.

“Fuck,” Billy gasped and sat back on the wet tile, tears spilling down his face. “You can’t be dead, dude. You’re the smart one, man. You don’t get to be dead. You’ve got to get us out of here. I sure as balls can’t do it, and I don’t got a whole lot of faith in Sam making it happen. I mean, she’s smart and all, but you’re the boss, boss. You get shit done. You can’t be fucking dead. Not from a fucking walkie-talkie battery.” Billy froze, looking around carefully. The walkie-talkie was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Mike’s headlamp. Billy patted his dead friend’s pockets, finding nothing. Every piece of technology on his body had vanished. In the time it took Billy to clear his head and look around, it was all gone.

“What the fuck?” He pulled his own walkie-talkie from his belt and pressed the button. “Sam, do you hear me? Mike’s hurt, maybe dead, I think he’s dead. There was some kind of electrical thing and oh fuck…” He trailed off, dropping to one knee as sobs wracked his body. “Sam, do you read me?”

Billy released the talk button on the side of the walkie, but only silence came back to him. He looked down at the radio, then realized the red light on top wasn’t illuminated anymore. “Goddammit!” he screamed, hurling the useless chunk of plastic across the empty locker room. It clattered across the tile, the battery cover breaking open and bouncing along its merry way.

Billy picked up his camera and headed back toward the door, using the camera light to guide his way. He was almost even with the exit when he heard a strange rumble behind him. The cameraman turned and saw a big laundry hamper rolling toward him, with nothing pushing.

“Holy shit!” he muttered, and clambered to raise the camera to his shoulder even as he backed away from the approaching cart. The hamper hit him across the middle of his upper thighs, forcing him backward. Billy tried to dodge from side to side, but the possessed hamper kept tracking him, slamming into his legs and forcing him back and back. After ten or fifteen feet, Billy felt his back press up against and opening and realized that he was against the wall of lockers, with his body half into an open one.

“Now what, motherfucker? Gonna shove me into a locker? I don’t think so! I’m not some gym-class nerd, you son of a bitch! I’m a grown-ass man.” Billy gesticulated wildly out in front of his body until the locker door swung sharply shut, cracking him a painful blow on one wrist.

“Ow! That hurt, asshole!” Billy shouted, pushing at the laundry cart. It didn’t budge. He was stuck fast, half in and half out of a locker. The door swung shut again, and this time Billy didn’t get his arm up. The locker door caught him across the cheekbone, laying his skin open almost to the bone. He shook his head, trying to clear the stars from his vision, and his camera fell into the laundry hamper. Billy struggled against the hamper pinning him in place while the locker door crashed again and again into his face and forehead. Billy’s vision clouded with blood and little explosions of light as the metal edge laid his face open and pulverized his cheekbones. Finally he heaved the laundry hamper away from his midsection, but it was too little, too late. One last blow from the locker door slamming on his face crushed his eye socket and sent the cameraman slipping into darkness.

“Billy, do you read me? Mike, what’s going on? Do either of you hear me? Where are you guys? You’re out of my camera range—all I have in the locker room is thermals, and the readings I’m getting are really weird. Mike? Mike!” Sam shrieked into the radio, then slammed it down onto the desk.

“Nothing,” she said, turning to Jessica.

“Yeah, I gathered.” Jessica stood on the other side of the desk, rubbing her arms as if cold. “What do we do?”

“I don’t know,” Sam admitted. “Part of me wants to go after them, and wring Billy’s damn neck if this is another one of his pranks, but a big part of me wants to just find an open door or window and get the fuck out of here.”

“I’m with the part of you that’s looking for a window,” Jess said. “If this is some kind of prank, I’ll kill Mike later, but for now, I really want to be somewhere else.”

“I hear you, girl. I just can’t…never mind.”

“What?”

“It’s the thermal imaging sensors I set up in the locker rooms. They went batshit for a little while, then back to normal, like something made the whole room into a sauna, or turned on all the hot water, then it all went back to normal, but I didn’t get any normal body heat readings off the guys. I mean, look at this.” She pointed to her screen and clicked her mouse a few times. “This is when the guys go into the room, right? See the two red outlines?”

“Yeah,