Object x, p.18
Object X, page 18
Darnell
Richard
Demetri
Alexander
Amber
Jax
Tommy
Wendy
Annabelle
Noah
Victoria
A million little knots crippled her stomach. A sharp warmth shot through her forehead, causing her to reach out and use the wall to her side for support. The names were carved into the wood just like the words on the other side, but from top to bottom on the center of the door instead of along the edges.
Wendy rushed to regain her composure before yelling out to her son. “Tommy!”
“Yeah, Mommy?” Tommy called back from the gym.
“I want you to hold onto Annabelle's hand until I come back out there, okay?” Wendy said.
Tommy was quick to follow his mother's orders. He grabbed Annabelle's hand, not finding any resistance from the young redhead who still clung to her own mom. She was happy to feel the touch of another person to make her feel safe.
Wendy lowered her voice so that only Jax could hear her. “Come here.”
Jax entered the room, using the light from his phone to guide his way as he squeezed around the door and arrived next to Wendy. He slipped his phone back into his pocket with Wendy's flashlight providing more than enough light for the both of them to see. It only took a handful of seconds for him to understand why Wendy shined her light exclusively on the back of the door as well.
“Oh, you gotta be shittin' me.”
Wendy looked up at Jax, observing his darkening five o'clock shadow thanks to the light reflecting off the door, before her eyes quickly returned to the reason for her budding anxiety. “Believe me now that the world has gone mad?”
“I believed you right off the bat,” Jax said. “I can't explain why I accepted your story right away, but that doesn't change the fact that I did.”
She reflected on how she would've teased him about proving his co-workers correct regarding his conspiratorial mindset only hours ago. Now, the mere idea of making jokes felt alien to her. Her sense of humor was gone. The desolate world turned her cold, and she didn't expect to ever find the same joy that she'd taken for granted throughout the course of her life.
Jax asked the most obvious question first. “Can you explain this?”
“I have no idea,” Wendy admitted as she once again noted the names on the door.
“This doesn't make any sense,” he said. “Victoria and her kids showed up like five minutes ago. Hell, you and your son haven't been here much longer. How could your names be on here already? Shit, how could your names be on here at all?”
She didn't intend to act like she understood anything that happened. Seeing their names on the back of the door made about as much sense to her as the horrifying beasts roaming the streets, but one thing specifically disturbed her on a far deeper level than the rest of the night terrors. This was her first taste of something personal. She wasn't just another nameless face in a sea of panicked civilians anymore. In the gymnasium storage room of an elementary school near the center of town, she had a spot reserved for her on the back of a door that had no right to exist, but she didn't have any idea why.
Wendy took a deep breath. She knew better than to reveal anything personal about herself to a complete stranger in what she now accepted was the apocalypse, but Jax felt different from the rest of the group waiting out in the gym. He wouldn't laugh at her or prosecute her for her beliefs. He would not only listen, but accept what she had to say, and she'd never been more desperate to be heard than at this very moment.
“I haven't been completely honest.”
“About what?” he asked.
She closed her eyes and said it. She prayed that she was right about him. “I've seen the words on the front of the door before.”
His silence didn't surprise her. She expected him to take a moment to process her revelation, but each passing second caused her to question her initial instinct more and more. The world was a different place now. Being labeled as a crazed outsider could result in both Tommy and her being cast outside without a way to fend for themselves, and she didn't like their chances of making it much longer if that indeed happened.
His deep voice broke the lull. “Where?”
Wendy held some secrets close to her heart, but this one no longer claimed a spot. “A black object that almost looks like a door appeared in my backyard yesterday morning. There's no handle or frame on it or anything. It's just this black rectangle that hovers over the ground, and I had this bizarre dream where I entered it after seeing those same strange words written all along the outside.”
“The stuff about time?” Jax asked.
She nodded, although she assumed that he stared at the door much like herself. “It's the exact same. Word-for-word.”
“And I assume you think they're related?” he asked, but not really.
“I know they're related,” she said. “I can't explain how, but I know.”
Jax took a moment to think. He calculated his next steps carefully. There was more on the line than school field trips and fundraisers now. “Don't tell anyone out there about what you saw in your backyard.”
“But—”
“Trust me, don't,” he cut her off. “It'll only lead to more problems. We have enough on our hands already.”
Jax disappeared into the back of the storage room for a few seconds before reemerging with a large orange hand-crank emergency light/radio combination in his hand. He motioned for Wendy to follow him back into the gym. He then placed it down on the hardwood floor, powered it on, and finally gave them a steady and surprisingly bright source of light in the otherwise dark gym. Every radio station gave off the same static before Jax turned it off in favor of addressing the rest of the group.
“There's a door in the middle of the room that has our names on it,” Jax announced boldly.
Tommy ran over to Wendy while she stood next to Jax in front of the storage room door. The light allowed the three of them to see the many dumbfounded faces staring back at them. There was only one thing assured to bring Wendy comfort, and that's exactly what she received when Tommy wrapped himself around her thigh like earlier, because the baffled looks coming from the rest of the group foreshadowed trouble.
“A door? Where?” Richard asked, looking at Jax in disbelief.
“And what do you mean our names are on it?” Darnell questioned.
Wendy answered on Jax's behalf. She felt obligated to stick up for him after all of his support so far. “It's just a door in the middle of the room, and all of our names are carved into the wood on the back of it.”
Demetri chimed in. Like usual, he appeared unimpressed rather than frightened. “What is this nonsense?”
“Let me take things at your speed. There's a door...in the center of the room...that has all of our names on it,” Jax repeated, exaggeratedly slow for his least favorite co-worker. “Did you catch it this time, buddy?”
“You're a dick, you know that?” Demetri huffed with a spiteful glare.
“Enough,” Darnell said in an attempt to put an end to their squabble. As the principal of the school, it certainly wasn't his first time when it came to these two, and he didn't expect it to be the last. “I must be missing something here. How does a door just end up in the storage room?”
“And why the hell are our names on it?” Richard asked.
Jax turned to Wendy. He looked back at the group, turned to Wendy once more, before looking at the crowd standing in front of him again. His eyes squinted slightly as he scratched at the darkening stubble on his chin. Suddenly, his head perked up.
Jax looked at his fellow employees. “Who was the first one here?”
“I was,” Darnell answered. It was his job as the principal to always open the school. “Why?”
“And who was next?” Jax asked.
“Darnell was the only one here when I arrived,” Richard spoke up.
“Demetri was next, wasn't he?” Jax inquired.
“Well, it certainly wasn't you,” Demetri chuckled under his breath. “We know better than to expect you to be on time for anything...”
Jax looked over at Wendy, ignoring Demetri's remark. “The names are in order of when we arrived here. Amber was already here when I showed up, and she's before me on the list.”
Something didn't add up for Wendy. It was a rather important something as well. “But who's Alexander?”
Amber's reaction wouldn't have been so noticeable if not for the complete lack of response from everyone else in the room. Noah slept obliviously in his mother's arms, Tommy and Annabelle hung onto each of their own mothers for protection, and the adults all searched for the missing piece of the puzzle that would end their confusion. Amber's gasp may not have even been heard on a normal day. Tonight, however, was anything other than normal.
Wendy looked at Amber, unable to connect with her eyes, but sure that she listened. “Are you okay?”
Amber stared down at the floor, mute.
“Hey, what's going on?” Jax asked Amber.
“I talked with my fiance for a long time last night,” said Amber, opting to break her silence. “We discussed...we discussed...Jesus Christ...”
Everyone waited, confused and unsure of how to respond to Amber's obvious struggle to verbalize her thoughts.
“I'm pregnant.”
No one said a word. Wendy wanted to congratulate Amber on her surprising revelation, but something prevented her from doing so. She couldn't explain what either. Something just felt off.
“I haven't told anyone other than Ryan,” Amber went on, referring to her fiancé. “We haven't even told our parents yet. We were waiting until we saw them next week in person. We sat on the couch last night, with the TV on in the background, arguing over girl names for what felt like hours. We're so far apart. We just couldn't come to an agreement.”
It finally clicked for Wendy. She knew exactly what was coming.
“We barely even had a discussion when it came to boy names,” Amber said with her eyes back down on the floor.
“Alexander,” Wendy said to the surprise of no one.
“Alexander,” Amber echoed with a nod. “That's what we're going to name our little boy—assuming I'm having a boy. I guess the mystery is solved now, though.”
Wendy understood what she'd just heard, but struggled to comprehend it regardless. The back of the door not only contained the names of all the individuals inside the gymnasium, but the order of their arrival, and even those yet to be born. Amber wasn't far enough along for even the most advanced technology to be able to decipher the gender of her baby. Yet, the door knew. It displayed information that defied logic. Somehow, it listed the developing fetus inside Amber ahead of its own mother because it entered the school before her.
“Victoria was the last one completely inside the building,” Jax rounded out the rest of the list, moving past the stunning disclosure of Amber's pregnancy. “And as you might guess, she's at the very bottom.”
Richard asked the question on everyone's mind, and without a doubt on most of their lips. “So, what now?”
“What now?” Demetri questioned his boss in his typical confident tone. His big step in the direction of the storage room hinted at how he felt. “We need to open that door and see what it does. That's what now!”
Jax put his hand on Demetri's chest to block him from getting any closer to the storage room. “That's not what we're doing.”
“Get your hand off me,” Demetri grunted through clenched teeth, furious at the audacity of Jax to touch him.
“Go back to where you were,” Jax told him calmly.
Demetri attempted to say something, but Jax's firm shove courtesy of his right hand helped escort his fellow teacher back to his original spot before he could so much as spit out a single word. Demetri seethed, his hair that once swept straight across his forehead now diving down to his left eyebrow from a light sweat. He chose not to respond physically. Deep down, he knew that he was overmatched, so he used his words instead.
“Let's vote on what we should do.”
“We're not opening that door,” Jax said, putting a quick end to Demetri's proposal.
“I'm not sure who died and made you king,” Demetri said with a certain elegance to his voice. He was a man sharp with his words, although arrogant. “We still live in a democracy, don't we?”
“Nothing good can come from messing with that door,” Jax stated as clearly as possible.
Darnell couldn't shake what Richard clearly struggled with as well. They both had the same look on their faces. “It has our names on it, though.”
“And that should be more than enough reason to leave it alone,” Jax pointed out to his superiors.
Amber sided with her bosses as well. “It knows what I want to name my baby. It can't just be a random door. It has to be special.”
Jax looked down at Wendy. Wendy returned his stare, pulling Tommy closer before gazing back out at the group in front of them. They would grow agitated sooner than later. Questions would mount and tensions would spike, and the answer would be seen in the mysterious door found in the storage room. The door represented a beacon of hope. Whether naive or not to believe so, it was a possible way out of this mess.
But Wendy knew better. “We need to forget about the door, and instead focus on making the gym as safe and hard to get into as possible.”
Demetri had other plans. “Raise your hand if you want to open the door.”
Demetri, Amber, Richard, and Darnell all raised their hands.
“Four to three,” Demetri said, rolling his eyes at Victoria for siding against him. “That means we're opening it.”
“Why don't the kids get a vote?” Wendy asked.
“Because they're kids,” Demetri chuckled, shaking his head. “Now, move.”
“How do you know that it even leads anywhere?” Jax questioned his peer's mindset. “It's a door in the middle of a room. It's not connected to a wall or anything. What do you think will happen when you turn the knob? That it's going to be like Dorothy opening her front door in The Wizard of Oz? That you're going to be transported to a colorful world full of magic?”
“Oh, because you know evvvvvvvvvvverything...” Demetri groaned sarcastically.
Jax extended his hand and stepped aside, inviting Demetri to head on into the storage room. “By all means, do as you wish, Mr. Conspiracy Theorist.”
“Oh my God, you know what? Screw you,” Demetri hissed in a moment of genuine malice. He hated the man standing in front of him. “The fuckin' balls on you to call me—”
“Demetri!” Darnell snapped, putting an end to his teacher's foul language. He refused to tolerate that type of talk around children.
Wendy would smirk if she wasn't riddled with anxiety and likely shell-shocked from everything she'd witnessed so far tonight. She respected Jax's tactics, in all honesty. He understood that they were outnumbered, and he had to realize that the other side had three grown men while they only had one. It would be a stretch to expect him to assert his physical dominance over his fellow teachers and administrators when he would likely be ganged up on if he did, and the gun in Darnell's hand helped reinforce her stance. By no means did she expect Darnell to actually use it, but he would be able to squash a rebellion in quite a hurry by simply pointing it in someone's direction.
So, Jax tried to fluster his opposition. He played on Demetri's smug attitude and lack of composure. He targeted the leader of those who desired to open the door, isolated him, and attempted to expose him to anyone who could be easily swayed into seeing the situation through his eyes instead. He tried to turn Demetri's own suggestion for a democratic vote against him by simply converting one single person to his side, but time ticked on his plan actually succeeding. Each second took him a step further away from achieving what he still tried to do peacefully.
Unfortunately, Darnell didn't get caught up in Jax's game. “Listen, I don't want to be here any longer either, so let's check out this door so I can just deal with this mess another day. I'm too tired tonight.”
Wendy wanted to scream as she watched everyone in front of them follow Darnell's lead with the exception of Victoria and her kids. Victoria confirmed her story! And there was a freakin' door in the middle of the storage room with their names on it! Somehow, and never in a million years could she fathom a guess why, but the majority of the adults in the gym still didn't believe what happened outside! The absolute last thing they should do was mess with whatever this door actually was, but no one would listen to her unless she disclosed the truth.
“Stop!” Wendy shouted.
“We're done arguing and playing games,” Darnell said to her, leading the way. “We're checking out this door and then everyone is going home. I've had it with this ridiculousness.”
Wendy only had one option left. She needed to reveal what she knew. She had to disclose her experience with the door-like object in her own backyard. While she understood the risks that accompanied admitting to having at least some prior knowledge of tonight's events, she didn't expect much backlash with the majority of the gym skeptical of her claims anyway. The chance to potentially change even one or two minds was worth the risk of the situation going from bad to worse despite Jax's earlier encouragement to keep particular details secret.
Wendy stepped in front of the open storage room door to block Darnell's path with Tommy opting to claim hold of her arm instead of her leg. She separated her lips, took a deep breath, and prepared herself to finally speak her truth.
“Oh my God, help! Help! Someone please help me!”
Wendy looked up at Darnell, his tall stature casting a shadow upon her significantly smaller frame. The wrinkles on his forehead became more prominent. His eyes peered sharply as his once dark and round irises took on a flatter shape. It was the look of a confused man trying his hardest to listen, but unsure of what exactly to listen for. She understood that he'd heard the same words as she had. Darnell's befuddlement resonated from the fact that those words came from Wendy's direction, but she never had a chance to reveal how her bizarre and inexplicable origin story came to be, all because someone else spoke first.
